I just played a local tournament recently and lost the last round on the top table due to my opponent using 3/4 of the 2 hour time limit on his turns. This meant that when the tournament director called time, my opponent had just finished his second turn. I would like to hear some advice from the dakka community on how you all go about preventing this from happening. I think introducing a chess clock where each opponent gets an hour a piece could fix this problem but would force everyone to spend a bit more money.

Call the TO over and complain.

Every tournament I have played at has a rule that if a player is found to be slow playing they get kicked out. if your tournament doesn't have this it need it.

Was he playing Orks, Nids, or blob IG? If so, he could have just been playing normally and wasn't skilled at playing a time intensive army in a timed setting. Give the benifit of the doubt.

From the information provided, I don't know if the guy was stalling or just new to the game or using a horde army.

Either way, a gentle reminder at first that this is a timed event.

Then a more straight forward "Dude, we only have two hours and you're still on turn 1. Let's go."

Then, call the TO.

If you waited until the end of the two hours and he was only on turn 2, you waited too long to complain.

He was playing Dark Eldar so certainly not horde. I told the Tournament Director half way through the game that I was getting screwed by the slow play of my opponent but it didn't seem like he knew how to respond to that.

We have a tournament here that wants to put in timed turns because of a certain group of guys that would only get 2 or 3 turns in and win their games. Its a cheater tactic that they annoy the gak out of you until you just dont care about winning. Even worse is when they will do things then argue with you and then claim you are stalling. The best thing to do is call over a judge or TO and have them speed the game along, the group I mentioned pretty much has a judge on hand at the table every game and even then.

That sounds like a poor TO. Before the next event, ask the TO what he's going to do about slow play.

For yourself, keep telling the guy you're playing that you only have 2 hours and so on. I don't know what else to tell you.

This seems like a structural flaw in the tournament rules.

Shouldn't the ruling for any tournament be that if you don't finish within the time limit both players get penalised? And some sort of sportsmanship scoring system? Because it seems to me any attempt to game the system is inherent to the system itself.

Also, how the hell do you take an hour for a turn? My turns last fifteen minutes, tops.

I don't know about penalizing both players for failing to finish inside the 2 hour time limit. Most tourney games I've seen are still being played when time gets called. (Granted, usually much farther than turn 2!)

I think kronk's pretty much got your only options nailed down. Got to a TO if it happens, ask a TO ahead of time, and be nice but prodding with your opponent.

Sorry you got the short end of the stick this time around, and I hope your luck improves.

A cattle prod to move the proceedings along

We have a simple 2 strikes and you are out rule. Every round you mark on the sheet if you would play against the player again. If you answer no, a TO will ask you why and lets the other person tell him his side of the story. If you have a good reason, that player gets a strike. Two strikes in one tournament gets you thrown out of the tournament. One strike disqualifies you from any Sportsmanship prizes.

How many points were being played in a 2 hour game? 2 Hours is short for anything over 1500 points.

Timed game turns is a terrible idea as the game is not designed around equal play as the turns are interactive. If you assault me on your turn, there is a good chance we may have a 20-30 minute assault if someone does a coordinated assault. The game is not designed around equal play.

What was he actually spending his time on? Movement? Shooting?

Got accused of slowplay. Were playing 2000pts in 2hrs. We started late, because the round before went over because ofthe paint judging. We still managed to finish on turn 4. I felt that if the game had continued to turn 5 he could have won. I felt that with my model count over 100 and less than 2hrs to play, turn 4 was break neck speed.

I agree that there are several major and important factors which were not covered in the OP.

1. Experience level of the opponent. Inexperienced players who do not know the rules cold play slower. This is an unavoidable fact, and something one always needs to compensate for.
2. Fielding a horde army. The OP later clarified that the opponent wasn't, but it's still something to look out for and sometimes more of a factor than slow play, especially when the organizers have failed to allot sufficient time for the point size of the game.
3. Time alloted and point size of the game. Two hours was a tight time schedule for a normal tournament game of 5th edition. 6th plays slower in several areas, and you really shouldn't be trying to squeeze in anything above 1500pts in two hours. 2:15 to 2:30 is more reasonable for 1750 or 1850, but even with an extra half hour you still need to play quickly and efficiently if either player has a high model count.

Maybe a sliding scale to the max points you can get
Ended in turn 1 20%
Turn 2 40%
Turn 3 60%
Turn 4 80%
Turn 5 100%

Yep there are lots ways to get hosed but we need to get players geared on getting more game in during the time period.
So if you finish turn 4 you get 100%. everybody should be able to do that. Every game.

2 turns in 2 hours is prety extreme. I think that games should really go for 5 turns to make it fair. Had the player been slow playing in other rounds? If so, then the 2 strikes and your out idea would certainly help here. 2 turns is just ridiculous.

I admit that I've not been to a tournament before where they wanted to play 1,750 in 1:40. Playing a 2 tervigon list I knew there was no way I could play a 5 turn game including deployment in that time so didn't go. I could have gone with my SM bikes, but the arms are not WYSIWYG at the moment - but that is at least a faster army to play/deploy.

I know some people will say it's the players right to play what they want but you have to be realistic about your own speed and the tournament timings - if you know you can't complete matches then don't go or chage your army list to one that plays a little quicker.

I agree that players need to be practiced with their armies and realistic about how quickly they can play, but even more so, organizers need to be realistic and allot enough time to allow high model count armies to be used. Making Tyranids or Orks unable to compete by making the games too short is a bad thing.

One of the important innovations toward fixing this problem that I've seen in the last couple of years is TOs putting a question on the results sheet asking if the game finished normally rather than by time limit. As in, it went the full 7 turns or ended by random game length roll. Then collecting that data and seeing what percentage of games are ended by time, and being to adjust their tournaments by lengthening the rounds and/or lowering the point size appropriately to allow more full games to be played to natural completion.

How big was the tournament size? if it was 2k, then 2 hours is not enough time anyway. Our tournaments are 2.30 hours with bonus points going to players that finish turn 5. There are very few people who do not get 5 turns as those bonus points matter.

Ravenous D wrote:We have a tournament here that wants to put in timed turns because of a certain group of guys that would only get 2 or 3 turns in and win their games. Its a cheater tactic that they annoy the gak out of you until you just dont care about winning. Even worse is when they will do things then argue with you and then claim you are stalling. The best thing to do is call over a judge or TO and have them speed the game along, the group I mentioned pretty much has a judge on hand at the table every game and even then.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:This seems like a structural flaw in the tournament rules.

Shouldn't the ruling for any tournament be that if you don't finish within the time limit both players get penalised? And some sort of sportsmanship scoring system? Because it seems to me any attempt to game the system is inherent to the system itself.

Also, how the hell do you take an hour for a turn? My turns last fifteen minutes, tops.

Jimsolo wrote:I don't know about penalizing both players for failing to finish inside the 2 hour time limit. Most tourney games I've seen are still being played when time gets called. (Granted, usually much farther than turn 2!)

I think kronk's pretty much got your only options nailed down. Got to a TO if it happens, ask a TO ahead of time, and be nice but prodding with your opponent.

Sorry you got the short end of the stick this time around, and I hope your luck improves.

At Game Empire in Pasadena we have a standing 4 turn rule. If your game does not get to turn 4 then both players receive a loss. While this was shelved at the beginning of 6th edition it worked really well in 5th and is being implemented again. We do recognize that 6th ed games take longer and so we dropped the usual tournaments to 1500 points rather than lift the 4 turn rule. This rule was even used at Ard Boyz events, it works and works very well.

I honestly think that is the best way to handle slow play. Rather than have a policy where the TO has to babysit games/players or using clocks, which is just a bad idea for 40k, installing a turn minimum keeps it simple. Relying on the TO and your own abilities to, in some cases, constantly hurry an opponent along their turn just to try and speed through yours to try and get to turn 4 or 5 is asking a bit much from an edition of the game that already has many more complexities and is naturally slower than the previous two editions.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:


At Game Empire in Pasadena we have a standing 4 turn rule. If your game does not get to turn 4 then both players receive a loss. While this was shelved at the beginning of 6th edition it worked really well in 5th and is being implemented again. We do recognize that 6th ed games take longer and so we dropped the usual tournaments to 1500 points rather than lift the 4 turn rule. This rule was even used at Ard Boyz events, it works and works very well.

I honestly think that is the best way to handle slow play. Rather than have a policy where the TO has to babysit games/players or using clocks, which is just a bad idea for 40k, installing a turn minimum keeps it simple. Relying on the TO and your own abilities to, in some cases, constantly hurry an opponent along their turn just to try and speed through yours to try and get to turn 4 or 5 is asking a bit much from an edition of the game that already has many more complexities and is naturally slower than the previous two editions.

I like this rule, as long as they have realistic time per point value standards. I find turns 4+ go really fast anyways and that extra 15-30 minutes can make the difference between a 3 turn game and a 7 turn game.

nkelsch wrote:

 OverwatchCNC wrote:


At Game Empire in Pasadena we have a standing 4 turn rule. If your game does not get to turn 4 then both players receive a loss. While this was shelved at the beginning of 6th edition it worked really well in 5th and is being implemented again. We do recognize that 6th ed games take longer and so we dropped the usual tournaments to 1500 points rather than lift the 4 turn rule. This rule was even used at Ard Boyz events, it works and works very well.

I honestly think that is the best way to handle slow play. Rather than have a policy where the TO has to babysit games/players or using clocks, which is just a bad idea for 40k, installing a turn minimum keeps it simple. Relying on the TO and your own abilities to, in some cases, constantly hurry an opponent along their turn just to try and speed through yours to try and get to turn 4 or 5 is asking a bit much from an edition of the game that already has many more complexities and is naturally slower than the previous two editions.

I like this rule, as long as they have realistic time per point value standards. I find turns 4+ go really fast anyways and that extra 15-30 minutes can make the difference between a 3 turn game and a 7 turn game.

This has been exactly our experience, which is also why we have dropped the point level for the next couple tournaments. We did the same thing at the beginning of 5th, there really is about a year of transition time needed for most small competitive environments.

The main thing to do is make sure both players get an even amount of turns. You keep an eye on the clock and decide whether there is enough time to get a full game turn in before starting one.

I really like the four turns or lose idea though. I may have to mention it to my club.

OP, where was this tourney?

The "complete 4 turns or loose the game" rule is crazy in my opinion. It lets your opponent slow play until the last second, letting him win on turn 4, before cutting him/her off by time out. It also punishes both players if one of the players is simply very new to the game or both players are playing horde armies.

Each player is roughly given half of the time for each match. If a player takes longer than this time, he gets penalty points, the longer it takes, the higher the penalty. Purposefully stalling the game results in an immediate disqualification. Requires TO that know what they're doing though.

Mohoc wrote:
The "complete 4 turns or loose the game" rule is crazy in my opinion. It lets your opponent slow play until the last second, letting him win on turn 4, before cutting him/her off by time out. It also punishes both players if one of the players is simply very new to the game or both players are playing horde armies.

Both players know the game must reach 4 far in advance. This actually evens the playing field because you know before the event even begins what turn the game must go to which allows you to plan accordingly.

There is a second issue that this rule addresses. People should not be winning tournaments when their games don't get past turn 2 or 3. It is wholly unfair to the rest of the field, not to mention their opponents, when a game does not reach turn 4 or more. It is even more unfair when a player wins a tournament because none of their games get past turn 2 or 3. Relying on the TO to police the slow players and insure they aren't winning the tournament through use of slow play isn't as reliable as the simple turn 4 minimum.

Plus, you know about the rule when you come to one of our events so if you don't think you can play your army in that time design a different one. It really isn't a big deal since we don't spring it on people. If it were a surprise I could see it being a problem, then again anyone miffed about it really should analyze how they are playing the game and whether or not they are slow playing, or planning to play slow.

I guess the issue that I could see with mohoc's post is, do both players have to get to turn 4? Or just 1?

 Sigvatr wrote:
Each player is roughly given half of the time for each match. If a player takes longer than this time, he gets penalty points, the longer it takes, the higher the penalty. Purposefully stalling the game results in an immediate disqualification. Requires TO that know what they're doing though.

40k is not designed around equal play as the turns are interactive. All that 'half the time' rules do is cause the person to roll armor saves slowly on your turn and slow up assault resolution on your turn.

At least the 4 turn minimum makes people plan for making those 'this is the last turn' actions shoudl time be expiring.

Next event, talk to the TO ahead of time. Remind him of the slow player. Reccomend a ruling (to be put out at the start) that if a player is slow playing AND his opponent lets the TO know at least half way through the tiome limit, if the game does not complete 4 full turns (both players completing their turn 4) the slow player gets a zero point loss and the 'victim' gets awarded a max point win.

No benefit for the slow player and he can't intentionally bone a good player to help his buddy steal the win (not that a group of guys would ever throw a game in an effort to help their designated team mate win the event).
This would also get other players mad at the slow player by giving away free wins.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

Mohoc wrote:
The "complete 4 turns or loose the game" rule is crazy in my opinion. It lets your opponent slow play until the last second, letting him win on turn 4, before cutting him/her off by time out. It also punishes both players if one of the players is simply very new to the game or both players are playing horde armies.

Both players know the game must reach 4 far in advance. This actually evens the playing field because you know before the event even begins what turn the game must go to which allows you to plan accordingly.

There is a second issue that this rule addresses. People should not be winning tournaments when their games don't get past turn 2 or 3. It is wholly unfair to the rest of the field, not to mention their opponents, when a game does not reach turn 4 or more. It is even more unfair when a player wins a tournament because none of their games get past turn 2 or 3. Relying on the TO to police the slow players and insure they aren't winning the tournament through use of slow play isn't as reliable as the simple turn 4 minimum.

Plus, you know about the rule when you come to one of our events so if you don't think you can play your army in that time design a different one. It really isn't a big deal since we don't spring it on people. If it were a surprise I could see it being a problem, then again anyone miffed about it really should analyze how they are playing the game and whether or not they are slow playing, or planning to play slow.

I am not disagreeing with you on the reasons why the rule is in place and the fact that players know this in advance. I actually wholeheartedly agree with that. I just disagree with the rule. I think something like the rule from the Atlanta Series is much more appropriate. In the Atlanta Series you loose battle points if the game does not end on time and some more points if you don't finish Turn 5. That way you can still score some points. In addition you can get penalized on Sportsmanship by the other player. The loss of battle points and sportsmanship points guarantees that you will not win any prizes during the Tournament. I think that is a much better solution.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Each player is roughly given half of the time for each match. If a player takes longer than this time, he gets penalty points, the longer it takes, the higher the penalty. Purposefully stalling the game results in an immediate disqualification. Requires TO that know what they're doing though.

How is "roughly" half the time determined? How do you account for variables like different opponent skill levels, and army builds? Does the TO come by and tell each player how much time they "roughly" have for each round in the event, basing it on the various factors such as skill and list build? The 4 turn minimum is much simpler and easier to enforce, plus it doesn't require any "rough" estimates for each players allotment of time.


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Mohoc wrote:

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

Mohoc wrote:
The "complete 4 turns or loose the game" rule is crazy in my opinion. It lets your opponent slow play until the last second, letting him win on turn 4, before cutting him/her off by time out. It also punishes both players if one of the players is simply very new to the game or both players are playing horde armies.

Both players know the game must reach 4 far in advance. This actually evens the playing field because you know before the event even begins what turn the game must go to which allows you to plan accordingly.

There is a second issue that this rule addresses. People should not be winning tournaments when their games don't get past turn 2 or 3. It is wholly unfair to the rest of the field, not to mention their opponents, when a game does not reach turn 4 or more. It is even more unfair when a player wins a tournament because none of their games get past turn 2 or 3. Relying on the TO to police the slow players and insure they aren't winning the tournament through use of slow play isn't as reliable as the simple turn 4 minimum.

Plus, you know about the rule when you come to one of our events so if you don't think you can play your army in that time design a different one. It really isn't a big deal since we don't spring it on people. If it were a surprise I could see it being a problem, then again anyone miffed about it really should analyze how they are playing the game and whether or not they are slow playing, or planning to play slow.

I am not disagreeing with you on the reasons why the rule is in place and the fact that players know this in advance. I actually wholeheartedly agree with that. I just disagree with the rule. I think something like the rule from the Atlanta Series is much more appropriate. In the Atlanta Series you loose battle points if the game does not end on time and some more points if you don't finish Turn 5. That way you can still score some points. In addition you can get penalized on Sportsmanship by the other player. The loss of battle points and sportsmanship points guarantees that you will not win any prizes during the Tournament. I think that is a much better solution.

I see, thanks for the clarification, now I understand where the issue was. We don't always run battle point format tournaments and prefer the W/L/D format, so assigning a Loss in W/L/D or Swiss is really the only way to handle it. In a Battle Points format having the penalties you described for not reaching turn 4 makes perfect sense.

I am starting to think that is it the TOs fault.

6th edition plays a lot slower than 5th edition and TOs have not come to that realization yet.

There several factors for this:
A lot more rolls on tables, e.i. psychic powers, warlord traits, chaos boon tables, whatever demons have now, random objectives, random terrain, etc. There is a lot more going on now before the game in 6th edition that the game itself is starting a lot later.

The move away from mech armies to horde armies. It takes a lot longer to shoot an infantry blob with prescience and first rank fire, second rank fire than it does for a few chimeras, yet alone moving them.

The problem is that TOs have not adapted to this paradigm shift and are still trying to shoehorn games into 2 hours to 2.5 hours and trying to do it with 1750+ points.

I have played in 2 GTs in the last 2 weeks and I can say that in the first GT I lost 1 game that I should have tied, and tied a game that I should have won because of time, and in the 2nd GT I tied one game that I should have won. And this is with one of the fastest playing armies in the game (a Paladin army).

At the lat GT there were many other players that were ending games on 3 turns, and there were a lot of people who should have won games but ended up losing because of time.

I wouldn't say 6th is slower than 5th. Especially after GW FAQ'd how wound allocation works.

It takes a little longer to learn to play 6th edition, but once thats done the game plays faster IMO.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I wouldn't say 6th is slower than 5th. Especially after GW FAQ'd how wound allocation works.

It takes a little longer to learn to play 6th edition, but once thats done the game plays faster IMO.

You are wrong.

Did I say anything about wound allocation? Wound allocation is one of the only things that has gotten faster in 6th edition.

How many tournaments are using the random terrain?

Rolling on the psychic power charts isn't slow. I play psykers too.

Its no slower than Fantasy, and I can easily finish a 2500 game in 2 hours.



The only real slow thing with 6th was wound allocation, and thats been solved.

If you can't roll all your psychic powers in under 2 minutes you need to work on your stuff.

Here is how my first game at the BAO went:

My opponent showed up 15 minutes late.

I was handed an army list that had the unit names changed out to fluffy names and I had to go over their whole army to find out what everything is.

They were playing CSM/Demon list and they were using all tomb kings units and we had to go over every model to find out what it was.

It was the first time they have played this army. They did not know any of the rules for their units and had to look up all of the rules for their units. Yes I knew all of their rules but that did not change anything (the one thing they did do was put there rules on flash cards, but it was still slow).

So at the start of turn 5 I tell her it’s her turn and someone says that the round is over, I had my whole army (-5 interceptors) and she only had 7 cultists in one squad and 10 in another (ironically her units were 18” away from anything so she had no shooting or assaults possible). I explain to her that we started 15 minutes and all I have to do is move one unit for the win and they should let me do it, but they refused and they said that the round is over.

I got very lucky that it was a tie because I was only on the objectives just by coincidence because I was planning on a 5th turn.

So I did the only thing that I could and gave her a thumbs down on sportsmanship but that still screwed me out of a max point win.

So you are saying 6th is slower because 1 game got slowed down by no factors related to 6th edition at all?


Being late: not related to 6th

Poor army list writing: not related to 6th

Army using Counts As: not related to 6th

Newbie player: not related to 6th

We've been talking about chess clocks, but they're awfully expensive.

They also don't work as well for 40k as they do other games IMO. It would seriously penelize horde armies.

 Grey Templar wrote:
How many tournaments are using the random terrain?

Rolling on the psychic power charts isn't slow. I play psykers too.

Its no slower than Fantasy, and I can easily finish a 2500 game in 2 hours.



The only real slow thing with 6th was wound allocation, and thats been solved.

If you can't roll all your psychic powers in under 2 minutes you need to work on your stuff.

#1. You are ignoring the whole meta shift to foot armies.
#2. Doing anything between 2 strangers always takes longer than it does between friends. In 5th edition there was one roll for table sides/to go first and that was it. No warlord traits, no psychic power rolls (play a tyranid army and tell me how long that takes). In 6th edition there are not only rolls on tables, but rolls for table sides, then fortification deplyoyments, and then for turn. All of these steps takes time and thought.

Also there are more objective based games and that takes longer. Games are starting much later than they did in 5th edition.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
So you are saying 6th is slower because 1 game got slowed down by no factors related to 6th edition at all?


Being late: not related to 6th

Poor army list writing: not related to 6th

Army using Counts As: not related to 6th

Newbie player: not related to 6th

I was not relpying to you in that post, it was in reply to the OP and the thread in general.

If it was to your points I would have quoted you.

 Reecius wrote:
We've been talking about chess clocks, but they're awfully expensive.

6th is slower. The sheer volume of usr, charts to roll on in game (csm anyone?) and then keep track of, stacking abilities, the increased number of re rolls, the increase in model count, and the increase in slow moving horde armies all contribute to 6th being a much slower edition.

I don't think clocks are the solution. I think 1500 point level with 2h 15 min rounds and the hard 4 turn minimum are the best solution. I know playing 1500 isn't popular and I actually prefer 1750 but games need to finish. 6th is slower plain and simple, I am a fast, fast player and I admit it. In 5th I could finish 2k games in 1.5 hours easy. Davefay and I finished an 1850 game in 55 minutes before the first round of a tournament once in 5th. No way that happens with 6th.

Geeze, I just really can't wrap my head around you guys seeing 6th be slower. Maybe its just me and my buds being able to play fast. yes, we have a Nid player.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Geeze, I just really can't wrap my head around you guys seeing 6th be slower. Maybe its just me and my buds being able to play fast. yes, we have a Nid player.

Have you played in many tournaments in 6th edition? Playing among friends is much faster.

I have played in 5 GTs so far in 6th edition and many RTTs, and I can tell you that it is much slower.

Also I remembered another thing that slows the game down in 6th edition, in the movement phase you use to be able to move your models around all willy-nilly and it did not matter. Now is is very important where all of your models are placed which slows down the movement phase.

There are just so many rules now that people do not realize just make the game slower. For example:
You get the warlord trait that give you FNP. Those are a lot of rolls that you have to take that you did not get in 5th.
The widespread use of Prescience means many re-rolls.
Even charges take longer now and assaults. You use to be able to just charge 6" and that was it. Now you have to roll for charge range, and then move guys in each inititive step.

There are a lot of small things that make games go longer that people don't even realize.

 Reecius wrote:
We've been talking about chess clocks, but they're awfully expensive.

Chess Clocks is an interesting idea. Cheapest one I've seen cost between $20 to $22, but they are analog. I personally own a Blue Digital Saitek, which costed me $33. Alternatively, you could purchase cheap stop watches that have timer functions and makes a noticeable "beep" sound, informing the other player that the stop watch was pressed. Of course there might be a slight delay between the player ending their turn (pause timer) and the player starting their turn (resume timer).

I havn't played in any Grand Tournaments but yes I have played in tournaments. I have only experienced issues related to not having a grasp of how to play horde armies, general inexperience, and having edition change hangover. Never have I found a game where it was slower compared to 5th purely because of mechanics.


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 Blackmoor wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
So you are saying 6th is slower because 1 game got slowed down by no factors related to 6th edition at all?


Being late: not related to 6th

Poor army list writing: not related to 6th

Army using Counts As: not related to 6th

Newbie player: not related to 6th

I was not relpying to you in that post, it was in reply to the OP and the thread in general.

If it was to your points I would have quoted you.

Right, never mind then.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I havn't played in any Grand Tournaments but yes I have played in tournaments. I have only experienced issues related to not having a grasp of how to play horde armies, general inexperience, and having edition change hangover. Never have I found a game where it was slower compared to 5th purely because of mechanics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackmoor wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
So you are saying 6th is slower because 1 game got slowed down by no factors related to 6th edition at all?


Being late: not related to 6th

Poor army list writing: not related to 6th

Army using Counts As: not related to 6th

Newbie player: not related to 6th

I was not relpying to you in that post, it was in reply to the OP and the thread in general.

If it was to your points I would have quoted you.

Right, nevertheless mind then.

I just don't see how you view 6th as playing at a similar pace to 5th. As Allan has pointed out there are just so many more mechanics in the game in general that it makes for a much slower experience.

The easy answer is to play Kings of War or Warpath. Those games use a chess clock for tournament play, so it is impossible for the other player to stall for time.

Works really well for serious competitive gameplay.

You don't need to buy an actual chess clock if you have a smartphone, there are free android and iOS apps that do the job.

 scarletsquig wrote:
The easy answer is to use a chess clock.

That is hardly easy given the imbalance of time needed based upon army build. Chess clocks work great for chess because the sides in chess are equal and need an equal amount of time to move around. 40k is too complex a game, with too many variations in army build to allow for easy use of chess clocks.

 Reecius wrote:
We've been talking about chess clocks, but they're awfully expensive.

Chess clock apps for phones

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I havn't played in any Grand Tournaments but yes I have played in tournaments. I have only experienced issues related to not having a grasp of how to play horde armies, general inexperience, and having edition change hangover. Never have I found a game where it was slower compared to 5th purely because of mechanics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackmoor wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
So you are saying 6th is slower because 1 game got slowed down by no factors related to 6th edition at all?


Being late: not related to 6th

Poor army list writing: not related to 6th

Army using Counts As: not related to 6th

Newbie player: not related to 6th

I was not relpying to you in that post, it was in reply to the OP and the thread in general.

If it was to your points I would have quoted you.

Right, nevertheless mind then.

I just don't see how you view 6th as playing at a similar pace to 5th. As Allan has pointed out there are just so many more mechanics in the game in general that it makes for a much slower experience.

There are a few more mechanics yes, but they arn't adding more than 5 minutes to the game time. And combined with casualities being removed quicker from the table you end up with a slightly faster game.

Prior to the wound allocation FAQ the game was slower, but not anymore.


Also, we don't use the random terrain generation. We just plonk stuff down(covering 30-40% of the board)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
We've been talking about chess clocks, but they're awfully expensive.

Chess clock apps for phones

Not everyone has a Smart Phone

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
We've been talking about chess clocks, but they're awfully expensive.

Chess clock apps for phones

Not everyone has a Smart Phone

Do you have an iPod Touch? You can get one there, there are plenty of non-smartphone options that will cost about no more than a pair of land raiders that can get you the same thing, the main point is "chess clock app"

Stopwatch?

I have to agree with those who say 6th takes longer, most of which has to do with the shift from Mech to infantry. In 5th I routinely finished 7 turns and finished early, now most of my games finish at the bottom of 5 on time. Just so many things make time take longer.

More Pregame rolling.
More dice rolled due to infantry shooting (in 5th it was a lot of I fire 4 missiles at something, now it is I shoot 20+ shots at a time)
Pile in phase...needing to check engagement at each I step.
Combats last longer with removal of no retreat.
Premeasurement adds time to games (especially when top players face each other, I have seen people measure the same move for a unit multiple times, etc.)

I think that the timing is a larger issue at GTs than it is at smaller events. It takes more time for people to get to tables at GTs when they have to find their paring and wander through a packed hall.

I have considered the chess clock idea but it has some serious issues.

1.) 40k is a game where both players act on both turns (unlike Warmahordes, or Chess) so you would need to stop your clock when your opponent was rolling on your turn. So it is a lot more clock switching. I declare a charge, stop clock, you overwatch, hit wounds, stop clock, I roll saves and remove casualties, roll charge, say I have higer I I pile in, roll hit and wound, stop clock....

2.) Due to the above this is a big adjustment for players who now need to remember to stop the clock all the time. Which can be distracting unless it is practiced (which it is not since no one does it.)

3.) As has been said not all armies need the same amount of time. If I play Draigowing I might only use say 35-40 for my whole game, and my opponent playing orcks might need nearly 2 hours.


I think the solution to slow playing is as follows.

1.)Extend round times/or reduce points: perhaps even have a set up time segment (say 15min for getting to the table setting up, rolling table halfs, psychic powers, warlord, going over armies) Then 2.5 hours for the game itself (for 2k points)

2.) Penalties for both players if they don't make 5 full turns (4 turns is not a full game.), which increase for a player if it happens multiple games. So If in game one both players only get through turn 4 they are docked 5 battle points. If then next round one of those players again only gets in 4 turns, he gets docked 10 battle points, and then 15 if it happens again. Essentially it means a slow player will not be able to consistenly slow play and expect to win an event. IN W/L system, you could give the players a lower ranking win/loss for the first time, and award losses to a player if he is consistently slow.

Chess clocks really don't work, when player turns are dependent on opponent behavior. Acting slow / dumb when it comes to handling saving throws and return attacks in combats and all of that will in theory burn an opponent's time just as readily. You'd have to be smacking the clock after rolling to hit/wound with shooting and cc, and the other person would have to smack it before rolling. I guess that much might be alright / workable, but even arguing about LOS/etc. just to burn someone's timer ... uglee.

The best solution at the large-scale GT level is fewer rounds in a given day (4 is a lot) so players are less fatigued, and more flexibility in terms of what can be done in interim time, plus better layout of missions, floorplans, etc.

Reality is, the game IS slower ... but part of that is people are still getting down the rules, are still figuring out details, the meta is very foot heavy (and this is going to change somewhat to a more balanced level as more and more books release), etc.

There's a big difference, however, between games going to 4-6 turns ... and games going to 2-3 turns. The 2-3 turn games are still quite rare, except in the case of intentional slow play. I would say they are no more common than in 5th. The key is figuring out the sweetspot that will get games to 5 turns regularly, and there's ways to do that BESIDES million-hour rounds or 1500 point games. 1750-1850 is still just fine. 2 hour rounds are a wee bit intense, as is the 2000 point level.

6th edition pregame takes much longer than 5th edition pregame.

But playing 6th edition seems to go faster than 5th edition, once you've got the changes down. My play group each knows their own armies fairly well, which helps, too.

I would have to refuse to play in a tourney with chess clocks for 40k. It is simply unfair and not how the game was designed.

I feel like assault armies are being told not to participate as faster assault armies usually have one really long assault phase which would be on MY time and I would be punished for it.

And shilling for mantic doesn't solve 40k gameplay issues. If they are going to solve the issue by throwing the game out and playing a different game, then they can have fun finding people who play that game. Considering many of these events have hundreds of people playing 40k, changing the ruleset to a new system doesn't solve it for 40k players.

MVBrandt wrote:
Chess clocks really don't work, when player turns are dependent on opponent behavior. Acting slow / dumb when it comes to handling saving throws and return attacks in combats and all of that will in theory burn an opponent's time just as readily. You'd have to be smacking the clock after rolling to hit/wound with shooting and cc, and the other person would have to smack it before rolling. I guess that much might be alright / workable, but even arguing about LOS/etc. just to burn someone's timer ... uglee.

The best solution at the large-scale GT level is fewer rounds in a given day (4 is a lot) so players are less fatigued, and more flexibility in terms of what can be done in interim time, plus better layout of missions, floorplans, etc.

Reality is, the game IS slower ... but part of that is people are still getting down the rules, are still figuring out details, the meta is very foot heavy (and this is going to change somewhat to a more balanced level as more and more books release), etc.

There's a big difference, however, between games going to 4-6 turns ... and games going to 2-3 turns. The 2-3 turn games are still quite rare, except in the case of intentional slow play. I would say they are no more common than in 5th. The key is figuring out the sweetspot that will get games to 5 turns regularly, and there's ways to do that BESIDES million-hour rounds or 1500 point games. 1750-1850 is still just fine. 2 hour rounds are a wee bit intense, as is the 2000 point level.

I agree almost 100%. The only thing I think being missed by a lot of the major TOs, no disrespect meant here, is the idea that 1500 point games are somehow undesirable. Granted I do not want every tournament to adopt 1500 points as the standard level, i enjoy variation in my choices for local RTs and GTs alike, but I think 1500 is better suited to 2 hours than anything above that. 1850 is really best for 2.5 hour rounds and in a GT environment with 5+ rounds that is quite a bit of time considering that even then there will be games not getting past turn 3.

I am really interested to see what you and the other TOs like Reece find as the 6th ed GT scene really kicks into high gear this year.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nkelsch wrote:
I would have to refuse to play in a tourney with chess clocks for 40k. It is simply unfair and not how the game was designed.

I feel like assault armies are being told not to participate as faster assault armies usually have one really long assault phase which would be on MY time and I would be punished for it.

And shilling for mantic doesn't solve 40k gameplay issues. If they are going to solve the issue by throwing the game out and playing a different game, then they can have fun finding people who play that game. Considering many of these events have hundreds of people playing 40k, changing the ruleset to a new system doesn't solve it for 40k players.

I agree with everything but the assault army statement. I have had the opposite experience in our meta where Assault armies are cleaning up and finishing games because they are breaking the meta ymmv of course!

I don't think I have ever agreed with you this much before...

 Blackmoor wrote:
[list]It was the first time they have played this army. They did not know any of the rules for their units and had to look up all of the rules for their units. Yes I knew all of their rules but that did not change anything (the one thing they did do was put there rules on flash cards, but it was still slow).

This was just a horror story round for you and that sucks. Who goes to a GT with an army they've never played before though? Seems like just a waste of time.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:


I agree with everything but the assault army statement. I have had the opposite experience in our meta where Assault armies are cleaning up and finishing games because they are breaking the meta ymmv of course!

I don't think I have ever agreed with you this much before...

Oh, I have to say I usually don't have a problem finishing games with assault armies... but if they went for 'equal turns' and used clocks to break it down into 15 minute turns, I would think it would be ultimately unfair to assault with 6 units and my turn 'end' with 3 unresolved combats because the assault phase took to long. Basically nullifying the core tactic of my army. Chess clocks can't work unless you say 'max turn time is: x Minutes' and then have rules to handle any unresolved actions. (mostly assault as it is the bottom of the phase)

There is no right answer with chess clocks and so many scenarios on how to implement them which is why I would hate to see them at 40k events. Constantly calling out the time left is enough to keep most honest people on task, and a red whippy stick to the ass from a TO is all needed to address slow-players.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

Mohoc wrote:
The "complete 4 turns or loose the game" rule is crazy in my opinion. It lets your opponent slow play until the last second, letting him win on turn 4, before cutting him/her off by time out. It also punishes both players if one of the players is simply very new to the game or both players are playing horde armies.

Both players know the game must reach 4 far in advance. This actually evens the playing field because you know before the event even begins what turn the game must go to which allows you to plan accordingly.

There is a second issue that this rule addresses. People should not be winning tournaments when their games don't get past turn 2 or 3. It is wholly unfair to the rest of the field, not to mention their opponents, when a game does not reach turn 4 or more. It is even more unfair when a player wins a tournament because none of their games get past turn 2 or 3. Relying on the TO to police the slow players and insure they aren't winning the tournament through use of slow play isn't as reliable as the simple turn 4 minimum.

Plus, you know about the rule when you come to one of our events so if you don't think you can play your army in that time design a different one. It really isn't a big deal since we don't spring it on people. If it were a surprise I could see it being a problem, then again anyone miffed about it really should analyze how they are playing the game and whether or not they are slow playing, or planning to play slow.

I'm mad cause you're beating me. Gonna go take a piss.

Oh hey we didn't reach 4, now you lose too.
Not a fan.

 pretre wrote:

 Blackmoor wrote:
[list]It was the first time they have played this army. They did not know any of the rules for their units and had to look up all of the rules for their units. Yes I knew all of their rules but that did not change anything (the one thing they did do was put there rules on flash cards, but it was still slow).

This was just a horror story round for you and that sucks. Who goes to a GT with an army they've never played before though? Seems like just a waste of time.

There are lots of people who go to tourneys as a way to get organized play with no hopes of winning. Many haven't played much 40k at all. Hell, half my opponents at NOVA last year hadn't even played 6th edition yet. I have met many people who have total conversion armies they never played too.

As someone who is 'not that good' and play Orks, I end up at the mid to low tables sometimes so you get to meet people with similar stories. Usually 'the pack sorts itself out' as the tourney progresses and the rankings happen. The trick is when one of these casual players hits a skilled player on game 1 before rankings fall in to place, and it kinda speedbumps them.

So to them, they don't see it as a waste of time, and hey, with 200+ people playing, hundreds of people have to lose!

The same as any other time someone tries to stall, just call a judge if he magically has to piss right before you hit turn 4 because he's losing.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
Chess clocks really don't work, when player turns are dependent on opponent behavior. Acting slow / dumb when it comes to handling saving throws and return attacks in combats and all of that will in theory burn an opponent's time just as readily. You'd have to be smacking the clock after rolling to hit/wound with shooting and cc, and the other person would have to smack it before rolling. I guess that much might be alright / workable, but even arguing about LOS/etc. just to burn someone's timer ... uglee.

The best solution at the large-scale GT level is fewer rounds in a given day (4 is a lot) so players are less fatigued, and more flexibility in terms of what can be done in interim time, plus better layout of missions, floorplans, etc.

Reality is, the game IS slower ... but part of that is people are still getting down the rules, are still figuring out details, the meta is very foot heavy (and this is going to change somewhat to a more balanced level as more and more books release), etc.

There's a big difference, however, between games going to 4-6 turns ... and games going to 2-3 turns. The 2-3 turn games are still quite rare, except in the case of intentional slow play. I would say they are no more common than in 5th. The key is figuring out the sweetspot that will get games to 5 turns regularly, and there's ways to do that BESIDES million-hour rounds or 1500 point games. 1750-1850 is still just fine. 2 hour rounds are a wee bit intense, as is the 2000 point level.

I agree almost 100%. The only thing I think being missed by a lot of the major TOs, no disrespect meant here, is the idea that 1500 point games are somehow undesirable. Granted I do not want every tournament to adopt 1500 points as the standard level, i enjoy variation in my choices for local RTs and GTs alike, but I think 1500 is better suited to 2 hours than anything above that. 1850 is really best for 2.5 hour rounds and in a GT environment with 5+ rounds that is quite a bit of time considering that even then there will be games not getting past turn 3.

I am really interested to see what you and the other TOs like Reece find as the 6th ed GT scene really kicks into high gear this year.

No disrespect taken at all! ... not even sure how I could take it, you wrote your reply so politely! I think 1500 is desirable to a lot of players, and I don't have a personal problem with it. I do think MOST players prefer the higher levels. But, there is a reason we dropped to and announced 1850 a couple months after NOVA last year, and we do run 2.5 hour rounds.

Fatigue is a big deal as well; we went from 2/4/2 to 3/3/2 with an optional drop after 3 for this year ... and instituted battle points scoring with equivalent scores for games broken on final tiebreaker, so that players who aren't up for 7+ games can voluntarily remove and still compete fully on a BP loss/tie-recoverable front, within the same field. IMO having 3 games a day for 2 days is a lot more manageable in terms of people not slowing down due to fatigue, and of course 2.5 hour rounds I agree w/ you is about a minimum for games much above 1500 points. Kinda tricky to figure all of it out. That said, I do think things will speed up as the edition matures ... I really do. I also think the more variables you have, the slower things are in terms of people adjusting / understanding / etc. I.E., not to kick the powderkeg, but if you have highly variable and complex missions, rolling for table side AND who goes first / deployment zone, Forgeworld rules being brought in, etc., all these things add time and slow the game down / pregame down. It's an art as much as a science to figure out which components to add or keep, and how to structure things. An art certainly none of us is much of a master of yet in 6th Edition ... even those of us who've run bunches of RTT's and multi-hundred-person GT's to date in it. Hopefully we'll all continue to take note of what others are doing, incorporate the best lessons learned, and find a sweet spot or three where variability exists between events, but we've zero'ed in on the best guesstimate of how long rounds should last, and how many points they should be played at, and what units should be legalized, etc. etc. etc.

nkelsch wrote:
There are lots of people who go to tourneys as a way to get organized play with no hopes of winning. Many haven't played much 40k at all. Hell, half my opponents at NOVA last year hadn't even played 6th edition yet. I have met many people who have total conversion armies they never played too.

As someone who is 'not that good' and play Orks, I end up at the mid to low tables sometimes so you get to meet people with similar stories. Usually 'the pack sorts itself out' as the tourney progresses and the rankings happen. The trick is when one of these casual players hits a skilled player on game 1 before rankings fall in to place, and it kinda speedbumps them.

So to them, they don't see it as a waste of time, and hey, with 200+ people playing, hundreds of people have to lose!

I'm not saying you have to be a cutthroat competitor to enter the tourney, but not having even played your army before? Yikes. I mean, it happens, but still, there's a certain amount of prep that you should do to enter a tournament.

Of course, the counter to that is that someone who hasn't played their army much/at all will probably not win at all.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Of course, the counter to that is that someone who hasn't played their army much/at all will probably not win at all.

That's not the point. At least in my opinion, there's a bit of a social contract at events: Show up on time, don't be a dick, bring your materials, know your army, make sure your army is presentable, etc.

That person was failing on a number of those points.

Complex social contracts at a large GT are a myth. They have to be entered into by both sides. The only social contract that exists at a broadly attended tournament is one established by the TO's, and players should not be punished socially or otherwise for failing to live up to a contract they weren't even aware of. Bringing materials / etc. are usually part of a TO-instituted social contract, of course, in most player packets.

 Grey Templar wrote:
They also don't work as well for 40k as they do other games IMO. It would seriously penelize horde armies.

My thoughts exactly...that would be a disadvantage to nid players.

 wyomingfox wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They also don't work as well for 40k as they do other games IMO. It would seriously penelize horde armies.

My thoughts exactly...that would be a disadvantage to nid players.

It could be done, it would need some major work put into it though. Maybe based on model count. If you have over X number of models in your list you get another 20 minutes on your clock.

My issue with any sort of alteration to the original rules is that you may inevitably make a mistake. I'd much rather deal with GW's messed up rules than some other guy's messed up attempts to fix those rules. That way everyone is on the same page at least.

MVBrandt wrote:
Complex social contracts at a large GT are a myth.

No, I get the point, hence the 'In My Opinion' bit. Perhaps it is more of a 'treat others as you wish to be treated'. I go above and beyond to make sure that I have my gak together for events and I just wish other people did to.

The only social contract that exists at a broadly attended tournament is one established by the TO's...Bringing materials / etc. are usually part of a TO-instituted social contract, of course, in most player packets.

Well, to be fair, that isn't really a social contract, that is the rules of the event.

and players should not be punished socially or otherwise for failing to live up to a contract they weren't even aware of.

I just disagree. I'm not saying we take them out back, but there are certain base expectations that I have of other people who interact at a tournament. Is it too much to ask for someone not to be a dick, to show up on time, bring your materials and to know your army? (I'll give up on presentable army) I mean those are really bottom of the barrel basic things.

Don't get me wrong - I share your behavioral traits in terms of treating others above and beyond if I can ... I share your desire to be treated the same in return. BUT if someone acts in a way that underwhelms below my expectations and I did not openly share those expectations pre-game w/ him, that's not really his fault. Additionally, if I don't have fun because I set my expectations unreasonably high, that's not his fault.

You can't be / aren't responsible for the feelings of other people ... even if you can be a negative douchey person. PERSONALLY, I don't level expectations on a stranger to be anything other than a complete and total stranger ... and if they turn out to be a douchey, negative, or ill-prepared stranger ... I won't really judge them or be disappointed as a result ... even if I also won't have much of a high opinion of them. That said, if they turn out to be awesome, then ... cool, I'm even happier to have had the game with them than if I set random un-justified expectations only to have them simply "met."

IOW, I'm agreeing with your outlook on what I'd HOPE for on a personal level, but disagreeing that it's somehow my opponent's responsibility to show up, meet a stranger, and act in a way that will fulfill his unspoken or ill-expressed desires for an opponent's behavior.

This of course ties back to the OP - your'e responsible for sharing openly (with your opponent, judges, whoever) your expectations for a game. If someone is playing extraordinarily slow, you're responsible for openly sharing that feeling .... and also responsible for how you phrase it (as how you phrase it will impact the way they take it, even if how they choose to react is THEIR responsibility). You can only really feel any irritation at how they react / what they do to address the situation if you are responsible, open, and honest with sharing your expectations / needs / desires ABOUT the situation. Yada yada. You really do see a lot of overly shy or socially awkward folks in our hobby, which can be problematic when they're faced with a situation where they quietly observe an opponent and think they're doing something wrong ... say nothing ... share nothing ... and then eventually go rant about it to their buddies or on the internet afterward. Of course, I'm not saying that's what the OP is doing ... only trying to tie the slightly off topic direction back to the ways one should handle Stalling at a tournament.

MVBrandt wrote:
disagreeing that it's somehow my opponent's responsibility to show up, meet a stranger, and act in a way that will fulfill his unspoken or ill-expressed desires for an opponent's behavior.

I'm not asking for a great game, a handy or a smile. I'm just asking for you not to be a dick, show up on time and play the game. If you're not prepared to do those things, you're being unfair to all of your opponents, not just my 'unrealistic' expectations.

 pretre wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
disagreeing that it's somehow my opponent's responsibility to show up, meet a stranger, and act in a way that will fulfill his unspoken or ill-expressed desires for an opponent's behavior.

I'm not asking for a great game, a handy or a smile. I'm just asking for you not to be a dick, show up on time and play the game. If you're not prepared to do those things, you're being unfair to all of your opponents, not just my 'unrealistic' expectations.

I'm with you - at that simplistic a level, though, MOST tournament packets explicitly require this. If an opponent fails to meet THESE criteria, there are usually explicit resolutions. In example, being late = you lose, being a dick = you get negative sportsmanship and are talked to by TO's and/or docked points and/or kicked out of the event/asked not to come back.

MVBrandt wrote:
I'm with you - at that simplistic a level, though, MOST tournament packets explicitly require this. If an opponent fails to meet THESE criteria, there are usually explicit resolutions. In example, being late = you lose, being a dick = you get negative sportsmanship and are talked to by TO's and/or docked points and/or kicked out of the event/asked not to come back.

Except that's not what happened with Blackmoor's game (which is what I was talking about). His opponent showed up late, didn't know their army and basically handed him a tie because of it.

Either way, I'll let it go.

I was speaking more to your latter comments. I'm fully supporting you here on your primary opinions, agreeing with you, and agreeing again on the issue with showing up late = bad.

Not knowing their army, of course, is more to the issue of something you can't EXPECT someone to know at a major, open tournament. It's also almost impossible for TO's to require it, because there's no way to police it.

 Mannahnin wrote:
I agree that there are several major and important factors which were not covered in the OP.

1. Experience level of the opponent. Inexperienced players who do not know the rules cold play slower. This is an unavoidable fact, and something one always needs to compensate for.
2. Fielding a horde army. The OP later clarified that the opponent wasn't, but it's still something to look out for and sometimes more of a factor than slow play, especially when the organizers have failed to allot sufficient time for the point size of the game.
3. Time alloted and point size of the game. Two hours was a tight time schedule for a normal tournament game of 5th edition. 6th plays slower in several areas, and you really shouldn't be trying to squeeze in anything above 1500pts in two hours. 2:15 to 2:30 is more reasonable for 1750 or 1850, but even with an extra half hour you still need to play quickly and efficiently if either player has a high model count.

As a nid player I often run into guys who aren't familiar with how my army works...so I end up spending quite a bit of time explaining rules or confirming that rules work the way they do (example: how Impaler Cannons work or what is involved in Spawning Guants).

 pretre wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
I'm with you - at that simplistic a level, though, MOST tournament packets explicitly require this. If an opponent fails to meet THESE criteria, there are usually explicit resolutions. In example, being late = you lose, being a dick = you get negative sportsmanship and are talked to by TO's and/or docked points and/or kicked out of the event/asked not to come back.

Except that's not what happened with Blackmoor's game (which is what I was talking about). His opponent showed up late, didn't know their army and basically handed him a tie because of it.

Either way, I'll let it go.

The funny thing is that they ended up in the bottom 10 so they hurt my chances of winning and it did nothing for them except put them in a higher table that they had no business being in.


I think people think judges are an answer for a lot of problems, but in my experience they are not much of a help. Remember that they players are there customers and they are very hesitant to offend or upset them no matter how in the wrong they are. Also the rules packets are often ignored.

For example: at the BAO forge world has to be modeled, or at least a close proximity. I was going against a Tau player who had 2 railguns on his hammerhead so I thought nothing of this and thought it was just a cool conversion. So I deployed out in the open because if he kills 1 or 2 marines it is no big deal. Then he says that they are TL Plasma Guns that get 4 shots each, and the next thing you know I am down a squad because they did not follow the rules.

Judges need to be proactive in many areas, but particularly in things involving subjective views, like soft scores and stalling. If they are not, it opens the door to a lot of shennanigans and hurt feelings from misunderstandings. Allan's Tau example is one situation where the player, whether intenionally or not, basically mislead him in a game. Stalling often follows a similar path, in my experience.

Personally, I cannot understand how stalling is not called at tournaments. I have heard the "I am running a horde army" excuse a bunch, but that just does not fly with me. After a year off from 2 day 40k evens, I rolled out a 150 man foot guard army and I was able to get all my games done (one stopped early due to me conceeding). Now guard is not my regular army and the round I played Allan's all infantry army, we were among the first people done. I was able to do this thanks to planning ahead and practicing with the list to speed up lay and setup time. So, sorry horde players, thats not enough of an excuse. If you are incapable of playing a horde army and making past turn three, then don't bring the damn thing to a two day event.

Really, my best solution to the stalling problem is to implement a three strikes system. If you fail to complete your games, either through concession or last turn, three times in a weekend, you can no longer compete for overall or best general. That may seem harsh, but no one who paid to come to these things wants to be effectively eliminated because they got randomly paired with slow poke rodrigez in round three and could not make it past turn two.

 Phazael wrote:
Really, my best solution to the stalling problem is to implement a three strikes system. If you fail to complete your games, either through concession or last turn, three times in a weekend, you can no longer compete for overall or best general. That may seem harsh, but no one who paid to come to these things wants to be effectively eliminated because they got randomly paired with slow poke rodrigez in round three and could not make it past turn two.

So your solution to people being penalized for being paired with slow players is... to penalize people for being paired with slow players?

There are a lot of people who don’t know there armies, or don’t know how to play their armies fast.

I played Mike Fox in round #2 of the BAO and he played a foot horde ork army. He did a lot of things to speed up play like asking me if it was ok to combine his runs with his movement. Another thing he did was that he had several dice colors. He had them in 2 piles of 15 dice and one of 10. Since he knew how many dice he had in each, he was able to quickly manipulate the large numbers of dice that he needed to roll.

This is how it should be in a perfect world, but the reality is often far different. I wish every player had their crap together, but it will never happen, and there is not much recourse when they don’t. They are ruining other people’s tournament and gaming experience but there is not much that can be done about it. .

I played a list at the BAO that I had never played in a game before the tournament, with a codex that I had only played once before. This definitely hurt my chances of doing well, but all my games went to the roll for more turns. Obviously anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but I really don't see any reason why people wouldn't be able to finish their games in a timely fashion.

I think there are definitely things the TO's can do to help alleviate this problem
- regular announcements of the time remaining in the round
- harsh penalties for not making a minimum turn(as we do in pasadena)
- Harsh penalties for slow play
- Recognizing those members of the community who are notorious for this behavior and monitoring them appropriately. Not only monitoring, but letting them know that they are being watched for slow playing or lagging. I know it's hard since as someone said, the players are your customers. But is it better for one guy to have a gakky day because you called him out on his BS or for everyone he/she plays to have a gakky day when they have to play him?

Ultimately it is up to the players to play their game but the TO's should be doing their best to move things along, both ensuring that their customers/players are having a good time and that the rules for their event are being followed.

i organize my dice into sets of 6 before the game starts and always take some time during my opponents movement to set that back up. 6 shots per twin linked brainleech devourer, 3 dice for spawning gants, 2 dice for psyker tests... really easy to get the right amount.

Also, you don't have to measure 6" for every model in a 20 man unit. Measure the first few with a tac template and then fill in the rest.

There is a difference between a new army list and a new player. I assume you arn't a new player and were reasonably familiar with your codex.

 Danny Internets wrote:

 Phazael wrote:
Really, my best solution to the stalling problem is to implement a three strikes system. If you fail to complete your games, either through concession or last turn, three times in a weekend, you can no longer compete for overall or best general. That may seem harsh, but no one who paid to come to these things wants to be effectively eliminated because they got randomly paired with slow poke rodrigez in round three and could not make it past turn two.

So your solution to people being penalized for being paired with slow players is... to penalize people for being paired with slow players?

If you fail to complete a game once or twice, no penalty, so if you are not a slow player and find your way in this situation it is time to grow a pair and get the judge involved. This of course requires proactive judges who aren't busy eyeballing LOS issues for arguing douches all day.....

My advice is as follows. If the game is going slow at first kindly point it out a couple times. If you have to mention it again take a sterner tone. Most app phones stop watches - use it. Start timing your opponent each turn and mark it down. As an aside I remember playing in Ard Boyz once... My opponent was timing the rounds but wouldn't bother to tell me how much time was remaining when I asked.

I think I will do a couple of things to prevent stalling.

#1. Always go second.
#2. Take some fast scoring units.

That way when we know when the game will end I will be in possition to take advantage of it.

The other thing that I am going to do is buy a countdown timer for my table so I can see how much time we have left.

http://www.amazon.com/Presto-04213-Electronic-Digital-Timer/dp/B001CQG618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362589651&sr=8-1&keywords=Timer

ooh, the countdown timer is a good idea. Or a smartphone with clock app.

 pretre wrote:
ooh, the countdown timer is a good idea. Or a smartphone with clock app.

I use a kitchen timer app for tournaments, I can set up to 3 different times in it, click start to run one of the times, when it ends (say for time between rounds), I hopefully have done everything I needed to do, and can start the next round with another time.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
My advice is as follows. If the game is going slow at first kindly point it out a couple times. If you have to mention it again take a sterner tone. Most app phones stop watches - use it. Start timing your opponent each turn and mark it down. As an aside I remember playing in Ard Boyz once... My opponent was timing the rounds but wouldn't bother to tell me how much time was remaining when I asked.

It works out to 7.5 to 10 minutes a turn (including set up as a turn) for a 2 hour game.

Personally, I think chess clocks actually could work, if you don't go for classic "split total game time 50/50 per player", but instead give something like 1h15min per player in, while still having the total cap at 2h.

While people always start by saying that chess clock penalizes horde armies. With 50/50 spread, that is true. So next question is: how much more time should be given for the horde player?
If we have 2 hours of game time, allowing horde player to use 1.5h out of it is obviously too much if it results in game ending because of time restriction.
It means that horde player used 3 times as much time as the other did, which resulted in the game not being played to finish. That is pretty unfair for the non-horde player, isn't it?

1h15 min results in far more acceptable 50% more time used. Or you can go for 1h 20 min for 100% more time given for one player.
Note that if the game doesn't end because of time constraint, it really doesn't matter how the time used was divided.

Now, obviously chess clocks aren't perfect solution. As others have pointed out, your opponent can still try and stall you during your turn. But that is lot harder and/or more visible than stalling during their own turn is.
But just because there is no perfect problem for a solution doesn't meant that solutions lessening the problem should be ignored.
And using timed turns would mitigate the issue a lot.

There's always the obvious solution, at least for the TOs: Increase the time limit. 2:30 feels a bit tight for 1750, let alone 2k.

I wrote this in the other thread and I will post it here:

I think "us" as players need to do more to be proactive as far as time management goes. That means keeping track of time like timers or cell phones, have an army that can play fast, and if not have a system that speeds play. And then if falling behind encouraging and motivating our opponents to hurry up.

I was going to bring Eldar/Dark Eldar to Adepticon but I am not that proficient with that army, and it takes a while to play with all of the movement and shooting. That is why I am sticking with the Grey Knights because they play fast, I know them well, and I will almost always finish my games.

 Blackmoor wrote:
I wrote this in the other thread and I will post it here:

I think "us" as players need to do more to be proactive as far as time management goes. That means keeping track of time like timers or cell phones, have an army that can play fast, and if not have a system that speeds play. And then if falling behind encouraging and motivating our opponents to hurry up.

I was going to bring Eldar/Dark Eldar to Adepticon but I am not that proficient with that army, and it takes a while to play with all of the movement and shooting. That is why I am sticking with the Grey Knights because they play fast, I know them well, and I will almost always finish my games.

I'd agree that the onus lies on both parties. If I feel we're going slow, I remind my opponent of the time (respectfully) ask him/let him know we'll both need to hurry up (even if it is only him) in order to finish out the turns/get a good game in - I'll do this from the very start if I feel it's going to be a problem. I've had opponents spend 15 minutes thinking about their deployment, and another 5-10 doing it - you cant wait until 30 minutes to go on turn 3 to start saying something.

I play a horde army - 2x 50 man guard blobs and plenty of other elements. I know that in order to get a good game in, I will rarely get to "optimally" space my models, I've developed tricks for moving them faster, and I try to play fast. As such, my turns usually clock in around 15-20 minutes at the very upper end. In the two GTs I've played in recently (both with ~150 models on my side of the board, plenty of shooting from plenty of separate units), I've finished the game naturally in all but 1/10 - so it is possible to play high model count armies and still get things done. But, don't try it unless you're willing to do what it takes to ensure you aren't slowing down the process.

For what it's worth, I played a one-armed, mentally handicapped Ork player who managed a full 2000 pt game in 5th every round of a local tourney. Horde armies aren't really an excuse in my book.

I agree totally. There is no excuse for a horde army only getting in two to three turns. There is no reason why they can't get to turn 5.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I agree totally. There is no excuse for a horde army only getting in two to three turns. There is no reason why they can't get to turn 5.

The issues I've seen are typically form horde players, who want to play with the precision/effectiveness of a low model count army. IE, I brought a horde army, but I still insist on getting 2 inch spacing, every millimeter of movement from each model, etc etc. I accept that, since I play a horde list currently, I'm going to take more casualties from manticores/templates etc., because I don't have the luxury of perfect spacing/etc. due to time - and that's fine.

Target wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I agree totally. There is no excuse for a horde army only getting in two to three turns. There is no reason why they can't get to turn 5.

The issues I've seen are typically form horde players, who want to play with the precision/effectiveness of a low model count army. IE, I brought a horde army, but I still insist on getting 2 inch spacing, every millimeter of movement from each model, etc etc. I accept that, since I play a horde list currently, I'm going to take more casualties from manticores/templates etc., because I don't have the luxury of perfect spacing/etc. due to time - and that's fine.

Blast templates etc are a real issue for hordes. Fine my opponent wants me to be slap-dash in movement to get through moving 100 models, but then in their own turn are captain precision on the blast templates and even the merest glance of a base they are demanding a hit - so I then have to start placing models more carefully. Works both ways ...

I've had good luck with removing fingers. A good, sharp Exacto knife to the farthest out digit usually does the trick. By the time two or three fingers are gone, they either pick up the pace or pass out from blood loss. I count those as quitters.

 ruminator wrote:

Target wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I agree totally. There is no excuse for a horde army only getting in two to three turns. There is no reason why they can't get to turn 5.

The issues I've seen are typically form horde players, who want to play with the precision/effectiveness of a low model count army. IE, I brought a horde army, but I still insist on getting 2 inch spacing, every millimeter of movement from each model, etc etc. I accept that, since I play a horde list currently, I'm going to take more casualties from manticores/templates etc., because I don't have the luxury of perfect spacing/etc. due to time - and that's fine.

Blast templates etc are a real issue for hordes. Fine my opponent wants me to be slap-dash in movement to get through moving 100 models, but then in their own turn are captain precision on the blast templates and even the merest glance of a base they are demanding a hit - so I then have to start placing models more carefully. Works both ways ...

/Shrug, I just accept it as the cost of doing business. If it's close, I just give the hit to my opponent and suck up the fact that i may put several more models under the blast then I normally would if I were playing half as many models and had more time to be precise with it.

One good way of preventing players from stalling is to hook their testicles up to a 9 volt battery and a chess clock, ensuring that they receive a small dose of voltage should they not complete their turn and press a button inside 60 seconds.

For official GW tournaments where they take things a tad more seriously, the 9 volt battery is replaced with the batteries from a selection of heavy industrial and agricultural vehicles.

Target wrote:

 ruminator wrote:

Target wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I agree totally. There is no excuse for a horde army only getting in two to three turns. There is no reason why they can't get to turn 5.

The issues I've seen are typically form horde players, who want to play with the precision/effectiveness of a low model count army. IE, I brought a horde army, but I still insist on getting 2 inch spacing, every millimeter of movement from each model, etc etc. I accept that, since I play a horde list currently, I'm going to take more casualties from manticores/templates etc., because I don't have the luxury of perfect spacing/etc. due to time - and that's fine.

Blast templates etc are a real issue for hordes. Fine my opponent wants me to be slap-dash in movement to get through moving 100 models, but then in their own turn are captain precision on the blast templates and even the merest glance of a base they are demanding a hit - so I then have to start placing models more carefully. Works both ways ...

/Shrug, I just accept it as the cost of doing business. If it's close, I just give the hit to my opponent and suck up the fact that i may put several more models under the blast then I normally would if I were playing half as many models and had more time to be precise with it.

But 40k's balance is not designed around time... and basically horde players are forced by 'social convention' to hurry movement but then people who play MSU armies who have time to tweak every model's position get unfair advantages by the dilution of the horde players 'paid for by points' advantage of having lots of models and to be able to spread out. Equal time even makes this worse as someone with MSU can waste time by claiming he needs 10 minutes to move 3 rhinos and 15 men simply because the guy with 150 models took that long. That is not at all fair, maybe if I don't shoot and my shooting phase is 1 minute, your igard army should have 1 minute shooting as well?

The more people focus on how unfair it is because of time, (something not in the rules or in the balance of armies) why don't we focus on how unfair it is to make horde players play in such a way the effects they have paid for by points are being forced into not taking advantage of because impatient people. I would never ask you not to take your 2+ save on your terminator. Instead of a 2+ save, I have 12 bodies which need to be 2" apart to be equally effective.

Of course if you wanted to make it FAIR and FAST for horde players, give all units 20+ models which are moved in a slapdash manor a 6+invun to shooting. So you get 7 guys instead of the 4 you should have? Oh, one of those guys survived a 6+ save. Then you are balancing out the disadvantage of forcing horde players from being precision with movements without diluting their wargear and unit cost through expecting them to not play the rules precisely in favor of 'speed'.

It has nothing to do with being impatient. What is fair is both players get the same amount of time to play. There is no convention that a horde army should get more time and to say so is just plain silly.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
It has nothing to do with being impatient. What is fair is both players get the same amount of time to play. There is no convention that a horde army should get more time and to say so is just plain silly.

Agreed. Expecting to get more game time than your opponent doesn't really make sense. Besides, any rule that would give hordes more time could likely be exploited. If you want to use a huge horde, learn to play quickly!

nkelsch wrote:

Target wrote:

 ruminator wrote:

Target wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I agree totally. There is no excuse for a horde army only getting in two to three turns. There is no reason why they can't get to turn 5.

The issues I've seen are typically form horde players, who want to play with the precision/effectiveness of a low model count army. IE, I brought a horde army, but I still insist on getting 2 inch spacing, every millimeter of movement from each model, etc etc. I accept that, since I play a horde list currently, I'm going to take more casualties from manticores/templates etc., because I don't have the luxury of perfect spacing/etc. due to time - and that's fine.

Blast templates etc are a real issue for hordes. Fine my opponent wants me to be slap-dash in movement to get through moving 100 models, but then in their own turn are captain precision on the blast templates and even the merest glance of a base they are demanding a hit - so I then have to start placing models more carefully. Works both ways ...

/Shrug, I just accept it as the cost of doing business. If it's close, I just give the hit to my opponent and suck up the fact that i may put several more models under the blast then I normally would if I were playing half as many models and had more time to be precise with it.

But 40k's balance is not designed around time... and basically horde players are forced by 'social convention' to hurry movement but then people who play MSU armies who have time to tweak every model's position get unfair advantages by the dilution of the horde players 'paid for by points' advantage of having lots of models and to be able to spread out. Equal time even makes this worse as someone with MSU can waste time by claiming he needs 10 minutes to move 3 rhinos and 15 men simply because the guy with 150 models took that long. That is not at all fair, maybe if I don't shoot and my shooting phase is 1 minute, your igard army should have 1 minute shooting as well?

The more people focus on how unfair it is because of time, (something not in the rules or in the balance of armies) why don't we focus on how unfair it is to make horde players play in such a way the effects they have paid for by points are being forced into not taking advantage of because impatient people. I would never ask you not to take your 2+ save on your terminator. Instead of a 2+ save, I have 12 bodies which need to be 2" apart to be equally effective.

Of course if you wanted to make it FAIR and FAST for horde players, give all units 20+ models which are moved in a slapdash manor a 6+invun to shooting. So you get 7 guys instead of the 4 you should have? Oh, one of those guys survived a 6+ save. Then you are balancing out the disadvantage of forcing horde players from being precision with movements without diluting their wargear and unit cost through expecting them to not play the rules precisely in favor of 'speed'.

GW does not write the rules with tournaments in mind. The tournament states how much time you have. Players generally don't use the same ammount of time during the game. That said, it is only fair to assume that if you choose to bring a horde to a tournament with timed rounds (a neccessity) then you need to be able to finish your games in the time provided. If that means you have to space a little less precisely than you would like so be it (sometimes you will probably be 2.1" and sometimes you will be 1.8" it won't be a big deal, you can eyeball it.). It is far less fair for you as a horde player to spend time spreading out, and only get through turn 3 of the game essentailly denying your opponent 50% of his game turns.

 Kingsley wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
It has nothing to do with being impatient. What is fair is both players get the same amount of time to play. There is no convention that a horde army should get more time and to say so is just plain silly.

Agreed. Expecting to get more game time than your opponent doesn't really make sense. Besides, any rule that would give hordes more time could likely be exploited. If you want to use a huge horde, learn to play quickly!

Page number for this rule please? Where is this expectation of equal time in the rulebook or the design team?

It doesn't exist. The game has no expectation of 'equal play' Time restrictions are 'army comp' imposed by TOs. It is no different than limiting heavy support slots or disallowing special characters. They are all rules made up to control and influence what kind of armies people bring. All comp is subjective and none is more or less fair than the other.

There are no rules regarding time so any rules which apply 'time' to 40k is a made up house rule or 'social convention'. Don't pretend otherwise.

What you're claiming isn't in the rulebook. Mine comes under the section regarding good sportsmanship.

nkelsch wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
It has nothing to do with being impatient. What is fair is both players get the same amount of time to play. There is no convention that a horde army should get more time and to say so is just plain silly.

Agreed. Expecting to get more game time than your opponent doesn't really make sense. Besides, any rule that would give hordes more time could likely be exploited. If you want to use a huge horde, learn to play quickly!

Page number for this rule please? Where is this expectation of equal time in the rulebook or the design team?

It doesn't exist. The game has no expectation of 'equal play' Time restrictions are 'army comp' imposed by TOs. It is no different than limiting heavy support slots or disallowing special characters. They are all rules made up to control and influence what kind of armies people bring. All comp is subjective and none is more or less fair than the other.

There are no rules regarding time so any rules which apply 'time' to 40k is a made up house rule or 'social convention'. Don't pretend otherwise.

The issue is how do you not have timed games at a tournament? So your horde game lasts 5 hours, everyone else is done 2 hours before you....Your last game lasts that long and the store is closing. Timed rounds are a neccessity for tournaments. So are you saying that you should not have to finish your games because it is not in the rulebook that you have to play timed. If that is how you feel don't go to a tournament. Finishing the game in a given time is a "tournament rule" You can still spread out and play fast if you choose to, or you can choose not to run horde at a tournament.

nkelsch wrote:
Page number for this rule please? Where is this expectation of equal time in the rulebook or the design team?

There isn't any. But where's the page number for the rule that says you get to spend more turn time if your guys take longer to move or you're indecisive or whatever? There also isn't any. The community has to create their own rules when it comes to playing under time constraints, and in an environment with time constraints I (and others) feel that expecting to get more time than your opponent is a little silly.

That said it is also unreasonable to expect to get equal time, what is reasonable is to expect that people will finish their games, and the only way you can realisitically expect that to work is if you can play your turns at or under half the ammount of alloted time. Otherwise what happens when you go expecting to get 1 hour 45 min of the alloted 2.5 hours and your opponent also brings a horde army, need the same amount of time.

Breng77 wrote:
That said it is also unreasonable to expect to get equal time, what is reasonable is to expect that people will finish their games, and the only way you can realisitically expect that to work is if you can play your turns at or under half the ammount of alloted time. Otherwise what happens when you go expecting to get 1 hour 45 min of the alloted 2.5 hours and your opponent also brings a horde army, need the same amount of time.

Agreed.

nkelsch wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
It has nothing to do with being impatient. What is fair is both players get the same amount of time to play. There is no convention that a horde army should get more time and to say so is just plain silly.

Agreed. Expecting to get more game time than your opponent doesn't really make sense. Besides, any rule that would give hordes more time could likely be exploited. If you want to use a huge horde, learn to play quickly!

Page number for this rule please? Where is this expectation of equal time in the rulebook or the design team?

It doesn't exist. The game has no expectation of 'equal play' Time restrictions are 'army comp' imposed by TOs. It is no different than limiting heavy support slots or disallowing special characters. They are all rules made up to control and influence what kind of armies people bring. All comp is subjective and none is more or less fair than the other.

There are no rules regarding time so any rules which apply 'time' to 40k is a made up house rule or 'social convention'. Don't pretend otherwise.

This isn't YMDC.

The rulebook also doesn't state that you can use Forgeworld models in a standard game of 40k, yet tournaments allow it. The rulebook doesn't say I have to use the most recent version of my armies codex, yet tournaments say which versions I can use.

This is a discussion about tournaments, the time required for turns, and the ways to prevent a player from purposefully stalling. None of which can be referenced by page number in the rulebook so asserting the need for such a citation is completely unfounded.

As a player of an IG foot horde army, I think that it is my responsibility to know my army,how to move it,shoot it,play it. Regardless of what it is,if you field it at a tourney you should know what to do with it,and really Ive found that,being quick with a horde army kinda unnerves folks,so is another tactic for me to utilize.

The issue is players should be allowed to take as long as it takes to play the units they have paid for with the points.

Games should be allowed to be played to their natural conclusion. Which means the time needs to be set appropriately to accommodate the points level.

Pressuring certain builds which have longer phases to 'not participate is COMP and unsportsmanlike. Just because something takes longer to play than something else doesn't mean it is slow play.

Equal time is not in the rules and the game is not designed for it so any talk of equal time is unsportsmanlike or instituting COMP, an arbitrary rule which tells people what they can or cannot be brought to an event through punishment of armies which don't fit the idea of the COMP.

There is a huge difference between being indecisive and simply taking the appropriate time to play your army. Pressuring someone who is taking the appropriate time to 'hurry up' and expecting him to 'play worse' because you are hurrying him with his model placement, then taking advantage of his hurry by having more effective templates is poor sportsmanship.

The solution is to not have 2000 points in a 2 hour game. and let games play to their natural conclusion and not make up COMP rules to punish players with long phases with unreasonable concepts like 'equal time'.

So how longs is enough time? 2.5 hours? 3 hours? I've seen people take 6 hours to play 2000 points (back in 5th even) should I be allowing for that? I agree 2 hours is not enough, but it is unreasonable to allow more than 3 hours for a tournament round. Now maybe you feel we should never play 2k points, and that is a discussion to have, but saying that every tournament should allow every build to be able to play at what ever pace they please and finish the game naturally is ridiculous. There is no possible way that that can be accounted for. Expecting people to be able to finish their game in 1/2 the alloted time is only fair (so for a 2.5 hour round, each player should be able to finish in 1.25 hours) Saying anything else is unreasonable beacuse again what happens if both players bring armies that need more than half the time?

I don't even play armies with many templates so if I hurry someone is this a problem?

For me it comes down to this, you know ahead of time how much time you will have, if you cannot play an army well within that time frame don't bring that army or don't go. Its not comp, its logistics.You simply cannot have three 5 hour rounds in a tourney.

To me it is unreasonable for someone to need to measure 2" coherencey for each of 180 ork boyz, every time you move. measure it at set up, and make it close enough, 0.1" one way or another does not make or break your game.

This is not just a horde issue, gunlines can often have 20+ minute shooting phases, especially since shooting decisions seem to waste way more time than marching horde models forward 6".

It is a double-standard. Horde players are expected to be rushed and sloppy because people are 'bored' waiting for them even if they are moving models at a reasonable pace.

They then break out the precise measurements when they want to unload their gunline on that horde for 20 minutes and want tons of template coverage.

Some armies *WILL* take longer to play and will use more of the time. Assault armies often have a long assault phase on THEIR turn. Gunlines have long shooting phases. Equal time is not reasonable in any aspect of 40k. And hurrying people to gain an advantage is also unreasonable.

so then what is your solution for tournaments?

Unlimited time? Smaller point games? give players time based on their list? (which does not take things like experience into account)

Point is most events only have a limited time (be it 10 hours or whatever) to fit in say 3 rounds, at which point if you want a break of anykind for food, you end up with rounds of less than 3 hours (or at least not more than), and should be expected to finish games. I'm not suggesting all armies take the same amount of time to play, but you need to play yours as quickly as you can, and should not expect to have more than 1/2 the time available to play your army, nor should you expect your opponent to use less time because you need the time.

rushing players is far superior to allowing players to game the system to shorten the game. It is not unfair or unreasonable to expect people to play by the agreed upon tournament rules (if the rules say finish games of 2k points in 2 hours you knew that going in and should attempt to do so.)

A good general rule I think works is one hour and 15 minutes per thousand points.

Breng77 wrote:
I'm not suggesting all armies take the same amount of time to play, but you need to play yours as quickly as you can, and should not expect to have more than 1/2 the time available to play your army, nor should you expect your opponent to use less time because you need the time.

Wrong. If the game can finish to its natural conclusion, and I used 75% of the time on my turns, so be it. Actions are interactive so this false expectation of 'equal time' is nothing but ARMY COMP by people who play MSU armies with small model counts gaming the system and forcing unreasonable time expectations where there should be none.

Assault armies often have one massive assault phase which would happen on one persons turn or the other. That person shouldn't be punished for assaulting. And there will never be an equally large assault phase on the opponent's side. There is no possible way for equal time to ever function in 40k without unbalancing armies and breaking the META to a point where it is arbitrary ARMY COMP.

Horde players are not slow playing, people just dislike long phases where they have nothing to do or are just removing casualties from the board. Any time someone has a long movement or shooting phase, the false accusation of 'slow play' often gets thrown out and the false entitled attitude of 'equal time' is used as a justification.

The core issue is if times are the appropriate length and people have no expectation of 'equal time' and you just play the game at a correct pace, then it works out fine.

Yes if you us 75% of the time and we finish that is fine. Where the problem arises is when you bring an army with the intent of using 75% of the time and so do I. If we play each other and both need 1.5 hours out of 2 hours simply put we won't finish. You still have not answered what you think appropriate time is.

What I am saying is that you should expect to only have 1/2 the available time to complete your turns, you may end up using more if you can, but if you show up intending to use 75% of the available time, and you opponent shows up intending to use 50% you won't finish. I don't care if your turns are longer so long as they are short enough that in conjunction with mine we will finish in the time allotted. My opinion would be if you use 75% of the time and we don't finish you are playing too slowly.

nkelsch I agree that super shooty armies like IG can have very long shooting phases. Basically they need to play faster too. I remember a league game that took almost six hours to play (2k vs IG)... finally I went to the shop owner and complained a lot for a very long time. They then told my opponent to really speed it up.

Dollar Tree stores have 99 cent timers. No need to pay several bucks on Amazon.com. I *do* pack one in my army box, but have only used it once for a notoriously slow player, who quit 40k before 5e ended.

nkelsch wrote:
This is not just a horde issue, gunlines can often have 20+ minute shooting phases, especially since shooting decisions seem to waste way more time than marching horde models forward 6".

It is a double-standard. Horde players are expected to be rushed and sloppy because people are 'bored' waiting for them even if they are moving models at a reasonable pace.

They then break out the precise measurements when they want to unload their gunline on that horde for 20 minutes and want tons of template coverage.

Some armies *WILL* take longer to play and will use more of the time. Assault armies often have a long assault phase on THEIR turn. Gunlines have long shooting phases. Equal time is not reasonable in any aspect of 40k. And hurrying people to gain an advantage is also unreasonable.

This. You rush your movement only for the opponent to try his blast template in about 10 different positions before shooting - and then repeat for each shot - and then saying it's entirely your fault for the game being slow. Also, once I've moved the front line of a unit forward you can measure the range in my turn while I move the rest of my models. There is no need to wait until your turn.

 ruminator wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
This is not just a horde issue, gunlines can often have 20+ minute shooting phases, especially since shooting decisions seem to waste way more time than marching horde models forward 6".

It is a double-standard. Horde players are expected to be rushed and sloppy because people are 'bored' waiting for them even if they are moving models at a reasonable pace.

They then break out the precise measurements when they want to unload their gunline on that horde for 20 minutes and want tons of template coverage.

Some armies *WILL* take longer to play and will use more of the time. Assault armies often have a long assault phase on THEIR turn. Gunlines have long shooting phases. Equal time is not reasonable in any aspect of 40k. And hurrying people to gain an advantage is also unreasonable.

This. You rush your movement only for the opponent to try his blast template in about 10 different positions before shooting - and then repeat for each shot - and then saying it's entirely your fault for the game being slow. Also, once I've moved the front line of a unit forward you can measure the range in my turn while I move the rest of my models. There is no need to wait until your turn.

Actually given the recent wound allocation FAQ I need to do just that so I can determine which models are in range for wounding. I'm not saying players that have long shooting phases don't need to speed up as well (generally you can eyeball the best spot for your blast or template reasonably quickly). Essentially my point is this, if the game is not moving along toward finishing on time both players need to play more quickly, but the player using the majority of the time (usually horde, or blob) assumes the greater burden of speeding up. If my turns take only 30 minutes (total) and yours take more than 2 hours, the greater savings of time comes by you speeding up. IF you cannot move your models fast enough, ask for help, I can measure 2" coherency and move your models up as well, if units are not going to shoot, roll the run when you move them initially, bring dice in groups that are easy to pick up quickly (if you need to count out the 60 dice every time your unit shoots, it wastes time.) , roll your opponents to wound dice as your saves (if they let you), own a TAC template (so you can measure the move for your front row and then move the rest 2" up behind.), I've seen ork players with Magnetic deployment trays (to allow them to set there models up more quickly). There are plenty of ways to speed things up that are not "move faster", passing the buck to everyone else is unreasonable, you are not going to have 6 hours to play a game at a tournament, learn to play your army as efficeintly as possible, and you can finish your games, but you need to aim to be able to do so using only 1/2 the allowable time. While time used is not always equal, then it is the Horde Ork player Vs the Nid player, or the Blob guard player, both players need a lot of time, so you need to plan accordingly, and then be happy when you have more time.

Here is a two prong problem I find for slowing game play to a crawl:

Me: slow due to being less practiced and trying out all kinds of armies/configs that kept upping the learning curve.

Friend: likes rules exploits, requires checking rules from opponent to "prove him right". Sometimes misinterpretation or a pure "grey zone" rule is discovered blowing his game strategy bringing us to an impass.

Summary:

Taking rules to the edge kill time like no other = if you exploit make a note/list of the pages that support this tactic to help speed it along (you were researching it anyway). Forcing others to "look it up" is like blackmailing them into "Accept what I say, or you do not get to play."

Newbies should stick with an army and loadout that is reasonably consistent until they can get some speed to their game. Looking up rules for your own army is not good, your opponent will be depending on you explaining some of the stranger rules with confidence and an offer to show where it is in the Codex.