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 Whittlesey40k wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The WS thing doesn't make sense. The WS chart is very easy to remember. If you are higher than the target, you hit on 3s. If you are equal or lower(but not half) than their WS, you hit on 4s. If their WS is double yours or higher, you hit on 5s.

Thanks for highlighting my point so well - "If you are equal or lower(but not half) than their WS, you hit on 4s. If their WS is double yours or higher, you hit on 5s". So if I'm WS4 and they're WS8, you're saying I hit on 5s. BRB says I'm hitting on 4s.

Turns out it's not that easy to remember, is it?

Umm, no. Thats very very easy to remember. There are only 3 possible values.

And even if this is a stumbling point for a player, its not really possible for it to balloon a game from a normal 2 hours to 5-6.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
I think more info is required. What, exactly, is taking the time?

Take the 2.5-hour, 1250-point, 2-turn game as an example. Can you roughly break down what those 2.5 hours were spent doing? I just can't figure out how it can take so long.

10 min to set up table, 10-30 min to roll all pre-game stuff, 10-30 min to talk over all the rules ambiguities, 20-40 min to set up armies and here you can start the game. It usually lasts a bit longer that all the pre-game aspects.

See, much of that seems like way too much time.

It should take at most 5 minutes for both players to roll their psychic powers and warlord traits. I play a GK list where I need to roll for 11 psychic powers. It takes me less than a minute to roll 3 sets of dice and write down the powers on my army list.

Discussing rules ambiguities is something that should happen only rarely with players who aren't complete noobs. Likewise, deployment shouldn't last more than 5 minutes per player, unless there is a horde army which still shouldn't take more than 10 minutes or so unless you take a long time measuring out max coherency for each model.

Do you realize that most people, including many tournament goers, are strictly unable to deploy their army, thought process included, in less than 10 minutes?

It may be faster for you, but it's still a very slow game for most people.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gummyofallbears wrote:
I usually play two 1850 games each saturday (our local GW is open 11 - 8) and usually have a ton of extra time for painting or kill team or the such. I could probably play 3 games if table space wasn't so limited. We play maelstrom too, usually a good amount of models too.

I don't see what's taking so much time.

Dude, you're playing at least two games every week and you wonder how people who don't can be slower than you?

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Whittlesey40k wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The WS thing doesn't make sense. The WS chart is very easy to remember. If you are higher than the target, you hit on 3s. If you are equal or lower(but not half) than their WS, you hit on 4s. If their WS is double yours or higher, you hit on 5s.

Thanks for highlighting my point so well - "If you are equal or lower(but not half) than their WS, you hit on 4s. If their WS is double yours or higher, you hit on 5s". So if I'm WS4 and they're WS8, you're saying I hit on 5s. BRB says I'm hitting on 4s.

Turns out it's not that easy to remember, is it?

Umm, no. Thats very very easy to remember. There are only 3 possible values.

And even if this is a stumbling point for a player, its not really possible for it to balloon a game from a normal 2 hours to 5-6.

You should reread what you wrote - Whittlesey40K is showing you that there is a serious error in your shorthand... Judging from that, MAYBE your games should in fact take a bit longer than they do to be by the actual rules?

 G00fySmiley wrote:
my gaming group did a 44k point apocalypse game (8 player vs 6 players) last month and it "only" took 8 hours

biggest part is know your rules, know your codex, have quick reference sheets available.

the biggest factor there is many of us know the rules and know the basics of other codex rules for every army.

In other words, you are very experienced and that makes you fast. I don't see how that's going to help a less experienced player play faster though.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Whittlesey40k wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The WS thing doesn't make sense. The WS chart is very easy to remember. If you are higher than the target, you hit on 3s. If you are equal or lower(but not half) than their WS, you hit on 4s. If their WS is double yours or higher, you hit on 5s.

Thanks for highlighting my point so well - "If you are equal or lower(but not half) than their WS, you hit on 4s. If their WS is double yours or higher, you hit on 5s". So if I'm WS4 and they're WS8, you're saying I hit on 5s. BRB says I'm hitting on 4s.

Turns out it's not that easy to remember, is it?

Umm, no. Thats very very easy to remember. There are only 3 possible values.

And even if this is a stumbling point for a player, its not really possible for it to balloon a game from a normal 2 hours to 5-6.

My point is, you got it wrong!

If their WS is double yours (e.g. they are 8, you are 4) then you hit on 4s not 5s. I'd rather you slow the game down by actually checking the rules than just get it wrong.

It's hard to argue that it's easy to remember when you remembered it incorrectly!

Ok, I made 1 mistake. But thats still not going to slow a game down that much. And your insinuation that I am somehow cheating or something is not appreciated. We're still in a result where people are slowplaying by an insane amount of time. We're not talking 30 minutes to an hour of time here. We're talking a solid 3-4 hours of extra time that makes no sense how its getting swallowed up. You could play an entire 2nd game with time to spare. It makes zero sense, something is wrong with anybody who is taking that long to play.

 Grey Templar wrote:

So yes, it is absolutely unreasonable for a 2k game to take 5-6 hours unless one or both players are total newbs, in which case they should be playing much smaller games.

Or maybe, there's a whole spectrum between "badass like Grey Templar" and total newb, a spectrum along which most players place in the "6-turn games @ 1850 points take at least 4 hours" category, and many in the 5+ hours.

morgoth wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

So yes, it is absolutely unreasonable for a 2k game to take 5-6 hours unless one or both players are total newbs, in which case they should be playing much smaller games.

Or maybe, there's a whole spectrum between "badass like Grey Templar" and total newb, a spectrum along which most players place in the "6-turn games @ 1850 points take at least 4 hours" category, and many in the 5+ hours.

I'm sure there is a spectrum, but a player with a reasonable amount of experience and knowledge should be in the 2k game in ~2.5 hours. Not nearly double that time.

Some variation would be normal, but 5-6 hours for a reasonable sized game is way outside the margins.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Ok, I made 1 mistake. But thats still not going to slow a game down that much. And your insinuation that I am somehow cheating or something is not appreciated. We're still in a result where people are slowplaying by an insane amount of time. We're not talking 30 minutes to an hour of time here. We're talking a solid 3-4 hours of extra time that makes no sense how its getting swallowed up. You could play an entire 2nd game with time to spare. It makes zero sense, something is wrong with anybody who is taking that long to play.

Dude, you have 40.000 posts on dakka... how long have you been playing this game again?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Ok, I made 1 mistake. But thats still not going to slow a game down that much. And your insinuation that I am somehow cheating or something is not appreciated. We're still in a result where people are slowplaying by an insane amount of time. We're not talking 30 minutes to an hour of time here. We're talking a solid 3-4 hours of extra time that makes no sense how its getting swallowed up. You could play an entire 2nd game with time to spare. It makes zero sense, something is wrong with anybody who is taking that long to play.

You do realize, that "there are circumstances possible to make 2k points games legitimately take 6hrs" is not the same as "all 2k points should take 6hrs"? I have about 100 games a year, I have everything about my faction (and those I usually play against) memorised, I can easily fit 1850 points tournament Eternal War game on "standard" table in 3 or even sometimes 2 hrs with everything included (depends on how fast tabling occurs). And yet, I often play 2K points games that take 6-8 hours because they cannot be sped up anyhow. Wonder that...

morgoth wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Ok, I made 1 mistake. But thats still not going to slow a game down that much. And your insinuation that I am somehow cheating or something is not appreciated. We're still in a result where people are slowplaying by an insane amount of time. We're not talking 30 minutes to an hour of time here. We're talking a solid 3-4 hours of extra time that makes no sense how its getting swallowed up. You could play an entire 2nd game with time to spare. It makes zero sense, something is wrong with anybody who is taking that long to play.

Dude, you have 40.000 posts on dakka... how long have you been playing this game again?

That is quite irrelevant. I know many people who've been playing amounts of time all across the spectrum from over a decade to less than 3 months. I've played in metas all across the west coast of the US. I have never met anybody who would take 5-6 hours to play a 2k game. Even someone whose only started a few months ago. Once you have a decent handle on the rules, even with the occasional rules question or dispute, a 2k game would take maybe 2.5 to 3 hours tops. 5-6 would be impossible unless you were overthinking the game, constantly looking up rules, measuring far more meticulously than is necessary, excessively chatting with people, and maybe taking some breaks.

5-6 hours is appocalypse game levels of time investment. For a normal sized game, its far outside any reasonable deviation. Besides, the OP was asking for help to cut down this time. So we're trying to help him do that, but we first need to know what is taking such a huge amount of time out of their games.

If someone's WS is very noticeably higher than another's in assault, it doesn't hurt to simply ask "Hey, your WS is 7 and mine is 3, do I hit on 5+ or 4+? I know you hit me on 3+, of course." Take 30 seconds to flip to the page on the rulebook, then you can say "Alright, so your CC guy hits my regular dudes on x+, but only hits my slightly better at CC dudes on y+."

 Whittlesey40k wrote:

 gummyofallbears wrote:
I usually play two 1850 games each saturday (our local GW is open 11 - 8) and usually have a ton of extra time for painting or kill team or the such. I could probably play 3 games if table space wasn't so limited. We play maelstrom too, usually a good amount of models too.

I don't see what's taking so much time.

There have been a lot of comments similar to this "what's taking so long" and "there's no way it can take that long".

The difference is, as you've said, you play 2 games every Saturday. Try being a new player (I'm not, but others are) who only gets to play maybe once or twice a month. That's plenty of time to forget that particular unit's Ld characteristic, or what you need to hit in assault with WS3 versus WS5 or whatever. I'm surprised at how many people here are being so dismissive - stating outright that it's just wrong that it takes that long.

There have also been lots of useful comments (no point in me repeating them).

OP, ignore the people who seem to think everyone should know every rule from every faction from their first game. Listen to those giving advice - a lot of it is good. And it's right that knowing rules will speed things up, but you're not necessarily going to remember everything overnight. The more games you play, the quicker you'll get.

(@gummy - I don't mean this to be aimed solely at you, it's just your comment really highlighted the experience factor that many seem to be forgetting)

I apologize. I only skimmed through the OP and I never noticed he was a new player, if he is then that changes my post. I apologize.

Get trays to move your squads quickly.

And if you're a new player you should not be playing 2000 point games. There's far too much going on.

Until you have the basics down, and no longer need to consult the tables for hit/wound, keep your points down around 750-1000 max.

Play with troops. If you're learning don't jump in the deep end.

morgoth wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
my gaming group did a 44k point apocalypse game (8 player vs 6 players) last month and it "only" took 8 hours

biggest part is know your rules, know your codex, have quick reference sheets available.

the biggest factor there is many of us know the rules and know the basics of other codex rules for every army.

In other words, you are very experienced and that makes you fast. I don't see how that's going to help a less experienced player play faster though.

I played a lot in 5th (stopped shortly after 6th was released got some models since to paint but no table time). I have really only been back into playing for about 5-6 months. I just took the time to read through codexes, read some stuff online about armies (tactica and whatnot) and printed out some quick reference sheets. The group I am with has only been playing at the FLGS for less than a year, they started with klill teams to build some basic understanding and everybody has put forth the effort to learn about each other's armies to make games fast and enjoyable for everybody. We only meet one evening a week (tuesdays), except the big apocolypse game (saturday) some of us have a lot of models so made it happen (I own over 100 terminator models and they were almost all on the table) Now I am not going to pretend the studying armies and rules did not take time and I read the rulebook cover to cover several times but I think it was worth the effort.

 Grey Templar wrote:

I play a GK

mystery solved

Now try to set up 6 times the amount of models. Oh, and unit coherency and positioning is much more important. 1" of bauble-wrap can mean difference between your important mob getting charged by an invis deathstar and scoring a point and winning a game.

As pointed out before:
-know the rules.

And more:

-Have a plan: don't spend 10 minutes/squad thinking what it will do in your turn. Think about it during opponent's phase.
-Prepare dice for combined throws: 18 shootaboys in a battlewagon, with some big shootas+ the BS of the BW, all possible in one throw (with 2/3 different colored dice). As long as the bw stays alive, the amount stays more or less the same so keep those dice together. Saves alot of time that you don't have to count those +/- 50 dice every turn again.
-put your hordes in vehicles makes up alot of time in the moving phase


IMO, fast gaming is a skill that needs to be learned. One or 2 battles with time limit is enough. Both of the players will discover alot of time saving "tactics" that way.
Let's say 90mins a game for 6 turns, 750-1000 points. Time each turn with an alarm. If time's up, the turn is over, simple as that. (I know, opponent could "tactically" stall the game in your turn but i suppose you test it in a friendly game with the objective to shorten gametime and not to WAAC)
-deployment phase: 15 mins/player
-each turn: 5 mins/player
that makes 90 mins, and you'll discover after turn 3 that you're allready done and you still have 2 min's left.

Thake that lessons in bigger battles with the same opponent profit

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well, obviously you should look stuff up if there is a question. But if you know a rule, don't waste time with double checking.

Nope, this is how you waste time. You here are methods to deal with rules issues in fast game:
- Know your rules and play with someone who also knows their rules. Discuss potential hot issues before the game.
- Just give your opponent minor rule dispute wins. Losing a few marines mos of the time isn't worth losing 10 minutes.
- If it does matter agree on a temporary ruling and look it up your opponents turn.

Whatever you do do not pause the game to look stuff op and discuss rule issues when you want to play a fast game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Perhaps the most important rule to keep things fast avoid your weakness when choosing your army.

Don't play a move, shoot, jump / assault move army ( Tau eldar etc.) if you are the kind of guy who likes to think before each move. Just as it isn't advised to play a horde army if you feel the need to measure every model, don't play complex mixed units if you are having a hard time figuring out wound allocations or rolling those saves fast correctly and you shouldn't play an army with lots of random effects or special rules if you are having a hard time remembering them.

 koooaei wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
I think more info is required. What, exactly, is taking the time?

Take the 2.5-hour, 1250-point, 2-turn game as an example. Can you roughly break down what those 2.5 hours were spent doing? I just can't figure out how it can take so long.

10 min to set up table, 10-30 min to roll all pre-game stuff, 10-30 min to talk over all the rules ambiguities, 20-40 min to set up armies and here you can start the game. It usually lasts a bit longer that all the pre-game aspects.

This is what I mean when I say I don't get how it can take so long. 10 minutes to set up a table seems fine. Any more than 10 to do pre-game stuff just seems excessive. Like, how does it take that long? What are you doing in those 30 minutes?

Conceivably you need to roll for a bunch of psychic powers but even then you're talking 12-15 max, that should take about 5 minutes. Then you have warlord traits (about 30 seconds) and maybe some weirdness like combat drugs or C'Tan powers (again, no more than 30 seconds).

Rules ambiguities? Like what? At most I can see it taking 5 minutes to check something in an FAQ, but that should then mean there's a corresponding drop in the amount of time spent discussing similar things during the game. 40 minutes to deploy is, frankly, ridiculous. Even the biggest of horde armies should probably take no more than 15 minutes to deploy, and that's pushing it. I'd say 10 minutes would be a reasonable upper estimate, so around 20 minutes total.

I don't think this really has anything to do with experience, either. It's simply a process that needs to be completed, with the exception of actually deploying, which does require some thought.

BrianDavion wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
Yea so I played my entire game today in about 2.5 hours at 1250 points. It was definitely a faster than normal game for me though because my opponent conceded half way through my 2nd turn after I blew up his command squad.

...2.5hrs for a turn and a half? At 1,250pts? What armies were you using?

"his command squad" is a clue if his regular partner plays say... a IG full foot platoon list, I could see why games would take forever.

I have played infantry heavy IG, orks with green tide and 2.5hrs for turn and half for 1850 pts would be slow.

Also it's not like other armies don't have command squads. Space marines IIRC have command squads as well. At least used to. Last one I own was 6th ed dark angel one though.

Slipspace wrote:

Rules ambiguities? Like what?

Like when an opponent wants to field a unit that can charge from deepstrike and wants to add in calgar to charge with them. Or wants to field sisters of silence formation with rhinos and we got to find out weather rhinos add to +3" anti-psy bubble or not. Or wants to start d-wraiths in ynnari raiders. Or i want to field a unit of footslogging boyz and add in a biker boss and want to use waaagh for run + charge with this mixed unit. Cause all this stuff is game-changing and you got to know a hellton of rules that are not always clear and can be interpreted in a million different ways...So you got to check faqs first. Than if there's no answer there, crawl through a rulebook with a ton of rules spread out across different sections. Just check ymdc part of the forum if you don't understand "What can take so long". To give quick answers to this never-ending questions you got to spend a lot of time keeping in check with what's going on in 40k world of rules. Not everyone does it. So, it's very time-consuming when there's no rule-nerd around who could help with all this stuff.

As for model placement, it's a nightmare for larger armies. That's why i've moved to bully boyz in trukks. Can still take some time when the opponent has a lot of ranged ap2 (happens almost all the time) cause you still got to play around with model placement for cover to not auto-lose.

And all those rule questions are once in a lifetime. Once it's solved it's done. Does OP play with new opponent all the time?

I generally fit an 1850pts game in 3-4hrs.
Set uo is roughly 45mins. Both players agree on terrain placement and rules. Roll the mission, plave the marker(s), roll traits, deployments, sides deploy. Sometimes give a brief run down on what does what.
I know the commoj rules, but how exactly does a ram work? Can you have multiple challenges in a combat?

Templates are a pain, is that 5 or 6? How about here? Now scatter, that's goin over here, now you reckon thats 3 or 4? Maybe even these 2 over there?

It's all well and good when your shooting is composed entirely of grav but if I'm firing a bunch of pistols then charging for 50 attacks with a few mauls, swords and fists thrown in that takes a lot longer, have you egver tried digging the 5s out of 80 lasgun rounds? I don't know you shoot an imperial guare platoon in 5mins.

2hrs is fine between two experianced players, I dare say ~3-4hrs is average for an average player. But just repeating that takong more than 2hrs is poor isn't really fair.

tneva82 wrote:
And all those rule questions are once in a lifetime. Once it's solved it's done. Does OP play with new opponent all the time?

Taking into consideration most people play once in a couple months, it's pretty common to face new difficult rules questions every game.

Also you barely improve if you only play like once every few months, sure your tactics become better but actual speed of play doesn't really.

Experience counts for a lot, but so too does regular play. As an example, I've been playing M:tG (boo, hiss, I know) at competitive level for 20 years (on and off). But I probably only actually play every 2-3 weeks (for a few hours) - so I'm a bit rusty.

Last time I played 40K was about two months ago, around 650pts to teach a new player. Game took about 4 hours.

Last 'proper' 40K game I had was... hrm, last summer maybe? My housemate has lost the buzz so it's up to me to train the new player up so we can get some decent games in.

If you're playing two decent sized games a week, that's a huge advantage.

 koooaei wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Rules ambiguities? Like what?

Like when an opponent wants to field a unit that can charge from deepstrike and wants to add in calgar to charge with them. Or wants to field sisters of silence formation with rhinos and we got to find out weather rhinos add to +3" anti-psy bubble or not. Or wants to start d-wraiths in ynnari raiders. Or i want to field a unit of footslogging boyz and add in a biker boss and want to use waaagh for run + charge with this mixed unit. Cause all this stuff is game-changing and you got to know a hellton of rules that are not always clear and can be interpreted in a million different ways...So you got to check faqs first. Than if there's no answer there, crawl through a rulebook with a ton of rules spread out across different sections. Just check ymdc part of the forum if you don't understand "What can take so long". To give quick answers to this never-ending questions you got to spend a lot of time keeping in check with what's going on in 40k world of rules. Not everyone does it. So, it's very time-consuming when there's no rule-nerd around who could help with all this stuff.

As for model placement, it's a nightmare for larger armies. That's why i've moved to bully boyz in trukks. Can still take some time when the opponent has a lot of ranged ap2 (happens almost all the time) cause you still got to play around with model placement for cover to not auto-lose.

OK, I think I'm getting closer to understanding some of the issues now.

For the sort of things you're describing here I think there are two points I'd make:

1. Players should probably be aware of any rules issues their own units will bring up and do what they can to investigate them before the game. Obviously this isn't always possible, particularly if the player is unaware there may be issues.

2. There should be a limit on how long these issues take to resolve. The most important thing for me is to actually play the game so if a rules discussion goes on for more than a few minutes with no clear answer I'd always revert to either a compromise or rolling for it for the purposes of the current game and then investigate further afterwards. If a quick read of the rule in question, plus a check of the FAQ doesn't get you the answer then compromise and move on.

IMO, if you're having discussions similar to those in the YMDC forum during an actual game something's not right. That's not the time to be having those debates.

Some more avant-garde ways to speed up games. I use these a lot just to keep games simple. I want to tell a story in a few hours and not spend all day doing complicated maths...

Keep units to one armour type
Restrict unit variety (e.g. don't take scouts and marines - just stick to marines).
Pre-plan the mission and keep it simple (or something everyone is familiar with).
Agree to finish in four/five turns (I played an exciting battle over four turns yesterday. It was a good challenge to get all my objectives as quickly as that).
Play two smaller games rather than one large one.
Rather than debate rules, agree to roll a die to resolve any disputes, then look up / debate the rule after the game.
Give players a turn timer (like in chess). This is quite good for speeding up those players who spend ten minutes deciding which of two identical predators to shoot at, or where to place their deepstriking librarian...

Some of these might be things you can do until you manage to play games more quickly, at which point you can revert back to 'normal'



My favourite way to speed up games is to accidentally forget loads of special rules that would have won me the game...

 koooaei wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

I play a GK

mystery solved

Now try to set up 6 times the amount of models. Oh, and unit coherency and positioning is much more important. 1" of bauble-wrap can mean difference between your important mob getting charged by an invis deathstar and scoring a point and winning a game.

I haven't always played GKs. I've played orks, guard, and several varieties of space marine. Against every single codex. And I've watched a lot of games between Horde armies.

Even when you've got nids vs orks, a 2k game shouldn't last anywhere near to 6 hours unless there is a massive time waste somewhere.

And hey, if you want to spend 6 hours playing a game thats perfectly fine, but you could easily speed it up without compromising how you play the game.

Well, another reason is that we haven't played everything vs everyone. Which comes back to experience issues. But anywayz, i'd rather have a simplified version of the game and especially of unit rules. Limited magic and special effects. And more of the actual game.

One of the latest games i've played was csm new legions vs some skiitari mega-formation.

And it took us 40 minutes to just go through the lists! Legions had all the new rules - some of them quite odd. I was playing world eaters, iron warriors and alpha legion. We spent a lot of time headscratching how the faceless warlord trait - that i rolled - actually works and came to a conclusion that it doesn't. Also, the sheer amount of shiny special rules was overwhelming. And than i faced skiitari for the 1-st or 2-d time and didn't know what i'm facing. And they also have a TON of shiny special rules that do a lot of stuff.

If you think that it's no big deal, just look at a special character like celestine or cawl. How many special rules do they have? A LOT. Look at formations and detachments. Once again - a ton of special rules. I pretty much prefer the old approach. Orks: Waaagh, mob rule, furious charge across the board. And a couple of stuff here and there. Fast, easy to remember, common, understandable statlines and units. New orks: mob rule, 'ere we go, sometimes there is WAAAGH, sometimes there isn't, sometimes it lasts for the whole game, sometimes it gives fearless, sometimes boyz get hammer of wrath, sometimes they get it when they roll high enough, sometimes just when they're numerous enough, this meganobz have fearless and ws5 and this identical meganobz are ws4 and not fearless, this boyz are from this detachment and have one rules, those from another and don't...It's even worse with imperial superfriends and eldar rule-countering rules shenanigans.

The easiest way to speed things up and make games more fun and friendly is to avoid the power creep and play a limited version of the game. Single cad, limited set of units and amount of gear they can use. Limitations all in all.