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I would like some opinions on a hypothetical situation.

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

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

Just wondering.

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

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

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

Also your poll is biased

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shas'O Dorian wrote:Also your poll is biased

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flip over to my tournament lists though and we get:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ailaros wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ailaros wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EDIT: Ninja'd.

It's not really fair...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+1