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I just time how long it takes me to play a turn, that is it. If by turn to a great deal of time has expired and I have only used a fraction, THEN I go and get a TO to either make them speed up or something. In most cases it is not necessary, because in general people are not @#@holes.

You know to be honest, I havent played in a lot of tourneys but it seems to me that the movement phase is where people tend to slow stuff down. Maybe some kind of timing dynamic focused on that?

Flogging perhaps?

Kirasu wrote:The premise of the game isnt entirely relevant considering the premise ALSO does not include tournament play

Accommodations and restrictions must be used to facilitate well coordinated games. Since a time limit is used then a way to enforce said time limit should be implemented, it's fairly simple

This is called Arbitrary Army Composition rules. Instituting an arbitrary time limit or system that assumes the premise that 50/50 play is fair for all armies is a form of army comp as you tell players who use all 3 phases or do a lot of movement or shooting that if you have a list that takes longer than other lists you will be penalized even though your codex allows your list to exist.

So someone who piles everything in transports may take 1-2 minutes to move while someone who has the same units but all on foot may tay 4-5 minutes to move. If you require 50/50 play or hold all armies to the speed of the faster player per phase or per turn you are basically instituting 'army comp'. What if I am a gunline of pieplates? I have no movement and can resolve my shots quickly while my opponent may very validly have lots of movement and shooting to do and could take much longer... It isn't his fault I took a list that minimizes time and his codex requires more time-consuming actions to be played the way the codex writes intended. And if someone wants 180 spinegaunts, they have the right to take it in the rock/paper/scissors and they should not be punished for taking a competitive and legal list. And while they shouldn't take 30 minutes to move, they should take longer than a mech army and that is OK and should be allowed by a TO as longas it is not abusive. It sounds like some players want specific types of armies punished as a way to enforce comp.

Any type of penalty for him or benefit for me is an army comp rule for armies that minimize time usage via list building.

And no one has ever answered whose 'time' is eaten if there is a particularly large and well coordinated assault on one side which could take 20 minutes to resolve simply because lots of independent actions are going on... Assault involves both players equally and should not be classified as part of the time penalty for only one of the players.

And this all assumes that you could legitimately 'do' something if someone does waste time... If the TO isn't willing to confront slow play what makes anyone think arbitrary limits are going to do anything as a TO still needs to confront the person.

nkelsch wrote:This is called Arbitrary Army Composition rules. Instituting an arbitrary time limit or system that assumes the premise that 50/50 play is fair for all armies is a form of army comp as you tell players who use all 3 phases or do a lot of movement or shooting that if you have a list that takes longer than other lists you will be penalized even though your codex allows your list to exist.

Yeah, it's restriction. But what happens if your slow-to-play army runs into another slow-to-play army?

Tournaments with time limits (which is pretty much all of them) have always had the general issue of "some legal armies can't be used 'cause they're just too slow." It's not an arbitrary restriction - in most cases, there are real timelines that have to be met, such that the length of a particular game MUST be limited to around 2-3 hours. And if you bring an army that requires 30 minutes to setup, and 15 minutes per movement phase, then you're going to have relatively little chance of playing your games to their natural completion, within the fixed time limits.

There are plenty of tricks to help speed play up - several sets of different-colored dice helps with complex saves/shooting, a dice tray keeps your dice together while rolling, deployment trays for your units makes it much easier to grab all 20 genestealers off your display board for deployment, a display board cuts down on deployment time, measuring sticks of predetermined lengths are much faster to use than tape measures, and etc. Inside-out knowledge of your army's stats and rules, as well as the to-hit and to-wound tables, makes a huge difference.

The problem isn't really people who want to bring insanely huge armies to tournaments; they quickly learn whether they can play an army in the time allotted, or not, and will generally adjust. The problem is people who are intentionally slow-playing.

nkelsch wrote:This is called Arbitrary Army Composition rules. .........

I disagree completely. It is more than reasonable to assume that if a given game is allotted 150 minutes to play, each player should expect 75 minutes in which to do so--regardless of what army they are using.

The idea that some armies aren't capable of completing 5 turns within that time is simply not true. I've played several games against 175+ model armies at 2500 points--most of these using 100+ models myself--and completed five turns with time to spare.

It would be more accurate to say that some players aren't capable of completing 5 turns within the allotted time. In that case, I would argue that they should either practice using their army of choice until they are able to do so, or switch armies.

I played a guy at a recent event who was the slowest player. Took him 20 minutes to complete a turn, when all he had on the table were 5 sanguard, 10 assault marines, and 4 attack bikes. He spent 5 minutes in an assault phase where he charged a termagaunt squad with sanguard. I had to roll no dice. I really feel that was unfair, had the game gone on one more turn I would have tabled him, and though I had almost 4 times his models I played much faster.

I do think even times could work against certain armies, mainly horde lists. I think that slow play should just be reported to the judge. If your horde orks are taking 30 minutes a turn, you shouldnt have brought them to the event in the first place.

I often feel I am a slow player, and I've been trying to play with a chess clock just to keep myself moving, and also to check for myself if I'm really the problem if a game doesn't finish. As has been mentioned, the CC phase of each turn becomes a problem because the superior CC army in any game has what amounts to extra turns.

This is not an argument against turn timers however. Just because you're rolling dice on my turn doesn't somehow entitle you to more time. If you can't handle figuring out who is attacking which squad or how many attacks you have in a timely manner...my timer is the one who will suffer for it on my turn. I'll try to provide you the same courtesy. If it really bothers you, we can hammer that chess clock between initiative rounds or turn if off when we're both attacking.

If your army has trouble playing its half of the game in half the time allotted to a tournament round...you either need to learn how to play faster, or play a different army. Thems the breaks.

Half the problem I have seen is people taking so long to roll dice. Get big dice, get dice that are easy to read, and learn how to pick them up fast. I play bugs, my army has 73 models. Itll take me a good 10-15 minutes to get everything out of the box and deployed. But my turns are about a 50-50 split between less then 5 and less than 10 minutes, rarely going to 15. Even with large coordinated assaults. A lot of it is knowing how to pick up dice, what to move, and how to move it. I have played six turn 2500 point games in under and hour and a half. standard 2000 point game takes about an hour for me, more time if I am bullshitting with the homies.

I have a proposal. Boxing timers, because they are loud as gak. 10 minute turns. If that timer rings I get to punch you in the face until your turn is up.

I grappled the shoggoth wrote:Half the problem I have seen is people taking so long to roll dice. Get big dice, get dice that are easy to read, and learn how to pick them up fast. I play bugs, my army has 73 models. Itll take me a good 10-15 minutes to get everything out of the box and deployed.

Loose the box. For tournament play, use a tray - one will cost you less than $5, and should cut your deployment by 10 minutes over unpacking figures individually every game. Every minute saved is significant!

I used to have one for my eldar. But alas I left it at a store 100 miles from my house, and decided returning for it wasnt worth it. Ill get one sometime soon. Even then, the actual placing of models on the table still takes me about 5-10 minutes.

NO, a turn timer will only slow down the game when WAAC players are involved.

Timed turns will only encourage a WAAC player to do everything possible to slow the game down during their opponents turn when the game is on their opponents timer. Timers only work in chess because there is no way to cheat the system and slow the game down on the opponents turn. Timed turns allow WAAC players slow down their opponents turn by bringing up rules arguments, demand proof the weapons that are obviously in range are in range, slow play their armor/cover saves, and/or slow play removing models from the table when the game is on their opponents timer. Abhorrent behavior as previously described would significantly benefit a WAAC player, and there is nothing anybody can do about it.

Schadenfreude, How does the current system not already allow for all of this to happen?

I think it really depends on the penalty for going over your turn timer. It isn't set in stone that it has to be some kind of forfeiture of the game, it could just be an out-of-game penalty to battle points for the offending player. Perhaps with some room for the judges to decide if a penalty is even deserved. It is still on the player himself to call over a judge if the other player is deliberately slow playing on his turn, etc.

lambadomy wrote:Schadenfreude, How does the current system not already allow for all of this to happen?

It can certainly happen under the current system... but that's kind of the point. If the timer isn't actually going to make any difference, there's not much point including it.


To be perfectly honest, I think a better option than pushing for timers on tables would be pushing for tournaments to employ qualified judges. Yes, GW is never going to set up an official play program with approved judges the way more companies producing more competitively-oriented games have done... But tournament organisers, particularly those co-ordinating the larger events, could always work towards putting something similar in place themselves.

At my prelim event if people were willing and ready they would already establish sides and who was going first. This sped up deployment considerably. To decide all that before the timer starts is huge and would speed up the game alot. Some people are arguing about ork players. The worst case of slow playing I have ever seen was against mech IG at 1750 points. I barely finished turn 3 before it ended. I went first and the opponet asked if I was running berzerkers I answered yes. Take in mind I finished my entire first turn in 7 minutes. Out of 2 hrs and 30 minutes I used less then 30 minutes. It was discusting and that was the worse case I have ever had of stalling and really opened my eyes to it.

I think stalling is worse then loaded dice! It takes the fun from the game. I

There is also the fundemental flaw with the time imposing structure is that some people take their time so they are thorough and announce everything they are doing clearly so that no mistakes and misunderstandings are made. There's been plenty of times where I was underneath the gun for lack of a better phrase where I mistakenly didn't move a squad or something along that lines and it cost me the game completely so if you force players to constantly be worried about how much time they have to move all of their stuff because they want to be thorough and clear about everything that is done I feel that it favors people who can formulate good twitch based strategies and move all their units in precise measurements. And the whole thing gets screwed up if you have an argument.

Like for instance you are moving and I go wait a minute, you cant move that far. Lets check the rules. No I dont think those guys have that wargear, lets check. No I think you moved the guys too far, clearly you cant assault me. Blah blah blah. Burning through all of your time and either you do the same to me to level the playing field or ignore it and take the handicap. I know I doubt any of this will happen but it could.

No timers. It's been a very rare day that I've not been able to finish a complete game within the allotted time. After years of tourneys, I think I've a keen enough eye to spot the slow play shenanigans. When it does crop up, it's when I start looking at Sportsmanship scoring.

Timers will also suggest that there will be no issue whatsoever regarding rule interpretations, LOS questions, complicated assaults etc...

Another option is for TOs to really look at the amount of time they are allotting each round of a tourney. If folks aren't finishing games, then they need to add time. If this isn't an option (business hours etc...), then they should lower the point value of the tourney to help ensure full games can be played.

lambadomy wrote:Schadenfreude, How does the current system not already allow for all of this to happen?

I think it really depends on the penalty for going over your turn timer. It isn't set in stone that it has to be some kind of forfeiture of the game, it could just be an out-of-game penalty to battle points for the offending player. Perhaps with some room for the judges to decide if a penalty is even deserved. It is still on the player himself to call over a judge if the other player is deliberately slow playing on his turn, etc.

It can happen, but in a timed turn tournament it will happen more often. The common benefit in a non timed tournament is to prevent a turn 5. The benefit in a timed tournament is when the players time ends their turn ends. Nasty WAAC behavior escalates from attempting to prevent additional turns to attempting to ruin every single turn an player takes by causing it to end before they are done. The benefits & reward from the WAAC behavior of stalling the game would increase tenfold, thus the occurrence of turn stalling behavior from WAAC players would also increase also.

Timed turns would not work in a 40k tournament, the cure would be worse than the disease.

I see, I agree with that - but I'm not really advocating timed individual turns.

One of the possibilities presented is the chess clock. Say you had 2 hour rounds. You give 50 minutes to each player for their turns, and a general 20 minutes of extra time. The expectation is that both players complete their 5-7 turns in their 50 minutes allocated time each. The penalty for going over your 50 minutes is simply a loss of points in the game (which is separate from any more severe penalties for deliberately slow playing which should involve a judge)

This would give exactly the same amount of opportunity for the other player to slow play you as a regularly timed game.

I completely agree that something where each turn has a hard timer is completely unworkable. A chess clock may also be unworkable, but I don't see it as being obviously worse than the current system - it may just not actually provide any benefit.

An idea that cropped up while I was talking to my wife about this in the car this evening...

Impose a time limit on the game, as generally happens now. Obviously, the onus here is on ensuring that rounds are actually long enough for the size game being played, including time to find your opponent and table, set up, and sort out results afterwards.

But: If you haven't finished the game by the time the round ends, you keep going until you do finish... and forfeit your next game.

At first glance, it seems a bit harsh on the player who's not playing slow... but on thinking about it, it removes any real benefit to playing deliberately slowly... playing the delay game may gain you a win this round, but that's balanced out by the automatic loss next round. Assuming the tournie is using swiss pairing, players are playing someone (after the first round, anyway) from a similar part of the ladder to themselves, so have nothing much to gain from deliberately sabotaging the other player at their own expense either.

I could see potential issues where a player who knows they're not in with much of a chance finds themselves paired against a top tier player in the first round... deliberately giving yourself a loss in round two to sabotage a top tier player might seem a more attractive option to a particular mindset.

The last round also obviously has no penalty involved... but it's generally not as much of a problem if a game runs a little over in the last round anyway.

Or am I just crazy? Thoughts?

insaniak wrote:An idea that cropped up while I was talking to my wife about this in the car this evening...

Stop... just stop right there!

Your wife can hold an intelligent conversation about wargaming tournament policies?

That. is. awesome.

CatPeeler wrote:

nkelsch wrote:This is called Arbitrary Army Composition rules. .........

I disagree completely. It is more than reasonable to assume that if a given game is allotted 150 minutes to play, each player should expect 75 minutes in which to do so--regardless of what army they are using.

The idea that some armies aren't capable of completing 5 turns within that time is simply not true. I've played several games against 175+ model armies at 2500 points--most of these using 100+ models myself--and completed five turns with time to spare.

It would be more accurate to say that some players aren't capable of completing 5 turns within the allotted time. In that case, I would argue that they should either practice using their army of choice until they are able to do so, or switch armies.

You can disagree, but you would be wrong.

And yes, experienced players can and do finish games with large numbers of models within set time limits quite easily. Played in a 4 game tourney Saturday, 2K points, 2.5 hour time limit, finished all my games (6 turns each) in time, three of them in under 1.5 hours. But I'm an experienced player and know my army and usually my opponent's armies quite well. So basically, you just want to nerf the newbs?

Oh, and to respond to a statement on the first page. When someone assaults my IG, it's seldom over in one round. A 30-man blob with Commissar takes a lot of killing............... If you can manage to do it.

CatPeeler wrote:

nkelsch wrote:This is called Arbitrary Army Composition rules. .........

I disagree completely. It is more than reasonable to assume that if a given game is allotted 150 minutes to play, each player should expect 75 minutes in which to do so--regardless of what army they are using.

The idea that some armies aren't capable of completing 5 turns within that time is simply not true. I've played several games against 175+ model armies at 2500 points--most of these using 100+ models myself--and completed five turns with time to spare.

It would be more accurate to say that some players aren't capable of completing 5 turns within the allotted time. In that case, I would argue that they should either practice using their army of choice until they are able to do so, or switch armies.

I actually do disagree with the idea that it is perfectly fair for both players to expect a perfectly equal amount of time.

It is a simple fact that cannot be disputed that some armies take longer to play than others. For example, Ork models all have a BS2, so to compensate their codex is designed with shooting that involves a bunch of shots, most of which will end up missing due to the Orks' poor BS. It takes time to gather up all the dice, it takes time to roll them (often in batches) and it takes time to separate out the misses from the hits.

On the other extreme, say you take an army like 1Ksons. As an army, they will use much less time to shoot because there are less models that require less dice to roll.

At the end of the day my Ork shooting army and my 1Ksons shooting army may end up killing the same amount of enemy models in the same shooting phase, but it just takes more time to do so with the Ork army.

Are there ways to speed up play? Of course. But at the end of the day it is a simple, inescapable fact that some armies take longer to play than others, no matter how skilled or well-practiced a player is.


There are actually two problems here:

1) There are players out there who are really slow and just will not finish a game no matter what army they play with and how much time you give them (or deliberately slow play). Some of the slowest players I've seen were using an all-drop pod army which didn't even need to use their game time for deployment (or often much for their opponent's first turn).


2) Tournament Organizers keep increasing the amount of points for tournament games without appropriately increasing the amount of time for players to complete their games. This issue often gets overlooked in the rage to penalize 'slow players' but doesn't recognize that some players' call to constantly play larger point tournament games is negatively affecting players who aren't overly slow but who just aren't overly fast or overly familiar with their army.

The mentality that you've brought up (which I've seen many, many, many times) that 'I know I'VE finished games with XXX army in XXX amount of time without any problem' is fine as long as you never want any new players in your tournaments.



Timers are not the solution to anything. The real issue is that tournaments need to be scheduled so that an AVERAGE player playing at a relatively brisk pace with ANY army has a realistic shot of finishing every one of their games. If that means lowering the points values used in games or tacking on an extra 15 minutes if needed, then so be it.

But this idea that everyone just somehow needs to buck-up and play at the speed of a well-oiled tournament veteran is simply insane. Can or should their be specially themed 'speed' tournaments that have very short time windows to play in? Sure, why not. There should be tournaments of every style of game. But the BASE tournament structure should not be pushed to the point (where it tends to be now) where larger armies are marginalized from participation because of improper round allotment.

I agree that the points are too high for the time allowed. My preferred game for 2.5 hours is more like 1500 points than 2500.

kestral wrote:I agree that the points are too high for the time allowed. My preferred game for 2.5 hours is more like 1500 points than 2500.

I always find it odd that the same time formats and schedule for 1500 and 2500 points. I think 'ard boyz time is slightly unreasonable for 2500 points. Two offensive/aggressive armies clashing in assault will take a lot more time to play than two shooty or mech armies. I saw two experienced players with lists have time troubles at 'ardboyz simply because 2500 vs 2500 and lots of actions need to happen.

I think the real issue is if TOs want to do over 1750, they need to extend game time, not punish armies with arbitrary army comp rules or expect 50/50 play. And since events are supposedly a social event, I do not mind downtime for people who finish early over cramming 4 games unreasonably into one day with too high a point value.

If someone is slow playing, then have a staff person call them on it.

Oh, 'ard boyz time limit is pretty unreasonable to be sure.. Especially WFB

yakface wrote:
1) There are players out there who are really slow and just will not finish a game no matter what army they play with and how much time you give them (or deliberately slow play). Some of the slowest players I've seen were using an all-drop pod army which didn't even need to use their game time for deployment (or often much for their opponent's first turn).


2) Tournament Organizers keep increasing the amount of points for tournament games without appropriately increasing the amount of time for players to complete their games. This issue often gets overlooked in the rage to penalize 'slow players' but doesn't recognize that some players' call to constantly play larger point tournament games is negatively affecting players who aren't overly slow but who just aren't overly fast or overly familiar with their army.

The mentality that you've brought up (which I've seen many, many, many times) that 'I know I'VE finished games with XXX army in XXX amount of time without any problem' is fine as long as you never want any new players in your tournaments

In my experience at least, new players that were slow because of logistics tended to accept help to speed things up. Slow players that sit and think don't. If two newbs are playing, sure that game might take a long time, but no vets are getting screwed, so they're less likely to complain. A vet can help count attacks, suggest how to allocate wounds, help with movement, etc. so that even a relatively new ork player can finish.

I agree that hard boys might be a bit much for 2.5 hours, but 1500 is picking up in popularity around me, and there's far less excuse about not being able to finish there.

You also don't need to go to tournaments to become well oiled with your army, although that helps.

I'm not advocating a timer, I'm advocating for making slow play more of a concern for TOs. Help them discern between veteran slow players that are stalling, and new players that could use some pointers.

Also, the level of the event could determine the willingness of a TO to cater to newer players. A small 1500pt store RTT can probably be a lot more flexible than an indy GT.

1500 can be generally completed in 2hours, even by new players - 1750/2000 means that 2 hours is generally pushing it for a lot of people, so it needs to go up.

2.5hours for 2500 points is very, very fast, and people with hordes would be massively penalised by any timesharing system - and it is therefore covert Comping.

yakface wrote:I actually do disagree with the idea that it is perfectly fair for both players to expect a perfectly equal amount of time.
The mentality that you've brought up (which I've seen many, many, many times) that 'I know I'VE finished games with XXX army in XXX amount of time without any problem' is fine as long as you never want any new players in your tournaments...

....The real issue is that tournaments need to be scheduled so that an AVERAGE player playing at a relatively brisk pace with ANY army has a realistic shot of finishing every one of their games. If that means lowering the points values used in games or tacking on an extra 15 minutes if needed, then so be it.

Ah, I see. It seems the disagreement stems from differing expectations about tournament play in general.

I have zero problem with 'average' players in a casual game, or even at a small (8-10 players) tournament at a FLGS. Those are *great* venues for improving one's skill level.

At a larger venue, though, I believe a higher level of mastery is implied, i.e., one generally expects to face "better" players at a competitive event. As far as I'm concerned, each player at a large(r) tournament should--at minimum--be thoroughly versed in their own rules and well practiced in their application.

If, as you mentioned, a TO gears the missions and time allotment so that an 'average' player has a reasonable shot at finishing the game with a horde army... I imagine you'll have a sizeable chunk of the participants enjoying a 90+ minute break between each round.

If you're unable to finish 5 turns in the allotted time, I feel that you're simply not ready to compete at that points level (my main objection to this year's preliminary scenarios was that they were six turns, for this very reason). You can play, sure--but you're not ready to compete. Further, if you choose to use a large or otherwise complicated army, then I think the onus is on you to practice, practice, practice until you can still consistently finish the game in the time provided. If you can't--you're not ready.

The good news is that there's some leeway there. In my experience, most skilled players seem to only need 30-40% of the time allowed (that full mech & reserves are so prevalent in this edition certainly helps). Obviously, this gives their opponent some breathing room... but the catch is that if you have 60-70% of the time allowed, you have even *less* an excuse not to finish the game. In that sense, a hard-and-fast "50% of the time" rule isn't absolutely necessary, but I think that it would serve as a reasonably equitable standard to assume.

This still leaves *plenty* of room for newer players. I think that it's perfectly reasonable to expect that you'll need to start 'small,' as it were, and then work your way up. There are plenty of 1000-1500 point tourneys out there for newer players to cut their teeth on. Once they have things 'down' at that level, they can certainly move up to the next level.

Can I just say. While I don't play tournaments very much (an average of one small one every two years doesn't give me much room to speak.) but the only time I have been slow played. was 300 points, no I didn't miss a zero it realy was 300 points, was because my opponent was to busy talking to the TO to start the game so my army only managed to kill a chaplain on a bike rather than table him. I would however like to point out that I would not have come near winning anyway.