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Amazingly people can have opinions and they are not invalidated because their opinion is negative.

Just because Peregrine dislikes 8th doesn't mean his arguments against chess clocks in 40k carry no weight.

If thats your only argument against his points it seems like you are the one with nothing to actually say.

 Sim-Life wrote:
IF YOU ARE THE ONE DOING SOMETHING, YOU DO IT ON YOUR TIME.

Define "doing something". We'll start with something as simple as a LOS check. One player claims LOS for shooting, the other player disputes it. Whose clock runs?

If the player claiming LOS has to run their clock while establishing it then TFG contests every LOS claim (including "obvious" ones), demanding perfect measurements with a laser pointer and dragging out the process as long as possible for the sole purpose of wasting their opponent's clock time.

If the player contesting LOS has to run their clock while proving that LOS does not exist then TFG claims LOS even when it is clearly not possible, forcing their opponent to choose between burning clock time to contest LOS (with the same time-consuming process of perfect and constantly disputed measurement) or allowing TFG's units to shoot through walls.

Neither one of these situations is acceptable, therefore chess clocks are not acceptable.

I think it's fantastic. I don't play ITC so it wont be an issue for me directly. But if it cuts down on the crying about slow play I'm sure it's fine. I don't like it though and wont use one in any of my games.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Wibe wrote:
Been thinking, and they have to state when you can change the clock.
TFG will press the clock when his 50+ dice are still in the air, counting wounds on your time. And stand there waiting to throw the one dice for his armour 6+ save, or the dice for the moral phase he can not lose, until you change the clock.


But even so, I prefer all of that to every game ending turn3...

Again if he is counting wounds thats on his time. If he's takes his time throwing dice in the first few rolls just switch it to him every time.

Again switching clocks on a single roll is common, maybe not at the start of the game but when it comes down to the wire it happens plenty.

TFG will be dropping 50+ dice, and then argue that the dice is thrown (arguing on your time), so the wounds are counted on your time. That part of the warhammer crowd needs rules for stuff like this.

One thing I've seen is that people keep saying "if my opponent starts wasting time then I flip the clock to them". However this implies that the player has to waste time before the clock flips to them when its not their turn. So they've already achieved the time wasting goal of wasting time not on their clock.


The point that the clocks aim to give each player 50% of the total time allotted is a good point and does bring a little sanity into the discussion, but still doesn't get around the "drama" and dispute angles that are being raised.

The other aspect is to consider that because the game can swap back and forth very quickly during turns (you roll they roll) I could well see that if players were fast swapping the clock during a turn you could end up with the clock missing a step. You could well end up playing on your opponents time very easily if you were swapping back and forth fairly fast.

I still maintain that clearly identifying and punishing obvious slow play (which LVO and GW manifestly failed to do) is a far better system than making everyone use a clock and creating a whole extra layer of complexity.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
IF YOU ARE THE ONE DOING SOMETHING, YOU DO IT ON YOUR TIME.

Define "doing something". We'll start with something as simple as a LOS check. One player claims LOS for shooting, the other player disputes it. Whose clock runs?

If the player claiming LOS has to run their clock while establishing it then TFG contests every LOS claim (including "obvious" ones), demanding perfect measurements with a laser pointer and dragging out the process as long as possible for the sole purpose of wasting their opponent's clock time.

If the player contesting LOS has to run their clock while proving that LOS does not exist then TFG claims LOS even when it is clearly not possible, forcing their opponent to choose between burning clock time to contest LOS (with the same time-consuming process of perfect and constantly disputed measurement) or allowing TFG's units to shoot through walls.

Neither one of these situations is acceptable, therefore chess clocks are not acceptable.

If the opposing player is contesting every LoS claim then call a judge, it's what they're there for.

Stop acting like players have no recourse in these situations. Or is the charisma of the TFGs in your area so crushingly overwhelming that judges crumple into simpering piles of cowerdice at TFGs mighty arguments?

For a game like Warhammer that has a lot of back and forth things I think chess clocks are not going to help and are the wrong response. It works fine and a game like war machine because there is very little that gets rolled in your turn by your opponent; tough is about it, barring things like admonition or counter charge.

What games have in common that use chess clock is there is no armor saves. Because those exist I think this will be silly for 40K since you could theoretically jump back and forth between players for seconds at a time multiple times during the game

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
IF YOU ARE THE ONE DOING SOMETHING, YOU DO IT ON YOUR TIME.

Define "doing something". We'll start with something as simple as a LOS check. One player claims LOS for shooting, the other player disputes it. Whose clock runs?

If the player claiming LOS has to run their clock while establishing it then TFG contests every LOS claim (including "obvious" ones), demanding perfect measurements with a laser pointer and dragging out the process as long as possible for the sole purpose of wasting their opponent's clock time.

If the player contesting LOS has to run their clock while proving that LOS does not exist then TFG claims LOS even when it is clearly not possible, forcing their opponent to choose between burning clock time to contest LOS (with the same time-consuming process of perfect and constantly disputed measurement) or allowing TFG's units to shoot through walls.

Neither one of these situations is acceptable, therefore chess clocks are not acceptable.

If the opposing player is contesting every LoS claim then call a judge, it's what they're there for.

Stop acting like players have no recourse in these situations. Or is the charisma of the TFGs in your area so crushingly overwhelming that judges crumple into simpering piles of cowerdice at TFGs mighty arguments?

It is not that they have no recourse, it is that it is better to kill off those arguments of from the start.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
IF YOU ARE THE ONE DOING SOMETHING, YOU DO IT ON YOUR TIME.

Define "doing something". We'll start with something as simple as a LOS check. One player claims LOS for shooting, the other player disputes it. Whose clock runs?

If the player claiming LOS has to run their clock while establishing it then TFG contests every LOS claim (including "obvious" ones), demanding perfect measurements with a laser pointer and dragging out the process as long as possible for the sole purpose of wasting their opponent's clock time.

If the player contesting LOS has to run their clock while proving that LOS does not exist then TFG claims LOS even when it is clearly not possible, forcing their opponent to choose between burning clock time to contest LOS (with the same time-consuming process of perfect and constantly disputed measurement) or allowing TFG's units to shoot through walls.

Neither one of these situations is acceptable, therefore chess clocks are not acceptable.

If the opposing player is contesting every LoS claim then call a judge, it's what they're there for.

Stop acting like players have no recourse in these situations. Or is the charisma of the TFGs in your area so crushingly overwhelming that judges crumple into simpering piles of cowerdice at TFGs mighty arguments?

A judge can't be everywhere at once.
Also whose time has to tick down while you wait for a judge? Yours or your opponents?

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
IF YOU ARE THE ONE DOING SOMETHING, YOU DO IT ON YOUR TIME.

Define "doing something". We'll start with something as simple as a LOS check. One player claims LOS for shooting, the other player disputes it. Whose clock runs?

If the player claiming LOS has to run their clock while establishing it then TFG contests every LOS claim (including "obvious" ones), demanding perfect measurements with a laser pointer and dragging out the process as long as possible for the sole purpose of wasting their opponent's clock time.

If the player contesting LOS has to run their clock while proving that LOS does not exist then TFG claims LOS even when it is clearly not possible, forcing their opponent to choose between burning clock time to contest LOS (with the same time-consuming process of perfect and constantly disputed measurement) or allowing TFG's units to shoot through walls.

Neither one of these situations is acceptable, therefore chess clocks are not acceptable.

If the opposing player is contesting every LoS claim then call a judge, it's what they're there for.

Stop acting like players have no recourse in these situations. Or is the charisma of the TFGs in your area so crushingly overwhelming that judges crumple into simpering piles of cowerdice at TFGs mighty arguments?

A judge can't be everywhere at once.
Also whose time has to tick down while you wait for a judge? Yours or your opponents?

You pause the clock.
The fact that you would even ask that is astounding.

Thing is if you look at nearly any other sporting or competitive event judges or referees or such are generally viewing every single match taking place within a competition. You might have some where there are minor judges watching most games and then an overall judge over the top.
The only ones that tend to not have an official watching the whole thing tend to be things like long distance cross country runs where you can't view the whole thing from one spot.

Gaming lacks the competitive sponsoring and income that allows for payment of more officials, but I do wonder if wargaming couldn't do more to promote itself and gain more officials to oversee matches at competitive events. MTG seems to manage pretty well without the need for clocks and to deal with timewasters (though in general those matches are much faster anyway).

Considering the complexity it seems almost daft that wargames rely upon almost a handful of roaming officials at competitive events.

MTG and other games don't have the gak house poorly written rules GW does that just don't work RAW.

 Lance845 wrote:
MTG and other games don't have the gak house poorly written rules GW does that just don't work RAW.

They still have huge arguments on the order of abilities and such and some of those upper level combos can get rather complicated, esp when the counters to them can be equally complicated. And asides we've not really been arguing about rule disputes in this but time wasters as a specific cheating tactic within games. The clock is there to counter a specific problem. My view is that having more officials would make for reduced rule dispute times; reduced "waiting for judge" times and also reduce the chances of cheating.

The core issue is finding, training and reimbursing officials for larger events.

 EnTyme wrote:
That seems to have less to do with who's better at the game than who's able to get through their movement and psychic phase faster. Faster doesn't mean better.

Being able to play fast but well is a skill. If you had two chess players who both played identical games against an identical opponent, with identical outcomes (them winning), but one of them won in 30 minutes whereas the other took 2 hours, which would you say is the more skilled player?

 Sim-Life wrote:
If the opposing player is contesting every LoS claim then call a judge, it's what they're there for.

Wouldn't it be easier all round to just call a judge if your opponent is slow playing (and have the judge act on it) and remove the 'need' for the clocks entirely..?

 Overread wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
MTG and other games don't have the gak house poorly written rules GW does that just don't work RAW.

They still have huge arguments on the order of abilities and such and some of those upper level combos can get rather complicated, esp when the counters to them can be equally complicated.

They do. And the end result may be complicated. But the answer to 2 + 2 is always 4 even if you add a whole bunch of complicated steps in the middle to get there. The problem with GWs rules is 2 + 2 doesn't always equal 4. Because the rules don't actually work. That is a gak job for a Judge. If GW wants to branch out to being more popular and attracting more and higher quality sponsors so they can pay more and higher quality judges then they need their game to actually work.

And asides we've not really been arguing about rule disputes in this but time wasters as a specific cheating tactic within games. The clock is there to counter a specific problem. My view is that having more officials would make for reduced rule dispute times; reduced "waiting for judge" times and also reduce the chances of cheating.

The core issue is finding, training and reimbursing officials for larger events.

As above. You want sponsors to pay for more and better judges you need to start treating the game like something worth sponsoring.

Thing is in chess the time required to play either side (white or black) is identical. In Warhammer games some armies are going to be faster than others by inherent design. Custodes VS Swarm Tyranids the Custodes is always going to be faster because its focusing on far far fewer elite units; meanwhile the Swarm Tyranid player is going to take longer as there are so many more models on the table.

So in that case even a more skilled tyranid player might not be able to play "as fast" as a lesser skilled custodes player.

I think that's one crux of the issue. Players know that there is natural variation in play style and speed between the factions of the game and even with different army compositions within factions. I think some don't want to see Chess Clocks become the start of rewarding faster and faster players; when it should be there only to punish slower players and reduce the chances of cheating via slow play.

Otherwise it could end up rather like the Sportsmanship score - where by its got intent, but actual use can be very different in how people interpret and use the score.

Why don't we wait until some major event tries the clock and see what the participants say about their experience?

Oh wait, this is the internet where practical experience doesn't mean much.

It'll be interesting to see how the experiment goes, I'd like it to work but suspect I'll cause the same amount of problems as it solves for a net result of pointless faffing

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Why don't we wait until some major event tries the clock and see what the participants say about their experience?

Oh wait, this is the internet where practical experience doesn't mean much.

Naws nothing to do with the internet - its just people
We could do this down the pub and have the same conversation without a practical test case. Thing is its kinda hard to get everyone in dakka in the SAME place like that - so we make do with the interwebs.


That and we can certainly chat about it and other games have used chess clocks - so we can bring those experiences into the discussion. There's also practical elements which can be debated or discussed before we even get to a real world testing situation.

 Sim-Life wrote:

pismakron wrote:
In principle I'd love to play with a chess-clock, but I don't think the phasing-structure of 40k lends it well to chess-clock usage. Specifically I think the way a defending player will pick casualties and roll armour saves when an attacker rolls to wound is problematic. Regards

It works like this:
Attacker on clock
Rolls hits and wounds
"Your unit takes this many wounds."
Switches clock to opponent
Defender rolls saves and removes casualties on his time
Switches clock back to attacker.


It literally amounts to pressing a button when you're not doibg something.

Or pressing a button when you are interrupting your opponents gameplay. For that scenario a chess clock is almost ideal.

The problem is when you are attacking with 10-20 squads, each having a default weapon, a special weapon, a heavy weapon and a nob/seargeant with something. We are potentially talking about 40+ switches in every shooting phase and in every fight phase, and all that twice over for each battle-round. In comparison most chess-games have, what, 80 switches ? I am not saying that it is a bad idea, I just think 40k is a bit too cumbersome for chess-clocks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Thing is in chess the time required to play either side (white or black) is identical. In Warhammer games some armies are going to be faster than others by inherent design. Custodes VS Swarm Tyranids the Custodes is always going to be faster because its focusing on far far fewer elite units; meanwhile the Swarm Tyranid player is going to take longer as there are so many more models on the table.

So in that case even a more skilled tyranid player might not be able to play "as fast" as a lesser skilled custodes player.

The Tyranid player does not have to play as fast as the Custodes player. He just needs to complete all his moves in half of the alloted time-slot. There are no bonus for finishing with more time on your clock than your opponent.

pismakron wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

pismakron wrote:
In principle I'd love to play with a chess-clock, but I don't think the phasing-structure of 40k lends it well to chess-clock usage. Specifically I think the way a defending player will pick casualties and roll armour saves when an attacker rolls to wound is problematic. Regards

It works like this:
Attacker on clock
Rolls hits and wounds
"Your unit takes this many wounds."
Switches clock to opponent
Defender rolls saves and removes casualties on his time
Switches clock back to attacker.


It literally amounts to pressing a button when you're not doibg something.

Or pressing a button when you are interrupting your opponents gameplay. For that scenario a chess clock is almost ideal.

The problem is when you are attacking with 10-20 squads, each having a default weapon, a special weapon, a heavy weapon and a nob/seargeant with something.
/quote]

Then people will need to learn to use different coloured dice to indocate different weapons/models and roll them at the same time.

If people want to curtail TFG behaviours like slow play then they're going to need to start adapting to the things that regulate that behaviour.

Also I don't know why the quoting system on this forum hates mobile phones.

I saw this exact same argument on Facebook not to long ago. The argument against them was really good and the replies were utter nonsense, so lets see if we can rehash this in my memory.

Custodes player Vs Ork Player.

Currently a competitive Custodes army anywhere from 10-30 models at the extremes. A competitive Ork Army is anywhere from 150-240 models because nothing we have is worth taking beyond Boyz and things to make Boyz better (kommandos/stormboyz included).

So with a chess clock, Custodes player will spend anywhere from 1/24th to 1/5th as much time moving his models, running his models, shooting his models and assaulting with his models. He will also not have to worry about positioning nearly as much because its relatively easy to fit 3-5 man squads into cover or into range of an aura where as its a bit trickier with 30 man squads.

Now the rather dumb argument FOR Time clocks that i saw in response to this was something along the lines of:

"Well if you know there will be a clock its your decision to bring that many models" And while that is technically a valid point it only takes a cursory look deeper into the issue to call BS. Orkz and i am sure other armies RELY on cheap wounds to survive more then 2 turns. Ive tried playing battlewagonz, kan wall, walker heavy lists, elite meganobz lists and all sorts of other in between lists, NONE have performed for me nearly as well as my Kommando Bravo strike force nor my Green tide lists. So in essence what that person was saying was "I don't want to play against a horde so lets penalize that play style" which is rather mean spirited to start with and even more so when you realize what I said about units being effective is being represented across the tournament scene. Orkz have no option but Boyz and boy style models. So these Time Clocks effectively NERF one of the weakest armies in the game right now.

Another argument I saw trying to be reasonable to an ork player was:

"Well just put your models on a movement tray then" Not a bad idea in theory, but a rather bad one in practice. In a competitive game it is incredibly important to maximize as many bonuses as you can and to capitalize an opponents mistakes as quickly as possible. To put it another way, get in cover, get out of LOS and stay inside buff bubbles. A movement tray directly stops most of those things from happening so you are right back to square one.

Basically, I would be fine with a Time clock, so long as the clock is based on Model count and not a simple 50/50 split.

SemperMortis wrote:

"Well just put your models on a movement tray then" Not a bad idea in theory, but a rather bad one in practice. In a competitive game it is incredibly important to maximize as many bonuses as you can and to capitalize an opponents mistakes as quickly as possible. To put it another way, get in cover, get out of LOS and stay inside buff bubbles. A movement tray directly stops most of those things from happening so you are right back to square one.

Youre not permanently confined to a tray. Move the core on trays and keep a tail.

SemperMortis wrote:
I saw this exact same argument on Facebook not to long ago. The argument against them was really good and the replies were utter nonsense, so lets see if we can rehash this in my memory.

Custodes player Vs Ork Player.

Currently a competitive Custodes army anywhere from 10-30 models at the extremes. A competitive Ork Army is anywhere from 150-240 models because nothing we have is worth taking beyond Boyz and things to make Boyz better (kommandos/stormboyz included).

So with a chess clock, Custodes player will spend anywhere from 1/24th to 1/5th as much time moving his models, running his models, shooting his models and assaulting with his models. He will also not have to worry about positioning nearly as much because its relatively easy to fit 3-5 man squads into cover or into range of an aura where as its a bit trickier with 30 man squads.

Now the rather dumb argument FOR Time clocks that i saw in response to this was something along the lines of:

"Well if you know there will be a clock its your decision to bring that many models" And while that is technically a valid point it only takes a cursory look deeper into the issue to call BS. Orkz and i am sure other armies RELY on cheap wounds to survive more then 2 turns. Ive tried playing battlewagonz, kan wall, walker heavy lists, elite meganobz lists and all sorts of other in between lists, NONE have performed for me nearly as well as my Kommando Bravo strike force nor my Green tide lists. So in essence what that person was saying was "I don't want to play against a horde so lets penalize that play style" which is rather mean spirited to start with and even more so when you realize what I said about units being effective is being represented across the tournament scene. Orkz have no option but Boyz and boy style models. So these Time Clocks effectively NERF one of the weakest armies in the game right now.

Another argument I saw trying to be reasonable to an ork player was:

"Well just put your models on a movement tray then" Not a bad idea in theory, but a rather bad one in practice. In a competitive game it is incredibly important to maximize as many bonuses as you can and to capitalize an opponents mistakes as quickly as possible. To put it another way, get in cover, get out of LOS and stay inside buff bubbles. A movement tray directly stops most of those things from happening so you are right back to square one.

Basically, I would be fine with a Time clock, so long as the clock is based on Model count and not a simple 50/50 split.

And ultimately the counter is still: why do you deserve more time than your opponent to play the game? Even if you think you deserve more time, how much more? Twice as much? Three times? 24 times (which you mention above, comparing models)? What about a mirror match, how do you ensure equality there? Again, all you need to be able to do is complete a game within half the total game time. The amount of time your opponent uses is irrelevant because he has his own clock.

I think there's a valid debate to be had about whether the amount of time allocated for a tournament game is enough, considering some armies can have over 150 models. Regardless of whether you think clocks are a good idea I think everyone can agree the most important thing is having enough time to reasonably expect to complete a game.

I played a 200+ model count IG army with chess clocks in play and I did just fine.

The reason for chess clocks is purely to stop intentional slow play.

It shouldn't matter if horde armies need more of the chess clock. IF I have to choose between horde players having to get a little faster vs the rampant douchebaggery of intentional slow play that is a regular thing, I'll choose the chess clock every time.

 auticus wrote:
I played a 200+ model count IG army with chess clocks in play and I did just fine.

The reason for chess clocks is purely to stop intentional slow play.

It shouldn't matter if horde armies need more of the chess clock. IF I have to choose between horde players having to get a little faster vs the rampant douchebaggery of intentional slow play that is a regular thing, I'll choose the chess clock every time.

200 Model IG army is about as opposite as possible from an Ork Horde army. your IG army doesn't move HALF as much as a Ork Horde army, and the movement phase is the longest for Ork players, for IG its blasting off Lasguns.

And ultimately the counter is still: why do you deserve more time than your opponent to play the game? Even if you think you deserve more time, how much more? Twice as much? Three times? 24 times (which you mention above, comparing models)? What about a mirror match, how do you ensure equality there? Again, all you need to be able to do is complete a game within half the total game time. The amount of time your opponent uses is irrelevant because he has his own clock.

I would LOVE to not be required to take 180+ models to be competitive in games, but unfortunately GW didn't ask Ork players if they liked the other 4/5ths of their codex/index and instead gave us good Boyz, Stormboyz, Kommandos and KMKs. So why do Ork hordes deserve move time? because we require anywhere from 3 to 8 times as many models to be even remotely as competitive as other armies, its a wonderful design flaw of GWs. How do I ensure equality? 1: but not using Chess clocks which are designed to be used by two people with THE EXACT SAME ARMIES. 2: If you really want them, then give Horde armies more time, how much is debatable and 3: Just flat out Ban Horde armies and then watch as Most Ork players, nidz and IG armies stop showing up to events.

Ok. You can still get the game done on a chess clock with orks. The goal posts keep moving here. So now its not really about hordes its about orks being at some form of disadvantage with a timer.

I've seen ork hordes in chess timer tournaments. They use movement trays and other things to help them get their movement done.

I've never seen anyone have a problem with their horde army other than the theory crafting on the internet about how its not fair.

Its also not fair for unsportsmanlike conduct being a regular thing to have to endure with intentional slow play. I would say based on years and years of watching this work fine that if one cannot move their horde army in a tournament, that one should play something else, or improve their rate of play in a tournament.

Chess clocks are happening. They are going to continue to happen. People will adapt. Things will be fine.

SemperMortis wrote:
How do I ensure equality? 1: but not using Chess clocks which are designed to be used by two people with THE EXACT SAME ARMIES. 2: If you really want them, then give Horde armies more time, how much is debatable and 3: Just flat out Ban Horde armies and then watch as Most Ork players, nidz and IG armies stop showing up to events.

You ensure equality by being unequal? 1) Warmahordes uses chess clocks but don't have the exact same armies. In fact the armies can vary greatly in size between the 2 players. 2)That's not an answer it's an excuse and it doesn't answer the question of do 2 horde armies get more time for their round then when 2 "elite" armies are matched up against each other? 3)There are people in this very thread saying that they use horde armies and a clock without having problems. Why should we ban them?

Have you even tried using a chess clock?