Warhammer 40K - Gambits, Secrets, and Challengers: Catching Up in 10th Edition

As with most multiplayer games, Warhammer 40k requires that one player achieve victory over the other, once all is said and done. This is an obvious point to make, but its effects on the fun & balance of how someone actually gets there matter profoundly.  Aside from the rare tie, the game necessitates a winner and loser, and if the role one plays is obvious too soon, one player is either held hostage til the clear end, or forces a concession.  This is something Games Workshop has done its best to reckon with in 10th edition—not only have we seen three different iterations of ways that an underdog might come from behind, but the core scoring design of the 5th turn allows for a huge change in point totals, if played out in full.

These mechanics have been hit-or-miss since their introduction, and their actual effects so far have ranged from an occasional surprise victory to being a real consideration for ones’ gameplan.  With the new Chapter Approved Mission Deck release on the horizon, I wanted to quickly go over their short history in 10th edition, and how they might impact the game going forward.

Via Warhammer Community

First off, introduced with Leviathan were Gambits.  Gambits appeared in place of your Primary Mission, blocking you entirely from continuing to score it from the moment they were chosen.  This had some obvious downsides, given Primary often makes up over half of your total points scored in a game, but surely there was reason to accept such a strange proposal?  Not…really, was the answer quickly discovered in matched play games.

Gambits had the issue of both being too difficult to complete and too random to actually plan for.  Even if you were doing poorly on board, and unable to hold objectives for Primary play, taking a Gambit would so rarely pay off that you were often better served by scoring some points for future game seeding than throwing a hail mary pass towards the board’s four corners.  On that note, one of the major Gambits required you to not only have units alive and near the board corners, but also then survive with one at random to actually pull it off.  It’s no surprise that Gambits only saw ~8% across all RTT level or higher games, and succeeded a mere 10% of the time therein.  These abysmal numbers meant that the mechanic might as well not have existed, so Games Workshop scrapped the mechanic going into Pariah Nexus.

Via DakkaDakka

What we got instead were Secret Missions, which yes likewise had a hidden component ala Gambits, but possessed a core few differences that made them impact competitive play.  At the end of the 3rd Battle Round, the current loser got to select one of four options that capped your Primary Points to 40, but in turn would generate 20 points if successful.  That’s only 10 points less than the normal maximum, and if you can manage your mission, that actually puts you ahead of what a normal opponent can naturally score.  The risk/reward for taking a Secret Mission varied, but it greatly benefitted mobile armies, or savvy players willing to take it slow with their pieces in Strategic Reserve.

Speaking from my own experience, Secret Missions have won me a few games, including in a tournament capacity—by simply having more bodies on the board, and the mobility afforded by units like Skystalkers or the Halo effect, I can very often supplant my opponent on objectives, or otherwise take their Home Objective.  This is also reflective of actual tournament data, placing expected usage across all games at ~15%, and in tournament play, a whopping 33%, albeit with success rates of sub 50%.

Via Warhammer Community

A critical point when talking about Secret Missions (and objective play in general) is that they’re skewed to vastly favor armies with a high unit count, and higher-than-normal mobility.  They ask you as a player to get your pieces in the right places, at the right time, and while one option does functionally ask you to table your opponent (removing all of their models from the board), it’s unlikely you’re behind on Primary if that’s the way you need to win.

Due to this, we see the rates of armies actually completing their Secret Missions dwindle as you get away from the likes of Aeldari and their hyper-mobile kin, with armies like Knights & Custodes having it rough.  This is on top of those armies already suffering in the points part of the game, due to low model count for things like Action Secondaries, meaning those who need help the most get the least from this option. That being said, while Secret Missions seem to have been an overall success, the winrate of armies individually have jostled around quite a bit based on their ability to complete them.  It appears that Games Workshop took this into account when designing their next iteration of a catch-up mechanic, coming to us this Saturday in Chapter Approved 2025-26.

Via Reddit

The brand-new Challenger system was showcased this past Monday, and it looks to have solved many of the issues plaguing previous iterations of catch-up, while introducing one more little kink in the hose.  At the start of the Battle Round, if you’re behind your opponent by 6+ Victory Points, you’ll get a Challenger card, containing what amounts to a third potential Secondary Mission, or a super-powered Stratagem you get to use for 0CP.

Now this has many layers worth discussing, the first of which is that number: 6VP.  As far as we’re aware, Primary is going to continue to be scored largely in multiples of 5, meaning in a perfect game (barring Secondaries, which we’ll get to) you need to be trailing by at least 1 Primary.  These Challenge missions so far all provide only 3VP, however, meaning you don’t get to just freely catch up, and unlike Secret Missions, they do not increase the ceiling of points you can score above your opponent.  Furthermore, while the general plan is ‘be behind by 1 Primary instance’ to get these cards, the variability of Secondaries means that if you pull difficult but scored Secondaries, and your opponent cheap & easy ones, you might be left in the dust on Primary and still not get a Challenger card.  That alone is going to feel rough, especially if you’ve gone first.

Via Warhammer Community

I don’t believe the Stratagem part of Challenge cards is going to be as impactful as they want, either, although I remain hopeful.  Points are so important in 10th, and falling behind in multiple turns is almost always a deathknell, even if you aren’t tabled.  These extra strats appear to be about as good as ones you’d already get from your Detachment of choice, so while getting full reroll 1s is cool, is it worth 3 points, and being behind?  That’s something we’ll need to play with in order to find out.

The other wrinkle is the fact that these are semi-random, compared to Secret Missions which you got to always choose from, and Gambits, which largely relied on the dice.  I feel this is in part because they have their dual nature, being both pseudo-Secondaries and also Stratagems, so it feels less bad to pull one of whose sides you might only be able to use one of.  Still, the critical part of all of this is that I feel the new Challenge system may be the most equitable solution across more potential armies.  Unlike Secret Missions, which bolstered the strength of already-potent armies like Ynnari Aeldari, these tides raise all ships together, with a reasonable mix of killing, scoring, etc, rather than being mostly focused on getting the right units in the right places.  For that reason, I’m excited, and I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of the deck…if they produce enough.

Via Faeit 212

With that, we conclude a brief history of catch-up mechanics in 10th edition!  What has been your favorite mechanic of these so far?  Are you excited for the Challenge system?  How would you design a new mechanic like this?  I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below!