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I've played games built around chess clocks (Kings of War and Warmachine), and also 40k using chess clocks, and while 40k works, I think it reveals a bigger, foundational issue: 40k was never really designed to be played in a time limited window.

Chess clocks do help games go six rounds, but they also strip away any last vestige of playing a relaxed, fun game. From my (admittedly limited) experience with 40k under chess clocks, they really expose how 40k was not built for tournament play.

I love 40k, and I love tournaments, but even I'm starting to realize that competitive 40k is a little bit like racing forklifts: it's fun, but also kind of silly.

 Polonius wrote:
Competitive 40k is a little bit like racing forklifts: it's fun, but also kind of silly.

 Grimtuff wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
GW just needs to understand some simple things:

1. Anything that costs less than 10 points per model should be evaluated. The Ork slowplayer fielded an insane amount of models because of how cheap it is. Should it be that cheap? For anyone?

2. Invulnerable saves have gotten way out of hand. It should be immeasurably difficult to get anything better than a 4++, with a 4++ being somewhat rare.

3. AP is beyond ridiculous, it is incredibly easy to get AP-2 or AP-3 weaponry with volume of shots. Which is why people focus on lots of wounds per unit with 1 wound models, and invulnerable saves.

Translation: I'm going to change the topic from one being about GW and its role in tournaments to me complaining about my personal beefs with the 8E ruleset.

If you cannot see how one intimately affects the other then I don't know what to say...


GW is the one that has the power to make the tourney scene how they want it to be, which at its very core is tweaking the rules of 8th. Which in turn changes the meta and changes the way the wind blows in the tournaments they run. If GW retreats from the tournament scene due to bad ones then we're on a dangerous slope back to square one with the GW of old that castles up and gives its community radio silence and let's problems go for the entire duration of an edition.

Exactly this.

Lowering the points to 1750, you will still see the same problems, because the lists that can be played slowly will still exist. It's not like he would bring less Boyz and play faster with 1750 points. In actuality, it just makes it that much harder to counter extreme skew lists.

My point is essentially this:

The current state of 8th edition balance encourages play featuring high volumes of models because they're super cheap, and volume of attacks is how you kill invulnerable saves, and survive copious heavy shooting at insane range.

GW withdrawing from the tournament scene because how people play the game is a direct byproduct of how they write the rules. For them to withdraw would be to admit they've written bad rules.

It seems to me from what I've read (I did not attend LGT) that if you give GW the benefit of the doubt, they simply don't know or have forgotten how to run a large event. Best case scenario is that they learn from their mistakes and try again, because having more tournaments (and formats straight from the designers) is a good thing for the community and would allow the company an even better window into how their product is used...and how they can make it better. Worst case is that they sweep their mistakes under the rug and continue to run events that aren't taken seriously and ITC continues to reign supreme as the only game in town.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
GW just needs to understand some simple things:

1. Anything that costs less than 10 points per model should be evaluated. The Ork slowplayer fielded an insane amount of models because of how cheap it is. Should it be that cheap? For anyone?

2. Invulnerable saves have gotten way out of hand. It should be immeasurably difficult to get anything better than a 4++, with a 4++ being somewhat rare.

3. AP is beyond ridiculous, it is incredibly easy to get AP-2 or AP-3 weaponry with volume of shots. Which is why people focus on lots of wounds per unit with 1 wound models, and invulnerable saves.

Translation: I'm going to change the topic from one being about GW and its role in tournaments to me complaining about my personal beefs with the 8E ruleset.

If you cannot see how one intimately affects the other then I don't know what to say...


GW is the one that has the power to make the tourney scene how they want it to be, which at its very core is tweaking the rules of 8th. Which in turn changes the meta and changes the way the wind blows in the tournaments they run. If GW retreats from the tournament scene due to bad ones then we're on a dangerous slope back to square one with the GW of old that castles up and gives its community radio silence and let's problems go for the entire duration of an edition.

Exactly this.

Lowering the points to 1750, you will still see the same problems, because the lists that can be played slowly will still exist. It's not like he would bring less Boyz and play faster with 1750 points. In actuality, it just makes it that much harder to counter extreme skew lists.

My point is essentially this:

The current state of 8th edition balance encourages play featuring high volumes of models because they're super cheap, and volume of attacks is how you kill invulnerable saves, and survive copious heavy shooting at insane range.

GW withdrawing from the tournament scene because how people play the game is a direct byproduct of how they write the rules. For them to withdraw would be to admit they've written bad rules.

But at least it wouid make it possible for ork to actually finish game without sacrificing any chance of win by taking non boyz.

You want just blanket ban orks? Thanks a lot

I think, marmatag, the opposite should be done.

Re-evaluate the high end model's price.

The problem isn't really that the low end are too cheap, it's that the high end pay for abilities that are cheaply negated or they don't get to use.

Basically, it's easy to buy offensive counters for almost all forms of resiliency save redundancy, but it's expensive to buy toughness in the first place.

 greyknight12 wrote:
It seems to me from what I've read (I did not attend LGT) that if you give GW the benefit of the doubt, they simply don't know or have forgotten how to run a large event. Best case scenario is that they learn from their mistakes and try again, because having more tournaments (and formats straight from the designers) is a good thing for the community and would allow the company an even better window into how their product is used...and how they can make it better. Worst case is that they sweep their mistakes under the rug and continue to run events that aren't taken seriously and ITC continues to reign supreme as the only game in town.

GW didnt run LGT, that gakshow wasnt their fault.

Almost every tournament thats gotten publicity for 40k has had in the last year has had cheating, incredible shows of bad sportsmanship, or slow play out the wazoo. I wouldnt blame GW for throwing their hands up in the air.

There was that guy that took an hour and a half to set up in the live streamed finals game, the Blood Angels player who had an illegal list, the ork player that slowed played hjs way to victory, and now the cheating Tau player in the other thread. Thats just off the top of my head.

GW should offer some prize support and demand that any tournament that applies for it has judges roaming and punishing slow play with points deductions and any game that doesnt go to 5 counts as a draw.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Re-evaluate the high end model's price.

That would certainly be the GW solution, solving the balance of armies that have to buy lots of models vs. armies that don't by decreasing the price and forcing players with elite armies to buy more boxes of space marines.

Best bet would be to strip the core rules right down for 9th, to a ruleset that focuses heavily on balance, then add in a couple of optional rulebooks: a short one for tournament play that gets the balance even more precise, more like an extended, annotated FAQ and errata really, with points cost changes if need be, updated once a year; and a longer narrative play book.

I don't think GW is to blame for any of this, they made it very clear that their games aren't meant to be competitive. They tried very hard with AoS, which got a ton of hate because "How can we play without points". Then they gave everything a point cost and it's still wrong because there is always a way to ruin the game by cherrypicking the best models.

Warhammer games are one of the most fun and balanced games when you just grab a handfull of models and put them on the table. It's the competitive mindset and dedicated list building that turns it into the shitshow we now see at tournaments.

I sincerely hope GW will leave the competitive scene to other companies and keeps focusing on the casual play, hobby and narrative aspects of their games, as they have shown great progress in those fields.

Sedraxis wrote:
I sincerely hope GW will leave the competitive scene to other companies and keeps focusing on the casual play, hobby and narrative aspects of their games, as they have shown great progress in those fields.

I hope so too. And the best way to improve the game for casual/narrative games is to do the things that improve the game for competitive play. GW provides quality rules, third-party groups provide tournament venues and such.

One of the most balanced games? Lol. It's not even in top-50.

I fear chess timers wouldn’t change anything.

Sure. They might prevent the player who’s turn it is slow playing - but at the very real risk that a WAAC opponent will simply seek to dither and delay their opponent. Such as asking for every rule to be checked. Pretending they can’t find the right page in their Codex, or being sure there’s another rules on another page which is somehow relevant.

Ultimately, people just need to select armies capable of being played under strict time limits. Yes, that does mean no Greentide or Gaunt Swarm. It probably does mean a greater prevalence of small, elite armies. But remember, the time limit isn’t a flaw in the game system - but one brought about, necessarily, by tournament play. It’s an outside factor that can’t be avoided, and wasn’t allowed for in the writing of the game.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I fear chess timers wouldn’t change anything.

Sure. They might prevent the player who’s turn it is slow playing - but at the very real risk that a WAAC opponent will simply seek to dither and delay their opponent. Such as asking for every rule to be checked. Pretending they can’t find the right page in their Codex, or being sure there’s another rules on another page which is somehow relevant.

Ultimately, people just need to select armies capable of being played under strict time limits. Yes, that does mean no Greentide or Gaunt Swarm. It probably does mean a greater prevalence of small, elite armies. But remember, the time limit isn’t a flaw in the game system - but one brought about, necessarily, by tournament play. It’s an outside factor that can’t be avoided, and wasn’t allowed for in the writing of the game.

Sure, I will happily give you my codex so you can look up the answer to your question.
I'll just flip the clock to your time while you look it up.

What happened to the GWsupplied terrain? Did it 'go missing'?

nareik wrote:
What happened to the GWsupplied terrain? Did it 'go missing'?

It wasn't used because it did not match the terrain plan provided in the rullespack.
You can't tell you players terrain will be X and then put don't Y because it looks a little more pretty.

 Ordana wrote:
Sure, I will happily give you my codex so you can look up the answer to your question.
I'll just flip the clock to your time while you look it up.

Awesome. So I can make up rules and if you insist on looking at my codex to prove me wrong I get to make you spend your clock time to do it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Sure, I will happily give you my codex so you can look up the answer to your question.
I'll just flip the clock to your time while you look it up.

Awesome. So I can make up rules and if you insist on looking at my codex to prove me wrong I get to make you spend your clock time to do it.

Sure, you can try. And then i'll call a judge over because your being incredibly obvious.

 Ordana wrote:
Sure, you can try. And then i'll call a judge over because your being incredibly obvious.

And now we're right back to what I said initially: the system only works if you ignore RAW and have the judge make a subjective call about what is acceptable. At that point you don't need the clock system, you just have the judge DQ anyone they consider guilty of slow play. Same end result, fewer rules to screw around with for the majority of players who are not slow playing.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Sure, you can try. And then i'll call a judge over because your being incredibly obvious.

And now we're right back to what I said initially: the system only works if you ignore RAW and have the judge make a subjective call about what is acceptable. At that point you don't need the clock system, you just have the judge DQ anyone they consider guilty of slow play. Same end result, fewer rules to screw around with for the majority of players who are not slow playing.

The difference is that trying to game the clock tends to be a lot more obvious then simply slowplaying. Which is why everyone trying to argue against the clock always ends up in some completely obvious BS

 Ordana wrote:
The difference is that trying to game the clock tends to be a lot more obvious then simply slowplaying.

Not really. Slow play to the point that you can't finish a game in an event with a proper ratio of round time to point limit is very obvious. People just don't want to admit that it's a problem and DQ the slow players.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
The difference is that trying to game the clock tends to be a lot more obvious then simply slowplaying.

Not really. Slow play to the point that you can't finish a game in an event with a proper ratio of round time to point limit is very obvious. People just don't want to admit that it's a problem and DQ the slow players.

Oh good, so you will be able to tell me after how many minutes of turn time an ork player that isn't entirely familiar with his 130 model army and never plays under time pressure at his club turns instead into a slow playing that needs to be DQ'ed.
After all, its obvious.

 Ordana wrote:
Oh good, so you will be able to tell me after how many minutes of turn time an ork player that isn't entirely familiar with his 130 model army and never plays under time pressure at his club turns instead into a slow playing that needs to be DQ'ed.
After all, its obvious.

Ok, in this case we'll be polite and replace "DQ" with "sorry, you clearly aren't very familiar with the army you're playing and able to get through everything in a timed game, perhaps you would have more fun playing in casual non-tournament games instead". They still shouldn't be at the tournament.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Oh good, so you will be able to tell me after how many minutes of turn time an ork player that isn't entirely familiar with his 130 model army and never plays under time pressure at his club turns instead into a slow playing that needs to be DQ'ed.
After all, its obvious.

Ok, in this case we'll be polite and replace "DQ" with "sorry, you clearly aren't very familiar with the army you're playing and able to get through everything in a timed game, perhaps you would have more fun playing in casual non-tournament games instead". They still shouldn't be at the tournament.

sure.
So how many minutes?

 Ordana wrote:
sure.
So how many minutes?

It's not minutes, it's behavior. Are they moving models as quickly as possible, always knowing what dice to roll and what their rules are, etc? Not a problem, even if they have a lot of models on the table. Are they spending tons of time thinking about what to do, looking up stat lines/rules, hovering each model indecisively before committing to its move, slowly counting out dice for each roll, etc? That's slow play, and regardless of whether it's a newbie who isn't prepared to be there or a cheater pretending to be that newbie to gain an advantage they don't belong in the tournament.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
sure.
So how many minutes?

It's not minutes, it's behavior. Are they moving models as quickly as possible, always knowing what dice to roll and what their rules are, etc? Not a problem, even if they have a lot of models on the table. Are they spending tons of time thinking about what to do, looking up stat lines/rules, hovering each model indecisively before committing to its move, slowly counting out dice for each roll, etc? That's slow play, and regardless of whether it's a newbie who isn't prepared to be there or a cheater pretending to be that newbie to gain an advantage they don't belong in the tournament.

How fast is quickly as possible? What is a ton of time spend thinking? how many stat lines or rules are you allowed to look up? And if your unsure should you just assume something and possibly cheat? Because looking it up gets you dq'ed for not knowing your rules.

I don't think your tournament will last long with those guidelines.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Honestly, I think there should be chess timers for each phase of the game. Any units that aren't activated within that turn limit can't be activated that turn. Keeps slow players moving. It is supposed to be a battle.

Each player gets 15 minuets per turn. 15 minuets and you aren't done with the shooting phase? Too bad, it's player B's turn.

That means on full turn will be exactly half an hour. A six turn game will take three hours.

phydaux wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Honestly, I think there should be chess timers for each phase of the game. Any units that aren't activated within that turn limit can't be activated that turn. Keeps slow players moving. It is supposed to be a battle.

Each player gets 15 minuets per turn. 15 minuets and you aren't done with the shooting phase? Too bad, it's player B's turn.

That means on full turn will be exactly half an hour. A six turn game will take three hours.

Earlier turns take longer then later turns. Hence Chess clocks being better because you can allocate your own time however you want.

 Ordana wrote:
How fast is quickly as possible? What is a ton of time spend thinking? how many stat lines or rules are you allowed to look up? And if your unsure should you just assume something and possibly cheat? Because looking it up gets you dq'ed for not knowing your rules.

I don't think your tournament will last long with those guidelines.

It's likely that what you are after it not something that can be summarised with any depth in a forum post. Behaviour is a complicated area that can take quite a skill in writing to convey thoughts and impressions; especially when you're debating without an example before you and thus talking in generalist terms. So its unlikely that you'll get a perfect description of delayed playing that will satisfy you.

It's also something that would take time watching many games. IT's a bit like moderating user behaviour; those who have done it for a long while know what to look for from experience, whilst those with less experience often find it harder or impossible to see the same patterns of behaviour.

 Overread wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
How fast is quickly as possible? What is a ton of time spend thinking? how many stat lines or rules are you allowed to look up? And if your unsure should you just assume something and possibly cheat? Because looking it up gets you dq'ed for not knowing your rules.

I don't think your tournament will last long with those guidelines.

It's likely that what you are after it not something that can be summarised with any depth in a forum post. Behaviour is a complicated area that can take quite a skill in writing to convey thoughts and impressions; especially when you're debating without an example before you and thus talking in generalist terms. So its unlikely that you'll get a perfect description of delayed playing that will satisfy you.

It's also something that would take time watching many games. IT's a bit like moderating user behaviour; those who have done it for a long while know what to look for from experience, whilst those with less experience often find it harder or impossible to see the same patterns of behaviour.

But... but... I was told it was obvious and that we could just ban em all.

(incase it wasn't clear, that was my point. Its not obvious and highly based on feeling and observation. Judges often don't have time to observe a dozen tables to check if its purposeful slowplay or just someone being a bit slower. A judge isn't going to walk up to a table and go, "right, your obviously slowplaying. Get out" without actually standing there and watching the game unfold. Your dealing with vague lines and boundaries.

Trying to game a chess clock by making up BS rules for your opponent to refute is a hell of a lot more obvious and easier to punish.