Warhammer 40K Teams events are my favorite way to play 40K competitively. Teams events have seen a huge surge in popularity over the last few years. In the past, teams events were mostly limited to the American Team Championships National Tabletop League (ATC) in the U.S and the World Team Championships (WTC) internationally. Since 2021, however we’ve seen a huge increase in popularity of this format specifically the 8 person teams format. Now, there are nearly as many teams events every weekend as there are singles events and teams events are becoming largely the most popular format among the true hard cores out there. In fact, as of this writing, my team Scions of War, is preparing for the Tennessee Elite Open 8-man Teams Event in January of next year!
So what are Warhammer 40K teams events and why are they so awesome? More importantly, how do you prepare for a Warhammer40K teams event? Let’s get into it!
What is a Warhammer 40K Teams Event?
Teams events differ in several key ways from traditional singles Warhammer 40K events. Instead of competing as an individual, you’re part of a coordinated squad of either five or eight players who face off against other teams across five to eight rounds. Each roster is run through an attacker and defender pairing process where players are matched into individual games based on team goals, list roles, and expected scoring outcomes. Once the games begin, every point matters. Final results are tallied using a differential scoring system, most commonly the WTC model, and the combined totals from all tables determine which team claims the round victory.
Warhammer 40K Teams events rules vary in some cases but generally they follow this format:
- Teams are composed of either 5 or 8 players
- Each Team has a Captain and these players are in charge of pairing the players individually each round and ensuring accuracy of reporting final scores
- A faction can only be represented once across a team (e.g. one Space Marines player per team, one Imperial Knights, one Aeldari, etc)
- Individual Pairings are done by each team selecting a “Defender” and then the opposing team selecting 2 “Attackers” to attack the Defender. The Defender gets to choose who he/she will play between the 2 Attackers
- Teams report the scores of their matches to their Captains and the winner is determined based off a differential format (this is usually the WTC format)
Scoring in Warhammer 40K Teams Events
In Warhammer 40K Teams Events a player’s individual game score counts towards the team’s overall score. Each result is added together to formulate the team score. To better understand this concept it’s important to note how that differential is determined. As I noted above, most Warhammer 40K Teams events use the WTC method for tracking and determining scores for team events based upon a 20-0 scaling differential.
For example if the result of an individual match is 80-45 then the differential is 35 points. That means the winning player receives 16 points for the game score while the opponent who lost receives 4 points. These points are then added together across all the games to determine the victor for the round.
Once all players’ games are completed and the scores are reported, they are all added together to determine the Team Score. If a Team Score is less than 75 points, that results in a loss. A Team Score of 75-85 results in a round draw. A Team Score of 85+ results in a round win. In the five man Warhammer 40K Teams events, this difference scales down (as there are less players to contribute to a round score).
Preparing for Warhammer 40K Teams Events
In Warhammer 40K Teams events the goals differ a bit from singles play. Teams play is less focused on individual success and more on putting together an effective strategy to win as a team. The strategy of pairing players is a game-within-the-game in many ways. Winning isn’t always the goal in individual pairings and in many cases players are not expected to win. Instead you may be paired with the expectation of losing the matchup while keeping the loss as close as possible to reduce a wider differential towards the team’s total score.
List Composition and Roles in Warhammer 40K Teams Events
List compositions in Warhammer 40K Teams events are often much different than singles events. As I noted before, players and their army lists generally fill a particular role and their list build may skew slightly from singles builds to allow them to favor that role. Let’s take a look at some examples of team roles:
- Attackers: These lists are built to be the aggressor in a matchup. In many cases they may be skewed towards handling a particular matchup (lots of anti-tank for Monster/Vehicle focused threats, aggressive pressure melee, or fast moving armies with powerful shooting)
- Defenders: These lists are designed on maximizing resiliency and being able to weather multiple types of attackers (units mostly composed of higher toughness units with mass invulnerable saves or feel no pains, armies that create lots of debuffing effects, etc)
- Balanced: These armies can shift to fill certain gaps and may be more suited for multiple matchups. They won’t skew towards one matchup, but have tools to handle multiple matchups.
- Specialists: These are lists that are geared against a very specific meta matchup. They are designed to exploit specific weaknesses in certain matchups (Fights First armies to counter melee armies, or leaning purely into anti-vehicle units for the Knights matchup)
Part of the process in building a solid team composition for Warhammer 40K Teams events is determining not only the faction each player will use, but roles to fill for teams play. This is why quite often lists built for Teams play may not translate well into singles matchups. Lists are often tailored for a role with the expectation to avoid their worst matchups if at all possible.
Lists should be designed to fit those roles while keeping in mind the larger macro metagame factoring in what you might expect to see in Teams play. Stat-Check is a great tool for preparing for Warhammer 40K Teams play as their meta dashboard breaks down not only what factions have the highest win-rates at the time, but also allows you to drill down into meta specific matchups. This can be a great tool for breaking down how certain armies might fare into others.
Which leads to our next topic: the pairing matrix
The Pairing Matrix for Warhammer 40K Team Events
There are a variety of ways to build these from standard notepad and pencil to extensive spreadsheets. My team uses a google sheet which we can all see and update when preparing for a matchup. When teams are paired against one another there is often a 15-30 minute period for pairings.
During this time Captains exchange lists with one another’s teams and the players evaluate and predict an expected outcome against each opponent. Those are compiled into the pairing matrix which can easily at a glance tell you what are the best and worst matchups, who you should put down as your first Defender and more. This can often be influenced by terrain layouts and mission choices as well and each Teams event does this differently. Here’s an example of our team’s pairing matrix from back in the summer of 2025 at the American Team Championships 5-man Teams Event.
The first column indicates all of our factions, while the rows indicate the factions from the opposing team in this matchup. Each of these are color coded based on predicted outcomes. Red indicates matchups we wanted to avoid, yellow indicated matchups we felt could swing either way, while green indicated matchups we felt were favorable to us. This helps make an informed decision on what factions to place down as Defenders and what to set aside for Attackers.
You can also use this matrix to predict what the opponent might select as well. For example, with this matchup we noted that 3 of our players had a favorable matchup into Chaos Daemons. We would expect our opponents to come to a similar conclusion. So we did not expect they would put down the Daemons as their first Defender as we could Attack them with 2 of the 3 options that would provide a favorable result for us. We also could note that both Death Guard and the Astra Militarum had the most favorable matchups against our team composition thus we anticipated one of their first Defenders chosen would be one of these 2 Factions (I believe it ended up being Death Guard in this matchup).
We also noted that our Ad Mech player had the least favorable matchups, so he would not be a good Defender in this pairing. Meanwhile Custodes had what we felt were 3 favorable matchups here and we predicted that of the unfavorable (Death Guard and Astra Militarum) that one of those would be the opponent’s Defender, which would leave us with a favorable matchup for our first Defender (ultimately he chose Orks in this matchup).
The pairings matrix gives you a lot of information and can help you prepare as a team to predict an outcome. It isn’t always accurate as these predictions may come at the expense of limited time to determine, and sometimes the games may not go as predicted. It gives you an idea and a strategy for how to pair your players however which is very useful.
It is extremely important to remain objective in this process. Confidence is important yes, but you need to honestly evaluate your matchups and you and your army’s capabilities when completing a pairings matrix.
Terrain and Mission Factors for Warhammer 40K Teams Events
Terrain, table selections and missions for Warhammer 40K Teams events are just as important as the matchup pairings matrix. Most Warhammer 40K Teams events will publish their missions and terrain layouts ahead of the event.
Most Warhammer 40K Teams events follow a format of rolling off for a table choice where the winning team’s Defender gets the first selection of table and terrain layout and the chosen Attacker gets to choose between 2 different missions to play on that layout.
It’s important to factor in where you want your Defenders to be when making your table determinations.
Other Considerations for Warhammer 40K Teams Events
Warhammer 40K Teams events can be long and grueling. The competition is often fierce, lists are highly optimized and it can be a hyper-competitive environment. Unlike singles events, it doesn’t simply stop after your round ends. You will often be working through lunch breaks and meeting together at night after your games to discuss pairings for the next round. The days are long and intense and resting whenever possible and getting a good nights sleep are a must.
It’s important to remain hydrated during the course of a Warhammer 40K Teams event. Water is your best physical ally. Avoid high sugar snacks during the event and stick to protein snacks like protein bars, peanuts, beef jerky etc.
Final Thoughts
Warhammer 40K Teams events are a fantastic way to play competitively, but they differ largely from singles events. You have to be able to evaluate the meta, identify factions and roles, and build army lists designed to lean into those roles for Teams play. It’s important to evaluate opponents and establish a pairings matrix to help you make the best decisions for pairing individual players while factoring in terrain and mission selections as well. While these events can be physically and mentally grueling and hyper-competitive, you will often find opposing players to be friendly and awesome to play against. If you’ve never played in them before, I highly recommend giving Warhammer 40K Teams events a try.
If you’re new to the game or want to improve quickly, then don’t forget to grab my FREE eBook: Forging Your Path to Victory: A Beginner’s Guide to Competitive 40K. A great starting point for those looking to jump into Competitive 40K. Subscribe and get your free copy!
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