I recently moved to the PacNW, but my impression has been that KoW has won over the majority of fantasy players, except up here. Most of my friends who I gamed with in my "hay day" were from all over the country and the large majority quickly converted to KoW. It may be a function of tournament focus on faster games. The danger of fan rules (9th age) is that house rules spring up, and you can not find consistency between gaming groups/regions.