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Hellou!

How long does a game of 40k take when you play?

When I play against my buddies it usally takes about 4 hours on 1500 point games.

We would really like to speed up our games so if anybody has any tips don't be shy, share your thoughts below!

Just being familiar with the rules so you don't have to constantly look things up, which I assume is your problem.

Its really just practice that grants this over time.


But 4 hours is a REALLY long time.

A player with normal competancy should be able to play 3000 points in 4 hours(including setup time)

1500 shouldn't take more then an hour and a half.

Just being familiar with the rules so you don't have to constantly look things up, which I assume is your problem.

Its really just practice that grants this over time.

Especially with the semi-new rulebook it takes some time to get used to. I don't think that it has been a problem looking stuff up, we know our rules pretty good .
I may point out what I speak of is friendly games so we tend to do other stuff in between. Also I play orks and one of 'em plays Imperial guard.

But yeah, learning the rules is an essential part of speeding up the game.

Well if you are doing non-gaming stuff in between the game then thats really whats slowing you down. The game may not be taking so long, but doing other stuff will make it seem like it is.

It depends on your army, your familiarity with the rules, and how OCD people are about measuring and positioning. If you are both playing horde armies with a lot of models to move (Tyranids, Orks, Guard, etc), then that could be your problem. To address this, I would switch to a smaller army if at all possible, or perhaps try to develop some sort of movement tray so that you can move your models more quickly (something that I have seen is a tray with enough slots to fit 5 small-based models in a X shape with about 2 inches between each of the edge models, and one in the center. As another note, make sure that all of your models are WYSIWYG to keep play from being slowed down with questions like "wait, what are these guys again". Additionally, I would suggest getting more dice if you already don't have them. I would say that under normal conditions it should be reasonable to roll about 15-20 dice at one time, especially if you are using smaller dice, so that might significantly help speed up your game.

If the problem is with memorizing the rules, well, there are two solutions. The first is to just go over the rule book and both yours and your opponents codices heavily, reading them until references to rules becomes less difficult. The second is to photo-copy and laminate the most heavily referenced pages in your codices/rule book so that you have instant access to them during the game.

If the problem is that you guys measure your movements down to the nanometre, I would suggest either instituting a time limit on each player turn, or perhaps house-ruling a limit to the number of times you can measure a turn before you decide on any given action. For example, if I house ruled a maximum of 5 premeasurements a turn, I could measure the distance from any two points 5 times, then if I wanted to move/shoot/assault/whatever anything beyond those 5 times, I would have to declare either a direction or a target, and then measure. That might help you

Well if you are doing non-gaming stuff in between the game then thats really whats slowing you down. The game may not be taking so long, but doing other stuff will make it seem like it is.

Indeed. Yet I noticed in our last game (Grey knight vs. Imperial guard) that the first round took like 45 minutes, no interference or rule checking... all those IG orders.

one thing I have done is to organize my dice so it is easy to get the exact amount for each round of shooting.


I have 80 8mm dice, 16 in each of 5 colors.


I pile the dice in piles of 5 similar colored dice, each color has a specific use on the table.


Green is for the damage table on tanks

Black is for Hull points or wounds

Red is for shooting (meltas or flamers)

Blue is for shooting (plasma, psycannon, other large guns)

Black is for shooting (Bolters and other massed fire guns)



This way, I am never confused about which die means what, and I can very quickly grab exactly the amount and colors of dice I need.

We are up to 2500 point matches. We start at 9:30, usually everyone is done by 1... so about 3 hours of actual play time. 1500 should not take 4 hours

2-2.5 hours for a 2000pt game. 6 turns.

If you forget something: tough, move on.

Roll your dice in batches, not one at a time.

When measuring measure the distance for the front row of models, everyone else just has to be behind them.

Plan what you're going to do in your turn in your opponents, that way you don't waste time deciding what to do.

Know the rules, checking things constantly slows game play immensely.

Do non game related stuff in your opponents movement phase, that's the easiest phase to be absent for. If your opponent is honest you're not needed there.

 AclockworkCybork wrote:

When I play against my buddies

This pretty much sums it up. I remember one of my first weeks at my FLGS, me and 3 other friends had a 4 and a half hour game with 1000 points. It became a running joke that we take forever. When I play with random people, or acquaintances those 1500pt games drop down to just over an hour unless there's some serious rules arguments.

If you want to speed up your games with friends, don't joke around and concentrate. *I am not advocating this* since I love those long games that just end up as laughter. If you want short games in general, play people you don't know very well.

An hour and a half or two hours is usually enough for a 1,500pt game where I come from, but it depends on which armies you're using (Imperial Guard or horde Orks, for instance, tend to be slower to play than Dark Eldar or Grey Knights) and how much experience you have with the rules (the amount of time you spend looking things up can add a lot to the game). A four hour game is a bit extreme, but not unheard of.

about 6 hours for me when its above 2000 points below that usual 1500points down takes 3-1.5

1500 pts in 4 hours sounds like you're doing more talking than playing. Which is fine and it does happen alot in 40k. My friend and I are getting out 1850 games in about an hour now 5-7 turns.