It is a massive time for fans of Warhammer: The Old World. As the dust settles on a fantastic 2025 season, the UK & Ireland competitive scene is evolving. Following a community survey with over 200 responses, the National Chairpersons are making changes for the 2026 UK season to ensure the hobby stays transparent, inclusive, and competitive.

Here is everything you need to know about the 2026 UK season of Warhammer: The Old World.

Before I jump into the details, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.

If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?

Please note, these rankings are not affiliated with Games Workshop, and are simply a way for the competitive community to get together and track their results.

What we’ve achieved together

To understand where we are going, it is worth looking back at what has been achieved by your National Chairpersons since The Old World released:

Establishing the Rankings: Built the formal system with the help of oldworldrankings.com.

Global Success: Coordinated Teams England, Wales, and Scotland for the World Team Championship, where Team England took the top spot!

Democratic Leadership: Held open applications and elections for Chair and Vice-Chair roles to ensure community accountability, with more elections planned in 2026.

Community Voice: Published the first masters and rankings survey to let player feedback drive our decisions and help other players and TOs, as well as promoting constructive discussion about everything Old World in a discord community of 170+ members.

TO Support: Created spaces for Tournament Organisers to share best practices and solve complex event issues, with over 43 TOs sharing their events and experiences.

A New Season and a New Structure

The 2026 season is already underway! It officially kicked off on 10th December 2025 and will run until 30th November 2026. This schedule gives the Masters organisers more breathing room to prepare and ensures the season wraps up before the busy festive period, with most players favouring a year long season.

Ireland Forges a New Path

The Irish community has seen incredible growth. With more players and Tournament Organisers (TOs) than ever, they have elected a new Chairperson and voted to create their own independent system.

While the UK organisers have spent two years advocating for Irish play, the community there is now ready to lead itself. This means the circuit is now formally known as the UK Masters & Rankings.

• Northern Ireland: Players here have the best of both worlds. They can participate in both the UK and Irish systems.
• Representation: Any Chairperson selected for Northern Ireland will be warmly welcomed onto the UK committee.

The Rankings: What’s Changing?

The 2025 season was a huge success, featuring 1,203 players. The competition was fierce; in the top 100, the average gap between ranks was a tiny 1.5 points!

Based on your feedback, the system is being refined to reward skill and effort while keeping local events accessible for the 2026 UK season.

Key Technical Updates

Working alongside oldworldrankings.com, the national chairs have introduced several tweaks, based in community feedback from 2025:

• Base Points: The base points allowance is moving from 80 to 78. This means 32-player tournaments now provide the top base score, accounting for incremental growth.
• Introductory Events: To keep small games (under 1,000pts) beginner-friendly, these will be capped at the minimum score. This prevents “rank farming” at events designed for new players and quicker, smaller games.
• Strength of Field (SoF): This is the big one. Events will now get a bonus (0.1 to 0.25 points) for every player attending who finished in the Top 50 of the 2025 rankings. Succeeding against a tough crowd will now give you the extra credit you deserve.

What Counts?

The rankings will continue to include a wide variety of events, ensuring that competitive play counts, no matter where it happens. As the community grows and matures, people are experimenting with what and how to play. We expect things to settle down as Games Workshop continues to support the game, but to accommodate for the breadth of our hobby we will only exclude the following types of event from the rankings:

1. Narrative Events: These focus on story rather than pure competition.
2. Teams & Doubles: These require a different tracking method (stay tuned for updates on this!).

---

The 2026 Masters

Huge thanks go to Forgotten North Gaming for a stellar event last month, celebrating the best of the 2025 season. Bids to host The Masters 2026 will open in a few months. The committee is aiming for a date in late January or February 2027.

If you are a TO interested in hosting the prestigious finale, start getting your plans ready now!

---

Get Involved: Community Roles

Covering the Cairgorms of Scotland, The Dee Valley National Park in Wales, the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland and the New Forest of England, this community is vast. To keep it running smoothly, the National Chairs are looking for help.

In the coming weeks, several elected community roles will be announced. These volunteers will help:

• Support local TOs with their setups.
• Represent player interests across the UK.
• Scrutinise decisions to ensure fairness and transparency.

Tournament veteran or a casual observer, your voice matters in the 2026 UK season and in future.

Join the Conversation: Use the Rankings Discord to reach out, ask questions, find out about events or volunteer.

Next: Take a look at our reflections on the 2025 season of the Old World in the UK & Ireland.

The 2025 season has been an incredible debut for Warhammer: The Old World across the UK and Ireland. From local game stores to major tournament halls, the community has come together to celebrate the return of rank-and-file fantasy wargaming in a way that is positive, transparent, and more inclusive than ever before.

Whether you are a veteran general or a newcomer still painting your first unit of Peasant Bowmen, here is everything you need to know about our first ranked season and how you can get involved in 2026.

Before I jump into the details, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.

If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?

Please note, these rankings are not affiliated with Games Workshop, and are simply a way for the competitive community to get together and track their results.

The 2025 Season by the Numbers

The scale of the first season was immense, the largest in the world. Across the UK and Ireland, the community hosted 201 events, welcoming over 1,200 unique players. In total, more than 3,300 tournament spots were filled, proving that the hunger for The Old World is stronger than ever.

While Nottingham and London hosted the highest density of events, players from every corner of the nations took part, contributing an estimated £355,000–£500,000 to the regional economies through travel and hobby support.

More Than Just Winning: A Community-First Approach

For those who might be “rankings-wary,” it is important to know that in-person play is built on a foundation of inclusivity and social hobbying. While the competitive drive is there, the 2025 survey revealed that 71% of players attend events primarily to meet new people, and 68% attend because of their friends.

The community atmosphere has been a standout highlight of the year. Players have praised the “welcoming, friendly, and inclusive nature” of the scene, which often contrasts with more “cut-throat” environments found elsewhere. From rewarding “Best Painted” and “Passion Projects” to ensuring a healthy mix of 3-round and 5-round events, the goal is to make tournament play accessible to everyone—including busy parents and hobbyists with full-time jobs.

Find out more by taking a look at the results of our community survey, completed by a massive 207 players.

A Transparent and Fair System

Transparency is at the heart of the UK & Ireland rankings. The system is overseen by elected National Chairpersons who represent each nation, ensuring that the community has a direct voice in how the rankings are governed.

To keep things fair and clear:

• Track Your Progress: All results are tracked via oldworldrankings.com, a free tool that allows you to compare results and find upcoming events.
  
• Consistent Rules: Smaller ranked events have the freedom to cater to their communities using house rules. Major, top-scoring events tend to follow GW rules and FAQs with minor tweaks for clarity or balance to ensure out-of-the book play. Explicitly narrative, doubles and teams events are not included.
  
• Inclusive Hobbying: The scene is very comfortable with the use of non-GW models and creative hobby expressions, keeping the barrier to entry low for new players

The Grand Finale: The 2025 UK Masters in Newcastle

The Old World 2025 season reached its spectacular conclusion on the 10th–11th of January 2026, as the top-ranked players from across the nations descended upon Newcastle for the UK&I Masters.

This invitational event represented the pinnacle of tactical play, where the year’s most consistent generals faced off in a high-stakes, five-round showdown to crown the ultimate champion. The podium featured three entirely different tactical approaches, from three different, high-performing factions.

Pasha Korniyenko took the top spot, navigating the disciplined ranks of The Jade Fleet (Grand Cathay) to a well-deserved victory. Scott Reid, whose Royal Host (Tomb Kings) proved that the sands of Nehekhara are as dangerous as ever in second, while Charlie Hanley-Nickolls secured third place with a masterfully played Vampire Counts.

If you missed the tactical masterclasses or want to see the decisive manoeuvres that defined the weekend, you can catch the final game streamed live by the team at Forgotten North Gaming right here:

UK MASTERS – GAME FIVE- Charlie (Vampires) Vs Keith Wilkinson (Vampires)

Get Involved!

If you’ve been thinking about “catching the tournament bug,” there has never been a better time.

Visit: oldworldrankings.com to find your next local event.

Join: The conversation on the rankings Discord to meet fellow generals.

Organise: Reach out in the comments, on the discord or take a look at the results of the community survey to find out more about how you can organise a ranked event in your local community.

Play: Whether you lead the charge with Warriors of Chaos or Bretonnia (the most popular factions of 2025) or bring a unique “legacy” army, there is a place for you on the battlefield.

We look forward to seeing you across The Old World table in 2026!

Next: Take a look at the results from The Nottingham GT on the same weekend.