Terrain in Teams: The Secret “Sixth Player” (and why it changes everything)

If singles 40k is about your list vs their list, teams 40k adds a whole extra layer:

Your list vs their list… on that table… inside that pairing plan.

That’s why teams players talk about terrain like it’s a faction. Because in teams, it basically is.

And if you’ve been “meaning to try teams one day,” here’s the inconvenient truth: that day is getting harder to book. The Winter ITT is already sold out (and it’s literally billed as the world’s largest 40k team tournament, with space for 800 players), and the Spring ITT has sold out too.

So let’s talk about the bit that catches singles players off guard the most: different terrain layouts, and how they reshape both pairings and list writing.

Terrain options: not “more or less,” but different problems to solve

Competitive play has moved hard towards standardised terrain maps (for speed, consistency, and fewer arguments). Even Games Workshop’s Tournament Companion includes a “suite” of recommended terrain layouts.  And terrain maps in general have become a big talking point across the tournament scene.

UKTC publishes its own Terrain & Mission Pack , so you can practice on what you’ll actually play.

The important bit for teams isn’t “is it dense?” It’s this:

Different layouts reward different roles — and teams events are built around roles.

To make that concrete, here are the three variants of maps you’ll run into across a tournament.

Terrain archetypes: Heavy, Standard, Light

1) Heavy Terrain

What it feels like: Tight lanes, lots of blocked sightlines, plenty of “safe” staging.

Who loves it: Melee pressure, trading armies, lists that win by getting to the midboard intact.

Who struggles: Pure long-range gunlines that need early angles to start deleting key pieces.

Impact on teams pairings:

Heavy boards supercharge your bully matchups. If you’ve got a list that’s already favoured once it connects, Heavy terrain often turns that into a big differential game — exactly what captains want when they’re hunting a round-winning score.

Impact on list writing:

• Reliable melee delivery / movement tech (advance+charge, extra movement, staging tools)

• Durable midboard pieces that can trade efficiently

• Scoring units that can hop footprint-to-footprint without being exposed

2) Standard Terrain

What it feels like: Balanced sightlines, playable midboard, both shooting and melee have counterplay.

Who loves it: Flexible all-rounders, combined-arms lists, “I can play the mission and scrap” armies.

Who struggles: One-dimensional lists that only function if the board is exactly their preferred style.

Impact on teams pairings:

Standard boards are where captains aim for reliability. They’re ideal for your flex list — the one you’re happy to put into lots of things because it can usually turn any draft outcome into a respectable team score.

Impact on list writing:

• Mixed threat profiles (melee + shooting, or multiple threat ranges)

• Redundant scoring plans (you can score even if Plan A dies)

• Tools to contest objectives without overcommitting

3) Light Terrain

What it feels like: Longer firing lanes, fewer safe pockets, more pressure on deployment and movement discipline.

Who loves it: Shooting-heavy lists, armies that win by removing key units early, indirect support that amplifies open angles.

Who struggles: Lists that need two turns of hiding before they can start playing 40k.

Impact on teams pairings:

Light boards are where captains think in terms of damage control or execution:

If you’ve got a shooting list, Light terrain can be where you chase a massive score.

If you don’t, this is often where your anvil earns its keep — not by winning, but by keeping the result from spiralling and protecting the team round.

Impact on list writing:

• Early-game resilience (durable hulls, invulns, defensive tech)

• Ways to break/deny angles (deep strike, redeploy, speed to hit cover fast)

• Units that can still score while under pressure

How terrain changes list writing in Teams

In singles you can sometimes get away with “my list is good into the meta.”

In teams, the better question is:

“What tables does this list want, and what tables can it survive?”

Here’s what teams rosters start prioritising once terrain is taken seriously:

Movement is a weapon (not a luxury)

• Infiltrate / Scout tools to claim safe staging points

• Deep strike and redeploy to avoid bad fire lines on the light boards

• Advance-and-charge / extra movement to punish the heavy boards and utilise their staging

  
  

You need “play the mission” units that work on any layout

• Cheap scoring pieces that can hide behind small footprints

• Durable units that can sit in ruins and not evaporate

• Mission tools that don’t require perfect lines of sight

  
  

You build roles around terrain

• Bullying list that turns dense boards into 18–2 style pressure games

• Anvil list designed to keep open boards to “acceptable losses”

• Flex list that scores regardless of where the ruins are

  
  

The magic isn’t that each list is perfect — it’s that your team covers the whole map pack.

Pairings: terrain is the lever captains pull (even when you can’t choose tables)

In teams, pairings are already a mini-game. Terrain makes it sharper.

Because the real captain question isn’t:

• “Who beats who?”

It’s:

• “Who beats who on the boards they’re likely to get?”

That pushes teams toward two pairing principles:

1) “Good matchup” becomes “good matchup + good board”

That’s how you engineer big swings. A bully list that’s already favoured becomes a score engine when the terrain helps it do its thing safely.

2) Your “bad matchup” plan is often terrain-based

Sometimes you don’t dodge the nightmare — you decide which of your players can take it on the least awful board, keep the score tight, and let the rest of the team win the round elsewhere.

That’s teams 40k in a nutshell:

You’re not trying to win every table — you’re trying to win the round.

The fastest way to improve your team this week

Do this once and you’ll feel the difference immediately:

1. For a specific round, look at the different terrain layouts.

2. For each player, write:

   • “Best boards”

   • “Worst boards”

   • “One board-agnostic game plan”

3. Run one pairing practice night using the published terrain pack. We post it publically (You can find it here)

That’s it. You’ll gain more from that than a dozen last-minute list tweaks.

next steps

Teams isn’t just “singles but with mates.”

It’s a weekend where:

• terrain knowledge becomes a skill,

• captains play a whole second game,

• and every table result matters to your squad.

And because the format is so addictive, it’s also why tickets go fast.

Winter ITT is sold out (unsurprisingly, the biggest teams event in the world is popular)

Spring ITT is sold out too.

If you want to experience teams 40k at full scale, don’t wait until your group chat says “anyone got a spare ticket?”

Because by then, you’re not planning a weekend.

You’re emailing the waitlist.

Rally your friends, form a team and make sure you sign up to our newsletter for updates on when the next team event launches!