Vanguardians Assemble is a 4 player 40k Teams event running in May 2026.
What: Five 2,000-point games of Warhammer 40,000
Who: Teams of 4 players; maximum 12 teams
How does it work: Each team pairs off in four 1 v 1 games with the combined results of each game giving a team score to work out the winner of each round. So, even if you lose your game, you are still contributing to your team score.
When: 16-17th May 2026.
The Essentials
| System | Warhammer 40k 10th Edition |
| Tickets | Tickets will go on sale at 8pm Sunday 30th November £140 per ticket (each ticket is for a team of 4 players) |
| Location | Bristol Independent Gaming (BIG) 16 Cater Road, Bristol, BS13 7TW Please note, no outside food and drink is permitted within the venue. link to BIGs website and FAQs |
| Battle size | 2,000pts Strike Force Matched Play |
| Mission types | Chapter Approved 2025-2026 Missions will be released after list submission |
| Terrain | Games Workshop (GW) terrain layouts, but using Vanguard terrain sets to make beautiful tables. Games will be played on 44” x 60” boards. Each table will follow GW terrain maps Terrain maps will be provided for set up of each round. Each pod of four tables will consist of 3 variants designed to provide different experiences. |
| Rules Cut off date | Midnight Saturday 2nd May 2026 |
| List submission | List submissions on Best Coast Pairings (BCP) by midnight Sunday 3rd May 2026 BCP Link will be provided following ticket sales |
| What to bring | * Your Dice * Tape measure * Objective markers * All relevant rule publications – if you are relying on digital rules please ensure you have enough charge to last the day. * Tablet or phone to run the Best Coast Pairings app * Chapter Approved 2025-2026 Mission cards or Tabletop Battles App |
| Tournament awards | Our traditional Vanguard Bear Trophies will be on offer for: * 1st Place * 2nd Place * 3rd Place * Most Sporting – Public vote * Wooden Spoon * 1st Best Painted Army – Public vote * 2nd Best Painted Army – Public vote * 3rd Best Painted Army – Public vote Spot prizes 1 for each round. |
Pairings Process
Round 1 will be randomly matched. Second and subsequent rounds will follow the Swiss format so you will play teams with a similar winning record with random pairing within win bracket.
Each round Teams will pair as follows.
1. Choose a Defender and place their player card face down. Reveal simultaneously. Bear in mind that both Defenders will choose the tables that they play on.
2. Both teams pick two attackers to face the opposing team’s Defender and place them face down in front of that Defender. Reveal simultaneously.
3. Roll-off to determine table selection. The winner of this roll-off will choose their Defenders table first, and their Champion’s table.
4. Defenders secretly choose which Attacker they wish to play. Reveal simultaneously.
5. The remaining Attackers not selected from step 4 will play against the Champion from the opposing team.
The round pairings will look like this, if Team A won the roll to choose first table.
| Pairing | Team A | Team B | Table chooser |
| 1 | Defender | Attacker 1 | Team A |
| 2 | Attacker 1 | Defender | Team B |
| 3 | Champion | Attacker 2 | Team A |
| 4 | Attacker 2 | Champion | Team B |
Tournament Point Scoring
The event and all games will run on BCP following World Team Championship (WTC) team event scoring.
Player Score:
Each player scores points for their team based on the score differential between players.
The player with a positive differential is the Victor. The player with a negative score differential is the Vanquished.
Note if you use the Tabletop battles app you can set the scoring to WTC scoring so this is automatically calculated.
The score differential is then cross referenced with the table below to determine the round score:
| Score Differential | Victor Player Score | Vanquished Player Score |
| 0-5 | 10 | 10 |
| 6-10 | 11 | 9 |
| 11-15 | 12 | 8 |
| 16-20 | 13 | 7 |
| 21-25 | 14 | 6 |
| 26-30 | 15 | 5 |
| 31-35 | 16 | 4 |
| 36-40 | 17 | 3 |
| 41-45 | 18 | 2 |
| 46-50 | 19 | 1 |
| 51+ | 20 | 0 |
Team Score:
The team score is calculated automatically by BCP by summing the four round scores.
43+ Team wins
42-38 Draw
0-37 Team loses
As this is a team event, we will not be recording individual player scores and prizes will be given per team rather than by player.
Teams will be ranked by wins and then round points scores.
Event Schedule
Day 1 – 16th May 2026
| Start | End | Activity |
| 9:00 | 9:10 | Arrival and Registration |
| 9:10 | 9:20 | Event Briefing |
| 9:20 | 12:30 | Game 1 |
| 12:30 | 13:20 | Lunch |
| 13:20 | 16:30 | Game 2 |
| 16:30 | 16:50 | Break |
| 16:50 | 20:00 | Game 3 |
Day 2 – 17th May 2026
| Start | End | Activity |
| 9:30 | 9:50 | Arrival and Registration |
| 9:50 | 13:00 | Game 4 |
| 13:00 | 14:00 | Lunch Best Army Voting |
| 14:00 | 17:10 | Game 5 Most sporting voting |
| 17:10 | 17:45 | Awards and wrap up |
Team Composition
Each team will need to choose four separate armies based off four different 10th edition codexes or indexes. Each codex or index can only be used once per team. This includes Imperial Agents.
Space Marines. Due to the unusual nature of a Space Marine codex, sub codexes and several indexes, each team may only take a single Space Marine army using the 10th edition codex. i.e. so, you can take Ultramarines OR Blood Angels OR Space Wolves but not more than one.
Datasheets in multiple codexes. When we wrote the pack we incorrectly believed that datasheets in different codices had different names i.e. World Eaters Chaos Rhino, Emperors Children chaos rhino etc.
As these datasheets have different datasheet rules across different codices we will allow teams to select them in multiple lists. So, a team consisting of Thousand Sons, World Eaters and Emperors Children is allowed to take chaos spawn in each lists, chaos rhinos in each list, chaos defilers in each list etc etc up to normal allowance.
However, once a player in a team has selected a datasheet from a codex i.e. Thousand Sons no other player in the same team may select any other datasheet from the Thousand Sons codex.
Captains
Each team needs to nominate a captain. Captains are responsible for
- Checking the legality of their team army lists
- Registering their team on BCP and submitting army lists on BCP
- Doing pairings at the start of each round
- Submitting results at the end of each round
- Being point of contact with the organisers.
Whilst this is a team event each game will be played one on one. No player is allowed to give or receive tactical advice during the game. Once pairings have been decided each player is on their own.
Army Modelling & Painting Requirements
All armies entering Vanguardians Assemble should be fully assembled, based using the current base size for the model and with their chosen wargear appropriately modeled. All players should have their forces painted to a Battle Ready standard. Those that are not fully painted will lose the 10 Victory Points each game for Battle Ready.
Battle Ready is classed as
- All models must be painted to 3 colour minimum
- All bases must be painted and textured (Except clear flying stands)
During game one the Tournament Organiser (TO) will check each army to ensure that it is painted to a Battle-Ready standard.
Conversions/proxies/3d prints should be of an appropriate size for the model it represents (i.e., not using a Rhino conversion as Land Raider)
- Be on the correct sized base
- Bear a logical resemblance to the model it represents
- Not confuse your opponent, i.e. using a single Maulerfiend as a single Forgefiend is fine, using multiple Maulerfiend models to represent different datasheets is not allowed
If in doubt, or if your army is highly converted, please email the club some photos ahead of the event.
Individual Army Composition
Vanguardians Assemble 2026 will be played with army points limit of 2000 points and in accordance with the latest Warhammer 40,000 10th edition Matched Play rules
We will be using the Strike Force army construction rules and the latest mission pack.
Please note that the cut off for any rules or new codex to be legal for this event is Midnight Saturday 2nd May 2026. Note that any Balance updates, published codex’s, supplements, data slates, White Dwarf content, FAQ documents that are available before Sunday 3rd May will be legal for this event.
Legends units are not permitted at Vanguardians Assemble.
Sportsmanship Policy
Thankfully we’ve never had issues at our events but any harassment, bullying, poor sportsmanship or unpleasant behaviour will not be tolerated. We hope that any issues would be resolved between players at the table but if you feel uncomfortable or unable to resolve issues, please inform a TO as soon as possible.
The TO will usually provide a warning and guidance on what needs changing. If this warning is not heeded, or in cases of serious deviations from expected standards of behaviour, the TO may force a player to withdraw from the event and venue. Such decisions are at the TO’s complete discretion and are final on the day
SEE WEBSITE LINK FOR OUR FULL POLICY.