Guides7 min readJune 7, 2026

How to Track VP and CP in Warhammer 40K 10th Edition

Never lose track of VP or CP again. This guide explains how scoring works in 40K 10th Edition and shows you the best tools to track it during your games.

GrimSlate Command

GrimSlate editorial team

How to Track VP and CP in Warhammer 40K 10th Edition

Warhammer 40K 10th Edition is won and lost on Victory Points, and your options every turn are shaped by Command Points. Both are simple in isolation — and shockingly easy to lose track of across five battle rounds of combat, stratagems, and table talk. This guide explains exactly how VP and CP work in 10th Edition matched play, then covers the best ways to track them so nothing slips.

How Victory Points work in 10th Edition

In standard matched play (the Leviathan and Pariah Nexus mission structure), your final score is capped at 100 Victory Points, split three ways:

Primary mission — up to 50 VP. Scored for controlling objective markers, usually checked in your command phase from battle round 2 onwards. The exact scoring turn and amount depend on the mission card.

Secondary missions — up to 40 VP. Scored from your secondary objectives, either fixed (chosen before the game) or tactical (drawn from a deck during the game).

Paint bonus — 10 VP. Awarded for playing a fully painted, battle-ready army.

A few rules trip people up constantly:

Primary is scored while you control objectives at the scoring moment, not at the end of the game. Losing an objective right before your command phase costs real points.

Tactical secondaries can be discarded for CP or new draws depending on the mission rules — tracking which cards are active, scored, or discarded is exactly where paper scoring breaks down.

Per-round caps exist on most scoring. You cannot bank extra primary from a dominant turn.

How Command Points work in 10th Edition

Command Points fuel stratagems. The core rules are short:

1Both players gain 1 CP at the start of every battle round (in each player's command phase).

2You spend CP on stratagems — Core stratagems like Counter-Offensive and Insane Bravery, plus your detachment's own list.

3You cannot use the same stratagem more than once per phase, and various abilities reduce stratagem costs or grant free uses — but you can still only benefit from one CP-reducing effect per use.

Because gains are fixed but spending is bursty, the practical problem is remembering what you already spent this phase and which one-per-phase stratagems are used. That's a memory problem, not a math problem — which is why a tracker helps even in casual games.

The four ways players track VP and CP

1. Pen and paper

The classic. Works everywhere, costs nothing.

✅ Zero setup, zero battery

❌ Illegible mid-game scrawl, no per-round structure, easy to forget a scoring window

❌ No help with secondary card states or CP spending history

Fine for a beer-and-pretzels game; risky for anything competitive.

2. Dice and tokens

Spare dice on the table edge for CP, tokens on objectives for primary.

✅ Visible to both players at a glance

❌ Dice get bumped, picked up, or rolled by mistake — the "wait, was that my CP counter?" problem is real

❌ Nothing persists after the game

3. Dedicated tracker apps

Purpose-built scoreboards (see our full comparison of the best battle tracker apps for the 2026 options).

✅ Structured per-round scoring, running totals, mission support

✅ Game history you can review later

❌ Your army list lives somewhere else — the tracker doesn't know what units you have, so wounds and casualties still need a separate system

4. An integrated builder + tracker

The newest approach: the app that built your list also runs your game. This is how GrimSlate's Battle Mode works.

✅ Start a game directly from your roster — datasheets, wounds, and abilities are already loaded

✅ VP and CP tracked per battle round with the correct structure (primary, secondaries, paint)

✅ Live shared view — your opponent joins with a code and sees the same score in real time, ending "what's the score?" forever

✅ Casualties marked on real datasheets, not a generic counter

❌ 40K only — multi-system players will still want a generalist tool

Tracking with a chess clock

Competitive events increasingly expect clock discipline. A few habits make it painless:

1Agree on the protocol before deployment — whose clock runs during rules discussions and dice-offs.

2Pause for scoring moments so bookkeeping never eats game time.

3Use a tracker with a built-in clock (GrimSlate includes one) so the clock, score, and round state live on the same screen — one device on the table edge instead of three.

A simple per-round routine

Whatever tool you use, this 20-second command phase routine keeps your score bulletproof:

1Gain your CP and record it immediately.

2Check primary scoring before doing anything else in the phase.

3Review active secondaries — score, discard, or draw as the mission allows.

4Confirm both players' totals match out loud.

Do this every round and there are no end-of-game arguments, no forgotten scoring windows, and no mystery CP.

What about 11th Edition?

The tracking habits in this guide carry straight over. 11th Edition adjusts mission structure and scoring details, but the fundamentals — score primary in defined windows, manage a secondary hand, gain CP on a schedule and spend it on stratagems — all remain, and every tracking method above works the same way. GrimSlate's Battle Mode supports both editions, so your workflow doesn't change when your local scene switches over.

The bottom line

VP and CP tracking isn't hard — it's just relentless, and five battle rounds give you fifty chances to forget something. Paper and dice work until the game gets tense, which is exactly when they fail. A dedicated tracker fixes the score; an integrated one fixes the whole table.

If you already build your lists in GrimSlate, you're one tap from trying it: open your roster, hit Start Game, and play a match where the score keeps itself. New to the game entirely? Start with our how to play Warhammer 40k guide first.

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