I would like some opinions on a hypothetical situation.

Say a player goes to a tournament. That player brings a list containing a very large number of models and no vehicles, and a fast, tou-flanking unit. His game plan appears to be to go 2nd, and use his large model count to run out the clock, making it impossible for his opponents to push him off of objectives. His out-flanking unit is there to contest an opponents objectives on his last turn, which should be turn 3 at the latest.

As an opponent, am I justified in reporting him to the TO for taking unfair advantage of the clock in a tournament that does not have a rigid turn structure for each player? I know what he is doing is technically legal.....you can move each one of your models and then run with each one of your models even if the moves and runs have no effect on the outcome of the game, but it seems to me that it could be considered cheating.

Just wondering.

I feel it is unsportsmanlike but fully within the rules. HOWEVER if you feel he is intentionally slow-playing bring it up with the TO. It is ultimately the TO's decision as to whether he is trying to slow-play or is in actuality a slow player.

There really is no right way to bring it up but I would politely ask him to pick things up because I want to get in a full game. If he doesn't bring it up to the TO.

Have you played him? Do you know for sure what his game plan is for his army? If what you state is true then it falls into a grey area. If he wants to turtle up and wait for the game to end thats one thing. If he moves units up 1" just to waste time thats another as well. It would all depend on how he played it I would say.

Also your poll is biased

I would do it. Winning at all costs is all that matters!

This makes it seem that anyone who tries this is a WAAC player who doesn't care about having fun. It may be that this was just their strategy. The exclamation point is the tell tale sign, these should never find their way into polls.

This is why the main game is based on turn limits, not time limits. It comes down to an individual case though. Large, horde-based armies are very viable, especially with orks, nids and guard. It is that same sheer number of bodies that make them hard to completely put down, and it lessens the psychological impact of loosing models on the owner's minds (loosing a terminator has a vastly different impact than loosing, say, a conscript).

Slow playing is against the rules at well-run tournaments.

There is no justification for a player being unable to play only three turns, no matter how many models he has. If he fails to play out the game, he is a cheater or the tournament has failed to allow enough time for the rounds.

If the guy deliberately slow plays each turn (especially the later turns) for each opponent he plays- something should be mentioned to the TO. If the guy has been getting complaints registered about him rounds one and two, theres a better chance a TO will stand by his next game and start telling him to pick up the pace, or just flat out warn him about pulling such shenanigans.

Melchiour wrote:Have you played him? Do you know for sure what his game plan is for his army? If what you state is true then it falls into a grey area. If he wants to turtle up and wait for the game to end thats one thing. If he moves units up 1" just to waste time thats another as well. It would all depend on how he played it I would say.

I did play him. In truth his first turn did not really take all that long, it was his deployment that took forever. I deployed in about 4-5 minutes, and he took almost a half hour. After that, my turns were taking 12-18 minutes, his were taking 20-30 (I timed the turns after the deployment issue). He even mentioned later that he had been accused of slow playing at a different tournament and the "one sided" judges for that location forced him to play an extra turn because of it.

I was very polite to him the entire time. We even had lunch together after the game, and he seems like a nice enough guy normally, but while playing he turns into a completely different person. I would never play him again, but I might associate with him outside of 40k.

Shas'O Dorian wrote:Also your poll is biased

I would do it. Winning at all costs is all that matters!

This makes it seem that anyone who tries this is a WAAC player who doesn't care about having fun. It may be that this was just their strategy. The exclamation point is the tell tale sign, these should never find their way into polls.

A strategy based off of slow play is not a sportsmanlike or "fun" strategy. To me it seems like winning at all costs, including pissing off your opponent.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:This is why the main game is based on turn limits, not time limits. It comes down to an individual case though. Large, horde-based armies are very viable, especially with orks, nids and guard. It is that same sheer number of bodies that make them hard to completely put down, and it lessens the psychological impact of loosing models on the owner's minds (loosing a terminator has a vastly different impact than loosing, say, a conscript).

Yeah I sent an e-mail to the TO about the issue and suggesting using a turn limit instead of a total time limit. A 15 minute turn limit means a 5 turn game is completed in 2 and a half hours, which is perfectly reasonable.

As for large, horde-like armies being viable, I have no problem with them if you can play them efficiently and allow your opponent a full game. By all means, use your numbers to your advantage by making your opponent kill everything in your army....but taking a half-hour for deployment, then 20-30 minute turns in a 2 1/2 hour game is ridiculous. It doesn't allow your opponent enough TIME to reasonably deal with your list.

Mannahnin wrote:Slow playing is against the rules at well-run tournaments.

There is no justification for a player being unable to play only three turns, no matter how many models he has. If he fails to play out the game, he is a cheater or the tournament has failed to allow enough time for the rounds.

I agree with this statement personally, but I want to see what others think because obviously not everyone has the same problem with this situation.

There was an extremely (unreasonably) slow player at a recent tournament I attended. The organizer specifically authorized extensions on more than one of his games into the between-round breaks so the games could go as far as possible.

Aldarionn wrote:As an opponent, am I justified in reporting him to the TO for taking unfair advantage of the clock in a tournament that does not have a rigid turn structure for each player?

No, there IS no such thing as unfair advantage against the clock.

Tournament games aren't regular games of 40k. They are games that starkly resemble 40k, with extra rules heaped on (such as a time limit), and that you play them exclusively to win. If your opponent is able to take advantage of the different rule set and you're not, then you got out-meta'd. Deal with it.

You don't hear people complain about people taking datasheets in apocalypse. That's because it's not particularly useful to whine about how extra rules work. Really, in this case, you'd either have to deal with it, or not play at tournaments.

I tend to run into this myself. I play my Orks and one of the things I really like about the army is the ability to take lots of Boyz. I think they're a neat and fun unit and burying foes in a green tide of destruction tends to be one of the ways I envision Orks. My friends have gotten pretty good at dealing with big mobz too.

Flip over to my tournament lists though and we get:

Da Grot Mob - High point of the list was beating a unit of Deathwing Terminators and a Ravenwing Attack Bike in melee - The Eldar player in the tourney won the prize of the 'Grot Juice' for killing 83 Grotz (he would have gotten more if it hadn't been for the Squig Hound)

Mek Mob - Shoota Boyz, Grotz, Lootas, Burnas, Tank Bustas, Deff Dreads and Killa Kanz

I Wanna Be Mutated - Fabius Bile Chaos Space Marine List all enhanced except for the Spawn

That's a bit of a cross section. What you can probably see is that while there are some big units there, the only list with over 100 models was the Grotz and even then, nobody cares because it's Grotz.

There are definitely times I've been sorely tempted to break out the Green Tide for a tourney, but I pretty much always decide against it for two main reasons. First, while I think I do alright in terms of play speed with the horde, I don't think I'm quick enough with them to finish three or more games in a day. Second, I generally go to tournaments on weekends. I work all week. I go to a tourney to see the armies and have fun. I don't go to have a second job.

So, bringing huge models counts to a tourney, I won't say it's evil or unsportsmanlike, especially if you can manage your army effectively. In fact, if you can run a massive army well, go for it, it'll definitely give folks something different to play at a tourney.

On the other hand, if you're playing slow or using the model count to chew down turns in a game, that's just not considerate of other players; regardless of your model count. I'm don't think I'd call it cheating (at least not in most tourneys I've seen), but I definitely wouldn't call it being a good player either.

Aldarionn wrote:
I did play him. In truth his first turn did not really take all that long, it was his deployment that took forever. I deployed in about 4-5 minutes, and he took almost a half hour.

What kind of TO is putting time limits on games but not time limits on deployment?

Ailaros wrote:

Aldarionn wrote:As an opponent, am I justified in reporting him to the TO for taking unfair advantage of the clock in a tournament that does not have a rigid turn structure for each player?

No, there IS no such thing as unfair advantage against the clock.

Tournament games aren't regular games of 40k. They are games that starkly resemble 40k, with extra rules heaped on (such as a time limit), and that you play them exclusively to win. If your opponent is able to take advantage of the different rule set and you're not, then you got out-meta'd. Deal with it.

You don't hear people complain about people taking datasheets in apocalypse. That's because it's not particularly useful to whine about how extra rules work. Really, in this case, you'd either have to deal with it, or not play at tournaments.

I will agree that if there is no turn time limit at a given tournament, then what he did was strictly speaking legal and that I as a player have to deal with it. I did not make a fuss during the game, and I was polite and pleasant through the entire thing. He even insulted me once or twice and I let it go, figuring it wasn't worth arguing over.

Clock management is a big part of winning in a tournament, but if there is no time limit for turns, only a total game time limit, then it's bad form to take 1/5 of the game time to deploy your army, and an equivalent amount of time for each of your turns. Taking advantage of the clock by using it up and denying your opponent a chance to play is unsportsmanlike conduct in my opinion, hence why I support a turn limit rather than a game limit.

In this case, the player was not taking advantage of a rule, he was taking advantage of a LACK of a rule. It's fine to take advantage of rules, for instance using an extra move to contest an objective and win the game, or including specific models designed for late game objective snatches. But taking advantage of a lack of a rule seems a little out of line. It doesn't say I can't spend a half hour on deployment, so I'm going to take full advantage of that and cut down as much play time as possible! The first is playing smart, the second is playing dirty.

Aldarionn wrote:Taking advantage of the clock by using it up and denying your opponent a chance to play is unsportsmanlike conduct in my opinion, hence why I support a turn limit rather than a game limit.

Is it unsportsmanly to tailor your list against high-mobility armies because you think that the tournament is likely to be packed with high-mobility armies? Once again, it's a meta issue, not a rule breaking issue. If taking advantage of tournament meta is unsportsmanlike, then the tournament scene probably isn't for you (like it isn't for me).

Aldarionn wrote:Tn this case, the player was not taking advantage of a rule, he was taking advantage of a LACK of a rule.

Then you're just going to poorly-run tournaments. It's exactly this kind of stuff that makes me never want to go to a games day.

Ailaros wrote:

Aldarionn wrote:Taking advantage of the clock by using it up and denying your opponent a chance to play is unsportsmanlike conduct in my opinion, hence why I support a turn limit rather than a game limit.

Is it unsportsmanly to tailor your list against high-mobility armies because you think that the tournament is likely to be packed with high-mobility armies? Once again, it's a meta issue, not a rule breaking issue. If taking advantage of tournament meta is unsportsmanlike, then the tournament scene probably isn't for you (like it isn't for me).

Aldarionn wrote:Tn this case, the player was not taking advantage of a rule, he was taking advantage of a LACK of a rule.

Then you're just going to poorly-run tournaments. It's exactly this kind of stuff that makes me never want to go to a games day.

I will agree with you on the second point, that the tournament was likely not properly run, but the folks running the tournament are just getting started with this and have a lot to learn. All of the tournaments I have previously attended have had turn limits, and I find that system more fair. I'm a competitive player, and I enjoy well run tournaments, win or lose, but the tournament should strive to provide a fair environment for players to compete based on skill. It's much more difficult to take advantage of the clock if there is a turn time limit, and each player gets the exact same amount of time to move, shoot and assault with his army, which creates a fair and balanced environment.

You are entitled to your opinion, and I think it's a valid one even if I do not share it. I think it was a failing of the tournament that this player was able to use the clock to his advantage that way, and unsportsmanlike of the player to take advantage. If you don't see it that way, it's fine because we will likely never play each other. I do hope that the TO learns from this and adjusts his rules accordingly.

After this circuit I will likely only attend tournaments that use a turn time limit so I don't have to deal with this issue. It's my responsibility as a player to know the tournament rules, and clearly I did not foresee someone taking advantage in this way, perhaps because I strive to play in a sportsmanlike way and building armies to take advantage of specific tournament rules is not something I generally do.

That analogy doesnt really work here. The Time Limit is not a winning mechanic like list tailoring. It's to make sure that the tournament can be finished within the alotted time and allow other people to plan their day. List tailoring is genuine strategy, running out the clock is not.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

It's not really fair...

Players like this are the reason to take template weapons.... Chapter Master's Orbital Strike targetted dead center on turn 2 can ruin his slow play plan. Thunderfire Cannon, Heavy flamer, Missle launcher..... these tend to remove large swathes of slow moving blobs.
Taught that lesson to a Blob Ork Player.... OS took out his shokk attack gun.

Well, you can now say you played against the laziest player ever.

Basically, your opponent did not win a game of W40k, he won a game of time-keeping or time-wasting - call it what you will. He did not beat you at W40k. He beat you at the rules of the tournament.

There are several things that I infer/conclude from that.

1) He can take no pride in winning a game of W40k, because he hasn't. He can take pride in outsmarting the tournament rules if he wishes, but that seems a little odd to me.
2) He probably hasn't come to conclusion 1 for himself.
3) He need not be ashamed of breaking any rules, either of the tournament or of W40k, because he hasn't.
4) He probably has come to conclusion 3 all by himself.
5) The tournament organisers need to come up with a fair compromise between avoiding penalising players with high-model-count armies and preventing this sort of thing. A simple time limit on each turn and on setup may not be fair on armies that are genuinely trying to win a game of W40k using weight of numbers, not just trying to waste time.

Fifty wrote:Basically, your opponent did not win a game of W40k, he won a game of time-keeping or time-wasting - call it what you will. He did not beat you at W40k. He beat you at the rules of the tournament.

There are several things that I infer/conclude from that.

1) He can take no pride in winning a game of W40k, because he hasn't. He can take pride in outsmarting the tournament rules if he wishes, but that seems a little odd to me.
2) He probably hasn't come to conclusion 1 for himself.
3) He need not be ashamed of breaking any rules, either of the tournament or of W40k, because he hasn't.
4) He probably has come to conclusion 3 all by himself.
5) The tournament organisers need to come up with a fair compromise between avoiding penalising players with high-model-count armies and preventing this sort of thing. A simple time limit on each turn and on setup may not be fair on armies that are genuinely trying to win a game of W40k using weight of numbers, not just trying to waste time.

Exactly. This is why I enjoy tournaments with a sportsmanship score. I strive to play with sportsmanlike conduct so that both players have a fun game. Contrary to popular belief, you CAN be completely thrashed by someone and still have fun while it's happening. Sportsmanship goes a long way in fair contest.

Here is a better analogy - In the game of football, there is a set game length and penalties for delay of game. Each team is required to snap the ball and make a play within a certain period of time. If, for instance, there was some loophole where a team could march down the field, score a touchdown, then huddle for the last 45 minutes of the game and deny the other team a chance to even touch the ball, would you consider taking advantage of that sportsmanlike conduct? I wouldn't.

Just because you CAN exploit tournament rules for a significant advantage doesn't make doing so alright. A sportsmanship score likely would have seen this player much further down in the rankings since I heard him having shouting matches with both of the other players he played, and those arguments appeared to be centered around accusations of unfair play against this player in some manner or another.

There really isnt a good analogy, as in most games deliberate delaying of time is considered a form of misconduct and could warrent ejection from the game (as well as incurring other penalties).

Yeah youre right. I think it's just a requirement that a TO take this into account and compensate for it really. For a smoothly run tournament, this should not be legal.

I think that if you limit the time a player can have per turn it needs to be applied to all and be based upon the starting number of models for each player individually.

So if you want to limit a guy with a large count army to say fifteen minute turns or whatever then your turn should be limited as well to a considerably shorter time if you have less models: Thus your 35-40 model army should only get ten minutes, etc., etc.

IF he has to play rushed then so should you. A tourney format should not be biased against armies that are by all accounts legal.

Ultimately the event organizers are to blame not the player, provided he is operating within the event's rules. Want a tighter game? Run a tighter event.

Or maybe don't try to play a hobby game of toy soldiers as if it is a sport...

But just because he has thirty models in his squad, it doesn't mean it is harder to decide what to do with that squad than a 5 man Terminator squad. The hardest models to move are the first one or two, after which every model in a unit should be able to move a lot quicker. For that reason, as I said above, it is hard to come up with a fair timing system. If you just get X seconds per model, then having 60 grots who sit the entire game on your home objective would suddenly become worth a lot more than the points you actually pay for them, as they'd give you time to plan what to with more valuable models. You'd have to say X second time limit per figure, and if you don't move that figure you lose that time, and then you are into the realms of the ridiculous.

If you wanted to make a "fair" system, which I doubt would ever be possible, you'd need a base amount of time that everyone gets, plus a bit extra for having lots of units (regardless of unit size) plus a bit extra for number of models, regardless of how few units they are in. Even then, you'd still need to think about whether you base that on what is in your army, or what is on the board at the time, and/or think about weighting it towards longer turns at the start before casualties, unless you use lots of reserves, so maybe you can carry time over to your next turn... See where I am coming from?

An interesting format for a tournament might that each player announces the end of their turn by flipping a timer, similar to what players do in chess. The timers keep track of how much time each has had. At the end of the game, players compare time used and army sizes. Work out a ratio of models for each player and a ratio of time used by each player. Establish limits of what seems fair by doing this in a non-comp way in a few friendly games, and include it as part of the scoring method in comps. Still seems like a lot of hassle though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or maybe make the time you have available based on the square root of your model count, so there is an ever-diminishing return the more models you keep trying to pack in. In a hypothetical example, someone with 36 models might get sqrt(36) x2 = 12 minutes, whilst his opponent with 72 models gets sqrt(72) x 2 = approx 17 minutes.

Actually, you'd need to find the ratio of the square root of the model counts, then use that ratio to divide up the round length too. So in this case, you'd have apprx 6:8.5. At other times, it might be more skewed. If you had, say, four times as many models as your opponent, you'd get twice as much time to play your turn in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Which of course, could still be interesting - two small armies of elites and you'd be able to take your time. If you both had hordes, neither of you would get very long, and you might have to prioritise moving your main units and leaving the rest where they are, just to make sure you have time to do some shooting...

Moving this one over to Tournament Discussions, since it's only really relevant there...

It's really hard to come up with a functional and fair per turn time limit for 40k, as the model counts per army vary so much, and transports or static strategies radically change the number of models you need to move on any given turn. Over the past eleven years I have never seen a 40k event with a per turn limit. The chess clock idea has seen some discussion in the past.

Usually over the course of the game some turns go very quickly and others run longer. Often the first couple of turns are quick, and later ones (particularly involving assaults) get slower. Sometimes it's the last couple of turns that go quickly, when early casualties cut down the number of units.

Overall you generally need to be aware of the clock and play with speed, particularly if you have a large army, but also if your opponent has one. If you don't play in tournaments regularly, it's worth practicing a couple of timed games to figure out just how fast you need to play to get your games done.

Some people just play slow. I have a friend here who plays Orks and it is to his benefit to go into later turns as that is where he does the most damage. He is notoriously slow though and it costs him games.

You should tell people to speed up. That's what I do. Just be polite but firm. Like, hey bro, we're half way through the time limit and only on turn two, we need to speed things up.

More often than not, that does the trick. Slow play is not usually on purpose.

If someone really is being a douchelord and purposefully slow playing, then yeah, call him out and report him. That is against the rules.

No, there IS no such thing as unfair advantage against the clock.

Tournament games aren't regular games of 40k. They are games that starkly resemble 40k, with extra rules heaped on (such as a time limit), and that you play them exclusively to win. If your opponent is able to take advantage of the different rule set and you're not, then you got out-meta'd. Deal with it.

You don't hear people complain about people taking datasheets in apocalypse. That's because it's not particularly useful to whine about how extra rules work. Really, in this case, you'd either have to deal with it, or not play at tournaments.

Not really. It is usually explicitly states that you can not slow-play. And tournaments only starkly resemble 40K What tournaments are you playing in? They are exactly 40K and with very few if any added rules. Comparing tournaments to apocalypse is not that great of a comparison. They aren't even remotely similar.

Advising someone to not take action against deliberate slow play but to instead just deal with it is really bad advice. He should say something and take action. It sounds like you have a really skewed idea of what tournaments are actually like. They are generally very fun and congenial.

If the player is only getting in three turns on average then either he should be banned until he proves he can play faster or he is intentionally cheating and should be banned. It's the responsibility of the TO to tell this player to play faster - the TO should be right there verbally telling the player to move shoot & assault faster. I've seen this type of play in action and it was players who obviously knew better. These types of games are never fun for opponents. The classic basket case is when two of these types of players are matched up. They will invariably get into heated arguments throughout the game and often only one to two turns are played. It's really funny to see slow players get a dose of their medicine.

Mannahnin wrote:Slow playing is against the rules at well-run tournaments.

There is no justification for a player being unable to play only three turns, no matter how many models he has. If he fails to play out the game, he is a cheater or the tournament has failed to allow enough time for the rounds.

+1

At best, he hasn't brought an army that he's able to utilize under most tournament conditions (timed). At worst (and this is most likely the case) he is a cheating cheater who cheats.

In tournaments I ran, stalling like that would usually result in giving a win to your opponent.

Been in this particular hobby for over 23 years. What I have seen in recent years is the will to win at all costs, overcoming sportsmanship and the spirit of the game in many of the tourneys I have played. It is come to the point that I will not go to Games Day anymore as well many other major tournament sights in the US and Abroad. My professional days in this hobby are over.

I now play in casual games and in casual tournaments when I can find them. They are usually small but overall are so much enjoyable. It is not about winning anymore. It is about having fun. I also train and help others get into this hobby by showing them the tricks of the trade.

You can tell the difference when a person, who has been playing long enough to be considered a pro in this game, who is playing with a horde army and is abusing the time allotment allowed per game so he can pull out a win than one, is who is a pro and knows the entire aspect of the game. This includes sportsmanship.

I've caught several players, playing the time game against me. Start off fast and as the game progressed they start to slow down in their movements or just move slowly all together from the start.

The Spirit of the Game to me is one of the most important aspects to me when you play this game. Take that aspect away and I might as well play Texas Hold them at Vegas.

As I like to say to those people who must win at all costs attitude, when I was playing in those big tournaments.


I am not here to win the tournament. I am here to make you lose the tournament.


Suddenly the game play got better.

I don't particularly care for your question or the possible answers because they seem to indicate that the player's *strategy* is to slow play and from what I can gather from the rest of your description you don't have any actual knowledge that this is the player's *strategy* rather than him being a genuinely slow player...in other words, not a 'strategy' but a simply a flaw that he's not as quick a thinker/player as you and is playing a poor army to be dealing with that issue.

IF (and that's a big if) this is truly his 'strategy' then he is a dirty cheater, as far as I'm concerned. However, if you had lunch with him and he seemed like a nice guy then my guess is that this is *not* his strategy but rather just an issue with his ability to think and move quickly under the duress of a tournament game schedule.


I also think that in general, tournaments continue to raise the points values of their games without adding the appropriate amount of time to compensate so you frequently have situations where if a player isn't too quick OR is playing a horde army then he frequently doesn't finish his tournament games. And if he happens to be slow AND playing a horde army, then he has no hope to finish any of his games.

IMHO, tournament rounds should be set to allow players that play at a normal speed (not fast) with a horde army can finish their games, even if they get paired off against a slow player playing a small army or another normal speed player playing a horde army. Obviously you can never set aside enough time to cover the super-slow players playing horde armies, but I do feel like right now tournaments have their rounds set way too short for the size of games they're playing.

That fella's got a face like a yak!

Honestly, I don't think the question is loaded or anything. Let's look at it this way, if you're playing in a timed tournament (which most are, to keep sanity levels up) you need to build and bring an army that you can play effectively in that time allotment. If you can't, then it's not a very good list to bring because people will think you're stupidor cheating...or a cheating fool...stupid cheater? I dunno, math is hard.

problem is at 2k you can put 250 models on the board.

in a dawn of war game and you go first you could have to do 1000 moves.
so your looking at up to 1 hour of play time just to do the move and run twice.

are you cheating, it is just the list you bring. 2k list's need 2.5 hours.
if you are playing versus a horde you need to play faster, offer him to roll his runs during movement if he wants.

Okay, I think I need to put this more succinctly. If you bring that many models to a timed tournament and you have no way of managing it effectively, you suck and should lose.

Honestly though, there's like maybe 2 armies that might be able to drop that many models on the table in 2k and they'd both suck.

I run a green tide and used to run a swarm nid force. They do take a while to move, and most players are ok with you taking a while (if they can template barrage my backfield on turn 1 without me whining, they usually don't whine about my movement phase) .

Then you get the guy who starts tapping his watch after 3 seconds and muttering under his breath at the minute mark, and swears at you if you aren't moving models like an addict popping pills. I've moved 180 boyz in under 4 minutes, and still had my opponent whine over it, because it takes those four minutes off the time he could be pummelling my boyz with S10 AP2 pieplates (when did they become standard issue on everything human again? It used to be S 10 weapon was rare and wonderful ) .

I go as fast as i can moving my models, but i'm not going to rush my thinking for some impatient jerk with a clipboard and stopwatch who is keeping timecounts on my moves.

If this guy is actually slow playing in order to win then he would be classified as a LANGUAGE. I voted number 2 down. Personally I'm dissapointed if I don't get the chance to play the game out in full... if I wanted to play half a game then I'd play Uno with my two-year-old niece. Also, if I wanted to win all the time then I'd play Uno with my two-year-old niece. Just sayin'.

Up to a point I'd be fine with it. I have a total of 31 models and only start on the board with 10 of them, so he can take the time I won't be using. 30 minutes for deployment on the other hand is insane and I'd ask the T.O. about it.

The original question was hypothetical.

Has anyone seen this kind of behaviour in tournaments? How common is it?

average tournament round is 2 hours yes?

If you cant finish your turn in 10 minutes then you are unfairly disadvantaging your opponent and shouldn't be playing that army.

Any army should be able to complete a turn in 10 minutes regardless of the size. Its just a case of practicing with that army. if your opponent is taking more than half of the time for their turns and they are experienced in playing that army then i would say they are cheating.

ChocolateGork wrote:

If you cant finish your turn in 10 minutes then you are unfairly disadvantaging your opponent and shouldn't be playing that army.

Popycock!

It takes more time to move more models then it does to move less models. It takes more time to resolve shooting that involves more units, more models and weapons that have more shots then it does to resolve shooting that involves less of each. It takes more time to resolve close combats involving more models than less models.

In short, some armies take longer to play than others. There is an imbalance in the time it takes to play certain armies from a purely physical standpoint.

However, the game is designed with a points value, and a tournament should allow the appropriate amount of time for every player to play at the SAME SPEED and still finish their games within the allotted time.

Players wishing to play a certain army build should not be penalized into having to play FASTER. That's incorrect and unfair. If the game allows for large armies to be taken at a certain point limit, then the tournament needs to allow for those armies to be taken and played at the SAME SPEED.

Players who take small armies should have EXTRA TIME to spare at the end of the round. Players with large armies should not be penalized by being forced to play extremely fast.

but a player with a big army needs to be prepared to be able to play that quickly. Other wise if he plays an opponent with a another large army or an opponent who uses half his time to consider his moves then he is screwed.

And its not fair for the people with small army's to have to rush their turns because they are playing an opponent incapable of finishing his go in his half of the allotted time.

And i agree with you that if the tournament is a large enough point level and allows army's a huge size to be taken then the tournament should have enough time per round for a player with 200+ models to play his turn without rushing.

As long as he moved his army in a timely fashion, the fact that he has 3 times as many models as you means he should take longer.

If I started the game with just say 7 vehicles on the board my movement phase should only take about 2 minutes - yet some people string this out for up to 10 minutes and they don't get called timewasters! If the opponent has 120 models to move then as long as he gets on with it the fact that he takes nearly half an hour for his turn should not be a problem.

You could always offer to help him with movement, or get an independent in to assist, or just help out by killing as many as possible with large templates on turn one so he has less to move on turn 2!

ChocolateGork wrote:but a player with a big army needs to be prepared to be able to play that quickly. Other wise if he plays an opponent with a another large army or an opponent who uses half his time to consider his moves then he is screwed.

And its not fair for the people with small army's to have to rush their turns because they are playing an opponent incapable of finishing his go in his half of the allotted time.

And i agree with you that if the tournament is a large enough point level and allows army's a huge size to be taken then the tournament should have enough time per round for a player with 200+ models to play his turn without rushing.

if you have 50 models versus a guy with 200 models and you use half the time. you are slow playing and you really should practice with your army to play faster.

ChocolateGork wrote:but a player with a big army needs to be prepared to be able to play that quickly. Other wise if he plays an opponent with a another large army or an opponent who uses half his time to consider his moves then he is screwed.

Are we now going to introduce a clock like they do in timed Chess matches? Consider and make your move then hit the button to start your opponants turn? Ok.. then how long is allotted per player turn?

In a 2 hour game, to get through turn 4, each "Game Turn" should be 30 minutes..... giving each player 15 minutes to move, shoot, resolve, remove casualties, assault, resolve, remove casualities, follow-up move, finish turn. This time also would have to include compulsory actions for BOTH players; piling in, fleeing, other items that take place "at the end of the (players) turn.

Yeah, some builds or players can resolve a turn in 10-15 minutes, but the game isn't designed to be played like that.
I doubt anyone here has "speed played" 1000 points in less than an hour. could it happen... maybe.. but those armies would probably have to be under 20 models each on a small table.

Tournament play is a voluntary method of playing that goes against the intent and nature of the game: that is the game allows for some armies to have rather large model counts, and the original assumption was that two players are only limited by turn count, but not a timer when they play a game.

40K isn't designed around speed play, nor should it be. The game is suppose dto be a leisure excuse to push some toy soldiers around. IF you enjoy sportshammer, so be it, to each his own, but don't act like everythign else must bend to your desire to play this way, and don't blame a player for doing what the guidelines and rules set forth by an event organizer allow.

That is the big problem i have with tourney play: a definate systematic bias towards certain list builds and styles of play, and you should never have bias in what is supposed to be a competitive format (be it toy soldiers or otherwise). Tourney games like any othe rgame should be played until they are finished, not enslaved to a clock and the foot tapping of opponents.

If you choose to play the game in a manner it was not intended for then you get what you ask for.

Warhammer ISN'T a sport (though some people try really hard to make it one) nor is it the "S3rious Buizn3ss111" that people in threads like this seem to imply.

If large armies bother you and are ruining your tournament experience then perhaps you shouldn't be playing tournments as perhaps you don't have the mental fortitude for it...

Unless you can actually prove he's deliberately slow playing, rather then just playing slow with a large army, then the answer is no its not cheating.

To be honest, there are just some people that play slow. Not becuase their trying for advantage, but thats who they are. I use to play with someone a decade or two ago that, whether RPG or 40k, played rather slowly, even if he had a small model count army. That was just him. Give him a horde and he could take quite a while.

How do you know he's slow playing? I have a friend who plays green horde. I typically fix another drink while waiting for him to move the rest of his army. He can't help it unless he wants to intentionally gimp his movement by doing something not officially supported by the rules such as movement trays or something.

That being said, I think I would spot it coming were it to happen and deal with it accordingly. Maybe IG spoils me, but I'd rather an Ork or some other horde player not make it to me and I have three turns of blasting the hell out of him. One outflanking unit is not scary, especially when I see what's outflanking. It's not hard to set up an objective outside of 15" of the table edges.

I've met quite a number of players who use large armies and play them efficiently and quickly, being able to complete their turns and full games. Redbeard wrote an article on how to do it with an Ork horde, IIRC. Horde armies have an advantage in the metagame, as you tend to see fewer of them in general, and even fewer in tournaments. But they are still there and good players work to play their turns quickly so they can get in full games. Considerate and aware opponents also reciprocate and play our turns quickly to help conserve clock time. My two friends who play horde guard do use movement trays, and don't quibble over how many models are hit by enemy blasts and template- they err in the side of the opponent's favor, partially to conserve clock time.

The slow-player I saw at a recent tournament wasn't even using a horde army. Although he was using a shooty army, which benefitted from games ending early. Hence the organizer repeatedly authorizing his games to be played out.

I don't disagree, Carm, it'd be almost impossible to tell one way or the other but when it appeared in a tournament I was running, I didn't make the distinction. One player continually ran down the clock in 3 of his 4 games...they didn't make it past turn 3, even. Whether this was intentional or not he was still heavily penalized in his battle scores for not getting games finished.

Slowhammer is a problem in tournament play. Always has been. Most well-run tournaments recognize and seriously discourage this type of activity.

I am neither condoning nor have ever done this...the counter to it, is to slowhammer him back, take multiple bathroom/snack breaks, call judges over for long esoteric discussions on absolutely nothing, and then take your draw and move on. Although this too is not satisfying. I would rather get massacred by a well-played game by my opponent, than to have an unsatisfactory slowhammer game.

In reality though, I have seen judges at well-run tournaments adjust results where it was pretty obvious that this tactic was being used, either by a horde player or against them.

I even had someone at one event (run by GW no less) several years back tell me they were going to drag out their turn and let the game time run out, because they knew if it went any longer they would lose. I complained to a judge who just shrugged his shoulders. (This and some other past experiences at GW-run events tend to cloud my opinion of events run directly by GW.) Extremely frustrating...

That is a different beast entirely than the "large horde army at a tournament" scenario. I have had Ork players tell me that they can't get wins because they can't get past turn three in a lot of games, and people are slowhammering them back, even though they are not intentionally playing slow. So it works both ways.

In either instance, I think it violates the spirit of the game.

Unless you are a very good and fast player, tournaments and hordes do not mix well...

Yeah, it can work in reverse too. One of my horde-IG-playing friends was cheated out of a ticket to the Ardboyz Finals in 2009 because his SM opponent in R3 of the Semifinals slowhammered their game to a Draw. Which was particularly frustrating as the SM player couldn't win at that point, and a Draw just eliminated them both.

If I can chime in here....

When I first started playing Orks, I had issues with slow-playing. No one accused me of it during a game, but I did get comments from time to time that our game was dragging on, and obviously when a tournament game ends at the 2 hour mark and we only got through three turns....you can make some connections.

That was quite some time ago, and I've learned much about 40k since then - some things turn into muscle memory. At my last tournament this past weekend, it was 2k points, 2 hours per round, and each of my rounds was over at least 30 minutes early.

Then again, I wasn't playing Orks, I was playing Dark Eldar. My point: I think Orks take a while. Even today, if I break out my Orks, its going to look like this:

Turn1: 5-10 minutes
Turn2: 5-10 minutes
Turn3: 30m-1hr
Turn4: 20m
Turn5: 5-10m

For my army, the entire game happens the turn I disembark and charge. That many models, that many disembarkations, that many running moves, assaults, pile-ins, dice rolls, combat resolutions, and consolidations....it takes a while. A lot of my slowness was in lack of knowledge of an opponent and their codex, and trying to make decisions about what to do in different situations - those bottlenecks disappear over time with knowledge and understanding of the various codexes and and how you interact with them; I've got a friend who is recent to 40k, plays Orks - and while he's speedy enough against me, is slow against others because he doesn't know their codex.

What I *do* object to is people who are proud of how slow they are. The tournament I was at this past weekend had a Tyranid player who had announced at the beginning in some casual chat that he was proud of how slow he played, and how few turns he gets through - I'm glad I didn't have to face him.

And finally, I agree that reminders to your opponents generally work, since most people aren't doing it intentionally, they're just being careful and methodical. Especially for deployment. "Hey, can I help you with anything? I don't want to lose this big of a chunk of our gaming time in your deployment."

And for each individual person: ALWAYS BRING COOKIE SHEETS OR MOVING TRAYS!!! Something to move your models around on between games. There is *NO* excuse for putting your models away and having to get them back out between rounds - bring something to move them on. That's inexcusably rude and as time-wasting as anything else.

Dashofpepper wrote:And for each individual person: ALWAYS BRING COOKIE SHEETS OR MOVING TRAYS!!! Something to move your models around on between games. There is *NO* excuse for putting your models away and having to get them back out between rounds - bring something to move them on. That's inexcusably rude and as time-wasting as anything else.

I think yours is a great post, Dash. Just wanted to point out that in the above quote, making this mistake can also be due to inexperience- but hopefully a person wouldn't do it a second time after realizing what a time-waster it is at a tourney!

Having a display/movement board on which to move your army between rounds is an absolute must. Even something as lazy as a pizza box or baking sheet. There's just no reason to be losing game time to unpack models from an army case. This is one of my evergreen tips for new tournament players.

Mannahnin wrote:Slow playing is against the rules at well-run tournaments.

Generally this, Mannahnin has it.

I voted don't care though because this is a grey area. I would be cautious about this attitude, the danger being not necessarily all high model count armies are run by players trying to run out the clock and win half games.

A LOT of hi model counts armies are pretty low powered, like ALL foot slogging orks, and IG Mobs w/o many tanks etc, I wold caution their opponents not to enter matches like that assuming they are going to stall, it just happens sometimes...

It depends on the player. I've met slow players who couldn't help it and fast players who played slow. Even fast players sometimes slow down to ponder their next move. But regardless, none of this is fair to the opponent, which is why I like PLAYER turn limits. Each player gets a turn limit. I played against orks once and if he was too slow it ended up hurting his assault phase, which was his most important. And if your turn ends quickly, well no problem with giving the opponent the left over time...being a good sport and all.

But really, time limits and 40k horde armies don't match...but there's little way around it...except maybe saying that if the match isn't played to completion, then the results don't count.

The game is not balanced for time. Horde armies are paid for by points, the player should not be penalized because he has paid for 30 bodies in a unit instead of 12 bodies and a transport.

If you arbitrarily change the game by imposing time limits, you punish 'rock' and then 'scissor' builds are promoted because one of their major counters are not welcome at the event due to unfair rules.

I think some people just hate playing against horde armies and accuse them of slow play. What they don't realize is horde armies take massive casualties, usually during *YOUR* shooting phase, and being a reactionary build, faster armies always assault them which means it happens during *YOUR* assault phase. Apart from maybe 1-2 turns of heavy moving, the rest of the time is spent resolving opponents wounds.

Having a Horde does not mean slow play. And you do not have a right to balanced or fast turns as the game is not balanced for it. Bloodbowl is balanced for timed play. 40k is not.

Personally, I like Ork hordes because they look cool and I like my ork models. I don't want to be told to go play a MECH Marine army because it is faster for my opponent.

nkelsch wrote:The game is not balanced for time. Horde armies are paid for by points, the player should not be penalized because he has paid for 30 bodies in a unit instead of 12 bodies and a transport.

If you arbitrarily change the game by imposing time limits, you punish 'rock' and then 'scissor' builds are promoted because one of their major counters are not welcome at the event due to unfair rules.

I think some people just hate playing against horde armies and accuse them of slow play. What they don't realize is horde armies take massive casualties, usually during *YOUR* shooting phase, and being a reactionary build, faster armies always assault them which means it happens during *YOUR* assault phase. Apart from maybe 1-2 turns of heavy moving, the rest of the time is spent resolving opponents wounds.

Having a Horde does not mean slow play. And you do not have a right to balanced or fast turns as the game is not balanced for it. Bloodbowl is balanced for timed play. 40k is not.

Personally, I like Ork hordes because they look cool and I like my ork models. I don't want to be told to go play a MECH Marine army because it is faster for my opponent.

This x 1000000000000.

It's ridiculous that anyone would complain about the "speed of a horde player". Players being "deliberately slow", could be using any army, be it marines or horde. If they are going to do it, they will do it, regardless of the skin of their army.

Aldarionn wrote:I would like some opinions on a hypothetical situation.

Say a player goes to a tournament. That player brings a list containing a very large number of models and no vehicles, and a fast, tou-flanking unit. His game plan appears to be to go 2nd, and use his large model count to run out the clock, making it impossible for his opponents to push him off of objectives. His out-flanking unit is there to contest an opponents objectives on his last turn, which should be turn 3 at the latest.

As an opponent, am I justified in reporting him to the TO for taking unfair advantage of the clock in a tournament that does not have a rigid turn structure for each player? I know what he is doing is technically legal.....you can move each one of your models and then run with each one of your models even if the moves and runs have no effect on the outcome of the game, but it seems to me that it could be considered cheating.

Just wondering.

Without seeing the dude play it is hard for me to say. For instance having a large model count and then moving them in a reasonable manner (ie decisively and in what I would consider with reasonable quickness) is not a problem at all. Now having a large model count and then taking a lot of time to move them I think COULD be considered cheating. But I would have to see it for myself to get a feeling one way or the other.

For instance you said that he took up to 30 minutes to move. My question would be did he have at least twice as many models as you?

Anyway off topic a little bit I have always felt that tournaments should have a limit on the amount of time you can spend on a turn. So for instance if you think you should be able to play 5 rounds (10 individual turns) just divide the game time by 10 and that is how long every person has for their turns.

Not really cheating just unsportsmen.

brettz123 wrote:

Anyway off topic a little bit I have always felt that tournaments should have a limit on the amount of time you can spend on a turn. So for instance if you think you should be able to play 5 rounds (10 individual turns) just divide the game time by 10 and that is how long every person has for their turns.

I totally agree with that.. Its irritating that virtually no tournaments do this. However, as a TO myself, the main reason for this is you got like 1-2 judges because its volunteer. Its hard to enforce such a policy without more judges and have the tournament still be fun

RxGhost wrote:I don't disagree, Carm, it'd be almost impossible to tell one way or the other but when it appeared in a tournament I was running, I didn't make the distinction. One player continually ran down the clock in 3 of his 4 games...they didn't make it past turn 3, even. Whether this was intentional or not he was still heavily penalized in his battle scores for not getting games finished.

yes, but the question wasnt should he be penalized, thats up to each player. The question was "is this guy cheating" which is harder to prove that he's intentionally doing it.

Penalizing his score, or forcing him into another turn are fine solutions, but thats not what was asked.

I played one such player in the most recent tourney I went to. 208 Orks and we only finished 4 turns. If I have a choice I will never play that style army at a tourney again and I will probably say something about it to the organizer. While technically legal, it is extremely poor sportsmanship IMO.

Cheers, Gary

silashand wrote:I played one such player in the most recent tourney I went to. 208 Orks and we only finished 4 turns. If I have a choice I will never play that style army at a tourney again and I will probably say something about it to the organizer. While technically legal, it is extremely poor sportsmanship IMO.

Cheers, Gary

I don't like to play a specific type of army which counters my army so I will complain that it should be banned so my army can do better.

If you tried to have my armylist thrown out of a tourney before we started playing, that makes you an extremely poor sport.

I don't see why if I take a unit of 30 orks, I am a poor sport, but if I take the equivalent of trukk boyz which can be moved in 2 seconds opposed to 30 seconds, I am a good sport? It is part of the game and it is unfair that people who don't take the mech equivalent unit for all their slots are punished with extra rules.

Playing a horde that takes longer than a MECH army is not 'slow play'. It may be slower than you like but you don't have the right to equal play or for other armies to play as fast as your army as the game is not designed around that. Adding that rule to the rulebook damages the metagame and all the units in the game would need to be rebalanced in points if we had a blood-bowl turntimer as some units would be taken with the expectation of running out of time.

The timed turns things is done for Warmachine/Hordes, and seems to work pretty well from what I've heard. Still learning the rules so I'm not ready for a timed event, just yet!

I like the sound of ones where you can store up time best. So for instance, where Dash posted he only needs 10-15 minutes for turn 1 and 2, he can try to go fast and store time for turn 3 when he needs more time.

This does tend to lead to people taking a more limited number of lists, however, since there just isn't time for a Really high body count with most time limits.

nkelsch wrote:I don't like to play a specific type of army which counters my army so I will complain that it should be banned so my army can do better.

If you tried to have my armylist thrown out of a tourney before we started playing, that makes you an extremely poor sport.

That is complete and utter bull. I go to a tournament to play *games*. If I cannot complete said game because my opponent has too many models to move in an appropriate amount of time then that's contrary to the basic tenet of the event. I have no problem playing against any type of army. However, when I am told I have two hours to complete the game I do my utmost to make sure I can accommodate that and I expect my opponents to do the same. If that means making hard choices about what type of army they have to bring then so be it. In short, either they learn to play their army fast enough so the game can be completed in time or they bring a different army, period. Anything else is being inconsiderate of your opponent, is EXTREMELY poor sportsmanship and borders on cheating because it violates the rule that games must be completed in a certain timeframe.

I don't see why if I take a unit of 30 orks, I am a poor sport, but if I take the equivalent of trukk boyz which can be moved in 2 seconds opposed to 30 seconds, I am a good sport? It is part of the game and it is unfair that people who don't take the mech equivalent unit for all their slots are punished with extra rules.

If you cannot move your horde of Orks in a time necessary to finish all turns of the game as allowed by the event, and you still choose to bring said army then yes, you are a poor sport. If you can complete it in time then I have no issue with it. However, of all the horde armies I've seen at events over the past few years, few of the players were able to do so and IMO that shows a casual disregard for their opponents. You know in advance how long you have to play the games. If you cannot abide by that restriction then you have no business bringing such an army to that event.

Playing a horde that takes longer than a MECH army is not 'slow play'. It may be slower than you like but you don't have the right to equal play or for other armies to play as fast as your army as the game is not designed around that.

I have a right to finish the game in the time allotted by the event. If you don't agree with the timeframes provided then take it up with the organizers beforehand. Do not wait to the event and then subject your opponent to an incomplete game because you didn't want to comply with requirements that were stated up front.

Cheers, Gary

RiTides wrote:The timed turns things is done for Warmachine/Hordes, and seems to work pretty well from what I've heard. Still learning the rules so I'm not ready for a timed event, just yet!

It works really well. You get one two minute extension per game, other wise you get between 6-12 minutes to move and fight with everything you have. Once dice downs are called you resolve your current activation and it's the next guys turn. It promotes fast and vicious play where you don't get to kick back. I've known people to run 60+ models and have no issues with 12 minute turns.

Of course our rule set is different and the most common tournament scenario seems to be Killbox, which means that top of turn 2 everything is required to be all up in everything else's grill.

I think its very unsportsmanlike and Generally would only be employed by a WAAC player. Because slowing the game down until time is called is in fact trying to not play the game at all. Just so you have some points for the win on a tourny slip. That being said I've played great tournament games against more beer and pretzel gamers where we only got in 3 turns and had fun. I've also played a guy in second round game 2 of ard boys whom realized he couldn't win and slow played to a draw. (over all i still got first and he got second... take that cheater!) The reason I say all that is because knowing your opponent is slow playing and proving to a TO that they built and play that strategy into a tournament is 2 completely different beasts. I would try to keep polls more impartial in the answers though as is seems your just trying to get people to agree with you and not really wondering if it is or not. It seems a little partial.
LBB

(edited for spellzasouraus rex!)

I've read comments today saying it's unsporting to bring a list that won't readily allow for complete games. I've also read comments saying it would be unsporting to try to block certain list types from entering.

Both of course, have some validity. Part of the problem comes from TOs not giving enough time: Even when I play mid sized armies quickly, I've been at places where I was running against the clock the entire time. Two hours for for even 1500pts is getting a bit tight.

There are ways for horde players to speed up their turns, of course. Rollling runs and tacking that unto the movement phase saves a ton of time. worrying more about the overall "footprint" of a unit than placing each model just so also helps. Conversely, if you're facing a horde army and using blasts, having a quick chat can smooth some stuff over. If you have max long fangs, and I have a green tide, than I NEED to spread my horde out. Leaving four models too close, out of 180, can dramatically increase my casualties. Perhaps assuring your opponent that you won't find the one clump of models to target wil enable him to move quicker.

Slow players don't need a high model count. I've been slow played by mech sisters, and 3rd edition alaitoc, among many others. A player that wants to run the clock down will do that.

If you play a horde player, and you can't come up with a way to speed the game up through negotiation, than you have a problem. But if the guy just wants to play a horde, and is willing to batch move and add runs and seems to make decisions and makes his plays with speed, than time running out is the fault of the TO, not either player.

Polonius wrote:There are ways for horde players to speed up their turns, of course. Rollling runs and tacking that unto the movement phase saves a ton of time.

It's also cheating.

A little more explanation: for a lot of Fleet units, knowing how far you'll be able to Run in the shooting phase, while performing your Move actions, will directly impact where you choose to move in the first place. Even for non-Fleet units, the extra bit of Run movement allows units to move past each other in ways that doing the normal "Move everything, then Run" progression would never permit, or to be much more certain about screening/avoiding mutli-charges/spreading out for blasts than is normally the case.

Much of the time, I don't mind when people do this on turn 1, or coming on from Reserve (but out of assault range of anything), but it's not something that should be encouraged, or that I'm sanguine about in later turns.

Some of the best ways I've got for speeding horde play:
1) Deployment trays. You lose a LOT of time grabbing 3-4 models at a time from your display board, placing them, and turning back again. If you can grab the whole unit at once, you can deploy much faster.
2) Dice tray/bowl. It's much faster to scoop up the handfuls of dice from a contained space, and you'll have fewer rerolls from cocked dice, etc.
3) AFTER checking with your opponent, only precision move the front row of your units, and move the others up while maintaining the formation. If necessary, use a 2" measure to "fix" your rear ranks during your opponent's actions.

Well, it's cheating if done without opponent permission. I've generally told opponents that I've got no problem on turn 1, but any time a roll can impact the game, they have to wait.

My larger point is that there are ways to work with horde players. Part of what takes so long is that the rules really do depend on where every model is (for blasts) or that every model has to be moved twice (for runs). If a player wants to take advantage of those rules against a horde player, than they have to expect a horde player to keep them in mind. OTOH, if both players agree to allow the game to play out despite cutting a few corners, it can dramatically speed the game up.

Janthkin wrote:

Polonius wrote:There are ways for horde players to speed up their turns, of course. Rollling runs and tacking that unto the movement phase saves a ton of time.

It's also cheating.

A little more explanation: for a lot of Fleet units, knowing how far you'll be able to Run in the shooting phase, while performing your Move actions, will directly impact where you choose to move in the first place. Even for non-Fleet units, the extra bit of Run movement allows units to move past each other in ways that doing the normal "Move everything, then Run" progression would never permit, or to be much more certain about screening/avoiding mutli-charges/spreading out for blasts than is normally the case.

Much of the time, I don't mind when people do this on turn 1, or coming on from Reserve (but out of assault range of anything), but it's not something that should be encouraged, or that I'm sanguine about in later turns.

Some of the best ways I've got for speeding horde play:
1) Deployment trays. You lose a LOT of time grabbing 3-4 models at a time from your display board, placing them, and turning back again. If you can grab the whole unit at once, you can deploy much faster.
2) Dice tray/bowl. It's much faster to scoop up the handfuls of dice from a contained space, and you'll have fewer rerolls from cocked dice, etc.
3) AFTER checking with your opponent, only precision move the front row of your units, and move the others up while maintaining the formation. If necessary, use a 2" measure to "fix" your rear ranks during your opponent's actions.

If rolling run moves in the movement phase is cheating, then your number 3 is cheating as well.

whitedragon wrote:If rolling run moves in the movement phase is cheating, then your number 3 is cheating as well.

Granted, hence the all-caps qualifier in front of it. But it doesn't have the same in-game impact of move+run: the unit isn't going to be any closer to the enemy (as the closest models are moved carefully), and (assuming you started with a 2" separation between models) a little post-turn adjustment will put everything where it's supposed to be.

I have honestly yet to see an army that a 2000 or even 2500 army that can't finish a game in 2-2.5 hours.

I've played against stuff like hoard tyranids where my opponent is closing in on 200 models, and have finished a game in less than 2 hours.

So tbh, anyone who doesn't complete 5+ turns is usually slow playing, even if its unintentional.

skkipper wrote:

ChocolateGork wrote:but a player with a big army needs to be prepared to be able to play that quickly. Other wise if he plays an opponent with a another large army or an opponent who uses half his time to consider his moves then he is screwed.

And its not fair for the people with small army's to have to rush their turns because they are playing an opponent incapable of finishing his go in his half of the allotted time.

And i agree with you that if the tournament is a large enough point level and allows army's a huge size to be taken then the tournament should have enough time per round for a player with 200+ models to play his turn without rushing.

if you have 50 models versus a guy with 200 models and you use half the time. you are slow playing and you really should practice with your army to play faster.

JMHO, but i think it boils down to common courtesy on the part of the horde player. If your going to play 200+ Orks or foot-guard you should at least learn to rapidly move your units and plan your moves to accomodate a time limit BEFORE you decide to enter into a Tourny.

The really sucky part is when players 1 and 2 get riffed by someone slow-playing (whether intentional or not) and end up with scores for ties/losses. If the TO tosses the slowplayer it still leaves those two guys in a no-win slot. It would be unfair to the current top-slots to go back and credit them with an auto-win, but just as unfair that they lose the chance to win the event because of the misfortune of being matched with someone playing loose-and-fast with the rules.

It would be cool to try an event with each side getting a specific time period to complete all actions up to assaults (the assault phase by its very nature being a 2 player interaction). If time runs out, your done. Make your assaults and move onto the next players turn.

Janthkin wrote:
Some of the best ways I've got for speeding horde play:
1) Deployment trays. You lose a LOT of time grabbing 3-4 models at a time from your display board, placing them, and turning back again. If you can grab the whole unit at once, you can deploy much faster.
2) Dice tray/bowl. It's much faster to scoop up the handfuls of dice from a contained space, and you'll have fewer rerolls from cocked dice, etc.
3) AFTER checking with your opponent, only precision move the front row of your units, and move the others up while maintaining the formation. If necessary, use a 2" measure to "fix" your rear ranks during your opponent's actions.

Another good one, which I'm always surprised to see people NOT do: Keep your dice sorted into batches of pre-counted numbers of dice.

For example, I play with 10 green dice, 6 red dice, and 4 black dice on the table. This facilities quick and easy counting for batch rolls. I always have ten or twenty dice handy. If I need a number between 11-19, I can quickly grab the greens and the right number of additional dice. If I need to mix in plasma shots or melta shots or something, the alternate colored dice are right there. You can do the same thing with batches of 15-20 if you need to. Sort the dice into counted batches again during your opponent's movement phase.

Mannahnin wrote:Another good one, which I'm always surprised to see people NOT do: Keep your dice sorted into batches of pre-counted numbers of dice.

For example, I play with 10 green dice, 6 red dice, and 4 black dice on the table. This facilities quick and easy counting for batch rolls. I always have ten or twenty dice handy. If I need a number between 11-19, I can quickly grab the greens and the right number of additional dice. If I need to mix in plasma shots or melta shots or something, the alternate colored dice are right there. You can do the same thing with batches of 15-20 if you need to. Sort the dice into counted batches again during your opponent's movement phase.

Good point, and one so fundamental to my play style I had forgotten I did it. I've got a brick of 36 dice, in 3 colors, that I've been using for 2+ years.

Janthkin wrote:

whitedragon wrote:If rolling run moves in the movement phase is cheating, then your number 3 is cheating as well.

Granted, hence the all-caps qualifier in front of it. But it doesn't have the same in-game impact of move+run: the unit isn't going to be any closer to the enemy (as the closest models are moved carefully), and (assuming you started with a 2" separation between models) a little post-turn adjustment will put everything where it's supposed to be.

I totally understand where you're coming from and all, and I know the point we are trying to all make here, but the same movement shenanigans that can POTENTIALLY take place when rolling runs at the same time as movement, can also take place when moving just the "front rank" and then pushing everybody else up to match. I just think it's a little dishonest to be ok with one vice the other, as they are both tools that we use to speed the game up, but have the potential to be abused.

For example, special weapon troopers in the back, that magically appear right behind the front guys, and such.

However, I still think feel that such movement "tools/considerations" we give and allow are convenient for speeding up the game for a horde.

So, i replied that its technically legal, though unsportsmanlike, and i wouldnt play him again....

and then i saw everyone raggin on Orks, so i thought i would throw down my two cents on this. First and formost i see "Slowhammer" i belive it was called, many times though it wasnt with horde armies, or even orks. It was the Tau, ninja tau as they are called. a tournament player we had would use the tau list and purposly take his time so that he could force the game to end on turn 5 just in time to get his units he held in reserve to come in and shoot onto objectives. He would always try to go second, although this is legal, and a good tournament strat, its a very poor one toward sportsman and no one really likes it. over the last few tournaments he switched to a Tyranid list because people got sick of it and he got DQ'd from some Tournies. (another thing he would do to waste time is move a devilfish, move it back, move a devilfish, move it back, rince repeat 6-8 times)

as i TO sometimes, i personally take a strong stance against playing slow with the intent to do so, and you will know it when it happens as inexpeirenced players and those players who play slow cause they are slow will almost always exept help on it. those trying to waste alot of time dont really want help.


Just saying i really dislike it, and yes it happens in almost every tournament i have been to, the players wasting time never do that well though, because alot of good players can think of good ways to make sure they dont get rolled over by a lack of time playing

(i did get awarded a massacre vs an opponent for slowrollin on me....again a tau player though not the same above. it was the end of the tournament and i had massacred my other two opponents and this player was the last and he really shouldnt have been playing against me as he had not won a single game in the two days of events....but the TO put him on me since he hadnt played me yet....we got to turn 2 by the 2 hour mark....and even then all his vehicles were gone and he was locked in one assualt, the TO awarded it to me, as the player admited he was trying to waste my time and ruin my score so i wouldnt take a good spot at the end)

In terms of timing, maybe you don't have to place a limit on it, but you could still keep track of it for a reference. Only use it in case of a complaint.

At the end of a 2 hour game the chess clock could show that I spent 40 minutes on my turns and the opponent spent 1 hr 20 minutes on his turn, which could be used to settle an argument. Did he take so much time playing Grey Knights in Land Raiders? Or did I have a 40 model army while he had a 120 model army? Just keeping track would allow a TO to resolve these arguments with some hard evidence, without getting into the ridiculous time limit systems that would never work.

For people who play horde armies, you need to realize that you should not get special consideration just because you decided to bring 200 models. Your opponent should not have less chance of winning just because the army you selected hogs the time allotted. If there are going to be time limits, then each player should be alloted 50 percent of the available time to be fair. It is too much to ask a player to do well in a tournie when he only gets 3 rounds of play in because he has the bad luck to draw a horde as his opponent. I have no problem with hordes, as long as they do not get an unfair advantage or give the opponent a disadvantage just by being a horde.

There are numerous ways to play faster...if you cannot manage it then don't bring a horde...don't make your opponent suffer for your inadequacy or your poor sense of sportsmanship.

And if you have 50 models and you take half the time as your opponent, no--you are not slowplaying it. You just have a luxury of playing slower since your army doesn't demand that you have to play at a breakneck pace in order to be fair. I love hordes in a friendly game, but I wouldn't take it to a tournie until I practiced more and got faster. And if I took ANY army and hogged the time, whether intentionally or unintentionally, I would fully expect my opponent and the TO to address my time hogging.

Nightrave wrote:....we got to turn 2 by the 2 hour mark....and even then all his vehicles were gone and he was locked in one assualt, the TO awarded it to me, as the player admited he was trying to waste my time and ruin my score so i wouldnt take a good spot at the end

This type of attitude I can never understand why would someone even have this idea. We are playing a game to have fun, a tournament is meant to amplify the fun. If you had a bad go for your first few games, why not tell your opponent so and agree to concede but still play a friendly game. Get a TO to approve so no one claims shenanigans and then have a grand time wiping each other out in a stressless match.

Instead I have heard over and over again how we get upset and storm out or cause a big row for nothing. end of rant

Playing slowly on purpose ins't illegal but definatly takes the fun out of the game, I imagine a little gnome looking fellow with a big nose standing across from me when I see someone posting a comment on how they or somebody uses this as a "tactic". Not necessarily a bad guy but definatly a little git.

Shenra wrote:For people who play horde armies, you need to realize that you should not get special consideration just because you decided to bring 200 models. Your opponent should not have less chance of winning just because the army you selected hogs the time allotted. If there are going to be time limits, then each player should be alloted 50 percent of the available time to be fair. It is too much to ask a player to do well in a tournie when he only gets 3 rounds of play in because he has the bad luck to draw a horde as his opponent. I have no problem with hordes, as long as they do not get an unfair advantage or give the opponent a disadvantage just by being a horde.

There are numerous ways to play faster...if you cannot manage it then don't bring a horde...don't make your opponent suffer for your inadequacy or your poor sense of sportsmanship.

Just to build off of this, a horde player should be able to perform all his action in exactly half the time. If you take a horde army but cannot finish your turns in a timely manner, you might be fine when up against mechanized GK or SM, but you will have problems against other horde players. If both horde players bank on having more than half the time for their turns, their game will hardly be started when time is called. If one horde player can play his army in half the time but the other cannot, the one that practiced and learned his army will get cheated out of a full game.

Janthkin wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Another good one, which I'm always surprised to see people NOT do: Keep your dice sorted into batches of pre-counted numbers of dice.

For example, I play with 10 green dice, 6 red dice, and 4 black dice on the table. This facilities quick and easy counting for batch rolls. I always have ten or twenty dice handy. If I need a number between 11-19, I can quickly grab the greens and the right number of additional dice. If I need to mix in plasma shots or melta shots or something, the alternate colored dice are right there. You can do the same thing with batches of 15-20 if you need to. Sort the dice into counted batches again during your opponent's movement phase.

Good point, and one so fundamental to my play style I had forgotten I did it. I've got a brick of 36 dice, in 3 colors, that I've been using for 2+ years.

Quite eseential with orks.) I was running two squads of 15 looters last night, and two big mobs of 30 shoota boyz. Had dice sorted in 15's and 30's. You know you have to throw about 600 shots at a Deathwing army before it goes away?

Shenra wrote:
And if you have 50 models and you take half the time as your opponent, no--you are not slowplaying it. You just have a luxury of playing slower since your army doesn't demand that you have to play at a breakneck pace in order to be fair.

I disagree because 40k is interactive in every phase. When you shoot me, it is BOTH our time. When we are in assault, it is BOTH our time.

How do you measure that? If you assault me and it takes 35 minutes to resolve because all our units happened to clash around the same time, should you be penalized and have your assault cut short at the 15 minute turn level? My models are fighting too. Bloodbowl is not interactive. On my turn, you have ZERO interaction with my rolls and actions, so it makes sense to be timed.

If you begin putting arbitrary times or having players who take small model coutn armies purposfully burning time due to equal play, there is a problem. If you are slow-rolling armor saves to shooting on my time because you hope to cut my assault phase short because of time limits then I have issues.

It is 'ok' for some turns to take a long time, sometimes a lot happens in one turn. It is part of the game. Blaming army builds and setting unreasonable 'euqal play' time rules for a system where there is now ay to failry give equal time doesn't prevent slow-play, it actually increases it and justifies it.

I think people hate having to take heavy bolters and flamers because most opponents are marines, so if they can't handle a horde on the battlefield they will cry until they get them disqualified from tourneys so thier meltas and missile launchers can be optimized against MECH armies and 3+ saves. I feel these people would consider any boring movement phase by any horde army that takes longer than shoving 6 pillboxes around is 'too long' and unfair.

TOs need to make games longer and players need to make a distinction between something that takes a longer time and someone playing slowhammer.

nkelsch wrote:Blaming army builds and setting unreasonable 'equal play' time rules for a system where there is no way to fairly give equal time doesn't prevent slow-play, it actually increases it and justifies it.

No it does not. It ensures that each player has an equitable amount of time in which to complete his/her turn regardless the army they bring. As someone else said, if two horde players show up and expect to both get extra time for their turns that is simply not possible. What you are saying is that special consideration should be given for those players who want to bring those large armies. Given the overall time constraints of an event it is the *PLAYERS* who have to accommodate the time limit, not the organizers.

TOs need to make games longer and players need to make a distinction between something that takes a longer time and someone playing slowhammer.

I take it you have never actually run an event before? The reason there are time limits is because in order to play 3-4 games in one day you have no choice but to implement time limits in order to accomplish the games and all the other associated tasks such as scoring between rounds, lunch/breaks, awards at the end of the event, setup/tear down, etc. Asking TOs to make the games longer so you can bring a specific army that you know won't fit within the time constraints is naive at best. At worst it's inconsiderate of those putting on the event. They are doing you a favor by providing the event in the first place. The least you could do is show them the consideration of abiding by the limits they place which are there to help everyone have a good time.

Cheers, Gary

When playing my orks, if I move or run without other action, (assault/shooting) ill ask my opponent if I could just move the front line. If he agrees, I do, continue with the rest of my turn and during his movement phase, I'll move the boyz in the back. Saves a ton of time.

I don't like other people touching my painted models unless its someone I know. Greasy grubby fingers are not welcome!

I feel if you are going to play a large army you better be able to move it and move it quickly. If you figure most tourneys run 2 to 2.5hrs per game if you push the game out to 7 turns a players turn should take approx. 12 to 13 minutes.

Taking into consideration the first 2 turns usually take approx. 20 minutes and the final two turns take about 8 to 10 minutes if that. Mechers are an exception to this depending on deployment.

As a consideration to your opponent you need to mindful of your own usage of time during the game.

silashand wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Blaming army builds and setting unreasonable 'equal play' time rules for a system where there is no way to fairly give equal time doesn't prevent slow-play, it actually increases it and justifies it.

No it does not. It ensures that each player has an equitable amount of time in which to complete his/her turn regardless the army they bring. As someone else said, if two horde players show up and expect to both get extra time for their turns that is simply not possible. What you are saying is that special consideration should be given for those players who want to bring those large armies. Given the overall time constraints of an event it is the *PLAYERS* who have to accommodate the time limit, not the organizers.

1. 40k is not balanced around a timed game or equal turn lengths. If that was added to the rules, all the codexes would have to be rebalanced. As with any form of arbitrary comp rules, it changes the meta game.
2. No one has reasonably attempted to answer how you allocate 'time' to a specific player for phases that are interactive... If I am a mech army assaulting your horde which means there will be an assault with 120 models in it, since it is *MY* assault phase, is that time counted against me? Is ti counted against my opponent? Or do we just blame the smelly horde player for any and everything? If it takes me 20 minutes for him to resolve casualties during my turn that is my time? 40k shares too much of the phases with both players so it is impossible to claim the game can function with equal times.

TOs need to make games longer and players need to make a distinction between something that takes a longer time and someone playing slowhammer.

I take it you have never actually run an event before? The reason there are time limits is because in order to play 3-4 games in one day you have no choice but to implement time limits in order to accomplish the games and all the other associated tasks such as scoring between rounds, lunch/breaks, awards at the end of the event, setup/tear down, etc. Asking TOs to make the games longer so you can bring a specific army that you know won't fit within the time constraints is naive at best. At worst it's inconsiderate of those putting on the event. They are doing you a favor by providing the event in the first place. The least you could do is show them the consideration of abiding by the limits they place which are there to help everyone have a good time.

Cheers, Gary

The dirty truth is people *WANT* 4 games so a 16 person tourney can have a single winner. If you have a 1-day tourney with 3 games, you can have two '3-0' players. The issue is many places barley get cranking on game 1 by 10am, and lots of places are wrapping up by 7. That is barley 9 hours to play 4 games and lunch and breaks and bookkeeping. This means 2 hour games usually with 10 minutes eaten off both ends. We all put up with it because we want to have fun, but realistically if someone doesn't finish a game it is because the format is TOO SHORT. That is a problem with the event and not with the legal armylists. Don't try to hold 1850-2500 point games under 2 hours. It simply isn't fair.

*The rules are not balanced around time limits.
*Too many actions are shared by both players which makes it impossible to give balanced time to both players as neither player owns the time.
*No one has the right to 'equal time' and such an attitude can lead to people purposefully slow-playing with a fast army to deny opponents actions or superfast playing with a fast army to deny opponents actions.
*Horde armies are not always 'slow play'. They may take longer than mech armies but it does not mean it is unfair. There is no right or expectation for every army to be able to move as fast as pushing 6 rhinos around the board. Targeting or banning horde armies as 'too slow' because the TO doesn't give enough time is unreasonable. Some people will always sigh even if a horde army is played fast because anything longer than pushing 6 rhinos around the board is too long for them.

I have never had a problem finishing *ANY* game with any list if we were given at least 2.5 solid hours to finish. I would rather play three 2.5 hour games with breaks than four 2 hour games crammed back to back.

nkelsch wrote:The dirty truth is people *WANT* 4 games so a 16 person tourney can have a single winner. If you have a 1-day tourney with 3 games, you can have two '3-0' players. The issue is many places barley get cranking on game 1 by 10am, and lots of places are wrapping up by 7. That is barley 9 hours to play 4 games and lunch and breaks and bookkeeping. This means 2 hour games usually with 10 minutes eaten off both ends. We all put up with it because we want to have fun, but realistically if someone doesn't finish a game it is because the format is TOO SHORT. That is a problem with the event and not with the legal armylists. Don't try to hold 1850-2500 point games under 2 hours. It simply isn't fair.

This is just a crock argument. Isn't fair to whom? Do you know ahead of time how long the rounds will be? Yes. Do you know ahead of time if you are expected to finish the games in time? Yes. Saying this isn't fair just means you don't *want* to follow the rules. You can pout and whine all you like about how it's not fair, but everyone is under the same constraints and you are free not to attend. Besides, you keep stating it's not fair to you. What about your opponents whom you deny the chance to play a full game? Is it fair to them that they have to suffer because you feel it's your right to show up whenever and wherever you like and play whatever you like regardless the stated restrictions? Sorry, I know where my sympathy falls in that discussion. If you want a different type of event then run it yourself. But don't go around trying to get people to feel sorry for you because you can't be bothered to try and play games based on the pre-arranged conditions of the event.

You keep saying the rules aren't balanced around time limits. Where exactly do you get this idea from? Certainly not the rulebook. Games are balanced based on point values and relative value in the game. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the rules about saying you have to have a certain amount of time in order to complete your turn. Instead you are told you have to move (if you wish) all your models in the movement phase. You then have to shoot (if you wish) all your models in the shooting phase. And then in the assault phase you resolve combat. NOWHERE does it say you cannot impose a time limit on those phases for the purpose of trying to get multiple games completed in a given timeframe. Sorry, this sounds a lot like "I want to play what I want and if people don't want me to then it's not fair."

*No one has the right to 'equal time' and such an attitude can lead to people purposefully slow-playing with a fast army to deny opponents actions or superfast playing with a fast army to deny opponents actions.

Bull. If the event says games must be completed in 2 hours then it's MY responsibility to meet that requirement if I decide to attend. That is what you seem unable to grasp, that the TOs spell out the rule and if you don't like it or cannot abide by it then you are free not to attend. It's like holding an event that allows only Eldar and Dark Eldar armies that will be pitted against each other. Just because you want to bring your Space Marines does not give you the right to demand you be allowed to do so.

There is no right or expectation for every army to be able to move as fast as pushing 6 rhinos around the board. Targeting or banning horde armies as 'too slow' because the TO doesn't give enough time is unreasonable. Some people will always sigh even if a horde army is played fast because anything longer than pushing 6 rhinos around the board is too long for them.

No one here said anything about banning horde armies. What was said is *IF* the player can complete a game against any other opponent at the event in the allotted time then that's fine. If you personally cannot play your army fast enough (regardless what army that is) then either modify your list or bring a different army where you can meet those requirements. However you choose to meet that requirement is up to you as long as you do meet it. Bringing an army where you know you cannot do so to the event is discourteous to and inconsiderate of your opponents. Denying that fact does not make it untrue. It just comes across as you wanting special consideration. As I have noted before, that is basically saying to your opponents that your personal desire to play the army you wish in the manner you wish trumps their need to actually finish their games even though the event results are based upon games that are actually completed. No offense, but putting your own pet wishes ahead of the needs of potentially every other player you face in the event is poor sportsmanship at its worst.

I have never had a problem finishing *ANY* game with any list if we were given at least 2.5 solid hours to finish. I would rather play three 2.5 hour games with breaks than four 2 hour games crammed back to back.

Good for you. Then run an event like that, but don't tell other TOs they have to bow to your desires when it is you playing in THEIR event.

Cheers, Gary

I am not here to win the tournament. I am here to make you lose the tournament.


Suddenly the game play got better.

Yeah, it can work in reverse too. One of my horde-IG-playing friends was cheated out of a ticket to the Ardboyz Finals in 2009 because his SM opponent in R3 of the Semifinals slowhammered their game to a Draw. Which was particularly frustrating as the SM player couldn't win at that point, and a Draw just eliminated them both.

and this is why compeditive 40k is turning into magic:the gathering! Next off we'll be drafting armies!

Dashofpepper wrote:
And for each individual person: ALWAYS BRING COOKIE SHEETS OR MOVING TRAYS!!! Something to move your models around on between games. There is *NO* excuse for putting your models away and having to get them back out between rounds - bring something to move them on. That's inexcusably rude and as time-wasting as anything else.

the hardcorez don't do that as you might see what's in their army and have a minute advantage in deploying or if they have infiltrators... which is a bit sad really.

About time limits and shared areas (assaults, saves etc)
What about the dice 'massagers'?

... ok so you've 10 saves to make.... >cue 6 minutes of rolling dice<

The dirty truth is people *WANT* 4 games so a 16 person tourney can have a single winner. If you have a 1-day tourney with 3 games, you can have two '3-0' players. The issue is many places barley get cranking on game 1 by 10am, and lots of places are wrapping up by 7. That is barley 9 hours to play 4 games and lunch and breaks and bookkeeping. This means 2 hour games usually with 10 minutes eaten off both ends. We all put up with it because we want to have fun, but realistically if someone doesn't finish a game it is because the format is TOO SHORT. That is a problem with the event and not with the legal armylists. Don't try to hold 1850-2500 point games under 2 hours. It simply isn't fair.

every consider that WHFB and 40k ARE NOT tournament games andd that 1850-2500 pts is waaaay too much. 1500 is the most you can do for a decent tournament but *gasp* then you cannot make THE UBAR NET BILDZ so no one will go rather than make their own army list (and making a decent 1000 or 1500 pt list is part of the challenge) and try to win but while having fun.

Seriously for all the hardcore competitive guys move to warmachine or magic, that way everyone will be happier.

silashand wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Blaming army builds and setting unreasonable 'equal play' time rules for a system where there is no way to fairly give equal time doesn't prevent slow-play, it actually increases it and justifies it.

No it does not. It ensures that each player has an equitable amount of time in which to complete his/her turn regardless the army they bring. As someone else said, if two horde players show up and expect to both get extra time for their turns that is simply not possible. What you are saying is that special consideration should be given for those players who want to bring those large armies. Given the overall time constraints of an event it is the *PLAYERS* who have to accommodate the time limit, not the organizers.

TOs need to make games longer and players need to make a distinction between something that takes a longer time and someone playing slowhammer.

I take it you have never actually run an event before? The reason there are time limits is because in order to play 3-4 games in one day you have no choice but to implement time limits in order to accomplish the games and all the other associated tasks such as scoring between rounds, lunch/breaks, awards at the end of the event, setup/tear down, etc. Asking TOs to make the games longer so you can bring a specific army that you know won't fit within the time constraints is naive at best. At worst it's inconsiderate of those putting on the event. They are doing you a favor by providing the event in the first place. The least you could do is show them the consideration of abiding by the limits they place which are there to help everyone have a good time.

Cheers, Gary

I really dislike what is said in this post, but I find it to be emblematic of what so many players believe to be true.

IMHO, since 40K is designed to allow players to take a variety of army types within the rules then an average player playing with a horde army at an average speed should be able to comfortably finish his games within the allotted time. If he can't finish his games playing at this speed, then the rounds are being set too short compared to the points values allowed for the tournament. Players playing with small armies should be finishing *early*, players with horde armies should not be forced to play faster then anyone else.

Having said that, I think we're getting a bit off topic from the original post, as it was about an opponent who was (presumably) intentionally slow-playing, rather than general commentary about tournament rounds.

So I invite anyone who would like to continue *this* discussion, about general length of tournament rounds vs. horde armies in my thread here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/341216.page#2352589

yakface wrote:

silashand wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Blaming army builds and setting unreasonable 'equal play' time rules for a system where there is no way to fairly give equal time doesn't prevent slow-play, it actually increases it and justifies it.

No it does not. It ensures that each player has an equitable amount of time in which to complete his/her turn regardless the army they bring. As someone else said, if two horde players show up and expect to both get extra time for their turns that is simply not possible. What you are saying is that special consideration should be given for those players who want to bring those large armies. Given the overall time constraints of an event it is the *PLAYERS* who have to accommodate the time limit, not the organizers.

TOs need to make games longer and players need to make a distinction between something that takes a longer time and someone playing slowhammer.

I take it you have never actually run an event before? The reason there are time limits is because in order to play 3-4 games in one day you have no choice but to implement time limits in order to accomplish the games and all the other associated tasks such as scoring between rounds, lunch/breaks, awards at the end of the event, setup/tear down, etc. Asking TOs to make the games longer so you can bring a specific army that you know won't fit within the time constraints is naive at best. At worst it's inconsiderate of those putting on the event. They are doing you a favor by providing the event in the first place. The least you could do is show them the consideration of abiding by the limits they place which are there to help everyone have a good time.

Cheers, Gary

I really dislike what is said in this post, but I find it to be emblematic of what so many players believe to be true.

IMHO, since 40K is designed to allow players to take a variety of army types within the rules then an average player playing with a horde army at an average speed should be able to comfortably finish his games within the allotted time. If he can't finish his games playing at this speed, then the rounds are being set too short compared to the points values allowed for the tournament. Players playing with small armies should be finishing *early*, players with horde armies should not be forced to play faster then anyone else.

Having said that, I think we're getting a bit off topic from the original post, as it was about an opponent who was (presumably) intentionally slow-playing, rather than general commentary about tournament rounds.

So I invite anyone who would like to continue *this* discussion, about general length of tournament rounds vs. horde armies in my thread here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/341216.page#2352589

This topic evolved. It went from commenting about rather slow playing was cheating to rather or not it mattered if it was intentional cheating or not. Intent doesn't matter. Tournaments have to end in a reasonable amount of time. If some insane point value, like 2500, is set, then those involved should consider that their horde army just won't be able to finish turns. If it's a typical point value like 1500 or 1850, then a horde player should be skilled enough to be able to compete using only about 50 percent of the time allotted. If he or she is not able, then that person should run something else...a Kan wall or Nidzilla or a tank line instead of the greentide, nid swarm or shooty squad. And there are many reasonable ideas on here, and more unmentioned, as to how a horde player can speed up his turns. If a horde player says they deserve more time, then that's bull. If a horde player says the tournie makes it harder for a horde player...that may be true. Find a friendly game or a smaller point value tournie, or adapt your list.

I have 6 armies. You betcha I make my selection based on the type of tournie being played. Apocalypse? 2 hour time limit? 1850 vs 1000? Each difference means I play/select different. That's part of sportsmanship as much as strategy. If you only play one army type, realize every tournie is not the best fit for you, and don't make others suffer because of your inability to adapt. Get quicker, or adjust your list, or don't attend. I would be quite an a-hole if I brought a tervigon spawning gaunt horde to a 2500 point game...there's no way I could spawn, move, shoot, and assault, roll saves etc in a 2-2 1/2 hour game. Maybe Nidzilla, but not a swarm. Geesh.

Some people on this list seem to have the idea that special considerations should be given to horde players. Why? If enough horde players approach the TO, then maybe the TO will make a special 1000 point tournie or a 2 day one at a higher point value. Or get together with your buds and everyone put 10 bucks in the pot, winner take all, and make your own tournie. If your army or your play speed doesn't fit, dont try to force it or make others suffer for it. Look up sportsmanship in the dictionary, set back and think about it, and you'll see why.

Wow, this thread has certainly gone on much longer than I expected. I guess my questions hit a nerve.

I would like to say that after I emailed the company running the tournament I received several emails back from the owner and the TO that ran the event. They informed me that they had received multiple complaints about this particular player regarding his slow play, constant rules arguments, confusing deployment, poor unit distinction (No easy way to tell units apart from one another in the giant blob of models), and his general poor sportsmanship. They also admitted that this was their failure in that their judge had too many duties during the tournament and was not able to reasonably keep an eye on all of the games. They also failed to implement sportsmanship scores which they agreed was a mistake.

Some discussion has taken place and ways to improve future events are being looked at. This company is somewhat new to running events and mistakes will happen. I think once they have run a few more events and really get into a groove they will be among the best. Their willingness to speak to their players, accept criticism and learn from mistakes shows that they are good people, and I have generally had fun at their previous events.

Thanks very much for all of the opinions, I do appreciate all of the responses in this thread. Some have been eye opening to say the least. There have been several ideas about altering tournament format to make things more fair for people running armies of all sizes, and I have a couple of ideas myself. I'm going to create another thread to discuss proposed tournament time limits and the fairness of timed turns, timed rounds, etc... and anyone that would like to chime in is welcome to do so over there. Anyone that wishes to continue discussing slow play can do so in this thread.

Here is a link to the other discussion thread

Since this discussion has popped up again, I'd like to include an article detailing the exact rules for slow playing in Sprue Posse tournaments.

http://www.chaoswins.com/2011/01/rules-slow-playing-and-stalling.html

If you don't want to take the jump, basically what it says is that having a large model count army and therefore taking more time is not an infraction. But pausing for long periods of reflection between decisions and actions is.

Tournaments should NOT penalize players for having a diverse and in my opinion very cool horde army. Doing so would only eliminate the existence of horde armies from tournaments. If you like space marines versus space marines then that is a great idea, if you like your metagame to be dynamic and varied, then slow playing must only be defined as too much time taken to make decisions.

The other thing these rules talk about is a noticeable change in player rhythm, usually after an impactful game event. For instance if a player is playing at a nice quick pace but then once he gets a 3 kill point lead on you, he turns into molassess, that is stalling, and is not legal. This MIGHT be what the guy is doing. Call over a judge and ask him to watch for clock management.

But having a 120 model army in and of itself isn't a villainous thing to do, in fact its a refreshing change of pace. Your poll is indeed biased, and there was not an appropriate answer for me to click.

Yeah I have no problem with people playing a horde army if they can manage it well and not slow the game to a drag.

Now that the discussion has gone on long enough I'll give the exact situation that I ran into. It was a doubles tournament, and the guy was playing alongside his son (maybe 12-13) who hadn't played the game much before. He brought all infantry Imperial Guard (2x Platoons with 5x Lascannon teams, 2x Autocannon teams, a bunch of Infantry Squads with Missile Launchers and one unit of outflanking Rough Riders) and his son brought foot Necrons (2x 10 Warriors in Reserve, 20x Immortals and the Deceiver).

For all intents and purposes the father called all the shots. Our deployment took 5-6 minutes at most and their deployment took about a half hour, cutting probably 20 minutes into the start of the game. Most of the game he would just tell his son where to move models, and that would be that, however once things got tight and the warriors arrived from reserve, he would ask his son "where do you want them to go?", then when he didn't like the reply he'd say "Are you sure? You realize this is objective based, wouldn't they be better over here?". He basically coached his son a lot more as the game progressed, which slowed things down quite a bit.

At the end of turn 3 the game was tied and time was short. The Deceiver was bearing down on one of our objectives, so we shot most everything at him and the one scoring unit sitting near another objective contested only by a Vindicator. He survived with a single wound, and we assaulted him. The player then moved him out of combat, through our assaulting unit onto the nearby objective after rolling a 2 for the movement. He stated that he did not have to move by the shortest path, and that if the distance rolled was not enough to move him out of combat in the direction he wanted, he could increase the distance until the model could be placed 1" from an enemy model. He was not surrounded, and had a clear path to move out of combat, and he instead moved over the unit toward the objective and increased the distance until he was sitting on top of the objective 1" away from the unit that assaulted him (I still think this is a bit shady but we did not have enough time to question it or call a judge). Our turn was very quick, probably 8-9 minutes to move, shoot and assault with everything, and because it ended with no assault rolls they got another turn and blasted the contesting Vindicator, which left them up 2-1 when time was called. Had we gone another turn it would not have been difficult to wipe out the 3 remaining Necron Warriors holding their objective and put a single wound on the deceiver. We had taken very light casualties.

A full game would have left us plenty of time to secure and hold 3 objectives. Most of his force was centered around one, while the rest came in from reserves near another that was lightly defended. We made a push on the more lightly defended side and used buildings for cover and it was clear that they could not hold it another turn.

Coaching a new player and high model count are not excuses for slow play in my opinion, and from the arguments I was hearing later on in the tournament, this was not something that happened only during our game.

Some one was doing this in a local tourny, we reported it after the first time and the GW manager asked/told politely if he could hurry up the movement and shooting so it is a fair game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aldarionn wrote:Yeah I have no problem with people playing a horde army if they can manage it well and not slow the game to a drag.

Now that the discussion has gone on long enough I'll give the exact situation that I ran into. It was a doubles tournament, and the guy was playing alongside his son (maybe 12-13) who hadn't played the game much before. He brought all infantry Imperial Guard (2x Platoons with 5x Lascannon teams, 2x Autocannon teams, a bunch of Infantry Squads with Missile Launchers and one unit of outflanking Rough Riders) and his son brought foot Necrons (2x 10 Warriors in Reserve, 20x Immortals and the Deceiver).

For all intents and purposes the father called all the shots. Our deployment took 5-6 minutes at most and their deployment took about a half hour, cutting probably 20 minutes into the start of the game. Most of the game he would just tell his son where to move models, and that would be that, however once things got tight and the warriors arrived from reserve, he would ask his son "where do you want them to go?", then when he didn't like the reply he'd say "Are you sure? You realize this is objective based, wouldn't they be better over here?". He basically coached his son a lot more as the game progressed, which slowed things down quite a bit.

At the end of turn 3 the game was tied and time was short. The Deceiver was bearing down on one of our objectives, so we shot most everything at him and the one scoring unit sitting near another objective contested only by a Vindicator. He survived with a single wound, and we assaulted him. The player then moved him out of combat, through our assaulting unit onto the nearby objective after rolling a 2 for the movement. He stated that he did not have to move by the shortest path, and that if the distance rolled was not enough to move him out of combat in the direction he wanted, he could increase the distance until the model could be placed 1" from an enemy model. He was not surrounded, and had a clear path to move out of combat, and he instead moved over the unit toward the objective and increased the distance until he was sitting on top of the objective 1" away from the unit that assaulted him (I still think this is a bit shady but we did not have enough time to question it or call a judge). Our turn was very quick, probably 8-9 minutes to move, shoot and assault with everything, and because it ended with no assault rolls they got another turn and blasted the contesting Vindicator, which left them up 2-1 when time was called. Had we gone another turn it would not have been difficult to wipe out the 3 remaining Necron Warriors holding their objective and put a single wound on the deceiver. We had taken very light casualties.

A full game would have left us plenty of time to secure and hold 3 objectives. Most of his force was centered around one, while the rest came in from reserves near another that was lightly defended. We made a push on the more lightly defended side and used buildings for cover and it was clear that they could not hold it another turn.

Coaching a new player and high model count are not excuses for slow play in my opinion, and from the arguments I was hearing later on in the tournament, this was not something that happened only during our game.

Well I don't think he was exploiting the time slots, it was more of he was teaching his son how to play at the wrong time. Teaching during a friendly unimportant game is fine but when people are learning during a tourney is just...wrong...

Not sure if this has already been addressed but . . .

I find that not that many players actually slow play but that a good number of players don't think about their moves during their opponent's turn. I do realize that a close combat phase can effect your decision in the following turn but having a general idea of what you want to accomplish while your opponent is moving, shooting, assaulting, etc . . . is every bit as important as the number count, being a fast/slow player or whatever. I know that if I have to walk away from a table temporarily or pay attention to something else around me, my game turn can nearly double.

I also find that a lot of people who complain about their opponent's game speed don't take into account how their own army can slow down my turn. For example, an army that has feel no pain and an invulnerable save on almost every soldier can have as much to do with slowing me down during my shooting or assault phase, as it does with my actual play speed (and I didn't even mention multi-wound, complex units either with their wound allocations and how that too can make my turn take longer - even though I don't really play a horde army). Neither of these issues seem to be addressed by the regular complaints I see on the forums. Instead, it's always chocked up to slow playing or requests for people to play faster (and there is only so fast someone can play, after that you simply hit a wall).


Having said that, I think Yak has really hit the nail on the head . . . time per game is instrumental in handling time management issues. Heck, 2000 points per player for 2 hours . . . I can see a lot of those games ending without 5 full rounds of game play. IMHO, I feel that 1850 still deserves 2.5 hours simply because some armies are unfairly penalized with larger point allowances and shorter rounds, because of the very nature of their army. Yes, if you play unreasonably slow maybe you shouldn't play in large point tournaments with low time limits. But I can't tell you how many people scream and yell and cry for mommy simply because a player deploys a Green Tide. The sad reality around the 40k community is that if you are playing a foot slogging horde, you are automatically assumed to be stalling or a slow player regardless of your actual play speed. I'm not saying that is what has happened in your particular case but it's something we all need to watch our assumptions about. Myself included.

I didn't answer the poll... it doesn't seem objective. So all Ork and Guard players or non-mech players are basically cheaters?

A fair number of guard players stall, at least in my experience. Ork players are not really helped by slow playing to the degree a guard army is. The IG army is trying to make sure that they never suffer HtH losses and stalling the game out to three turns is a great way to accomplish that. I have seen guard players pull this on a number of occasions and it really irritates me, especially when they have no display board and they take the time to pack up their army after every game so that every deployment phase takes upwards of an hour. I have a hard time believing that this is not deliberate, having played horde armies myself.

Of course, team tournaments are an entirely different animal and that guy was honestly an assclown for dragging his kid into the game without the kid knowing the rules. My wife plays in team events with me, but we always make damn sure she is up to snuff on the rules and tactics to the degree that we rarely even need to communicate during a game.

There is a difference between intentionally playing slow and having a large model count.

If you feel your opponent is dragging his feet, contact the TO. Whether he's playing the Green Tide or a low-count Grey Knights. There is no difference.