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How to run a Warhammer 40k league

A Warhammer 40,000 league is a group of players who play each other over a few months, with a table that keeps score and usually a final at the end. Where a tournament asks everyone to clear the same Saturday, a league lets two players find an evening that suits them both, which matters a lot more for a game that takes a whole evening to play.

This guide covers the decisions that make a league work, most of which apply whatever you use to run it. Where Pairings Up does a step for you, it says so. Running Kill Team instead? See How to run a Kill Team league.

Six decisions to make before anyone plays

1. How many players. Any number works. Eight to twelve is a comfortable first league. With an odd number, one player sits out each round with a bye, and the byes should rotate so nobody gets two while someone else gets none.
2. What points level. A full 2,000-point game is an evening. A 1,000-point game is shorter and easier on newer players and half-painted armies. Pick one for the season and say it in the rules. If you want armies to grow as the season goes, that's an escalation league, which has its own guide.
3. How long. That's the number of rounds times how long each round stays open. 40k games are long, so give each round at least two weeks. Five or six rounds is a season of two to three months.
4. How people get paired. There are two common ways.
   The whole schedule up front

   Every round is drawn before the league starts. Everyone knows who they owe a game to, and two players who are both free can play a later round early. Nobody waits on the organizer between rounds.

   Pair each round by record

   Winners play winners, round by round (Swiss), the way a tournament does it. It sorts the table quickly, but every round waits on the slowest game, and the organizer has to pair each one by hand.

   Whichever you pick, avoid rematches until everyone has played everyone new.
5. How a game is scored. League points for the result (3 for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss is the usual split) and the victory-point difference to break ties, so winning 85 to 40 counts for more than winning 62 to 60.
6. How it ends. Most leagues finish with a short knockout between the top of the table, top four or top eight, seeded by final position. Decide now whether the champion is the finals winner or whoever tops the table, and put it in the rules.

The 40k parts

• Missions. Either name one mission per round from the current mission pack, so every game that round is comparable, or let each pair pick their own. Naming it saves two players ten minutes of shuffling at the table.
• Army lists. Ask for lists before a round starts, or at least before a game. Decide whether a list is fixed for the season or can change between rounds. Changing it keeps things fresh; fixing it rewards the player who planned.
• One army or several. Decide whether a player brings the same army all season or can switch. One army makes the league a story about those armies. Allowing several is kinder to people with more than one on the shelf.
• Painting. Decide whether models must be painted, and if so how painted. Plenty of leagues are where an army finally gets finished, so a painting goal can do more for turnout than a trophy.

Keeping it going

• Report every game. One player reports the score and it counts straight away. Want a second pair of eyes? Turn on Score confirmation in Settings and the other player confirms each result first.
• Close rounds on time. A game that wasn't played by the end of its round needs a decision: a forfeit to the player who tried to schedule it, or a void that counts for nobody. Put it in the rules before it happens.
• Post results where people already are. For most groups that's Discord. A result appearing in the channel is what reminds the next pair to play.
• Reward more than winning. A Best Painted vote, a sportsmanship award, photos of games. The players at the bottom of the table are the ones who drift away, and they need a reason to keep playing that isn't the standings.

A first league, at a glance

• 8 to 12 players, 1,000 or 2,000 points, five rounds, two to three weeks each.
• Schedule drawn up front, no rematches.
• 3 / 1 / 0 league points; ties broken by VP difference, then head-to-head.
• One mission named per round.
• Top four into a knockout final.
• A Best Painted vote and a sportsmanship award at the end.

Running it on Pairings Up

The app exists to do the bookkeeping above so the organizer doesn't have to. It's free. Warhammer 40,000 has its own scorecard here; the same app also runs Kill Team and any other tabletop wargame.

1. Create the league and its first season, and pick Warhammer 40K.
2. Under Settings, set the rounds, the league points (3 / 1 / 0 by default), the finals size and the tiebreaker order. The faction rules are switches there too: Let players pick their faction per game and Let players list multiple factions.
3. Get players in with the season join link or invite codes. Each player declares their army and can keep their list and photos of it on their loadout. The list is visible to the league, not to the public.
4. Generate the schedule on Competition. It draws every round up front with no rematches, one game per player per round and fair byes, steered by any groups you set up first. You preview it before it's saved.
5. On each round, press Set to give it a name and a note: the mission, the deployment, any house rule. Players see the note on their match card. See the organizer area.
6. Players report their own games: one score per side, up to 100, plus each player's force disposition (Take and Hold, Purge the Foe, Reconnaissance, Disruption or Priority Assets). The table updates as soon as a game is reported (or confirmed, if your league asks for that).
7. Connect your Discord channel so results post themselves, and anyone can type /standings or /schedule for the table and fixtures.
8. When the regular rounds are done, start finals. The top players by the table go into a knockout bracket seeded so the top two can only meet in the final. Finals results don't change the league table.
9. Wrap up with awards, including a Best Painted vote, and share the season page and yearbook with the store that hosted you.

The app doesn't check army lists or points totals. That stays between the players and the organizer, the same as it would at a table in a shop.