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I have often wondered this. In real life it takes about 3 to 4 hours to play a reasonably sized (1500 point) game of 40k.

Turn 1 you move your tank 6", each of your squads 6", then you start shooting with them, roll bucketloads of dice, take the hits, roll for the wounds, take the wounds, have the opposing player roll his saves, then he rolls his morale checks, and then its his turn. He does the same, and then is within assault range, then you do the same process of dice rolling on a squad by squad basis.

Now this is all supposed to be a recreation of a conflict that might have happened in the game world itself, but how long did all the action between turn 1 to turn 6 really take?

My answer is: 30 seconds to a minute.

A tank moves around a building, targets an enemy tank, fires once, twice, thrice, it blows up, then turns its turret and fires once at a secondary target, misses, then gets blown up by enemy fire.

Troops advance forward, emptying their clips into the enemy, a quarter of those drop dead, but manage to charge them, the slaughter is quick and brutal and our heroes are sent routing. Over there a drop pod lands, bursts open, space marines firing their bolters into the enemy and throwing some grenades, and thats roughly when turn 6 is over.

So am I correct with 30 seconds to a minute?

Depends on the size of the battle. I believe most battles take a few minutes at most.

A few minutes at most would seem correct, but that leaves Night Fighting hanging somewhere in limbo.

Night fighting represents an attack that occurs just before dawn I believe. Maybe it's like JUST before dawn?

Maybe it is actually dawn, so the sun comes up and no more night fighting.

Edit: Ninja'd!

 Sir Arun wrote:
I have often wondered this. In real life it takes about 3 to 4 hours to play a reasonably sized (1500 point) game of 40k.

Turn 1 you move your tank 6", each of your squads 6", then you start shooting with them, roll bucketloads of dice, take the hits, roll for the wounds, take the wounds, have the opposing player roll his saves, then he rolls his morale checks, and then its his turn. He does the same, and then is within assault range, then you do the same process of dice rolling on a squad by squad basis.

Now this is all supposed to be a recreation of a conflict that might have happened in the game world itself, but how long did all the action between turn 1 to turn 6 really take?

My answer is: 30 seconds to a minute.

Yeah, that's pretty similar to what I usually estimate, a game probably takes no more than maybe two minutes of real time, maybe three tops, 5 at the extreme. Each turn probably 20-40 seconds.

I figure a given turn probably takes about one minute.

As others have said, a turn probably takes 30 seconds to a minute, although I think it's a stretch for a force that size to get wiped out in 5-6 minutes. I think shooting is far more accurate in the game than irl. Maybe each dice roll represents multiple shots, but not many squads are going to be killed off in 2 minutes in an actual battle.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Maybe it is actually dawn, so the sun comes up and no more night fighting.

Edit: Ninja'd!

It's probably even less time than that. For instance, Commander Shadowsun got her name partially because she conducted a major infiltration attack under a "artificial" eclipse of a planet's sun where the Ork warboss was.

Night Fighting could be in the span of an eclipse, artificial or otherwise D:

Or really tiny planets with a really fast day/night cycle

MarsNZ wrote:
Or really tiny planets with a really fast day/night cycle

That would still take some time.

I just always assumed the night fight rules was the result of a star ship passing in low orbit, or the soot cloud from a somewhat far off orbital strike, and the the like. Basically artificial darkness than anything else.

I always viewed the games being played not being a direct translation of what is happening, like a vehicle firing twice, then dying.

I see it as more like a general depiction of what is going on, for example a melee between squads could take a minute or two, and getting into it could take a minute or so. A tank shooting twice would translate into a tank firing for some time, not the exact same amount of shots that are fired in the game ( for example, I imagine a bolter fires way more rounds than 2 when on full auto and shooting at an enemy in range. )

 Flanker wrote:
As others have said, a turn probably takes 30 seconds to a minute, although I think it's a stretch for a force that size to get wiped out in 5-6 minutes. I think shooting is far more accurate in the game than irl. Maybe each dice roll represents multiple shots, but not many squads are going to be killed off in 2 minutes in an actual battle.

To be fair, this is two heavily reinforced platoons going at each other over a plot of land the size of a Wal-mart parking lot with a few scattered bits of building as cover. Casualties are going to be high in that kind of close quarters combat.

 Runic wrote:
I always viewed the games being played not being a direct translation of what is happening, like a vehicle firing twice, then dying.

I see it as more like a general depiction of what is going on, for example a melee between squads could take a minute or two, and getting into it could take a minute or so. A tank shooting twice would translate into a tank firing for some time, not the exact same amount of shots that are fired in the game ( for example, I imagine a bolter fires way more rounds than 2 when on full auto and shooting at an enemy in range. )

Me too.

I would imagine a battle would take a few hours if we did it all real life scale of speed.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Flanker wrote:
As others have said, a turn probably takes 30 seconds to a minute, although I think it's a stretch for a force that size to get wiped out in 5-6 minutes. I think shooting is far more accurate in the game than irl. Maybe each dice roll represents multiple shots, but not many squads are going to be killed off in 2 minutes in an actual battle.

To be fair, this is two heavily reinforced platoons going at each other over a plot of land the size of a Wal-mart parking lot with a few scattered bits of building as cover. Casualties are going to be high in that kind of close quarters combat.

Even if you expand the map to a few city blocks, you have to remember that these aren't armies fighting terrorist cells, resistance forces, or whatever, but actually full standing armies fighting each other.

I think a lot of people are used to the sort of guerrilla warfare concept, but if you look at the last time we had a major war between nations it was something like tens of thousands of casualties during D-day alone, reaching around four hundred thousand during the whole Normandy thing on both sides. So that being said, wiping out something like 50-100 soldiers a minute isn't that surprising when something like twenty thousand people can die in one invasion day fifty years ago, before we had high tech weapons even Now imagine that with more advanced weapons and population...

I'll just end with this: "Over 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or went missing during the Battle of Normandy. This figure includes over 209,000 Allied casualties, with nearly 37,000 dead amongst the ground forces and a further 16,714 deaths amongst the Allied air forces...

...Roughly 200,000 German troops were killed or wounded. The Allies also captured 200,000 prisoners of war (not included in the 425,000 total, above)."

Yea, human life is kind of terrifying when seen under the scope of what we have done D:

Firstly, the ground scale isn't the same as the miniatures scale (i.e. the models may be roughly 1:50 scale, but that 4' x 6' table represents a much bigger area than 200' x 300'). That's why the footprint of buildings is usually tiny.

I'm not even convinced that a turn is supposed to represent a specific amount of time - one turn where there's a lot going on could represent more time than a turn where nothing much happens. Think of it like a film or TV show; if James Bond is pursuing Blofeld across the country, he'll get on a plane in San Francisco and next shot, he's getting off at New York. However, if he's trying to defuse a bomb with twenty seconds left on the timer, that scene will last a minute and a half.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Firstly, the ground scale isn't the same as the miniatures scale (i.e. the models may be roughly 1:50 scale, but that 4' x 6' table represents a much bigger area than 200' x 300'). That's why the footprint of buildings is usually tiny.

I'm not even convinced that a turn is supposed to represent a specific amount of time - one turn where there's a lot going on could represent more time than a turn where nothing much happens. Think of it like a film or TV show; if James Bond is pursuing Blofeld across the country, he'll get on a plane in San Francisco and next shot, he's getting off at New York. However, if he's trying to defuse a bomb with twenty seconds left on the timer, that scene will last a minute and a half.

There is not much in the game or the supporting materials to support your assumption. Buildings in 40k are the way they are as an intentional design choice. They wanted to give a claustrophobic feel with the Imperial City terrain kits. Vehicles must also map their movement precisely while accounting for every bit of terrain their treads run over. They have to squeeze in between two buildings or else it is impassable for them.

Game turns are probably don't represent the same amount of time I agree but I don't think there are significant delays in the action. Even if the 6x4 table isn't to scale with the miniatures it is still a very small battlefield.

 Flanker wrote:
As others have said, a turn probably takes 30 seconds to a minute, although I think it's a stretch for a force that size to get wiped out in 5-6 minutes. I think shooting is far more accurate in the game than irl. Maybe each dice roll represents multiple shots, but not many squads are going to be killed off in 2 minutes in an actual battle.

You would be surprised.

It's funny, I regard turns as taking longer or less time depending on what happens, for example a Leman Russ Demolisher firing would take much longer than a squad firing their guns, so it depends on what happens.

But I'd usually say a minute on average.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Vehicles must also map their movement precisely while accounting for every bit of terrain their treads run over. They have to squeeze in between two buildings or else it is impassable for them.

Ruins (the most common type of "building" used on 40k game tables) are counted as difficult terrain though, so a tank isnt stopped by them and can just drive through

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Flanker wrote:
As others have said, a turn probably takes 30 seconds to a minute, although I think it's a stretch for a force that size to get wiped out in 5-6 minutes. I think shooting is far more accurate in the game than irl. Maybe each dice roll represents multiple shots, but not many squads are going to be killed off in 2 minutes in an actual battle.

To be fair, this is two heavily reinforced platoons going at each other over a plot of land the size of a Wal-mart parking lot with a few scattered bits of building as cover. Casualties are going to be high in that kind of close quarters combat.

Units would wait in cover to shoot at the enemy. Putting objectives in the game makes it more dire otherwise your guys would hold back until there's more of an advantage to leave cover.

 Sir Arun wrote:
I have often wondered this. In real life it takes about 3 to 4 hours to play a reasonably sized (1500 point) game of 40k.

Turn 1 you move your tank 6", each of your squads 6", then you start shooting with them, roll bucketloads of dice, take the hits, roll for the wounds, take the wounds, have the opposing player roll his saves, then he rolls his morale checks, and then its his turn. He does the same, and then is within assault range, then you do the same process of dice rolling on a squad by squad basis.

Now this is all supposed to be a recreation of a conflict that might have happened in the game world itself, but how long did all the action between turn 1 to turn 6 really take?

My answer is: 30 seconds to a minute.

A tank moves around a building, targets an enemy tank, fires once, twice, thrice, it blows up, then turns its turret and fires once at a secondary target, misses, then gets blown up by enemy fire.

Troops advance forward, emptying their clips into the enemy, a quarter of those drop dead, but manage to charge them, the slaughter is quick and brutal and our heroes are sent routing. Over there a drop pod lands, bursts open, space marines firing their bolters into the enemy and throwing some grenades, and thats roughly when turn 6 is over.

So am I correct with 30 seconds to a minute?

You are correct. In a really old, ancient source I can't recall any longer GW indicated a battle takes about 30-90 seconds 'real time'.

Either infantry are incredibly fast or supersonic aircraft are caught in a bubble of slow time.

My transport is physically capable of holding maybe 2 of the 12 models it's supposedly transporting. My troops can run further in one turn (supposedly 5-15 seconds) than their super-futuristic advanced tech rifles can accurately shoot. Actually, with a perfect charge roll, my infantry can run the same distance as a jet fighter (Good point Alciblades). My "artillery" can shoot a range of approximately 4 tanks lined up end to end.

I could go on and on. No part of the scale of this game makes any sense - assigning real numbers is futile. I'm ok with that