Games Workshop unveils 2025-26 40k tournament companion with base sizes

Games Workshop’s 2025-26 Tournament Companion arrived with a detail that will ripple well beyond top-table play: a base sizing guide for every model in Warhammer 40,000. That alone could save local stores, RTTs and pickup games from endless measuring arguments, but the packet goes further by spelling out how the company expects competitive 40k to run for the new mission cycle.

The companion is written for event organisers using the Chapter Approved Mission Deck, and it does not read like a loose suggestion sheet. It gives 20 recommended tournament rounds, with pre-set Primary Missions and deployment modes built to put players on equal footing and cut down on pre-game admin. It also includes guidance on pairings and rankings, which makes the document feel less like a side note and more like the operating manual for how Games Workshop wants matched play to function this season.

The mission guidance is just as telling. The companion recommends using the Challenge mechanic in tournament play, while leaving Twists and Asymmetric War missions out of the competitive packet. It also refreshes terrain layouts 7 and 8, a small line item that carries a lot of weight for anyone who has seen how much a single ruin placement can change a game. No Prisoners, meanwhile, is no longer taken as a Fixed secondary in tournaments under the updated guidance, another sign that the packet is trying to tighten the shape of event play rather than leave those calls to each venue.

That standardisation matters because the 2025-26 Chapter Approved Mission Deck already pushed the game in that direction. Its new structure introduced Asymmetric War games and a catch-up, Challenge-style system for players who fall behind, while Games Workshop positioned the deck as the core mission pack for both competitive and casual Matched Play. The Tournament Companion then acts like the rules of the road for organisers who want the same battlefield assumptions from one store to the next.

For ordinary active players, that is the real story here. Even if a weekend never includes a major event, the Companion is a signal of what a normal 40k table is supposed to look like now: defined terrain, clear mission pairs, fewer arguments over basing, and a shared expectation that the game will start on the same footing wherever the dice get rolled. When Games Workshop dropped the packet for the June 7, 2025 launch window, it was not just supporting tournaments. It was setting the template for the season.