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What are the arguments AGAINST using time clocks in WH tournaments? I'm starting a little article, and wanted to hear a broader range of opinion than my own.

For one, I think the problem with time clocks is that, unlike in chess, speed of "your" turn is not fully your responsibility.

Money. Those things are expensive, like really. on is 20-30$. times that buy 30 or so tables.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Money. Those things are expensive, like really. on is 20-30$. times that buy 30 or so tables.

Aha!

interactivity of the turns is the biggest problem. On your turn I roll all sorts of saves, and make you check all sorts of measurements. There a tons of ways for me to draw out the game during your player turn.

In order to accurately reflect time spent you would have to switch the clock over anytime a player was about to roll dice or challenge a measurement/rule/etc. That becomes prohibitively complicated.

*Phases are interactive, so a person with lots of 'armor save' re-rolls or FNP will be rolling dice on my turn.

*The game is not balanced for time per point. It takes 1 second to move a battlewagon with 20 boyz but a solid 2 minutes to move 30 boyz on foot. While equal in function and points, it is not equal in time. It makes 'playtime' a new resource needed for balance and further changes the balance of the game as players are rewarded for 'fast play' units opposed to all units being based on their point value.

*It doesn't eliminate slow-play as a form of cheating as those who currently game the system purposely with slow play can still do so, simply by being slow during the opponent's phases or taking units which are slow to resolve during opponent's phase. I have 120 boyz on the table, you assault me? Ok, I will be rolling hundreds of attacks on your assault phase... What? your turn is out of time? Oh, well my boyz all live then as we never had time to finish assault.

*It also doesn't eliminate slow-play due to general rule noobiness. People who are fumbling around already will now be fumbling around with keeping track of time as well. If someone is that slow due to inexperience, they won't understand the game better or faster with a time clock.

*Either you have to flip back and forth at 'player turns' which is fundamentally unfair or flip back and forth during individual phases when interaction changes... which can be 10+ times during a single unit's assault, dozens of times a phase. It will slow down gameplay to have people flipping back and forth so frequently as doing it 50 times in a single assault will suck away at least 1-2 minutes of time.

*There is no expectation of equal time in 40k. The game designers didn't design units to function with equal time. It is a form of ARMY COMP artificially imposed to be a version of the game on how 'one person feels the game should be played.' Some units, playstyles and tactics are slower than others but are supposed to be equal and fair because the only metric right now is pointvalue. Now it will be speed of play and pointvalue, which can lead to imbalanced games as a faster army will have way more power than a slower one.

*Slow play doesn't happen as much as people think... the larger issue is with games being too short and point values being too high. A chess clock won't fix a 2000pt double force org game in a 2 hour window.

nkelsch wrote:

*There is no expectation of equal time in 40k. The game designers didn't design units to function with equal time.

The game wasn't designed to be a whole lot of things, the biggest being a tournament system. But tournaments are faced with real world limitations that two guys drinking in the basement don't face. In a tournament setting an expectation of equal time is not only fair, but required.

nkelsch wrote:
*Slow play doesn't happen as much as people think... the larger issue is with games being too short and point values being too high. A chess clock won't fix a 2000pt double force org game in a 2 hour window.

I 100% agree with this. The time issue would be much less important if tournaments dropped points. To get in 6-8 rounds in two days most tournaments can't extend round times any longer. But the same round time with 350-500 less points make the game much more enjoyable, and goes a long way towards eliminating this problem.

As above interactivitiy makes it wonky

When players interact you would need to change clock time.

i.e. In the assault phase
I declare my charge - Stop clock
You roll overwatch to hit, and to wound - stop clock
I allocate wounds and roll saves, and remove models, then roll charge.
Say we both have I 4 models, I pile in -stop clock
you pile in- stop clock
I roll to hit and to wound -stop clock
you roll saves, and to hit and to wound, and remove models-stop clock
I roll saves, and remove models....

This added complexity leads to reason 2.

People are not acustomed to using a clock. IF we need to switch clock frequently we need to remember to do it, it will effect how we play etc.

3.) We have not come up with an answer to what happens when you run out of time...do you lose? Do you have shortened turns? Do you skip your turn? What happens

4.) The answer to that changes how I might play the game, if your timer is getting close to running out and you lose when it does, I might make an assault that I would not normally do to force you to waste time.

5.) While a player should not expect to have more than 1/ 2 the time in a round, it happens, and penalizing players (who finish the game in time) for playing more than 1/2 the time is not needed.

6.) It is unnecessary. Games don't finish because the round time/point level is not set correctly. When it is (see Battle For salvation thread with 88% of games ending naturally) things work fine.

nkelsch wrote:
*Phases are interactive, so a person with lots of 'armor save' re-rolls or FNP will be rolling dice on my turn.

*The game is not balanced for time per point. It takes 1 second to move a battlewagon with 20 boyz but a solid 2 minutes to move 30 boyz on foot. While equal in function and points, it is not equal in time. It makes 'playtime' a new resource needed for balance and further changes the balance of the game as players are rewarded for 'fast play' units opposed to all units being based on their point value.

*It doesn't eliminate slow-play as a form of cheating as those who currently game the system purposely with slow play can still do so, simply by being slow during the opponent's phases or taking units which are slow to resolve during opponent's phase. I have 120 boyz on the table, you assault me? Ok, I will be rolling hundreds of attacks on your assault phase... What? your turn is out of time? Oh, well my boyz all live then as we never had time to finish assault.

*It also doesn't eliminate slow-play due to general rule noobiness. People who are fumbling around already will now be fumbling around with keeping track of time as well. If someone is that slow due to inexperience, they won't understand the game better or faster with a time clock.

*Either you have to flip back and forth at 'player turns' which is fundamentally unfair or flip back and forth during individual phases when interaction changes... which can be 10+ times during a single unit's assault, dozens of times a phase. It will slow down gameplay to have people flipping back and forth so frequently as doing it 50 times in a single assault will suck away at least 1-2 minutes of time.

*There is no expectation of equal time in 40k. The game designers didn't design units to function with equal time. It is a form of ARMY COMP artificially imposed to be a version of the game on how 'one person feels the game should be played.' Some units, playstyles and tactics are slower than others but are supposed to be equal and fair because the only metric right now is pointvalue. Now it will be speed of play and pointvalue, which can lead to imbalanced games as a faster army will have way more power than a slower one.

*Slow play doesn't happen as much as people think... the larger issue is with games being too short and point values being too high. A chess clock won't fix a 2000pt double force org game in a 2 hour window.

This is VERY thorough. My thank!

nkelsch wrote:
Lots of really relevant stuff

The interactivity is really the crux of the issue with time clocks being sub-optimal in 40k. In addition to the rolling of saves that everyone has mentioned, there's the problem that in 40k you are literally playing the game on your opponent's turn during assaults when it's your models' turn to strike. The amount of flipping the clock back and forth is too much for the system to handle.

time clocks work in Warmachine because it is a true i-go, u-go system, with only the smallest handful of out-of-turn options available to the inactive player, hence, the clock only flips at the end of player turns in the vast majority of game situations and it works fine.

The logistics of buying clocks also factors in, as mentioned above. The less-expensive (and therefore far more prevalent) solution to the cost of actual chess clocks is to get small kitchen timers and give one to each player, leaving it in the player's hands to start/stop the clock during their actions. Again, in Warmachine, this is a reasonable option, since the only time most players need to worry about handling their clock is at the beginning/end of each player's turn. But even then, clocks get missed or forgotten, and once the clocks are allowed to run incorrectly for too long the whole concept goes out the window. Add in the higher state of action between players and interactive/interruptive elements in 40k, and that option is now basically useless, leaving TOs that want chess clocks to have to actually buy the real deal, and they are not cheap, particularly when a reasonable tournament turnout is expected. If you're planning on six guys, three clocks aren't that bad. But if your event nets any more than ten, you're looking at hundreds of dollars.

This comes from running round-timed 40k tournaments and chess clocked Warmachine tournaments once a month each for the past six years, and explorations into options for both events in that time.

That being said, I've been running 40k at 1500 points for almost all of the last 12 months, and we just did a 1750 point event where the vast majority of games reached a conclusion, so my fingers are crossed that players are finally getting used to 6th a year in, and games will start going smoother.

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
*There is no expectation of equal time in 40k. The game designers didn't design units to function with equal time.

The game wasn't designed to be a whole lot of things, the biggest being a tournament system. But tournaments are faced with real world limitations that two guys drinking in the basement don't face. In a tournament setting an expectation of equal time is not only fair, but required.

You don't need equal time for a 40k game to be played fairly. A game which comes to its natural conclusion isn't 'unfair' if one person used more time than the other. If somehow equal time distorted the outcome of the game when there was no time limit, then you might not have a point... but if playing an Iguard gunline vs a 180 model green tide can be played fairly with no time limit and ends up not having equal time, then it doesn't invalidate the outcome of the game simply because one of the two sides used more time during the game. You can't say the iguard player should be penalized because he never moved or assaulted and simply shot, and you can't say the ork player is penalized because he has 400 attacks per assault phase.

Now if there was a rule mechanic which caused an untimed game to fail or change the outcome because equal time was not applied, then you might have a point about it being required and fair. If My armor save increased every 20 minutes or something where the outcome of the game or how the game rules worked as more time has passed on my turn than you may have a point.

The game is not designed for equal play, doesn't use time as a rule-impacting mechanic anywhere in the game and any artificial addition of equal time or time limits actually changes the outcome of the game. So it is neither fair or required for the rules to function. And it isn't even needed for the logistics of the event as time is shared. A 'correct' game time is needed, not equal turn time.

nkelsch wrote:
You don't need equal time for a 40k game to be played fairly. A game which comes to its natural conclusion isn't 'unfair' if one person used more time than the other. If somehow equal time distorted the outcome of the game when there was no time limit, then you might not have a point... but if playing an Iguard gunline vs a 180 model green tide can be played fairly with no time limit and ends up not having equal time, then it doesn't invalidate the outcome of the game simply because one of the two sides used more time during the game. You can't say the iguard player should be penalized because he never moved or assaulted and simply shot, and you can't say the ork player is penalized because he has 400 attacks per assault phase.

Now if there was a rule mechanic which caused an untimed game to fail or change the outcome because equal time was not applied, then you might have a point about it being required and fair. If My armor save increased every 20 minutes or something where the outcome of the game or how the game rules worked as more time has passed on my turn than you may have a point.

The game is not designed for equal play, doesn't use time as a rule-impacting mechanic anywhere in the game and any artificial addition of equal time or time limits actually changes the outcome of the game. So it is neither fair or required for the rules to function. And it isn't even needed for the logistics of the event as time is shared. A 'correct' game time is needed, not equal turn time.

You seem to be hung up on the notion that the game was designed for an unlimited amount of time. While that's true, tournaments are not.

If you have a 2:30 round, and players come with the expectation that they should be able to use 2 of those hours to complete their 5-7 turns, what happens when two players with that same expectation meet? The game gets to turn 2 or 3, no definitive outcome happens, and the tournament system breaks down.

Or what happens when the player with the expectation of taking 2 hours has an army that tends to perform better in the first few turns of the game? Because their army was "designed" to take 2 hours to play they win most of their games because the only 3 turns they were able to complete happened to be the 3 turns they perform the best in.

Again, when you use this game in a tournament setting you are already using it in a way that it was not designed for. Alterations HAVE to made for it to function in organized play. Time limits and an expectation of equal time is one of those alterations.

If you are given 2:30 hours to play, you should come to a tournament capable of completing your 5-7 turns in 1:15. No, it's not how the game was meant to function. But it is how tournaments HAVE to function.

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:


Again, when you use this game in a tournament setting you are already using it in a way that it was not designed for. Alterations HAVE to made for it to function in organized play. Time limits and an expectation of equal time is one of those alterations.

If you are given 2:30 hours to play, you should come to a tournament capable of completing your 5-7 turns in 1:15. No, it's not how the game was meant to function. But it is how tournaments HAVE to function.

You can have a timelimit without the expectation of equal play. Time limits for games and equal play for turns are not the same thing and attempt to solve two different issues... One is addressing a logistical issue, the other is implementing arbitrary army composition.

You can expect to have a timelimit without expecting people get 50% of the time, and limiting the game based upon 50% of the time is fundamentally unfair and impossible to actually fairly account time usage.

You can tell two people to track overall time for a game, that is possible. There is no fair or valid way to track time usage by player due to interactive nature of turns or divide it 50/50 because often one single assault or shooting phase can take a large percent of the game time with both players doing stuff on one players turn.

Time limits and games reaching natural conclusion is something which can be tracked by game time limits with no need for 'turn' time limits because the game can;t function fairly with such a concept.

This discussion of "equal time" raises some interesting points against the chess clock. The clock implies that both sides "deserve" equal time, while they are not necessarily playing armies that require equal time. The expectation should be that the tournaments needs the players to cooperate to complete their games naturally.

nkelsch wrote:

You can have a timelimit without the expectation of equal play. Time limits for games and equal play for turns are not the same thing and attempt to solve two different issues... One is addressing a logistical issue, the other is implementing arbitrary army composition.

You can expect to have a timelimit without expecting people get 50% of the time, and limiting the game based upon 50% of the time is fundamentally unfair and impossible to actually fairly account time usage.

You can tell two people to track overall time for a game, that is possible. There is no fair or valid way to track time usage by player due to interactive nature of turns or divide it 50/50 because often one single assault or shooting phase can take a large percent of the game time with both players doing stuff on one players turn.

Time limits and games reaching natural conclusion is something which can be tracked by game time limits with no need for 'turn' time limits because the game can;t function fairly with such a concept.

In a game that comes to its natural conclusion, its totally fine for one player to use more than half of the game time. But its games that don't come to their natural conclusion that we are talking about. In those games one player monopolizing the round time often has huge impacts, not just for that specific game but for the tournament results overall.

I agree that the time that should be allocated to you is not measurable, like a complicated assault where both players participate. And if chess clocks were a viable option (which we agree that they aren't) I would build in some sort of overage such that Player A's time + player B's time > the round time. But it's moot, because as much as I wish chess clocks could work, I don't believe they will on any meaningful scale.

The problem is with people who think it's ok to consistently take up 60,70, 80% of the round time. It's unrealistic to think that your opponnent can finish all of the things that they need to do in 40, 30, 20% of the round time, and it almost always leads to a game not finishing naturally. Luckily these people are a small minority. And it seems we agree the best solution is finding a better balance between round time and point level so that the vast majority of games finish naturally. Then the relatively few people causing problems can be easily identified and dealt with on an individual basis.

But I still stand by my point, that generally, if you consistently take more than half of the round time to complete your actions you probably are causing many of your games to not finish, or you are rushing your opponent to point where they are forced to make errors and bad decisions just to finish the game. Neither is acceptable. The expectation should be that players know how to play competently enough to finish their games when given reasonable round times. That more or less means completing your turns in more or less half the round time. If you can't do that consistently, then you should either switch to a faster army, become more competent with your army, or stop coming to tournaments. It's not fair to everyone else if you are consistently causing games to not finish.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thunderingjove wrote:
This discussion of "equal time" raises some interesting points against the chess clock. The clock implies that both sides "deserve" equal time, while they are not necessarily playing armies that require equal time. The expectation should be that the tournaments needs the players to cooperate to complete their games naturally.

You both absolutely deserve equal time. How to measure "equal time" is extremely difficult because of the integrated nature of the game. But to think that I deserve 2 hours to do my actions because I play orks and you deserve 30 minutes because you play deathwing is wrong, unfair, and cannot work in a tournament setting.

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
That more or less means completing your turns in more or less half the round time. If you can't do that consistently, then you should either switch to a faster army, become more competent with your army, or stop coming to tournaments. It's not fair to everyone else if you are consistently causing games to not finish.




You both absolutely deserve equal time. How to measure "equal time" is extremely difficult because of the integrated nature of the game. But to think that I deserve 2 hours to do my actions because I play orks and you deserve 30 minutes because you play deathwing is wrong, unfair, and cannot work in a tournament setting.

There is a difference between a "player taking up more than half the time" and "the rules as the creators wrote them having mechanics which are designed around taking up more than half the time." If I pay the points for frequent FNP rerolls or killing models via shots which require large numbers of dice for inaccurate shots and large armor saves vs high accuracy, low AP weapons, then yes, I DESERVE more time than you because the rules gave me a mechanic based upon the points I paid for which requires more time than you.

It is not fair to players who happen to have codexes designed around mechanics which are huge timesinks and requires weight of dice thrown, multiple re-rolls or moving large numbers of models to justify the points spent on them. As of now, there is no balance in the points based upon how long it takes to execute the rules or stats for a unit and to add that into the game makes it MORE unfair and arbitrarily shifts the meta. It is Army Comp.

No one DESERVES equal time as there is no expectation of equal time and to add equal time to the game is unfair to armies which have time-consuming mechanics which a player cannot execute but has paid the points for. Since point value is the only 'fairness' we have right now, to apply a time to play requirement can cause someone to have a 1000point/20minute army vs a 1000pt 45 minute army and the game has stopped being fair due to equal time expectations.

@nkelsch,

You're just repeating the same thing over and over again.

-The designers didn't make the game for equal time.

-My army inherently requires more time than yours so I should get it.

-If you don't give me equal time, you're comping me out of tournament play.

That attitude and series of logic has no place in a timed tournament. Having a finite amount of time fundamentally changes the game dynamics, whats good, whats bad, what's acceptable and not. Tournament 40k is not garage 40k. And in tournament 40k the type of thinking you keep espousing causes players to habitually not finish games. That's not ok, because catering to the small number of players who can't or don't want to learn how to compete in a timed environment creates inequities for everyone else.

Greatest good for the greatest number of participant comes from people understanding they get roughly the same amount of time as the other guy regardless of whether or not their army takes longer to perform their actions or not.

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
@nkelsch,

You're just repeating the same thing over and over again.

-The designers didn't make the game for equal time.

-My army inherently requires more time than yours so I should get it.

-If you don't give me equal time, you're comping me out of tournament play.

That attitude and series of logic has no place in a timed tournament. Having a finite amount of time fundamentally changes the game dynamics, whats good, whats bad, what's acceptable and not. Tournament 40k is not garage 40k. And in tournament 40k the type of thinking you keep espousing causes players to habitually not finish games. That's not ok, because catering to the small number of players who can't or don't want to learn how to compete in a timed environment creates inequities for everyone else.

Greatest good for the greatest number of participant comes from people understanding they get roughly the same amount of time as the other guy regardless of whether or not their army takes longer to perform their actions or not.

I am repeating it because it is true. Different game mechanics take different amounts of time.

And not only do they take different amounts of time, they happen on your opponents turn so it is logistically impossible to even record it, let alone enforce it and it is fundamentally unfair to apply it in all its forms.

You keep going back to "mall number of players who can't or don't want to learn how to compete in a timed environment creates inequities for everyone else." there is a difference between a player not being capable of playing in the appropriate time for his army, and rules which require more time to execute. One is 'slow play' and the other is 'correct play'.

You have no way to determine the difference between slow-play and valid use of the time due to slow mechanics without a 3rd party judge at every table. Equal play and chess timers doesn't solve the core issue and doesn't make the game fair.

Implementing a bad unfair solution to address an issue doesn't make it better. Timed games can be fair, equal time can never be fair under any circumstance in 40k. The trick is to attempt to eliminate slow play without unfairly harming players who happen to have mechanics which require more time.

And there still has never be a valid way to account 'equal time' so saying you DESERVE equal time with no valid way to document or enforce it is even worse as player turns is unfair due to interactive turns and frequent switching back and forth within phases becomes a logistical nightmare and wastes more time than it saves.

@Nkelsh

Have you been reading my posts? I've said over and over again I don't think chess clocks will work, I don't think the amount of time "used" is accurately measurable, and I think TOs need to really evaluate whether round times and points limits are appropriate because if more game conclude naturally then this whole thing doesn't matter.

The discussion about equal time and deserving time is an attitude issue. If I as a player am ok with the fact my army takes a VERY long time to complete the normal actions, and I don't change the speed at which I play to account for it, I am going to habitually not finish games. Not ok. Players need to have the attitude that time is important, that the other guy deserves as much time as they do (because again, what happens when the other brings the same time consuming army?), and that it's their personal responsible to make adjustments so that they are not monopolizing time regardless of how time consuming their mechanics are.

I don't think you guys are really disagreeing.

I think where we would disagree is I'm saying that if I bring an ork army, I better be able to play super speedy so the other guy has equal round time to think, move, attack etc, even if his army doesn't really need equal round time to do those things.

I don't get that impression from nkelsch. My interpretation of what he is saying is that both players should play at the same rate, and it's ok if the ork player takes up a disproportionate amount of round time. I fundamentally disagree with that, and I think that attitude negatively influences a tournament.

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
I think where we would disagree is I'm saying that if I bring an ork army, I better be able to play super speedy so the other guy has equal round time to think, move, attack etc, even if his army doesn't really need equal round time to do those things.

I don't get that impression from nkelsch. My interpretation of what he is saying is that both players should play at the same rate, and it's ok if the ork player takes up a disproportionate amount of round time. I fundamentally disagree with that, and I think that attitude negatively influences a tournament.

The issue is 'equal time' allows people with fast game mechanics to 'take longer than they need' and legitimizes slow play while punishing people who are playing at a correct and reasonable speed simply due to the rule mechanics of their army.

Here is an example: Let's say I need 3 equal-sized rooms painted. I hire 3 painters. One room will be grey, one will be brown, one will be yellow.
*The Brown and Grey paint covers in 1 coat, The Yellow covers in 3 coats.

Painter 1 who is doing the brown room says 'It will take 1 hour to paint.'
Painter 2 who is doing the grey room says 'It will take 2 hours to paint.'
Painter 3 who is doing the Yellow room says 'It will take 3 hours to paint.'

I arbitrarily say, "It is only fair that everyone get equal time, and on average, it will take 2 hours to paint. I will only allow you to have 2 hours and will only pay you for 2 hours. If you go over your time, you won't get paid."

So due to the mechanics of the paint, something the painter has nothing to do with, one of the painters either has to rush at an unreasonable pace, with sloppy workmanship, decline the job because it is unfair or somehow convince me to choose another paint color which can be applied faster.

Of course the painter who is goldbricking and taking unreasonable amount of time to apply his single coat is not at all effected, and still has plenty of time to dick around. My arbitrary application of equal time has not done anything to stop goldbricking and only hurts people who legitimately need more time.

No one 'deserves' equal time as the game doesn't balance points around equal time. Bloodbowl DOES balance around equal time by equalizing the number of models on the pitch and numbers of activations taking place and the numbers of dice being rolled. The mechanics do not drastically vary from moving 1-2 models vs 30 models, or making you roll 2 dice vs 30 dice. Bloodbowl can legitimately be played under a turn timer and expect equal play. 40k cannot.

So to run with your analogy. I have to have a room painted two hours from now. Regardless of whether or not you think it is fair, Painter 3 cannot get the job done in 2 hours so they either need to speed up or they don't get the job.

Tournaments have real world time constraints. It's unfortunate that it warps what armies are capable of competing, but it is a reality of tournament play that is unavoidable. We can't have timeless rounds, and games have to finish.

If you don't like that, that's fine. Don't play at a tournament. But what is most unfair is for you to bring an army to an event and not provide an opponent with equal play time. You don't know how much time his army needs or how much he has sped up his play to make the army viable for timed 40k. Given that you don't know these things, the only equitable assumption is that you and your opponent should (in theory) split the time evenly.

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
So to run with your analogy. I have to have a room painted two hours from now. Regardless of whether or not you think it is fair, Painter 3 cannot get the job done in 2 hours so they either need to speed up or they don't get the job.

Tournaments have real world time constraints. It's unfortunate that it warps what armies are capable of competing, but it is a reality of tournament play that is unavoidable. We can't have timeless rounds, and games have to finish.

If you don't like that, that's fine. Don't play at a tournament. But what is most unfair is for you to bring an army to an event and not provide an opponent with equal play time. You don't know how much time his army needs or how much he has sped up his play to make the army viable for timed 40k. Given that you don't know these things, the only equitable assumption is that you and your opponent should (in theory) split the time evenly.

No, 'Slow playing' an opponent is intentional and unfair. Having mechanics which take more time is not unfair. Spitting the time equally is even more unfair than simply not following the game to the natural conclusion.

Basically punishing people for taking specific units which are not part of your personal definition of how the game should be played is arbitrary unfair comp.

The only fair and equitable assumption is both players should play at the appropriate speed to use the mechanics that were paid for by points. Arbitrarily limiting armies to half the time (which is literally impossible to enforce or even track) is going to cause more issues and more imbalance and unfairness than simply setting time limits and expecting people to play at a responsible rate.

How do you even document this 'split the time evenly' in a fair way? If you require equal time and want army comp, then YOU don't play at a tournament. Lots of tournaments have found it is perfectly fine to have 'round time limits' without the expectation of 'equal time' and it is perfectly fair. Slow play is identified and cracked down upon when it happens, and if a game is slow but both players are making a legitimate best effort, it is fundamentally MORE fair than unreasonably punishing one player for something not his fault. If both players are making best effort, then it is fair. If one person is starving time because they are enforcing 'equal time' with a fast play army, that is unfair.

nkelsch wrote:

No, 'Slow playing' an opponent is intentional and unfair. Having mechanics which take more time is not unfair. Spitting the time equally is even more unfair than simply not following the game to the natural conclusion.

Basically punishing people for taking specific units which are not part of your personal definition of how the game should be played is arbitrary unfair comp.

The only fair and equitable assumption is both players should play at the appropriate speed to use the mechanics that were paid for by points. Arbitrarily limiting armies to half the time (which is literally impossible to enforce or even track) is going to cause more issues and more imbalance and unfairness than simply setting time limits and expecting people to play at a responsible rate.

You're totally blowing things way out of proportion.

I'm not talking about slow paying, I'm talking about armies that just take a long time to play. If the army takes so much longer to play at whatever a "normal" pace is that games start to regularly not finish, the player needs to speed up or take a different army.

Having games not finish is SO much less fair than telling someone to adjust their play speed or switch armies. It can rob players of wins, it can alter tournament results, and it takes away a game which participants paid to experience. These are much bigger issues than telling some, "Listen bud, you only got to turn 4 every game today with your 120 model tau army. Maybe you should think of how you can speed things up next time". They're so different that I don't even see an argument.

And again, I've said in almost every post, this is something that is immeasurable by anything except habitual non completion of games.

So I would like to hear your suggestion for what should be done when two players who both expect to take 75% of the round time at a normal pace because of mechanically time intensive armies are matched up together and only get to turn 2 or 3? What happens if it's at a top table? What happens if it impacts the tournament winner? What if one of the players gets upset about your ruling?

So many problems are alleviated when players just finish their games. A big part of finishing your game is not expecting the other guy to always cede 75% of the round time to you. Expecting 50% of the time is reasonable for both parties to assume.

I played hoarde Orks quite a bit and found myself shocked how long it took my opponents to play while I'm hustling hustling hustling. Disgusting.

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:


So I would like to hear your suggestion for what should be done when two players who both expect to take 75% of the round time at a normal pace because of mechanically time intensive armies are matched up together and only get to turn 2 or 3? What happens if it's at a top table? What happens if it impacts the tournament winner? What if one of the players gets upset about your ruling?

So many problems are alleviated when players just finish their games. A big part of finishing your game is not expecting the other guy to always cede 75% of the round time to you. Expecting 50% of the time is reasonable for both parties to assume.

Two players meeting with slow armies which both need 75% of the time will both then be taking the same amount of time. So them getting to only turn 2 or 3 doesn't actually get 'fixed' by 'equal time' because they both had equal time and didn't finish.

If it is at a top table, just because they used 75% of the time doesn't mean games did not finish at their natural conclusion... It also means that equal time doesn't actually address the issue of two heavy mechanic armies facing each other. And as long as both players played in a reasonable speed, neither player was cheated and have no ability to complain. If it is a top table, there will actually be a judge watching (along with dozens of others) which means slow play will be exposed. Also, Top tables are usually at the end of the tourney which means they have the ability to 'go longer'. If two players have legitimately been playing fairly and at a good pace and just realize they have a bad matchup due to mechanics, then they can burn their break or attempt to start the match ASAP when they get to the table to make up for it. Basically it is fairer to allow games to finish and not try to enforce equal time and just promote an attitude of respectful play at the appropriate speed.

You also gotta remember, time can change based upon who you play. A Tau gunline shooting grey knights may have a ton of shooting and very easy and streamlined armor saves where the time is used by the tau player. That same tau gunline shooting a green tide with Nobz and Grotsnik with KFF and FNP on half the army could have the time being used on the ork player. Often it may not be your army or rule that has an issue, it is how your rule interacts with an opponents rules... so you are basically discouraging people from taking anything complex and taking only speedy streamline simple units in mass quantities.

Time limits, sensible game sizes for the time and a simple reminder of how much time is left is ultimately all that is needed. Setting a false sense of 'deserving half the time' allows people to take longer than they need to game the system and is army comp which causes more issues than it attempts to solve based on a false premise.

nkelsch wrote:

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:


So I would like to hear your suggestion for what should be done when two players who both expect to take 75% of the round time at a normal pace because of mechanically time intensive armies are matched up together and only get to turn 2 or 3? What happens if it's at a top table? What happens if it impacts the tournament winner? What if one of the players gets upset about your ruling?

So many problems are alleviated when players just finish their games. A big part of finishing your game is not expecting the other guy to always cede 75% of the round time to you. Expecting 50% of the time is reasonable for both parties to assume.

Two players meeting with slow armies which both need 75% of the time will both then be taking the same amount of time. So them getting to only turn 2 or 3 doesn't actually get 'fixed' by 'equal time' because they both had equal time and didn't finish.

If it is at a top table, just because they used 75% of the time doesn't mean games did not finish at their natural conclusion... It also means that equal time doesn't actually address the issue of two heavy mechanic armies facing each other. And as long as both players played in a reasonable speed, neither player was cheated and have no ability to complain. If it is a top table, there will actually be a judge watching (along with dozens of others) which means slow play will be exposed. Also, Top tables are usually at the end of the tourney which means they have the ability to 'go longer'. If two players have legitimately been playing fairly and at a good pace and just realize they have a bad matchup due to mechanics, then they can burn their break or attempt to start the match ASAP when they get to the table to make up for it. Basically it is fairer to allow games to finish and not try to enforce equal time and just promote an attitude of respectful play at the appropriate speed.

You also gotta remember, time can change based upon who you play. A Tau gunline shooting grey knights may have a ton of shooting and very easy and streamlined armor saves where the time is used by the tau player. That same tau gunline shooting a green tide with Nobz and Grotsnik with KFF and FNP on half the army could have the time being used on the ork player. Often it may not be your army or rule that has an issue, it is how your rule interacts with an opponents rules... so you are basically discouraging people from taking anything complex and taking only speedy streamline simple units in mass quantities.

Time limits, sensible game sizes for the time and a simple reminder of how much time is left is ultimately all that is needed. Setting a false sense of 'deserving half the time' allows people to take longer than they need to game the system and is army comp which causes more issues than it attempts to solve based on a false premise.

I have to agree with ArtcllyFlvrd on this one. If you bring the green tide, and are of the opinion that you are entitled to 75% of the game time, simply because of your army choices, you are wrong. You are responsible for your own army, and as such, are responsible for playing it in a reasonable time. 75% of the time is not reasonable. Slow playing isn't even an issue when someone shows up with the entitlement of 75% of the game time.

If you feel forced when you are only playing with 50% of the time, then it may be time to re-evaluate your tournament list.

WAAC players can grind down your clock by slow playing their armor saves, los, deploying models from a vehicle wreck, measuring range for overwatch, or by starting a rules debate on your turn.

Immotekh can't lightning bolt flyers...blah blah blah blah blah don't shut up until the FAQ is provided, take 2 minutes to dig reading glasses out of a bag, and spend another minute or 2 reading the FAQ. Douchebag players are few and far between, but the rotten apples are nurgleiciously ripe.

nkelsch wrote:
*There is no expectation of equal time in 40k. The game designers didn't design units to function with equal time. It is a form of ARMY COMP artificially imposed to be a version of the game on how 'one person feels the game should be played.' Some units, playstyles and tactics are slower than others but are supposed to be equal and fair because the only metric right now is pointvalue. Now it will be speed of play and pointvalue, which can lead to imbalanced games as a faster army will have way more power than a slower one.

There is an expectation of equal time in tournament 40k, because there is an expectation that games finish within the time limit. You are obligated to bring a list that you can play within half the available time because you can not guarantee that your opponents will all take faster lists that allow you to use more than half of the available time and still finish within the time limit. By taking a list you can't play within half the available time you are deliberately making the decision to have matches run out of time, and that should be punished as slow play.

And no, it isn't comp, because a tournament should have an appropriate ratio of points to time limit so that a skilled and efficient player can finish a game with any (reasonable) army. In that case all armies are equally viable choices, and the only limit is what each individual player is capable of handling in a tournament context.

That, however, is then not 40k/Warhammer. That is half of the game.

I could probably do everything I needed to with my DA Duel wing list in half an hour. It starts with 2 land raiders and some bikes on the board. Most of the time I don't even have half my army on the board until turn 2.

My Ork hoard however would become completely unplayable.

I almost never get 50% of the play time. I am either around 30% or 70% depending on the army I use.

The problem is that there is just not enough time and IMO people should not come in expecting to have half the time, but expecting that they may not finish every game.