Let’s talk about the different formats you can choose from in the wild world of Competitive 40K. Which one is your favorite?



With this current edition, Games Workshop introduced the idea of the “3 ways to play”. We all know it by now. We have Open Play, where anything goes and is the least restrictive, Narrative Play, where one tries to recreate a battle from (Future) history or create a story for you and your mates about a part of the galaxy you created, and Matched Play, what we call Competitive 40K, where units are gauged by points rather than power level, and there are actually tournaments for Match Play. In fact, there are a number of different formats that you can choose from or may see in the wild world of Competitive 40K.

Games Workshop (Rulebook) Tournament

This is tournament format you see at Games Workshop store, mainly. They use the missions out of the main rulebook. This could be either the eternal war, maelstrom mission, or even the newer missions from Chapter Approved. Other things to consider is that they also include some type of rating for your army composition and the painting of your army into your overall scores to determine a winner. It is usually safe to assume that third party models, not bits and bases, are frowned upon in order to participate in one of these tournaments.

Highlander Tournament

In the late ’80s, there was a movie titled Highlander. One of the quotes from the movie was “There can be only one!” Years later it is being used as a concept for a tournament. In this style of tournament, each unit in a codex can only be chosen once. You can only choose a unit a second time once all the options in that particular slot are also chosen. This included troops choices. So, for example, in a Necron army you had to take a squad of Warriors and a squad pf Immortals before you could add another squad of either warriors or immortals.

For some armies, it was easy to get duplicates is they only had 2 options to begin with. For other armies, it was hard because, although they may have a large number of options available, there is really only one good unit to use. You saw this format a lot back in 7th edition, and you still see it pop up once in a while currently.

Mono-Codex Tournament

Seen more during 7th edition, this type of tournament speaks for itself. With the re-introduction of allies there seemed to be a call out for a return to a 1 codex only type of tournament. In 8th edition, it appears that this type of format is making a showing again. In this type, you are only allowed to choose units from one codex. Depending on the TO, this would sometimes include units that you need to have leftover points for. For example, this includes daemons that are summoned on to the battlefield and the sanctioned operative stratagem that give you an assassin.

This format makes it easier to figure out what your army is and how many books you need to carry. On the other hand, there are some armies that are not as good in a tournament setting due to being denied access to units that could compliment the army, mainly by providing more command points. Since Games Workshop is creating new codexes that benefit pure armies more, you may see an increase in these types of tournaments.

Independent Missions Tournament

These are tournaments that do not use Games Workshop’s missions and are seen as the standard for a lot of areas. You know most of the types: ITC, ETC, Warzone, and Nova are all mission formats that are used outside of their own tournaments. Except for one exception, most of these mission formats tend to be regional, rather than used on a larger scale. They tend to combine both the eternal war and maelstrom aspects of the game and give it their own twist.

If you travel to a lot of events or plan on traveling to events, then it is helpful to practice playing the different missions. The upside is that you will know what to expect from the missions no matter where you go. The downside is that they can become a bit bland after playing them for a while, especially if you attend a lot of 5 and 6 round events.

That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed the article. There are a few other formats out there that pop up occasionally, but I don’t see those on a normal basis.

~Let me know what tournament format you prefer and why, or even any other formats you may have seen or played, in the comments.