Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, I came in second in a tourniment recently because of a game that ended in my tau losing to orks even though in the next two matches I tabled both opponents. What essentially happened is that the tournie started a bit late so we lost some time at the start of our match, and by the time things properly started and everything was set up we were already half way out of time. The mission's objective was to hold 3 objectives at the end of the match, each objective worth 3 points and stuff like line breaking and FB were also in play. The game basically ended on turn two with the orc player bumb rushing me with boys and cornering me whilst he had some place holder units on all three objectives.

This brings me to a personal problem with orks. What happens if you just bum rush objectives with your green tide/fast trukks and play slow so the game ends before the person can table you? If I'd gotten to turn 3 and certainly 4 I would pretty much wiped the guy and took 2 out of three objectives, but slow play had lost me the game. The ork player wasn't being malicious and hold nothing against him and I'm nearly completely certain it was just a mix of slow start up and orks being slow playing by nature, but I feel annoyed with orks now. I've always found blob armies have the advantage of early game board control and fall off hard as they lose bodies and mobility, but they play slow. With a time limit in place, what's really keeping someone from playing slow and hoping early game board control wins them the match due to it ending on turn 2-3?

Call a judge. If someone is slow playing to the point that you're only finishing 2-3 turns then they're pretty blatantly cheating and should be removed from the tournament. Also, there is no excuse for the TO starting late and taking that time out of the first game. If they can't get things started on time then they need to move all of the times back so each round has the full time available.

Well since you only got half the time I would say that Turn 2 is almost right, especially when you consider the first turns are always the slowest because nothing is dead yet.

Orks (Depending on build) are a slow army to play because the only builds we have that are worth much require us to put close to 80+ models on the board. I have yet to do well in a tournament where I field less then 60 boyz minimum. When you put that many models on the table with bikers as support its becomes a bit harder to move everything quickly. Granted, in my build I only have about 6 units on the table totaling about 20 models (Bikers + Transports) But after turn 1 when they disembark, holy crap.

Also, if you knew the game was going to be over quickly because of time constraints you should probably have deployed a lot closer to the orks, unlike most tau games where you guys cower in the corner until you kill everything. I would say that the ork player used the knowledge that the game was going to end before turn 4 possibly turn 3 very well.

It sucks that you didn't get the proper amount of allocated time, but I'm afraid I don't really have too much sympathy. The Orks used their advantage in the game, their overwhelming numbers. Which lets face it, is accurate to the background.

In the circumstances you weren't able to use your normal natural advantage over your opponent to curb stomp them.

The sympathy I do have is that this was in a tournament and it was the poor planning of the TOs that cost you winning the tournament. So that part sucks. But a Tau army being taken by suprise by an Ork army really isn't something to cry about

I'll shed a single tear for your poor Tau, being bullied by those mean unfair ol' orks. How dare they bring something other than the four Approved Tournament Army Builds to a tournament.

All I have to say is wow to the comments in here.
If the situation was a marine player complaining about slow play there would be sympathy everwhere. I am starting to see a big double standard here.

OP the TO should have done something to the times for each round if starting over 30 minutes late and not just all in the first match.

 skullzz wrote:
All I have to say is wow to the comments in here.
If the situation was a marine player complaining about slow play there would be sympathy everwhere. I am starting to see a big double standard here.

OP the TO should have done something to the times for each round if starting over 30 minutes late and not just all in the first match.

A SM Player also doesn't have to bring 60-80 infantry per battle to have a chance and on average his list consists of about 1/2 the model count.

 skullzz wrote:
All I have to say is wow to the comments in here.
If the situation was a marine player complaining about slow play there would be sympathy everwhere. I am starting to see a big double standard here.

OP the TO should have done something to the times for each round if starting over 30 minutes late and not just all in the first match.

Um, nope. I'd probably make fun of a marine opponent more. Because Marine players have no problem with a list that includes 10 free razorbacks full of 5 man squads, and if you're trying to talk about slow play...

 skullzz wrote:
All I have to say is wow to the comments in here.
If the situation was a marine player complaining about slow play there would be sympathy everwhere. I am starting to see a big double standard here.

OP the TO should have done something to the times for each round if starting over 30 minutes late and not just all in the first match.

Oh come on... Pull the other one, it's got bells on. I've got nothing against the OP, but the Ork player used his natural advantage, as any savvy player should.

The real problem here was the poor planning of the tournament organisers.

Well that sucks dude. The TO really should have allowed some extra time if it started late. I appreciate that orks are in for a tough time when fighting...anyone, but winning due to time is hardly masterful planning by the ork player, it's just how it went.

At least it's experience for next time. If you see a large army across the table and you've lost time to begin with, see if you can get some extra time from the TO. I wouldn't blame the ork player though, playing an ork army with lots of models is like playing an eldar army with special rules. Just the way the army is.

No, I'm also shocked at some of these comments.

The Ork players won through no skill or luck - seriously, regardless of who was against the ork player, it shouldn't matter.
He time wasted, deliberately or not, and caused a player who we assume was playing by the rules to lose. How on earth is that fair?

Imagine that's a CSM player on the recieving end. It's not payback for having a better codex. It's not using a natural trait, because GW didn't factor time and tournament play into their rules. It's abuse, pure and simple.
Say I took Marines and took agonising care over each model, to the same extent as the Ork player. Or any other high tier army, preferably with lots of models, and took just as long as this ork player. People would be up in arms, calling him a TFG and WAAC player. Isn't that exactly what this Ork player's done?

To those of you saying that it's the Ork's strategy, to timewaste, I disagree. GW don't factor time into their rules, so it's not a written/intended plan. It's a bypassing of the system meant to encourage fair play, and turned on it's head. The whole point of lots of models is to absorb bullets and outnumber the enemy in attacks and wounds. Not to use a loophole and guarantee wins via cheating (intentional or not)

This should have been avoided by the TO.

We've had issues in the past with this venue when it comes to time management. Jaxler shoot me a message on facebook and we can schedule a rematch game if you would like. I'll even bring the same list. So you know what is coming.

Slow play is slow play, whether it's Orks or whoever. Don't take it personally. Besides, Tau vs. Orks is generally one of the worst match ups in the game, outside Grey Knights vs. Daemons and Eldar vs. anything.

This sounds very much like a friend of mine who I played with in a teams tourni. He would only ever get to turn 2 or start of 3, I remember his first game he would have lost if turn 3 had started but curiously his second apponant thoroughly enjoined a game that only had 1 and a half turns... (His second apponant was ork, see a correlation yet?)

Was it really slow play, or are orks so cheap per model that planning for lots of turns against them is a poor strategy when time limits mean the game might 'finish early'?

Also just because you came second doesn't mean you would have won if you beat the orks. Assuming the tournament had a pairing system, had you beat the orks you might have played much stronger lists in your subsequent rounds. Perhaps losing to orks is what let you submarine to silver?

Not saying slow play doesn't happen; in the Nottingham store the Sunday newbies group game one group would use it as a strategy to ensure they got one more turn than their opponents. Sigh.

 Jaxler wrote:

This brings me to a personal problem with orks. What happens if you just bum rush objectives with your green tide/fast trukks and play slow so the game ends before the person can table you?

You can't. The ork player is either penalized for slow playing by the TO or shot from the table by allmost all armies. Ork hordes are terrible.

nareik wrote:
Was it really slow play, or are orks so cheap per model that planning for lots of turns against them is a poor strategy when time limits mean the game might 'finish early'?

The ork player could be intentionally playing slow, just not capable of commanding an horde army or OP is sour from unsuspectingly losing a game and could be slow playing himself. We don't know we haven't been there. ; )


Ork hordes do require some skill to play with in time. But they aren't inherently slow.

I played oldstyle green tide armies in 5th 6th tournaments ( not to be confused with the formations) and it played great. I had around 150-200 foot slogging models depending on the list and never had time issues, outside turn 5-6. You have only 1-3 phases for most of the game.
Movement. -> Only measure the outer edges of your blobs and move the rest by approximation.
Shooting -> Most of the stuff will not be shooting but will most likely run.
Assaulting. -> You will not be doing this until at least turn 2-3 vs tau.
So he will be doing what moving 10 units and shooting with 5 or for a few turns. That doesn't have to take too long.

See http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Playing_a_Horde_Quickly for more info.

Tau on the other hand are inherently time consuming. Tau turns can take forever.
They all move, all shoot with, and then all move again. This usually takes ages especially if the tau player is rethinking his every thruster move, or if he is thruster moving every frigging insignificant model just because of getting that 0,01% extra advantage and he has the right to do so :\

As an ork player, I can 100% understand the frustration.

I once went to a tourney and played v. another ork player, who brought the ol' zhardsnark biker spam, he had like 45 bikes.

Bikes moved pretty quick, but you know what doesn't? 135 twin-linked shooting dice.

We didn't make it past turn 2 either, and IIRC, not many of his games did.

In fairness, though, I will say that, chances are, this is not intentional on his part. Playing with a green tide is simply difficult (if not impossible) to do in a timed game, such as tournament play.

So, while I hope he's not hoping to have his games not last past turn 2, that is a consequence of bringing a green tide list.

When I do go to tourneys, I try to bring smaller count armies for that very reason. That, and ease of transport / deployment.

 oldzoggy wrote:

See http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Playing_a_Horde_Quickly for more info.

Tau on the other hand are inherently time consuming. Tau turns can take forever.
They all move, all shoot with, and then all move again. This usually takes ages especially if the tau player is rethinking his every thruster move, or if he is thruster moving every frigging insignificant model just because of getting that 0,01% extra advantage and he has the right to do so :\

I was going to post about how "playing a horde quickly" isn't really possible without bending some of the rules, like just moving one model and then moving the rest up to it. But for anyone interested, check out that Dakka article! It's got some great advice that lets you run higher model count armies without having to do these things!

Deployment and getting ready might be an issue with horde armies.

TIL that playing a large model count army is tantamount to cheating apparently...

Ultimately, yes slow play happens, but the rules also simply are not at all concerned with time. Time limits are an artificial constraint put in games by a TO, they are "house rules". You're going to naturally have some problems when high model count armies with lots of weird rules get slapped with a time limit. Especially in the post 5E world of random tables for *everything*.

This is just something people have to accept as an artificiality of the tournament environment. Sometimes the house rules are gonna bite you, sometimes theyll work in your favor.

When the complaint is "well I tabled everyone else and would have tabled him but for the time limit", I can understand that can be frustrating from a competitive sense, but it also comes off sounding like being upset that one didnt just get to curbstomp the kiddy tables, in a match where the opponent likely wouldnt have had a chance otherwise simply due to one army having an absurdly huge advantage over the other, and it's hard to feel too bad about that.

I agree with Vaktathi on all points.

I understand the Tau players frusteration, since he thought he would get the win, but it's nothing to legitimately complain about.

From personal experience playing horde armies, I've been on the receiving end of salty comments about play speed. Like it's humanly possible to play a turn in the same time as they do when you have 5-10 times as many models and an active psychic phase, when they brought zero psykers.

 adamsouza wrote:
I agree with Vaktathi on all points.

I understand the Tau players frusteration, since he thought he would get the win, but it's nothing to legitimately complain about.

Yep, the issue here seems to be on the TO's side.

The OP said that he probably would've won if he'd made it to turn 4, but due to late start, half the time was lost by the time they started, so they only made it to turn 2.

Deliberately playing slow is cheating. Having a high model count army is not.

nareik wrote:
Was it really slow play, or are orks so cheap per model that planning for lots of turns against them is a poor strategy when time limits mean the game might 'finish early'?

Also just because you came second doesn't mean you would have won if you beat the orks. Assuming the tournament had a pairing system, had you beat the orks you might have played much stronger lists in your subsequent rounds. Perhaps losing to orks is what let you submarine to silver?

Not saying slow play doesn't happen; in the Nottingham store the Sunday newbies group game one group would use it as a strategy to ensure they got one more turn than their opponents. Sigh.

I mean I won't say it's impossible, and part of the reason I did end up getting second was because I did my second match against blood Angels and the third one against a jink saving bike list that had the misfortune of ending up against an army that laughs at cover saves and had a lot of ap2 and str 7-10. Frankly I could of lost against the Deamons or eldar players if I'd fought them (especially the daemons guy). Regardless though I should of watched the clock and played differently knowing I had less time. I certainly could of maybe tied or won things if I had kept the time in mind, but it makes me slightly disappointed. I can't say this enough I've nothing against the ork player, but eh, the circumstances just miffed me. I guess I posted this because I wanted to start a conversation about bigger armies in tournaments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Glitcha wrote:
We've had issues in the past with this venue when it comes to time management. Jaxler shoot me a message on facebook and we can schedule a rematch game if you would like. I'll even bring the same list. So you know what is coming.

Well gak, and here I thought I was anonymous on here.

Yeah things kinda took a while to start up there, and it woulda been for the best of everything was set up in the 30 minutes before the actual event started. Also I really hope I didn't come off as a jerk in the op.

 Jaxler wrote:
I guess I posted this because I wanted to start a conversation about slow armies in tournaments.

Your frustration is understandable. Ork hordes can take a long time to play, as can tau debating what to do with their marker lights and psycher heavy armies with their psychic powers.

I've seen many threads here discussing slow play. Some players can take any of the three army types I listed above and still manage to play quickly. They know their army well, they've practiced a ton, and they are efficient at making decisions and getting gak done. Some people can't, and should really consider what type of army they bring to a timed tournament.

Unfortunately, I think the biggest issue was the tournament starting late and penalizing the first round to make up for lost time. That was an unfortunate decision.

This is less a problem with Orks and more a problem with planning and army size. I'd think if you were facing someone with blob-guard you'd run into a similar problem. I once faced a blob guard army at 2000 points that had rerolls to shoot (this was with 4th edition doctrines) It was PAINFULLY slow during his turn and the match ate up the better half of an afternoon. We actually called it a draw in the end because we both just ran out of time to continue.

This is also why I dislike GW's pushing of cheaper units and larger model count. On top of it making me buy more models for the same points value it also makes playing horde armies totally unappealing due to the amount of time wasted.

 Bookwrack wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
I agree with Vaktathi on all points.

I understand the Tau players frusteration, since he thought he would get the win, but it's nothing to legitimately complain about.

Yep, the issue here seems to be on the TO's side.

The OP said that he probably would've won if he'd made it to turn 4, but due to late start, half the time was lost by the time they started, so they only made it to turn 2.

Deliberately playing slow is cheating. Having a high model count army is not.

To the OP.

Semper Mortis covered it earlier in the thread.

You both knew the game was going to be shorter than the norm. Willing to bet you did not alter your deployment to a more aggressive deployment as a result whereas the Ork player pretty much made the most of his situation.

End of the day hats off to the Ork player for seizing the opportunity presented to him and using it to his advantage.

But don't expect much sympathy when your initial post is complete with a rant of how you would have wiped him out if you'd only had a few more turns.

Low tier army beats top tier army due to taking advantage of the situation and working with it.

Now if you'd been more aggressive you'd have gotten more shots in, see?

Honestly I feel every match should at least have 3 full turns to count however Everyone who plays 40k has lost a match that they wished they had one more turn to win.

It's not slow necessarily slow play and it doesn't sound like you still would of won if you had a 3third turn because it sounds like you would have still been locked in assault your turn and unable to capture enough obj points to win.

The problem is entirely within your Tournament Organizer. It has nothing to do with any of the armies involved.

It's certainly frustrating. I'm an Ork player I like pushing tones of large units. When I was a lot more competitive I trained up for a few tournaments. Deployment is a huge part to playing a large model count army for sure. Sadly ,way back when, at the big tournament I was getting ready for my first game I got slow played by Necron player with a third or less my own model count.
It was the only game that didn't make it to turn 5.
Now days Orks are a lor faster on foot that they used to be. I build my armies to be easy to play. Move, run, assault not a whole lot to think about. Some units just do one thing so again not a lot to think about. In a way Orks are easier to play now that 4th or 5th edition. (for me) I'd hate it too to get a late start on a timed game.
My Tu friends army seems confusing to me, he has so many little things to do every turn. I don't even know what he's doing most of the time and just take him at his word on everything he does.

 Jaxler wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Glitcha wrote:
We've had issues in the past with this venue when it comes to time management. Jaxler shoot me a message on facebook and we can schedule a rematch game if you would like. I'll even bring the same list. So you know what is coming.

Well gak, and here I thought I was anonymous on here.

Yeah things kinda took a while to start up there, and it woulda been for the best of everything was set up in the 30 minutes before the actual event started. Also I really hope I didn't come off as a jerk in the op.

your profile picture was a give away. Its all good. I've been there before,man. When I first started out, I went to couple of events an I got smoked nearly every round. Grey knights where the thing to beat everyone with. I even tried grey knights myself. I experimented with different armies until I found one that fit my play style. Your tau look awesome. I like your paint scheme and your use of natural rocks. You got some serious skill as a general. Try playing the last a couple of times and see how it goes. The list I took against you, i've used 7 times before we played and 2 of those games were against tau. I already know what I was going to do before we started.

When I run events, I usually wait 15 minutes for players to move to their tables and get set up before I start the clock.