Competitive 40k - An Introduction
If you’ve ever been interested or just curious what it’s about, here’s a breakdown of the whole big show.
Preface
There are a lot of ways to play Warhammer 40,000 (40k) but few elicit as strong a reaction as the mention of Competitive 40k. For instance, one reads about a tournament, perhaps some controversy, and they are drawn to the conclusion that it’s filled with nothing but toxicity. While its true, there have been some controversies over the past few years, the vast majority of competitive players are a joy to play against and a blast to hang out with. Unfortunately, the public airing of this “dirty laundry” has created much of this negative sentiment, which I believe is unfairly warranted.
This has motivated me to write this piece. I’m not on a mission to espouse my favorite format of 40k as “the way” to play the game. Nor am I under the impression that many of the people I mentioned above will have their minds changed by this online article from someone they don’t know. My goal is to give you a chance to know what competitive 40k is really all about, from someone who has competed on a national level within the U.S. for many years.
While much of my experience here is derived from competing in the continental US, much of the competitive scene world wide follows a very similar format. I’ve done my best to call these differences out where I can.
So, What is Competitive 40k?
Simply put, Competitive 40k involves playing at tournaments. While many of these events will have multiple “tournaments”, the format referred to as “Competitive 40k” refers to the One vs One, 2000pts, Matched Play format. Here’s what this means:
- You play multiple games where it is you vs a single opponent
- You both have armies designed for 2000pts
- The games use the Matched Play rules, found in the core rulebook
As I mentioned above, there are other types/formats of tournaments (such as team tournaments). Some of these are even classified as “Competitive”, such as the World Team Championship (WTC) and the American Team Championship (ATC). Both formats are exceptionally different from standard One vs One singles play so, they won’t be part of this guide.
Typically, these singles tournaments are registered and scored as part of the International Tournament Circuit (ITC). As you attend tournaments you will earn points depending on how well you place at the event. These points are then used to rank players on a leader board both overall and by faction. At the end of the season the ITC awards trophies to the winners of each faction as well as an overall champion. Each ITC season typically runs from February to the end of January culminating with the defacto Championship tournament - the Las Vegas Open (LVO). The new season starts immediately following the end of the LVO, with no “off-season” in between.
Governing Body
One of the things that may come as a surprise to some people is that there is no single governing body that officiates over competitive 40k. Each tournament is able to have their own rules, missions, terrain, and even army restrictions. There is no standardized rule format for what can or cannot be used at a tournament - it is completely up to the organizers of the event.
This is what leads to a lot of misconceptions on event results, such as statistics of how some armies performed. When tournaments can have wide-ranging changes between them, you can often get very different results that have little to do with the army’s current rules.
In years past, the missions that shipped with the core rulebook were not designed for competitive play. There were other issues too that tournaments struggled to balance out in order to make it as fair as possible for everyone. Some of these included significantly imbalanced unit profiles, such as those available from Forgeworld (which still divides people today) as well as books taking years to come out. This lead to tournaments enacting severe measures such as outright banning certain units/models from use at their events.
Towards the end of 7th edition we saw the rise of the ITC Champions Missions. Frontline Gaming, the facilitators of the ITC, developed and published a set of missions for their events (such as the LVO) which sought to balance out competitive play. These missions were hugely successful and became widely adopted by other tournaments through the course of 8th edition.
Today, GW produces a set of missions specifically for tournament play that share many of the same concepts. They have someone dedicated to balancing these missions as well as hosting events of their own. In addition to this, the pace of new books being released has been greatly sped up and many of their in-house balancing issues (such as with Forgeworld models) have been sorted out.
Before the Tournament
Let’s take a step back though and touch on how you even find tournaments to attend. There are two systems used by tournament hosts depending on which region of the world you are in. In Australia and New Zealand, many tournaments use Down Under Pairings. In other regions, such as the US, they use Best Coast Pairings. Both of these systems are used to register and run the events at tournaments, which you can use to find out when and where the next tournaments are coming up.
Best Coast Pairings (BCP) may be the most commonly used system at events and it isn’t just used for registration and scheduling. At the tournaments, you will be using BCP to register yourself; check in to the event; see who your next opponent is and at what table; and see overall standings. If this sounds really complicated don’t worry, tournaments have a registration and check in process at the events where they can easily walk you through setting up the app, checking in, and getting ready for your first game.
Registration & List Submission
Tournaments typically have a website or social media page where you can register ahead of time and get more information. You will find that many of these tournaments are reoccurring events that often have tickets on sale well before the event is entered into BCP. In some cases, such as Warzone Atlanta, tickets sell out incredibly fast (sometimes in minutes). Many times there is a waiting list you can get on for people who drop or cancel from the tournament. This is often first-come-first-serve, meaning the earlier you get on that list the better.
Most tournaments have a few important deadlines that you need to be aware of before attending:
- List Submission
- New Rules Cutoff
- Custom model approvals
List Submission
All competitive tournaments require players to submit their army list ahead of time - they will publicize this as the submission date. This is often done to ensure that tournament organizers (TOs) have time to review any lists for issues. Typically, you submit your list using BCP but sometimes you need to email your list depending on how the TOs have setup the process.
New Rules Cutoff
New books are constantly coming out and FAQs are also frequently posted. The New Rules Cutoff date is when the TOs have stated they will not accept any new rules for the event. Typically this is 2 weeks before the event however, some FAQs may be permitted even on the day they come out. Its important to keep an eye out for this as well as any communications from the TOs as far what will be allowed in. These are typically either via email or on the social media site.
Custom Model Approvals
Tournaments will allow you to use model conversions and even proxies (a substitute model) in some cases. In either case you will need to get approval ahead of time by the TOs to allow you to use these models. Sometimes there is a cutoff for when the TOs will be able to review your conversions so, its important to keep an eye out for this in their rules/information.
Painting & Modeling Requirements
Yes, tournaments require your models to be painted. Previously the standard was that you need to have every model in your army painted with at least three colors and based. Most recently GW has updated this to be more defined as Battle Ready - which most tournaments have adopted.
With this now baked into your scoring, the “requirement” is not so much for you to be able to participate or not, but 10pts per game is roughly 50pts at most major tournaments - which means you are down 50pts against everyone else with the same record as you.
One other thing most people overlook is that you need to have your army distinguishable when you bring multiple sub-factions. For example, if your army has Cult of Duplicity and Cult of Magic detachments in it, your models should be painted in a way that your opponent can easily distinguish between which models are part of which detachment. This can be something as simple as painting the bases a different color.
All tournaments these days also require your models to be WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) - meaning you can’t have an Icon of Flame modeled on one of your marines if you don’t have one paid for in your list. The same goes for if you did pay for one, you should have it clearly marked (typically with the correct bits) so its clear which models have one. This goes for models with different weapons too - like Combi-Meltas, Combi-Plasma, etc. If you play a highly customizable army, like Space Marines, and you’re constantly changing your mind about weapons, it can pay to magnetize your models so you can quickly change them out. You also can sometimes get away with using super glue since the bonds can often be broken without damaging the model.
Finally, if you already own a collection of models from previous editions, you should be aware that tournaments have a standardized base size for all models in the game. The easy way to figure this out is simply look at the models/units on the web store and in the descriptions it notes what base size they come with. The base size listed on the site is the base size your models will be expected to be on, even if they previously came with smaller/larger bases.
At the Tournaments
Make sure you know ahead of time what the event schedule looks like prior to the day of the event. This schedule is usually posted on their site or social media. Here’s what you really want to make sure you know:
- What time does the first round start
- What time do you have to be back from lunch
How is the Tournament Run?
Typically, the morning of the event(or the night before) the TOs will open up the event for “Check Ins” in BCP. This is simply intended to notify them that you’re here and ready to go. If you’re not checked in by round one, the tournament may start without you and you’re going to need to make a good case to the TOs to let you back in.
When round one begins, you will get a notification on your mobile device (with BCP) indicating that “Pairings are up” - meaning round one has started. You then simply pull up BCP, look up your pairing and it will show you what table you’re assigned to.
After that, it’s game on and good luck. The same process is repeated for each round until the tournaments conclusion.
Part 2
Coming up in part two I’ll get into the philosophy of getting better, list building, and more.