FLG mentioned in a youtube comment that there had been several polls that showed people wanted to play at 2k. I don't remember seeing any since the early early days of 8th, and certainly none since the LVO. What do you guys think?
I'll post what I think later on in the thread, since I don't want it to influence the results.
I like 2000k points, it allow you to use many units, but at least playing Dark Angels it feels I still need to make sacrifices. If you go lower things get worse and the game enters a more Rock-Papers-Scissors state because TAC lists are harder to do. I Normally I have no problems reaching turn 4 or even 5 in all my tournaments, but at the same time regional tournaments here have 3-hour games.
(First game of the day 09:00-12:00. Second one 12:00-15:00. We stop to eat until 17:00 to 20:00 for the third and last game)
The main issues to consider are time and the number of expected/known players and if its club limited or open participation.
In general a club level tournament can have more flexibility because the players can choose to have it take place over many days (weeks) rather than all in a single day or two days. As a result higher points values are viable because the game can take longer.
Meanwhile if the event is tied to a very specific time period and if the number of people coming is larger then you've got more limitations which promotes smaller army sizes so that games can complete in a quicker span of time.
So what players want is almost not part of the equation since many times the criteria are going to be defined by the situation more so than the players taking part.
You might get away with larger games if the event is at the peek of a series of battles and thus all those player are of a confirmed high skill level (ego should be able to play faster than those of less experience and skill).
It's fairly clear that 2k points in this current metagame makes it fairly difficult to reach turn 4/5/6 on a regular tournament schedule. You can read what you will into that, imo.
meleti wrote: It's fairly clear that 2k points in this current metagame makes it fairly difficult to reach turn 4/5/6 on a regular tournament schedule. You can read what you will into that, imo.
Agreed. I read that very few games at LVO made it past turn 3, not sure how accurate that is.
Ok far enough down I feel I can post without first look bias creeping in, not that these things are scientific, but there is no harm in trying to limit bias.
8th ed is a little slower than 7th ed, the reasons are varied but that does seem to be the case. We didn't know this going into 8th ed, we were told it was faster and simpler, so in our optimism people decided on 2k as the standard. It's been almost a year, and the error of that is pretty clear now. The debate has been how to handle it.
This is relevant because, FLG talked about chess clocks in their last podcast/liveshow. We might even see them at the BAO. The idea they were tossing around was if you went over time, you couldn't take any more turns (your involvement in the rest of the game is rolling armor saves and morale), and your opponent got to play normally. It's not an idea I'm fond of.
Let me go slightly off topic and tell one of my favorite science jokes. A professor had trained a grasshopper to jump when they heard a bell ring. The professor then numbed one of the grasshoppers legs, range the bell and the grasshopper jumped. He repeated this a few times, numbing a leg, ringing a bell and the grasshopper jumping. Finally he numbed all of the grasshopper legs and rang the bell, and to his surprise the grasshopper didn't jump. He concluded that grasshopper must hear with their legs.
The moral of the story is it's possible to have all of the information and still come to the wrong conclusion. I think that's where FLG is right now, they see the same problem we do, with long game turns and few games coming to a natural conclusion, but they think it's because of slow play, intentional or otherwise. They think adding chess clocks will speed up play, because the penalty for taking too long is so harsh. I'd say they are probably correct, but it will come at a cost of enjoyment, and several armies will not be functional at 2k points and exactly one hour and 15 minutes of play time.
There are also the complications of the chess clock, when to hand it off, when to pause it etc. They were suggesting that players would have to watch a tutorial if they were there competitively. I could go on, but the video is linked below, you can watch it at your leisure, which will involve less of my bias creeping into what they said, than me quoting them.
With that said, let's talk about the points, 1500 seems to small to me and 2000 is demonstrably too much. I feel like for a first run we should split the difference, and go with 1750. If it needs to be adjusted in the future (up or down), I feel like that will be a good place to move from. 1750 still allows multiple detachments, but maybe not three detachments.
Youtube video, slow play discussion starts at 28 minutes:
Well when 8th first dropped it was absolutely faster than 7th, quite dramatically so in some areas. Many of our newer players doubled their speed overnight because they actually understood the rules for the first time, something they had struggled with for most of 7th However, there were far less rules to memorize. No one had chapter tactics, strategems were super easy to remember because there were a whopping 3 of them, and many units had far simpler interactions than they do now. Not to mention warlord traits, new aura abilities, less weapon abilities, etc. From what I saw IG had the craziest stuff in the game with orders, and even there the codex doubled what we had access to. As codexes dropped units lost wargear options but gained arguably far more interactions with chapter tactics, strategems, warlord traits, auras, and pyskers.
With all this in mind, I'd personally prefer 1500, but could definitely understand a compromise of say 1750 to accommodate more elite armies. Even 250 makes a big difference. For IG that can be a solid platoon of guardsmen depending on kit. I would like it to be 1500 as a horde player, but obviously as an IG player I could go to a 1,000pts tomorrow and not bat an eye. I'd be taking less of everything but I could at least somewhat cover my bases. The difference would be I'd be running say 80 infantry instead of 150, or 1-2 tanks instead of 6.
I do feel other armies could actually compete at 1750 and even 1500, players just don't like losing access to all their toys. Ideally I feel a points level for tournaments should heavily emphasize hard choices being made. You shouldn't be able to slap everything in with 0 issues like 2000 often encourages. When I played Flames of War a lot back in V3 they often ran 1750-1850 and that was about right to where you never really had everything exactly where you wanted it. You could be really set on AT but you'd lack AA, or have lots of infantry to overwhelm enemy mg's but lack in armored support. Elite armies were quite powerful but had to be razor focused at winning a certain way or else they risked not having tools for the job, while more generalist armies had most of their tools to cover scenarios but never had enough to 100% shut down a person doubling down on a certain strategy.
That's actually another thing I'd love to see 40k tournaments do, a randomly shifting amount that moves to a different value between 1500-2000 every year or so. Helps break up the meta a bit and encourages less netlisting, which usually helps promote a healthier meta. Obviously certain meta lists will still appear, but by enouraging lists to move up and down in points you prevent there being go to lists like we had toward the end of 7th.
I struggle to fit everything I feel I need in a 2k list, though that may be a result of just playing an across-the-board overcosted army lol. I don't think I would have fun at anything less than 1750, lower than that and I would seriously struggle to make lists I'm satisfied with.
No matter what you do you're picking favorites. You add chess clocks and you're 'penalizing' horde armies. You shrink points and you're 'penalizing' elite armies.
Take Imperial Knights. I think there's only a few configurations you can do to field an IK list at 1,500. At least if you want to allow them to take a detachment that actually adds CP.
Custodes too. A minimum battalion is, what, 772 points? That's over half your points allotment and you've got nothing to deal with Psyekrs or have access to any shooting besides Rapid Fire 1 S4 spears. An Outrider of 3 bike squads is even more expensive at 970.
Conversely, can a lot of armies deal with 10 T6 2+/4++ models with Fly, Hurricane Bolters and the equivalent of Force Lances at 1,500? Cause that's what an Outrider would jam down their throats.
Grey Knights suffer too. Cheapest troop choice is 105 per squad.
Anyway, it goes on and on. I'm personally more in favor of holding players to higher speed standards than restricting army selection by nerfing points. I reject the premise that 8th is, overall, slower than 7th since 7th had trouble with people finishing games at big tournaments too.
The big thing in 8th is that we CAN go faster and horde players can learn to go faster. There's plenty on this board who will happily offer advice on how to do so. You nerf points though and some armies are just phased out. No learning around that. So let's just focus on getting people to actually play their games in a timely fashion.
Heavens knows it's fairly boring to spend all of 45 minutes combined on my turns only to sit around rolling saves for 2 hours and 15 minutes while my horde opponent shoots everything. It'll help peoples' sanity to go faster too!
MrMoustaffa wrote: Well when 8th first dropped it was absolutely faster than 7th, quite dramatically so in some areas. Many of our newer players doubled their speed overnight because they actually understood the rules for the first time, something they had struggled with for most of 7th However, there were far less rules to memorize. No one had chapter tactics, strategems were super easy to remember because there were a whopping 3 of them, and many units had far simpler interactions than they do now. Not to mention warlord traits, new aura abilities, less weapon abilities, etc. From what I saw IG had the craziest stuff in the game with orders, and even there the codex doubled what we had access to. As codexes dropped units lost wargear options but gained arguably far more interactions with chapter tactics, strategems, warlord traits, auras, and pyskers.
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That's actually another thing I'd love to see 40k tournaments do, a randomly shifting amount that moves to a different value between 1500-2000 every year or so. Helps break up the meta a bit and encourages less netlisting, which usually helps promote a healthier meta. Obviously certain meta lists will still appear, but by encouraging lists to move up and down in points you prevent there being go to lists like we had toward the end of 7th.
I think if the points adapted to the meta that would be wonderful for the game, even if the only driving agent was average turn duration. You'd want to limit the update to once a year, that way you wouldn't alter the meta during an ITC season, but with that in place you could have a big reveal, and get some solid hype for it. As for why it's slower, yeah stratagems would likely be culprit, though reroll auras (up to double the amount of dice rolling) probably share blame. Several other rules got more complicated, like deep strike, used to be place the marker, roll scatter, then place models. Now you pick a spot, measure to each enemy model nearby, and then either place each model with a measuring tape in hand, or start all over again. I'm sure measuring deep strikes consumed a fair bit of the judges time at the LVO, because they are such clutch placements.
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Audustum wrote: No matter what you do you're picking favorites. You add chess clocks and you're 'penalizing' horde armies. You shrink points and you're 'penalizing' elite armies.
Take Imperial Knights. I think there's only a few configurations you can do to field an IK list at 1,500. At least if you want to allow them to take a detachment that actually adds CP.
Custodes too. A minimum battalion is, what, 772 points? That's over half your points allotment and you've got nothing to deal with Psyekrs or have access to any shooting besides Rapid Fire 1 S4 spears. An Outrider of 3 bike squads is even more expensive at 970.
Conversely, can a lot of armies deal with 10 T6 2+/4++ models with Fly, Hurricane Bolters and the equivalent of Force Lances at 1,500? Cause that's what an Outrider would jam down their throats.
Grey Knights suffer too. Cheapest troop choice is 105 per squad.
Anyway, it goes on and on. I'm personally more in favor of holding players to higher speed standards than restricting army selection by nerfing points. I reject the premise that 8th is, overall, slower than 7th since 7th had trouble with people finishing games at big tournaments too.
The big thing in 8th is that we CAN go faster and horde players can learn to go faster. There's plenty on this board who will happily offer advice on how to do so. You nerf points though and some armies are just phased out. No learning around that. So let's just focus on getting people to actually play their games in a timely fashion.
Heavens knows it's fairly boring to spend all of 45 minutes combined on my turns only to sit around rolling saves for 2 hours and 15 minutes while my horde opponent shoots everything. It'll help peoples' sanity to go faster too!
One of the challenges the chess clock poses is that you could still run out of time rolling saves, since if you have dice in your hand the clock is on you. So deathguard who get two saves could be timed out if they aren't super quick on their turns. It also adds a clock metagame which ranges from unpleasant to downright abusive.
MrMoustaffa wrote: Well when 8th first dropped it was absolutely faster than 7th, quite dramatically so in some areas. Many of our newer players doubled their speed overnight because they actually understood the rules for the first time, something they had struggled with for most of 7th
This is SO damm important. For my first time playing warhammer 40k or fantasy... I KNOW ALL MY RULES. Isn't that crazy? I know what all of my units can do, all the basic rules of the game, and even then, I normally know what most or all of my opponent units do, and most if not all of the interactions that can happen in a game! I have gone to 6 regional tournaments since 8th started and I have seen literally 0 rules discussions!
The only think I can't remember 100% are stratagems, but even then most of the time I can remember the 8-10 most possibles ones I or mi opponent will use in any given battle. Chapter Tactics are very easy to remember. Relics and Warlord Traits are the same, is one of the basic things we always tell our opponent when whe share list (My warlord has this trait, I'm using this relic), the same for psychic powers.
MrMoustaffa wrote: Well when 8th first dropped it was absolutely faster than 7th, quite dramatically so in some areas. Many of our newer players doubled their speed overnight because they actually understood the rules for the first time, something they had struggled with for most of 7th However, there were far less rules to memorize. No one had chapter tactics, strategems were super easy to remember because there were a whopping 3 of them, and many units had far simpler interactions than they do now. Not to mention warlord traits, new aura abilities, less weapon abilities, etc. From what I saw IG had the craziest stuff in the game with orders, and even there the codex doubled what we had access to. As codexes dropped units lost wargear options but gained arguably far more interactions with chapter tactics, strategems, warlord traits, auras, and pyskers.
...
That's actually another thing I'd love to see 40k tournaments do, a randomly shifting amount that moves to a different value between 1500-2000 every year or so. Helps break up the meta a bit and encourages less netlisting, which usually helps promote a healthier meta. Obviously certain meta lists will still appear, but by encouraging lists to move up and down in points you prevent there being go to lists like we had toward the end of 7th.
I think if the points adapted to the meta that would be wonderful for the game, even if the only driving agent was average turn duration. You'd want to limit the update to once a year, that way you wouldn't alter the meta during an ITC season, but with that in place you could have a big reveal, and get some solid hype for it. As for why it's slower, yeah stratagems would likely be culprit, though reroll auras (up to double the amount of dice rolling) probably share blame. Several other rules got more complicated, like deep strike, used to be place the marker, roll scatter, then place models. Now you pick a spot, measure to each enemy model nearby, and then either place each model with a measuring tape in hand, or start all over again. I'm sure measuring deep strikes consumed a fair bit of the judges time at the LVO, because they are such clutch placements.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Audustum wrote: No matter what you do you're picking favorites. You add chess clocks and you're 'penalizing' horde armies. You shrink points and you're 'penalizing' elite armies.
Take Imperial Knights. I think there's only a few configurations you can do to field an IK list at 1,500. At least if you want to allow them to take a detachment that actually adds CP.
Custodes too. A minimum battalion is, what, 772 points? That's over half your points allotment and you've got nothing to deal with Psyekrs or have access to any shooting besides Rapid Fire 1 S4 spears. An Outrider of 3 bike squads is even more expensive at 970.
Conversely, can a lot of armies deal with 10 T6 2+/4++ models with Fly, Hurricane Bolters and the equivalent of Force Lances at 1,500? Cause that's what an Outrider would jam down their throats.
Grey Knights suffer too. Cheapest troop choice is 105 per squad.
Anyway, it goes on and on. I'm personally more in favor of holding players to higher speed standards than restricting army selection by nerfing points. I reject the premise that 8th is, overall, slower than 7th since 7th had trouble with people finishing games at big tournaments too.
The big thing in 8th is that we CAN go faster and horde players can learn to go faster. There's plenty on this board who will happily offer advice on how to do so. You nerf points though and some armies are just phased out. No learning around that. So let's just focus on getting people to actually play their games in a timely fashion.
Heavens knows it's fairly boring to spend all of 45 minutes combined on my turns only to sit around rolling saves for 2 hours and 15 minutes while my horde opponent shoots everything. It'll help peoples' sanity to go faster too!
One of the challenges the chess clock poses is that you could still run out of time rolling saves, since if you have dice in your hand the clock is on you. So deathguard who get two saves could be timed out if they aren't super quick on their turns. It also adds a clock metagame which ranges from unpleasant to downright abusive.
There's a meta game now even without clocks. Sometimes you're in a great position on T3 or T4 but you know you'll lose it if the game goes on. Alternatively, you're winning on points at T4 but you'll be tabled at T6. Some people are jerks and go slow on purpose to drag it out from there. Others have no idea their army does that bad over 6 turns because they always take so long the game ends by T3 or T4. Effectively, they built a 4 turn army while their opponent built a 6 turn army then they, intentionally or not, force the game to end early. In NOVA, for example, players still have the option of end of game scoring. It's very easy to imagine a horde that has control of all the objectives when time gets called at T4 because the horde player monopolized 60%-80% of the time when the elite player may have been able to take those objectives with two more rounds.
I'm not really worried about two save armies taking too long. I played Imperial Soup against an Ynnari list at a major tournament in 8th edition (this is one of my favorite anecdotes). This was before the Ynnari FAQ limiting Strength from Death and I was using an army that had a Codex in my soup, so lots of options/tools/re-rolls at my disposal. Even with the Ynnari player's extra actions and my ability to re-roll tons of dice, we finished all 5 rounds in 45 minutes. Not 45 minutes each, 45 minutes total. If we can do that, there's no reason any horde army can't do the entirety of its 6 rounds in 75 or 90 minutes just for its own turns. Players just have to know their rules and focus.
Personally I voted for 1500. The primary issue in the tournament scene right now, more than anything else IMO, is that a significant portion of games, I've seen some numbers indicating more than half, do not reach their natural conclusion and are instead ended by time limit. That is simply not acceptable. I would argue that if more than just 10% of games (to allow for the possibility of slow play and potential issues such as rules disagreements or TO calls eating a good chunk of the clock) in a tournament are forced to an end by time rather than finished properly, then the tournament is not allowing for enough time for the size of the game played. In that case, the tournament must either increase the amount of time a game has to be played (obviously not feasible given the limits of scheduling tournaments have), or play smaller point games.
I'm not really worried about two save armies taking too long. I played Imperial Soup against an Ynnari list at a major tournament in 8th edition (this is one of my favorite anecdotes). This was before the Ynnari FAQ limiting Strength from Death and I was using an army that had a Codex in my soup, so lots of options/tools/re-rolls at my disposal. Even with the Ynnari player's extra actions and my ability to re-roll tons of dice, we finished all 5 rounds in 45 minutes. Not 45 minutes each, 45 minutes total. If we can do that, there's no reason any horde army can't do the entirety of its 6 rounds in 75 or 90 minutes just for its own turns. Players just have to know their rules and focus.
Not trying to be confrontational in a rude way, but what list were you running exactly, if you don't mind sharing?
Because my typical IG lists at 2k tend to run 130+ infantry and anywhere from 4-6 vehicles, many of whom fire twice with random shot weapons. I'm not entirely sure that army is possible to play in 45 minutes with an opponent even if we were both telepathic and able to communicate by thought with 100% cooperation.
Because true horde armies aren't quite as simple as they appear at first glance, and I say this as a guy who works very hard to play his army as fast as possible. The sheer amount of rerolls an army like IG has to do, on top of random shot weapons and pure weight of dice, makes it tough to play quickly. In addition, split fire makes armies like infantry guard take a lot longer to play *correctly* (as in getting your best advantage) because there are just so many moving parts. Heck just in dice alone a single IG squad can kick out about 40 lasgun dice, unless you have a dice app or freakishly large hands that takes a while to roll, to say nothing of a conscript unit doing FRFSRF. These units can take so long to roll for the advice is quite literally "just don't shoot with lasguns". That's a pretty rough handicap just to try and keep your game playing on time, especially since that's a major source of anti infantry firepower.
One big thing that I think gets glossed over is alternating deployment at setup. I've seen that eat up more time in games than even an IG alpha strike. From a game design perspective it makes sense and is definitely more balanced, but in my area at least people take ages to deploy trying to get units out of sight and ensuring their screens/auras are properly placed. And since every drop matters there's lots of hmming and hawing. I usually don't even have half my units deployed by the time the opponent is fully deployed and I can often get that second half deployed in under a couple minutes, yet we'll take a good 20 minutes up to it as my opponent tries to find an optimal spot for his devestators or artillery.
The other is assault. It is absolutely hell for a horde player. The amount of shenanigans people have now, and the need to play absolutely perfect or your whole line will collapse makes it absolutely awful. Not to mention the whole tri locking thing, and players having to see who they're actually closer to in a sea of 100 guardsmen, the difference of 1/16th an inch meaning the difference of them piling into a tank or piling into more conscripts. I can't blame them, it's critical to playing the game well, but these kind of things eat up time.
Smaller values are better due to time constraints.
On the other hand, if the game is played with a clock, then larger pt values are acceptable.
I voted for 1500 pts.
I also voted for 1500. In 8th, this feels like the best point level for games you actually want to finish in a reasonable time frame, while 2000 is a level for gaming on weekends with no time limitation.
Due to vanguard, spearhead and outrider detachments existing, I don't think any army will fail to build a proper TAC list at that level. For almost any army, you should be able to fit tools to handle all common threats in a battle-forged army of some sort, since the only reason to actually take tax units is for more CP.
On death guard rolling two saves all the time: Keep in mind that most DG units are more expensive than their chaos/imperium counterparts, so you have less models to move/shoot/fight with. The only true horde unit has no armor saves, so you don't actually have double saves their either.
I'm a hell lot more worried about rolling KFF and dok tool saves for my ork boyz than DR for my Death Guard.
I prefer 1500 due to time mostly. However, I accept the fact that at 1500 points it becomes rather hard for elite armies to form a force. A problem I encounter with my Dark Angels time and time again.
I honestly think 1650 needs to be experimented with. Weird number, but at the end of 7th some tournaments were experimenting with that number; by 7th standard they reported that at 1850, like less than 50% of games finished to their natural conclusion (i.e. not because time was called). Moving to 1650 I think that number shot up to 90% or thereabouts (meaning that many games finished normally, without running out of time).
It has a little more "bite" than 1500 does, as well. However, the issue will be that I think lower points in a tournament will need to have more comp added to prevent people just hard-skewing lists; with lower points you can "stack the deck" by taking things that you expect your opponent will simply not be able to handle at that points level and expect to win that way. At 1500 you might not have the resources to deal with primarchs or superheavies that you would at 2000, so I fear dropping the points will just encourage those types of lists and not TAC which is what you would expect.
I just participated in a small (8 person) event. None of the games went to time and we were playing 2000 points. I'm just a beginner and all but 1 of my games went to turn limit ( I got tabled in my last game).
I don't think it's the points, I think that it might be too hard for a TO to handle too many people. It'd be like herding cats in that you have too much to take care of and it takes too long for everyone to get organized.
So why don't we look at it from another point of view. Maybe larger events need to set aside more time between rounds to allow everyone to get organized. That way everyone can get out their models and find their table and do all the other things that need done before the game begins.
Chess clocks are not abusive. How can they be? If you show up with a force you can’t play in the time allotted to you by the Tourney Organizer that is… self abuse?
Chess clocks are amazing and make the game much better. I hate going to a three hour tourney and getting to play for 30 minutes, cause my esteemed opponent takes 50 minutes each time he wants to move and fire his 50 man conscript.
I don't think that its bad to go with 1500-2000 point game. There is room for all sorts of variety.
The event you're posting has almost 3 hours per game. We played all of our games at 2K points and 2 1/2 hours. Again I think it depends on how many players vs how many TO + assistants there are. I know that the extra 15 minutes per game don't usually mean much but maybe it should be cut from the game and added to the between rounds time.
Like I said, I'm new and maybe I just had a really super TO in a small event. I can't say what it would be like if there were 16 players or more and whether the event would have gone as smoothly as it did.
Strangely enough my 2000 point list is 114PL so I'd actually have to drop a unit. I don't think that that 1 unit is going to reduce my time used all that much. The list that I played at the event was 109 PL again not that much change needed and minimal, if any, time reduction would occur.
I like playing at 2k, its where most of my armies 'feel' the best to me (which is a lot about getting to take the toys and setups I like). Ultimately I practice with a chess clock so I can play through games pretty quick and I have 0 issue calling my opponent for slow play.
FWIW, I like 1800 over 1750. No mechanical reason; its just a cleaner looking number to me; divisible by 3 and the like.
2000 is fine though. I think a clock would help quite a bit. The game doesn't take THAT long if you keep it moving. The problem is there are lots and lots of opportunities to waste time.
Grimgold wrote: FLG mentioned in a youtube comment that there had been several polls that showed people wanted to play at 2k. I don't remember seeing any since the early early days of 8th, and certainly none since the LVO.
The polls FLG send out only go to those that participate in ITC events and have a registered username and email with FLG. They used to do quarterly polls and update the ITC rules based off the results, but I can't recall seeing an ITC poll since 3rd quarter 2016. Not sure if they stopped doing them or if somehow I've been excluded. The last poll I remember had a lot of Tau nerfs on it. But, the polls I do remember participating in 1850+ always clearly won out over smaller games.
I'm also very against chess clocks. I think there's way too much back and forth with the active player and you're going to waste more time slapping the clock than actually rolling the save. I think the issue lies in people not being alert, focused, and ready. On top of that, know the rules. The chess clocks will be an unwelcome distraction. They should drop from 2k back down to 1850 and bump the time to 3 hours flat and call it a day.
Chess clocks work great in chess because when its your turn you don't require any involvement of your opponent in the turn itself. They don't have to look something up in their codex (for you or them); they don't have to roll any dice; they don't have to move something or state what something is or anything.
In Warhammer and 40K there's so much back and forth i could see chess clocks being an annoyance and a point of argument on when the clock "counts as their time".
The core concept of the clock is to speed up the game and to avoid people deliberately using time wasting tactics. In my view there are surely better methods than the clock.
And no game uses clocks to keep one side from "slowing down the game" (NFL,NBA). Warmachine uses clocks and the game calls for turn interaction and it seems to be functioning just fine for its event settings. My guess is that people just don't want to get used to "these new fangled devices". Once the clocks are in play for a while people will just accept them as normal and the world will go on turning.
It's really not a problem. You switch the clock when you resolve your actions, your opponent switches it back when they've done theirs. If your opponent is on the ball, they'll probably have dice in hand for their armor rolls before you even need to switch the clock and if they don't, having it switched to them a few times will teach them to really quick. That's kind of the whole point of the thing.
Yeah - we practice with Chess Clocks and once you've done it a few times you really start to speed up. You've got dice in hand and it generally moves quickly. The point of it is not just to speed up people who intentionally slow playing but to speed up the game as a whole. It cuts down on codex fishing (which if you're playing an army at a tournament you should be knowledgeable enough with your army that is limited need), excessive dice counting and pooling (get separate, distinct dice for various functions), and encourages you to stay plugged in to the game and ready to make your decisions as opposed to having to catch up each time your opponent needs input.
The problem with Chess Clocks (and yes, I am going to catch some flak for this I bet) is that some people just need to think.
I've been playing with chess clocks lately in my last few games on phones, and it's been an adventure. I've always been a fast player (and yes my army composition helps) but recently, I played a very long game against an Ork player.
It wasn't long because he was hordes, really, though (believe it or not, I wiped them out fairly easily). It was long because he really sat there and thought. I offered suggestions, too, which didn't help, but I do always try to help my opponent out. After a while, he would decide on a plan and everything flowed from there.
Even though it took ~3 hours (almost on the dot), we did play it out to the Random Game Length (it ended with a '1' on the die after turn 5), and do you know what? He won by one point, because of some lucky rolls partly (3 1's on a 2+ to wound was my last close-combat of the game, needing to kill one model). But he absolutely won fair and square. Had the game ended ~30 minutes earlier, however, I'm not certain that would have been the case. 3 superheavy tanks is a hard army to fight and requires some thought, and his army killed two of them before the end... and only just. The second one died on turn 5.
If the game had been limited to 2.5 hours, whether by chess clock or just general tournament limits, it would have been a loss for him. Which is unfair, because it was, truly, a victory, and the game was very close and fun, with both of us smiling at the end and giggling about some of the more fun moments.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: And no game uses clocks to keep one side from "slowing down the game" (NFL,NBA). Warmachine uses clocks and the game calls for turn interaction and it seems to be functioning just fine for its event settings. My guess is that people just don't want to get used to "these new fangled devices". Once the clocks are in play for a while people will just accept them as normal and the world will go on turning.
Warmachine doesn't have you acting in your opponent's turn, no armor saves or the like so it's a much better fit for a chess clock. 40k is not so clean, with saves, morale, overwatch, stratagems, the clock could get passed back and forth a dozen times in a turn. There are lots of opportunities for screw ups and "Accidents" like rolling dice on your opponent's time will require judge intervention. Remember it's zero sum, so if you take minute rolling dice in your opponent's turn, you now have a two minute time advantage, the minute you didn't spend and the minute he lost.
If that's the way it has to go, well that's life and I'm sure people will get used to it, or they just won't attend. However, it's my thought that lowering points is a much less invasive way to address the same problem. The Chess clock is a constant stress, requiring your attention the whole time, reduced points just comes up in list building, and then not again.
If you set a time limit how is it "unfair" to either player that if the game had gone on the other player would have won? Both players are aware of the rule and both players have to take that rule into account.
I agree that it would be nice if every game went to its natural conclusion of max turns but that really isn't practical even in a casual environment.
I also play better when I take ages, and some of my home games run 4+ hours.
But... in a tournament, you need to think faster - or less.
I guess as that person's opponent with far fewer models, you could donate him some of your clock? Can't see anyone doing it outside the bottom tables, but they are far less likely to have clocks.
Leo_the_Rat wrote:If you set a time limit how is it "unfair" to either player that if the game had gone on the other player would have won? Both players are aware of the rule and both players have to take that rule into account.
I agree that it would be nice if every game went to its natural conclusion of max turns but that really isn't practical even in a casual environment.
Because his army needed that time to work. I brought 78 Toughness 8 3+ wounds. That's no easy thing to whittle away in just a few turns without dedicated weapons. Army endurance is absolutely a thing, and mine started strong and petered out, while his was fairly "alright" throughout the whole game. It would have been unfortunate for him to lose at a tournament simply because we only played 3 turns or whatever.
Silentz wrote:No flak, just a solid "Tough break for that guy".
I also play better when I take ages, and some of my home games run 4+ hours.
But... in a tournament, you need to think faster - or less.
I guess as that person's opponent with far fewer models, you could donate him some of your clock? Can't see anyone doing it outside the bottom tables, but they are far less likely to have clocks.
How can you be determining the best Warhammer 40k player in the world if you exclude armies and whatnot? That's my question. If the "best players of Warhammer" aren't playing warhammer, but are instead building armies and playstyles that are front-loaded but actually fairly bad at the game (like mine, apparently ), how does that have any meaning?
Because part of playing the game and being the best of it is being the best in the given context of the situation. Ultimately no one will ever be crowned the best 40k player of all time because there is no unifying set of rules and contexts that all players play in. Part of being the 'best' in a given scenario though is not just being good at the game but being good at operating in the parameters that have been set.
In tournaments there are time-limits, part of being the best player at that point is putting together and playing an army that can get the job done in that time-limit. I tend to play large armies (150+ model chaos armies for example) and I don't have issues completing my games inside the allocated 2.5 hours - in large part because I practice with those time frames in mind.
Leo_the_Rat wrote:If you set a time limit how is it "unfair" to either player that if the game had gone on the other player would have won? Both players are aware of the rule and both players have to take that rule into account.
I agree that it would be nice if every game went to its natural conclusion of max turns but that really isn't practical even in a casual environment.
Because his army needed that time to work. I brought 78 Toughness 8 3+ wounds. That's no easy thing to whittle away in just a few turns without dedicated weapons. Army endurance is absolutely a thing, and mine started strong and petered out, while his was fairly "alright" throughout the whole game. It would have been unfortunate for him to lose at a tournament simply because we only played 3 turns or whatever.
But that's my point. If you each knew that you only had so much time to play and one player takes a slow developing army then it is a tactical choice. Granted in your specific game there was no expectation of being timed so it was what it was but if you and he had agreed to a time limit either of you could have arranged your list to perform in a faster fashion.
Putting a time limit on a game is no more constraining than putting a points limit on a game. Both need to be taken into account and tactical choices must be made with the constraints given to the player.
Farseer_V2 wrote: Because part of playing the game and being the best of it is being the best in the given context of the situation. Ultimately no one will ever be crowned the best 40k player of all time because there is no unifying set of rules and contexts that all players play in. Part of being the 'best' in a given scenario though is not just being good at the game but being good at operating in the parameters that have been set.
In tournaments there are time-limits, part of being the best player at that point is putting together and playing an army that can get the job done in that time-limit. I tend to play large armies (150+ model chaos armies for example) and I don't have issues completing my games inside the allocated 2.5 hours - in large part because I practice with those time frames in mind.
Certainly, you could say "I'm the best at climbing Mount Everest, up to 8000 meters" or whatever. But it desperately and badly skews the meta to look at tournament results, then, for data. If armies are front-loaded to do tons of damage in 3 turns, and then they've shot their bolt and would lose beyond then, then you've got an entirely different meta from armies designed to hunker down and endure the first few turns, before coming out at the end and winning once the enemy's bolt has been shot.
If GW (and we) are using tournament data to balance warhammer 40k, but tournaments are played in situations that casual players don't play in, then surely that data becomes less relevant or even useless?
EDIT to reply to Leo as well:
Yes, but my point is that "core" 40k isn't designed with time limits, and non-tournament players won't be using them. But asking GW to balance the game for tournaments means GW will be balancing for timed games, even though that can (and probably does) skew the meta. In other words, the tournament meta would be removed from the casual meta, and you can no longer balance them together (which is the whole argument for using tournaments for balance data in the first place: "balanced tournament play means balanced casual play").
Data is only useful to those who need it. If events run under the same rules then the data is useful. If they run under different rules then the data is less useful.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Data is only useful to those who need it. If events run under the same rules then the data is useful. If they run under different rules then the data is less useful.
I don't understand this reply. Are you saying that GW (and a lot of the players here) are mistaken for balancing the whole of Warhammer around tournament data? Or are you saying tournament data is a valid balancing mechanism for the wider game, despite the obvious flaws (esp. regarding time limits)?
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Data is only useful to those who need it. If events run under the same rules then the data is useful. If they run under different rules then the data is less useful.
I don't understand this reply. Are you saying that GW (and a lot of the players here) are mistaken for balancing the whole of Warhammer around tournament data? Or are you saying tournament data is a valid balancing mechanism for the wider game, despite the obvious flaws (esp. regarding time limits)?
Ultimately (and I'll catch a load of it for this) but why does balance matter for you? This isn't a personal attack to be clear, just using you as the illustrative - but you tend to post and fall far more in the casual side of the game. If GW balances around tournament data that doesn't really impact you because you're not really playing that same game. If the game is more tightly balanced for top end play the effects will be felt by casual players as well and if you don't like that ruleset change it. You're already not playing at an 'optimal' (not a bad thing here, this is a subjective hobby involving fun) so why not make the changes or build lists that are relevant to you and your group's fun.
Also just to point out, this thread isn't about balancing the game or even GW's role in this but is about what tournaments should do so the only real relevant discussion in this thread is about tournaments, not about kitchen table play.
I'm just saying that one person's data is another person's garbage. Event data is good for future events and not too useful for casual play.
If you're referring to GW's use of event data to make game adjustments then they can certainly mine whatever data they are looking for out of the results and lists played. If they need to, they can adjust things through whatever lens they find necessary.
I maintain that 1500 is a great level for tourney and a good standard for pick up games. It was a common and popular level in 5th, and point values have only decreased every edition, so armies are still larger than they used to be without increasing the total point limit.
If time is an issue at large tournaments, it seems like the simplest solution is the best; cut down point values. Trying to implement chess clocks, or have more TOs to enforce slow play is all well and good, but you can do that, and cut point values to either get more games, or ensure every game goes to completion.
That said, the 1750/1850 is still a comfortable game, but I shy away from 2k and above. The game is cramped enough on a 6x4 with 1500pts on the table.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Data is only useful to those who need it. If events run under the same rules then the data is useful. If they run under different rules then the data is less useful.
I don't understand this reply. Are you saying that GW (and a lot of the players here) are mistaken for balancing the whole of Warhammer around tournament data? Or are you saying tournament data is a valid balancing mechanism for the wider game, despite the obvious flaws (esp. regarding time limits)?
Ultimately (and I'll catch a load of it for this) but why does balance matter for you? This isn't a personal attack to be clear, just using you as the illustrative - but you tend to post and fall far more in the casual side of the game. If GW balances around tournament data that doesn't really impact you because you're not really playing that same game. If the game is more tightly balanced for top end play the effects will be felt by casual players as well and if you don't like that ruleset change it. You're already not playing at an 'optimal' (not a bad thing here, this is a subjective hobby involving fun) so why not make the changes or build lists that are relevant to you and your group's fun.
Also just to point out, this thread isn't about balancing the game or even GW's role in this but is about what tournaments should do so the only real relevant discussion in this thread is about tournaments, not about kitchen table play.
It matters to me because oftentimes I will see the claim that "a more balanced game for tournaments is a more balanced game for casual players". But if the tournament is playing by entirely different rules than the casual players, that's not really true. Take for example, the Manticore. In a tournament, it probably never suffers from its limited ammunition capability (4 turns of shooting) so it essentially is just a "Better Basilisk" and appears really good.
Locally, however, Manticores haven't been performing. Because games go to Turn 7, sometimes, and when they do, that's half the game where the manticore is sitting there sucking its thumb. And often, it's the most crucial half of the game, because things are getting down to the wire, and actually having artillery support to pick on that last jump troop that just hid out of LOS on an objective might matter. That's why Basilisks have no such ammo limit. Does that make sense?
Leo_the_Rat wrote:I'm just saying that one person's data is another person's garbage. Event data is good for future events and not too useful for casual play.
If you're referring to GW's use of event data to make game adjustments then they can certainly mine whatever data they are looking for out of the results and lists played. If they need to, they can adjust things through whatever lens they find necessary.
So you agree with me that GW should not be using tournament results to balance casual play? So changing rules and points costs based on what is happening in tournaments is silly?
I don't disagree that 1500 might not be a good standard for tournament play but I don't think it'll ever happen as long as TOs leave it up to players because there is an emotional investment with playing with more of your toy soldiers.
Leo_the_Rat wrote:I'm just saying that one person's data is another person's garbage. Event data is good for future events and not too useful for casual play.
If you're referring to GW's use of event data to make game adjustments then they can certainly mine whatever data they are looking for out of the results and lists played. If they need to, they can adjust things through whatever lens they find necessary.
So you agree with me that GW should not be using tournament results to balance casual play? So changing rules and points costs based on what is happening in tournaments is silly?
This is irrelevant to the question the thread poses - this is about what points level should tournaments be played at. I don't mean to be rude but continuing to belabor the point in this thread is irrelevant as it has no impact on this specific conversation of 'what points level would be best for tournaments'.
Farseer_V2 wrote: This is irrelevant to the question the thread poses - this is about what points level should tournaments be played at. I don't mean to be rude but continuing to belabor the point in this thread is irrelevant as it has no impact on this specific conversation of 'what points level would be best for tournaments'.
Well, what I'm seeking to prove with this line of questioning you so stubbornly refuse to follow, is that using a lower points level where games can finish to completion will once again restore the connection between the tournament meta and the casual meta. This will be a positive thing for casual play as well, rather than chess clocks which merely skew the tournament meta and disconnect what is "balanced in 2k at 2.5 hours" from what is "balanced for 5-7 turns of play".
EDIT: Essentially I am trying to close the gap between casual and tournament play so that the game can be more balanced across the whole spectrum of play.
Personally thin for a tourny 1500 would probably be better for the sake of time and list building "restrictions" making taking certain choices much more difficult
I don't think that gap is ever going to realistically close because the two groups have very different alignments. Ultimately I'm interested in what GW is going to do about tournaments because that's my hobby - how that impacts casual play is incidental at best to me.
I don't think there will ever be a connection between what's best at top tables at tournaments and what's happening in casual play because the mindsets are so different. As a tournament player I have no problems taking things that are untenable in the fluff and I don't make selections around units I like from a visual stand point. The decision making criteria, the willingness to build combos, etc. are all very different in the two groups. You're trying to drawn commonalities between two groups to use those for balance but even if those games are going to time they're just a different caliber of game. If players just played faster and were better playing 2k at events wouldn't matter because time wouldn't be an issue.
Farseer_V2 wrote: I don't think that gap is ever going to realistically close because the two groups have very different alignments. Ultimately I'm interested in what GW is going to do about tournaments because that's my hobby - how that impacts casual play is incidental at best to me.
I don't think there will ever be a connection between what's best at top tables at tournaments and what's happening in casual play because the mindsets are so different. As a tournament player I have no problems taking things that are untenable in the fluff and I don't make selections around units I like from a visual stand point. The decision making criteria, the willingness to build combos, etc. are all very different in the two groups. You're trying to drawn commonalities between two groups to use those for balance but even if those games are going to time they're just a different caliber of game. If players just played faster and were better playing 2k at events wouldn't matter because time wouldn't be an issue.
It's actually not me trying to force this connection. It's ... well, literally everyone on this forum. I don't know where you've been, but a lot of the attempts by competitive players to remove/eliminate fluffy options in the name of "balance" are that "balanced play helps everyone" and then when one asks "balanced around what" they say "competitive play, because it's where people are looking to break the game."
By admitting that competitive play is inherently at some level completely different than casual play, you are essentially shooting this argument in the foot: balance decisions should not be made for the competitive players, because they are a comparative minority in the hobby, as not everyone plays in tournaments (and I would go so far as to say most people don't).
The problem I find with the current ITC time and scoring system is the the scoring is based on rounds and the rounds are limited by time. So your scored is dictated by a 6 round game when the time only allots for a 3-4 turn game. Unit1126 summed it up best a couple posts up. Some armies are amazing the first 2 turns then peter out and hope they can weather the storm. Some armies absorb the alpha beating and then dominate the last couple turns. If the last couple turns are eliminated, then the meta is changed greatly and some armies are completely useless.
deviantduck wrote: The problem I find with the current ITC time and scoring system is the the scoring is based on rounds and the rounds are limited by time. So your scored is dictated by a 6 round game when the time only allots for a 3-4 turn game. Unit1126 summed it up best a couple posts up. Some armies are amazing the first 2 turns then peter out and hope they can weather the storm. Some armies absorb the alpha beating and then dominate the last couple turns. If the last couple turns are eliminated, then the meta is changed greatly and some armies are completely useless.
That's does seem to be the issue FLG is trying to address with chess clocks, which is why I'm curious why there is even debate on whether or not it's an issue. FLG says it's a problem, and they are trying to address it, the question should be how it's addressed rather than if. Reducing points makes sense to me, and chess clocks makes sense to them, leaving things as they are right now makes sense to no one.
The problem with dakka is that people who don't even play in tournaments get to vote on this issue.
I try to get in 2 ITC tournaments a month.
I voted 2000.
1500 is not enough - armies that are forced to specialize would be really hurt by this, because they couldn't bring the points necessary to handle real threats. For instance, you need to be able to address a lot of things, swiss army knife armies that are a carnival of undercosted jibberish like Imperial Guard and Eldar would do even better in this format because they have all the tools they need regardless of the points.
1850 just doesn't make sense. This was nonsense in 7th edition and everyone knew it, pretty sure people picked this number because it was the right baseline to get a riptide wing + something, or a gladius. It was dubious at best and we don't need that number brought forward.
If your 2000 point games are not making it far enough - play better. Learn the meta armies, learn the rules, you won't pause the game for explanations or stuff like that. Understand when things are dead, and don't drag the game out with pointless rolling. If someone is going to totally obliterate something, and it involves rolling a TON of dice, be a "this guy" and just pull the model.
Games take long because people play slowly. People play slowly because they're inexperienced. Get good.
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Desubot wrote: Personally thin for a tourny 1500 would probably be better for the sake of time and list building "restrictions" making taking certain choices much more difficult
but 2k is fine too.
Some armies simply can't make these choices though at 1500. You can't address chaff + heavy armor in some armies at this point value while screening your own stuff. 1500 works for Imperium & Eldar. It doesn't really work for pretty much anyone else.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: And no game uses clocks to keep one side from "slowing down the game" (NFL,NBA). Warmachine uses clocks and the game calls for turn interaction and it seems to be functioning just fine for its event settings. My guess is that people just don't want to get used to "these new fangled devices". Once the clocks are in play for a while people will just accept them as normal and the world will go on turning.
Warmachine doesn't have you acting in your opponent's turn, no armor saves or the like so it's a much better fit for a chess clock. 40k is not so clean, with saves, morale, overwatch, stratagems, the clock could get passed back and forth a dozen times in a turn. There are lots of opportunities for screw ups and "Accidents" like rolling dice on your opponent's time will require judge intervention. Remember it's zero sum, so if you take minute rolling dice in your opponent's turn, you now have a two minute time advantage, the minute you didn't spend and the minute he lost.
If that's the way it has to go, well that's life and I'm sure people will get used to it, or they just won't attend. However, it's my thought that lowering points is a much less invasive way to address the same problem. The Chess clock is a constant stress, requiring your attention the whole time, reduced points just comes up in list building, and then not again.
I play Trolls. I roll a 5+ armor save for EVERY attack made individually against my guys. 10 guys attack my 10 guys; one resolves its attack, I roll, tough, next attack, another tough check. There's more back and forth in killing one unit than an entire turn in 40k and its FINE. If I dawdle, my opponent passes the clock to remind me to roll. I'm I'm on the ball, we don't bother. It's really not a problem.
Marmatag wrote: The problem with dakka is that people who don't even play in tournaments get to vote on this issue.
I try to get in 2 ITC tournaments a month.
I voted 2000.
1500 is not enough - armies that are forced to specialize would be really hurt by this, because they couldn't bring the points necessary to handle real threats. For instance, you need to be able to address a lot of things, swiss army knife armies that are a carnival of undercosted jibberish like Imperial Guard and Eldar would do even better in this format because they have all the tools they need regardless of the points.
1850 just doesn't make sense. This was nonsense in 7th edition and everyone knew it, pretty sure people picked this number because it was the right baseline to get a riptide wing + something, or a gladius. It was dubious at best and we don't need that number brought forward.
If your 2000 point games are not making it far enough - play better. Learn the meta armies, learn the rules, you won't pause the game for explanations or stuff like that. Understand when things are dead, and don't drag the game out with pointless rolling. If someone is going to totally obliterate something, and it involves rolling a TON of dice, be a "this guy" and just pull the model.
Games take long because people play slowly. People play slowly because they're inexperienced. Get good.
Tony, one of the best players in ITC didn't finish a game during the tournament, would you like to tell him to get gud? If you looks at the scores for the LVO, outside of concessions most of the top players only sealed the deal on a fraction of their matches, want to tell all of the top players to get gud? I don't begrudge people choosing 2k, it will lead to chess clocks, but if that's how they want to play the hobby takes all kinds. I draw the line when you are telling people they are awful players if they can't finish a 2k game in the time limit, when most of the best players in the hobby can't, it's juvenile and flies in the face of evidence and comes across a douchey humble brag. "I can finish my games, if there is a problem you guys must suck". Really dude, save that gak for 4chan /tg/.
Let's also not pretend that in a 2.5 hour game you are actually playing 2.5 hours. Most tourney games take at least 15-30 minutes just to setup the board and deploy both armies. Before top of 1 even starts.
As Marmatag pointed out, too, Dakka votes don't always play in tournies but still get to vote. I bet if you put 1000 or 2500 as a poll choice you'd get more votes for them on here than any other.
Also, the final 8 tables at LVO shouldn't have a time limit at all. At that high level slow play shouldn't be a factor and the games should go to their final conclusion, not natural conclusion.
Marmatag wrote: The problem with dakka is that people who don't even play in tournaments get to vote on this issue.
I try to get in 2 ITC tournaments a month.
I voted 2000.
1500 is not enough - armies that are forced to specialize would be really hurt by this, because they couldn't bring the points necessary to handle real threats. For instance, you need to be able to address a lot of things, swiss army knife armies that are a carnival of undercosted jibberish like Imperial Guard and Eldar would do even better in this format because they have all the tools they need regardless of the points.
1850 just doesn't make sense. This was nonsense in 7th edition and everyone knew it, pretty sure people picked this number because it was the right baseline to get a riptide wing + something, or a gladius. It was dubious at best and we don't need that number brought forward.
If your 2000 point games are not making it far enough - play better. Learn the meta armies, learn the rules, you won't pause the game for explanations or stuff like that. Understand when things are dead, and don't drag the game out with pointless rolling. If someone is going to totally obliterate something, and it involves rolling a TON of dice, be a "this guy" and just pull the model.
Games take long because people play slowly. People play slowly because they're inexperienced. Get good.
Tony, one of the best players in ITC didn't finish a game during the tournament, would you like to tell him to get gud? If you looks at the scores for the LVO, outside of concessions most of the top players only sealed the deal on a fraction of their matches, want to tell all of the top players to get gud? I don't begrudge people choosing 2k, it will lead to chess clocks, but if that's how they want to play the hobby takes all kinds. I draw the line when you are telling people they are awful players if they can't finish a 2k game in the time limit, when most of the best players in the hobby can't, is juvenile and flies in the face of evidence and comes across a douchey humble brag. "I can finish my games, if there is a problem you guys must suck". Really dude, save that gak for 4chan /tg/.
You know you're standing on sand when you start straw manning what i've said.
Tony was intentionally slowplaying. This needs to be moderated and enforced. You knew that though, but you're not here to discuss you're here to push as hard as you can for your pov.
Getting to turn 5 is not required for a good game. 4 is enough. 3 is okay.
I didn't say anyone was awful. I said you can speed up gameplay by being experienced (and, Get Good - as in know your strategies and gambits before the game starts). Do you disagree with that statement? Keep drawing lines based on your own straw man. it's funny to watch, almost as funny as when you try to do math lol
You know you're standing on sand when you start straw manning what i've said.
Tony was intentionally slowplaying. This needs to be moderated and enforced. You knew that though, but you're not here to discuss you're here to push as hard as you can for your pov.
Getting to turn 5 is not required for a good game. 4 is enough. 3 is okay.
I didn't say anyone was awful. I said you can speed up gameplay by being experienced (and, Get Good - as in know your strategies and gambits before the game starts). Do you disagree with that statement? Keep drawing lines based on your own straw man. it's funny to watch, almost as funny as when you try to do math lol
No strawman, you literally said:
Games take long because people play slowly. People play slowly because they're inexperienced. Get good.
What part of that implies the nuance you are now claiming I missed. Get gud (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/git-gud) is an elitist meme, and you are not using it accidentally. Shall we bring in moderation and see if they share your low opinion of the the skills of the average 40k player?
I'm not really worried about two save armies taking too long. I played Imperial Soup against an Ynnari list at a major tournament in 8th edition (this is one of my favorite anecdotes). This was before the Ynnari FAQ limiting Strength from Death and I was using an army that had a Codex in my soup, so lots of options/tools/re-rolls at my disposal. Even with the Ynnari player's extra actions and my ability to re-roll tons of dice, we finished all 5 rounds in 45 minutes. Not 45 minutes each, 45 minutes total. If we can do that, there's no reason any horde army can't do the entirety of its 6 rounds in 75 or 90 minutes just for its own turns. Players just have to know their rules and focus.
Not trying to be confrontational in a rude way, but what list were you running exactly, if you don't mind sharing?
Because my typical IG lists at 2k tend to run 130+ infantry and anywhere from 4-6 vehicles, many of whom fire twice with random shot weapons. I'm not entirely sure that army is possible to play in 45 minutes with an opponent even if we were both telepathic and able to communicate by thought with 100% cooperation.
Because true horde armies aren't quite as simple as they appear at first glance, and I say this as a guy who works very hard to play his army as fast as possible. The sheer amount of rerolls an army like IG has to do, on top of random shot weapons and pure weight of dice, makes it tough to play quickly. In addition, split fire makes armies like infantry guard take a lot longer to play *correctly* (as in getting your best advantage) because there are just so many moving parts. Heck just in dice alone a single IG squad can kick out about 40 lasgun dice, unless you have a dice app or freakishly large hands that takes a while to roll, to say nothing of a conscript unit doing FRFSRF. These units can take so long to roll for the advice is quite literally "just don't shoot with lasguns". That's a pretty rough handicap just to try and keep your game playing on time, especially since that's a major source of anti infantry firepower.
One big thing that I think gets glossed over is alternating deployment at setup. I've seen that eat up more time in games than even an IG alpha strike. From a game design perspective it makes sense and is definitely more balanced, but in my area at least people take ages to deploy trying to get units out of sight and ensuring their screens/auras are properly placed. And since every drop matters there's lots of hmming and hawing. I usually don't even have half my units deployed by the time the opponent is fully deployed and I can often get that second half deployed in under a couple minutes, yet we'll take a good 20 minutes up to it as my opponent tries to find an optimal spot for his devestators or artillery.
The other is assault. It is absolutely hell for a horde player. The amount of shenanigans people have now, and the need to play absolutely perfect or your whole line will collapse makes it absolutely awful. Not to mention the whole tri locking thing, and players having to see who they're actually closer to in a sea of 100 guardsmen, the difference of 1/16th an inch meaning the difference of them piling into a tank or piling into more conscripts. I can't blame them, it's critical to playing the game well, but these kind of things eat up time.
Well, the thread has moved on from us quite a bit, but if I remember right I was packing a lot of points of Ultramarine with hurricane bolters and lascannons, plus Guilliman, Celestine, a psyker and two Index Custodes for shields. Opponent had 4-5 Wave Serpents, 4 teams of Fire Warriors, Farseers, Jain Zar and some other stuff. With shots and re-rolls alone though I was dumping 60 dice base (then 20 re-roll to hits on average and 20 re-roll to wound on average) per turn (so about 100 dice per my turn just from hurricanes) just from the hurricane bolters. So plenty of rolling.
Fortunately, I never said true hordes had to finish a game in 45 minutes. I said if my opponent and I could do ours in that time span, a true horde army should be able to do all of its turns (and just its turns) in 75-90 minutes. That's about double the amount of time both myself and my opponent took allocated to just one player.
You know you're standing on sand when you start straw manning what i've said.
Tony was intentionally slowplaying. This needs to be moderated and enforced. You knew that though, but you're not here to discuss you're here to push as hard as you can for your pov.
Getting to turn 5 is not required for a good game. 4 is enough. 3 is okay.
I didn't say anyone was awful. I said you can speed up gameplay by being experienced (and, Get Good - as in know your strategies and gambits before the game starts). Do you disagree with that statement? Keep drawing lines based on your own straw man. it's funny to watch, almost as funny as when you try to do math lol
No strawman, you literally said:
Games take long because people play slowly. People play slowly because they're inexperienced. Get good.
What part of that implies the nuance you are now claiming I missed. Get gud (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/git-gud) is an elitist meme, and you are not using it accidentally. Shall we bring in moderation and see if they share your low opinion of the the skills of the average 40k player?
"Get good" is a meme also meant as encouragement. See Dark Souls community where it began as an insult and evolved into player assessment ("I need to git gud, so what can I do better here?").
Marmatag is right though. If people get better at the game (as in knowing their rules and armies better, formulating strategies faster) they will complete games more quickly. That's just simple logic.
Audustum wrote: With shots and re-rolls alone though I was dumping 60 dice base (then 20 re-roll to hits on average and 20 re-roll to wound on average) per turn (so about 100 dice per my turn just from hurricanes) just from the hurricane bolters. So plenty of rolling.
That is alot.. unless you compare it to a squad of boys or genestealers that are throwing 80 dice for 1 unit in assault.
Audustum wrote: With shots and re-rolls alone though I was dumping 60 dice base (then 20 re-roll to hits on average and 20 re-roll to wound on average) per turn (so about 100 dice per my turn just from hurricanes) just from the hurricane bolters. So plenty of rolling.
That is alot.. unless you compare it to a squad of boys or genestealers that are throwing 80 dice for 1 unit in assault.
You have to remember those numbers were just the hurricanes and did not include my own assaults.
As I said before though, my point is if we can do 5 rounds of that at 45 minutes combined, an Ork or Genestealer player should be able to do just their own 5 turns in 75-90, leaving 75-90 for their opponent.
Marmatag wrote: The problem with dakka is that people who don't even play in tournaments get to vote on this issue.
I try to get in 2 ITC tournaments a month.
I voted 2000.
1500 is not enough - armies that are forced to specialize would be really hurt by this, because they couldn't bring the points necessary to handle real threats. For instance, you need to be able to address a lot of things, swiss army knife armies that are a carnival of undercosted jibberish like Imperial Guard and Eldar would do even better in this format because they have all the tools they need regardless of the points.
1850 just doesn't make sense. This was nonsense in 7th edition and everyone knew it, pretty sure people picked this number because it was the right baseline to get a riptide wing + something, or a gladius. It was dubious at best and we don't need that number brought forward.
If your 2000 point games are not making it far enough - play better. Learn the meta armies, learn the rules, you won't pause the game for explanations or stuff like that. Understand when things are dead, and don't drag the game out with pointless rolling. If someone is going to totally obliterate something, and it involves rolling a TON of dice, be a "this guy" and just pull the model.
Games take long because people play slowly. People play slowly because they're inexperienced. Get good.
Tony, one of the best players in ITC didn't finish a game during the tournament, would you like to tell him to get gud? If you looks at the scores for the LVO, outside of concessions most of the top players only sealed the deal on a fraction of their matches, want to tell all of the top players to get gud? I don't begrudge people choosing 2k, it will lead to chess clocks, but if that's how they want to play the hobby takes all kinds. I draw the line when you are telling people they are awful players if they can't finish a 2k game in the time limit, when most of the best players in the hobby can't, it's juvenile and flies in the face of evidence and comes across a douchey humble brag. "I can finish my games, if there is a problem you guys must suck". Really dude, save that gak for 4chan /tg/.
You know you're standing on sand when you start straw manning what i've said.
Tony was intentionally slowplaying. This needs to be moderated and enforced. You knew that though, but you're not here to discuss you're here to push as hard as you can for your pov.
Getting to turn 5 is not required for a good game. 4 is enough. 3 is okay.
I didn't say anyone was awful. I said you can speed up gameplay by being experienced (and, Get Good - as in know your strategies and gambits before the game starts). Do you disagree with that statement? Keep drawing lines based on your own straw man. it's funny to watch, almost as funny as when you try to do math lol
No strawman, you literally said:
Games take long because people play slowly. People play slowly because they're inexperienced. Get good.
What part of that implies the nuance you are now claiming I missed. Get gud (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/git-gud) is an elitist meme, and you are not using it accidentally. Shall we bring in moderation and see if they share your low opinion of the the skills of the average 40k player?
Lol go nuts.
Everyone needs to get good. It's elitist to think that there's no room for improvement in your play and therefore the problem must lie with the game itself.
And you seem to be making a real desperate attempt to race to the moral high ground. I'm not going to bother with that. It's clear you've become offended and that is unfortunate, but that feeling doesn't mean you've presented a well thought out argument or refuted what i've said.
So i'll restate my point, but with more clarity and hopefully less damaging to the feels:
1. If you know your rules, and your opponents rules, the games go faster. 2. If you know your strategies and gambits, as well as your opponents, the games go faster. 3. If you don't roll meaningless dice, the games go faster. 4. If you know the FAQ /commentary/errata, the games go faster.
and the list goes on. This isn't rocket science.
In your next tournament, use a stopwatch and time every time a rule is discussed or a codex is referenced or a FAQ is mentioned or there is a dispute. You'll see that a lot of time is spent in wholly avoidable ways.
Marmatag is right though. If people get better at the game (as in knowing their rules and armies better, formulating strategies faster) they will complete games more quickly. That's just simple logic.
To be fair Marmatag - to know all the FAQs and errata for all the armies. You might as well have got a degree in astrophysics at that time. You are absolutely correct though.
at 2k points. If you know your army and have a reasonable idea about what others armies units and stratagems are. 2 1/2 hours is more than enough time to play a game to completion (most will be tables).
Getting to turn 5 is not required for a good game. 4 is enough. 3 is okay.
I didn't say anyone was awful. I said you can speed up gameplay by being experienced (and, Get Good - as in know your strategies and gambits before the game starts). Do you disagree with that statement? Keep drawing lines based on your own straw man. it's funny to watch, almost as funny as when you try to do math lol
Game isn\t designed for 3-4 turns. It's designed for 5-7 turns. If game ends because of time and not because one army was wiped out or turn length ran up there's something wrong. If it's tiny minority in tournaments fine. If not then tournament has too little time for the point size and needs to either drop point levels or increase time.
Getting to turn 5 is not required for a good game. 4 is enough. 3 is okay.
I didn't say anyone was awful. I said you can speed up gameplay by being experienced (and, Get Good - as in know your strategies and gambits before the game starts). Do you disagree with that statement? Keep drawing lines based on your own straw man. it's funny to watch, almost as funny as when you try to do math lol
Game isn\t designed for 3-4 turns. It's designed for 5-7 turns. If game ends because of time and not because one army was wiped out or turn length ran up there's something wrong. If it's tiny minority in tournaments fine. If not then tournament has too little time for the point size and needs to either drop point levels or increase time.
Or actually enforce slow-play rules, if that's what the problem is. This is one reason I support chess-clocks, because of deliberate slow play, but in my experience, some games even played honestly and without any intentional slow-play go over the time limit, at least in casual games. My opponent in my last game had the combined misfortune of: 1) Playing an army that was horde (Orks) 2) Playing against an uncommon army, that he knew all the rules of but didn't really have pre-preparation for (this is fair, I mean, who plans to fight 3 superheavy tanks?) so he had to plan on the go.
The worst part of all of this is the game took ~3 hours, as I mentioned, and he won, and it was a fun, engaging, close game all the way through (he won 19-18, and it came down to a few dice rolls one way or another). I would have won had the game ended 30 minutes earlier, though. (And actually by a good bit as well, IIRC. It was like 15-12 at the bottom of 3).
Everyone needs to get good. It's elitist to think that there's no room for improvement in your play and therefore the problem must lie with the game itself.
And you seem to be making a real desperate attempt to race to the moral high ground. I'm not going to bother with that. It's clear you've become offended and that is unfortunate, but that feeling doesn't mean you've presented a well thought out argument or refuted what i've said.
I don't need the moral high ground, I'm not the one who said everyone who can't finish a match within time is a bad player. Try to verbal judo your way out of that all you want, your still the one who said it.
So i'll restate my point, but with more clarity and hopefully less damaging to the feels:
1. If you know your rules, and your opponents rules, the games go faster.
2. If you know your strategies and gambits, as well as your opponents, the games go faster.
3. If you don't roll meaningless dice, the games go faster.
4. If you know the FAQ /commentary/errata, the games go faster.
and the list goes on. This isn't rocket science.
In your next tournament, use a stopwatch and time every time a rule is discussed or a codex is referenced or a FAQ is mentioned or there is a dispute. You'll see that a lot of time is spent in wholly avoidable ways.
So to be clear to meet your definition of good, I need to memorize every codex, know all of the stratagems, don't roll meaningless dice (whatever that means), and memorize all of the FAQ as well. If that's what you think is required to be a good player, no wonder why you think the vast majority of players are bads. You do realize that only a small number of people meet those criteria, and that only a small number of people ever will. If you want to have tournaments as inclusive as the LVO, you might have to lower your standards a bit, because people have lives and this is a hobby not a job.
At a deeper level I think that may be were we diverge, you want tournaments to be played at a high level, and if you can't hang at that level then GTFO. I think tournaments should be enjoyable by players of all skill levels, because in the end we are all getting together to play a silly game with overpriced injection molded plastic bits because we are trying to have fun.
Oh stop, I didn't say they were bad players. I said players need to get good, which is synonymous with improve. This is typical debate in America. Someone says something you don't agree with, and it gets twisted into something bad in an effort to vilify the other person.
Then you go on this diatribe twisting what i'm saying again.
Let me break it down even more simply:
More knowledge = Faster play. More experience = Faster play.
Where we diverge is that i'm saying there is a reasonable expectation of knowledge when approaching a timed, ranked competitive game, and players below that threshold should make an effort to improve rather than demand the game be fundamentally altered to cater to their individual desires.
I'm not saying tournaments aren't for new players. I am saying tournaments should not be fundamentally altered for players who are below that reasonable standard for knowledge.
I have also said numerous times that the tournament organizers absolutely need to enforce rules to stop slowplaying. Slowplaying is bad for the game. Can you make a case for 1500 points, that also explains why the reduction by 500 points would stop slowplaying?
I still think the answer is lower points, not clocks. Warmahordes can work with the clock because you are rarely rolling dice in your opponent's turn (Tough is the exception, and some counter-attack mechanics). 40k constantly shifts back and forth. I charge you and you Overwatch? Shift clock. I roll saves? Shift clock. You use a stratagem? Shift clock. You're looking at a lot of back-and-forth switching the clock, which results in a lot of potential for forgetting to switch (even intentionally).
Ultimately the issue is whether we like it or not, the "tournament meta" shapes the direction of the game. My local game store has started monthly tournaments and is now looking at using chess clocks, despite the fact I doubt anyone in this small maybe 16 people at most RTT (not even supported via BCP so there are no ITC points officially gained) are slow-playing, it's basically dogma of "Well the top ITC guys said clocks are needed, so we'll use clocks!" That's an issue, because should the game be shaped by the tournament crowd to such a strong degree? We have seen what this can do in Warmahordes (which, unlike 40k, is at least built around tournament play) where almost every game uses Steamroller scenarios and most will also use clocks as well, just because that is typically the environment you find in tournaments and every game, no matter how small, tries to replicate that. Is that really what we want in 40k?
Dropping points should also ensure more balanced armies, however as I suggested earlier there might need to be additional restrictions in place because while the idea would be to encourage more balanced TAC style lists, you would instead see people trying to second-guess what they would face and doing hard skews in the hopes that they don't run into the counter; the opposite of what the desired effect would be.
I think it needs to be tested. A tournament should try the clocks, another should try dropping the points, that way we can actually see what each brings and weigh the pros/cons.
Just to pick on the "game is good at 3 turns" there is no way I can out point a nid horde in 3 turns. I just played against one, he had over 150 models (3x 29 gaunts, 2x 19 stealers + other stuff)
I was playing marines with about 50-60 models.
It takes at least 2 turns for me to kill a unit or two, or just to get them down to reasonable size so I can control objectives without being out-bodied 5-1 and clear room for deep strikers to come in.
Games need to get to turn 4 minimum, turn 5 probably is more reasonable to give all armies a chance to win (unless we just want to play horde hammer). I hope chess clocks are the answer but I really feel that the game needs to be 3 hrs with players being able to set-up ASAP.
Deployment takes so long due to all the measuring (I just conceded that I wouldn't be able to deepstrike wherever he didn't want me to until he moved some models and that even took 20 minutes for his deployment. I still had to measure all my damned scouts to make sure he couldn't land a flyrant right next to my dudes).
Hell instead of alternating deployments whoever actually sets-up their army first gets to chose if they want first or second turn. That could shave 15-20 minutes of deployment time off the games.
Mind you my game was against an ITC vet (LVO, BAO several times) we were both playing armies we were familiar with and we got through turn 3 (barely) in 2.5 hours (and that was being generous, using lose intent and no strict rules lawyering/measuring which probably wouldn't fly with opponents who didn't know each other).
We decided to play out the game (unscored) and got through turn 4 in 30 minutes though and played it out on our own time (non scoring) in an additional 20. So if we could have shaved a bit of time off deployment and had 3 hours the game would have made it through turn 5 which seems reasonable. (Turns beyond 3 seem to take much less time as the deepstrike threat is done and a lot of models have been removed)
I think when it comes down to tournaments, and I know when I played 1500 pts was the standard, that the slow play was still present. You'll never eliminate slow play regardless of point limit unless you put in chess clocks.
I found that in tournaments that few people finished their games even in 1998 when 1500 points was the norm, but were able to get games done in 2 hours or less when there was no time limit and slow playing can't happen.
I find that many tournament games don't finish on time or finish in turn 3 or so not because players are just not fast enough, but because slow play has always been a giant cancer that is intentional.
Marmatag wrote: Oh stop, I didn't say they were bad players. I said players need to get good, which is synonymous with improve. This is typical debate in America. Someone says something you don't agree with, and it gets twisted into something bad in an effort to vilify the other person.
Then you go on this diatribe twisting what i'm saying again.
Let me break it down even more simply:
More knowledge = Faster play.
More experience = Faster play.
Where we diverge is that i'm saying there is a reasonable expectation of knowledge when approaching a timed, ranked competitive game, and players below that threshold should make an effort to improve rather than demand the game be fundamentally altered to cater to their individual desires.
I'm not saying tournaments aren't for new players. I am saying tournaments should not be fundamentally altered for players who are below that reasonable standard for knowledge.
I have also said numerous times that the tournament organizers absolutely need to enforce rules to stop slowplaying. Slowplaying is bad for the game. Can you make a case for 1500 points, that also explains why the reduction by 500 points would stop slowplaying?
Once again, your trying to weasel your way out from under what you said, you made a sweeping generalization as a humble brag and are now playing the victim when you get called to task for it. I'd have more respect for you if you just owned up to it rather than trying to still say it and not mean it. Your version of reasonable knowledge is not reasonable from the examples you have given. Do you know how many stratagems there are, and you expect players to not only know their own but their opponents as well?
players below that threshold should make an effort to improve rather than demand the game be fundamentally altered to cater to their individual desires
It's amazing that you can't stop being an elitist even when you are trying to defend yourself for being an elitist. You literally just said that if people can't meet your definition of a competent player, that it's their fault, and they shouldn't participate in tournaments. Maybe you would be happier if the LVO were an invite only event so you could ensure the skill level?
How about this, rather than having you move the goalpost on me again, why don't you define the minimum competency you feel players need to have to participate in a tournament, and then we can discuss whether those minimum requirements are realistic in an event as inclusive as the LVO.
Grimgold wrote: Do you know how many stratagems there are, and you expect players to not only know their own but their opponents as well?
To nit pick here, sure there maybe a ton but you don't need to know them all, just the ones that drive the set-ups. Honestly I only play 2 armies but I'm still familiar with most of competitively used stratagems in games right now just from watching battle reports and perusing Dakka.
Grimgold wrote: Do you know how many stratagems there are, and you expect players to not only know their own but their opponents as well?
To nit pick here, sure there maybe a ton but you don't need to know them all, just the ones that drive the set-ups. Honestly I only play 2 armies but I'm still familiar with most of competitively used stratagems in games right now just from watching battle reports and perusing Dakka.
So knowing space marines and tyranids wound enable you to know WFTDA and Intractable? There about 5 or six stratagems per faction that will see regular use, and with 20 factions your looking at having to memorize a 100 to a 120 stratagems? If half of those are shared between factions, you are still looking at 50 to 60 you will have to memorize most of which do not belong to the faction you have to play. Then there are also a silly amount of specific rules interactions like a character being the only unit in los, but a non-character unit is closer but out of LoS, can you target the character? Or how do you measure charges against a unit on the second story of a building? Then there are the ITC specific rules like first floor of building block LoS which is nowhere in any of the GW books. Then you have to memorize all of the rules for the scenarios (of which there are two sets of six itc missions apiece), and all of the secondary objectives, like what are the three conditions to get a point if you choose old skool.
The sheer volume of rules you have to store in your noodle and recall on command under stress is daunting, if we want this hobby to be something more than that one game the neckbeards play, we are going to have to be more welcoming to players of all skill levels and make accommodations for them such as lower points, so they have more time to suss the arcane rules out. If tournaments like the LVO were invite only, sure know the rules or get wrecked, but the LVO isn't a peter measuring contest, it's an outreach event where we get to share our love of the hobby with as large of a crowd as possible.
I was part of Warmachine when it switched to Deathclock.
None of the issues expressed in this thread are new. The hordes issues, the turn interruptions, the rules and judge consultations.
All happened and all dealt with.
You have to choose what is more corrosive to the hobby. Is it unfinished slow games that end on turn 3, with frustrated players? Is it the inability of slower players to play large slow horde armies? Is it that some people haven’t learned the rule set?
Be what issues you think they are, doesn’t the fact that we played for 3 hours and I moved stuff and rolled for 45 minutes, while you dithered and thought for 2 hours and 15 minutes make you a little ashamed?
Okay social justice warrior, you win, i'm a terrible person and therefore nothing i said has value.
In seriousness i'm not weaseling out of anything. If you want longer games, get good. Get better at playing faster. If your opponent is slowplaying call a judge.
And dropping the points wouldn't solve the problems highlighted above. Like the guy complaining that he couldn't sweep Hormagant units off the board in a turn with marines (dubious, considering you have access to a lot of stuff in imperium that does this incredibly well). That will be magnified in 1500 points because you'll have less firepower to deal with the same quantity. I mean seriously.
Reemule wrote: I was part of Warmachine when it switched to Deathclock.
None of the issues expressed in this thread are new. The hordes issues, the turn interruptions, the rules and judge consultations.
All happened and all dealt with.
You have to choose what is more corrosive to the hobby. Is it unfinished slow games that end on turn 3, with frustrated players? Is it the inability of slower players to play large slow horde armies? Is it that some people haven’t learned the rule set?
Be what issues you think they are, doesn’t the fact that we played for 3 hours and I moved stuff and rolled for 45 minutes, while you dithered and thought for 2 hours and 15 minutes make you a little ashamed?
I can tell you as the 45 minute player it certainly makes me b-o-r-e-d!
Grimgold wrote: Do you know how many stratagems there are, and you expect players to not only know their own but their opponents as well?
To nit pick here, sure there maybe a ton but you don't need to know them all, just the ones that drive the set-ups. Honestly I only play 2 armies but I'm still familiar with most of competitively used stratagems in games right now just from watching battle reports and perusing Dakka.
So knowing space marines and tyranids wound enable you to know WFTDA and Intractable? There about 5 or six stratagems per faction that will see regular use, and with 20 factions your looking at having to memorize a 100 to a 120 stratagems? If half of those are shared between factions, you are still looking at 50 to 60 you will have to memorize most of which do not belong to the faction you have to play. Then there are also a silly amount of specific rules interactions like a character being the only unit in los, but a non-character unit is closer but out of LoS, can you target the character? Or how do you measure charges against a unit on the second story of a building? Then there are the ITC specific rules like first floor of building block LoS which is nowhere in any of the GW books. Then you have to memorize all of the rules for the scenarios (of which there are two sets of six itc missions apiece), and all of the secondary objectives, like what are the three conditions to get a point if you choose old skool.
The sheer volume of rules you have to store in your noodle and recall on command under stress is daunting, if we want this hobby to be something more than that one game the neckbeards play, we are going to have to be more welcoming to players of all skill levels and make accommodations for them such as lower points, so they have more time to suss the arcane rules out. If tournaments like the LVO were invite only, sure know the rules or get wrecked, but the LVO isn't a peter measuring contest, it's an outreach event where we get to share our love of the hobby with as large of a crowd as possible.
So everything you just listed I have memorized and have for sometime - none of it is difficult to commit to memory with enough practice and effort. About the only thing I regularly reference is the deployment maps list in the rulebook because I don't remember which equates to which dice roll. But as to memorizing stratagems knowing the top 20-30 should be fairly easy and of course knowing the rules should be even easier (for example in your scenario that's not even difficult to recall, you can't shoot the character in that scenario, that's literally just the rules of the game). Memorizing or playing scenarios is something people have done for tournaments for years, the only difference is as long as champions missions are being used they stay more consistent as opposed to having to practice for each tournament individually. But again you've gone through the effort to list a ton of stuff that, I personally, have no issues committing to memory. I spent the time to focus on those things and practice them because they're part of the tournament skill set. A tournament is an event you practice for, just like a sporting event. It isn't hard to recall anything under stress if you practiced for it ahead of time.
Regarding an event like the LVO being an outreach event? Yeah that's why they have the 40k friendly, open gaming, and a variety of other events besides the championship right?
How reasonable is it to expect every single 40k tournament player to "get better" and "play quicker" in order to solve pacing problems in this edition?
I see that as fine advice to help you, personally, play games quicker. Absolutely practicing with your army 2-3 times a week will improve the speed and confidence you play with.
But is every player in the community attending these tournaments going to start improving and playing faster because a bunch of tournament organizers told them to do so?
meleti wrote: How reasonable is it to expect every single 40k tournament player to "get better" and "play quicker" in order to solve pacing problems in this edition?
I see that as fine advice to help you, personally, play games quicker. Absolutely practicing with your army 2-3 times a week will improve the speed and confidence you play with.
But is every player in the community attending these tournaments going to start improving and playing faster because a bunch of tournament organizers told them to do so?
I have my doubts.
No they are not. And they don't have to. They can still come and play and lose in turn 3 when their deathclock dings. And hopefully figure out that what to do to do better in the future right?
meleti wrote: How reasonable is it to expect every single 40k tournament player to "get better" and "play quicker" in order to solve pacing problems in this edition?
I see that as fine advice to help you, personally, play games quicker. Absolutely practicing with your army 2-3 times a week will improve the speed and confidence you play with.
But is every player in the community attending these tournaments going to start improving and playing faster because a bunch of tournament organizers told them to do so?
I have my doubts.
No they won't at all and that's why I don't have an issue with chess clocks.
I think clocks would be a good idea even if they weren't used to dictate the end of turns, just to give people a good idea of how much time they're using.
And people need to take ownership of their problems. If your games aren't going to turn 4 on a continuous basis, you should be asking yourself what you can do to make that happen. How many times do your games end on turn 2 before you realize you're the problem? If you are CONSISTENTLY seeing games end early that's on you.
Personally I am comfortable with my games ending on turn 4 and i will budget my time accordingly. If you drop the points to 1500 i'll still play with that focus in mind.
I think that's fine as long as GW (and people here) stop using tournament data for balance.
People losing because the clock dinged does not make the army bad, nor does people losing because the game went to Turn 3 or Turn 4 and the army didn't get the time to really function.
So everything you just listed I have memorized and have for sometime - none of it is difficult to commit to memory with enough practice and effort. About the only thing I regularly reference is the deployment maps list in the rulebook because I don't remember which equates to which dice roll. But as to memorizing stratagems knowing the top 20-30 should be fairly easy and of course knowing the rules should be even easier (for example in your scenario that's not even difficult to recall, you can't shoot the character in that scenario, that's literally just the rules of the game). Memorizing or playing scenarios is something people have done for tournaments for years, the only difference is as long as champions missions are being used they stay more consistent as opposed to having to practice for each tournament individually. But again you've gone through the effort to list a ton of stuff that, I personally, have no issues committing to memory. I spent the time to focus on those things and practice them because they're part of the tournament skill set. A tournament is an event you practice for, just like a sporting event. It isn't hard to recall anything under stress if you practiced for it ahead of time.
Regarding an event like the LVO being an outreach event? Yeah that's why they have the 40k friendly, open gaming, and a variety of other events besides the championship right?
I have them all memorized as well, and your wrong about the special character it wasn't until CA 2017 that we got an official ruling on the edge cases for targeting a character, so the answer is not in the main rulebook, and it's the dumbest ruling of 8th ed which is the reason i used it as an example. See how it all blends together even for someone who claims to have all of the rules memorized? I've put in the time to memorize the rules, have over a hundred hours of playtime in 8th ed, and I still get the rules wrong. At some point you have to stop blaming the players for the volume of data they have to memorize, and start assigning blame where it belongs, this game is complex and often the rules decisions are arbitrary (like why charge in a straight line when the model can not move that way without a rocket strapped to their back).
By all accounts open play and the other events such as the exhibitor hall were very popular, but the 40kLVO was the most popular event by far. Reece recently said he thinks most people are a hybrid of competitive and casual playstyles, and I think he is right. people want to go to a tournament, but not necessarily one with all of the overhead required to be the ultimate tourney of ultimate destiny. For the sake of marmatag (who went to the LVO but probably won't tell us how he placed) and other players of his discerning taste in opponents they should have an invitational, chess clocks, 2k points, the whole nine yards, you have something to prove and here is the venue to do it. It's rather odd that competitive 40k has a year end tournament that's open, you don't see that in other sports, it would be like making world class league players have to smurf for a few matches before they got to fight other world class teams.
I have them all memorized as well, and your wrong about the special character it wasn't until CA 2017 that we got an official ruling on the edge cases for targeting a character, so the answer is not in the main rulebook, and it's the dumbest ruling of 8th ed which is the reason i used it as an example. See how it all blends together even for someone who claims to have all of the rules memorized? I've put in the time to memorize the rules, have over a hundred hours of playtime in 8th ed, and I still get the rules wrong. At some point you have to stop blaming the players for the volume of data they have to memorize, and start assigning blame where it belongs, this game is complex and often the rules decisions are often arbitrary (like why charge in a straight line when the model can not move that way without a rocket strapped to their back).
By all accounts open play and the other events such as the exhibitor hall were very popular, but the 40kLVO was the most popular event by far. Reece recently said he thinks most people are a hybrid of competitive and casual playstyles, and I think he is right. people want to go to a tournament, but not necessarily one with all of the overhead required to be the ultimate tourney of ultimate destiny. For the sake of marmatag (who went to the LVO but probably won't tell us how he placed) and other players of his discerning taste in opponents they should have an invitational, chess clocks, 2k points, the whole nine yards, you have something to prove and here is the venue to do it. It's rather odd that competitive 40k has a year end tournament that's open, you don't see that in other sports, it would be like making world class league players have to smurf for a few matches before they got to fight other world class teams.
So I'm wrong, but I'm right? I think what you meant was 'yeah you're right about the character thing since they added clarification'. So no I don't have to stop blaming the players, it is my belief that it is incumbent on the players to be prepared for the event. Know the rules you need to know and be prepared to play in the event under the structure set in place. If you don't do that and you have games go to time that is on you, not the system. Again I play a 150+ model Chaos army inside the 2.5 hour structure and rarely have a game where I don't make at least 5. If I can do so can other people. And again those players are welcome to play in the friendly or other events - if they want to play in the championship they know what they're signing up for. I'm not going to back off the idea that it is incumbent upon them to be prepared. Chess Clocks are a fine addition to the game and honestly if they scare you away from playing in the event - then that's why they have other events that don't use those rules.
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Unit1126PLL wrote: I think that's fine as long as GW (and people here) stop using tournament data for balance.
People losing because the clock dinged does not make the army bad, nor does people losing because the game went to Turn 3 or Turn 4 and the army didn't get the time to really function.
There is no valid other source of quantifiable data to make those decisions on.
Actually i didn't make it to the LVO. I wanted to go, but was otherwise occupied. I will be at the BAO though, provided the march update doesn't totally destroy my army. I would be happy to buy you a beer and talk about this in person. Behind the internet wall I get the impression I sound pretty horrible sometimes but that's really not the goal. If you really want to know my recent W/L over the past few ITC events i've attended PM me and i'll share with typed battlereports of how each game went if you want.
And I do agree that the LVO champs should be invitational. Open events should exist in that scene but not the championships. So you could still have "LVO- Mega tournament" which contributes to your rankings, but also have the LVO Championships, which require a rating of say 95 or higher over at least 4 RTT to enter. (maybe 100, but that might be too high)
I don't feel 40k lends itself well to marathon tournaments. To me, 40k would do far better as a league format. You play league games under a sanctioned body which contribute to your record. There would have to be a host of details fleshed out but it's the best way to play the game IMHO. But that won't fly with the majority of people so I don't really chase it or suggest it.
Of course I also still feel that 99% of games will be *clearly* decided by turn 4. If i had my way I would say the game ends at 4 turns, period.
I have them all memorized as well, and your wrong about the special character it wasn't until CA 2017 that we got an official ruling on the edge cases for targeting a character, so the answer is not in the main rulebook, and it's the dumbest ruling of 8th ed which is the reason i used it as an example. See how it all blends together even for someone who claims to have all of the rules memorized? I've put in the time to memorize the rules, have over a hundred hours of playtime in 8th ed, and I still get the rules wrong. At some point you have to stop blaming the players for the volume of data they have to memorize, and start assigning blame where it belongs, this game is complex and often the rules decisions are often arbitrary (like why charge in a straight line when the model can not move that way without a rocket strapped to their back).
By all accounts open play and the other events such as the exhibitor hall were very popular, but the 40kLVO was the most popular event by far. Reece recently said he thinks most people are a hybrid of competitive and casual playstyles, and I think he is right. people want to go to a tournament, but not necessarily one with all of the overhead required to be the ultimate tourney of ultimate destiny. For the sake of marmatag (who went to the LVO but probably won't tell us how he placed) and other players of his discerning taste in opponents they should have an invitational, chess clocks, 2k points, the whole nine yards, you have something to prove and here is the venue to do it. It's rather odd that competitive 40k has a year end tournament that's open, you don't see that in other sports, it would be like making world class league players have to smurf for a few matches before they got to fight other world class teams.
So I'm wrong, but I'm right? I think what you meant was 'yeah you're right about the character thing since they added clarification'. So no I don't have to stop blaming the players, it is my belief that it is incumbent on the players to be prepared for the event. Know the rules you need to know and be prepared to play in the event under the structure set in place. If you don't do that and you have games go to time that is on you, not the system. Again I play a 150+ model Chaos army inside the 2.5 hour structure and rarely have a game where I don't make at least 5. If I can do so can other people. And again those players are welcome to play in the friendly or other events - if they want to play in the championship they know what they're signing up for. I'm not going to back off the idea that it is incumbent upon them to be prepared. Chess Clocks are a fine addition to the game and honestly if they scare you away from playing in the event - then that's why they have other events that don't use those rules.
A comic for levity and demonstration
Spoiler:
You see the problem with "I can do it so everyone can" is that not everyone is like you. If you try and force your standards on allplayers at the LVO you will find the pool of available players is greatly reduced. The LVO is about sharing how awesome the hobby is, not about yelling at people because they forgot a rule. Also don't think I missed the jabs.
No jabs taken - any you read you inferred however I do apologize for writing in such a way as to create the inference. Ultimately you and I have a different view on what tournaments are for and we're not likely to find much common ground. Both of us have stated points so I do not see much of a reason to continuing to retread those.
About clocks. At the Glass City GT we were allowed to use them. Even had a check box for if we used one or not. None of my opponents wanted one. In fact I don't think anyone wanted one of the 53 people there playing. So, whatever that means to you guys. For me, it tells me that time isn't really an issue. At least around here.
chimeara wrote: About clocks. At the Glass City GT we were allowed to use them. Even had a check box for if we used one or not. None of my opponents wanted one. In fact I don't think anyone wanted one of the 53 people there playing. So, whatever that means to you guys. For me, it tells me that time isn't really an issue. At least around here.
Or people dont want to bother with it.
its possible just limiting the game to exactly 4 rounds rather than time might speed up the few people using time out as a way to win. whether or not its an actual issue its worth giving a shot. though
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think that's fine as long as GW (and people here) stop using tournament data for balance.
People losing because the clock dinged does not make the army bad, nor does people losing because the game went to Turn 3 or Turn 4 and the army didn't get the time to really function.
I totally agree - Astra Militarum would win almost every game if there was no time limit.
Getting to turn 5 is not required for a good game. 4 is enough. 3 is okay.
I didn't say anyone was awful. I said you can speed up gameplay by being experienced (and, Get Good - as in know your strategies and gambits before the game starts). Do you disagree with that statement? Keep drawing lines based on your own straw man. it's funny to watch, almost as funny as when you try to do math lol
Game isn\t designed for 3-4 turns. It's designed for 5-7 turns. If game ends because of time and not because one army was wiped out or turn length ran up there's something wrong. If it's tiny minority in tournaments fine. If not then tournament has too little time for the point size and needs to either drop point levels or increase time.
No it really isn't designed for 5-7 turns when my army can destroy/route yours in 3 turns. That might be what the game rules say but the army power says otherwise.
There's not really a universal standard to how quickly an army can get tabled. A super resilient Chaos list will take a lot longer to destroy than a pure Grey Knights list. I don't think we can really speak in absolutes about how long a game takes to resolve itself when 40k has such a wide variety of army compositions with very different strengths.
I think 1850 to 2000 points is fine, it's on both players to keep them selves and their opponent in check when it comes to time. If you feel your opponent is going to slow say something politely at first if they keep it up get a judge. Just make sure you do it with enough time left to make a difference.
chimeara wrote: About clocks. At the Glass City GT we were allowed to use them. Even had a check box for if we used one or not. None of my opponents wanted one. In fact I don't think anyone wanted one of the 53 people there playing. So, whatever that means to you guys. For me, it tells me that time isn't really an issue. At least around here.
Or people dont want to bother with it.
its possible just limiting the game to exactly 4 rounds rather than time might speed up the few people using time out as a way to win. whether or not its an actual issue its worth giving a shot. though
I could see that.
Now that I'm thinking about it, We had a rule where we got deducted points if we didn't finish 3 turns and even more if we didn't get 2 done. That might be more effective than timers. IMO.
chimeara wrote: About clocks. At the Glass City GT we were allowed to use them. Even had a check box for if we used one or not. None of my opponents wanted one. In fact I don't think anyone wanted one of the 53 people there playing. So, whatever that means to you guys. For me, it tells me that time isn't really an issue. At least around here.
Or people dont want to bother with it.
its possible just limiting the game to exactly 4 rounds rather than time might speed up the few people using time out as a way to win. whether or not its an actual issue its worth giving a shot. though
I could see that.
Now that I'm thinking about it, We had a rule where we got deducted points if we didn't finish 3 turns and even more if we didn't get 2 done. That might be more effective than timers. IMO.
Well there is the potential for devious players to purposefully time out an opponent so they lose points at the end.
While it is possible for devious players to do that, I don't see them penalizing themselves just to spite their opponent. Unless they're already doing bad and want to be unsavory.
chimeara wrote: While it is possible for devious players to do that, I don't see them penalizing themselves just to spite their opponent. Unless they're already doing bad and want to be unsavory.
Some people, having already been elminated from top 8/16 contention, will gladly drag their opponents down with them out of spite. Tournament games just seem to attract that kind of personality.
You can use chess clocks at the top tables of big events, but apart from that the common 40k player will not like it. Warma/hordes players are really different from 40k players, that game encourages a "gamey" mindset, it's like playing MTG (and that's the reason why my Everblights are taking dust on a shelf).
The average 40k player wants to have a good time first and foremost, winning isn't really important, so if you enforce on them something like a chess clock, you will alienate them from the event. At the same time, asking someone who plays once a month to get better and faster at the game, is unfeasible. I understand that competitive 40K players would like to enjoy their cutthroath games that are solved by turn 3 with ultra hard decision in the first 2 turns of the game, ultra optimized lists and so on, but the typical game with typical lists will take 5-7 turns to reach it's natural conclusion, and will take longer than 2,5 hours, because this isn't warma/hordes, this isn't a sport, and people want to have a good time.
This is the kind of people that plays in the events, so rules have to be made thinking mainly about them. For this reason, i think that lowering points is the way to go.
ITC rules are already a plague (or a necessary evil) that axes many lists, luckily in Europe we prefer standard rules. If you also want to enforce a fast play, were games of 3-4 turns are acceptable, you have completely lost contact with the game.
Spoletta wrote: You can use chess clocks at the top tables of big events, but apart from that the common 40k player will not like it. Warma/hordes players are really different from 40k players, that game encourages a "gamey" mindset, it's like playing MTG (and that's the reason why my Everblights are taking dust on a shelf).
The average 40k player wants to have a good time first and foremost, winning isn't really important, so if you enforce on them something like a chess clock, you will alienate them from the event. At the same time, asking someone who plays once a month to get better and faster at the game, is unfeasible.
I understand that competitive 40K players would like to enjoy their cutthroath games that are solved by turn 3 with ultra hard decision in the first 2 turns of the game, ultra optimized lists and so on, but the typical game with typical lists will take 5-7 turns to reach it's natural conclusion, and will take longer than 2,5 hours, because this isn't warma/hordes, this isn't a sport, and people want to have a good time.
This is the kind of people that plays in the events, so rules have to be made thinking mainly about them. For this reason, i think that lowering points is the way to go.
ITC rules are already a plague (or a necessary evil) that axes many lists, luckily in Europe we prefer standard rules. If you also want to enforce a fast play, were games of 3-4 turns are acceptable, you have completely lost contact with the game.
I also would like to have fun which is why I encourage time keeping. It is not very fun to sit around bored for two hours and fifteen minutes because my opponent's turn is slow as a glacier whereas my turns take all of forty-five minutes.
Marmatag wrote: Oh stop, I didn't say they were bad players. I said players need to get good, which is synonymous with improve. This is typical debate in America. Someone says something you don't agree with, and it gets twisted into something bad in an effort to vilify the other person.
Then you go on this diatribe twisting what i'm saying again.
Let me break it down even more simply:
More knowledge = Faster play.
More experience = Faster play.
Where we diverge is that i'm saying there is a reasonable expectation of knowledge when approaching a timed, ranked competitive game, and players below that threshold should make an effort to improve rather than demand the game be fundamentally altered to cater to their individual desires.
I'm not saying tournaments aren't for new players. I am saying tournaments should not be fundamentally altered for players who are below that reasonable standard for knowledge.
I have also said numerous times that the tournament organizers absolutely need to enforce rules to stop slowplaying. Slowplaying is bad for the game. Can you make a case for 1500 points, that also explains why the reduction by 500 points would stop slowplaying?
I have played warhammer 40k for 20 years. I know my rules. I know my stats. It still takes way too long with 8th ed. I can play in 7th ed with ork swarm within time limit and SPARE. I'm usually among first to finish game. In 8th ed? It suddenly is race to finish in time.
8th ed with all it's rerolls after rerolls just takes ridiculously much time. Game sized needed to shrink in 8th ed. Instead they went up.
GW made slower edition. Tournament organizers rather than acknowledge it and adjust point sized went wrong way and make it even slower. Then some people claim "it's all right. 2 turns is fine!". Why bother with miniatures then as it's generally only on turns 3-4 where actually positioning models becomes meaningful in the first place. Before that models could be replaced by pen&paper for wound calculating.
Marmatag wrote: Getting to turn 5 is not required for a good game. 4 is enough. 3 is okay.
No, no it's not. Some units are worth more in a 3 or 4 turn game than they are in a 6 or 7 turn game.
Doesnt dark eldar need to get to t4-5 to start getting their actual bonsues? i forget if that was an 8th thing or if im remember 7th.
They get bonuses since turn 1, but from 3 they get melee bonuses. Since games usually don't last that long drukhari are forced to play as gunlines in competitive games, because melee units have been nerfed badly and they won't see their bonuses anyway. Which is a shame as I don't like playing armies that are not assault oriented in fact I haven't played my drukhari since CA and won't field them again before the codex is out.
I'm sure I'm going to get BLAMMED for HERESY for having the audacity to suggest this, but... isn't it time we get with the times and start using a dice app (at least for massive amount of dice)? We are in an edition where it is entirely possible to have to roll 100+ dice for the attacks of a single unit (Ork Boyz for example). I once was attacked by a unit of Boyz that got 120 attacks, took about 15 minutes to just resolve that attack alone. With a dice app it would've been resolved in 2. I understand peoples' complaints about dice apps but for the gargantuan amount of dice that some factions can roll manual rolling is just too clumsy and time consuming. GW could even develop or commission their own app and approve it to prevent people from accusing others from potential cheating.
The main reason for slow games are the core rules, as they are not made to handle a horde style army
Talking about fun, no it is not fun to play 15 minutes and watch 2 hours your opponent to deploy and make his first turn and than lose the game because of timeout.
1500 points will help but not solve the problems
if you play the rules without disadvantages for your self, you still want make it in time
GW could speed up a lot of things by not having reroll rules. Would rather have rules have a fixed +1 to rolls even if it meant that some units would auto hit/wound.
chimeara wrote: About clocks. At the Glass City GT we were allowed to use them. Even had a check box for if we used one or not. None of my opponents wanted one. In fact I don't think anyone wanted one of the 53 people there playing. So, whatever that means to you guys. For me, it tells me that time isn't really an issue. At least around here.
Or people dont want to bother with it.
its possible just limiting the game to exactly 4 rounds rather than time might speed up the few people using time out as a way to win. whether or not its an actual issue its worth giving a shot. though
I could see that.
Now that I'm thinking about it, We had a rule where we got deducted points if we didn't finish 3 turns and even more if we didn't get 2 done. That might be more effective than timers. IMO.
Well there is the potential for devious players to purposefully time out an opponent so they lose points at the end.
Farseer_V2 wrote: There is no valid other source of quantifiable data to make those decisions on.
Right, so if you have to choose between Bad Source A (tournaments, because of houserules like time limits) and Bad Source B (what people say on the internet) and Bad Source C (what your managers say about play in the stores) and Bad Source D (what you see from market research)...
....well, then they're all bad. You're right, not only is there no valid other source, but there is no valid source period. Which means that balancing the game is a silly effort, until tournaments allow games to go to their designed conclusions. Subsequently, we're back where we started: "balance" as the tournament players sense it is a hackneyed "lop the game off at the knees and it's balanced, trust me" style of play. I'm not surprised alpha strikes are so important, since the game only going for 3 turns means that you don't get punished for ignoring things like 5-man all-bolter tacts (because they take more than 3 turns to rack up the progressive scoring meaningfully) or you don't run out of rockets on your Manticores or you don't get to see all the benefits of Power from Pain or you don't get to leverage the superiority of better-quality units when the model numbers are equal.
No wonder martel is upset, he spends 3 turns tearing through Guardsmen, has 500 points of marines that should easily be able to handle what's left by simply touching it in combat and preventing it from shooting.... and then the game ends, with IG having killed 1500 points and the Marines having killed 4-600.
Farseer_V2 wrote: There is no valid other source of quantifiable data to make those decisions on.
Right, so if you have to choose between Bad Source A (tournaments, because of houserules like time limits) and Bad Source B (what people say on the internet) and Bad Source C (what your managers say about play in the stores) and Bad Source D (what you see from market research)...
....well, then they're all bad. You're right, not only is there no valid other source, but there is no valid source period. Which means that balancing the game is a silly effort, until tournaments allow games to go to their designed conclusions. Subsequently, we're back where we started: "balance" as the tournament players sense it is a hackneyed "lop the game off at the knees and it's balanced, trust me" style of play. I'm not surprised alpha strikes are so important, since the game only going for 3 turns means that you don't get punished for ignoring things like 5-man all-bolter tacts (because they take more than 3 turns to rack up the progressive scoring meaningfully) or you don't run out of rockets on your Manticores or you don't get to see all the benefits of Power from Pain or you don't get to leverage the superiority of better-quality units when the model numbers are equal.
No wonder martel is upset, he spends 3 turns tearing through Guardsmen, has 500 points of marines that should easily be able to handle what's left by simply touching it in combat and preventing it from shooting.... and then the game ends, with IG having killed 1500 points and the Marines having killed 4-600.
I agree with you and disagree with you.
Gaurd has killed 1500 points and marines 500 points. Gaurd auto wins in this situation because the basalisks/russ/manticores at both ends of his deployment zone can easily mop up whats left.
Time limits hurt guard. Because as a gun line they probably ignore middle field objectives and just focus on destroying their opponent. So - if the opponent has more objective score but couldn't sustain another round of artillery fire but the game suddenly ends because you are out of time at the end of turn 3...the guard lose a game they were in complete control of.
This IMO makes tournaments a poor source of army strength because 90% of your games are not going to have a time limit. Plus - even if your game has to end early in a non torny setting - we as players acknowledge that they game is truly not over at that point and when we shake hands to determine the victor if one guy was about to get tabled next turn - he would likely would admit defeat. In a tourny - the player with the most points when time runs out wins (even if technically the rules state the game isn't even half over.)
I don't really think that lowering the point value would help much. That guy who takes an hour to set up and do his first turn will still take that same amount of time regardless. He doesn't seem to feel the need to "share the clock" with his opponent. He will take exactly as much time as he needs and the other player can just deal with it. To be honest he might be sped up just a bit due to less units but I doubt it would be a very meaningful figure.
At least with chess clocks if he wants to use all his time on his first turn then he can without effecting his opponent's ability to play a fair game. As far as I'm concerned a time limit is the same whether is based on an individual or both players. It just seems more fair if both players have the same limit.
Farseer_V2 wrote: There is no valid other source of quantifiable data to make those decisions on.
Right, so if you have to choose between Bad Source A (tournaments, because of houserules like time limits) and Bad Source B (what people say on the internet) and Bad Source C (what your managers say about play in the stores) and Bad Source D (what you see from market research)...
....well, then they're all bad. You're right, not only is there no valid other source, but there is no valid source period. Which means that balancing the game is a silly effort, until tournaments allow games to go to their designed conclusions. Subsequently, we're back where we started: "balance" as the tournament players sense it is a hackneyed "lop the game off at the knees and it's balanced, trust me" style of play. I'm not surprised alpha strikes are so important, since the game only going for 3 turns means that you don't get punished for ignoring things like 5-man all-bolter tacts (because they take more than 3 turns to rack up the progressive scoring meaningfully) or you don't run out of rockets on your Manticores or you don't get to see all the benefits of Power from Pain or you don't get to leverage the superiority of better-quality units when the model numbers are equal.
No wonder martel is upset, he spends 3 turns tearing through Guardsmen, has 500 points of marines that should easily be able to handle what's left by simply touching it in combat and preventing it from shooting.... and then the game ends, with IG having killed 1500 points and the Marines having killed 4-600.
That's not what happens. We usually play to the end. The IG tables me, because I can't touch enough things with two models. IG shooting is too efficient in 8th ed. Period.
2000 points is tedius in 8th. I already had a large force of daemons and I've had to buy more to play 8th ed effectively. Also, I want to get in a full game in 2 hours not be on turn two.....
As for all the IG disucssions here, the issue is poor missions, stop doing the "I line up you line up and we shoot each other" BS that is Eternal war. Mix it up! Stagger deployments, get creative, stop being so BOOOOORING.
Farseer_V2 wrote: There is no valid other source of quantifiable data to make those decisions on.
Right, so if you have to choose between Bad Source A (tournaments, because of houserules like time limits) and Bad Source B (what people say on the internet) and Bad Source C (what your managers say about play in the stores) and Bad Source D (what you see from market research)...
....well, then they're all bad. You're right, not only is there no valid other source, but there is no valid source period. Which means that balancing the game is a silly effort, until tournaments allow games to go to their designed conclusions. Subsequently, we're back where we started: "balance" as the tournament players sense it is a hackneyed "lop the game off at the knees and it's balanced, trust me" style of play. I'm not surprised alpha strikes are so important, since the game only going for 3 turns means that you don't get punished for ignoring things like 5-man all-bolter tacts (because they take more than 3 turns to rack up the progressive scoring meaningfully) or you don't run out of rockets on your Manticores or you don't get to see all the benefits of Power from Pain or you don't get to leverage the superiority of better-quality units when the model numbers are equal.
No wonder martel is upset, he spends 3 turns tearing through Guardsmen, has 500 points of marines that should easily be able to handle what's left by simply touching it in combat and preventing it from shooting.... and then the game ends, with IG having killed 1500 points and the Marines having killed 4-600.
At this point we're simply going to have to agree to disagree. Our points share no common ground (and reasonably it doesn't appear our hobbies do either).
Farseer_V2 wrote: There is no valid other source of quantifiable data to make those decisions on.
Right, so if you have to choose between Bad Source A (tournaments, because of houserules like time limits) and Bad Source B (what people say on the internet) and Bad Source C (what your managers say about play in the stores) and Bad Source D (what you see from market research)...
....well, then they're all bad. You're right, not only is there no valid other source, but there is no valid source period. Which means that balancing the game is a silly effort, until tournaments allow games to go to their designed conclusions. Subsequently, we're back where we started: "balance" as the tournament players sense it is a hackneyed "lop the game off at the knees and it's balanced, trust me" style of play. I'm not surprised alpha strikes are so important, since the game only going for 3 turns means that you don't get punished for ignoring things like 5-man all-bolter tacts (because they take more than 3 turns to rack up the progressive scoring meaningfully) or you don't run out of rockets on your Manticores or you don't get to see all the benefits of Power from Pain or you don't get to leverage the superiority of better-quality units when the model numbers are equal.
No wonder martel is upset, he spends 3 turns tearing through Guardsmen, has 500 points of marines that should easily be able to handle what's left by simply touching it in combat and preventing it from shooting.... and then the game ends, with IG having killed 1500 points and the Marines having killed 4-600.
That's not what happens. We usually play to the end. The IG tables me, because I can't touch enough things with two models. IG shooting is too efficient in 8th ed. Period.
Okay, yes, aside from my mathematical proofs to the contrary in another thread...
... do you have any specific counter-arguments to my claim that foreshortening the game makes it very difficult to balance, since armies can quite clearly be front-loaded and run out of steam later? Your hated Manticore thrives in 3-4 turn games, and feels anemic to me and my friends because we oftentimes get 7-turn games...
Farseer_V2 wrote: There is no valid other source of quantifiable data to make those decisions on.
Right, so if you have to choose between Bad Source A (tournaments, because of houserules like time limits) and Bad Source B (what people say on the internet) and Bad Source C (what your managers say about play in the stores) and Bad Source D (what you see from market research)...
....well, then they're all bad. You're right, not only is there no valid other source, but there is no valid source period. Which means that balancing the game is a silly effort, until tournaments allow games to go to their designed conclusions. Subsequently, we're back where we started: "balance" as the tournament players sense it is a hackneyed "lop the game off at the knees and it's balanced, trust me" style of play. I'm not surprised alpha strikes are so important, since the game only going for 3 turns means that you don't get punished for ignoring things like 5-man all-bolter tacts (because they take more than 3 turns to rack up the progressive scoring meaningfully) or you don't run out of rockets on your Manticores or you don't get to see all the benefits of Power from Pain or you don't get to leverage the superiority of better-quality units when the model numbers are equal.
No wonder martel is upset, he spends 3 turns tearing through Guardsmen, has 500 points of marines that should easily be able to handle what's left by simply touching it in combat and preventing it from shooting.... and then the game ends, with IG having killed 1500 points and the Marines having killed 4-600.
At this point we're simply going to have to agree to disagree. Our points share no common ground (and reasonably it doesn't appear our hobbies do either).
I wish other people would agree to disagree. I get beaten over the head with the "BALANCE IS GOOD FOR ALL PLAYERS SO BALANCE TOURNAMENTS" book so many times in other threads that it hurts, even though I've demonstrated in this thread (and apparently to your satisfaction) that tournament play has nothing to do with other players, and that they are truly separate and unrelated.
"nd feels anemic to me and my friends because we oftentimes get 7-turn games."
Someone in your play group frankly doesn't know what they are doing. Manticores dominate 7 turn games by neutering the enemy in the first 4. I understand this is hard to accept, but it happens far too often to be coincidence. There is no counter play to basilisk/manticore except deep strike, which is in turn neutered by cheap infantry. It may feel anemic to you, but to your opponent, its a white hot poker up the butt that they can't stop.
Proficient IG players are functionally immune to BA assault. Many players seem to agree that BA are one of the bigger assault threats in the game, as they should be, but army full of regular humans and non-flying tanks are proof by taking some time in the deployment phase.
Martel732 wrote: "nd feels anemic to me and my friends because we oftentimes get 7-turn games."
Someone in your play group frankly doesn't know what they are doing. Manticores dominate 7 turn games by neutering the enemy in the first 4. I understand this is hard to accept, but it happens far too often to be coincidence. There is no counter play to basilisk/manticore except deep strike, which is in turn neutered by cheap infantry. It may feel anemic to you, but to your opponent, its a white hot poker up the butt that they can't stop.
Proficient IG players are functionally immune to BA assault. Many players seem to agree that BA are one of the bigger assault threats in the game, as they should be, but army full of regular humans and non-flying tanks are proof by taking some time in the deployment phase.
You seem to have forgotten how badly I destroy our local manticore spammer with my Sororitas. I never use manticores, because I don't play an artillery regiment.
So I am the opponent, and the white hot poker is the tip of a Sororitas stormbolter flamer murdering their guardsmen, and then gently rapping their knuckles against the artillery who panic and never get to fire again the whole game.
Martel732 wrote: "nd feels anemic to me and my friends because we oftentimes get 7-turn games."
Someone in your play group frankly doesn't know what they are doing. Manticores dominate 7 turn games by neutering the enemy in the first 4. I understand this is hard to accept, but it happens far too often to be coincidence. There is no counter play to basilisk/manticore except deep strike, which is in turn neutered by cheap infantry. It may feel anemic to you, but to your opponent, its a white hot poker up the butt that they can't stop.
Proficient IG players are functionally immune to BA assault. Many players seem to agree that BA are one of the bigger assault threats in the game, as they should be, but army full of regular humans and non-flying tanks are proof by taking some time in the deployment phase.
You seem to have forgotten how badly I destroy our local manticore spammer with my Sororitas. I never use manticores, because I don't play an artillery regiment.
So I am the opponent, and the white hot poker is the tip of a Sororitas stormbolter flamer murdering their guardsmen, and then gently rapping their knuckles against the artillery who panic and never get to fire again the whole game.
I wish i played these magically inept guard players.
So, I voted 2k, simply because it currently allows (pretty much) every faction to build an army capable of being TAC and balanced. The moment we start lowering the points level, those factions that tend to be more elite suddenly start to have to make large sacrifices in army composition.
Lowering the points will also further increase the amount of soup lists IMO. Sure, you could still run pure lists, but, the advantages currently gained from souping become more pronounced once you limit your opponents ability to counter you.
As for time – I think we should be looking at other options. For starters, is 3 hours a game really “out of reach”? The last event I played had 4, 2.5 hour, games on day 1. Long day sure, but it does raise the question of running 3, 3 hour games, a day instead. Going from doors open, registration, brief, 3 games, lunch and a more than adequate 15 mins break between 2 of the games, you’re looking at a 11.5 hour day (doors open and registration 45 mins. Brief 30 mins. Game 1 3 hours. Lunch 1 hour. Game 2 3 hours, 15 min break, Game 3 3 hours.) Using that, you could then increase registration to 1 hour, make it a 30 min break between games 2 and 3 and still only come to 12 hours. Is this really such an impossibility?
Another option, is in regards to deployment. I think I agree with a previous poster, that we need to go back to “I deploy everything, you deploy everything”, but with a couple of changes. Basically a 3 stage deployment - phase 1, alternative drops with units that deploy outside of your zone (i.e Scouts). Phase 2, main armies get dropped + deep strikers identified. Phase 3, alternative drops for end of phase deployments (i.e Raven Guard strat, Ratlings, Scout moves etc). Maybe it will speed things up, maybe it won’t – but I’m inclined to believe it will.
If slow play still shows as a consistent issue, then, we have to look at options regarding this. As others have said, most people don’t do it intentionally, but, those that do, rarely get punished for it.
But, before all that, I think something should be trialled. 3 hour game time, Chapter Approved only games. If Chapter Approved missions can be reliably completed in time, and ITC ones can’t, we know where to start with alterations. We can’t work on that though until we have data from a few trial runs.
As for all the “get good”/”have to know millions of things” counter punches, I firmly believe that a player can help themselves in regards to this. At the 60 man event I went to in Jan, I made copies of every players lists beforehand, identified my “top 4” secondaries for each list, and listed top threats. Now, this might not be possible in events where lists are published beforehand, but, worth thinking about. I also created myself a mini “cheat sheet”. Simply a single piece of paper with all my units stats on, noted the special rules/interactions (like degrading stat lines etc) and noted my top stratagems. Handy for quick glances if/when required.
Another option is put together a document containing the top 6-8 stratagems for each faction and print them off (one page per faction). You then have a handy reference sheet before the game begins to go over and refresh yourself. As you generally know who you are playing against up to 15 mins in advance, you have time to dig up their list, review their top stratagems, and go from there.
It's all a lot of work, that most people won’t be bothered to put in, and would rather complain about not knowing things, but, it speeds up your games, it builds your knowledge, and it allows you to spend more time planning your next moves in advance.
Eldarsif wrote: GW could speed up a lot of things by not having reroll rules. Would rather have rules have a fixed +1 to rolls even if it meant that some units would auto hit/wound.
This is literally the most shortsighted post I've seen in awhile.
Slow play is the issue. Watch the vids of those tournament games vs their more casual games with the same lists. It's pretty obvious once you've observed that little event.
Farseer_V2 wrote: There is no valid other source of quantifiable data to make those decisions on.
Right, so if you have to choose between Bad Source A (tournaments, because of houserules like time limits) and Bad Source B (what people say on the internet) and Bad Source C (what your managers say about play in the stores) and Bad Source D (what you see from market research)...
....well, then they're all bad. You're right, not only is there no valid other source, but there is no valid source period. Which means that balancing the game is a silly effort, until tournaments allow games to go to their designed conclusions. Subsequently, we're back where we started: "balance" as the tournament players sense it is a hackneyed "lop the game off at the knees and it's balanced, trust me" style of play. I'm not surprised alpha strikes are so important, since the game only going for 3 turns means that you don't get punished for ignoring things like 5-man all-bolter tacts (because they take more than 3 turns to rack up the progressive scoring meaningfully) or you don't run out of rockets on your Manticores or you don't get to see all the benefits of Power from Pain or you don't get to leverage the superiority of better-quality units when the model numbers are equal.
No wonder martel is upset, he spends 3 turns tearing through Guardsmen, has 500 points of marines that should easily be able to handle what's left by simply touching it in combat and preventing it from shooting.... and then the game ends, with IG having killed 1500 points and the Marines having killed 4-600.
That's not what happens. We usually play to the end. The IG tables me, because I can't touch enough things with two models. IG shooting is too efficient in 8th ed. Period.
Okay, yes, aside from my mathematical proofs to the contrary in another thread...
... do you have any specific counter-arguments to my claim that foreshortening the game makes it very difficult to balance, since armies can quite clearly be front-loaded and run out of steam later? Your hated Manticore thrives in 3-4 turn games, and feels anemic to me and my friends because we oftentimes get 7-turn games...
Farseer_V2 wrote: There is no valid other source of quantifiable data to make those decisions on.
Right, so if you have to choose between Bad Source A (tournaments, because of houserules like time limits) and Bad Source B (what people say on the internet) and Bad Source C (what your managers say about play in the stores) and Bad Source D (what you see from market research)...
....well, then they're all bad. You're right, not only is there no valid other source, but there is no valid source period. Which means that balancing the game is a silly effort, until tournaments allow games to go to their designed conclusions. Subsequently, we're back where we started: "balance" as the tournament players sense it is a hackneyed "lop the game off at the knees and it's balanced, trust me" style of play. I'm not surprised alpha strikes are so important, since the game only going for 3 turns means that you don't get punished for ignoring things like 5-man all-bolter tacts (because they take more than 3 turns to rack up the progressive scoring meaningfully) or you don't run out of rockets on your Manticores or you don't get to see all the benefits of Power from Pain or you don't get to leverage the superiority of better-quality units when the model numbers are equal.
No wonder martel is upset, he spends 3 turns tearing through Guardsmen, has 500 points of marines that should easily be able to handle what's left by simply touching it in combat and preventing it from shooting.... and then the game ends, with IG having killed 1500 points and the Marines having killed 4-600.
At this point we're simply going to have to agree to disagree. Our points share no common ground (and reasonably it doesn't appear our hobbies do either).
I wish other people would agree to disagree. I get beaten over the head with the "BALANCE IS GOOD FOR ALL PLAYERS SO BALANCE TOURNAMENTS" book so many times in other threads that it hurts, even though I've demonstrated in this thread (and apparently to your satisfaction) that tournament play has nothing to do with other players, and that they are truly separate and unrelated.
The game needs to be balanced for tournament play whether you like it or not. Otherwise you really prove you're no better than the other people that like their broken models but simply don't act like because you only use a limited amount. As though that somehow makes you better.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think that's fine as long as GW (and people here) stop using tournament data for balance.
People losing because the clock dinged does not make the army bad, nor does people losing because the game went to Turn 3 or Turn 4 and the army didn't get the time to really function.
Tournament data is always useful for determining balance. You just have to use the actual games to see what's wrong. Like, you can't look at LVO results and say " well, Eldar won so every model in this army is broken and needs to be nerfed!" You have to look to the game itself and see what overperformed. Likewise, if losing on clock becomes a defining and meta altering facet of tournament play, it shouldn't tell you to change models (except that unit with each guy getting D6 shots that get exploding 6's and rerolling 1's) it makes it clear that the current time limits don't support the game and either the time needs to be expanded or the format needs to be trimmed.
of course slow play is an issue, as using the rules for fast dice rolling or doing fast wound allocation is a huge disadvantage you won't take in a tournament
So the rules are written for slow play or with 30-40 models per army in mind and slow the game down on larger point games if you stick to those rules.
Long day sure, but it does raise the question of running 3, 3 hour games, a day instead.
this is more or less standard here and still most games don't make it past turn 3.
And while I see your point of building a TAC army at 2k, this argument has always been there as there was always one that complaint not getting everything he wants and therefore play more points.
Following that and 2500 will be the new standard next year
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think that's fine as long as GW (and people here) stop using tournament data for balance.
People losing because the clock dinged does not make the army bad, nor does people losing because the game went to Turn 3 or Turn 4 and the army didn't get the time to really function.
Tournament data is always useful for determining balance. You just have to use the actual games to see what's wrong. Like, you can't look at LVO results and say " well, Eldar won so every model in this army is broken and needs to be nerfed!" You have to look to the game itself and see what overperformed. Likewise, if losing on clock becomes a defining and meta altering facet of tournament play, it shouldn't tell you to change models (except that unit with each guy getting D6 shots that get exploding 6's and rerolling 1's) it makes it clear that the current time limits don't support the game and either the time needs to be expanded or the format needs to be trimmed.
I am operating with the premise that the clock is already a defining meta-altering facet of tournament play, which is why this thread exists. So I completely agree with you. Your point is exactly mine: current time limits don't support the game, and the format therefore needs trimming (or the time extended *shrug*).
Until those are fixed, the tournament meta is different from the casual meta in very significant ways, and what's balanced for the first 3 turns of the game may be unbalanced for the last 4 turns, creating a dichotomy where a unit appears OP or UP in tournaments but is less so in casual experiences. A perfect example of this already happening is the Manticore - a person in my local meta spams them in casual games, and I routinely wreck them with a foot Sororitas list. Instrumental in a good majority of my victories (60+%) was the fact that the ones that I couldn't kill or disable somehow were incapable of meaningful offensive action past Turn 4. In a tournament, the IG player can, should he choose, run the clock out, ensure the game does not go past Turn 4, and the Manticore never sees the abrupt and crippling damage drop which it is designed (and priced) to suffer from. The problem is not solved by chess clocks, as my turns will take a while (foot Sororitas with 104 models), so I will probably need my allotted time, meaning all he needs to do is take up all of his and the game ends.
Fair enough. I just think its hard to get an idea just how much needs to change until players are on timers that ensures the problem is in the format and not the players. I know personally I run elite forces that can clear a game in a couple hours easy enough. I also know if I'm not playing to time I can spend 3-4 hours on the same game just by not being focused.
LunarSol wrote: Fair enough. I just think its hard to get an idea just how much needs to change until players are on timers that ensures the problem is in the format and not the players. I know personally I run elite forces that can clear a game in a couple hours easy enough. I also know if I'm not playing to time I can spend 3-4 hours on the same game just by not being focused.
The problem with using timers is that it doesn't help, because one player still auto-loses when the time runs out. If you have 2.5 hours to play the game, then there is simply no way a game that by rights should take 3-4 hours is going to finish. If the players play faster than normal, they may make mistakes - lord knows I do when I rush through games (EDIT: and I don't mean tactical errors. I mean things like knocking over the terrain, or placing my deepstrikers before finishing my movement phase... which literally happened on the top tables at LVO, and caused a huge ruckus). And if they don't rush, the time will end, and someone loses, irrespective of whether they should have or not.
The fundamental problem is that 40k is not balanced around time limits for games, but rather around turn limits. Hell, even within the existing rules, whether or not a game goes 5 turns or 7 turns can change the ending time by 20-30 minutes, and can also be a crucial mechanic. I have no idea how many times I heard "I'd've won if it ended on turn 5!" or conversely "I'd've won if the game had gone on to turn 7." or whatever. I've even experienced it myself - my recent game of superheavies vs orks ended on Turn 5, and he won by one point because of one flubbed to-wound roll that wouldn't have happened twice, or even three more, times. Them's the breaks, though, of playing by the system!
I suppose I'm also of the opinion that even if time isn't a factor for casual play, its still beneficial to be able to play the game in under 3 hours, so anything that makes that happen in tournaments would make the casual experience better as well.
Ultimately, if you're going to add Chess Clocks you have to decide what happens at time out. Guild Ball, for example, lets you keep playing but causes you to quickly "bleed out" points so you can really only win if you're an activation or 2 away from victory.
I think something 40k desperately needs is scenario consistency. GW scenarios should be the norm and honestly, GW should be the one introducing timing rules too. At that point, you can design scenarios with the timer in mind. Maybe when you time out your opponent gets to immediately start their turn with their remaining time. Maybe if you time out you give up VP equal to the rounds that should remain (which gives up a semi random about of VP based on the random turn limit)? There are options, but none that really work as long as the community isn't working off a consistent ruleset.
Long day sure, but it does raise the question of running 3, 3 hour games, a day instead.
this is more or less standard here and still most games don't make it past turn 3.
And while I see your point of building a TAC army at 2k, this argument has always been there as there was always one that complaint not getting everything he wants and therefore play more points.
Following that and 2500 will be the new standard next year
That for me, is kinda surprising. What is happening in those 3 hours, that is preventing a game from either ending via a tabling or getting to turn 4-5? What armies are being played, and what units? Genuinely curious, cos i want to then go away and test it for myself to see where the sticking points are. 2.5 hours usually sees at least turn 3 complete (and that's with a "no new battle round to begin if less than 20 mins left" rule). That extra 30-45 mins should EASILY allow for an extra turn, especially as by this point, most armies are down to a couple of units left.
The only games i got timed on in my last event (with 2.5 hour games) was vs Berserker and Cultist spam (sooooo many dice) and when i was up against 14 Guard tanks. Guard game involved a lot of slow play from my opponent turn 1, but still got to turn 4, and the Berserker one got timed at turn 4 because of 2 massive turns of berserker combat and cultist respawning. (my army itself contained 55 models, and took part in both psychic and assault phases - which also adds to time)
I know, big blobs take time to move etc, but, it's still not THAT much time. For example, i just timed myself rolling for advance and moving 30 models - taking my time and using 1 hand while still measuring distance. I got all of them moved in 51 seconds. easily be able to do it faster if i used 2 hands or moved more than 1 model at a time. Moving 4 30 man blobs within 4 minutes seems pretty reasonable to me.
Now, lets take 30 conscripts and have them frfsrf and re-roll 1's for being cadia. Time taken (including armour saves) = 3 minutes 26 seconds. I rolled them in batches of 30 due to dice and holding dice. As it stands, i would have killed him "test" target of 5 marines on the 2nd roll of 30 due to some good dice, but thought i'd roll everything for the time.
Incidentally, 30 frfsrf is the same amount of dice as 30 orc boyz fighting in combat. So, for an orc unit's turn, we can reasonably say takes 5 minutes 43 seconds (51 seconds for move + advance. 51 for charge. 35 for pile in (also timed) 3 minutes 26 for combat). So, an army of 120 boyz, could be timed at turn 1 being at least 24 minutes for the boyz alone.You then have the rest of the army to time, but, after that, the rest of the army is reasonably quick.
If you are taking over 30-35 mins for turn 1, i'd argue that you are doing something wrong.
I just can't get behind this. It would completely force me out of the a workable brigade while others have no issues at all. It also makes it so some units are no longer on my radar. I'm sure GW could tweak things, but it throws the whole game into disarray for lots of people.
I just can't get behind this. It would completely force me out of the a workable brigade while others have no issues at all. It also makes it so some units are no longer on my radar. I'm sure GW could tweak things, but it throws the whole game into disarray for lots of people.
This is what I was saying back in the beginning. Elite armies can't make TAC lists at those point levels. Least not very good ones.
Long day sure, but it does raise the question of running 3, 3 hour games, a day instead.
this is more or less standard here and still most games don't make it past turn 3.
And while I see your point of building a TAC army at 2k, this argument has always been there as there was always one that complaint not getting everything he wants and therefore play more points.
Following that and 2500 will be the new standard next year
That for me, is kinda surprising. What is happening in those 3 hours, that is preventing a game from either ending via a tabling or getting to turn 4-5? What armies are being played, and what units? Genuinely curious, cos i want to then go away and test it for myself to see where the sticking points are. 2.5 hours usually sees at least turn 3 complete (and that's with a "no new battle round to begin if less than 20 mins left" rule). That extra 30-45 mins should EASILY allow for an extra turn, especially as by this point, most armies are down to a couple of units left.
The only games i got timed on in my last event (with 2.5 hour games) was vs Berserker and Cultist spam (sooooo many dice) and when i was up against 14 Guard tanks. Guard game involved a lot of slow play from my opponent turn 1, but still got to turn 4, and the Berserker one got timed at turn 4 because of 2 massive turns of berserker combat and cultist respawning. (my army itself contained 55 models, and took part in both psychic and assault phases - which also adds to time)
I know, big blobs take time to move etc, but, it's still not THAT much time. For example, i just timed myself rolling for advance and moving 30 models - taking my time and using 1 hand while still measuring distance. I got all of them moved in 51 seconds. easily be able to do it faster if i used 2 hands or moved more than 1 model at a time. Moving 4 30 man blobs within 4 minutes seems pretty reasonable to me.
Now, lets take 30 conscripts and have them frfsrf and re-roll 1's for being cadia. Time taken (including armour saves) = 3 minutes 26 seconds. I rolled them in batches of 30 due to dice and holding dice. As it stands, i would have killed him "test" target of 5 marines on the 2nd roll of 30 due to some good dice, but thought i'd roll everything for the time.
Incidentally, 30 frfsrf is the same amount of dice as 30 orc boyz fighting in combat. So, for an orc unit's turn, we can reasonably say takes 5 minutes 43 seconds (51 seconds for move + advance. 51 for charge. 35 for pile in (also timed) 3 minutes 26 for combat). So, an army of 120 boyz, could be timed at turn 1 being at least 24 minutes for the boyz alone.You then have the rest of the army to time, but, after that, the rest of the army is reasonably quick.
If you are taking over 30-35 mins for turn 1, i'd argue that you are doing something wrong.
Using your own mathematics:
30-35 minutes per player turn, times two for a full battle round, is about an hour. To fit 5 to 7 full battle rounds (the amount the game is balanced around), a game between two Ork players would take 5-7 hours.
Long day sure, but it does raise the question of running 3, 3 hour games, a day instead.
this is more or less standard here and still most games don't make it past turn 3.
And while I see your point of building a TAC army at 2k, this argument has always been there as there was always one that complaint not getting everything he wants and therefore play more points.
Following that and 2500 will be the new standard next year
That for me, is kinda surprising. What is happening in those 3 hours, that is preventing a game from either ending via a tabling or getting to turn 4-5? What armies are being played, and what units? Genuinely curious, cos i want to then go away and test it for myself to see where the sticking points are. 2.5 hours usually sees at least turn 3 complete (and that's with a "no new battle round to begin if less than 20 mins left" rule). That extra 30-45 mins should EASILY allow for an extra turn, especially as by this point, most armies are down to a couple of units left.
The only games i got timed on in my last event (with 2.5 hour games) was vs Berserker and Cultist spam (sooooo many dice) and when i was up against 14 Guard tanks. Guard game involved a lot of slow play from my opponent turn 1, but still got to turn 4, and the Berserker one got timed at turn 4 because of 2 massive turns of berserker combat and cultist respawning. (my army itself contained 55 models, and took part in both psychic and assault phases - which also adds to time)
I know, big blobs take time to move etc, but, it's still not THAT much time. For example, i just timed myself rolling for advance and moving 30 models - taking my time and using 1 hand while still measuring distance. I got all of them moved in 51 seconds. easily be able to do it faster if i used 2 hands or moved more than 1 model at a time. Moving 4 30 man blobs within 4 minutes seems pretty reasonable to me.
Now, lets take 30 conscripts and have them frfsrf and re-roll 1's for being cadia. Time taken (including armour saves) = 3 minutes 26 seconds. I rolled them in batches of 30 due to dice and holding dice. As it stands, i would have killed him "test" target of 5 marines on the 2nd roll of 30 due to some good dice, but thought i'd roll everything for the time.
Incidentally, 30 frfsrf is the same amount of dice as 30 orc boyz fighting in combat. So, for an orc unit's turn, we can reasonably say takes 5 minutes 43 seconds (51 seconds for move + advance. 51 for charge. 35 for pile in (also timed) 3 minutes 26 for combat). So, an army of 120 boyz, could be timed at turn 1 being at least 24 minutes for the boyz alone.You then have the rest of the army to time, but, after that, the rest of the army is reasonably quick.
If you are taking over 30-35 mins for turn 1, i'd argue that you are doing something wrong.
Using your own mathematics:
30-35 minutes per player turn, times two for a full battle round, is about an hour. To fit 5 to 7 full battle rounds (the amount the game is balanced around), a game between two Ork players would take 5-7 hours.
That's why games don't finish in 3 hours.
Also, what if those 5 dead marines are standing next to the ancient banner. Time out. Time for 5 marines to fire back at you real quick. There's another unexpected 2-3 minutes. As well as some more clock slappin'.
Using your own mathematics:
30-35 minutes per player turn, times two for a full battle round, is about an hour. To fit 5 to 7 full battle rounds (the amount the game is balanced around), a game between two Ork players would take 5-7 hours.
That's why games don't finish in 3 hours.
Hopefully after turn 1 players don't have as much to do and turns take far less time. In my experience, turns 4 and 5 are like.... less than turn 1 in overall game length.
Using your own mathematics:
30-35 minutes per player turn, times two for a full battle round, is about an hour. To fit 5 to 7 full battle rounds (the amount the game is balanced around), a game between two Ork players would take 5-7 hours.
That's why games don't finish in 3 hours.
Hopefully after turn 1 players don't have as much to do and turns take far less time. In my experience, turns 4 and 5 are like.... less than turn 1 in overall game length.
Yes, this is true, and a good point. 5-7 hours is way too long, even for just a hobby game. But 3, 3.5, or 4 is not unheard of. 4 is too much braindrain for me, though. Even if the game should, by rights, go longer than 4 hours, I'd be done. That's why I don't wheel my Sororitas out that often. It's 104 models, and gets Acts of Faith (at least 2 usually, though max 4) to do even more extra shenanigans during the turn.
Deviantduck- have you actually used a chess clock to play a game or 2 of 40K or are you just theory moaning? If you have played with a clock then what, specifically, made the game harder for you to play? If you haven't tried to use a chess clock then maybe you should before you make a fool of yourself by pleading "It's too hard to push a button."
Using your own mathematics:
30-35 minutes per player turn, times two for a full battle round, is about an hour. To fit 5 to 7 full battle rounds (the amount the game is balanced around), a game between two Ork players would take 5-7 hours.
That's why games don't finish in 3 hours.
Hopefully after turn 1 players don't have as much to do and turns take far less time. In my experience, turns 4 and 5 are like.... less than turn 1 in overall game length.
Yes, this is true, and a good point. 5-7 hours is way too long, even for just a hobby game. But 3, 3.5, or 4 is not unheard of. 4 is too much braindrain for me, though. Even if the game should, by rights, go longer than 4 hours, I'd be done. That's why I don't wheel my Sororitas out that often. It's 104 models, and gets Acts of Faith (at least 2 usually, though max 4) to do even more extra shenanigans during the turn.
I know we've agree'd to disagree but man I have to point out this is cripplingly slow to me. I play over 150 models in my chaos army with access to re-rolls, double shooting, a fairly complex psychic phase, the works and I still can finish a 2k game in less than 3 hours (at my natural pace against a similar army its maybe 2:45).
I know, big blobs take time to move etc, but, it's still not THAT much time. For example, i just timed myself rolling for advance and moving 30 models - taking my time and using 1 hand while still measuring distance. I got all of them moved in 51 seconds. easily be able to do it faster if i used 2 hands or moved more than 1 model at a time. Moving 4 30 man blobs within 4 minutes seems pretty reasonable to me.
Now, lets take 30 conscripts and have them frfsrf and re-roll 1's for being cadia. Time taken (including armour saves) = 3 minutes 26 seconds. I rolled them in batches of 30 due to dice and holding dice. As it stands, i would have killed him "test" target of 5 marines on the 2nd roll of 30 due to some good dice, but thought i'd roll everything for the time.
Incidentally, 30 frfsrf is the same amount of dice as 30 orc boyz fighting in combat. So, for an orc unit's turn, we can reasonably say takes 5 minutes 43 seconds (51 seconds for move + advance. 51 for charge. 35 for pile in (also timed) 3 minutes 26 for combat). So, an army of 120 boyz, could be timed at turn 1 being at least 24 minutes for the boyz alone.You then have the rest of the army to time, but, after that, the rest of the army is reasonably quick.
Rolling dice is not the problem, it never was.
What takes time usually is wound allocation, is if the opponent see a benefit he is strict to the rules and roll one by one
Checking Line of Sight and Cover carefully and measuring distances for each model etc, it can take a while before the opponent even start moving and placing the models
calculating how to split fire to make the most damage and/or which models take it to prevent most of it
adapting to new drawn maelstrom cards or changed situation on the table (there are those who just take 10-15 minutes just to see how they can turn their new card in before moving a model)
Than there are those who just don't want to play past turn 3/4
actually it depends on the player if he is used to playing fast or not
I have seen guys playing an elite army with 30 models taking more time than an Tyranid swarm player with 100 models
But the rules by itself are not meant to be played fast. Other companies making games to be played in 1-2 hours and GW designs their games to take the whole evening
(problems I see that take unnecessary much time are cover, line of sight, wound allocation, no real anti-horde weapon available to most armies)
That for me, is kinda surprising. What is happening in those 3 hours, that is preventing a game from either ending via a tabling or getting to turn 4-5? What armies are being played, and what units? Genuinely curious, cos i want to then go away and test it for myself to see where the sticking points are. 2.5 hours usually sees at least turn 3 complete (and that's with a "no new battle round to begin if less than 20 mins left" rule). That extra 30-45 mins should EASILY allow for an extra turn, especially as by this point, most armies are down to a couple of units left.
3 hours is standard here for quite a while now (5th edition?) with 3 games per day maximum
but it includes deployment etc and because there are 3 hours people are not an a hurry to get through the first turns very fast. But this also something new to me, as even horde/swarm armies were able to make it to turn 6 in my 5th edition tournaments
for example lists, I just post 3 from the first tournament I found (maybe not the perfect example as I don't know if they had time problems or played against each other)
#3
Supreme Command Detachment -1CP [664pts]
HQ [664pts]
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf [WARLORD][108pts]Storm shield [15pts], Thunder hammer [21pts](Imperium - Space Wolves,Index 1)
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf [108pts]Storm shield [15pts], Thunder hammer [21pts](Imperium - Space Wolves,Index 1)
Wolf Guard Battle Leader on Thunderwolf [94pts]Storm shield [15pts], Thunder hammer [21pts](Imperium - Space Wolves,Index 1)
Wolf Guard Battle Leader on Thunderwolf [94pts]Storm shield [15pts], Thunder hammer [21pts](Imperium - Space Wolves,Index 1)
Wolf Priest [75pts]Jump Packs [22pts]Combi-melta [19pts](Imperium - Space Wolves,Index 1)
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Deviantduck- have you actually used a chess clock to play a game or 2 of 40K or are you just theory moaning? If you have played with a clock then what, specifically, made the game harder for you to play? If you haven't tried to use a chess clock then maybe you should before you make a fool of yourself by pleading "It's too hard to push a button."
I haven't had the chance yet. I still intend to try it out, but I do some some scenarios where you might be bouncing between each end of the table to slap the clock. Probably not a big deal though.
It's reasonable to expect that all of the pre-game activities take about 20-30 minutes. Let's just say 30. This includes setting up the map, deploying, secondaries, pre-game stratagems, etc.
7 turns = 8.5 minutes per player per turn.
6 turns = 10 minutes per player per turn.
5 turns = 12 minutes per player per turn.
4 turns = 15 minutes per player per turn.
3 turns = 20 minutes per player per turn.
People voting for games to average 5 or more turns have no idea how impossible this is. If you need to have a 5 minute discussion over how rules worth together, suddenly you've literally lost the possibility for an extra whole game turn.
For example. If i have a Hive Tyrant, and you have a model on the other side of a ruins, on the other side of a wall. My Hive Tyrant is right up against the wall. I declare a charge on your model that i cannot see. I roll a 5. it is not enough to get around the wall. but it is enough to get right up against the wall, and places me within 1". I want to fight with my HT. Is this legal?
The answer is yes, it is legal, but you can easily see how this would be something that might cause a discussion, especially for an inexperienced player. If the discussion takes 5 minutes, we no longer have the possibility to get to game turn 5 if we're averaging about 15 minutes per player turn.
Dropping the points by 500 would not solve any of the timing problems. The simple fact is that this game is NOT designed to be played in 2.5 hours. With that in mind, tournament games should end at turn 4. Isn't an average of 15 minutes per player turn fast enough?
Using your own mathematics:
30-35 minutes per player turn, times two for a full battle round, is about an hour. To fit 5 to 7 full battle rounds (the amount the game is balanced around), a game between two Ork players would take 5-7 hours.
That's why games don't finish in 3 hours.
Hopefully after turn 1 players don't have as much to do and turns take far less time. In my experience, turns 4 and 5 are like.... less than turn 1 in overall game length.
Depends, some players play more carefully with less models in game or when the points are close together
I have made the different experience, as if the game is not already clear on who wins, turn 4 to 6 take much more time than turn 1
Dropping the points by 500 would not solve any of the timing problems. The simple fact is that this game is NOT designed to be played in 2.5 hours. With that in mind, tournament games should end at turn 4. Isn't an average of 15 minutes per player turn fast enough?
It should be more around 1000-1250 points as I agree that there would not be much a difference in 1500 or 2000 points.
But than, 40k as it is now should not be played at tournaments at all as the main issue for the timing problem is within the core rules
Marmatag wrote: It's reasonable to expect that all of the pre-game activities take about 20-30 minutes. Let's just say 30. This includes setting up the map, deploying, secondaries, pre-game stratagems, etc.
7 turns = 8.5 minutes per player per turn. 6 turns = 10 minutes per player per turn. 5 turns = 12 minutes per player per turn. 4 turns = 15 minutes per player per turn. 3 turns = 20 minutes per player per turn.
People voting for games to average 5 or more turns have no idea how impossible this is. If you need to have a 5 minute discussion over how rules worth together, suddenly you've literally lost the possibility for an extra whole game turn.
For example. If i have a Hive Tyrant, and you have a model on the other side of a ruins, on the other side of a wall. My Hive Tyrant is right up against the wall. I declare a charge on your model that i cannot see. I roll a 5. it is not enough to get around the wall. but it is enough to get right up against the wall, and places me within 1". I want to fight with my HT. Is this legal?
The answer is yes, it is legal, but you can easily see how this would be something that might cause a discussion, especially for an inexperienced player. If the discussion takes 5 minutes, we no longer have the possibility to get to game turn 5 if we're averaging about 15 minutes per player turn.
Dropping the points by 500 would not solve any of the timing problems. The simple fact is that this game is NOT designed to be played in 2.5 hours. With that in mind, tournament games should end at turn 4. Isn't an average of 15 minutes per player turn fast enough?
Orrrrrrrr you could consider the 2.5 hours to be cripplingly short, instead of chopping games off at the knees and going "LONG ENOUGH!" while all the Manticores sigh in relief and look at their just-now empty ammo racks.
So out of all Warhammer 40k games played by the rules: Very few should ever end on Turns 1-4 33% should end on Turn 5 (3+ to go to turn 6!) 33% should end on Turn 6 (4+ to go to turn 7, so half of the remaining 66% after turn 5 is subtracted) 33% should end Turn 7.
Martel732 wrote: Empty ammo racks don't matter when the opponent is tabled/crippled. They are too front end loaded.
Stop derailing please. Yes, the Manticore is too good, sure, whatever. Delete its unit entry, if it makes Martel cry fewer tears and gets all the salt out of his bed when he's trying to sleep. We're talking about time limits, and Manticores are merely an extreme example of front-end-loaded units that, in their current iteration (because, regrettably, they exist), take extreme advantage of the tournament structure. This inflates their value beyond what it really is for most games.
Marmatag wrote: It's reasonable to expect that all of the pre-game activities take about 20-30 minutes. Let's just say 30. This includes setting up the map, deploying, secondaries, pre-game stratagems, etc.
7 turns = 8.5 minutes per player per turn.
6 turns = 10 minutes per player per turn.
5 turns = 12 minutes per player per turn.
4 turns = 15 minutes per player per turn.
3 turns = 20 minutes per player per turn.
People voting for games to average 5 or more turns have no idea how impossible this is. If you need to have a 5 minute discussion over how rules worth together, suddenly you've literally lost the possibility for an extra whole game turn.
For example. If i have a Hive Tyrant, and you have a model on the other side of a ruins, on the other side of a wall. My Hive Tyrant is right up against the wall. I declare a charge on your model that i cannot see. I roll a 5. it is not enough to get around the wall. but it is enough to get right up against the wall, and places me within 1". I want to fight with my HT. Is this legal?
The answer is yes, it is legal, but you can easily see how this would be something that might cause a discussion, especially for an inexperienced player. If the discussion takes 5 minutes, we no longer have the possibility to get to game turn 5 if we're averaging about 15 minutes per player turn.
Dropping the points by 500 would not solve any of the timing problems. The simple fact is that this game is NOT designed to be played in 2.5 hours. With that in mind, tournament games should end at turn 4. Isn't an average of 15 minutes per player turn fast enough?
Orrrrrrrr you could consider the 2.5 hours to be cripplingly short
I would be in favor of 3 hour games. But right now, we have 2.5 hour games. And this thread is about how 2000 point games are the devil.
You also have a biased stance towards game time because you play an army that has the world's shortest turns.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And i mean seriously is it FAIR to expect players to take turns in under 10 minutes?
Let's say you have an army that uses all phases of the game.
I chose 1500 as I think this game just cannot be reliably played well at 2k with or without clocks/slow-play. It’s simply too large a point size for 2.5 hours. I am going on the assumption here that the goal is to have a majority of games not go to time.
Then again, I don’t really think this game is good for tournament play in general.
GW needs to stop treating their matched play rules, and the rules in general, like everyone is playing some kind of competitive/casual hybrid that always ends on turn 6 or 7 after an unlimited amount of time.
If you think the game is better at higher point values but only going to turn 3or 4 is acceptable, awesome, but the rules and missions should be rewritten to take that into account.
What we have right now are tournament games being decided by playing half the game and calling it quits in the middle of every game. Doesn’t seem right.
What? You misunderstand my position. I am advocating for the uselessness of the 2.5 hour time limit.
The solutions are:
1) raise the limit
2) decrease the points
I don't expect anyone to play to the game's intended conclusion in 2.5 hours, and that's exactly the identified problem that needs addressing. Ending games turn 4 skews the meta pretty badly, and makes the game unbalanced for someone: either it's balanced around 5-7 turn games but appears unbalanced at tournaments, or it's balanced for tournaments but unbalanced for 5-7 turn casual games.
If we want to balance the game for everyone, we need everyone to play the same way. I think the 5-7 turns is a fine way to play, and gives me great joy. I think it is regrettable to cut a game off prematurely at 4 or heaven forbid 3 turns.
Not all turns are equal. The first ones are much longer than the last ones. The turns 4-5 of a game you normally can do them in 6-8 minutes (Yeah I move this unit... I shot this two units... I have nothing to charge or in combat. Done)
If you think the game is better at higher point values but only going to turn 3or 4 is acceptable, awesome, but the rules and missions should be rewritten to take that into account.
They are.
Secondaries max at 4 points each. So you can achieve 4 points of position based secondaries in 4 turns. And with progressive scoring, everyone has equal objective & kill scoring opportunities over that time. Rules are also written such that it is "final turn," meaning you can score final turn points regardless of when the game ends.
Just be aware of how long the game is taking and plan accordingly.
Once you've scored 12 points each on secondaries (entirely feasible) - you're looking at most likely 2 points per player for kill/hold. Then it's just a question of who gets the bonuses, which is 0-3 points depending.
At that point if you're on turn 4 and behind by 7 points, odds are good you're not winning the game. So playing it out becomes an exercise in how much can you score, instead of can you actually win.
The 40k tournament community is thriving. I have played in 3 singles tournaments this year, and the attendance was 14, 16, 16. Bay Area Open sold out in like 1 day. There is a reason for this. The current missions and structure, in conjunction with the overall balance, has 40k in the best state i've ever seen it for tournament players. Why disrupt the apple cart, when you can just have judges enforce rules against slowplaying?
Galas wrote: Not all turns are equal. The first ones are much longer than the last ones. The turns 4-5 of a game you normally can do them in 6-8 minutes (Yeah I move this unit... I shot this two units... I have nothing to charge or in combat. Done)
Conversely, they can also take longer. I've had endgames where there's a whole bunch of combats across the board, and allocating your attacks to the decimated units is crucial (e.g. my six guardsmen are putting two attacks on this one remaining Fire Warrior and five attacks on the Suit... actually, no, four on the Fire Warrior, he needs to die. Then over here my Sororitas Canoness is putting 2 Eviscerator attacks on your commander, and 2 on the crisis bodyguard, because I have to finish them off to get this objective...). As the number of units decreases, the amount of time can actually increase because you have to be VERY careful with how you play.
If you think the game is better at higher point values but only going to turn 3or 4 is acceptable, awesome, but the rules and missions should be rewritten to take that into account.
They are.
Secondaries max at 4 points each. So you can achieve 4 points of position based secondaries in 4 turns. And with progressive scoring, everyone has equal objective & kill scoring opportunities over that time. Rules are also written such that it is "final turn," meaning you can score final turn points regardless of when the game ends.
Just be aware of how long the game is taking and plan accordingly.
Once you've scored 12 points each on secondaries (entirely feasible) - you're looking at most likely 2 points per player for kill/hold. Then it's just a question of who gets the bonuses, which is 0-3 points depending.
At that point if you're on turn 4 and behind by 7 points, odds are good you're not winning the game. So playing it out becomes an exercise in how much can you score, instead of can you actually win.
What about unit design, like Manticores or Power from Pain or Deathstrike Missiles or any number of other random things that are based on turn number, and don't start seeing their effects (or, alternatively, lose effectiveness) around Turn 4?
Galas wrote: Not all turns are equal. The first ones are much longer than the last ones. The turns 4-5 of a game you normally can do them in 6-8 minutes (Yeah I move this unit... I shot this two units... I have nothing to charge or in combat. Done)
Conversely, they can also take longer. I've had endgames where there's a whole bunch of combats across the board, and allocating your attacks to the decimated units is crucial (e.g. my six guardsmen are putting two attacks on this one remaining Fire Warrior and five attacks on the Suit... actually, no, four on the Fire Warrior, he needs to die. Then over here my Sororitas Canoness is putting 2 Eviscerator attacks on your commander, and 2 on the crisis bodyguard, because I have to finish them off to get this objective...). As the number of units decreases, the amount of time can actually increase because you have to be VERY careful with how you play.
I don't know what to say. I normally think all of that in my opponent turn. When my turn start I have allready decided an strategy. It can change based in rolls, etc... but the basic is allready settled.
Galas wrote: Not all turns are equal. The first ones are much longer than the last ones. The turns 4-5 of a game you normally can do them in 6-8 minutes (Yeah I move this unit... I shot this two units... I have nothing to charge or in combat. Done)
Conversely, they can also take longer. I've had endgames where there's a whole bunch of combats across the board, and allocating your attacks to the decimated units is crucial (e.g. my six guardsmen are putting two attacks on this one remaining Fire Warrior and five attacks on the Suit... actually, no, four on the Fire Warrior, he needs to die. Then over here my Sororitas Canoness is putting 2 Eviscerator attacks on your commander, and 2 on the crisis bodyguard, because I have to finish them off to get this objective...). As the number of units decreases, the amount of time can actually increase because you have to be VERY careful with how you play.
I don't know what to say. I normally think all of that in my opponent turn. When my turn start I have allready decided an strategy. It can change based in rolls, etc... but the basic is allready settled.
I try to plan in my opponent's turn too... but SURPRISE! his commander killed my Canoness in the last roll of the last assault phase. Redirect the attacks! Change your charge or shooting plan, now that he's free from combat! Decide who to charge with first! Oh, and don't forget now you need to kill the suits on the objective to take that into account... and the game might just go on to turn 6 so try to hold at least something from your dilapidated and diminishing army in reserve...
IG is a horrible example because they break the game in so many ways. The offensive output of that army in the first 4 turns is absolutely bananas, and their game turns take *FOREVER* because of all the orders, and the fact that they're shooting with so much stuff thanks to infinite range.
As a Tyranids player I don't have much of my shooting live past turn 3 so i can't really relate to the concept of having badass shooting models live through 4 turns.
If orders had a hard cap of 2 per army I bet the average game length would improve by a whole turn. not even kidding. Not suggesting this as a nerf but good night IG take forever.
Galas wrote: Not all turns are equal. The first ones are much longer than the last ones. The turns 4-5 of a game you normally can do them in 6-8 minutes (Yeah I move this unit... I shot this two units... I have nothing to charge or in combat. Done)
Conversely, they can also take longer. I've had endgames where there's a whole bunch of combats across the board, and allocating your attacks to the decimated units is crucial (e.g. my six guardsmen are putting two attacks on this one remaining Fire Warrior and five attacks on the Suit... actually, no, four on the Fire Warrior, he needs to die. Then over here my Sororitas Canoness is putting 2 Eviscerator attacks on your commander, and 2 on the crisis bodyguard, because I have to finish them off to get this objective...). As the number of units decreases, the amount of time can actually increase because you have to be VERY careful with how you play.
I don't know what to say. I normally think all of that in my opponent turn. When my turn start I have allready decided an strategy. It can change based in rolls, etc... but the basic is allready settled.
I try to plan in my opponent's turn too... but SURPRISE! his commander killed my Canoness in the last roll of the last assault phase. Redirect the attacks! Change your charge or shooting plan, now that he's free from combat! Decide who to charge with first! Oh, and don't forget now you need to kill the suits on the objective to take that into account... and the game might just go on to turn 6 so try to hold at least something from your dilapidated and diminishing army in reserve...
This just seems like poor planning from earlier in the game, you should be fairly aware during each turn what the possible outcomes are and have at least a framework of a plan in place for each given occurrence. Stuff like this makes no sense to me, I'm an average guy by almost every regard yet I have no problems framing up the sequence of a turn based on the available inputs. Like you knew the cannoness was in a vulnerable position and COULD die so you'd plan for the chance it happens right? You saw him move the suits to the objective in his turn and you know what capacity you have to deal with them based on your current resources. These are all known factors and with just a little predictive thinking you should be able to put together the structure of a plan for each turn.
Marmatag wrote: IG is a horrible example because they break the game in so many ways. The offensive output of that army in the first 4 turns is absolutely bananas, and their game turns take *FOREVER* because of all the orders, and the fact that they're shooting with so much stuff thanks to infinite range.
As a Tyranids player I don't have much of my shooting live past turn 3 so i can't really relate to the concept of having badass shooting models live through 4 turns.
In my experience, it's actually IG who are OP in tournaments because they're only 4 turns. In my regular, untimed, more casual meta, IG players are usually pulling ahead early and then the other army claws its way back in the game by turn 5 or 6, mostly by hemming the enemy into their deployment zone with early rapid maneuver and then grinding the guard army away, touching as many shooting units as possible, until they win.
This is, of course, provided the IGwunderwaffe that instantly slay Martel's marines for just being on the table don't utterly wipe the enemy out. But that really hasn't been the local experience - though it may seem like it after taking 3 turns of shooting. People just overcome the psychological effects of such an alpha strike and press on to victory.
Galas wrote: Not all turns are equal. The first ones are much longer than the last ones. The turns 4-5 of a game you normally can do them in 6-8 minutes (Yeah I move this unit... I shot this two units... I have nothing to charge or in combat. Done)
Conversely, they can also take longer. I've had endgames where there's a whole bunch of combats across the board, and allocating your attacks to the decimated units is crucial (e.g. my six guardsmen are putting two attacks on this one remaining Fire Warrior and five attacks on the Suit... actually, no, four on the Fire Warrior, he needs to die. Then over here my Sororitas Canoness is putting 2 Eviscerator attacks on your commander, and 2 on the crisis bodyguard, because I have to finish them off to get this objective...). As the number of units decreases, the amount of time can actually increase because you have to be VERY careful with how you play.
I don't know what to say. I normally think all of that in my opponent turn. When my turn start I have allready decided an strategy. It can change based in rolls, etc... but the basic is allready settled.
I try to plan in my opponent's turn too... but SURPRISE! his commander killed my Canoness in the last roll of the last assault phase. Redirect the attacks! Change your charge or shooting plan, now that he's free from combat! Decide who to charge with first! Oh, and don't forget now you need to kill the suits on the objective to take that into account... and the game might just go on to turn 6 so try to hold at least something from your dilapidated and diminishing army in reserve...
This just seems like poor planning from earlier in the game, you should be fairly aware during each turn what the possible outcomes are and have at least a framework of a plan in place for each given occurrence. Stuff like this makes no sense to me, I'm an average guy by almost every regard yet I have no problems framing up the sequence of a turn based on the available inputs. Like you knew the cannoness was in a vulnerable position and COULD die so you'd plan for the chance it happens right? You saw him move the suits to the objective in his turn and you know what capacity you have to deal with them based on your current resources. These are all known factors and with just a little predictive thinking you should be able to put together the structure of a plan for each turn.
Usually, when it's to the end of the game, I don't have enough resources left for "backup" plans. Take my last game for example: I had a single superheavy, an astrotelepath, and a lord commissar left. I needed one point, which in Kill Confirmed is a single unit dead. The commissar was in the middle of the board, the astrotelepath was in combat with a biker mek, and the superheavy had free reign in the enemy DZ. My plan was to wipe out an enemy unit with the superheavy. He had a few orks left and whatnot. So I wipe a unit down to the nob who suffers 1 wound, in shooting. I charge, get 3 hits, (as one would expect from a 9 attack superheavy hitting on 5s) and I think "wow, this is good stuff, I'm definitely going to kill him wounding on 2s and ignoring saves".
So I rolled 3 ones and lost the game.
What was my backup plan, make a 34" charge with the commissar? Or how about like a 50" charge with the astrotelepath?
Firstly, i just want to say i accept that my timings and maths was somewhat hyperbole, but, they were meant as an example to highlight that, given some thought, given some planning you can work through games at a good pace with lots of dice rolling and lots of movement.
Unit - while i agree, that the first turn would take ~70 minutes, and if we are accepting a 20-30 min pre game, we'd be down to a remaining time of 80 minutes.Not a lot of time, i accept, but, i'd argue that after that first turn, following turns would be substantially quicker due to the amount of attrition both army would have suffered - or at least 1 of the armies. Combat is a weird phase from the time point of view. Yes, you roll more dice, but, it also has the impact of reducing future dice rolling for both players, and potentially reduces time from other aspects - such as no shooting phase for units.
As for the "unexpected" interactions - such as the SM banner, if 5 marines are taking 2-3 minutes to roll 5 d6, roll up to 10 d6, roll up to 10 d6, followed by saves, then that player is wasting time. Harsh? Maybe, but a fair interpretation. I accept that other interactions will take longer (soul burst etc) but, i think there has to come a time when everyone just flat out accepts that 99% of the time, they could player faster if they wanted to.
Please forgive me if i'm coming across as confrontational or overbearing etc - i just believe that more often than not, issues with time comes down to the players themselves, but, most players won't accept that.
A good example, is that elite army taking longer for a turn than a tyranid horde army. The issue there, is nothing to do with the game. It is simply the player - even if it was something like a Grey Knight army, with every unit moving, every unit casting powers, shooting and charging, there is no way the turn length should be longer than a tyranid horde turn length.
The only other issue, that i think needs fixing, that is outside of player control to a certain degree (the player still has a HUGE impact on it though) is deployment. The 1 unit at a time system really does eat into time - again though, how much of the time can be saved by the players themselves is something that needs answering. In most tournaments, you have a fixed deployment, fixed objectives and fixed missions. This part of the setup - to me, is as much the TO's responsibility as it is the players. Now, i get that it's waaaaay harder on something like the LVO scale of things, but, in smaller events and with players finishing games at different times, next round table setup is possible. This was showcased fantastically at the LCO in Jan.
If people are willing and able - and importantly practised in the tournament environment, i'd like to suggest a dakka experiment. It would simply be, 2 players playing Chapter Approved missions (score at end of turn ones) and timing their games down to deployment and player turn levels. Games would be played on a pre-determined table (objectives, mission and deployment type pre-set) and would be 2k points. (timer would of course be stopped at the end of each player turn to note down times and thoughts). It goes without saying, that the players should be intentionally trying their best not to deliberately waste time. Games would also go to their natural conclusion, not to a time limit.
Then, using the army lists, recorded times, and player comments we can then start to build a picture. (and gives us an opportunity to prove my thoughts to be wrong )
Who would be willing to do something like this, if i collate all the data and feed it back to everyone?
That has 0 bearing on your initial statement of 'the game plays slow because of changes in input (i.e. my cannoness unexpectedly died). That scenario there was only one choice, this is about being time efficient not weather or not you're a good player. In your scenario its easy because there is only 1 choice, the game in theory slows down when there are multiple choices available because people cannot deal with the various possible input output scenarios.
Kdash wrote: Firstly, i just want to say i accept that my timings and maths was somewhat hyperbole, but, they were meant as an example to highlight that, given some thought, given some planning you can work through games at a good pace with lots of dice rolling and lots of movement.
Unit - while i agree, that the first turn would take ~70 minutes, and if we are accepting a 20-30 min pre game, we'd be down to a remaining time of 80 minutes.Not a lot of time, i accept, but, i'd argue that after that first turn, following turns would be substantially quicker due to the amount of attrition both army would have suffered - or at least 1 of the armies. Combat is a weird phase from the time point of view. Yes, you roll more dice, but, it also has the impact of reducing future dice rolling for both players, and potentially reduces time from other aspects - such as no shooting phase for units.
As for the "unexpected" interactions - such as the SM banner, if 5 marines are taking 2-3 minutes to roll 5 d6, roll up to 10 d6, roll up to 10 d6, followed by saves, then that player is wasting time. Harsh? Maybe, but a fair interpretation. I accept that other interactions will take longer (soul burst etc) but, i think there has to come a time when everyone just flat out accepts that 99% of the time, they could player faster if they wanted to.
Please forgive me if i'm coming across as confrontational or overbearing etc - i just believe that more often than not, issues with time comes down to the players themselves, but, most players won't accept that.
A good example, is that elite army taking longer for a turn than a tyranid horde army. The issue there, is nothing to do with the game. It is simply the player - even if it was something like a Grey Knight army, with every unit moving, every unit casting powers, shooting and charging, there is no way the turn length should be longer than a tyranid horde turn length.
The only other issue, that i think needs fixing, that is outside of player control to a certain degree (the player still has a HUGE impact on it though) is deployment. The 1 unit at a time system really does eat into time - again though, how much of the time can be saved by the players themselves is something that needs answering. In most tournaments, you have a fixed deployment, fixed objectives and fixed missions. This part of the setup - to me, is as much the TO's responsibility as it is the players. Now, i get that it's waaaaay harder on something like the LVO scale of things, but, in smaller events and with players finishing games at different times, next round table setup is possible. This was showcased fantastically at the LCO in Jan.
If people are willing and able - and importantly practised in the tournament environment, i'd like to suggest a dakka experiment. It would simply be, 2 players playing Chapter Approved missions (score at end of turn ones) and timing their games down to deployment and player turn levels. Games would be played on a pre-determined table (objectives, mission and deployment type pre-set) and would be 2k points. (timer would of course be stopped at the end of each player turn to note down times and thoughts). It goes without saying, that the players should be intentionally trying their best not to deliberately waste time. Games would also go to their natural conclusion, not to a time limit.
Then, using the army lists, recorded times, and player comments we can then start to build a picture. (and gives us an opportunity to prove my thoughts to be wrong )
Who would be willing to do something like this, if i collate all the data and feed it back to everyone?
I've been practicing playing with chess clocks lately, so it shouldn't be too hard to record.
If we're putting down how long our turns take, in my area it seems to go:
~80 minutes for both players to setup and do T1.
~40 minutes for both players to do T2.
~20 minutes for both players to do T3.
~15 minutes for both to do T4.
~10 minutes for both to do T5.
~5 or less to do T6-T7.
2 hours and 50 minutes, ish. Now we use NOVA structure, which last year allowed 3 hours for a match, but I did not notice many tables at NOVA struggling to naturally finish within that time limit nor does my local meta struggle to finish in that time limit.
So maybe just try raising it to 3 hours first? I just can't fathom how anybodies' games take longer than 3 hours without substantial rules referencing or long pauses before each action.
Farseer_V2 wrote: That has 0 bearing on your initial statement of 'the game plays slow because of changes in input (i.e. my cannoness unexpectedly died). That scenario there was only one choice, this is about being time efficient not weather or not you're a good player. In your scenario its easy because there is only 1 choice, the game in theory slows down when there are multiple choices available because people cannot deal with the various possible input output scenarios.
Alright, sure, players just need to git good. We can stop holding tournaments until they learn their lesson.
There really needs to be an eye roll emoji.
EDIT: Yes, three hours has been a positive experience for me as well. Like I said, by the time you get to four hours my brain is fried, so 3 seems excellent.
Right, tomorrow, (probably while at work... cos... Unless the "Beast from the East" snows me in...) i'll put together a frame work for the idea of gathering game time data. I'll then reach out for suggestions, then try to reach out to various places to get the word out and info coming in.
I believe it's worth trying, even if it just helps support the idea that tournaments in 40k are completely impractical
Farseer_V2 wrote: That has 0 bearing on your initial statement of 'the game plays slow because of changes in input (i.e. my cannoness unexpectedly died). That scenario there was only one choice, this is about being time efficient not weather or not you're a good player. In your scenario its easy because there is only 1 choice, the game in theory slows down when there are multiple choices available because people cannot deal with the various possible input output scenarios.
Alright, sure, players just need to git good. We can stop holding tournaments until they learn their lesson.
There really needs to be an eye roll emoji.
EDIT:
Yes, three hours has been a positive experience for me as well. Like I said, by the time you get to four hours my brain is fried, so 3 seems excellent.
They should 100% endeavor to be better (as should I) - everyone should always be looking for ways to improve. Cancelling tournaments has nothing to do with that - self improvement should always be the goal, be it in hobby or work.
Farseer_V2 wrote: That has 0 bearing on your initial statement of 'the game plays slow because of changes in input (i.e. my cannoness unexpectedly died). That scenario there was only one choice, this is about being time efficient not weather or not you're a good player. In your scenario its easy because there is only 1 choice, the game in theory slows down when there are multiple choices available because people cannot deal with the various possible input output scenarios.
Alright, sure, players just need to git good. We can stop holding tournaments until they learn their lesson.
There really needs to be an eye roll emoji.
EDIT:
Yes, three hours has been a positive experience for me as well. Like I said, by the time you get to four hours my brain is fried, so 3 seems excellent.
They should 100% endeavor to be better (as should I) - everyone should always be looking for ways to improve. Cancelling tournaments has nothing to do with that - self improvement should always be the goal, be it in hobby or work.
Some people don't have the time or commitment needed to get better, while others have skill caps that would take more effort than they're willing to put into the hobby to overcome. Still others aren't stressed enough in their metas to improve, and only visit a few tournaments a year, while others simply blame their army, decide it is unplayably bad, and never improve.
I think it's asking a bit much of people to "git good or don't come to GTs" when there's all these factors to consider. I don't disagree that self-improvement is a good goal, but not everyone has infinite energy, and 40k is, fundamentally, merely a game. I know I put far more energy into work than I do into 40k, and I consider myself one of the most active 40kers in my community (looking for a game tonight, in fact). I totally see how others don't take it seriously enough to meaningfully or quickly improve.
Farseer_V2 wrote: That has 0 bearing on your initial statement of 'the game plays slow because of changes in input (i.e. my cannoness unexpectedly died). That scenario there was only one choice, this is about being time efficient not weather or not you're a good player. In your scenario its easy because there is only 1 choice, the game in theory slows down when there are multiple choices available because people cannot deal with the various possible input output scenarios.
Alright, sure, players just need to git good. We can stop holding tournaments until they learn their lesson.
There really needs to be an eye roll emoji.
EDIT:
Yes, three hours has been a positive experience for me as well. Like I said, by the time you get to four hours my brain is fried, so 3 seems excellent.
They should 100% endeavor to be better (as should I) - everyone should always be looking for ways to improve. Cancelling tournaments has nothing to do with that - self improvement should always be the goal, be it in hobby or work.
Some people don't have the time or commitment needed to get better, while others have skill caps that would take more effort than they're willing to put into the hobby to overcome. Still others aren't stressed enough in their metas to improve, and only visit a few tournaments a year, while others simply blame their army, decide it is unplayably bad, and never improve.
I think it's asking a bit much of people to "git good or don't come to GTs" when there's all these factors to consider. I don't disagree that self-improvement is a good goal, but not everyone has infinite energy, and 40k is, fundamentally, merely a game. I know I put far more energy into work than I do into 40k, and I consider myself one of the most active 40kers in my community (looking for a game tonight, in fact). I totally see how others don't take it seriously enough to meaningfully or quickly improve.
I don't accept excuses in this regard. Getting better doesn't have to be monumental, it can be small incremental wins (finishing a game 5 minutes faster than your previous game). I know this is a personal thing but there is nothing I am passionate about (my hobbies and my career) that I'm not always striving to be better at, even if it's just a small win for the day. And ultimately I've never asked that those players not come to GTs, only that they not be given an outsized voice as far as influencing those events is concerned. Everyone is welcome to attend (and honestly the middle low tables tend to be a lot of fun). If you aren't trying to get better why should you get to whine that the GT doesn't cater to you?
I think it's asking a bit much of people to "git good or don't come to GTs" when there's all these factors to consider. I don't disagree that self-improvement is a good goal, but not everyone has infinite energy, and 40k is, fundamentally, merely a game. I know I put far more energy into work than I do into 40k, and I consider myself one of the most active 40kers in my community (looking for a game tonight, in fact). I totally see how others don't take it seriously enough to meaningfully or quickly improve.
I don't accept excuses in this regard. Getting better doesn't have to be monumental, it can be small incremental wins (finishing a game 5 minutes faster than your previous game). I know this is a personal thing but there is nothing I am passionate about (my hobbies and my career) that I'm not always striving to be better at, even if it's just a small win for the day. And ultimately I've never asked that those players not come to GTs, only that they not be given an outsized voice as far as influencing those events is concerned. Everyone is welcome to attend (and honestly the middle low tables tend to be a lot of fun). If you aren't trying to get better why should you get to whine that the GT doesn't cater to you?
Farseer_V2 wrote:I don't accept excuses in this regard. Getting better doesn't have to be monumental, it can be small incremental wins (finishing a game 5 minutes faster than your previous game). I know this is a personal thing but there is nothing I am passionate about (my hobbies and my career) that I'm not always striving to be better at, even if it's just a small win for the day. And ultimately I've never asked that those players not come to GTs, only that they not be given an outsized voice as far as influencing those events is concerned. Everyone is welcome to attend (and honestly the middle low tables tend to be a lot of fun). If you aren't trying to get better why should you get to whine that the GT doesn't cater to you?
Marmatag wrote:This guy gets it.
The reason it is bad that GTs don't cater to casual players is that GW does the balancing around GTs (and competitive players at least on DakkaDakka think this is a good thing). So having a major, insurmountable difference between casual and competitive play means that GW is balancing around a paradigm that a majority of its players don't play to. If the rules are different, then the balance changes. Everyone should play by the same rules, if you're going to select only as "subset" of everyone to balance by. If your gaming method excludes the majority of players because of its rules, then it's not a good litmus test of how balanced the game is for everyone.
Like I've been saying this whole thread.
I'm completely okay with tournaments having their own rules, as long as GW recognizes that many of the balance issues that crop up in those tournaments may not exist in casual play, and that casual play may have some balance issues that do not show up in tournament play. But I've had competitive players here on dakkadakka scream till their eyes bleed that competitive play balance is balance for everyone - even though the rules (and therefore meta, and therefore balance) are different.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Deviantduck- have you actually used a chess clock to play a game or 2 of 40K or are you just theory moaning? If you have played with a clock then what, specifically, made the game harder for you to play? If you haven't tried to use a chess clock then maybe you should before you make a fool of yourself by pleading "It's too hard to push a button."
I have used chess clocks before. They are great for Chess. Or Checkers. Or Chutes and Ladders or other games with simple interactions like Warmahordes. There's a very long locked thread about LVO and chess clocks in the Tournaments forums, so I won't go on about how terrible of an idea it is for 40k.
If they become the norm in 40k, so be it. I'm not going to stop playing the game or stop going to tournaments, but I am going to complain about it every chance I get.
I usually don't like "git gud" as an attitude but some basics , and not so basics, are expected when you attend an event.
The game is designed for 5 turns or more. Playing less often due to time issues. Breaks certain armies (nids for instance).
And as Reece said in the latest FLG podcast: "How is it fair that in a 2.5 hour game one guy gets 1.5 hours of play?"
If you know chess clocks are a thing in a tournament and you know your army doesn't work in that time limit. Adjust your list. A TO busting out one unexpectedly? That's just bad form.
Marmatag wrote: What balance decision do you feel was based around tournaments that doesn't benefit casual play?
You need to demonstrate:
(a) decisions are being made based solely on tournament data
and
(b) that these decisions didn't benefit casual tables, too.
It's not necessarily that it's happened yet, because I don't know GW's balancing process. It's that people claim that's what's best for the game. If people stopped claiming that balancing around tournament play makes the game better for non-tournament players, I'd stop worrying about it and get on with my casual gaming.
An example of what could happen are Manticore changes. In my fairly non-competitive, casual meta, the Manticore spammer is actually a fairly easy list to play against, because all you have to do is "endure" for four turns, and then come out and win the game. People bring more fortifications, for example, because enduring enemy firepower the first two turns using a 30-wound Toughness 10 monstrosity into which your troops can go is actually a fairly good tactic, when you can get out Turn 3 or 4 and still have up to half the game to play. In a tournament, that would be suicide. But people might make the Manticore more expensive, because in 4-turn tournament games it's amazing, and might make fortifications cheaper because you never see them, which could throw everything out of whack.
Farseer_V2 wrote:I don't accept excuses in this regard. Getting better doesn't have to be monumental, it can be small incremental wins (finishing a game 5 minutes faster than your previous game). I know this is a personal thing but there is nothing I am passionate about (my hobbies and my career) that I'm not always striving to be better at, even if it's just a small win for the day. And ultimately I've never asked that those players not come to GTs, only that they not be given an outsized voice as far as influencing those events is concerned. Everyone is welcome to attend (and honestly the middle low tables tend to be a lot of fun). If you aren't trying to get better why should you get to whine that the GT doesn't cater to you?
Marmatag wrote:This guy gets it.
The reason it is bad that GTs don't cater to casual players is that GW does the balancing around GTs (and competitive players at least on DakkaDakka think this is a good thing). So having a major, insurmountable difference between casual and competitive play means that GW is balancing around a paradigm that a majority of its players don't play to. If the rules are different, then the balance changes. Everyone should play by the same rules, if you're going to select only as "subset" of everyone to balance by. If your gaming method excludes the majority of players because of its rules, then it's not a good litmus test of how balanced the game is for everyone.
Like I've been saying this whole thread.
I'm completely okay with tournaments having their own rules, as long as GW recognizes that many of the balance issues that crop up in those tournaments may not exist in casual play, and that casual play may have some balance issues that do not show up in tournament play. But I've had competitive players here on dakkadakka scream till their eyes bleed that competitive play balance is balance for everyone - even though the rules (and therefore meta, and therefore balance) are different.
You A) continue to cite this with no real evidence that this is how GW balances the game and B) never offering an alternative solution for GW to gather data. How else is GW going to look at the current state of the game sans the results of tournament play? And ultimately yes competitive balance is balance for everyone, if the top table players cannot break the game the neither can you or your local.
I just can't get behind this. It would completely force me out of the a workable brigade while others have no issues at all. It also makes it so some units are no longer on my radar. I'm sure GW could tweak things, but it throws the whole game into disarray for lots of people.
Many armies can't get a workable brigade at 2000. The cheapest Eldar brigade clocks in at 1065, while the cheapest Harlequin brigade is 1416. Neither of those choices are good starting points, nor will they result in competitive armies on the table. The game is already in disarray for most people because the generic force org charts don't cater equally to all armies. Most people except that and make due with what they have. At 1500 points, choices have to be made. You can't have your cake and eat it too like at 2000 points.
Farseer_V2 wrote: You A) continue to cite this with no real evidence that this is how GW balances the game and B) never offering an alternative solution for GW to gather data. How else is GW going to look at the current state of the game sans the results of tournament play? And ultimately yes competitive balance is balance for everyone, if the top table players cannot break the game the neither can you or your local.
My post laid out my issues: 1) I have no idea how GW balances the game. 2) My argument is against people who say competitive play should be how they balance it, whether or not that is the case. 3) That's a very good question, which I don't have an answer to. This is why I think it is better to make tournaments play by the same rules as everyone else, or, in other words, make tournaments accessible to everyone, which you seem to be against. 4) That's not true at all, because what's broken in 4 turns may not be so broken in 7, and what's broken in 7 turns may not be broken in 4. There are plenty of turn-based mechanics in this game that are either over-emphasized by 4 turn games (Manticores) or under-emphasized by 4 turn games (deathstrikes, Power from Pain).
EDIT: Even command point expenditures and the utility of stratagems is altered by game length. Command points are more important (or alternatively, less important, depending on your philosophy) depending on game length. For example, I think 9 is barely adequate at 2k, and 12 is better, while I know some tournament players who take 6-7 CP and call it a day. They probably do the same stratagems as me or others, but only have to do them for 4 turns instead of 7, or 2 turns instead of 3, or whatever. They don't have to make their CP last as long.
Marmatag wrote: What balance decision do you feel was based around tournaments that doesn't benefit casual play?
You need to demonstrate:
(a) decisions are being made based solely on tournament data
and
(b) that these decisions didn't benefit casual tables, too.
It's not necessarily that it's happened yet, because I don't know GW's balancing process. It's that people claim that's what's best for the game. If people stopped claiming that balancing around tournament play makes the game better for non-tournament players, I'd stop worrying about it and get on with my casual gaming.
An example of what could happen are Manticore changes. In my fairly non-competitive, casual meta, the Manticore spammer is actually a fairly easy list to play against, because all you have to do is "endure" for four turns, and then come out and win the game. People bring more fortifications, for example, because enduring enemy firepower the first two turns using a 30-wound Toughness 10 monstrosity into which your troops can go is actually a fairly good tactic, when you can get out Turn 3 or 4 and still have up to half the game to play. In a tournament, that would be suicide. But people might make the Manticore more expensive, because in 4-turn tournament games it's amazing, and might make fortifications cheaper because you never see them, which could throw everything out of whack.
The issue here is that just because this is happening at your local meta doesn't change that these are breakable things. What are you going to do when, in your casual meta, someone comes in and does break the hell out of manticores by playing them properly (i.e. not just spamming them)? The tournament exposes that they're broken not just from a turn limit but from a usage stand point (for the record I don't think Manticores are that big an issue). That's what you're failing to grasp - what's happening at your local is a result of environment and skill but all it takes is one new guy to come in completely wreck up the place because of bad balance.
Farseer_V2 wrote: You A) continue to cite this with no real evidence that this is how GW balances the game and B) never offering an alternative solution for GW to gather data. How else is GW going to look at the current state of the game sans the results of tournament play? And ultimately yes competitive balance is balance for everyone, if the top table players cannot break the game the neither can you or your local.
My post laid out my issues:
1) I have no idea how GW balances the game.
2) My argument is against people who say competitive play should be how they balance it, whether or not that is the case.
3) That's a very good question, which I don't have an answer to. This is why I think it is better to make tournaments play by the same rules as everyone else, or, in other words, make tournaments accessible to everyone, which you seem to be against.
4) That's not true at all, because what's broken in 4 turns may not be so broken in 7, and what's broken in 7 turns may not be broken in 4. There are plenty of turn-based mechanics in this game that are either over-emphasized by 4 turn games (Manticores) or under-emphasized by 4 turn games (deathstrikes, Power from Pain).
Tournaments are for everyone - not everyone is going to be good at them. Altering them to make them more accessible won't actually make them more accessible - or do you think that by changing the points levels and time limits Nick Nanvati isn't going to be as good as he is or Josh Death? You can't make a tournament more accessible because there are always going to be better than other players who create skew.
Your meta is stale and people are bringing hard counters.
No game should be balanced with list tailoring in mind. This is how that Katherine person was boasting about being 80-0 at the start of 8th edition. She list tailored hard core to face her opponents lists and smashed them in a casual meta. Remember Sisters of Battle win/loss in the game tracking thread? It was nonsense. How do you balance around that?
And open war cards and numerous missions have games ending at 5 turns. Meaning if you look at 40k holistically - tournaments and casual - manticores fire for 80% of the expected game length across all formats.
What makes tournament play balance good for the game is the sheer volume of data being recorded about how the game is played. Casual vs tournament is irrelevant. The way the most people play the game should be considered.
If you want casual to be the basis for balance, start collecting & formalizing standardized casual play data from across the globe in a normalized, balanced, and generally unchanging format that you support.
I think you guys seriously don't understand the argument.
4 turns is not long enough for a game designed for 5, 6, or 7 turns. There are unit interactions, and entire army special rules, designed around game length, which are skewed in a meta where 4 turns is best turns.
"Using a manticore right" still means it can only fire for 4 turns, and it has a hard damage cap that another vehicle/unit might exceed over 5 or 7 turns, but cannot match in 4 turns. That's just a fact, and I'm surprised you disagree.
The problem with only using tournaments to influence balance (if this in fact the only data they are using on a large scale) is that it skews the unit choices to only the best units. The majority of players will field competitive lists meaning that certain units are not being played.
How does one balance a unit that is never taken? Random points drop? Rules tweak? Both of those can lead to some unintended consequences.
mokoshkana wrote: The problem with only using tournaments to influence balance (if this in fact the only data they are using on a large scale) is that it skews the unit choices to only the best units. The majority of players will field competitive lists meaning that certain units are not being played.
How does one balance a unit that is never taken? Random points drop? Rules tweak? Both of those can lead to some unintended consequences.
SLOWLY drop the points until you start seeing them.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think you guys seriously don't understand the argument.
4 turns is not long enough for a game designed for 5, 6, or 7 turns. There are unit interactions, and entire army special rules, designed around game length, which are skewed in a meta where 4 turns is best turns.
"Using a manticore right" still means it can only fire for 4 turns, and it has a hard damage cap that another vehicle/unit might exceed over 5 or 7 turns, but cannot match in 4 turns. That's just a fact, and I'm surprised you disagree.
1. I disagree that the game is intended to be 5+ turns. Please prove this.
2. You are not demonstrating that this is skewed. Simply because something has an effect based on later battle rounds doesn't mean that it is generally intended for this to come into play.
3. Damage on turns 5+ matter far less than damage on turns 1,2, and 3. Surprised you disagree.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think you guys seriously don't understand the argument.
4 turns is not long enough for a game designed for 5, 6, or 7 turns. There are unit interactions, and entire army special rules, designed around game length, which are skewed in a meta where 4 turns is best turns.
"Using a manticore right" still means it can only fire for 4 turns, and it has a hard damage cap that another vehicle/unit might exceed over 5 or 7 turns, but cannot match in 4 turns. That's just a fact, and I'm surprised you disagree.
No I get your argument, its just a bad argument because it starts from a flawed space. You start with 'in my casual meta this isn't broken' but you never acknowledge that your casual meta is susceptible to the same level of game breaking play that is seen in tournaments, You've fallen into this 'well the manticore is amazing in 4 but not in 7' rhythm which is still failing to address the total issue. Ultimately the manticore is one tank - it isn't markedly better in shorter games because even in 'proper' games it can still possibly shoot 80% of the game. The bigger issue is that tournaments exposes balance issues (Ynnari Dark Reapers and Spears are too good with 3 or 7 turns for example) and your casual meta is just as vulnerable to them as my competitive meta.
mokoshkana wrote: The problem with only using tournaments to influence balance (if this in fact the only data they are using on a large scale) is that it skews the unit choices to only the best units. The majority of players will field competitive lists meaning that certain units are not being played.
How does one balance a unit that is never taken? Random points drop? Rules tweak? Both of those can lead to some unintended consequences.
SLOWLY drop the points until you start seeing them.
This could absolutely work if GW did monthly "balance" patches. Unfortunately it appears that balancing is only to be done every 6 months. The last few editions only lasted an average of 3 years, meaning that about the time unit X was playable, a new edition would come out and press the reset button.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Marmatag wrote: 1. I disagree that the game is intended to be 5+ turns. Please prove this.
To be fair, if the mission is a random game length, its minimum 5 turns. Fixed game lengths usually tend to be 6 turns. If the game wasn't intended to last that long, then those turn numbers would probably lower...
Ehhm Marmatag almost every scenario in mathched play uses variable length wich is 5-7. With an extreme case in the open war in open play deck having no limit whatsoever.
Many armies can't get a workable brigade at 2000. The cheapest Eldar brigade clocks in at 1065, while the cheapest Harlequin brigade is 1416. Neither of those choices are good starting points, nor will they result in competitive armies on the table. The game is already in disarray for most people because the generic force org charts don't cater equally to all armies. Most people except that and make due with what they have. At 1500 points, choices have to be made. You can't have your cake and eat it too like at 2000 points.
But some CAN and even more can't. I'd care less about not getting cake if other people were still getting really good cake.
Many armies can't get a workable brigade at 2000. The cheapest Eldar brigade clocks in at 1065, while the cheapest Harlequin brigade is 1416. Neither of those choices are good starting points, nor will they result in competitive armies on the table. The game is already in disarray for most people because the generic force org charts don't cater equally to all armies. Most people except that and make due with what they have. At 1500 points, choices have to be made. You can't have your cake and eat it too like at 2000 points.
But some CAN and even more can't. I'd care less about not getting cake if other people were still getting really good cake.
Gotta be honest, not picking up whatever you're trying to say with your cake analogy.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think you guys seriously don't understand the argument.
4 turns is not long enough for a game designed for 5, 6, or 7 turns. There are unit interactions, and entire army special rules, designed around game length, which are skewed in a meta where 4 turns is best turns.
"Using a manticore right" still means it can only fire for 4 turns, and it has a hard damage cap that another vehicle/unit might exceed over 5 or 7 turns, but cannot match in 4 turns. That's just a fact, and I'm surprised you disagree.
1. I disagree that the game is intended to be 5+ turns. Please prove this.
2. You are not demonstrating that this is skewed. Simply because something has an effect based on later battle rounds doesn't mean that it is generally intended for this to come into play.
3. Damage on turns 5+ matter far less than damage on turns 1,2, and 3. Surprised you disagree.
1. i looked it up and in the case of the Drew Carey power from pain caps at T5 kinda messed up that an armies whole stick cant be fully used.
not that it should always be used in the case of being wiped but still.
Earth127 wrote: Every tournament has time limits. You need to actually get done and organised.
W40K is designed around turn number not time played. Apocalypse sixt edition and CA have ideas around time management the breaks system.
The problem with this argument is that its true of every competitive table top game out there I'm aware of. I cannot think of a game system in which a time limit is part of the base rules and not something that only applies to tournaments.
The problem with this argument is that its true of every competitive table top game out there I'm aware of. I cannot think of a game system in which a time limit is part of the base rules and not something that only applies to tournaments.
Kings of War has the time limit in their core rules as alternative to a capped number of turns (play 6 turns or 2 hours) and extra rules for timed games (about using chess clocks, also in the base rules)
You're conflating missions with a general rule. Missions have varying lengths.
If that is indeed the case why did GW place a time limit on their rounds? Surely they know that would result in games ending before turn 5?
Automatically Appended Next Post: The point is a time limit exists. So the claim that tournament games are intended to reach turn 5 isn't really accurate, for both GW and otherwise. If the intent was to reach turn 5, they wouldn't need a time limit, as the game would be designed to end in that time frame.
And, seriously, when you play your games, isn't the winner clearly determined by end of turn 3 already?
Just like amateur sports events, the problem seems (to me) to be trying to cram in too many games into too short a timeframe. If the game is played at 2K, allow sufficient time for that to be done, barring exceptions (like slow play, etc. that can be ruled against). Suggesting wholesale changes like lower points plus comp changes the game. You can have that event, but it's not the same game, and the experience changes. Allowing enough time seems to be the key. If that means fewer games per player adjust your brackets/scoring system. Running bare minimum times is a recipe for disaster.
Marmatag wrote: You're conflating missions with a general rule. Missions have varying lengths.
If that is indeed the case why did GW place a time limit on their rounds? Surely they know that would result in games ending before turn 5?
Automatically Appended Next Post: The point is a time limit exists. So the claim that tournament games are intended to reach turn 5 isn't really accurate, for both GW and otherwise. If the intent was to reach turn 5, they wouldn't need a time limit, as the game would be designed to end in that time frame.
And, seriously, when you play your games, isn't the winner clearly determined by end of turn 3 already?
A time limit exists, simply because it is an event with time restraints and set number of games. This has nothing to do with whether or not the game is balanced around turn numbers.
Ideally, time wouldn’t be an issue or a factor. Games could run until their natural end – however, you cant have 1 game running for 2 hours and 1 game running for 4 hours in round 1, and then still expect to play 2 more games that day. It is just completely impractical. In half my games at my last event, 2 went to/close to time, the other 4 ended before the 20 min last turn cut-off – as such I could determine that 66.6% of the time, 2.5 hours is enough for tournament games… However, this is such a tiny sample size.
I’d agree and say that the majority of games (in the tournament environment – not including casual) can be decided by turn 2-3, but, as others have said, certain armies and certain builds have distinct advantages going into later turns – of course, it all depends on match up though.
Going to start working on the frame work for some data gathering soon, I just need to think about how to “roll it out”.
Marmatag wrote: You're conflating missions with a general rule. Missions have varying lengths.
If that is indeed the case why did GW place a time limit on their rounds? Surely they know that would result in games ending before turn 5?
Automatically Appended Next Post: The point is a time limit exists. So the claim that tournament games are intended to reach turn 5 isn't really accurate, for both GW and otherwise. If the intent was to reach turn 5, they wouldn't need a time limit, as the game would be designed to end in that time frame.
And, seriously, when you play your games, isn't the winner clearly determined by end of turn 3 already?
Except game isn't designed to end in X timeframe. That's tournament's additional rule. GAME is designed for reaching turn 5+. Tournaments then decided for their own practical reasons to change the game to have additional restrictriction. but that's still changing how game is DESIGNED to be played. So tournaments needs to ensure that the POINT LEVEL of tournament is appropriate for the time allowed. If they make point sizes stupidly big for time allowed they are changing how game is DESIGNED to be played which means altering also balance of the game as it's SUPPOSED to be played.
Tournaments thus needs to either increase time or if that's not feasible drop point cost. Which at least for this poll is also what players want.
Ideally you should be able to finish a game within the time limit.
Finishing the game means playing it to an end, so all the turns. There are plenty games out there which have an even higher variance of turns than WH40k, and they still mange.
I have yet to see another game that is played in tournaments where it is normal that a game ends early. Time limits are there to enforce faster playing, not to make a tournament possible in the first place.
Therefore the game rules must be adjusted to enable finishing games in a timely manner. Reducing points could be one way, but changes to the rules to speed up certain things would also be a good thing.
Jidmah wrote: Ideally you should be able to finish a game within the time limit.
Finishing the game means playing it to an end, so all the turns. There are plenty games out there which have an even higher variance of turns than WH40k, and they still mange.
I have yet to see another game that is played in tournaments where it is normal that a game ends early. Time limits are there to enforce faster playing, not to make a tournament possible in the first place.
Therefore the game rules must be adjusted to enable finishing games in a timely manner. Reducing points could be one way, but changes to the rules to speed up certain things would also be a good thing.
Time limits are there completely to make tournaments possible. We currently have 2 forms of “general” tournament. The 1 day, 3 game events, and the 2 day 5-6 game events. These amount of games are generally picked as they provide (usually) a clear winner at the end of the swiss format (or at least the 6 game events do).
Time limits are then put on each game, because you only have so much time to get the event completed over 1 day/the weekend. Sure, they have an impact on the pace of the game, but, they aren’t there solely to do so.
Lots of games in tournaments end early. At the LVO, for example, at least 12% of the games played (313 games) ended early via tabling or concession. I would also argue that the LVO would be one the lower %age side of things, due to its elevated status and people playing slower in an attempt to not make mistakes. In my last event, 3 games (50% of my games) ended early. 2 of them, me tabling my opponent, the other, me getting tabled.
I am also of the opinion, that, in a large portion of games that fail to end due to time, the players themselves have to take a large portion of the blame, rather than the game itself. Hopefully, I’ll be able to start getting some data on this soon.
In the perfect world, a game would take 2.5-3 hours max every time, alternatively, a tournament could run over 3 days and 2 games a day – 1 morning, 1 afternoon. But, as we all know, that is basically impossible due to real life and work.
In the perfect world, a game would take 2.5-3 hours max every time, alternatively, a tournament could run over 3 days and 2 games a day – 1 morning, 1 afternoon. But, as we all know, that is basically impossible due to real life and work.
And to archieve that you can shock horror decrease point values if rules change so that it takes longer to play.
Tournaments don't have just time to round to alter with to ensure games end naturally rather than due to time. If they can't extend time for one game make rules so that games don't last so long.
This would also make 40k less expensive. Players always complain about price of game when players have much to blame on that part as well by insisting tournament point sizes keep going up and up and up. soon we play 3k tournaments with even more models and wonder why price of armies has gone up.
Marmatag wrote: You're conflating missions with a general rule. Missions have varying lengths.
So if "how to play a game" on page 183 is not a general rule, how to you play your games?
What is written on page 183?
The same as on page 15 of the core rules, that a game lasts 5 turns
there is no arguing that there are no rules that say how many turns a game has as it is even written in the free to download core rules
Kdash wrote: Time limits are there completely to make tournaments possible. We currently have 2 forms of “general” tournament. The 1 day, 3 game events, and the 2 day 5-6 game events. These amount of games are generally picked as they provide (usually) a clear winner at the end of the swiss format (or at least the 6 game events do).
Time limits are then put on each game, because you only have so much time to get the event completed over 1 day/the weekend. Sure, they have an impact on the pace of the game, but, they aren’t there solely to do so.
Lots of games in tournaments end early. At the LVO, for example, at least 12% of the games played (313 games) ended early via tabling or concession. I would also argue that the LVO would be one the lower %age side of things, due to its elevated status and people playing slower in an attempt to not make mistakes. In my last event, 3 games (50% of my games) ended early. 2 of them, me tabling my opponent, the other, me getting tabled.
I was talking about games that are not Warhammer 40k. I have played in dozens of MtG events and people going to time is the exception, not the norm. If going to time is the norm something is amiss and countermeasures need to be taken.
Note that in MtG there are rules against slow play that are enforced by judges, so people taking their sweet time or being stuck in analysis paralysis are a lot less common.
In general, I think judges as well organized as the DCI for MtG would be very good for WH40k events.
I would also not consider a tabling to be "ending the game early". You played the game to its conclusion. If I draw a perfect hand in MtG and my opponent draws nothing but junk a game can be over withing three or four turns (in some formats even sooner) - it is still a full game.
I am also of the opinion, that, in a large portion of games that fail to end due to time, the players themselves have to take a large portion of the blame, rather than the game itself. Hopefully, I’ll be able to start getting some data on this soon.
If a large portion of games go to time, this means that time is not enough for a large portion of the players. The average competitor should be able to play an average game within the time limit.
FLG's chess clocks will show if the players are to blame. If a lot of games end with certain armies no longer being able to play, the format needs to change.
In the perfect world, a game would take 2.5-3 hours max every time, alternatively, a tournament could run over 3 days and 2 games a day – 1 morning, 1 afternoon. But, as we all know, that is basically impossible due to real life and work.
Maybe we just have to play tournaments with less points - and GW needs to support that by enabling all armies to bring all the tools necessary at that point level.
When our group is doing a narrative campaign day, we play three games of 1500 points followed by a final battle with all players. We usually start at 10 AM and the final battle starts at 18 PM. If you consider that many of those players only play a few times a year and all the time consuming stuff that is going on in narrative games (gotta love the ones with guards), I think I'm not wrong to assume that practiced player should easily be able to fit four games of 1500 in eight hours.
Marmatag wrote: You're conflating missions with a general rule. Missions have varying lengths.
So if "how to play a game" on page 183 is not a general rule, how to you play your games?
What is written on page 183?
The same as on page 15 of the core rules, that a game lasts 5 turns
there is no arguing that there are no rules that say how many turns a game has as it is even written in the free to download core rules
I didn't see stuff on 183. Did you mean a different one? (Not that it really matters)
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yea I went over the book as best I can and i can't find anything that codifies the rounds outside of missions themselves.
Kdash wrote: I am also of the opinion, that, in a large portion of games that fail to end due to time, the players themselves have to take a large portion of the blame, rather than the game itself. Hopefully, I’ll be able to start getting some data on this soon.
This is 100% correct - the amount of time players waste at a table is unreal. If you start timing yourself you'll realize just how bad it is.
In my limited number of games, playing space marines, 1500 points seems pretty limiting in terms of what I can field. A lower point limit would hurt elite armies pretty badly. Whereas if you're playing something like Tyranids, Orks or Guard, 1500 points still affords you a ton of options.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yea I went over the book as best I can and i can't find anything that codifies the rounds outside of missions themselves.
The missions are an integral part of the game - I don't accept that that only having game length specified in the missions means it's somehow not important.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yea I went over the book as best I can and i can't find anything that codifies the rounds outside of missions themselves.
The missions are an integral part of the game - I don't accept that that only having game length specified in the missions means it's somehow not important.
I'm not claiming that. I think the general point is that there is not a defined standard and that it is subjective to the mission.
In my experience 2.5 vs 3 hour games makes a difference. That extra half hour is at least an extra game turn (meaning games go from reliably 3 turns to reliably 4 with most games reaching some sort of natural conclusion, tabling, concession or turn 5).
I think ITC should modify their missions to account for a 5 turn maximum, TOs and players need to plan for 3 hour games with 10 minutes MAX between them.
Throw in tourneys starting sooner (doors open at 8, first game at 9, 3 hours, lunch, 2x 3 hours w/ 10 minute break done and packed up by 8pm)
I also feel some sort of bonus for setting up in the least amount of time should count (not just number of drops but least amount of time taken) since I've noticed a lot of time wasted by armies taking forever to deploy.
Chess clocks could be okay but I just don't like the idea of someone forgetting to "end their clock" means pretty much an auto lose. With how interactive the turns are maybe some sort of clock score at the end of the game would be better. Write down your clock remaining at the end of the round and submit it with your round score. Players going over 1.5 hours of turn time would get a warning at the end of round 1 and some sort of penalty for subsequent rounds?
Clock time meaning total time of your turn (no clock switching for saves or other stuff.) This would require TOs to be nearby to field complaints of opponents trying to waste their opponents clock but I think this form of slow play would be much easier to spot by your opponent. Also since one game doesn't get you a penalty it seems a bit harder to game the system.
I think taken together games not getting to turn 5 would be few and far between and games reaching a natural conclusions (end of T5, concession or tabling) would be the overwhelming majority with games ending at/before turn 3 would fall back to anomalies.
There's a difference for allowing for up to X turns and then saying that game should be X turns.
What would really speed up the game would be a batch dice rule. When rolling over 50 dice, players can agree to use a batch dice rule which allows you to mathematically determine the outcome of a roll.
I have had people try to slow the game down by playing totally within the rules. I charged a squad of 10 guardsmen with 19 Genestealers. He demanded i roll all the dice. Then he rolled his saves. For reference, the odds of falling that far away from the pnorm such that the squad survives by at least 1 model is 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000310.
This kind of thing slows down games at any points level. And people will do this if they think they can gain an advantage by having the game end early.
Reemule wrote: Is it cheating to slow play if it will give you a win?
Cause it seems like some people don’t think it is..
It's not cheating, no. Cheating requires you break a rule. It's not a rule. It IS incredibly bad form, bad sportsmanship and still a bad thing to do, however.
Yeah its just an idea - I haven't fully fleshed it out but I think if you could speed up deployment it would drastically help speed up the game as a whole.
Not only will it increase the speed of one of the slowest portions of the game, but, it will also get people used to chess clocks, should, later down the line, they get fully introduced.
Yeah effectively you load lets say 8 minutes a piece - Start my clock, drop, swap to yours, drop, swap to mine, back and forth through the allotted time pool. Units that deepstrike are basically 'swap to you, deploying tzaangors in the webway, back to you'.
Addendum to Marmatag's questions about hordes (and this is just a rough idea) - maybe you have the caveat that you once you deploy the first 5 or 6 models of the unit you swap and deploy (this of course is effectively giving the horde army more time to deploy which may not be fair). Only other idea is start out with movement trays, deploy the perimeter and put the rest of the unit down in trays inside said footprint.
I think it's more one of those prepare for the tournament and why this needs to be anounced beforehand. If you know you can't play your army effectively in a certain format , don't. On the other the format being different than you expected is a big no-no.
What should tournaments use for point value? Points. Duh.
Seriously, though. I've found that lists work better when you have to agonize over getting everything in and have to compromise in the end. 1,500 has done this since 3rd, no need to change it now.
However, there were far less rules to memorize. No one had chapter tactics, strategems were super easy to remember because there were a whopping 3 of them, and many units had far simpler interactions than they do now. Not to mention warlord traits, new aura abilities, less weapon abilities, etc. From what I saw 
), how does that have any meaning?
in fact I haven't played my drukhari since 
)
