How to Win at 40k Tournaments Part 1: Terminology

This will be the first in a series of articles where I will flush out my ideas on how to win 40k tournaments. I've gotten alot of advise on this subject over the years, some good, some bad. I'd like to share alot of it with you, and more importantly why I think the advise was good or bad.

So why should you listen to what I have to say? I've won most of the local small tournaments that I've entered in, but I have never won what I consider a major tournament, although for the past few years I've consistently scored in the top ten. Part of that is because I don't listen to my own advise, and part of it is because I run one of the two major local tournaments so it's a bit hard to participate.
So why listen to the advise of someone who hasn't won a major tournament? because I run one.
Operating behind the scenes I get to see what it takes to win these tournaments and within 15 minutes of the door opening I can tell you with good certainty who will be in the top ten and who's got the best shot at winning.
I can tell because these guys have the nicest armies, the best lists and have the right attitude. But most importantly they are well prepared. Once I figured out what it was that made these guys better than the rest I changed my army and my style of play and sure enough I went from being in the middle of the pack to being a top ten player and a contender for the top spot. So I think it pays to listen to what I have to say.

Ok before I start with this article I just want to give a disclaimer to say that all of these articles are written based 90% on my own opinions on how to win 40k games. Opinions that you may or may not agree with, and others that may offend you. If you don't like my advise, then don't take it.


So now that that's out of the way today I'm going to start off with the fairly general subject of terminology. Below is a list of some of the terms that I will frequently refer to in my articles. Once you get up to speed with what I refer to you will be able to understand the subjects that I talk about.

Linchpin - A linchpin is what used to hold the wheels on axles on carriages. The point being that it was very important and to lose one would cause the whole thing to fall apart. I often see armies that rely on a single unit so heavily that one could consider it a linchpin. It holds the army together and if you destroy it the army will fall apart.

Bio - Biological, An army that is based primarily on infantry models

Mech - Mechanized, an army that is built primarily on vehicles and transports.

The Behemoth Principle - The Behemoth principal refers to a military super weapon. "An incredibly powerful weapon so large and expensive that commanders can't use it effectively, because they can't afford to lose one." The classic example being the Japanese battleship Yamato.

Recovery - Recovery is a players ability to turn the game back into his favor after taking serious losses during a game.

Sledgehammer -  A sledgehammer unit is a single expensive unit, typically with characters and a transport that can form the center of an army. Armies that include sledgehammers will typical use almost half there points on this single unit and you can often consider the rest of the army as 'filler' or a 'sledgehammer delivery system'.

MTG - Magic the Gathering. It's a card game that you should at least be familiar with by name. I was an avid player for a time and I often draw comparisons between the two games and there respective tournament styles.

Card Advantage - This is an MTG term referring to the advantage a player has by having more cards in hand than his opponent. Essentially having more options they can use. However this can also refer to cards in play and any other card that might be immediately playable. I like drawing from this principle in 40k because it can teach you alot about getting the most out of what units you have and makes you think about what units to use for what tasks and when.

Net Decking- This is another MTG term. At Magic tournaments Players are required to submit a written list of there deck compositions. After the tournament the deck lists are published online. As a direct result many players will duplicate a winning deck list or make minor changes to it for use at a subsequent tournament. This has a serious (and arguably negative) impact on the tournament scene as is not uncommon for 50% to 75% of decks at tournaments to be unoriginal copies of a successful deck or original decks built specifically to counter the duplicates. This kind of practice is also common place in 40k but not so much copying tournament winners so much as utilizing army lists copied or derived from forums and websites.

Comp - Short for composition. This is an occasionally used scoring system at tournaments that specifically scores a players choices in there army list. It's main goal is to deter 'power lists' by penalizing players for taking choices that are inherently powerful with varying degrees of success. This score is often used to determine initial placement at tournaments ie deciding your first round opponents.

RTT - Rogue Trader Tournament, the old format for official Games Workshop tournaments. It's defining characteristic was a scoring system that scored roughly 30% for Gameplay, 30% for Sportsmanship and 30% for Painting with 10% misc points. It is the style of tournament that I prefer to run and play in.

US Style Tournament - US style tournaments tend to follow what I call the Magic the Gathering style. The point is to play games and win as many times as possible. Sportsmanship and painting doesn't factor into it. The sportsmanship system (if it even exists) is often nothing more than check boxes "Did your opponent show up on time?", "Did your opponent bring his rulebook and codex?", "Did your opponent remember to wear pants this morning?" etc. I'm not going to discus this style of tournament much as winning them is not nearly as complex (or interesting) as a Canadian style.

Canadian Style Tournament - Canadian style tournaments typically fall under the traditional RTT format. Players must balance gameplay, painting and sportsmanship scores in order to end up on top. This is the style of tournament that I run and typically play in. So this is the kind I will mainly discus in my articles.