Start Competing! Your Guide to Warhammer 40,000 Tactics and Strategy

Hello and welcome to Start Competing!, our series of tactics guides, tournament primers, and general other useful resources for improving your 40k play. This series is intended for everyone, whether you’re brand new to 40k and wondering what everyone means when they keep talking about “the ITC meta”, or a reasonably experienced player looking to kick on and take your game up a level, or even a tournament pro who’s picking up a new faction and wants a quick primer on the good and the bad.

Start Competing – 10th Edition

Start Competing articles for 10th edition are in the process of being updated in a new format, and you can find the updated ones below. If your faction has not been updated, then check out the Index Review and Faction Focus articles on our 10th edition content guide.

Getting Started with Warhammer 40,000

Two linked articles on how to get started with Warhammer 40,000.

Getting Started with Warhammer 40,000: The Basics
Getting Started with Warhammer 40,000: Ham Etiquette 101, or How Not To Be That Player People Talk About On Forums And Such

Getting Better at Warhammer 40,000

Two articles on improving at Warhammer 40,000 by thinking more about competitive play and understanding how probability impacts the game.

Getting Better at Warhammer 40,000: Upping Your Game
Getting Better at Warhammer 40,000: Understanding Probability

Start Competing at Warhammer 40,000 – 10th Edition

Space Marines

Start Competing: Space Marines Tactics

Start Competing: Black Templars Tactics
Start Competing: Blood Angels Tactics
Start Competing: Dark Angels Tactics
Start Competing: Deathwatch Tactics
Start Competing: Space Wolves Tactics

Imperium

Start Competing: Adepta Sororitas Tactics
Start Competing: Adeptus Custodes Tactics
Start Competing: Adeptus Mechanicus Tactics
Start Competing: Astra Militarum Tactics
Start Competing: Imperial Knights Tactics

Start Competing: Agents of the Imperium and How to Use Them

Chaos

Start Competing: Chaos Daemons Tactics
Start Competing: Chaos Knights Tactics
Start Competing: Chaos Space Marines Tactics
Start Competing: Death Guard Tactics
Start Competing: Thousand Sons Tactics
Start Competing: World Eaters Tactics

Xenos

Start Competing: Aeldari Tactics
Start Competing: Drukhari Tactics
Start Competing: Genestealer Cults Tactics
Start Competing: Leagues of Votann Tactics
Start Competing: Necrons Tactics
Start Competing: Orks Tactics
Start Competing: T’au Empire Tactics
Start Competing: Tyranids Tactics

Start Competing at Warhammer 40,000 – 9th Edition and earlier

The articles below were written for earlier editions of Warhammer 40,000, and may not be entirely correct for 10th edition, but new players may still find the basic concepts useful in how to think about the game.

Start Competing at Warhammer 40,000: An Intro to Tournaments, Part 1
Start Competing at Warhammer 40,000: An Intro to Tournaments, Part 2
Start Competing at Warhammer 40,000: An Intro to Tournaments, Part 3

Start Competing 40k: Practice Part 1, Prepping for your first tournaments
Start Competing 40k: Practice Part 2, How to Get the Most Out of Your Practice Games
Start Competing 40k: Practice Part 3, Dealing with Success

Writing Better Battle Reports

Lock, Stock, & Two Loaded Dice: Dealing With Cheating

Start Competing: 40K Deployment Tactics – Surviving Turn Zero
Start Competing: How to Assess An Opponent’s Army
Start Competing: Assessing Armies Part 2, Real Battlefield Roles
Start Competing: Assessing New Options
Start Competing: This Game is Actually Not Bullshit – Playing From Behind and Hanging On When You Are Ahead