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 OverwatchCNC wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
Chess clocks really don't work, when player turns are dependent on opponent behavior. Acting slow / dumb when it comes to handling saving throws and return attacks in combats and all of that will in theory burn an opponent's time just as readily. You'd have to be smacking the clock after rolling to hit/wound with shooting and cc, and the other person would have to smack it before rolling. I guess that much might be alright / workable, but even arguing about LOS/etc. just to burn someone's timer ... uglee.

The best solution at the large-scale GT level is fewer rounds in a given day (4 is a lot) so players are less fatigued, and more flexibility in terms of what can be done in interim time, plus better layout of missions, floorplans, etc.

Reality is, the game IS slower ... but part of that is people are still getting down the rules, are still figuring out details, the meta is very foot heavy (and this is going to change somewhat to a more balanced level as more and more books release), etc.

There's a big difference, however, between games going to 4-6 turns ... and games going to 2-3 turns. The 2-3 turn games are still quite rare, except in the case of intentional slow play. I would say they are no more common than in 5th. The key is figuring out the sweetspot that will get games to 5 turns regularly, and there's ways to do that BESIDES million-hour rounds or 1500 point games. 1750-1850 is still just fine. 2 hour rounds are a wee bit intense, as is the 2000 point level.

I agree almost 100%. The only thing I think being missed by a lot of the major TOs, no disrespect meant here, is the idea that 1500 point games are somehow undesirable. Granted I do not want every tournament to adopt 1500 points as the standard level, i enjoy variation in my choices for local RTs and GTs alike, but I think 1500 is better suited to 2 hours than anything above that. 1850 is really best for 2.5 hour rounds and in a GT environment with 5+ rounds that is quite a bit of time considering that even then there will be games not getting past turn 3.

I am really interested to see what you and the other TOs like Reece find as the 6th ed GT scene really kicks into high gear this year.

No disrespect taken at all! ... not even sure how I could take it, you wrote your reply so politely! I think 1500 is desirable to a lot of players, and I don't have a personal problem with it. I do think MOST players prefer the higher levels. But, there is a reason we dropped to and announced 1850 a couple months after NOVA last year, and we do run 2.5 hour rounds.

Fatigue is a big deal as well; we went from 2/4/2 to 3/3/2 with an optional drop after 3 for this year ... and instituted battle points scoring with equivalent scores for games broken on final tiebreaker, so that players who aren't up for 7+ games can voluntarily remove and still compete fully on a BP loss/tie-recoverable front, within the same field. IMO having 3 games a day for 2 days is a lot more manageable in terms of people not slowing down due to fatigue, and of course 2.5 hour rounds I agree w/ you is about a minimum for games much above 1500 points. Kinda tricky to figure all of it out. That said, I do think things will speed up as the edition matures ... I really do. I also think the more variables you have, the slower things are in terms of people adjusting / understanding / etc. I.E., not to kick the powderkeg, but if you have highly variable and complex missions, rolling for table side AND who goes first / deployment zone, Forgeworld rules being brought in, etc., all these things add time and slow the game down / pregame down. It's an art as much as a science to figure out which components to add or keep, and how to structure things. An art certainly none of us is much of a master of yet in 6th Edition ... even those of us who've run bunches of RTT's and multi-hundred-person GT's to date in it. Hopefully we'll all continue to take note of what others are doing, incorporate the best lessons learned, and find a sweet spot or three where variability exists between events, but we've zero'ed in on the best guesstimate of how long rounds should last, and how many points they should be played at, and what units should be legalized, etc. etc. etc.

nkelsch wrote:
There are lots of people who go to tourneys as a way to get organized play with no hopes of winning. Many haven't played much 40k at all. Hell, half my opponents at NOVA last year hadn't even played 6th edition yet. I have met many people who have total conversion armies they never played too.

As someone who is 'not that good' and play Orks, I end up at the mid to low tables sometimes so you get to meet people with similar stories. Usually 'the pack sorts itself out' as the tourney progresses and the rankings happen. The trick is when one of these casual players hits a skilled player on game 1 before rankings fall in to place, and it kinda speedbumps them.

So to them, they don't see it as a waste of time, and hey, with 200+ people playing, hundreds of people have to lose!

I'm not saying you have to be a cutthroat competitor to enter the tourney, but not having even played your army before? Yikes. I mean, it happens, but still, there's a certain amount of prep that you should do to enter a tournament.

Of course, the counter to that is that someone who hasn't played their army much/at all will probably not win at all.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Of course, the counter to that is that someone who hasn't played their army much/at all will probably not win at all.

That's not the point. At least in my opinion, there's a bit of a social contract at events: Show up on time, don't be a dick, bring your materials, know your army, make sure your army is presentable, etc.

That person was failing on a number of those points.

Complex social contracts at a large GT are a myth. They have to be entered into by both sides. The only social contract that exists at a broadly attended tournament is one established by the TO's, and players should not be punished socially or otherwise for failing to live up to a contract they weren't even aware of. Bringing materials / etc. are usually part of a TO-instituted social contract, of course, in most player packets.

 Grey Templar wrote:
They also don't work as well for 40k as they do other games IMO. It would seriously penelize horde armies.

My thoughts exactly...that would be a disadvantage to nid players.

 wyomingfox wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They also don't work as well for 40k as they do other games IMO. It would seriously penelize horde armies.

My thoughts exactly...that would be a disadvantage to nid players.

It could be done, it would need some major work put into it though. Maybe based on model count. If you have over X number of models in your list you get another 20 minutes on your clock.

My issue with any sort of alteration to the original rules is that you may inevitably make a mistake. I'd much rather deal with GW's messed up rules than some other guy's messed up attempts to fix those rules. That way everyone is on the same page at least.

MVBrandt wrote:
Complex social contracts at a large GT are a myth.

No, I get the point, hence the 'In My Opinion' bit. Perhaps it is more of a 'treat others as you wish to be treated'. I go above and beyond to make sure that I have my gak together for events and I just wish other people did to.

The only social contract that exists at a broadly attended tournament is one established by the TO's...Bringing materials / etc. are usually part of a TO-instituted social contract, of course, in most player packets.

Well, to be fair, that isn't really a social contract, that is the rules of the event.

and players should not be punished socially or otherwise for failing to live up to a contract they weren't even aware of.

I just disagree. I'm not saying we take them out back, but there are certain base expectations that I have of other people who interact at a tournament. Is it too much to ask for someone not to be a dick, to show up on time, bring your materials and to know your army? (I'll give up on presentable army) I mean those are really bottom of the barrel basic things.

Don't get me wrong - I share your behavioral traits in terms of treating others above and beyond if I can ... I share your desire to be treated the same in return. BUT if someone acts in a way that underwhelms below my expectations and I did not openly share those expectations pre-game w/ him, that's not really his fault. Additionally, if I don't have fun because I set my expectations unreasonably high, that's not his fault.

You can't be / aren't responsible for the feelings of other people ... even if you can be a negative douchey person. PERSONALLY, I don't level expectations on a stranger to be anything other than a complete and total stranger ... and if they turn out to be a douchey, negative, or ill-prepared stranger ... I won't really judge them or be disappointed as a result ... even if I also won't have much of a high opinion of them. That said, if they turn out to be awesome, then ... cool, I'm even happier to have had the game with them than if I set random un-justified expectations only to have them simply "met."

IOW, I'm agreeing with your outlook on what I'd HOPE for on a personal level, but disagreeing that it's somehow my opponent's responsibility to show up, meet a stranger, and act in a way that will fulfill his unspoken or ill-expressed desires for an opponent's behavior.

This of course ties back to the OP - your'e responsible for sharing openly (with your opponent, judges, whoever) your expectations for a game. If someone is playing extraordinarily slow, you're responsible for openly sharing that feeling .... and also responsible for how you phrase it (as how you phrase it will impact the way they take it, even if how they choose to react is THEIR responsibility). You can only really feel any irritation at how they react / what they do to address the situation if you are responsible, open, and honest with sharing your expectations / needs / desires ABOUT the situation. Yada yada. You really do see a lot of overly shy or socially awkward folks in our hobby, which can be problematic when they're faced with a situation where they quietly observe an opponent and think they're doing something wrong ... say nothing ... share nothing ... and then eventually go rant about it to their buddies or on the internet afterward. Of course, I'm not saying that's what the OP is doing ... only trying to tie the slightly off topic direction back to the ways one should handle Stalling at a tournament.

MVBrandt wrote:
disagreeing that it's somehow my opponent's responsibility to show up, meet a stranger, and act in a way that will fulfill his unspoken or ill-expressed desires for an opponent's behavior.

I'm not asking for a great game, a handy or a smile. I'm just asking for you not to be a dick, show up on time and play the game. If you're not prepared to do those things, you're being unfair to all of your opponents, not just my 'unrealistic' expectations.

 pretre wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
disagreeing that it's somehow my opponent's responsibility to show up, meet a stranger, and act in a way that will fulfill his unspoken or ill-expressed desires for an opponent's behavior.

I'm not asking for a great game, a handy or a smile. I'm just asking for you not to be a dick, show up on time and play the game. If you're not prepared to do those things, you're being unfair to all of your opponents, not just my 'unrealistic' expectations.

I'm with you - at that simplistic a level, though, MOST tournament packets explicitly require this. If an opponent fails to meet THESE criteria, there are usually explicit resolutions. In example, being late = you lose, being a dick = you get negative sportsmanship and are talked to by TO's and/or docked points and/or kicked out of the event/asked not to come back.

MVBrandt wrote:
I'm with you - at that simplistic a level, though, MOST tournament packets explicitly require this. If an opponent fails to meet THESE criteria, there are usually explicit resolutions. In example, being late = you lose, being a dick = you get negative sportsmanship and are talked to by TO's and/or docked points and/or kicked out of the event/asked not to come back.

Except that's not what happened with Blackmoor's game (which is what I was talking about). His opponent showed up late, didn't know their army and basically handed him a tie because of it.

Either way, I'll let it go.

I was speaking more to your latter comments. I'm fully supporting you here on your primary opinions, agreeing with you, and agreeing again on the issue with showing up late = bad.

Not knowing their army, of course, is more to the issue of something you can't EXPECT someone to know at a major, open tournament. It's also almost impossible for TO's to require it, because there's no way to police it.

 Mannahnin wrote:
I agree that there are several major and important factors which were not covered in the OP.

1. Experience level of the opponent. Inexperienced players who do not know the rules cold play slower. This is an unavoidable fact, and something one always needs to compensate for.
2. Fielding a horde army. The OP later clarified that the opponent wasn't, but it's still something to look out for and sometimes more of a factor than slow play, especially when the organizers have failed to allot sufficient time for the point size of the game.
3. Time alloted and point size of the game. Two hours was a tight time schedule for a normal tournament game of 5th edition. 6th plays slower in several areas, and you really shouldn't be trying to squeeze in anything above 1500pts in two hours. 2:15 to 2:30 is more reasonable for 1750 or 1850, but even with an extra half hour you still need to play quickly and efficiently if either player has a high model count.

As a nid player I often run into guys who aren't familiar with how my army works...so I end up spending quite a bit of time explaining rules or confirming that rules work the way they do (example: how Impaler Cannons work or what is involved in Spawning Guants).

 pretre wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
I'm with you - at that simplistic a level, though, MOST tournament packets explicitly require this. If an opponent fails to meet THESE criteria, there are usually explicit resolutions. In example, being late = you lose, being a dick = you get negative sportsmanship and are talked to by TO's and/or docked points and/or kicked out of the event/asked not to come back.

Except that's not what happened with Blackmoor's game (which is what I was talking about). His opponent showed up late, didn't know their army and basically handed him a tie because of it.

Either way, I'll let it go.

The funny thing is that they ended up in the bottom 10 so they hurt my chances of winning and it did nothing for them except put them in a higher table that they had no business being in.


I think people think judges are an answer for a lot of problems, but in my experience they are not much of a help. Remember that they players are there customers and they are very hesitant to offend or upset them no matter how in the wrong they are. Also the rules packets are often ignored.

For example: at the BAO forge world has to be modeled, or at least a close proximity. I was going against a Tau player who had 2 railguns on his hammerhead so I thought nothing of this and thought it was just a cool conversion. So I deployed out in the open because if he kills 1 or 2 marines it is no big deal. Then he says that they are TL Plasma Guns that get 4 shots each, and the next thing you know I am down a squad because they did not follow the rules.

Judges need to be proactive in many areas, but particularly in things involving subjective views, like soft scores and stalling. If they are not, it opens the door to a lot of shennanigans and hurt feelings from misunderstandings. Allan's Tau example is one situation where the player, whether intenionally or not, basically mislead him in a game. Stalling often follows a similar path, in my experience.

Personally, I cannot understand how stalling is not called at tournaments. I have heard the "I am running a horde army" excuse a bunch, but that just does not fly with me. After a year off from 2 day 40k evens, I rolled out a 150 man foot guard army and I was able to get all my games done (one stopped early due to me conceeding). Now guard is not my regular army and the round I played Allan's all infantry army, we were among the first people done. I was able to do this thanks to planning ahead and practicing with the list to speed up lay and setup time. So, sorry horde players, thats not enough of an excuse. If you are incapable of playing a horde army and making past turn three, then don't bring the damn thing to a two day event.

Really, my best solution to the stalling problem is to implement a three strikes system. If you fail to complete your games, either through concession or last turn, three times in a weekend, you can no longer compete for overall or best general. That may seem harsh, but no one who paid to come to these things wants to be effectively eliminated because they got randomly paired with slow poke rodrigez in round three and could not make it past turn two.

 Phazael wrote:
Really, my best solution to the stalling problem is to implement a three strikes system. If you fail to complete your games, either through concession or last turn, three times in a weekend, you can no longer compete for overall or best general. That may seem harsh, but no one who paid to come to these things wants to be effectively eliminated because they got randomly paired with slow poke rodrigez in round three and could not make it past turn two.

So your solution to people being penalized for being paired with slow players is... to penalize people for being paired with slow players?

There are a lot of people who don’t know there armies, or don’t know how to play their armies fast.

I played Mike Fox in round #2 of the BAO and he played a foot horde ork army. He did a lot of things to speed up play like asking me if it was ok to combine his runs with his movement. Another thing he did was that he had several dice colors. He had them in 2 piles of 15 dice and one of 10. Since he knew how many dice he had in each, he was able to quickly manipulate the large numbers of dice that he needed to roll.

This is how it should be in a perfect world, but the reality is often far different. I wish every player had their crap together, but it will never happen, and there is not much recourse when they don’t. They are ruining other people’s tournament and gaming experience but there is not much that can be done about it. .

I played a list at the BAO that I had never played in a game before the tournament, with a codex that I had only played once before. This definitely hurt my chances of doing well, but all my games went to the roll for more turns. Obviously anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but I really don't see any reason why people wouldn't be able to finish their games in a timely fashion.

I think there are definitely things the TO's can do to help alleviate this problem
- regular announcements of the time remaining in the round
- harsh penalties for not making a minimum turn(as we do in pasadena)
- Harsh penalties for slow play
- Recognizing those members of the community who are notorious for this behavior and monitoring them appropriately. Not only monitoring, but letting them know that they are being watched for slow playing or lagging. I know it's hard since as someone said, the players are your customers. But is it better for one guy to have a gakky day because you called him out on his BS or for everyone he/she plays to have a gakky day when they have to play him?

Ultimately it is up to the players to play their game but the TO's should be doing their best to move things along, both ensuring that their customers/players are having a good time and that the rules for their event are being followed.

i organize my dice into sets of 6 before the game starts and always take some time during my opponents movement to set that back up. 6 shots per twin linked brainleech devourer, 3 dice for spawning gants, 2 dice for psyker tests... really easy to get the right amount.

Also, you don't have to measure 6" for every model in a 20 man unit. Measure the first few with a tac template and then fill in the rest.

There is a difference between a new army list and a new player. I assume you arn't a new player and were reasonably familiar with your codex.

 Danny Internets wrote:

 Phazael wrote:
Really, my best solution to the stalling problem is to implement a three strikes system. If you fail to complete your games, either through concession or last turn, three times in a weekend, you can no longer compete for overall or best general. That may seem harsh, but no one who paid to come to these things wants to be effectively eliminated because they got randomly paired with slow poke rodrigez in round three and could not make it past turn two.

So your solution to people being penalized for being paired with slow players is... to penalize people for being paired with slow players?

If you fail to complete a game once or twice, no penalty, so if you are not a slow player and find your way in this situation it is time to grow a pair and get the judge involved. This of course requires proactive judges who aren't busy eyeballing LOS issues for arguing douches all day.....

My advice is as follows. If the game is going slow at first kindly point it out a couple times. If you have to mention it again take a sterner tone. Most app phones stop watches - use it. Start timing your opponent each turn and mark it down. As an aside I remember playing in Ard Boyz once... My opponent was timing the rounds but wouldn't bother to tell me how much time was remaining when I asked.

I think I will do a couple of things to prevent stalling.

#1. Always go second.
#2. Take some fast scoring units.

That way when we know when the game will end I will be in possition to take advantage of it.

The other thing that I am going to do is buy a countdown timer for my table so I can see how much time we have left.

http://www.amazon.com/Presto-04213-Electronic-Digital-Timer/dp/B001CQG618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362589651&sr=8-1&keywords=Timer

ooh, the countdown timer is a good idea. Or a smartphone with clock app.

 pretre wrote:
ooh, the countdown timer is a good idea. Or a smartphone with clock app.

I use a kitchen timer app for tournaments, I can set up to 3 different times in it, click start to run one of the times, when it ends (say for time between rounds), I hopefully have done everything I needed to do, and can start the next round with another time.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
My advice is as follows. If the game is going slow at first kindly point it out a couple times. If you have to mention it again take a sterner tone. Most app phones stop watches - use it. Start timing your opponent each turn and mark it down. As an aside I remember playing in Ard Boyz once... My opponent was timing the rounds but wouldn't bother to tell me how much time was remaining when I asked.

It works out to 7.5 to 10 minutes a turn (including set up as a turn) for a 2 hour game.

Personally, I think chess clocks actually could work, if you don't go for classic "split total game time 50/50 per player", but instead give something like 1h15min per player in, while still having the total cap at 2h.

While people always start by saying that chess clock penalizes horde armies. With 50/50 spread, that is true. So next question is: how much more time should be given for the horde player?
If we have 2 hours of game time, allowing horde player to use 1.5h out of it is obviously too much if it results in game ending because of time restriction.
It means that horde player used 3 times as much time as the other did, which resulted in the game not being played to finish. That is pretty unfair for the non-horde player, isn't it?

1h15 min results in far more acceptable 50% more time used. Or you can go for 1h 20 min for 100% more time given for one player.
Note that if the game doesn't end because of time constraint, it really doesn't matter how the time used was divided.

Now, obviously chess clocks aren't perfect solution. As others have pointed out, your opponent can still try and stall you during your turn. But that is lot harder and/or more visible than stalling during their own turn is.
But just because there is no perfect problem for a solution doesn't meant that solutions lessening the problem should be ignored.
And using timed turns would mitigate the issue a lot.

There's always the obvious solution, at least for the TOs: Increase the time limit. 2:30 feels a bit tight for 1750, let alone 2k.

I wrote this in the other thread and I will post it here:

I think "us" as players need to do more to be proactive as far as time management goes. That means keeping track of time like timers or cell phones, have an army that can play fast, and if not have a system that speeds play. And then if falling behind encouraging and motivating our opponents to hurry up.

I was going to bring Eldar/Dark Eldar to Adepticon but I am not that proficient with that army, and it takes a while to play with all of the movement and shooting. That is why I am sticking with the Grey Knights because they play fast, I know them well, and I will almost always finish my games.