Setting Goals for Warhammer 40K Tournaments

Ever gone into a Warhammer 40K tournament and thought, “I just hope I don’t get tabled every game?” 40K tournaments can seem overwhelming especially for newer players. Everyone has the goal of winning as many games as they can at an event. After all that’s the point isn’t it? The reality is, especially for newer players, that you’re probably not going to win the event. You may not even win a game! You can still get a sense of accomplishment by setting goals for Warhammer 40K tournaments.

Why Goals Matter in Competitive 40K

Setting the right goals ahead of time can help you reduce stress and anxiety, gain a sense of accomplishment and give you a realistic objective to accomplish outside of simply “winning.”

They also help provide a formula to build on for improvement. When I first started playing Warhammer 40,000 I lost a lot. Over those first few months of playing I realized that I was approaching the game from the wrong perspective. I started setting real goals to track and improve my progress. As time went on and I achieved those goals, I started seeing real improvement in my play and results.

Setting Goals for Warhammer 40K can provide a measurable method to see improvement over time.

Types of Goals You Can Set

Let’s break down the types of goals you can set to track your progress and begin to see real improvement in your games and results.

Results-Based Goals

• Example: Go 2-1 at an RTT, place in the top 50% of players at the event, win Best Sports
• Pros: These types of goals are easy to define and measure. At the end of the event you can see how you performed and measure that against your pre-event goals.
• Cons: Sometimes these can rely on factors beyond your control. Getting paired into bad matchups, etc.

Results-based goals are a nice incentive and easy to track and measure. If you’re brand new or attending your first ever Warhammer 40K tournament, maybe you set your results based goal to “win one game” or “not finish in last place.” You can even set results-based hobby goals before the event. I personally find events to be great motivators to hobby. For me, often one of my biggest results-based goals before an event is to have all my units painted to a battle ready standard. Deadlines are great to work towards for hobbying.

Results-based goals are the easiest to measure and are often simple to track, but I find are the more difficult types of goals for new players.

Performance-Based Goals

• Example: Remember my army rules, deploy my army correctly in each matchup, score 70+ points in each game
• Pros: Similar to results-based goals, these are easy to track and measure. You’re drilling down into specific areas to focus on for improvement
• Cons: Setting super specific performance-based goals can distract you from other areas you may be weak in.

Performance-based goals are what I highly encourage most newcomers into competitive 40K to work on. These set reasonable goals you can achieve that can build upon your skill-set. It allows you to hyper-focus on a few areas in an event to help you build and grow. The important part is practice and repetition on those performance-based goals to build upon from event to event or even game to game.

Just don’t let these goals distract you from other aspects of the game. For example, if you are setting a performance-based goal to deploy all your units so the opponent has nothing valuable to shoot at in the first battle round, but you’re playing against an all-melee army (who isn’t going to do much shooting in Round 1 or in the game at all) you may be handicapping yourself in your own turns. Evaluate your performance-related goals each game to see how you can apply them.

Process-Oriented Goals

• Examples: Review my games in TableTop Battles or some other format to review mistakes/see problem areas for scoring, ensure my sequencing in the Shooting or Fight Phases is correct, pre-measure threat ranges
• Pros: These goals are the best for developing your skill set over time. Allow you to evaluate your mistakes to provide true growth.
• Cons: Harder to manage and measure.

Process-oriented goals are my favorite types of goals when setting goals for Warhammer 40K and what I really focus on when working with clients to improve their games. These can be harder to quantify at times, but taking notes on specific processes when you made mistakes in the moment can help you identify weak areas to improve. Focusing on the process of improving your finite skills in the game will go a long way in your long-term development as a player.

Common Mistakes New Players Make with Goals

Some of the more common mistakes new players make when setting goals for Warhammer 40K are setting only results-based goals and getting discouraged. Especially when those goals are unreasonable (e.g. “go 5-0 or 4-1 at my first GT”.) Other mistakes include not tracking or managing goals or taking time to reflect after the event. How you track and manage your goals is just as important as setting the goals themselves. You can use Google Docs or even a notebook at the event to quickly jot down and note your progress at the event. Another mistake I see often is players comparing themselves to more experienced or veteran players. Take the time to learn from these players. Build and develop relationships with them. Most experienced players love to talk about the game with other like-minded people and are often more than happy to offer advice or encouragement to newbies with list-building, tactics and more. Learn from them.

Choosing Your First Tournament Goal

Pick one goal from each category above, but prioritize performance and process.

Let’s say for example you want to:

• Win one game at the event (Results-based)
• Deploy my army correctly for each match-up (Performance-based)
• Record and track all my Secondary scoring (Process-based)

This gives you a set of goals to work towards and gives a solid framework to build upon post-event. Evaluate your goals and how you accomplished them or where you fell short. Do not fall into the trap of blaming dice, or even opponent’s army/list. Evaluate each goal objectively and annotate your progress.

Using Goals to Grow Long-Term

Setup a journal of some type to keep up with your goals and results. Maybe this is a notebook or Google Doc or maybe your own personal blog. Goals are important in your long-term development as a player. Build upon your goals from event to event and you’ll start to see your improvement as a player.

This is the same method I use with my own coaching clients when we map out improvement over multiple events. Goals=growth.

Final Thoughts

Setting goals can be a satisfying and rewarding aspect of playing competitive 40K. Goals can keep you from getting discouraged especially as a beginner. They give you realistic outcomes to build upon and before you know it, you’ll start to see improvement on the table.

What’s your goal for your next event? Write them down and if you’re not sure where to start, I’m here to help.

If you’re new to the game or looking to improve your results fast, grab my FREE eBook:
“Forging Your Path to Victory: A Beginner’s Guide to Competitive 40K.”
If you’re a new player looking to level up your game, feel free to reach out to me for my coaching services at [email protected].

See you on the table top.