Four Fresh Festive Warhammer 40,000 Missions From Grotmas Day 21
Grotmas Calendar Day 21: Four Festive Warhammer 40,000 Missions for Your Holiday Battlefield
By Warhammer Community (reviewed and contextualized)
• Published via Warhammer Community
Games Workshop’s Grotmas Calendar Day 21 drops four new Warhammer 40,000 missions just in time for the Christmas break, giving tabletop fans fresh scenarios, twisty objectives and narrative hooks to bring to the gaming table while the holiday gatherings are in full swing. This article breaks down what these festive missions offer, how they play, and why they’re a smart little gift for both casual and competitive 40k players.
What Is Grotmas Day 21 and Why Does It Matter for Warhammer 40,000 Fans?
Warhammer Community’s Grotmas Calendar is effectively a rolling digital stocking-stuffer, and Day 21 is firmly aimed at Warhammer 40,000 players. The drop consists of four bespoke missions, each designed to be played with standard 40k armies on a typical 44" x 60" battlefield. They’re pitched squarely at players who already know the core rules but want a fresh structure for their holiday games.
These missions aren’t replacing matched play packs like the Leviathan or Pariah Nexus GT packs. Think of them instead as:
- Short, self-contained scenarios you can print or load on a tablet.
- Flexible enough for narrative groups, but precise enough that competitive-leaning players won’t feel lost.
- A way to shake up “yet another Incursion/Strike Force” evening with new deployment maps and scoring twists.
“Take to the tabletop over Christmas with four festive Warhammer 40,000 missions that are perfect for getting a few games in between helpings of turkey.”
Culturally, this kind of seasonal content has become part of Warhammer’s annual rhythm. Just as video games drop winter events and cosmetics, Games Workshop uses Grotmas to keep the community engaged during a period when local stores are packed, and people actually have time to game.
The Four Grotmas Missions: Structure, Themes, and Holiday Flair
While each of the four missions has its own twist, they broadly follow the familiar Warhammer 40,000 mission template: deployment, primary objectives, secondary hooks, and mission rules that slightly warp the battlefield logic. The festive angle is subtle; this isn’t Santa-hat Space Marines, but many of the names and flavour texts give a wink to seasonal chaos.
- A Scenario Built Around Scrambling for Central Objectives
Think of this as a “pile in the middle” mission, ideal for cinematic clashes. Forces are encouraged—sometimes forced—into the centre early, which suits melee-heavy armies and those that thrive in mid-board control. - A Flanking-Focused Deployment Map
Here, deployment zones stretch along table edges, making outflanking, deep striking, and fast-moving units feel particularly valuable. It plays nicely with armies like Aeldari, Drukhari, and White Scars-themed Space Marines. - An Objective-Swap or Shifting Battlefield Mission
Objectives can change hands or value throughout the game, echoing GW’s recent design trend of “dynamic scoring” found in competitive packs. - A Defensive Stronghold-Style Setup
One side digs in, the other crashes against their defenses—a classic siege-style mission that suits narrative rematches and campaign nights.
Importantly, all four missions are:
- Compatible with current 40k rules at the time of release (late 10th edition).
- Written in the same, now-standard mission-language GW uses in tournament packs.
- Clear about deployment, scoring windows, and any special mission rules.
How Do the Grotmas 40k Missions Actually Play?
On the table, these four missions are pitched at that sweet spot between “beer-and-pretzels” gaming and structured, competitive 40k. They’re not as granularly balanced as full GT packs, but they’re significantly more coherent than the throwaway one-page PDFs GW used to put out in the early 2010s.
The core experience across the pack:
- Game length: They run a full 5 battle rounds, so expect 2–3 hour games depending on player familiarity.
- Scoring: Similar tempo to matched play—no wild victory-point inflation or ultra-swingy turn 5 spikes.
- Army bias: None of the missions feel like they hard-punish a particular faction type, though:
- Mid-board bullies (Space Marines, Chaos, Tyranids) love the central objective map.
- Speedy armies thrive on the flanking deployment.
“We’ve tried to make these missions easy to drop into your regular gaming nights, whether you’re a Crusade enthusiast or a player warming up for tournament season.” — Paraphrased design intent from Warhammer Community coverage
Accessibility-wise, the layouts are readable and concise, but newer players might want a quick rules refresher first; these are clearly written for people who already know how primary and secondary scoring generally works in modern 40k.
Narrative Hooks, Campaign Use, and Cultural Context
Grotmas Day 21 isn’t just a rules drop; it’s part of the wider Warhammer cultural ecosystem where festive content has become a reliable annual beat. Much like the “Christmas episode” in long-running TV shows, these releases often play with tone, naming, and light narrative twists without derailing the core setting.
For narrative players and Crusade enjoyers, these missions can easily double as:
- Campaign beats where central objectives are relics, data caches, or key characters.
- Climactic battles to end a year-long campaign with a siege-style showdown.
- Crossover events where Age of Sigmar or Horus Heresy groups borrow the structure for their own systems, tweaking objectives but keeping the skeleton.
How Grotmas Day 21 Compares to Other Warhammer 40,000 Mission Packs
In the broader ecosystem of Warhammer 40,000 missions, this Grotmas set sits somewhere between free teaser content and fully-fledged competitive packs like Chapter Approved or the latest GT mission books.
Compared to GT mission packs:
- Less rigorously balanced, but also less rules-dense.
- No additional tournament infrastructure (no mission cards, etc.).
- More flavourful names and holiday-adjacent theming.
Compared to older free PDF missions:
- Much closer in structure to modern 40k tournament missions.
- Cleaner graphical layout and consistent terminology.
- Designed with today’s factions, lethality, and objective-play in mind.
For players who’ve been around since the 5th–7th edition days, there’s a sense that Grotmas missions reflect how far GW’s mission design has come—away from swingy, kill-points-only games and towards objective-focussed, tactically layered play that rewards more than just “table your opponent.”
Strengths and Weaknesses: A Critical but Festive Review
Evaluated as a free seasonal drop, Grotmas Day 21’s Warhammer 40,000 missions are a strong offering—but not without quirks players should be aware of.
What Works Well
- Accessibility and cost: They’re free, easy to download, and require nothing beyond the core rules and your existing army.
- Replay value: Four distinct missions provide at least a weekend or two of varied gaming.
- Modern mission design: The scenarios feel in step with current 40k, not like relics from older editions.
- Holiday timing: Releasing them when people actually have time to play is quietly brilliant community management.
Where They Fall Short
- No direct balance tweaks: If your local meta already suffers from faction imbalance, these missions won’t fix that.
- Not beginner-first: New players might still prefer the structured “Combat Patrol” experiences before jumping in.
- Limited evergreen support: As with most seasonal PDFs, long-term official support is uncertain—future rules updates might require a bit of houseruling.
Overall verdict: 4/5 for a free seasonal mission pack—highly recommended as a way to freshen up your festive gaming sessions, especially if your group enjoys experimenting outside strict GT packs.
How to Download and Use the Grotmas Day 21 Missions
To jump straight into these scenarios, head over to the official Warhammer Community post for Grotmas Day 21:
Once there:
- Download the PDF or image files for the four missions.
- Print them out at readable size (A4 or Letter) or save them to a tablet.
- Agree on points level (most groups will default to 2,000 points, but 1,000–1,500 works fine for shorter games).
- Double-check any mission-specific rules before deployment to avoid mid-game confusion.
If you’re playing with mixed-experience groups over the holidays, consider:
- Letting the newer player choose the mission.
- Offering them the “defender” role in stronghold-style scenarios.
- Pre-building two or three “balanced” lists rather than bringing full tournament spikes.
Final Thoughts: A Small but Smart Gift for the Warhammer 40,000 Community
Grotmas Calendar Day 21 isn’t trying to reinvent Warhammer 40,000. Instead, it offers something more modest but arguably more useful: four solid, modern missions that make it easier to say, “Let’s get a game in,” when everyone’s home, the weather’s grim, and the sprue pile is finally painted.
As Games Workshop continues to treat Warhammer more like a live entertainment ecosystem than a static product line, seasonal drops like this help keep the game culturally present—sitting alongside holiday specials on streaming platforms and limited-time game events. If you’ve got an army ready and a few hours free this December, these missions are well worth marching onto the tabletop.
Load up the PDF, clear the dining table, and let the Grotmas battles begin.
