As I understand timers in competitive chess (which i've never played..) each player gets some allotment of time in which to take their turns, instead of just putting a timer on the game as a whole.

Why don't gaming tournaments do this?

Restricting rounds to 2:30 has balance implications, why not just give each player the equal amount of time?

I assume there would be some provision for stopping the clock for a ruling from TO if necessary.

Timers in chess give each player a certain amount of time which is the time for the whole game. Once you've made your move, you hit your part of the timer, which stops your timer and starts your opponent's. Then he does the same and so on and so forth.

I've never been to a tournament where this system is implemented, but it sounds like a decent system. You get a bit screwed over if you're playing a Green Tide or something though.

Because the rules are nowhere near similar. In chess if your part of the timer runs out you lose. Even if its your opponent's turn and you forget to hit the button.

It simply wouldn't work in 40k because the two armies are not identical. Someone who plays a horde or large army is going to be really pressured, ecen moreso than there are now, whereas smaller armies like Space Marines, Battlesuit Tau and GK have more time to relax. But what happens when Greentide faces Draigowing/Dethwing/TEQ based armies? TEQ getdoesn't have to worry about his timer as much because his turns are shorter and quicker whereas the Greentide has to really rush and doesn't have time to think.

This has been suggested a lot.

There are people that slow play, and just can’t get their act together to play in a reasonable amount of time. Even if a player is playing a horde army they can come up with systems to speed their play and to make sure they are acting in a timely manner. Just because you are playing a horde does not mean that you get to use over half of the time that you have to play your game.

Here is the problem with chess clocks…this works fine when you have one player who is doing there turn independently of their opponent IE chess and Warmahordes.

The problem with 40k is that you have a lot of phases of the game where your opponent is acting and that muddles the time issue. For examples the shooting phase your opponent takes time to check LOS, make saves, removes casualties, take morale, uses abilities, etc, Same with the assault phase.

Because of this chess clocks are not a perfect solution to time mismanagement.

Turns are interactive which means I make actions and use time on your turn and vice versa.

Implementing timed turns or equal play which are not accounted for in the rules is the same as adding arbitrary ARMY COMP to the tourney and it changes the META for the event.

Not saying it couldn't work, but it is arbitrary comp and isn't equally fair to all codexes and there is no expectation of equal time in the rules as they are designed.

40k doesn't work like chess, and such a clock system would be extremely abuseable. If I wanted to screw my opponent, I'd just take forever to roll every save, one at a time, during their turn, eating up their time.

You could hit the clock to pass time whenever your opponent is "acting", be that checking LOS or rolling his saves.

That being said, I agree that Chess clocks are not well-suited to 40k, as by design the game is intended to have a variety of armies, some of which play a lot faster or slower than others. The game is intended to work fine with one guy playing a small, elite, fast-playing army and the opponent playing a slower, horde army which takes up more than half the game time; and that's fine as long as they can complete their game in the total allotted time.

 Mannahnin wrote:
You could hit the clock to pass time whenever your opponent is "acting", be that checking LOS or rolling his saves.

That being said, I agree that Chess clocks are not well-suited to 40k, as by design the game is intended to have a variety of armies, some of which play a lot faster or slower than others. The game is intended to work fine with one guy playing a small, elite, fast-playing army and the opponent playing a slower, horde army which takes up more than half the game time; and that's fine as long as they can complete their game in the total allotted time.

I disagree.

I think that a horde player should be able to finish their games in the same amount of time.

I played against Mike Fox who posts here and he has a colored cups that corresponded to each of his ork squads. When he took casualties he placed them into the cups so he knew how many were in each squad buy what was in the cups. Also he has a system for his dice that helped him roll faster. On the other end of the spectrum I had an ork player who packed his army away in foam after every round, and took 40 minutes to deploy. The game ended on turn #3, Is that because he took a horde army or because of him?

The thing that people seem to forget it that an ork army is very forgiving when you are throwing around 6 point models. The small elite army has to be precise because one mistake and it could mean disaster and losing an expensive unit.

One player should not be monopolizing the time. Even with a horde army if you can’t get it done in half of the time that is on you.

Chess clocks are a good idea IMO and I would love to play in an event that incorporated them. That said, LoS checks and the like make this a little more complicated in 40k. If I went to a tournament and they had laser pointers in the swag bag and chess clocks for every table, though, I would be ecstatic.

 Blackmoor wrote:


One player should not be monopolizing the time. Even with a horde army if you can’t get it done in half of the time that is on you.

The problem is, the assault phase is the longest phase usually and you fight on my assault phase and vice versa. The game will always be stacked unfairly against assault-based armies.

If I am playing a green tide with 200 models, the chances you will be assaulting me on your turn are pretty high. And I will be rolling all my overwatch, all my ork attacks and so on during *YOUR* turn. In fact, I could build whole tactics around making sure that if you assault me it is a 30-minute phase, because it can become like that when rolling 100+ dice for one units CC attacks.

The turns are interactive, and small elite forces shouldn't get an unpaid advantage or expectation of being allowed to be super critical with movements and such to 'waste' time while other armies are expected to 'take the hit' of sloppy play. The rules are not written or balanced around such a notion. It is basically making up new rules based upon one person's notion of how the game 'should be played' which is army composition.

I've actually played with a chess clock before, though never in a tournament. It was an interesting experience, to be sure. Neither force was particularly large, admittedly, but it definitely kept the pace of the game moving quickly.

I can see the up and downsides to it. As a system in tournaments, it could be subject to massive abuse by the same people who are already deliberately trying to run down the clock, and also penalizes players who take horde armies.

But it does get enormously frustrating playing someone who needs to check, recheck, and triple check every single decision and action they make during the course of their turn. Especially when they're doing it on purpose.

 Blackmoor wrote:
Just because you are playing a horde does not mean that you get to use over half of the time that you have to play your game.

I notice your sig says Grey Knights. Any connection there?

 Dakkamite wrote:
I notice your sig says Grey Knights. Any connection there?

It doesn't have to have anything to do with GK, it's just basic fairness. No matter what army you play you should never think that you are entitled to more than half the game time, for one simple reason: your opponent can play the same army. If you have a horde army and your opponent has a horde army you will both need equal amounts of time, so you have to be capable of playing your half of the game in half the available time. If you assume that you're always entitled to more than half the time you will either fail to finish the game, or put your horde opponent under incredibly unfair time pressure. And if you're capable of playing your half within half the available time you don't get the right to take more than half just because your opponent is playing a "faster" army.


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 Mannahnin wrote:
You could hit the clock to pass time whenever your opponent is "acting", be that checking LOS or rolling his saves.

But that assumes that who is "acting" is clear. If the players are disputing LOS who has to spend time on it? If there's a rule disagreement who has to spend time on it? If I think my opponent's measurement is off do I have to spend some of my time to challenge it?

And then of course there's the problem of exploiting the chess clock. For example, if I know my opponent is running low on time I can move my models too far, claim LOS that I don't really have, etc, because my opponent can't afford to spend time to challenge it. Or I can do things like make irrelevant tank shocks to force my opponent to spend time moving their models, charge a terminator death star with a single guardsmen to force my opponent to spend time on a combat with an inevitable outcome, etc.

If you play Mantic's games like Kings of War, chess clocks are a suggested approach.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
I notice your sig says Grey Knights. Any connection there?

It doesn't have to have anything to do with GK, it's just basic fairness. No matter what army you play you should never think that you are entitled to more than half the game time, for one simple reason: your opponent can play the same army. If you have a horde army and your opponent has a horde army you will both need equal amounts of time, so you have to be capable of playing your half of the game in half the available time. If you assume that you're always entitled to more than half the time you will either fail to finish the game, or put your horde opponent under incredibly unfair time pressure. And if you're capable of playing your half within half the available time you don't get the right to take more than half just because your opponent is playing a "faster" army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mannahnin wrote:
You could hit the clock to pass time whenever your opponent is "acting", be that checking LOS or rolling his saves.

But that assumes that who is "acting" is clear. If the players are disputing LOS who has to spend time on it? If there's a rule disagreement who has to spend time on it? If I think my opponent's measurement is off do I have to spend some of my time to challenge it?

And then of course there's the problem of exploiting the chess clock. For example, if I know my opponent is running low on time I can move my models too far, claim LOS that I don't really have, etc, because my opponent can't afford to spend time to challenge it. Or I can do things like make irrelevant tank shocks to force my opponent to spend time moving their models, charge a terminator death star with a single guardsmen to force my opponent to spend time on a combat with an inevitable outcome, etc.

The problem is... what counts as 'using time'?

So I assault you... so now you are overwatching me... is that your time or my time? For it to be fair we would have to:

*My turn Declare assault <chess clock to other player>
*You roll overwatch hits and wounds <chess clock to other player>
*I roll Armor saves, LOS and remove casualties, We see if distance is valid, I move assaulting models <chess clock to other player>
*You respond assaulting models <chess clock to other player>
*Initiative 5 happens, Your models roll attacks, to wounds <chess clock to other player>
*I roll armor saves, remove casualties. I roll initiative 3 attacks, hot and wound <chess clock to other player>
*You roll armor saves, remove casualties <chess clock to other player>
*I roll Initiative 2 attacks, hit and wound <chess clock to other player>
*You roll armor saves, hit and wound. You roll Initiative 1 attacks, hit and wound <chess clock to other player>
*I roll Invulnerable saves, remove casualties <chess clock to other player>
*You fail combat and roll leadership, You fail, roll to flee <chess clock to other player>
*I roll to catch, I fail <chess clock to other player>
*You move models from fleeing<chess clock to other player>

That was *ONE* unit doing assault. Should that all be *MY* time? Should that all be *YOUR* time? Or are we going to go through the messy clusterfeth to chessclock that bullcrap? And that is just one average simple assault. The turns are interactive, the game doesn't expect turns should be the same amount of time as some armies and units completely disregard entire phases. How fair is it that I have a unit designed, pointed and balanced about rolling multiple dice in multiple phases while you may have a unit which sits still and does quick simple shooting?

And the 'you can play the same army, you choose to play an army which is slower so suck it up' is ARMY COMP. People seem to hate army comp except when it is to their personal advantage.

Hypocrites from people who claim they want more competitive gaming but then turn around and want to modify army composition via chess clocks and false premises like 'equal time' in a game which is not balanced around or designed for equal time in the core rules.

I would suggest using the clock only for the movement phase. The more interactive phases could be subject only to the "overall" round time. For those unfamiliar with chess clocks, this is trivial to implement. There is always a "middle" setting where neither player's clock is running.

There also doesn't have to be a "sudden death" loss based on allotted time, it could simply result in a VP penalty or something. If you are playing a competitive game in limited time then time management should be part of the player's skillset. Put 'em on the clock. In competitive chess, being able to play well quickly is a decided advantage.

nkelsch wrote:
How fair is it that I have a unit designed, pointed and balanced about rolling multiple dice in multiple phases while you may have a unit which sits still and does quick simple shooting?

Yes, that's one case. But now let's consider a case where both of us are playing with that "slow" unit. Let's say it takes 60% of the time available. While it might be fine when I have a 30% unit and we can finish the whole game it means it takes 120% of the available time if we both have that unit. Clearly that is unacceptable, so you have an obligation to keep your army as a whole within 50% of the time. And once you've fulfilled that obligation and allowed a "two slow armies" match to finish within the time limits you don't need to claim more than 50% of the available time just because your opponent doesn't use all of it.

Hypocrites from people who claim they want more competitive gaming but then turn around and want to modify army composition via chess clocks and false premises like 'equal time' in a game which is not balanced around or designed for equal time in the core rules.

It's not comp at all. If you can't move a horde of models quickly you can't play a horde army. If you can't handle the decisions in running an elite army fast enough you can't bring an elite army. But that doesn't mean your choice of armies has been limited, it just means that you need to practice more with your chosen army until you can play it properly.


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Jack_Death wrote:
I would suggest using the clock only for the movement phase.

But that's not fair at all. Why should I be penalized if I take an army that has a slow movement phase but a fast shooting phase to make up for it? If you're going to time it the only fair system is to split the time in half and let each player use their half as they want. Timing specific actions but not others doesn't make any sense at all.

I still see nothing in the rules in regards to a false expectation of equal time nor how to account time during interactive phases like me resolving armor saves, FNP and LOS rolls on your shooting phase or you resolving over watch and attacks during my assault. In fact, a shooty defensive army could use a ton of it e on your opponents turn due to the nature of overwatch.

I don't see how "being able to play my army faster or better" addresses you rolling hundreds of dice on my assault phase because I happened to assault your 120 man blob or vice versa.

Interactive turns make accounting time impossible. The rules have no expectation of equal time, and setting an expectation of "fairness" on something which doesn't exist in the rules is a rule which changes how people are forced to select armies which is army comp.

nkelsch wrote:
I don't see how "being able to play my army faster or better" addresses you rolling hundreds of dice on my assault phase because I happened to assault your 120 man blob or vice versa.

That's why you don't have the clock run for an entire turn, you switch the clock to your opponent every time your opponent does something in your turn.

Now, this is a lot of tedious time-keeping for very little reward and (as I clearly said) I don't agree with the idea of chess clocks in 40k, but it's certainly possible to divide up those actions.

The rules have no expectation of equal time, and setting an expectation of "fairness" on something which doesn't exist in the rules is a rule which changes how people are forced to select armies which is army comp.

The standard rules of the game don't have that expectation, but once you add a time limit you also add an expectation that each player gets half of it.

And, again, call it comp if you want but if you're taking an army that depends on taking more than half of the available time you aren't going to finish your game when you play against an opponent with a similar army. And not being able to finish the game they paid money to play isn't fair to your opponent.

 Blackmoor wrote:
I disagree.

I think that a horde player should be able to finish their games in the same amount of time.

I played against Mike Fox who posts here and he has a colored cups that corresponded to each of his ork squads. When he took casualties he placed them into the cups so he knew how many were in each squad buy what was in the cups. Also he has a system for his dice that helped him roll faster. On the other end of the spectrum I had an ork player who packed his army away in foam after every round, and took 40 minutes to deploy. The game ended on turn #3, Is that because he took a horde army or because of him?

The thing that people seem to forget it that an ork army is very forgiving when you are throwing around 6 point models. The small elite army has to be precise because one mistake and it could mean disaster and losing an expensive unit.

One player should not be monopolizing the time. Even with a horde army if you can’t get it done in half of the time that is on you.

This is just untrue.

The composition of the enemy force can completely dictate how fast or slow an army plays on its own turn.

For example, say an elite army relies on a Deathstar unit that has Feel No Pain and lies to pass off wounds via Look Out Sir.

An Ork army shooting at such any enemy unit TAKES LONGER than against other types of enemies because you potentially have to roll for Look Out Sir, then an armor save, then feel no pain for EVERY single wound.

So for example, back when Paladins could all Look Out Sir, I know playing against a Paladin army with my Orks took way, way longer to play then against an opponent who had a much larger model count army. And that extra time was on 'my time' supposedly, but really it had everything to do with how the two armies interact with each other.

My Orks relied on mass, mass shooting (rolling tons of dice) and if my opponents army relied on multiple defensive rolls (Look out sir, armor saves, feel no pain) then MY shooting took a LOT longer to resolve, yet this had nothing to do with me and how fast or slow I played.


And I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you say that horde players HAVE to play fast in order to finish their games, then you've relegated horde armies ONLY to veteran players, which is a stupid way to construct a tournament scene.

Tournament organizers need to track records of players finishing/not finishing games in EVERY event they run. If the % of games being finished is too high, then they know they need to adjust the tournament rules or schedule to fix the issue, but if most people are finishing their games and a few players are routinely NOT finishing against a wide variety of players, then those players should be targeted and eventually ejected if they cannot comply.

Trying to shoehorn players into playing into 'half' the round time, is NOT fair in ANY possible regard with this game.

 yakface wrote:
My Orks relied on mass, mass shooting (rolling tons of dice) and if my opponents army relied on multiple defensive rolls (Look out sir, armor saves, feel no pain) then MY shooting took a LOT longer to resolve, yet this had nothing to do with me and how fast or slow I played.

Again, that's why you don't time the entire turn, you finish rolling your dice and then flip the clock over to your opponent while they do theirs. You have to do this anyway otherwise it would be way too easy to deliberately roll saves as slowly as you can to use up more of your opponent's time.

Trying to shoehorn players into playing into 'half' the round time, is NOT fair in ANY possible regard with this game.

Neither is bringing an army that you know requires more than half of the round time, since this guarantees that your match can only finish if you play against an opponent who does make the sacrifices to be able to play their army in less than half the time. If you play against a horde opponent who needs 48% of the round time with your 60%-required army then you will not finish the match.

To be honest, I'd like to see chess clocks running before the game even starts. Want to take a Daemon army with 2 dozen rolls on random tables before deployment? Okay, but it's coming out of your time. Want to take Thudd guns? Hope you can resolve multiple barrages quickly. A lot of inconsiderate/TFG behaviors would be solved by the use of chess clocks.

yakface wrote:
And I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you say that horde players HAVE to play fast in order to finish their games, then you've relegated horde armies ONLY to veteran players, which is a stupid way to construct a tournament scene.

Not to mention those who are ok with just dumping their painted models on top of each other into cups

Chess clocks just are not suitable to this game. This game was not designed with a time limit, and some armies fundamentally take more time to play than others and expecting them all to be able to play at the same rate is absurd, especially if wanting to measure accurately and make full use of the rules (e.g. I'm wanting to spread my squad out to ensure they can make that charge next turn but also get a cover save and not get pasted by blast templates).


Clocks would get messy and abuseable. If you're doing it straight by player turn, you can pooch someone by taking all the time in the world to roll saves, argue over rules/LoS/etc, and if you're doing it by actions then you waste a bunch of time messing with the clock and getting into arguments over people not hitting the clock fast enough/on time/etc. If you want to play speed chess, play speed chess. The game is well adapted to it. If you want to play 40k, then time must be adapted to 40k, not 40k to time, or you're no longer really playing 40k and you're going to get nothing but Elite armies at events and *far* more butthurt than you can imagine.

 Peregrine wrote:


Again, that's why you don't time the entire turn, you finish rolling your dice and then flip the clock over to your opponent while they do theirs. You have to do this anyway otherwise it would be way too easy to deliberately roll saves as slowly as you can to use up more of your opponent's time.

While my example highlighted situations where the opponent is making rolls (armor saves, feel no pain rolls, Look Out Sir), this isn't the full extent of the issue.

Say an opposing army is entirely mechanized, but when it dismounts its infantry models tend to die quickly (poor armor with no special rules) and your army features tons of anti-infantry shooting (like shootas in an Ork army).

In that type of game, you either don't have much to shoot at (as your anti-tank shots are pretty quick to resolve) and then when the opposing force dismounts, it is quite easy for your army to quickly dispatch them.

Counter this concept with an enemy army type that is completely foot-mounted, but is made up of super-tough infantry. In this situation, you literally have to fire every model in your army every turn at the enemy units in an attempt to whittle them down.

So in this second case, the time it takes to just play YOUR army (just rolling 'to hit' and 'to wound' with every one of your models every round) ends up taking MUCH longer than it would against a totally different army type.

The composition and the things your opponent does dictates how long 'your half' of the game takes. So it is entirely possible for someone with a tiny Elite army to actually cause the horde player's actions to take much longer to play than facing off against another horde army.

Neither is bringing an army that you know requires more than half of the round time, since this guarantees that your match can only finish if you play against an opponent who does make the sacrifices to be able to play their army in less than half the time. If you play against a horde opponent who needs 48% of the round time with your 60%-required army then you will not finish the match.

Again, this is a problem with the EVENT. The game is designed to allow for horde armies as part of the game. The tournament should be structured to allow two horde players playing at a reasonable pace to finish their game, either by reducing points, extending round times, or using other event-specific rules to help the issue out.

But if the only way for a horde army to finish their games at an event is to 'play fast' then basically you've unfairly relegated the horde army style to elite players, and that is both bad for diversity in the tournament hobby and helps to shift the meta-game in unnatural ways.

Warmachine/Hordes uses chess clocks as part of the Steamroller (year) tournament package. That or times turns. WmH has a relatively tight turn schedule, with few effects happening out of turn - the occasional tough (think armour save) roll or some effects that fire when something comes within range of certain models. However, those effects still demand a precice switch between the active and reactive players and can zometimes become a bone of contention between inexperienced tournament players. I am not sure I see it working well in GW games in generaø because a lot of reactive rollling and decicions go on in the opponents turn.

That being said, chess clocks rule for pacing the game, and force players to stop dragging their feet and spend twice as much time as their opponent in analysis paralysis. It also means you can have pretty big swiss draw tournaments in a single day!

 yakface wrote:


This is just untrue.

The composition of the enemy force can completely dictate how fast or slow an army plays on its own turn.

For example, say an elite army relies on a Deathstar unit that has Feel No Pain and lies to pass off wounds via Look Out Sir.

An Ork army shooting at such any enemy unit TAKES LONGER than against other types of enemies because you potentially have to roll for Look Out Sir, then an armor save, then feel no pain for EVERY single wound.

So for example, back when Paladins could all Look Out Sir, I know playing against a Paladin army with my Orks took way, way longer to play then against an opponent who had a much larger model count army. And that extra time was on 'my time' supposedly, but really it had everything to do with how the two armies interact with each other.

My Orks relied on mass, mass shooting (rolling tons of dice) and if my opponents army relied on multiple defensive rolls (Look out sir, armor saves, feel no pain) then MY shooting took a LOT longer to resolve, yet this had nothing to do with me and how fast or slow I played.

That is why I said that chess clocks break down in the assault and shooting phases and that is why they are not a viable solution to slow playing.

And I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you say that horde players HAVE to play fast in order to finish their games, then you've relegated horde armies ONLY to veteran players, which is a stupid way to construct a tournament scene.

Tournament organizers need to track records of players finishing/not finishing games in EVERY event they run. If the % of games being finished is too high, then they know they need to adjust the tournament rules or schedule to fix the issue, but if most people are finishing their games and a few players are routinely NOT finishing against a wide variety of players, then those players should be targeted and eventually ejected if they cannot comply.

Trying to shoehorn players into playing into 'half' the round time, is NOT fair in ANY possible regard with this game.

It is not fair for the game to only go 3 rounds either.

I do not want to lose hordes armies, and I want them to be accessible to everyone, but TOs are trying to cram a lot of games these days into a weekend and the games are taking longer to play. The best option is more time to play but that is not happening so something has to give.

 Peregrine wrote:

Jack_Death wrote:
I would suggest using the clock only for the movement phase.

But that's not fair at all. Why should I be penalized if I take an army that has a slow movement phase but a fast shooting phase to make up for it? If you're going to time it the only fair system is to split the time in half and let each player use their half as they want. Timing specific actions but not others doesn't make any sense at all.

Timing only movement was only a suggestion. I can just as easily say "timing phases where both players are acting doesn't make any sense at all" - that is in fact the argument being made by just about everyone in this thread.

Of course, the TO is already timing all of the phases and all of the player actions - just not for each individual player. You have to accept the fact that the game is already being timed and only then ask the question "is the gamed being timed fairly?". The movement phase is an easy target for improved fairness as players are not sharing the time. As 40K is not a strict I-go U-go game, any improvement is going to have tradeoffs.

Equal time cannot work until 100 points of ork shoota boyz takes the exact same amount of time to shoot as 100 points of Iguard pieplates.

The game is balanced off of some armies require massive numbers of dice rolled, models moved and so on for small individual points, others require small units, small numbers, quick actions for large points.

Time limits or the false premise of equal time negates the balance of mass models vs expensive models by giving expensive models a huge advantage not paid for or balanced with points.

Any implementation of such a concept is fundamentally unfair and against the core design fo the game. It shifts the meta and imposes army composition on people based upon an arbitrary notion on 'how the game should be played' opposed to the rules of the core game.

And timing just the movement phase isn't fair because a 250 point land raider doesn't take the same time as 250 points of nids. Equal-time expectations basically tells players that point-for-point armies all need to move with the equal amount of time. So I can 'move' my igard army in 10 seconds, so now my nid opponent must move his 100 models in 10 seconds.

Imposing equal time is no more fair than randomly changing units point values, requiring necrons to play with 250pts less of models or adding +1 WS to models who are blue. It is madeup rules which change the balance of the entire game unfairly.

But what you are saying is "unequal time is ok". That's fine, but I think there is room to disagree.

nkelsch wrote:
Equal time cannot work until 100 points of ork shoota boyz takes the exact same amount of time to shoot as 100 points of Iguard pieplates.

As has been mentioned Warmahordes can use a "death clock" option at its tournaments. It doesn't prevent "horde" armies from playing nor does it put them on an unfair footing. It's up to the player to make tactical decisions as to which units to use at which time. AFIAK there is no rule in 40K that says that you have to use all of your units all of the time. There is a rule like that in Warmahordes.
What the death clock does force people to do is learn their armies rules and abilities. If you want to say that that would restrict novice players from playing 200 Orks in a battle then I say so what? I would feel the same way if he was using a 15 model GK army. Don't waste my time if you don't know how to run your army.

I am all for a clock as well as TO's that check how the games are going during the games.

Call me weird but would not playing smaller point games in a tourney make it easier to get games done in time?

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
As has been mentioned Warmahordes can use a "death clock" option at its tournaments. It doesn't prevent "horde" armies from playing nor does it put them on an unfair footing. It's up to the player to make tactical decisions as to which units to use at which time. AFIAK there is no rule in 40K that says that you have to use all of your units all of the time. There is a rule like that in Warmahordes.
What the death clock does force people to do is learn their armies rules and abilities. If you want to say that that would restrict novice players from playing 200 Orks in a battle then I say so what? I would feel the same way if he was using a 15 model GK army. Don't waste my time if you don't know how to run your army.

Warmahordes is a different game. Some games are designed around IgoUgo and have similar balance concepts around time. Those games it can work.

And 'knowing how to run your army' has nothing to do with the raw phsyics of dice rolling or moving 30 models on foot vs 1 tank carring 20 models.

And 'not using all your models' why should someone pay 500 points and only get to use half of them when someone else pays 500 points for expensive single models and gets to use all of them? You might as well be telling specific armies or units 'you get to play this tourney with half the number of points of the small model count armies.' Is that balanced?

It is gamebreakingly unfair and slants the entire meta to 'expensive models' vs 'high model counts'

nkelsch wrote:
And 'not using all your models' why should someone pay 500 points and only get to use half of them when someone else pays 500 points for expensive single models and gets to use all of them? You might as well be telling specific armies or units 'you get to play this tourney with half the number of points of the small model count armies.' Is that balanced?
It is gamebreakingly unfair and slants the entire meta to 'expensive models' vs 'high model counts'

emphasis added by me

This is the same battle cry for why Forgeworld shouldn't be used (albeit in a different use of the word expensive).

Obvoiusly the TOs that run events think that a certain amount of time is enough for both players to complete a game. Why is it "fair" to give one player more time to play than the other? If you keep your stuff organized and you have practiced running your army there shouldn't be an issue. It's not like someone is suggesting that clocks be sprung upon the players. Everyone who enters that event would know what is expected. If you find that you can't run your army in the time allotted then make some changes or learn to move/decide things faster.
Would a clock change Metas? Certainly, but so does any rule change. A single FAQ entry could destroy a popular build or make a particular model more or less desirable. Does that mean it shouldn't be followed? No, it just means that players will have to make an adjustment to their game plan and move on. This would be no different.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
And 'not using all your models' why should someone pay 500 points and only get to use half of them when someone else pays 500 points for expensive single models and gets to use all of them? You might as well be telling specific armies or units 'you get to play this tourney with half the number of points of the small model count armies.' Is that balanced?
It is gamebreakingly unfair and slants the entire meta to 'expensive models' vs 'high model counts'

emphasis added by me

This is the same battle cry for why Forgeworld shouldn't be used (albeit in a different use of the word expensive).

Obvoiusly the TOs that run events think that a certain amount of time is enough for both players to complete a game. Why is it "fair" to give one player more time to play than the other? If you keep your stuff organized and you have practiced running your army there shouldn't be an issue. It's not like someone is suggesting that clocks be sprung upon the players. Everyone who enters that event would know what is expected. If you find that you can't run your army in the time allotted then make some changes or learn to move/decide things faster.
Would a clock change Metas? Certainly, but so does any rule change. A single FAQ entry could destroy a popular build or make a particular model more or less desirable. Does that mean it shouldn't be followed? No, it just means that players will have to make an adjustment to their game plan and move on. This would be no different.

Because units are balanced upon Points, and points do not take in to account 'how fast' a unit is to use. Including speed to use as a rule to the game, one which is not part of the rules at all means the entire game needs to be rebalanced for it to be fair.

Yes, it shifts the META. And it is a arbitrary and unfair shift at that, one that damages the game to unplayable levels for some armies. It makes the event exclusionary for no valid reason, based upon a false premise not included in the game design. TO's have every right to modify the game arbitrarily to change rules and so on, but if they do it too much, it ruins the event and people won't attend.

Equal Play is not in the rules and is not figured into the balance of the game and makes the game unplayable for many units and codexes, to a point where the outcome of the event becomes basically 'pointless' due to it being so unfair.

There is a difference between playing a game to its natural conclusion in the alloted time, and playing the game so each player gets exactly HALF the time and one player can 'starve' the other by finishing his turns super fast throug a small-model-count army and force the game to end 45 minutes early before time is out and claim 'you are out of time, I win'. And considering there is no valid way to account for 'whose time is whose' the accounting of 'equal time' is a false premise.

If time limits are imposed, and games are not finishing, that is an issue with times being too short or point limits too large, not equal time.

It's easy to account for whose time is whose. If you're rolling the dice or moving pieces then it's your time. If your opponent is doing such things then it's his time.
I don't understand your point about unit points being balanced against other units. Points are points. Each person has the same amount and each person can choose how to spend them.
So what if my army has 15 models and yours has 100. If I loose one of my models it hurts me more than you losing one of yours. And it shouldn't matter to you how fast your opponent is playing. You should be concerned about how you are playing. Why should you be entitled to use more of the allocated time than I am? If we're each using the same points where does it say we have to have the same model count?
Fairness is all a matter of perspective. I sometimes don't think that it's fair that orks can have all sorts of cheap weapons and troops and a full codex. While I have to work out of 2 editions of the White Dwarf (I'm a Sisters player). So what should we do about that situation? Life isn't always fair and neither are dice rolls. If you play a game and you're aware of the rules then you can adapt to those rules or quit. There's no one who is forcing anyone else to play the game.

@ OP The only reason this works for chess is due to the symmetry of the forces and board. It wouldn't be fair in 40k due to these asymmetric differences. Combine that with turns were both parties participate and it just doesnt make sense.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
...Points are points. Each person has the same amount and each person can choose how to spend them....
...Fairness is all a matter of perspective. I sometimes don't think that it's fair that orks can have all sorts of cheap weapons and troops and a full codex. While I have to work out of 2 editions of the White Dwarf (I'm a Sisters player). So what should we do about that situation? Life isn't always fair and neither are dice rolls. If you play a game and you're aware of the rules then you can adapt to those rules or quit. There's no one who is forcing anyone else to play the game.

Everyone has the same choices of codices to pick from, and each person can choose which one to pick. So what if you have 2 editions of WD to go off of? You chose to play SoB, and with those WD issues are your codex, with a full force org chart and errythang. Life isn't always fair and either are dice roles, you either adapt to different codices or quit.


That aside, I don't think clocks are a great way to balance out the turns because of the potential asymmetry of the armies involved. Maybe a model limit instead of time limits? Maybe just getting over people having a butt-ton of models and trying your best to play a full game?

The Maryland Wargaming Collective has been using chess clocks to time games since they started running events three years ago.

It works great! Some players aren't very good about managing their time, but for the most part the clocks have the desired effect: instead of mulling over moves and analyzing the game for a prolonged amount of time, players must take their turns in a reasonable amount of time.

MWC limits games to 2 hours, 1 per person.

I am surprised by some of the arguments being offered in this thread against chess clocks.

The interactive portions of the turn take almost no time to resolve, and in three years and 15 tournaments I cannot recall a single player abusing the system by taking a long time to roll saves, etc. Even in the aggregate, an opponent spends little to no time responding to moves made during the active player's turn.

Time management does become a bit more critical for model-heavy armies like green tide, mostly because moving is a pain, but there are little tricks that can be done to save time. I've seen slower players run out of time playing footslogging IG, but for the most part everyone seems to cope. It hasn't been a big disadvantage to horde armies. Players running short of time simply have to go faster.

Extreaminatus - That's just my point. I adapted. I didn't like what happened but I got over it.
That's what I'm saying about a new clock rule. People will adapt and the world will go on.

True, I'm not exactly sure what point I was trying to make by quoting you, but I do know that clocks seem like a silly way to go about things, mostly because horde armies take forever to move anyway (not just from mulling over WHERE to move, just that physically moving them takes a while).

Really, if time is becoming an issue routinely at events...why not just lower the points level? I know people like playing bigger armies, but armies have been growing in size every edition. Every edition stuff gets a little bit cheaper, armies need a few more models, and time becomes more of an issue. What will fit in an 1850pt IG army now would have been 2600pts in 3E, what you can fit in a Tau army now at 1850 would have been 2100 previously, etc.

Add to this that tournaments have gone from 1500pts almost universally a decade ago to 1750pts then 1850pts and then to 2000pts at the end of 5E (though have retreated to 1850 after the double-force org was put in in most places) and we're playing larger armies with more points than before.

If games cannot be finished in time at the current points level, and events cannot increase the amount of time for games played, then the real answer is to lower the points level for the games played, not to try and hamfist clocks into the situation that will put the same time limit on all players armies regardless of whether its reasonable or not and add another thing that can be gamed, gimmicked and argued over.

Not to mention having to have TO's purchase said clocks in addition to providing tables, terrain, etc.


TL;DR if time for games can't be extended, events need to play smaller games, not try and fiddle with clocks.

Yeah, seems like 1500 point games would be more reasonable to get done in time.

As was mentioned, Kings of War and Warpath are specifically designed to have only the player whose turn it is acting. This means it works perfectly well with chess clocks and speeds up play. I think if people want to play in that style, they should swap over to the Warpath rules set. 40K is getting much too bloated and time consuming to play as a tournament game.

We've thought about this a lot, and this is a topic that comes up often.

The main reason we haven't done it in our events: chess clocks aren't cheap.

Wow, I just googled their cost, they start from $25 up to over $100 for something that would have been simple and cheap to make even in the 80's...

Yeah, good luck getting a TO to spring for 30-60 of those.

 erewego86 wrote:
The Maryland Wargaming Collective has been using chess clocks to time games since they started running events three years ago.

I haven't seen a tourney in MD (or philly, DC or nova) use a chess clock for 40k ever in 20 years of gaming in this area. And I have never ever heard of MWC.

I would love to see the statistics of these 'events' including which armies attended, which armies had too much or not enough time. Point levels, Time limits, and feedback from people who actually attended along with size of events.

I would also like to know how quickly and frequently you require tapping back and forth considering one assault goes back and forth at least 10-15 times minimum. In a phase where you can easily have 5-6 assaults, you are almost clicking back and forth in one assault phase more than an entire game of chess.

Know what also has the 'desired effect' without imposing a false premise like equal time? Simply announcing how much longer the round is every 15 minutes. Seems to work just fine if the points limit and time are reasonable.

I think that this system sounds like a great idea overall. Say one hour and fifteen minutes per player for a total of a two and a half hour game. Like most people said though, these clocks cost a whole lot for what they do.

hey good thing we got a chess coach on the forums
Basic Wood Analog Chess Clock
$29.99

at chess events players are responsible for bring a clock, shoot compared to the rest of the stuff gw sells now they can sell over priced clocks

Like everyone else is saying:

One guy fielding 2000 points of Grey Knights may have a small amount of fully geared up guys

But his opponent is running the Green Tide with maybe a few bikes to...

It just wouldn't be fair to give them the same amount of time to move, shoot, assault etc.

If we require players to bring a chess clock I guarantee several things:

1.) A percentage of people would forget and/or bring the wrong type of clock, making the entire purpose moot.

2.) A percentage of people wouldn't come to the event because they would be mad that they were being "forced" to buy something they don't want. That means less attendance, less fun, harder to actually host a tournament as it is so expensive already.

The only real way to do it is for the TOs to buy them, which would cost several thousand dollars for a good sized event, even at wholesale pricing.

I think it makes perfect sense though as both players get an equal amount of time. You get 20 minutes for pregame and then divide the time equally between the players. Any player that goes over on time gets penalized in some way. It is fair and unbiased.

As for horde armies not playing in the time limit, I disagree. I have seen experienced horde players get through game super fast. Often they're movement phase is really simple: go forward. It's all about preparation and knowing your army far more than the type of army, IMO.

At any rate, I would love to try it at one of our events but money is the main reason we have not.

 Reecius wrote:
The only real way to do it is for the TOs to buy them, which would cost several thousand dollars for a good sized event, even at wholesale pricing.

I think it makes perfect sense though as both players get an equal amount of time. You get 20 minutes for pregame and then divide the time equally between the players. Any player that goes over on time gets penalized in some way. It is fair and unbiased.

The local press gangers for warmachine/hordes use cheap egg timers. They're a few bucks apiece. That would mean that a 250 person event would need 250 timers (one per player / two per table), and cost somewhere between $500 - $1000.

Note: I'm not necessarily a fan of this idea, just wanted to point that out regarding cost. It works well for warmachine, not sure how well it would translate to 40k. Sorry if the egg timers had already been pointed out, too... but you don't need a chess clock for timed turns / a timed game, there are much cheaper options.

I have a chess clock app on my phone. It was free from google play, and these days the likelihood of at least one person at the table not having some sort of phone capable of running that type of app is pretty low I would think.

Timed movement phases is the fairest thing but I don't see that coming into its own as you could still theoretically slow play in the shooting phase. I think that getting away from this max-points in min-time approach to tournaments is a step in the right direction. Personally, and it's just my opinion, but I think that 1850-2000 points as a standard is a bit much when rounds are ~2 hours.

I would be open to the option of playing in a tournament with play clocks just to test the concept.


I'm also open to the idea of penalizing players whose turns are taking an excessive amount of time. I.e., Time the entire turn for each player. If the game doesn't come to a T5 conclusion, then apply the following: If the sum of the duration of one player's turns is more than X % greater than the sum of the duration of the other player's turn, that player is penalized one point for every Y interval. Something of that nature would encourage fast play (during your turn anyway) which would probably be enough.

 RiTides wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
The only real way to do it is for the TOs to buy them, which would cost several thousand dollars for a good sized event, even at wholesale pricing.

I think it makes perfect sense though as both players get an equal amount of time. You get 20 minutes for pregame and then divide the time equally between the players. Any player that goes over on time gets penalized in some way. It is fair and unbiased.

The local press gangers for warmachine/hordes use cheap egg timers. They're a few bucks apiece. That would mean that a 250 person event would need 250 timers (one per player / two per table), and cost somewhere between $500 - $1000.

Note: I'm not necessarily a fan of this idea, just wanted to point that out regarding cost. It works well for warmachine, not sure how well it would translate to 40k. Sorry if the egg timers had already been pointed out, too... but you don't need a chess clock for timed turns / a timed game, there are much cheaper options.

Egg timers for a buck....brilliant! Might have to try this out, thanks for bringing it up, I had not thought of that.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Timed movement phases is the fairest thing but I don't see that coming into its own as you could still theoretically slow play in the shooting phase. I think that getting away from this max-points in min-time approach to tournaments is a step in the right direction. Personally, and it's just my opinion, but I think that 1850-2000 points as a standard is a bit much when rounds are ~2 hours.

I would be open to the option of playing in a tournament with play clocks just to test the concept.


I'm also open to the idea of penalizing players whose turns are taking an excessive amount of time. I.e., Time the entire turn for each player. If the game doesn't come to a T5 conclusion, then apply the following: If the sum of the duration of one player's turns is more than X % greater than the sum of the duration of the other player's turn, that player is penalized one point for every Y interval. Something of that nature would encourage fast play (during your turn anyway) which would probably be enough.

But such a formula is fundamentally unfair. Orks have explicit game mechanics designed around one coordinated massive assault of your whole force during a single turn. The waves crashing against the rocks. It is not uncommon to have a single, long assault phase and the rest of the turns in the game to be quick. The game and rules point to explicitly that orks should expect to have a long assault phase which can take a significant portion of the overall game. Punishing a codex for having rules explicitly designed around concepts that would have longer turns in some situations is fundamentally unfair and not supported by the rules.

And this your turn, my turn concept doesn't account for interactive phases.

Equal play isn't in the rules or codex design. Until the game is rebalanced for equal play, any implementation is unfair as it makes models who play faster "better for their points" than alternative units which rely on slower game mechanics. 200 points of 1 unit is not equally as fast as 200 points of another unit so the game breaks.

nkelsch wrote:

But such a formula is fundamentally unfair. Orks have explicit game mechanics designed around one coordinated massive assault of your whole force during a single turn. The waves crashing against the rocks. It is not uncommon to have a single, long assault phase and the rest of the turns in the game to be quick. The game and rules point to explicitly that orks should expect to have a long assault phase which can take a significant portion of the overall game. Punishing a codex for having rules explicitly designed around concepts that would have longer turns in some situations is fundamentally unfair and not supported by the rules.

And this your turn, my turn concept doesn't account for interactive phases.

Equal play isn't in the rules or codex design. Until the game is rebalanced for equal play, any implementation is unfair as it makes models who play faster "better for their points" than alternative units which rely on slower game mechanics. 200 points of 1 unit is not equally as fast as 200 points of another unit so the game breaks.

But all tournaments are already timed, you keep ignoring the fundamental problem and providing incidental reasons why Orks should be exempt from a more granular approach to timing rounds. It is a tournament problem, so I'm not sure what reason there is to refer to the rules and codices (they don't mention tournaments at all).

We can rewrite your final paragraph and substitute the word "slow" for "fast" and make the same argument about the current system of timed rounds without player limits. In addition, one can slow play intentionally as a game tactic. One more point - more games of tournament chess have been played than all other tabletop wargames combined (and multiplied, and squared) - clocks are used in chess for the very valid reason that slow play sucks the life out of games and is very subject to abuse.

Jack_Death wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

But such a formula is fundamentally unfair. Orks have explicit game mechanics designed around one coordinated massive assault of your whole force during a single turn. The waves crashing against the rocks. It is not uncommon to have a single, long assault phase and the rest of the turns in the game to be quick. The game and rules point to explicitly that orks should expect to have a long assault phase which can take a significant portion of the overall game. Punishing a codex for having rules explicitly designed around concepts that would have longer turns in some situations is fundamentally unfair and not supported by the rules.

And this your turn, my turn concept doesn't account for interactive phases.

Equal play isn't in the rules or codex design. Until the game is rebalanced for equal play, any implementation is unfair as it makes models who play faster "better for their points" than alternative units which rely on slower game mechanics. 200 points of 1 unit is not equally as fast as 200 points of another unit so the game breaks.

But all tournaments are already timed, you keep ignoring the fundamental problem and providing incidental reasons why Orks should be exempt from a more granular approach to timing rounds. It is a tournament problem, so I'm not sure what reason there is to refer to the rules and codices (they don't mention tournaments at all).

We can rewrite your final paragraph and substitute the word "slow" for "fast" and make the same argument about the current system of timed rounds without player limits. In addition, one can slow play intentionally as a game tactic. One more point - more games of tournament chess have been played than all other tabletop wargames combined (and multiplied, and squared) - clocks are used in chess for the very valid reason that slow play sucks the life out of games and is very subject to abuse.

Chess is designed around equal balance and equal time, 40k is not. Remember, when I assault you with 7 units on *my* turn, you are going to spend 10-15 minutes of that turn rolling your shooting and assault attacks. In chess, that doesn't happen.

Slow play is not solved by equal time, and equal time doesn't address time issues in a tourney, just allows specific builds to starve the clock by saying "I am making a 2 hour game a 1.5 hour game by building a list which doesn't require a lot of time or makes its actions on your turns and then I will starve you of time and win due to penalties." Orks, like many assault armies have rules based around being the army who assaults, which means both players will be fighting mostly on the assault army's turn. Shooty armies will also be heavily over watching on assault armies turn. Shooty armies will also strive to cut out as much assault and movement as possible in many circumstances. As if 6th edition needed any more excuses to shift the META forwards shooting armies.

I still don't see any valid way to "time turns" when almost all the turns are interactive and the time is used by both players. Also due to the nature of the game, every movement phase doesn't take the same time so this idea that if my phase took 2 minutes that yours also needs to take 2 minutes isn't supported by the rules or how the game is actually played.

Slow play and equal time are not the same issue and equal play doesn't at all solve slow play. It is a falsehood to convince people that equal time solves slow play the same way army comp solves codex imbalance.

40K is not balanced around equal time, at least not in the sense we are used to. It's balanced around equal "time" in the sense that both players get the same number of turns.

Tournament time limits are the actual problem here. Trying to solve the problem of the game time limit being insufficient by making it stricter isn't going to solve anything, just introduce more headaches. If you want to actually fix the problem change the points to time balance (increase time, decrease points, both) and actually keep an eye out for people gaming the system.

If you're regularly having a problem with games timing out rather than running to completion then the problem is one of three things:

1. The time limit is insufficient, in which case the TO should use longer limits or smaller games in future.

2. One (or more) of the players is a jackass, in which case someone should be calling them out.

3. One (or more) of the players don't actually know what they're doing. This one is, in the long term, self-correcting as they'll either learn or quit.

nkelsch wrote:

 erewego86 wrote:
The Maryland Wargaming Collective has been using chess clocks to time games since they started running events three years ago.

I haven't seen a tourney in MD (or philly, DC or nova) use a chess clock for 40k ever in 20 years of gaming in this area. And I have never ever heard of MWC.

I would love to see the statistics of these 'events' including which armies attended, which armies had too much or not enough time. Point levels, Time limits, and feedback from people who actually attended along with size of events.

I would also like to know how quickly and frequently you require tapping back and forth considering one assault goes back and forth at least 10-15 times minimum. In a phase where you can easily have 5-6 assaults, you are almost clicking back and forth in one assault phase more than an entire game of chess.

Know what also has the 'desired effect' without imposing a false premise like equal time? Simply announcing how much longer the round is every 15 minutes. Seems to work just fine if the points limit and time are reasonable.

We play every other month at dropzone. Next tournament's in August. You haven't heard of MWC because we don't advertise but there's a meetup group you can google if you feel so inclined. Obviously we don't keep stats about who played what, but I can tell you I played Green Tide for most of the first two years (6 30 ork mobs) and I never ran out of time :-P

We don't tap back and forth. It's just not that big of an issue. People very rarely run out of time, so there's been no need to amend our rules. Nobody has complained in three years about the fairness of the clocks.

The desired effect isn't equal time. The desired effect is to wrap a tournament round in about 2 hours so we can start at ten, lunch at one, and be outta there around dinner.

Slow play isn't just an issue with Horde armies. We have several players in the area who continuously play slower when they're "in the lead" but are quite capable of playing faster when they're "behind". An 1850 point game only getting to the end of Turn 3 with a Farsight bomb army in a 3 hour game window is terrible. Especially when his opponent is usually quite capable of getting through a 7 turn game in an hour and a half. What's worse is when the rest of the players at the tourney are waiting around for the game to be over just to be able to discover their opponents for the next game. I've seen armies take 45 minutes to an hour to deploy in tournament games. Win first turn, then fumble about so much that in a 2 1/2 hour game with enforced time limits their opponent had a 10 minute first turn and had only 3 minutes in which to conduct their entire second turn.

Setting specific times for deployment would be an improvement, whatever units you don't have set up after your "10 minute set up window" going into reserve rather than deploying could be interesting. Declare those units you intend to reserve at the start of your deployment, anything forced into reserve by running out of time is only allowed to enter off your back table edge.

One of our local players has been playing horde Tyranids since 3rd edition. And has made up movement bases for his horde bugs that are like the strip Epic bases with each fig slot having a magnet to ensure things don't fall out. They're somewhere in the vicinity of 2"x6" and the fig slots are placed to ensure that two bases back to back or side to side will always be in coherency, as well as maintaining decent dispersal so his little bugs don't get crunched up under templates. It works extremely well, though its rather strange to see him move his units by moving bases from the back of the unit to the front of the stack. If the table surface permits, they can even be slid across the table.

IMO, its a great fix, keeps his bugs spread out optimally as well reducing the amount of bases to be move in his army down to less than most PA armies.

 dracpanzer wrote:
Slow play isn't just an issue with Horde armies. We have several players in the area who continuously play slower when they're "in the lead" but are quite capable of playing faster when they're "behind". An 1850 point game only getting to the end of Turn 3 with a Farsight bomb army in a 3 hour game window is terrible. Especially when his opponent is usually quite capable of getting through a 7 turn game in an hour and a half. What's worse is when the rest of the players at the tourney are waiting around for the game to be over just to be able to discover their opponents for the next game. I've seen armies take 45 minutes to an hour to deploy in tournament games. Win first turn, then fumble about so much that in a 2 1/2 hour game with enforced time limits their opponent had a 10 minute first turn and had only 3 minutes in which to conduct their entire second turn.

These are issues the people need to bring to the TO's attention then and appropriate action taken, however it's not unreasonable for say, an IG or Ork army to take 2-3 times as much time as their MEQ opponent to deploy and operate their units when they have 2-3 times as many of them, and forcing all armies to run in the same amount of time, when such a factor is not built into the rules at any point, is punitive to such armies. Slow play must be addressed as it occurs, as a blanket time restriction can severely pooch armies that are designed to play certain ways without any regard to time being a factor.

One of our local players has been playing horde Tyranids since 3rd edition. And has made up movement bases for his horde bugs that are like the strip Epic bases with each fig slot having a magnet to ensure things don't fall out. They're somewhere in the vicinity of 2"x6" and the fig slots are placed to ensure that two bases back to back or side to side will always be in coherency, as well as maintaining decent dispersal so his little bugs don't get crunched up under templates. It works extremely well, though its rather strange to see him move his units by moving bases from the back of the unit to the front of the stack. If the table surface permits, they can even be slid across the table.

While someone looking purely for expediency may be pleased with this, it removes tactical options open to players not confining themselves to such movement trays. Movement and positioning, especially for CC oriented units, is huge, especially now with wound allocation being the closest model and the existence of Overwatch. Forcing horde players to play like this functionally is giving an edge to their opponent to exploit in many situations.
\

Ok, so a few things

1.) as a player it is expected that you will finish your tournament games.

2.) if the round times are pre posted you know how much time you have and should expect if needed to be able to play your army in about half the available time. You may not always need to but you should be able to or you should not bring it.

3.). That said it is incumbent on TOs to carefully think about their events and plan the schedules so that they reasonably believe games will finish on time. I.e. don't play 2k at 2:15 rounds, instead play 1500.

I am currently running a gt (2nd round is today) 2k 3 hour rounds. I am also docking players battle points if they do not consistently finish games. This is a far better solution than chess clocks.

Chess clocks fail for all the reasons mentioned above and also because people don't practic with them (because most events don't use them) and they are typically a large expense. Better off just making sure your players are aware of round times, and have ample time to run their armies.

Breng, great points but about cost see my post on the previous page- 2 small, cheap digital egg timers work almost as well as a chess clock for a fraction of the cost. It's what the local warmahordes tournies use.

True but take more time to stop star and even the the cheapest ones are about $1 each which means for an event my size that is an additional $32 + tax which while not large is more money out of pocket for something not really needed I was actually looking into getting one timer for each table but the cheap ones only clock 1.5 hours so whole 2 work 1 won't

Breng77 - that sounds like a good way to handle things. I also like the 3hours for a 2K game. That would solve most issues in my opinion. Here it is around 2-2.15 for a 2K game. This is often with new missions so reading the mission sheet is added to what eats your time. I have asked to go to 1500 pt games but everyone wants to use all their toys so not a chance. Good luck with the tourney!

As someone who spends equal time playing Hordes and 40k at this point:
40k is not really suited to chess timers. There is a significant, large difference between the types of armies, and many are designed around mechanics which necessarily take longer than other armies. Some armies really don't have the option to run small, 'elite' armies (which are tournament competitive).

Say you have an army with lots of models. It is *designed* to need lots of models acting all the time to achieve its goal. This doesn't necessarily need to be a 'horde' army - a Tau army is relatively elite yet relies on volume of shots to get the job done. If the enemy assaults you, acting on your own time, you have the 'option' to chew through your own time to react properly to your opponent; or to not act/act sub-optimally to save time. Eventually this boils down to having only one choice - taking a smaller army.

It also happens that the design of your opponents army can significantly change the amount of time your army spends. Say your opponent is mechanised and presents you with only 6 targets: you make 10 shots during your shooting phase, and that's all you can do. Its not just that shooting WITH 100 pts of Boyz vs Marines takes different amounts of time; its that shooting AT 100pts of Boyz vs Marines takes different amounts of time. Meaning that the time you take for a single turn can change dramatically, regardless of what you personally take.

Hordes is more suited to this style of play. Barring certain relatively rare/unique abilities, each model has a certain amount of actions it can take in a turn. You know when you put the models on the table that you need to move 10 models and will be able to make at most 20 attack rolls, no matter what your opponent plays. Because there is no real interactivity in a turn, it works. But the Hardcore format (7 minute timed turns) still drives people to run more heavy-focussed armies or even Colossals than the Steamroller format (42 minute chess clock).

This is acceptable, because all armies have the option to run competitive armies in either horde or elite forms. In 40k, you don't have that option: there is no competitive elite Tyranids or Orks, and no horde Grey Knights.

The real problem is forcing increasingly large games into too small time frames. When the standard tournament is getting close to 2000pts than 1500, and points costs of most units keep decreasing with each codex release and special rules for every model get more prevalent, we should be increasing the game length to near to 3 hours rather than 2. A Warmahodres 35pt deathclock tournaments get you 42 minutes each when IIRC the maximum fieldable force is 70 models which are activated at most once each per game turn. Equivalently a 1500pt 40k army can field near to 200 models - why would you try to fit both in the same time frame?


So, TL; DR: Not for 40k. The ability for your opponent to affect how much time you take independent of the army style you choose, and the inability of some armies to field competitive elite builds, makes this choice which severely and negatively impacts the game. Don't blame the people with horde armies - blame the person who sets up the tournament.

 erewego86 wrote:


We play every other month at dropzone. Next tournament's in August. You haven't heard of MWC because we don't advertise but there's a meetup group you can google if you feel so inclined. Obviously we don't keep stats about who played what, but I can tell you I played Green Tide for most of the first two years (6 30 ork mobs) and I never ran out of time :-P

We don't tap back and forth. It's just not that big of an issue. People very rarely run out of time, so there's been no need to amend our rules. Nobody has complained in three years about the fairness of the clocks.

The desired effect isn't equal time. The desired effect is to wrap a tournament round in about 2 hours so we can start at ten, lunch at one, and be outta there around dinner.

If you don't tap back and forth, then you are not actually documenting 'equal time' and are not using a chess clock to time the usage of time per player but just as a general 'clock' of how much time is left in the round.

I have never run out of time either, my games correctly end within the time limit, but I can tell you that the game ended naturally, but the turns were not equal in length due to the nature of interactive turns. And it is not always on my side. I have played shooty armies who spend forever shooting simply because that is how it is. And I have to spend minutes rolling cover and invulnerable and LOS on his turn.

I believe the exact same result could be had by putting clocks at every table and constantly announcing the time remaining. That keeps people on-task without trying to force a 'equal time' concept into games. Making sure the time limit is appropriate for the points value and keeping people focused to finish games to natural conclusion is the desired goal, not equal play.

While this thread seems to be geared torwards 40k, I'll put forth that we experimented with using them in Flames of War earlier this year, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

In FoW, you frequently have attacker/defender missions, and in tournaments, it's usually scored that if the attacker takes the objective from the defender, they win. If time runs out, the defender wins. After some accusations of "slow play" on the defenders part to stall out the game, we tried out chess clocks.

Your clock ran down during your turn, although you would switch it back to your opponent when they were conducting lengthly counterassaults on during your turn.

A standard tournament round is 2.5 hours. We have each player 90 minutes on their clock. If your side of the clock runs out, you lose one VP and your opponent gains one VP. (FoW uses a 1-6 scale VP system). If your game hit seven turns, we ignored whatever the clock said, because each player getting seven turns seemed fair enough at that point. (There's no hard turn limit in FoW like their is in 40k).

The results that we saw: The presence of the chess clocks seemed to encourage people to play faster, even those players who never ran out of tie before the use of the clocks. There was certainly an obvious subconscious speed-up of play.

After a few events with the clocks, we started to notice people agreeing not to use them when they knew their opponents - Bob and Tom know each other pretty well, and know one player isn't going to slow down gameplay, and agree just not to go through the hassle. But if two players they'd never met played each, they'd be more likely to use them.

My two cents.

 derek wrote:
I have a chess clock app on my phone. It was free from google play, and these days the likelihood of at least one person at the table not having some sort of phone capable of running that type of app is pretty low I would think.

Think what would happen to your battery, if your screen had to be on for 3 (or 4!) 2+ hour rounds in a given tournament day.


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 Vaktathi wrote:

One of our local players has been playing horde Tyranids since 3rd edition. And has made up movement bases for his horde bugs that are like the strip Epic bases with each fig slot having a magnet to ensure things don't fall out. They're somewhere in the vicinity of 2"x6" and the fig slots are placed to ensure that two bases back to back or side to side will always be in coherency, as well as maintaining decent dispersal so his little bugs don't get crunched up under templates. It works extremely well, though its rather strange to see him move his units by moving bases from the back of the unit to the front of the stack. If the table surface permits, they can even be slid across the table.

While someone looking purely for expediency may be pleased with this, it removes tactical options open to players not confining themselves to such movement trays. Movement and positioning, especially for CC oriented units, is huge, especially now with wound allocation being the closest model and the existence of Overwatch. Forcing horde players to play like this functionally is giving an edge to their opponent to exploit in many situations. \

I expect that when it's time, he just moves right off the bases. Or at least, that's what I do with my Tyranids.

There are tricks that horde players can use to speed up play - pre-counted dice, multiple colors of dice, putting each complete unit on a single tray to speed up deployment (much faster to move models off a tray into position from a few inches away, instead of having to turn back to your display base), careful formations so that you only have to measure movement for the leading edge of your models & then maintain formation with the rest, dice trays to keep your many, many dice from going all over - I know, and use, pretty much all of them. But they're tricks I developed over 4 years of competitive Tyranid play, and even then, I find that it's rarely my army that is the determinative factor as to whether a game finishes or not; it's how experienced my opponent is, particularly at fighting against Tyranids.

Yakface & I finished a foot-ork vs Tyranid horde game through 7 turns at the BAO in 5e. That's the ONLY game that I played through all 7 turns. Tournaments are just cramming too many points into too few minutes these days. 6e is a slower game, and the new codexii make the problem worse, as most everything is getting cheaper and/or involves extra die rolling.

It would also help to have just a normal timer at each table, so people could see the time remaining at a glance (unless you can actually display the time to all viewpoints in the room at once). Yes, we all have phones/watches, but getting those out & checking is not standard behavior right now.

I will say that I would gladly pay an additional 10 dollars for my ticket to a major event if that meant there was going to be a chess clock at every table-- basic chess clocks can be bought in bulk for 20 dollars or less. Further this would only have to happen once before the event was supplied with a large number of clocks, and while certainly replacement would be an issue I for one would be much more likely to go to events using these rules.

At all the Warmachine tournaments I've seen people have just used their phones or tablets. Chess clock apps are plentiful and cheap or free. I haven't known power to be an issue because there are so many phones to go around (and if your device is dying that fast, consider turning down the brightness).

You going to want your opponent touching your phone 20 times a minute as you clock back and forth for the interactive phases of shooting and assault?

The only way a chessclock can be used is if you only clock back and forth for 'player' turn which is fundamentally unfair due to the way the player turn functions and how specific rules happen on your opponent's turn. So using a chessclock for tracking 'player turns' is a worthless unfair metric, and actually being detailed for the interactive turns becomes an unreasonable exercise wasting far more time than it saves.

I'd rant on and on about why I feel the way I do, but I'll try to sum it up quickly.

Slow play has cheated me out of two tournament wins. I can move and shoot with my army in a reasonable amount of time (and I have played a fairly big Ork army), so why can't you? Yeah, there would be a lot of back-and-forth with the clock, making sure the "active" player (the one moving guys, rolling dice, or picking up casualties- as defined by the TO) was the one being timed, and it admittedly is prone to abuse, but the game has a time limit, and it should be fairly applied to both players. If a player has an army that takes up 60% of the allotted time, that's unfair to their opponent.

To the argument that the game is not designed around a time limit, you're right. In that case why apply time limits to the game in the first place? The game ends when it ends, and the same goes for the tournament. So what if it takes days to complete? At least the players got as much time as needed to finish. My point here is that the time limit is an artificial constraint in the first place, so why should one player be able to eat up the clock while their opponent just sits there and stews? That, in my opinion is unfair, not an even amount of time for both players to get their stuff together and finish their game.

I read a lot of battle reports, and far too many of them (especially those from tournaments) end with "and time ran out so we called the game there". In my own personal experience with these sorts of games it is extremely frustrating when this happens, and downright infuriating when my opponent is such a pro at gaming the clock so that when he/she goes first they get one more turn than I do. If you are going to game the clock, do it by keeping the game moving, not by alpha-striking me and then sitting on the clock in order to keep me from getting the chance to properly retaliate.

If you're taking to long either you should:
A) Lose the game outright
or
B) Give your opponent one last turn/as long as they have left on their clock whichever comes first.

Will this change the meta? Only for those players who are too slow (suffer from analysis paralysis) or too inexperienced (in which case they're entering the tournament with a bigger disadvantage than the clock) to get their butts in gear. For those of us who can play the game at a reasonable pace, it's just plain not an issue.

I'm capable of going on a lot longer than I already have, but let me sum this up. If you're going to introduce the artificial constraint of timed games to 40k, WHFB, whatever, do it FAIRLY, not to favor whichever player "needs" more time. To do otherwise rewards the players who are better at cheating their opponents out of their fair share of the time, and penalizes those of us that actually want to get our 5, 6, however many games, full games, of whichever system we showed up to play.

Re: the cost of chess clocks.
As said by many posters, chess clock apps for X mobile platform are plentiful and free. There are even a few Warmachine specific ones which display army logos and are configured specifically for the time format of Warmachine tournaments. These easily last a full day of tournament play.

I agree that there are some terribly slow players. I got one the slowest 40k players I know (who often stares at the table for ~10 minutes before making his turn) to play a timed game of Warmachine and once he didn't get to move anything before his turn ended . But my Tau army can take anywhere between 1 and 15 minutes for a single shooting phase depending on what targets you present me: and if you assault me, MY time is going to increase as I do my overwatch. Chess clocks aren't fair when you have the ability to charge time to your opponent.

So finished my event and after 65 total games played only 1 did not finish within time. Still went 5 turns and ran over time. So again I say give enough time for players to routinely finish games and an incentive for finishing and in general they finish. Most games finished with time to spare. Too often TOs seem worried about breaks between rounds being log enough but then all the games run into the breaks anyway.

As someone that just got home from a death clock Warmahordes tournament--where I used my phone for 5-6ish hrs (I think 63% left after)--I'm getting a kick, etc. I cannot imagine not playing a tabletop game without a clock-like measure in place now. Main problem I have is wife text messages during the game. Regardless, I get two to three times the number of games in the same amount of gaming time.

That being said, of course 40k is a very different beast than Warmahordes. Main differences being:;

First turn in Warmahordes is usually scripted with little to no dice rolling. If you've unpacked your army on the table a couple of times, it shouldn't take long to complete a turn. 40K models start meaningful activations turn one.

40K has more integrated turns (saving throws, assault being the key mechanics). While Warmahordes does have a few (tough, If an enemy does XYZ actions then)--it's much less than 40k.

Model count. While certain builds in Warmahordes are model intense, it's definitely less.

Rules. 40K rules are inherently sloppy and require discussion, FAQ reference or just a debate leading to a roll off.



So, unless 40Ks rules get a great deal tighter and the other issues above are addressed--I don't see how a death clock can be implemented. Of course, Death Clock is not the end all be all in Warmahordes either--and I do not find a "death clocked" victory satisfying but rather a sign that's in an imperfect system as well. It just happens to be the best worst solution.

Which, really is what is driving this discussion--gamers want a satisfying end to their games. Nothing entertaining about setting up and playing 3 rounds--then rushing players because the "Do not start another turn" is coming. Only fixes I see happening (as I don't foresee the rules getting any better), is either less games in a tournament, longer rounds or some kind of "think clock"--which is only activated when a player is doing the "Cross arms and stare at the board for 10 minutes" schtick.

Why don't they use turn timers?

Because you can't hold Green Tide to the same time limit as Draigowing.

It's that simple.

Why not?

What entitles one player to use more time than the other?

There's already a time limit to a 40K game. What difference does another seperate limit make?
People will adjust their game tactic/strategy and the world will go on just like it has every other time some "major change" in the game occurs.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Why not?

What entitles one player to use more time than the other?

The physics of rolling different numbers of dice in multiple repeated actions, the physics of moving one's arm to move 200 models vs 20 models and the rules as written not taking equal time to resolve based upon equal points.

There's already a time limit to a 40K game. What difference does another seperate limit make?

Page number for the Time Limit written into the 40k rule set please.

People will adjust their game tactic/strategy and the world will go on just like it has every other time some "major change" in the game occurs.

They will adjust to 'army comp' imposed upon them. Doesn't mean it isn't arbitrary and unfair.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Why not?

What entitles one player to use more time than the other?

There's already a time limit to a 40K game.

There isn't a time limit to the 40k game, there's a time limit to how long the event will allow players to play a game. There's a difference. There is no rule in Warhammer 40,000 pertaining to any sort of time limit. To answer the question "what entitles one player to use more time than the other", besides the obvious physical limitations of playing an army with 60 models vs 170 models, the issue arises "why is time being forced onto a game where it's not taken into consideration in its rules?". Now the answer to that is obvious, events can't start at 6am and end at 11:30pm for a couple games of Warhammer, but at the same time, it's an artificial constraint adapated to the physical needs of the event. Chess clocks and timing both sides is a preventative measure to prevent what amounts to cheating, which is different. We have TO's for a reason, people need to make use of them if that's an issue.

What difference does another seperate limit make?

Different armies take different amounts of times to play, a Draigowing army with 10 minutes to take its turn has all the time in the world it needs to ponder, consider, analyze that it wants. A Green Tide list may need that 10 minutes just to physically move every model, not to mention roll dice, much less actually think about things.

 Reecius wrote:

 RiTides wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
The only real way to do it is for the TOs to buy them, which would cost several thousand dollars for a good sized event, even at wholesale pricing.

I think it makes perfect sense though as both players get an equal amount of time. You get 20 minutes for pregame and then divide the time equally between the players. Any player that goes over on time gets penalized in some way. It is fair and unbiased.

The local press gangers for warmachine/hordes use cheap egg timers. They're a few bucks apiece. That would mean that a 250 person event would need 250 timers (one per player / two per table), and cost somewhere between $500 - $1000.

Note: I'm not necessarily a fan of this idea, just wanted to point that out regarding cost. It works well for warmachine, not sure how well it would translate to 40k. Sorry if the egg timers had already been pointed out, too... but you don't need a chess clock for timed turns / a timed game, there are much cheaper options.

Egg timers for a buck....brilliant! Might have to try this out, thanks for bringing it up, I had not thought of that.

Been there. Done that and can give you a reply. Using egg timers do work fine if the tournament is a lower point level. It did not work so well at the higher point level games simply due to time constraints.

But the people that generally do go to tournaments in a serious manner have decent time management skills, so it still might work as it will depend on the crowd that you get.

nkelsch wrote:

If you don't tap back and forth, then you are not actually documenting 'equal time' and are not using a chess clock to time the usage of time per player but just as a general 'clock' of how much time is left in the round.

I have never run out of time either, my games correctly end within the time limit, but I can tell you that the game ended naturally, but the turns were not equal in length due to the nature of interactive turns. And it is not always on my side. I have played shooty armies who spend forever shooting simply because that is how it is. And I have to spend minutes rolling cover and invulnerable and LOS on his turn.

I believe the exact same result could be had by putting clocks at every table and constantly announcing the time remaining. That keeps people on-task without trying to force a 'equal time' concept into games. Making sure the time limit is appropriate for the points value and keeping people focused to finish games to natural conclusion is the desired goal, not equal play.

Like I said, the goal isn't equal time. The goal is to finish rounds promptly and discourage slow play.

I've played the army you claim would be disadvantaged by this system. True, it can be a slight disadvantage, but not a game-breaking one. Usually the massive assault simplifies dramatically after the initial push either overwhelms its target or peters out. Usually it takes a couple of turns to set up, during which my turns largely comprised of moving and running and finished quickly. Both of these reasons mean that horde time-usage is not as big a deal as several posters are making it out to be.

If you spend 2 minutes per turn rolling cover saves (an eternity during which to roll even 100 saves) then you will have taken your opponent of a whole 10 minutes. In my experience, such an amount of time never matters in the disposition of the game.

I'd also like to note that everyone with firsthand experience using clocks has said it was a positive experience and all of the naysayers so far have had no practical experience with these clocks whatsoever. Why don't you try it or at least time yourself to see how much time you're actually using? It might not be as much as you think it is...

 daedalus wrote:
Why don't they use turn timers?

Because you can't hold Green Tide to the same time limit as Draigowing.

It's that simple.

Then what happens when 2 ork players play each other? That is why you have to play your army in half of the allotted time.

Agree that 2 horde armies may fight so need to be able to play their army in half the time given. The issue for me is that there is enough time for the round at the point level chosen as that will solve most problems. At the last tournament I played my horde nids (no tervigons - just a pile of nids) vs a horde ork player - a 2000pt game with special tournament missions in about 2 hours. We got to turn 4 if I recall correctly. And neither of us slow-played.

If some people want to use chess clocks for 40k (and I have used chess clocks with chess for many years so I'm very familiar with them) as a method to deal with people that play slowly or slow play - I couldn't care less - as long as the first thing fixed is sufficient time for the point level (not a time the Mr Superspeedy veteran can do it - It has to be a reasonable time that the vast majority can complete their games. Or play lower point levels.

Some have indicated that 2000pt games should be 3 hours - if we had that we would have completed the game. Reading anew mission and understanding what needs to happen eats time. The first few turns with 2 horde armies with massive amounts of models to move, shooting and CC slow things down but these turns dramatically reduce the numbers of models for later turns so they go faster.

I'm tempted now to take my chess clock and see how long it takes me to play my horde army at a reasonable pace to get an idea of what the time it takes.

nkelsch wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Why not?

What entitles one player to use more time than the other?

The physics of rolling different numbers of dice in multiple repeated actions, the physics of moving one's arm to move 200 models vs 20 models and the rules as written not taking equal time to resolve based upon equal points.

There's already a time limit to a 40K game. What difference does another seperate limit make?

Page number for the Time Limit written into the 40k rule set please.

People will adjust their game tactic/strategy and the world will go on just like it has every other time some "major change" in the game occurs.

They will adjust to 'army comp' imposed upon them. Doesn't mean it isn't arbitrary and unfair.

Entitles is a iffy word to use here. Each player will have a certain amount available, Relying on your opponent playing faster than he needs to is not a sound plan. You are not trying to move the different armies in the same time you are trying to move different armies in the same time limit. This limit must be enough for larger armies.

The time limit is how much time you have to play the game. In tournaments this is likley to be explicit at home it may be for as long as you can ignore the wife/GF at a store it may be closing time.

Slow playing sucks when it happens, It is easy to do either deliberatley (hard to prove) or through low familiarity with a game and nobody wants to lose a game because of it in either case, that is fundamentaly unfair.

Unfortunatly 40k does not lend itself well to chess clocks since as many have previously mentioned to much is done in the opponents turn.

 Ventus wrote:
Agree that 2 horde armies may fight so need to be able to play their army in half the time given. The issue for me is that there is enough time for the round at the point level chosen as that will solve most problems. At the last tournament I played my horde nids (no tervigons - just a pile of nids) vs a horde ork player - a 2000pt game with special tournament missions in about 2 hours. We got to turn 4 if I recall correctly. And neither of us slow-played.

If some people want to use chess clocks for 40k (and I have used chess clocks with chess for many years so I'm very familiar with them) as a method to deal with people that play slowly or slow play - I couldn't care less - as long as the first thing fixed is sufficient time for the point level (not a time the Mr Superspeedy veteran can do it - It has to be a reasonable time that the vast majority can complete their games. Or play lower point levels.

Some have indicated that 2000pt games should be 3 hours - if we had that we would have completed the game. Reading anew mission and understanding what needs to happen eats time. The first few turns with 2 horde armies with massive amounts of models to move, shooting and CC slow things down but these turns dramatically reduce the numbers of models for later turns so they go faster.

I'm tempted now to take my chess clock and see how long it takes me to play my horde army at a reasonable pace to get an idea of what the time it takes.

Completely agree with this (though I don't think chess clocks are the answer) we need to fix round times before we try anything else. Because you can use chess clocks all you want most 2k games won't finish naturally in 2 hours with or without them. Just doing some math, if We suppose that a fair round time for 2000 points is 3 hours (my last event confirms that this allows almost all games to finish on time, the only game not finishing on time did not start on time, it was first round day to and I had to repair these players due to drops.). What this means is essentially that a fair ratio of minutes to points is 0.09 minutes for every point. While things certainly are not 100% linear (pregame rolling for many armies is not hugely different at 1750 than at 2k), what this ratio suggests is that

For 1500 points 2 hours 15 min is a fair round time
For 1750 points 2 hours 37.5 minutes or two and a half hours, is a reasonable round time.
For 1850 points you should run 2 hours 46.5 Min or 2 hours 45 min rounds.

Now I've been as guilty as others with wanting to play a certain point level all the time (usually 2k) but when I host tournies at my LGS I use 2.5 hour rounds because I don't have time for 3 hours. Looking at this I should drop to 1750 or less for those events, so games finish.

What this also suggests is at 2 hours you would play at 1333 points, so probably 1250 point games, more than that and you won't likely finish.

Now this does not mean no one will finish, I had a player at my last event with Paladins and he finished 1.5 hours early a bunch of times, but then I had plenty of people play right up to near the end of the round.

When 2 Ork players clash, there is usually one massive assault phase, which will be 30+ minutes. Of course that is all on one players turn, so the game will not have equal time when comparing 'player turns'.

Of course the game can still end within the alloted time, but the turns will not be equal, whomever gets the assault off first will probably have his player turn use 'more' of the time even though phases are interactive.

Working as Intended.

If the issue really is SLOW PLAY and not equal time, then why is everyone trying to force equal time? Slow play can be addressed by a simple clock and reminding people of how much time is left. If anything, a better indicator would be every table having a 'flag' which shows what turn they are on so Judges can easily see the 'average' turn for the room and if a table is really far behind the average, they can observe if there is an issue.

Slow play cannot be defined by metrics but "I know it when I see it". That is the problem is we are trying to say 'any turn over X minutes' or 'player using Y time' = Slow play and that is not always true. If there was a easy way to track what turn a game is on so judges could see, it would allow judges to focus on slow-play if it actually is happening.


All I see is a bunch of Small model count armies not wanting to reduce point values so they want to strip the META of outliers by imposing unreasonable time restrictions and starving armies who were written and designed to possibly use more than half the time. Equal play doesn't address the core issue of Slow Play.

nkelsch wrote:
When 2 Ork players clash, there is usually one massive assault phase, which will be 30+ minutes. Of course that is all on one players turn, so the game will not have equal time when comparing 'player turns'.

Of course the game can still end within the alloted time, but the turns will not be equal, whomever gets the assault off first will probably have his player turn use 'more' of the time even though phases are interactive.

Working as Intended.

If the issue really is SLOW PLAY and not equal time, then why is everyone trying to force equal time? Slow play can be addressed by a simple clock and reminding people of how much time is left. If anything, a better indicator would be every table having a 'flag' which shows what turn they are on so Judges can easily see the 'average' turn for the room and if a table is really far behind the average, they can observe if there is an issue.

Slow play cannot be defined by metrics but "I know it when I see it". That is the problem is we are trying to say 'any turn over X minutes' or 'player using Y time' = Slow play and that is not always true. If there was a easy way to track what turn a game is on so judges could see, it would allow judges to focus on slow-play if it actually is happening.


All I see is a bunch of Small model count armies not wanting to reduce point values so they want to strip the META of outliers by imposing unreasonable time restrictions and starving armies who were written and designed to possibly use more than half the time. Equal play doesn't address the core issue of Slow Play.

While I agree with you, what you seem to miss is that, if you bring an army that you know will take over half the alloted time to play, and run into an opponent expecting the same what happens? You don't finish. Will 2 ork players use exactly the same ammount of time, of course not, but in say a 3 hour game, it is unreasonable for one to expect to be able to take 2 of those hours.

That is another manner of slow play. I bring an army that I know will most likely win a 3 turn game, and will take long enough that we will only get to 3 or 4 turns, even if I play at a reasonable pace. This is still slow playing because I enter the game expecting not to get past a certain point. Like you say Slow play is not the case in every unfinished game. But IMO if you provide ample game time, and have advertised that game time, any player who brings an army that cannot routinely finish games should be penalized. Is this some form of comp, sure, but so are missions run, chosen terrain etc. They are all part of a tournament.

 daedalus wrote:
Why don't they use turn timers?

Because you can't hold Green Tide to the same time limit as Draigowing.

It's that simple.

Yeah, I'm starting to wonder about this, though. Really, it is a reasonable stance to take that someone should bring a list that they expect to not need to use more than half the allotted game time with to a timed event tourney.

People do it in warmachine all the time. There are viable builds, and units, that are often left out of lists unless the user is very practiced with them... due to the time they take to use.

It's definitely something to consider, and the more I think about it, the more open I am to trying out timed turns (or more like, a total amount of time for each player, a la a chess clock app on a phone) in 40k. You just have to plan for / play to it, just like you do for scenarios and the like. In Warmachine it has become part of tournament culture, even though most casual players don't use it. But it definitely results in being able to get more games in, and finish events on time... but also adds a bit more of a barrier to casual folks playing warmahordes tournaments, because they have to play within the time limits or lose (as opposed to 40k, where you can not play within the time limits... and win!).

Edit: But I agree, for big combats this is not nearly as elegant of a solution for 40k. You need the opponent to make saves, and attack rolls, on your "turn"... which necessitates more of hitting the clock back and forth than in Warmachine/Hordes.

I see people keep saying that using Chess Clocks helps you get more games in. I don't see how this is the case. So I have rounds scheduled for say 3 hours. So each chess clock gets 1.5 hours. I still have the rounds taking 3 hours, the only difference now is that someone will forfiet the game if their time runs out.

Essentially all you have done is institue a sense of pressure and consequence, you have not sped up the overall time table.

I think clocks could be gamed in some instances. Really overall round times have the same effect, as long as there is a penatly for going over.

They can very much be gamed unless you're going to have people hitting the clock for literally every single action they make (rolling dice, checking LoS, etc), and that gets very messy very quickly (you didn't hit the clock for your cover save!) and Emperor help you if a rules dispute erupts or a TO is needed to come over, who's time does it come out of?

I would much rather see 'timed' turns documented before implementing chess clocks. I would love to see the data behind which armies and builds use how much time on which turns because I bet we would quickly find out it is not at all equal time as people believe. If we saw that Iguard, Taur and Orks consistently used more than half the time, what would we do then if we find out that specific armies which rely on specific rules and mechanics are designed to use more than half the time (or have the bulk of the action happen on their turn)?

Implementing it and forcing people to 'get in line or forfeit' without even any data of how the game mechanics works in regards to time is unreasonable.

I would love to see a tourney, even if just for one round, put a stopwatch on every table, and ask players to record when top and bottom of each turn occurred for that game. A simple data-gathering mechanic. And then be able to take that data and see if any patterns are exposed. I bet we will see equal time is not as fair as some people expect it to be.

Breng77 wrote:
I see people keep saying that using Chess Clocks helps you get more games in. I don't see how this is the case. So I have rounds scheduled for say 3 hours. So each chess clock gets 1.5 hours. I still have the rounds taking 3 hours, the only difference now is that someone will forfiet the game if their time runs out.

Essentially all you have done is institue a sense of pressure and consequence, you have not sped up the overall time table.

I think clocks could be gamed in some instances. Really overall round times have the same effect, as long as there is a penatly for going over.

That's a fair point (about not letting you get more games in). As someone else noted, though, people do tend to play faster when "on the clock" so then you might not need 3 hour rounds.

In warmahordes, more games are gotten in because the time limits are so tight and the clock is a factor in play (people fairly often "get clocked" and lose on time). So, there doesn't need to be a huge buffer between rounds to account for games that run over, etc.

But if you've got your rounds timed with a generous amount like 3 hours, then agreed, it wouldn't necessarily let people get more games in.

Yes perhaps people would play faster, but how much, would they finish. 2.5 hours instead of 3? (well if I set the clock to that they will) but they will finish that fast if I run 2.5 hour rounds as well. So I've saved 1.5 hours...and that is not enough time for another round unless I had some extra time any way.


Are we saying playing fast and sloppy is the best idea? Sure, you don' t need time between rounds for people going over then, because some one will lose before that happens.

So sure you could say, we are playing 1500 points, 1.5 hour rounds, you each get 45 min, if you run out you lose. And we will play 6 rounds in 1 day, instead of 3, but you'll all be stressed, and more often than not players will lose due to the clock than to being outplayed.

I guess it comes down to do you want people losing on time regularly, or do you want to provide the right amount of time for them to comortably finish games.

Breng77 wrote:
I guess it comes down to do you want people losing on time regularly, or do you want to provide the right amount of time for them to comortably finish games.

As a Warmahordes player I can say that most games end in a normal way as opposed to people running out of time. I have seen some very cliff hanging games literally come down to each player having less than one minute left and even one where a player made a final die roll to kill his opponent just as his clock ran out.
Part of the misunderstanding as to how the clock can be used is that Warmahordes has 2 different timing methods. There is a turn clock where you only get so many minutes per turn and there are a limited amount of turns per game. In this situation all that happens is that when your turn time ends your turn ends. The other method is called "Death Clock". In this usage each player is assigned half of the total time of the game. The time is used at their discretion as to how much is used during any given turn. In this instance when you run out of time you have lost the game.
In either case I will admit that the clock hurts people who don't play much and as such don't know how to use their models efficiently and/or the player who just doesn't know the rules all that well. Each of those things can be taken care of by the player himself gettng more practice and more knowledge of how to play the game.
As to what to do if you need a TO to resolve a dispute that's what the "pause" button is for. Neither player is punished for a rule dispute (timewise).

To be fair however, there is also a significant difference in the design paradigm and play mindset of a Warmahordes game vs a 40k game, along with significantly fewer models present. Warmahordes is specifically designed for "tournament style" play, 40k is very much not.

nkelsch wrote:
When 2 Ork players clash, there is usually one massive assault phase, which will be 30+ minutes. Of course that is all on one players turn, so the game will not have equal time when comparing 'player turns'.

Of course the game can still end within the alloted time, but the turns will not be equal, whomever gets the assault off first will probably have his player turn use 'more' of the time even though phases are interactive.

Working as Intended.

If the issue really is SLOW PLAY and not equal time, then why is everyone trying to force equal time? Slow play can be addressed by a simple clock and reminding people of how much time is left. If anything, a better indicator would be every table having a 'flag' which shows what turn they are on so Judges can easily see the 'average' turn for the room and if a table is really far behind the average, they can observe if there is an issue.

Slow play cannot be defined by metrics but "I know it when I see it". That is the problem is we are trying to say 'any turn over X minutes' or 'player using Y time' = Slow play and that is not always true. If there was a easy way to track what turn a game is on so judges could see, it would allow judges to focus on slow-play if it actually is happening.


All I see is a bunch of Small model count armies not wanting to reduce point values so they want to strip the META of outliers by imposing unreasonable time restrictions and starving armies who were written and designed to possibly use more than half the time. Equal play doesn't address the core issue of Slow Play.

On the other hand, slow play is impossible if the round is guaranteed to clock out after a certain time. While some armies "need" more time than others, experience has shown that most players (~95/100) will not exceed the time given them, even without clocking back and forth. The system works to prevent slow play has never cost a tyranid, ork, guard, etc. player even a single game. Plus, the system has the added benefit of sidestepping the issue involved with unequal turns and players only getting a few turns in which to play.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I guess it comes down to do you want people losing on time regularly, or do you want to provide the right amount of time for them to comortably finish games.

As a Warmahordes player I can say that most games end in a normal way as opposed to people running out of time. I have seen some very cliff hanging games literally come down to each player having less than one minute left and even one where a player made a final die roll to kill his opponent just as his clock ran out.
Part of the misunderstanding as to how the clock can be used is that Warmahordes has 2 different timing methods. There is a turn clock where you only get so many minutes per turn and there are a limited amount of turns per game. In this situation all that happens is that when your turn time ends your turn ends. The other method is called "Death Clock". In this usage each player is assigned half of the total time of the game. The time is used at their discretion as to how much is used during any given turn. In this instance when you run out of time you have lost the game.
In either case I will admit that the clock hurts people who don't play much and as such don't know how to use their models efficiently and/or the player who just doesn't know the rules all that well. Each of those things can be taken care of by the player himself gettng more practice and more knowledge of how to play the game.
As to what to do if you need a TO to resolve a dispute that's what the "pause" button is for. Neither player is punished for a rule dispute (timewise).

Warmachine also has another major difference, in that scenario wins are determined at the end of every player turn (starting at the bottom of turn 2); plus assassination victory also being prevalent. Imagine how quickly 40k games would be over if you *won* when you got Slay the Warlord?
Also, most warmachine armies: you know exactly how fast your army acts and the number of things it can do in a turn. You have 20 models, that means you need to move 20 models and make 20 attack rolls and 20 damage rolls. It is very rare to do anything in your opponents turn beyond a tough roll. You move/attack with 20 models (minus casualties) every turn: you can plan for how long that will take, maximum.

Compare that to 40k, where if YOU assault ME, it adds significant amount of time to MY clock for me to overwatch and react. Actually with Tau I take up more time in the opponents assault phase than he does with the amount of overwatch I get to do. Each model potentially can move 3 times per turn, make both shooting and melee rolls, and with the ridiculously slow wound allocation system in 40k sometimes you may as well do these rolls one at a time. 40k is a slow game - some just play even slower than others

It's a great thought and it deters some of those gamers that tend to try to take their time, but it hamstrings horde armies that have a lot of miniatures to move, shoot and assault.

I have a friend who plays at least 4 times a week.
I get in twice a month if I am lucky.
I get a huge amount of complaints of how slow I am and disrespectful of his time. I play SM and him DE.

Practice is the great way to get speed. Methods to optimize. If the person does not get the time-in like you do: slow play is the outcome.

Rather than complain and ridicule give pointers on the tricks you use to play fast.

I find also some people push the rules to the max so a bit of looking up is needed where are far as they are concerned they are being held up even when proven wrong.

Anyway, chess clocks are not going to work, it gives a different advantage that was not there before. Just play with more knowledgeable players or "invest" in your opponent by pointing out faster ways to do things.

I really like the idea of using a chess clock as i have lost a tournament to slow playing where we only made it to the end of turn 2!!!

The real question i have is what should happen if you run out of time before the game ends? Losing the game seems a bit extreme. Ill post some options below and decide which you think is more fair?

1. lose victory points / opponent gains victory points
2. your opponent gets to play the rest of the game with his remaining time left on the clock, while you get no more turns.
3. your opponent gets one more turn and the game ends
4. if you run out of time twice in the same tournament you are disqualified.


I have been a tournament chess player using clocks for over 10 years, and have used them in casual games of 40k with the option number 3. above which has always worked out great. Bringing this into tournaments would fix a lot of issues.

If a game only got to the end of turn2 in a couple of hours, you call the TO over and have them deal with it

 Vaktathi wrote:
If a game only got to the end of turn2 in a couple of hours, you call the TO over and have them deal with it

I called over the TO 30 minutes into the game and he wouldn't help. Needless to say, im never going back to this Non-FLG store.

Yeah, that sucks, the TO wasn't doing their job then. :(

I wish there was a way to better curb intentional slow play. Timers can be gamed though and I have witnessed this at Warmachine tournaments so in the end it would probably create more problems than anything else.

I think I would enjoy a tournament where everyone had to finish their turn before the next turn could be played.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I wish there was a way to better curb intentional slow play. Timers can be gamed though and I have witnessed this at Warmachine tournaments so in the end it would probably create more problems than anything else.

Not doubting you, but how would this actually work in Warmachine?

Chess timers would not work. I actually think it would cause slower play, as you would be "hitting" the clock between 10-20 times a player turn. it would get confusing and lead to arguments.

The best way to combat slow play is to have an involved TO that is willing to actually punish slow players. Most times, TO's will give warnings but do nothing after that.

hands_miranda wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I wish there was a way to better curb intentional slow play. Timers can be gamed though and I have witnessed this at Warmachine tournaments so in the end it would probably create more problems than anything else.

Not doubting you, but how would this actually work in Warmachine?

One player gets a lead in the game then quickly as possible activates all their units then stops the clock... They continue to do so until time runs out. This is playing the clock, not the game. I bet there is nothing in the rules for Warmachine that covers the use of timed play.

http://gk-workbench.com/?p=3778

You would loose your bet. Time rules are written in our Steamroller (Tournament) rules. They can be downloaded for free on the Privateer Press website.

See the link I posted... It covers some of the problems using a timer in Warmachine.

I disagree with a lot of what is in that link. While I'm not a polished veteren with death clock I do have experience with it.
If you are playing death clock with no scenerio or special rules then the writer is correct. It could just come down to one person turtling and the other person being incapable of breaching his shell. That can happen in any game or circumstance but most players that I know of have the grace to play the game to win rather than just dragging the game out in the hopes of a tie. If the turtle situation does occur then both players could just sit at their table and hit the clock back and forth (like a ping pong game). Hopefully the TO would come over and just DQ both players at that point.
There is a big difference between timed turns and death clock that keeps being overlooked. Deathclock is total time for the game. Timed turns is just that, you have that much time to use for that turn and then your turn ends. You don't lose the game (directly) but you have to make due with what you've accomplished for that turn. Each player gets the same amount of turns and theoretically can use the same amount of time but neither is required to use all of the time allocated.
With timed turns the TO can still keep a schedule by controlling the total time used but can help ensure that neither player is dominating the game via slow play.

Every tournament I play in is timed.

2 Hours 30 Minutes per round.

I see nothing wrong with 15 minutes per player per turn.

In my experience anyway, it seems like the later turns get shorter and shorter.

What if you did it on a sliding scale? More time for earlier turns, less for later?

That was an interesting link, Dozer, until it froze my machine! Can you do a copy/paste of the text? I think it's relevant to the discussion here regarding how adding clocks affects play/strategy.

Warmachine offers a number of ways to win before the last turn, which drastically changes the dynamic of using timed turns.

40k, you only win at the end of the game. This means that getting to the natural end of the game is especially important. The only other way to win is if a player is tabled or otherwise concedes defeat.
Even worse, with the 'only troops are scoring' rule, it can often become the case where the only hope of winning is annihilation of your enemy. And tabling the enemy completely is time consuming - even with an alpha strike army like Tau where I have obviously 'won' the game during my first turn shooting, it still takes until probably turn 4 to completely mop everything up. In 40k, the tattered remnants of 3 squads or even a single squad can hold out until the end of the game on a distant objective (or worse, damn Eldar Jetbikes giving pretty much an auto-3VP swing on the last turn).

Warmachine, you can win by many scenarios by the end of player 1 turn 3. You can win by assassination potentially during player 1 turn 2. Killbox, the smaller table size and the general warcaster control range mechanic means you can't keep your caster back out of harm's way. Objectives are at most 30" away from each other, and often closer to 12". A single infantry model left alive in warmachine is going to die without being able to alter the flow of the game.

For warmachine, its rare that the game will even last to turn 6 without someone winning. 40k, it is essentially required to get to turn 6.

Actually, the more I rant about this, I realise the problem is just with 40k's scenarios being objectively (hehe) terrible.

Sorry Mr. Tides - the link is no longer working for me now. Sorry!