Games Workshop Organized Play Kits for Warhammer are making a comeback, meaning you can play in both GW and local stores to win prizes!
It’s been a while since we’ve seen something like this from GW, so it’s pretty awesome. This time around AoS will actually be joining the fun as well, so it’s not just for 40k players.
Warhammer Community unveiled some of the prizes for the first organized play in almost ten years. They also mention there will be about ten packs a year from 2023. So plenty to look forward to from the looks of it!
Games Workshop Warhammer Organized Play Kits Coming Back to Stores!
All in all, there will be around ten Organised Play packs coming every year from 2023, stuffed with trophies and certificates for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, as well as Best Painted. They’ll also contain goodies for every player who participates, so you’ll take something home no matter how well your lore-accurate army performs in practice.
For the first time ever, Organised Play kits will also come with exclusive digital content available only to those who take part in the events – and we’ll have more information to share on that very soon.
It’s always fun to see some support for Warhammer stores and your LGS in terms of running their tournaments.
What’s more, attendees will even get the chance to snag an exclusive Golden Ticket to the prestigious Warhammer US Open 2022 Finale in New Mexico in November. This is an exclusive VIP pass to the culmination of the competitive gaming year, covering travel and accommodation, where you’ll battle it out with the best Warhammer players in the world at an incredible double-header – the Grand Tournament final and a Grand Narrative event.
Hey, nothing wrong with winning a golden ticket, just remember to follow the rules and not fall in the chocolate river at the final event!
The prizes on offer are better than ever, and you won’t have to wait long for the first batch. Warhammer Underworlds packs are coming very soon, with Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 following this summer.
Organized Play Prizes & Stores Revealed by GW!
Organized Play is back with a vengeance, and you can get involved at your local gaming store right now. It’s one of the most fun challenges any Warhammer 40,000 general can aspire to, as you’ll find yourself pitted against an array of skilled tacticians, all eager to claim supremacy, in a succession of hard-fought rounds.
It’s the ideal way to get your gaming group or local Warhammer 40,000 community involved in a wider matched play season – and take home some trophies to boot!
It’s always fun to see some support for Warhammer stores and your LGS in terms of running their tournaments. Plus, there are some cool secondary objective packs that you can only get at the tournaments (but we’re sure they will show up online at some point).
Each store on our list has received at least one Organised Play pack, each containing enough for 32 players to get in on the action. As well as trophies for the winning commanders, there are also certificates for other accolades including Best Painter – so brush up on your painting skills as well as your tactics!* On top of all that, inside each kit there are 32 decks of Secondary Objective cards for stores to use or give away.
We already talked about how expensive the kits are and how they were allocated, but at least the stores grabbed one.
We’ve already had a huge uptake on these packs from local Warhammer stockists all over the world, and it looks like this will be the biggest Warhammer Organised Play release ever. Good news for players, as it’ll be easier than ever to find a game. Better yet, there are Organised Play packs coming for more games on the way later this year, so watch this space!
How Many Stores Are Running Warhammer 40k OP Events
If you want to see the full list of stores participating worldwide, you can check that out here! The highlight is that there are nearly 2000 stores signed up for this, with around 750 in the United States alone!
Hit up that list and see if your local store bought a kit!
Pricing & Costs of Running an Organized Play GW Tournament
Let’s start with the overall cost of the kit and what stores get inside, as relayed from Games Workshop trade sales to their accounts in July 2022.
So far, no word on that exclusive digital content they promised or the golden tickets from the stores solicited to purchase the first OP kits.
The OP Kit Bundle Contains:
- 1x Poster
- 1x Glass Trophy
- 1x Managers postcard
- 4x Certificates
- 32x special decks of (16) secondary objectives.
The cost comes out to $80 USD and $99 CAD. Honestly not terrible overall, and it gives the stores a decent amount to give out without a huge initial investment. However, let’s look at the price per player depending on how many show up.
- $2.5 a person at 32 players
- $5 a person at 16 players
- $10 a person at 8 players
Are The Games Workshop OP Tournament Kits Worth It?
Well, if you have a store big enough to run a 32-player tournament, then this is actually really awesome! As only $2.50 a player is super easy to roll into the price of the tournament and still have enough left to make some cash and give away more prizes.
The only thing bigger stores have to watch out for is if these kits have limited availability in the long run. This means they could really only run a couple of these throughout the year, but still, way better than the current nothing!
The issue comes in for smaller stores, as a lot of stores can’t really run a tournament with too many players. While $10 doesn’t seem like a lot when you consider things like paying someone to run the tournament and buying the kit, it basically makes giving additional prize support out of the question.
Players sometimes won’t pay a ton to play, but with only eight people, the price would have to be high if they want anything other than the above prizes. However, this may be very realistic with an entry fee of $20 or $25.
With stores watching their margins so closely right now, don’t expect smaller stores to be too excited about it. As we said, though, this is definitely good for organized play. We do hope to hear more about the exclusive digital content GW promised or how the supposed golden tickets will work, though.
Are you excited about the organized play events coming back for Warhammer from Games Workshop?
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
