How to Play Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000
The two-layer loop: crusade the stars, then win the firefight.
Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 is Creative Assembly’s first trip into the 41st Millennium and the first mainline Total War built for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series as well as PC. The studio’s own roundtable after The Game Awards 2025 is still the cleanest statement of intent: you do not fight on one planet. You fight across many, then drop into colossal real-time battles where guns, cover, and war engines replace the fantasy melee blob.
This page is the how-to-play primer. It does not pretend a 2027 release already has a finished tutorial. It maps the systems CA, SEGA, and Games Workshop have put on stage so you can practise the right instincts in the closed beta and on launch day.
The two-layer loop
Every Total War game splits strategy and tactics. Here the strategy layer is a galactic sandbox rather than a single continent. On the galactic map you move void fleets between systems, pick planets to contest, and manage a war economy. Game director Attila Mohacsi has described the campaign as nested: on one planet you recruit, build, and fight much as you always have; those planetary wars then chain into a star-system campaign; those systems chain into a crusade theater that can run past 600 turns on the road to Armageddon.
The tactical layer is the part that will shock WARHAMMER III veterans. Eurogamer’s Gamescom 2026 hands-on and the ranged combat Alpha Strike both stress cover, sightlines, suppression, and simulated bullets. A ruined hab-block is not flavour. It is the difference between a surviving infantry unit and a pink mist. That is the new combat language: cover now dies, morale still breaks, and the engine that simulates both is named. Read destructible cover, morale and battle shock, and Warcore before you treat a ruin as permanent or a Marine squad as a blob that panics like Empire swordsmen.
Pick a faction before you pick a lord
Launch has four radically asymmetric races. Read the faction hub before you copy a list from a YouTuber.
- Space Marines — few models, high power, orbital Strike Forces, fleet upgrades in the void. Ultramarines are the confirmed lore chapter; a second chapter ships at launch.
- Astra Militarum — Cadian gunlines, Leman Russ and Rogal Dorn tanks, Baneblades, Sentinels, Ogryns, Commissars. Yarrick is the confirmed Guard face of the Armageddon story.
- Orks — mobs, Meganobz, Deff Dreads, Stompas, and Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka. They want to industrialise the planets they take.
- Aeldari — speed, psychic precision, and strike-then-vanish warfare. They have had the least screen time; do not assume they play like High Elves with shuriken.
Each race also gets two lore sub-factions and, for the first time in the series, a custom warlord you can name, paint, and trait. Traitor Guard currently exist as a custom reskin of Guard, not a fifth launch race. Chaos Space Marines are explicitly post-launch.
Use the faction picker if you only know you like “elite”, “tanks”, “hordes”, or “hit and run”. Then steal a skeleton list from Builds.
How a battle actually plays
PC Gamer’s write-up of the Alpha Strike stream is the best public checklist:
- Read the map for ruins and firing lanes before the first move.
- Units contain mixed models — a Guard blob can hide a Commissar, a vox, and different guns — so target priority is no longer “click the unit card and forget”.
- Heroes bring customisable bodyguards instead of wandering the field as immortal individuals.
- Tanks can strafe and reverse while firing, with accuracy penalties.
- Line of fire is per model. One squad can shoot two targets if the geometry allows.
- Ammo is unlimited in the builds shown; suppression and cover still matter.
- Sentry mode stops a gunline chasing a bait unit out of cover.
- Strategic reserves and bombardment exist as army-level tools, not just unit abilities.
Practise that list in the army planner. If you are on a pad, read console controls as well as PC keybinds — this is the first Total War that must feel native on DualSense and Xbox controllers.
How to complete the early campaign
Gamescom footage showed Space Marines opening a tutorial slice by hunting a crashed ship with a four-unit Strike Force while an Ork host fielded far more bodies. That is the teaching beat: elites do not auto-win because they are elites. You complete early missions by refusing bad melee, using cover, and spending army abilities at the moment the enemy blobs.
On the strategy layer, CA has contrasted two economies. Marines upgrade in orbit. Orks build on the ground. Guard and Aeldari sit between those poles; we will not invent extra resources CA has not named. Governors on planets have personalities. Orbital bombardment and world-killing weapons are confirmed toys, not the default click.
How to protect your force
Protection in 40k Total War is positioning, not a bubble shield. Keep warlords inside bodyguards. Keep Baneblades on overlapping fire, not isolated flanks. Keep Aeldari from being pinned in a street they cannot leave. Keep Ork mobs from arriving in one clump that a single bombardment deletes. The how to beat Orks guide is the first matchup tutorial because that is the battle CA has shown three times.
What this primer is not
It is not a ranked meta. The tier list is an early-read based on preview information, labelled as such. It is not a system-requirements bible beyond what Steam currently prints — see system requirements. It is not a promise that every unit in a 10th-edition codex is in the 2027 box. CA has said this is a single game they will expand for years, the way they wish they could have treated the fantasy trilogy.
Wishlist the game, register for the beta, pick a race, and learn cover. That is how you play Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 before the disks exist.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 questions.
Is Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 like WARHAMMER III with bolters?
No. CA built a new engine because the campaign is galactic and because battles are designed around guns, cover, and sightlines rather than melee blobs.
How many factions can I play at launch?
Four races — Space Marines, Astra Militarum, Orks, Aeldari — each with two lore sub-factions plus a custom warlord option.
Can I play on a console?
Yes. Launch includes PS5 and Xbox Series as well as PC. Read the console controls guide; this is the first mainline Total War designed for a pad.
Where should a complete beginner go next?
Ranged Combat and Cover, then the faction picker, then the closed-beta guide so you can test the loop yourself in 2026.
Will Chaos be playable on day one?
Not as a launch race. CA has said Chaos Space Marines are in the long-term plan, not the 2027 box.