Beginner's 40k
Guide contents (4 of 10)
  1. What you need before you start
  2. Building a legal list
  3. How to read a datasheet
  4. Setup: terrain, missions, deployment
  5. The battle round and every phase
  6. Resolving an attack
  7. Scoring and winning
  8. Ten mistakes new players make
  9. What to do after game one
  10. Glossary

Setup: terrain, missions, deployment

Everything in this section happens before the first battle round. Do it in this order and you won't need to backtrack.

1. Place terrain

Set up scenery on the table before you do anything else. If you're playing a suggested layout from the Chapter Approved deck or Event Companion, follow that; otherwise, aim for roughly even cover across the whole table rather than piling everything in the middle or down one side.

2. Pick your mission and deployment

This site's tracker deliberately doesn't include Games Workshop's mission content — the current mission system (Force Dispositions, deployment maps, and the mission matchups they create) lives in the Chapter Approved Mission Deck, which is a purchased product, not a free download. The free Event Companion PDF covers terrain layout suggestions and base sizes, but not the mission list itself.

The procedure, in general terms:

  1. Each player picks a Force Disposition — a broad strategic approach for their army — usually tied to the detachment they've chosen.
  2. Your two Force Dispositions together determine the specific mission you'll play.
  3. The mission sets your primary and (usually) secondary objectives, and which deployment map you'll use.

[VERIFY] The five Force Dispositions and the "your pick plus theirs decides the mission" structure are reported by community coverage of the 11th Edition launch, not confirmed here against Games Workshop's own materials. The Core Rules book itself doesn't define Force Dispositions or missions at all — it's scoped to universal rules and defers this entirely to the mission pack — so this can only be confirmed against the Chapter Approved deck or the official app, not a future read of the Core Rules.

3. Work out attacker and defender

Your mission will usually tell you how to decide who is the attacker and who is the defender — commonly some form of dice-off. Do this before deployment, since it can affect deployment order and zone choice. The turn tracker has a quick "decide for us" coin-flip helper if your mission doesn't specify a method.

4. Deploy your units

Working within your deployment zone for the mission and map you're using, set up your army. Deployment order (who places units first, and whether you alternate) is usually set by the mission or by being attacker/defender — check your mission card.

5. Work out who takes the first turn

Again, this is usually a dice-off, sometimes with a bonus to whichever player is the defender. Whoever wins chooses whether to go first or second — going first isn't always the better choice, especially if your opponent's army punishes exposed units early.

[VERIFY] The exact procedures and any modifiers for attacker/defender and first-turn rolls are set by your mission, not the Core Rules — it confirms only that whichever player takes the first turn in a battle round is fixed for that whole round, and leaves how that's decided to the mission pack. Check your mission card or app for the procedure.

Once all five steps are done, you're ready for Battle Round 1 — open the turn tracker and it'll walk you through every phase from here.