Growing as a Player - A guide to levelling up in competitive play for Warhammer 40,000
Author: Innes Wilson
A natural question that everyone asks at some point in their journey with any enterprise is “where do I go from here?”. It’s a question rooted at the heart of a desire to do better, to see yourself improve and see that validation of the time and effort that you’re putting into your experiences. This article aims to take a look at some of the ways that we can elevate ourselves within the 40k Ecosystem, specifically aimed at the tournament go-er’s experience and how to do better within that ecosystem; though the ideas within can be applied to players at any level provided a solid basic understanding of the games rules.
To begin, why am I qualified to talk about this topic? Since I was first put to task on this question over two years ago now, I’ve grown as a player a lot. At the time, I was running Team Scotland and was highly enfranchised in Team Play, while singles play was something of a secondary concern. In the 2022 ITC season however, I had a standout year with multiple Super Major scale event wins and top performances resulting in a Top 10 Finish on the ITC Season for the year. This hasn’t always been achievable for me, and I think that exploring some of the things I did to make that leap from being a solid player, to one of the best in the world will have a lot of use for players at any stage in their 40k journey.
On top of this; with captaining Team Scotland and my recent venture into professional coaching, I am positioned to see players at all levels of development and see the issues that are common to different gameplay aspects at these levels. With the feedback recieved from the original (Google Docs distributed by twitter and word of mouth only) document, as well as two years of my own growth and learnings, it is time to revisit this question.
The Question:
What are the skills required to take a player from one bracket to another within the framework of competitve events?
A Typical 40k Tournament comprises of 5 rounds of competitive play against other players on similar winrates. Across those events, the result “classifications” can broadly broken down by record, and the consistency of achieving them. For our purposes, these are the breakdowns:
Usually wins 2 or less games at an event
Sometimes wins 3 or more games at an event
Usually wins 3 or more games at an event
Inconsistently wins 4 games at an event
Consistently wins 4 games at an event, but rarely wins 5
Sometimes wins 5 games at an event
Consistently wins 5 games at an event,
Consistently wins events, or Consistently wins 4 or more games at Major Level
From these categorisations, the events can further be broken up into GT (25-50 players), Major (50+) and Super-Major (100+ and typically with a top bracket) level play which provides further classification to results, but for the purposes of this article as an entry to the topic, covering GT and Major Level only will provide enough of a basis to work with.
The Disclaimer:
Lived experience for one player will not directly correlate to others. The skills that I have found useful in my progression as well as the ones I encourage for others are based on my time in competitive play only.
All events are different, and results should always be considered within a wider context. The level of players at some events could mean that the difficulty of going 5-0 at one may match the difficulty of going 3-2 at another. This is intended as a guide only, where as a player you can honestly assess your skills and your results over a long term period and use that to determine where you fit in this rubric.
The Methodology:
With that out of the way, the methodology for this analysis is to break down the various skills that comprise your ability as a 40k player and classify them, as well as assigning “Skill Levels” to the capability expected within each stage of a player’s event performance.
No player will perfectly fit these descriptors, and it is frequent that players will be above their expected level in some categories and below their expected level in others. Across the average it can be seen that the “true” skill level of a player can be found, and the next steps for them analysed.
The Factors that I consider to be the primary determination of a players skill level are as follows:
Playtesting - how you prepare for a given event
Meta Knowledge - your understanding of your local armies, and what local players will bring, as well as the overall state of the game
Rules Knowledge - your understanding of the mechanics of the game, as well as your own and your opponent’s armies
Intent - the goals that you come to the event with
Micro - your ability to move and place models in the correct places and with consideration
Macro - your ability to form an overall game plan and follow it
Target Priority - your ability to do damage where it needs to be, and to put things where they need to be to win the game
Reaction to Events - your ability to react to the actions that are occurring during the game, to respond to what’s happening on the dice
All players will have a baseline level of performance on each of these, whether they are aware of it or not. The better you are as a player, the higher your baseline performance on each of these aspects is likely to be. Not all are completely essential to event performance, particularly at RTT and GT level, but as a player aims to perform better, more demands are made of them in terms of skill to stay consistent.
Often the players who bounce from a very strong performance to a mediocre or weak one are fundamentally failing at some aspect of their gameplay in these terms, where their capacity in other skills makes up the shortfall sometimes and doesn’t others. This is where things like variance in the meta strength of your particular army or the round pairings you pull can have an overweighted effect on your performance.
The simple truth is that the best players in the world are not going 3-2 at GT level events with any frequency. Obviously it happens in some cases as there are many top level players in the world and variance always exists, but these players are able to put up the consistency numbers where in 40k, using our Elo system [Found Here] at time of writing, no player in the World Top 40 for GT Level Singles Play has lower than a 71% winrate. This is possible because the game of 40k, while inherently random in that we are rolling dice, allows for incredible consistency in achieving high level results as long as you have strong fundamentals and are willing to put the effort in.
For the average player however, the level of time and commitment required to be one of those top players can seem intimidating (and speaking from experience, it is. I spend way too much time thinking and talking about this game on top of the playing requirements to stay at the top of my game). A lot of content in 40k is specifically focussed at that top level play, and while it is a noble aspiration to win LVO, LGT or some other event of caliber, the play patterns of those people aspriring to that do not always translate down.
As such, this rubric was created to try and provide a natural progression for people at all levels of gameplay:
Pre-Event Gameplay Aspects:
| Pre-Event Aspects | Usually 2 or less Wins | Sometimes 3 Wins | Usually 3 Wins | Inconsistent 4 Wins | Consistent 4 Wins | Inconsistent 5 Wins (GT) | Consistently 5 Wins (GT) | Consistently Wins Events (GT) Consistent 4-5 Wins (Major) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| List Building | Playing what you have access to, or playing a meta list with little understanding | Playing a list you have experience with, or playing a meta list with some understanding | Playing a list you are skilled with, or playing a meta list with a reasonable understanding | Playing a faction you are expert in, or competently playing a meta list | Playing a faction you are an expert in, with a list tuned for the expected meta, or piloting a meta list with high competence | |||
| Playtesting | Playing to play | Playing to learn your list / faction | Playing to optimise your list / faction | Playing games to learn how to get better / testing specific matchups and limit testing | Playing specifically to practice - reracking, luck smoothing become more common | Playing to create wider understanding of meta, game states and expected outcomes | ||
| Meta Knowledge | Limited Understanding of Wider and Local Meta | Vague Understanding of Wider and Local Meta | Solid Understanding of Wider or Local Meta, Vague understanding of the other | Strong understanding of Meta, both Local and Wider. Some Expectations of what the other Top Players at the event will bring | Understanding your own list and place in the wider metagame - are players going to be countering you, how can you counter the wider environment | |||
| Rules Knowledge | Basic Rules Understanding of the Game, Decent understanding of own army, limited knowledge beyond that | Solid Rules Understanding of the Game, Solid understanding of own army, limited knowledge beyond that | Good Rules Understanding of the Game. Good understanding of own army, good understanding of other armies, but may have gaps with certain armies | Good Rules Understanding of the Game. Strong understanding of own army, good understanding of other armies | Strong Rules Understanding of the Game, knowledge of abusable instances of rules. Strong understanding of own army, good understanding of other armies | Strong Rules Understanding of the Game, knowledge of abusable instances of rules. Strong understanding of own army, Strong understanding of other armies | ||
Gameplay Aspects:
| Gameplay Aspects | Usually 2 or less Wins | Sometimes 3 Wins | Usually 3 Wins | Inconsistent 4 Wins | Consistent 4 Wins | Inconsistent 5 Wins (GT) | Consistent 5 Wins (GT) | Consistently Wins Events (GT) Consistent 4-5 Wins (Major) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro | Sloppy with movement, limited to no range band checking, failing to move block or consider all angles of attack (eg casualty removal) | Movement is more intentional, starting to consider followup shooting, range and LoS to all models in squads | Limited Mistakes - Checking Ranges, Angles and Move Blocking when required. Players at this level will be using units for multiple tasks at once, such as Scoring and Dealing Damage, or Move Blocking and Screening |
Very tight with play when required, identifies opponents mistakes and makes plays to exploit. Consistent Range Checking, Move Blocking, Angle Checking. Players at this level are using units for multiple tasks whenever possible | ||||
| Macro | Taking the game turn by turn | Some consideration for the next turn or two, where units need to be and how to score | Building a specific plan for victory, though this will usually be inflexible or vulnerable to interaction, or relies heavily on luck | Building a specific plan for victory that has flexibility but is vulnerable to opponent’s actions or relies on luck | Can build a specific path to victory with multiple win conditions that can survive concerted opponent's efforts | Can build a multifaceted approach to victory that also accounts for opponent’s likely lines of attack, while accommodating for poor luck | ||
| Target Priority | Targets what's closest or scary, no general plan for scoring, happens incidentally | Targets with intent but perhaps limited understanding of output, has a plan for scoring but does not always execute efficiently | Understands damage output and targets for efficiency, has a plan for scoring that they can reasonably follow | Understands when to overkill, targets for the overall gameplan, has a strong plan for scoring that directly influences their path to victory | ||||
| Reaction to Events | Inflexible, may tilt based on poor outcomes, does not plan for bad outcomes but assumes success even when unlikely. Limited ability to capitalise on good ones and opponents mistakes | Can still be prone to tilting/dice blaming and does little to prevent this happening, can capitalise on mistakes and good luck but does not always recognise opportunities | Limited tilting, strong ability to capitalise on good luck and good ability to mitigate bad luck, can capitalise on mistakes but does not always recognise opportunities | Not prone to tilting, strong ability to capitalise on good luck and mitigate bad luck | Proactively limits the ability of the dice to impact events, has fallback plans for bad dice. Capitalises well on opponents mistakes and poor luck | |||
As with all things, these are guidelines that provide an indicator only for where you are in your journey as a competitive 40k player. Most players will not fit neatly into any descriptor provided, and you may find yourself excelling at some aspects well above your level, but struggling in others. This will hopefully provide you with a framework to evaluate yourself, and to begin making progress at improving your gameplay.
Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses is the quickest way to begin to focus on them, by utilising your assets most effectively, and minimising your weaknesses. If you as a player struggle in list writing, borrow meta lists from top player’s event results and focus on your gameplay. If your strength is in micro play, choose an army with lots of decisions where you can maximise your capability, or swap to one with more of a big picture focus to strengthen your other areas.
Finally, if you’re looking for assistance with developing your gameplay, and want to jump start the process of improving at these aspects as well as reviewing games you play or recieving help with your overall game experience, you may find it useful to inquire with us about Coaching. Full details can be found Here, or send an email to coaching@stat-check.com
Hopefully this has been helpful for anyone at any stage of their 40k journey in understanding and developing themselves within this game that we all devote so much time and energy to. Under those conditions, how could anyone not want to improve?
- Innes
