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I recently went to a Tourney and had issues with running out of time. Of the two games I had lost, I believe I had very straight avenues to my opponent's casters...in the first case the caster was blatantly out in the open with no focus.
I was running eGaspy and feated ZERO times... if I did feat, it prob. would have taken me even longer!

Now, I will admit much criminal things:
1. It was my 4th, 5th, and 6th game of Warmachine (for realz), so still clunky.
2. I did not memorize as much of the rules as I'd like to and had to look up stuff like throws and ride-by-attacks.

So, I was taking time and running out of time and I would like to better myself. Now for the above, I can change that by sitting down and reading the rules and getting more experience.
But, I was wondering if any of you more experienced players have any tips/ideas for speeding things up.

Some things I noticed/did/want to do:
-Tough Rolls: keep a die in hand as to not take up my opponents' time or have them have to click my timer.
-Tough Rolls: pre-empt the attack/damage rolls, but not sure which one to pre-empt is better.
-Marking Damage: Protector Sleaves + dry erase markers. <--pretty standard.
-Different Color Die when hurting a jack to signify the column<--I saw this and hope to do this to save time.

What say all of you?

Honestly, you are worried about it after 6 games of Warmachine?

Get the rules right, and THEN worry about speed.

It is much more important not to be cheating someone because you read a rule incorrectly.

Familiarity with your units and how they work together will help.

Myself, I used only pDenny for my first 20 or so games. Helped greatly with familiarity.

Also, at a timed tourney you probably don't want many multi-attack infantry. My first tourney I had Revenant crew and McThralls.
After the first round, I started skipping the low percentage attacks to get to the ones that mattered.

Learn your spells for your Warcaster/Warlock by heart. Kills two birds with one stone.

Things I do...

1) different color die is vital. That saves up between 5-10 seconds per damage opportunity.
2) keep the card near the unit. saves having to hunt through a pile of cards.
3) measure off the flame template for movement. The GF9 has a full incremented ruler. Not sure about the PP ones but you have at least 6/8/10" pre measured. Saves time having to get out the tape every time.
4) have templates ready for all of your effects. 3/4/5" brass rings work great cause you don't have to move any figs around to place them.
5) stat cheat sheet. I make a cheat sheet of all the relevant stats so I don't have to go to the card to look it up.
6) plan your turn during their turn so you do not waste time at the start of your turn
7) PRIORITIZE your turn. What do you absolutely positively have to get done. Get that done first, and in order. If you need to use eGaspy's feat plan ahead for it and put it in order. eStryker is in a similar boat.
7a) Keep the plan simple. If you have a 6 step plan, you probably won't get it done. Break it up over 2 turns or do something else.
8) if you can't finish the unit, call your time and turn the timer over. Running out of time in the middle of moving a unit can put you in a bad place. Better to not than get strung out.

Those are the biggies I've found that have helped. These go great for regular pickup games as well.

@skrulnik:

I’m not worried. As said, I’m learning the game, but I do want to preview what is in the future so I can work towards being more efficient.

Yes, getting the rules right is something that is important, hence wasting time during a tourney to get it right (as said, learn the rules beforehand helps in this case).

As for multi-attack, that’s a good suggestion, I was thinking of consolidating points into fewer ‘step’ units.
My tourney I went with Bane Knights (vengeance stuff), SoulHunters (3 attacks each), Gorgers (2 attacks each), and Gerlick (chain killing). You are correct, there is a lot of time consuming stuff in my list that day.

Yea, I learned from the first round, then got it right the second, then forgot about it in the third round :-(

My second round was similar, I was facing off against a pDenny list with mass McThralls, Bile Thralls, and Bane Thralls. I had like 5 minutes for my last turn when the timer runs out.

I just ran everything into B2B with pDenny and her mini wall of Arc Node and Slayer and death knelled the whole thing to kill her on a boosted blast damage roll +# of models under template. That was what mattered and I skipped the rest of the board to do it…..but I think I went through 2-3 Bile Purges first, so there wasn’t much left to begin with .

@George Spiggott:
That I got down, both Gaspy’s were what I was rocking and I knew them very well, even so much as going through a quick runthrough with my opponent.

Though after this tourney, I think I want to give pGaspy more board time as well… I think every round in the tourney pGaspy would have done better, for me anyway…even the one round I won !! .

@12thRonin:

#2: now this is cool… I didn’t think to do that. My first time I used the Force Kommander Print outs. I had then transitioned to the Card Sheets that hold 9 on a page, I now use Single Card Protectors aligned along the table edge, but being by the model is a good idea, space permitting.

#5: funny thing, I had that, and a cheat sheet of power attacks and general rules, but was scatterbrained to pull it out and use it /cry.

#6-7: yea, being nooby, and inflexible at this point, I generally gunned for Caster Kill. I would get an avenue pretty late in the game after some grinding. As for planning the next turn, I think I’m still very in 40K mode, because you see everything move in phases rather than individually in Warmachine, so that’s kinda weird for me to see where things end up as the turn progresses.

______________________________________----

Tokens and Effects: what do you use? So far I use color die or colored tokens, not too hot on the token set from PP. I was thinking of doing something of a mini stand with the effect spelled out.

12thRonin wrote:2) keep the card near the unit. saves having to hunt through a pile of cards.

I find keeping them in one or two of those 3x3 pocket A4 sheets helps. If you put all the multi wound models on one sheet (if you can) that helps too.

I was RIGHT there with ya... I just dove into a tourny after my 6th game or so. It was a good experience, that's for sure.

If you're going to have any specialized abilities ( you mentioned ride-by attacks), be sure you study that in detail... believe me, your opponents will 'help you get it right' if you do it wrong, but it wastes time...

Someone mentioned keeping dice in hand... keep 3 of one color and 1 of another in your hand (free strikes), and another pile of the same nearby. Sure it's during your opponents turn, but it's just courtesy. Not to mention that this will get you used to holding the dice for your turn.

If you plan on doing any spells/continuous effects out there, have those counters ready to go. Be sure they're clearly marked (the new token sets allow for this, easily).

If you plan to pop your feat in a certain turn, but it's not the first thing you do... I suggest you hold onto a token that lets you know you're going to feat... or you might forget . I can't count how many times I've totally forgotten because I was soooo concerned with time and was busy with other models/units. I know I'm not alone because I've heard plenty others forget about it too.

Have 2 markers standing by... that way if one stops working, you have a backup.

Have a small tape measurer in your pocket as a backup... just in case. I had to use my backup multiple times last tourny and while I woulda let one of my opponents use my tape measure, he still spent about a minute looking around for his (someone from another game had picked it up for there turn, accidently), and he didn't ask me, nor did he signal what he was looking for... yeesh.

Learn what models have stealth and are incorporeal. A bunch of time is wasted shooting at people you can't see/hurt anywho.

Plan out your turn, but don't do it just to totally react to your opponent, be flexible with your plans so you can change them when your opponent does something unexpected. Not to mention that if you're reacting to your opponent, you could be setting yourself up for their assassination run.

Anywho... that's a bunch of nonsense I'm sure. Heh. Good luck!

*edit* dang, must take me forever to type... like 2-3 replies in that I didn't see... sorry if something was double posted.

I find for timed games I try to include less infantry, which also helps me decide which caster to use. If the caster in question requires tons of infantry for him to work properly I won't use them for timed games. Moving 10 models or more then making attacks hen rolling damage can take tons of time, get a clock and practice, practice, practice. Good luck!

There are three good tips: Learn stats, learn stats and finally learn stats.

The amount of time wasted in an average game asking about DEF and ARM gets pretty stupid. There are other little things like always rolling an off colored dice for jack damage and planning what you're going to do in your opponent's turn, but all of this pales in comparison to the 20-30% of your time being eaten by "What do I need to roll?" especially if both players are looking at cards for stats then saying "Oh, but I have this buff and that one"

There's no experience quite as awesome as being on a time limit in a game where you can't speed roll and asking your opponent his units DEF for him to give a vacant expression for a moment, then fiddle with his cards and almost half a minute later you finally get the response you need to continue the attack only for the entire process to begin again when you ask for the ARM because apparently he's either really damn stupid or just never expected you to hit.

Sooo...learn stats, and as an extension of this, have all relevant stats memorized/readily accessible for your opponent.

Another tip: Bring a timer with you to friendly games, and time your turns. Work on your speed outside of tournaments, and you'll greatly improve your game.

TBH tho, a lot of it is just wrote memorization. If you've got all your warjack's stats in your head already (Khador jack, DEF 10, ARM 20, STR 12, MAT 6, RAT 4), you'll be able to play a hell of a lot faster.

You should always know your model's stats, spell costs, feat, etc. When I was practicing for Hardcore I picked my list, started playing it and was sure to memorize anything. Its tough to play 40 models in 7 minutes!

I normally try to play casual games on the clock, and if I'm practicing for an event, I'll set my timer for 1 minute short so I'm used to playing with a little bit of wiggle room.

Always think during your opponents turn, and when you can't decide what to start with on your turn, start with the most obvious model and work from there.

Just a few tips.

Basically what everyone's suggested can be boiled down to one word. EXPERIENCE

As you play more games, you will know your units' stats and range. Looking up ranges, power, RAT/MAT, etc. is what chews up most people's time. I wouldn't worry about "memorizing" stats. Just play a boatload of games and you'll eventually get faster.

Slow down time.

The trade off is that you get older faster.

Learn your stats inside and out. Get different colored dice and roll attack/damage at the same time. Don't forget to take your turn extension on that critical turn!

tzeentchling wrote:Get different colored dice and roll attack/damage at the same time.

Please don't do that. Its hard for players to follow that don't normally play that way, and it doesn't work for jacks / beasts anyway if you're thinking about boosting. Do, however, roll deviation distance and direction at the same time with different color dice, and roll column / branch at the same time as damage.

Endgame wrote:

tzeentchling wrote:Get different colored dice and roll attack/damage at the same time.

Please don't do that. Its hard for players to follow that don't normally play that way, and it doesn't work for jacks / beasts anyway if you're thinking about boosting. Do, however, roll deviation distance and direction at the same time with different color dice, and roll column / branch at the same time as damage.

I agree with endgame on this one, rolling different color dice at the same time is confusing for your opponent. You end up wasting more time explaining what you are doing than you save.

I used to run into time issues all the time. A few highlighted things I did to speed myself up.

1. Even in friendly games, hold yourself to the timed turns. Don't worry about the opponent, worry about yourself.

2. Different dice for damage/ column rolled at the same time, make sure the colume dice is significantly different to avoid confusion. Even in your test games, do this.

3. Preplan your turn in your head during opponents time. That way you already know where focus/ fury is going, prioritize, implement your plan DO NOT MIND LOCK. I cannot tell you the number of times i've watched opponents lock up in a 5 min turn, and do nothing but stare for 2 mins.

4. If you have an option to add time, add the time to your feat turn. Its usually the most important turn. So you can slow that one down.

5. Faster casters. Some casters feat take longer to resolve. If you know this is going to happen, preplan. Most important first. Even if it means skipping something that's not fully important.

malfred wrote:Slow down time.

The trade off is that you get older faster.

As enjoyable as it is to play Warmachine under the effects of cannabis, I don't think it'll help you play faster.

That's, like, your opinion, man...

Ok...
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On track, have any of you reduced the number of models in your lists so play a tigher game?

Sanctjud wrote:Ok...
______

On track, have any of you reduced the number of models in your lists so play a tigher game?

When I played harcore a couple of years ago at gen con I ran a 750 pt mk 1 circle army with 22 models. I still lost one game due to not being able to activate all my models in one turn. Anytime you have lots of attacks in one turn it really kills the clock, I tried to attack in wave and had pretty good luck 4 wins 2 losses. But a Cryx army that got all up in my grill turn 2 left me trying to activate everything at once and I couldn't get through all the models before time was called.

I do know that certain lists I have I will never play in tournaments. Lists like my Testament infantry spam just take too long. But otherwise I don't really change up my lists. Practice helps, as does familiarity. Plus, on that one crucial turn, you do have a turn extension.

Now, I haven't yet played in Hardcore tournaments where the time limit is even less. I might change lists up for that if I had to.

Actually, I did pretty well at DieCon Hardcore with a MkI pIrusk list, about 40 models. While my record was only 2W-1L-1D, I never went over time. It's really a matter of knowing exactly what your list can do and cutting out any habits that might slow you down.