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**njtrader**

Rickels wrote:

Chess clocks are not the solution. First turns are ALWAYS going to take the most time, and most armies have legit buckets full of dice. The problem stems from the fact that there can be rules questions/disputes and on the first turn this makes it brutal. If you noticed in the Alex/Tony game Tony wanted clarification on a rule regarding cyber wolves being keyworded space wolves. This took 5 minutes of a turn because one model got to reroll 4 attacks. One potential solution could be requiring players to include copies of their models rules with their lists. Most people have the PDFs now and printing them out and stapling them to the list. Would it make packets bigger? Sure. Would it help speed things up? Hells ya

Players are required to have copies of the rules for all models in their lists, though, so finding a solution to a rules dispute is on the player. I don't want to hear about first turns. Players need to adapt and change. You're basically saying that the monopoly on time is acceptable.

It isn't.

It's simple. Add a chess clock. Once it hits zero, you forfeit. End of story. Players will adjust, the meta will adjust, and slow play is impossible.

**Rickels**

njtrader wrote:
Rickels wrote:

Chess clocks are not the solution. First turns are ALWAYS going to take the most time, and most armies have legit buckets full of dice. The problem stems from the fact that there can be rules questions/disputes and on the first turn this makes it brutal. If you noticed in the Alex/Tony game Tony wanted clarification on a rule regarding cyber wolves being keyworded space wolves. This took 5 minutes of a turn because one model got to reroll 4 attacks. One potential solution could be requiring players to include copies of their models rules with their lists. Most people have the PDFs now and printing them out and stapling them to the list. Would it make packets bigger? Sure. Would it help speed things up? Hells ya

Players are required to have copies of the rules for all models in their lists, though, so finding a solution to a rules dispute is on the player. I don't want to hear about first turns. Players need to adapt and change. You're basically saying that the monopoly on time is acceptable.

It isn't.

It's simple. Add a chess clock. Once it hits zero, you forfeit. End of story. Players will adjust, the meta will adjust, and slow play is impossible.

You make like there is not a chess already. Its the 2.5 hour time limit. If TO's started to enforce the hard cut off at that time and say players MUST reach at least 4 full player turn each player, then slow playing will become a thing of the past. Chess clocks will do nothing but shift the meta into super heavies and that is boring as heck

**Benlisted**

Silentz wrote:
Benlisted wrote:
Chess clocks are often touted as the solution to this, but the final game took 1:45 up to the end of turn two, leaving 45 minutes for the rest of the game. I know eldar's time is frontloaded, but these were top tier players under timed conditions - how the hell is anyone else (let alone someone without a low model count army) supposed to finish their games? .

Not sure you understand how chess clocks are used in things like Kings of War.

Once you run out of time - you are DONE. You can no longer play, take turns, shoot, fight or anything.

If your opponent has time left, they can just keep on playing.

You took an hour and a half on turn one? Well, you best hope your opponent takes the same amount of time for their turn one or you are getting tabled with no chance to respond.

Here's an excerpt from the rulespack for a KOW tournament:
If a player runs out of time, they must
immediately put their dice down and
make no further dice rolls for the rest
of the game. If there are any unresolved
combats, then all charging units bounce
back 1” as if failing to rout the enemy
unit. During the remainder of the game,
that player may not issue any orders or
roll any dice, including for rules such
as Regeneration. The timed-out player
will also receive a -1 tournament point
penalty.

I perfectly understand this - but we are playing a game wherein it has proved not possible to play the game to a natural conclusion in the time allocated even by two of the best players who were playing with a chess clock. As I mentioned before, they hit 1:45 of a 2:30 round and had just ended t2. Chess clocks will indeed help the slow playing issue and I am not advocating against them - I just think using them as the only port of call is not the right decision because they do not resolve the fact that 2k points is simply too many to naturally finish a game in 2:30 rounds. Either we up raising the round time to a painfully long 3-3:30, or we need to reduce points. Basically there are multiple issues and different things will help fix each.

**Xenomancers**

OMFG. It isn't that hard to understand people.

If you have 2 1/2 hours to play the game (this is not enough time though some people say it is) then each player gets 1h15m to play the game. When their turn starts their clock starts ticking - when their turn ends - it stops ticking. Need to pee - Do it in your turn? Run out of time? You lose.

It's a laughable joke that tournaments are not done in this fashion. 3 game turns is not a full game of 40k unless someone is tabled. 2 game turns? WTF is that...how does that qualify as a win or a loss for ether player?

In addition to this there needs to be a pregame deployment phase that has additional time. Plus in rules debates where a judge is involved the time should also stop.

**Primark G**

If Tony was banned from ITC events for a year that would send out a message loud and clear.

**ChainswordHeretic**

We should not need chess clocks at larger tournaments, they usually have a large countdown timer projected on the wall. Instead of counting down the full 2:30 have it count down turns with someone announcing "bottom of 2 starts now" or sum such. The problem like other people have said is 40K is a front loaded game and rounds would need to reflect this. say 25 min. each first turn, 20 min. each second, and 15 min. each for the remainder. If you and your opponent are playing faster, ignore the clock, if not when your turn is up tuff luck.

**njtrader**

Rickels wrote:
njtrader wrote:
Rickels wrote:

Chess clocks are not the solution. First turns are ALWAYS going to take the most time, and most armies have legit buckets full of dice. The problem stems from the fact that there can be rules questions/disputes and on the first turn this makes it brutal. If you noticed in the Alex/Tony game Tony wanted clarification on a rule regarding cyber wolves being keyworded space wolves. This took 5 minutes of a turn because one model got to reroll 4 attacks. One potential solution could be requiring players to include copies of their models rules with their lists. Most people have the PDFs now and printing them out and stapling them to the list. Would it make packets bigger? Sure. Would it help speed things up? Hells ya

Players are required to have copies of the rules for all models in their lists, though, so finding a solution to a rules dispute is on the player. I don't want to hear about first turns. Players need to adapt and change. You're basically saying that the monopoly on time is acceptable.

It isn't.

It's simple. Add a chess clock. Once it hits zero, you forfeit. End of story. Players will adjust, the meta will adjust, and slow play is impossible.

You make like there is not a chess already. Its the 2.5 hour time limit. If TO's started to enforce the hard cut off at that time and say players MUST reach at least 4 full player turn each player, then slow playing will become a thing of the past. Chess clocks will do nothing but shift the meta into super heavies and that is boring as heck

There isn't a clock, just a time limit. Let's pose an example.

2.5 hour time limit. Player 1 is playing 200+ models. Player 2 is playing 80ish models.

Player 1 takes 25 minutes for their first turn.

Player 2 takes 15 minutes for their first turn.

Player 1 takes 68 minutes for their second turn.

Player 2 takes 15 minutes for their second turn.

Player 1 takes 25 minutes for their third turn.

Player 2 has 2 minutes to play their third turn.

Let's total that up. A 2.5 hour game is 150 minutes. Player 2 in this scenario has had a total of 32 minutes of game time, while player 1 has monopolized the time and taken a total of 118 minutes of time. They have had more then triple the amount of time to move, shoot, fight, etc, then player 2 has had.

Sorry, but I do not buy the argument that chess clocks shouldn't be used. the above example is not far fetched. It is absolutely unfair to player 2 (or 1, whoever is being slow played) to have half or even less of that time allotted to their turns.

1.25 hrs each, chess clock, you forfeit if you clock yourself.

**Xenomancers**

This isn't an issue with 1 person. It is an issue with poor tournament organization across the board for 40k events. A local 10-20 man tournament can be lax like this but 100+ tournaments absolutely need clock management in order to insure players don't abuse the system - ether intentionally or accidentally.

This is supposed to be the biggest 40k tournament in the world...pretty pathetic that slow play is even allowed or possible at an event like this.

**Rickels**

njtrader wrote:
Rickels wrote:
njtrader wrote:
Rickels wrote:

Chess clocks are not the solution. First turns are ALWAYS going to take the most time, and most armies have legit buckets full of dice. The problem stems from the fact that there can be rules questions/disputes and on the first turn this makes it brutal. If you noticed in the Alex/Tony game Tony wanted clarification on a rule regarding cyber wolves being keyworded space wolves. This took 5 minutes of a turn because one model got to reroll 4 attacks. One potential solution could be requiring players to include copies of their models rules with their lists. Most people have the PDFs now and printing them out and stapling them to the list. Would it make packets bigger? Sure. Would it help speed things up? Hells ya

Players are required to have copies of the rules for all models in their lists, though, so finding a solution to a rules dispute is on the player. I don't want to hear about first turns. Players need to adapt and change. You're basically saying that the monopoly on time is acceptable.

It isn't.

It's simple. Add a chess clock. Once it hits zero, you forfeit. End of story. Players will adjust, the meta will adjust, and slow play is impossible.

You make like there is not a chess already. Its the 2.5 hour time limit. If TO's started to enforce the hard cut off at that time and say players MUST reach at least 4 full player turn each player, then slow playing will become a thing of the past. Chess clocks will do nothing but shift the meta into super heavies and that is boring as heck

There isn't a clock, just a time limit. Let's pose an example.

2.5 hour time limit. Player 1 is playing 200+ models. Player 2 is playing 80ish models.

Player 1 takes 25 minutes for their first turn.

Player 2 takes 15 minutes for their first turn.

Player 1 takes 68 minutes for their second turn.

Player 2 takes 15 minutes for their second turn.

Player 1 takes 25 minutes for their third turn.

Player 2 has 2 minutes to play their third turn.

Let's total that up. A 2.5 hour game is 150 minutes. Player 2 in this scenario has had a total of 32 minutes of game time, while player 1 has monopolized the time and taken a total of 118 minutes of time. They have had more then triple the amount of time to move, shoot, fight, etc, then player 2 has had.

Sorry, but I do not buy the argument that chess clocks shouldn't be used. the above example is not far fetched. It is absolutely unfair to player 2 (or 1, whoever is being slow played) to have half or even less of that time allotted to their turns.

1.25 hrs each, chess clock, you forfeit if you clock yourself.

You making it sound like your turn is just your turn. Do you stop your clock every time your opponent has to make a save/roll hits/wounds/saves during the shooting assault phase? Do we stop the clock and have your opponent if he is trying to cancel out a psychic power?

Chess clocks WOULD NOT WORK

**njtrader**

ChainswordHeretic wrote:
We should not need chess clocks at larger tournaments, they usually have a large countdown timer projected on the wall. Instead of counting down the full 2:30 have it count down turns with someone announcing "bottom of 2 starts now" or sum such. The problem like other people have said is 40K is a front loaded game and rounds would need to reflect this. say 25 min. each first turn, 20 min. each second, and 15 min. each for the remainder. If you and your opponent are playing faster, ignore the clock, if not when your turn is up tuff luck.

See I don't feel like this is good enough. 1.25 hr chess clocks per player and everyone has equal access to time.

I don't understand why there are so many in the 40k community that are averse to this.

**Latro_**

Time in a tournament is probably the biggest gripe I have when i go to them (tend to go to smaller ones).

I'v said it a few times to people that with:
- amount of dice re-rolls from buffs/powers and strats
- amount of attacks increasing (e.g. everything hits everything so you fire every gun/resolve every attack and guns having more shots in general)
- Stratagem decision making + tracking
- chaffe being a thing

40k games imo take longer than they did in 7th! 2K in 8th is just what 1850 in 7th translates to model-wise.

1.5k would be much better in a tournament situation.

The problem with chess timers and penalising individuals for taking to long will cause your horrible (assume everyone is a d***) opponent to take saves really slowly or remove models reallly slowy etc.. messing up your turn time.

If you say games don't count unless they go X turns as a TO you should just assume players will lie and say it went the min turns so they both dont loose out on pts.

IMO you make the official time for a game X hrs (with half hour passing klaxons) then when that is over you have 15-30mins 'washup time' that is if your opponent has a turn in hand you get to have a turn so its equal. The missions should be built so you can score pts from turn one in an achievable fashion so time and army type selection is mitigated.

**Red Corsair**

Primark G wrote:
If Tony was banned from ITC events for a year that would send out a message loud and clear.

He isn't the only one though, he just happened to be on camera twice. BTW so was Nick whos games also only went 2-3 turns. Same list, same tactic and I don;t blame them entirely because they knew exactly how to get the most points for the time allotted in the format. Last year I suggested the LVO have a space on each score card to write down what turn the game ended at so they could find out what the average game length was. This is important for breaking things down, if the lower tables are getting 4-5 turns in and the top tables 2-3 then you know that slow play is intentional. I mean obviously it is when you see the lists, they are meant to ravage on the first two turns while sacrificing rangers to get max points, but against certain armies that list would not do so well in a 6 turn game. Basically the LVO this year found the best players at playing the start to a game lol. Maybe next year we can see who is best at finishing a game.

**njtrader**

Rickels wrote:
njtrader wrote:
Rickels wrote:
njtrader wrote:
Rickels wrote:

Chess clocks are not the solution. First turns are ALWAYS going to take the most time, and most armies have legit buckets full of dice. The problem stems from the fact that there can be rules questions/disputes and on the first turn this makes it brutal. If you noticed in the Alex/Tony game Tony wanted clarification on a rule regarding cyber wolves being keyworded space wolves. This took 5 minutes of a turn because one model got to reroll 4 attacks. One potential solution could be requiring players to include copies of their models rules with their lists. Most people have the PDFs now and printing them out and stapling them to the list. Would it make packets bigger? Sure. Would it help speed things up? Hells ya

Players are required to have copies of the rules for all models in their lists, though, so finding a solution to a rules dispute is on the player. I don't want to hear about first turns. Players need to adapt and change. You're basically saying that the monopoly on time is acceptable.

It isn't.

It's simple. Add a chess clock. Once it hits zero, you forfeit. End of story. Players will adjust, the meta will adjust, and slow play is impossible.

You make like there is not a chess already. Its the 2.5 hour time limit. If TO's started to enforce the hard cut off at that time and say players MUST reach at least 4 full player turn each player, then slow playing will become a thing of the past. Chess clocks will do nothing but shift the meta into super heavies and that is boring as heck

There isn't a clock, just a time limit. Let's pose an example.

2.5 hour time limit. Player 1 is playing 200+ models. Player 2 is playing 80ish models.

Player 1 takes 25 minutes for their first turn.

Player 2 takes 15 minutes for their first turn.

Player 1 takes 68 minutes for their second turn.

Player 2 takes 15 minutes for their second turn.

Player 1 takes 25 minutes for their third turn.

Player 2 has 2 minutes to play their third turn.

Let's total that up. A 2.5 hour game is 150 minutes. Player 2 in this scenario has had a total of 32 minutes of game time, while player 1 has monopolized the time and taken a total of 118 minutes of time. They have had more then triple the amount of time to move, shoot, fight, etc, then player 2 has had.

Sorry, but I do not buy the argument that chess clocks shouldn't be used. the above example is not far fetched. It is absolutely unfair to player 2 (or 1, whoever is being slow played) to have half or even less of that time allotted to their turns.

1.25 hrs each, chess clock, you forfeit if you clock yourself.

You making it sound like your turn is just your turn. Do you stop your clock every time your opponent has to make a save/roll hits/wounds/saves during the shooting assault phase? Do we stop the clock and have your opponent if he is trying to cancel out a psychic power?

Chess clocks WOULD NOT WORK

You're moving the goal posts. There is no, absolutely no reason why a chess clock would not work, and there hasn't been a single argument that is compelling enough to convince me we should keep allowing people to monopolize time in game.

Warmachine and Hordes have rules for this. It's easy to steal them.

1.25 hrs per player
No pauses except for judge intervention, limit 2 pauses per player per game
Expectation is that saves are rolled on the active players clock, as are psychic power denials (since both players will be doing this actively in their opponents turns ANYWAY.)
If a player's clock hits zero, they forfeit

It absolutely works. 100% of the time.

If you clock you have NO ONE but yourself to blame.

Equity of access to time is a requirement and the meta will adapt.

**Red Corsair**

ChainswordHeretic wrote:
We should not need chess clocks at larger tournaments, they usually have a large countdown timer projected on the wall. Instead of counting down the full 2:30 have it count down turns with someone announcing "bottom of 2 starts now" or sum such. The problem like other people have said is 40K is a front loaded game and rounds would need to reflect this. say 25 min. each first turn, 20 min. each second, and 15 min. each for the remainder. If you and your opponent are playing faster, ignore the clock, if not when your turn is up tuff luck.

Why break it down for them, if the game doesn't reach a natural tabling or 5 turns per player, both players receive a total loss. Trust me, games will finish. 40k averages 6 turns and hilariously the LVO actually recognized this by saying the games auto go to 6. Which is even more hilarious when you consider how few if any out of the 1000+ games probably hit that magic 6 turn number. Again, gathering game length data would help, I am interested to see if they did this.

**njtrader**

Latro_ wrote:
Time in a tournament is probably the biggest gripe I have when i go to them (tend to go to smaller ones).

I'v said it a few times to people that with:
- amount of dice re-rolls from buffs/powers and strats
- amount of attacks increasing (e.g. everything hits everything so you fire every gun/resolve every attack and guns having more shots in general)
- Stratagem decision making + tracking
- chaffe being a thing

40k games imo take longer than they did in 7th! 2K in 8th is just what 1850 in 7th translates to model-wise.

1.5k would be much better in a tournament situation.

The problem with chess timers and penalising individuals for taking to long will cause your horrible (assume everyone is a d***) opponent to take saves really slowly or remove models reallly slowy etc.. messing up your turn time.

If you say games don't count unless they go X turns as a TO you should just assume players will lie and say it went the min turns so they both dont loose out on pts.

IMO you make the official time for a game X hrs (with half hour passing klaxons) then when that is over you have 15-30mins 'washup time' that is if your opponent has a turn in hand you get to have a turn so its equal. The missions should be built so you can score pts from turn one.

You solve the saves issue or psychic denial issue by simply tapping the clock onto their time if they are slow playing. There is no excuse for slow play. None.

**sirisaacnuton**

Edit:

**Wilson**

Id be very open to adding clocks to my games. I've played all sorts of different armies in 40k over the years and not once has my longest turn lasted over, say half an hour.

Don't say no until its been tried and tested. ( and if it works for other turn based games, surely that's a good indication it might not be a bad thing?)

**Voidwraith**

Or...you know, there could have been an entirely different way of dealing with Tony's "gotcha" moment.

Instead of the only outcome being "well, the rules are the rules, and since you deep-struck something, it's now the end of your movement phase and you can't move anything else" there could have been a different option of "oh, you didn't mean for this to be the end of your movement phase, well...you have to PICK UP everything you just deep struck and move your remaining units, THEN deep-strike these units at the end of your movement phase."

Yes, I get it that Tony was trying to gain an advantage and this secondary option is overall ridiculous, but it's no more ridiculous than multi-day tournament's semi-finals being upended because one player decides to become super-rules lawyer at a critical moment. There HAVE to be options...common sense options....for a TO to go to in an effort to maintain fair competition. Usually the loose social contract we uphold while playing across from one another for over 2 hours is enough, but apparently, when it's getting down to the nitty gritty, some players have no problem exploiting a vast array of variables (slow-play, impromptu-rules lawyering, etc) to gain an edge. Especially if there's no downside to doing so (apart from everyone roasting him online).

A TO needs to have the ability to step in and say "hey playerX, you're being a douche...stop it and get back to playing the game."

**Ordana**

The time your opponent takes to respond to your dice rolls is normally minimal so your clock barely suffers and it happens on both ends.
If your opponent is slow playing his saves on your turn (by looking up saves all the time for example) then flip the clock to him when he has to roll.

**njtrader**

sirisaacnuton wrote:
I'm trying to figure out whether all the people arguing so strenuously for hardcore chess clock usage have ever even played this game, or if they just wandered over from the Warmachine forums.

The next time you play a game of 40k, or watch someone else play a game, pay attention to how many things a player does during their opponent's turn. You roll two dice to cast Smite? I decide who wants to try to block it, measure distances to see who's in range to do so, then roll two dice to try. You roll a d3 to determine wounds? I dither about where I want to distribute those wounds, and maybe even measure distances to a few units just to make sure we're pulling from the closest one. Maybe also get down to make sure the unit is visible. And now, even though it's your turn and it's your chess clock running, I just wasted more time than you did.

A player who wanted to slow play could do this in basically every element of the game. Double-checking ranges, line of sight, and cover. Deny the Witch rolls, saves, wound allocation, removing models, overwatch, fighting, morale--there are so many things that your opponent does on your turn. Someone unscrupulous enough to slow play now would be unscrupulous enough to slow play your turns with chess clocks out, and if there's basically no recourse against slow play now why expect it'd be any better against this kind of slow play?

If the previous idea were implemented, now all we're set up with is a system where your opponent can slow-roll your turns as much as he can get away with, play his own turns at a reasonable rate, and then table you or take all the objectives and win once your clock is out of time.

Warmachine can use chess clocks because you don't do much on your opponent's turn except mark damage and remove models. Magic Online can use chess clocks because the computer automatically switches on every change of priority. Hearthstone can use timed turns because you can't do anything on your opponent's turn.

But chess clocks aren't a practical option for actually combating slow play in 40k unless you hit the button every single time something is on your opponent. "Roll to hit. Seven hits. What's their toughness" <click> "Five." <click> "Roll to wound. Three wounds." <click> "What's the AP?" <click> "Minus 2." <click> "Roll saves. Two saved. What's the damage?" <click> "Two." <click> "One guy dead. It'll be this one." <click>

May seem like overkill having that many hits of the chess clock in one single unit's shooting, but if you don't every single one of those spots is a place to get slow played. You ask me what their toughness is without hitting the clock, and all of a sudden I'm thumbing through my codex to make sure. You ask me what the AP is so you know what saves you need and don't click the clock, and maybe I'm looking for the armory page to refresh my memory. What are you going to do, complain to the judge because I can't memorize every single number in the book?

It's not like tournament organizers have just somehow not been aware of the existence of chess clocks for decades. They're just not a practical solution to the problem of slow playing in 40k, without being hugely inconvenient and disruptive to the flow of play for every other game. Then it also introduces the issue where you're playing some random game without either player trying any kind of slow play shenanigans (which describes most games, even in tournaments) and you suddenly realize that it's your turn but your opponent's clock is ticking and neither of you knows how long ago it should have been hit. So now we've added in a new problem that wouldn't have existed before, and still haven't really done a good job of remedying the actual problem.

Warmachine has an aspect to this though that is similar. People slowly mark damage, or mismark damage, or they "forget" their rules - all of which can simply be solved. If a player is taking too long, tap it over to their time.

Simply solution.

**Primark G**

There was a chess clock and in the final round they enforced 20 minutes per turn.

**ChainswordHeretic**

Why break it down for them, if the game doesn't reach a natural tabling or 5 turns per player, both players receive a total loss. Trust me, games will finish. 40k averages 6 turns and hilariously the LVO actually recognized this by saying the games auto go to 6. Which is even more hilarious when you consider how few if any out of the 1000+ games probably hit that magic 6 turn number. Again, gathering game length data would help, I am interested to see if they did this.

Because in your scenario your placing the blame on, and penalizing, both players. So the guy at LVO should have auto lost because his opponent slow played? Remember back in the day when groups would have one of their members tank a competitors comp scores to take him out of the running? I do. what would stop someone from taking out a good player this way? My way you are only responsible for your play and it can't be abused by the opponent.

**Red Corsair**

ChainswordHeretic wrote:
Why break it down for them, if the game doesn't reach a natural tabling or 5 turns per player, both players receive a total loss. Trust me, games will finish. 40k averages 6 turns and hilariously the LVO actually recognized this by saying the games auto go to 6. Which is even more hilarious when you consider how few if any out of the 1000+ games probably hit that magic 6 turn number. Again, gathering game length data would help, I am interested to see if they did this.

Because in your scenario your placing the blame on, and penalizing, both players. So the guy at LVO should have auto lost because his opponent slow played? Remember back in the day when groups would have one of their members tank a competitors comp scores to take him out of the running? I do. what would stop someone from taking out a good player this way? My way you are only responsible for your play and it can't be abused by the opponent.

You don't understand though, why would you slow play if you know your gona auto lose if your game doesn't finish. We are supposed to be finding the best 40k player, last I checked the game doesn't stop at the 2nd or 3rd turn. Top ITC rankings are useless as a measure of skill if you fail to even finish a full game. We basically just watched people figure out who was best in a 2 turn alpha strike format. There is a reason why that reaper spam list did so well. It would do well normally, but would fall apart against certain armies in a long running game. Trouble is, you have zero shot at killing a long ranged army when there isnt enough time to catch it.

The second part of that is ridiculous btw. I addressed this before, your assuming everyone at the event is a total douche at which point why have events? No, more accurately this is a very rare thing and pretty easily eliminated when people recognize said group for their actions.

**schadenfreude**

Chess clocks are a terrible idea in 40k. There is a tiny # of players that would abuse the gak out of a chess clock. They would slow play the gak out of their opponent on their opponents turn by second measuring movements and starting rules arguements that they know are wrong in order to force their opponent to break out a rulebook and waste their time. They could also just roll armor saves slowly.

Bottom line is this: Chess clocks would reward the worst 1% for slow playing on their opponent's turn. TFG would abuse the gak out of that opportunity.

**njtrader**

schadenfreude wrote:
Chess clocks are a terrible idea in 40k. There is a tiny # of players that would abuse the gak out of a chess clock. They would slow play the gak out of their opponent on their opponents turn by second measuring movements and starting rules arguements that they know are wrong in order to force their opponent to break out a rulebook and waste their time. They could also just roll armor saves slowly.

Bottom line is this: Chess clocks would reward the worst 1% for slow playing on their opponent's turn. TFG would abuse the gak out of that opportunity.

I've posted arguments against this theory, and it's relatively easy to solve these problems with intelligent clock management.

Chess clocks are the easiest answer to one player monopolizing time.

**Red Corsair**

schadenfreude wrote:
Chess clocks are a terrible idea in 40k. There is a tiny # of players that would abuse the gak out of a chess clock. They would slow play the gak out of their opponent on their opponents turn by second measuring movements and starting rules arguements that they know are wrong in order to force their opponent to break out a rulebook and waste their time. They could also just roll armor saves slowly.

Bottom line is this: Chess clocks would reward the worst 1% for slow playing on their opponent's turn. TFG would abuse the gak out of that opportunity.

Evidence? Or are you also just assuming only the crappiest people edge their way to the top? If so then you are probably half way to realizing what I did years ago. That soft scores are important because they protect the 95% of the players their and the guys that only care about edging to the very top shouldn't be catered to.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Theres currently way to much emphasis on battle points and who is winning matches. Winning matches and battle points can easily be 80% of overall points, you know the majority of points, while still having enough soft scoring to encourage attendees to be a better rounded player.

**bananathug**

The problem that the equal time people are just ignoring is that different armies don't take equal time to play.

By doing this you are placing horde and large model count armies at a serious disadvantage to small model count armies (where's that guy with his 3 super-heavies?)

When one player tries to play fast to make up for the other player playing slow you end up with situations enabling people to pull a Tony.

I'm not sure what the answer is but in my tournies I pretty regularly get to turn 4-5. But it is more of a casual setting and the players are actually trying to play the game instead of gaming the game.

It's such a subjective measure if someone is slow playing or just has a lot of models to move. I think GWs greed has painted the game into this corner as they want more and more models on the table so points have ballooned up to 2k but trying to play games at 1.5k makes morty+magnus pretty much auto wins so the whole game would have to be redesigned in order to account for that.

I think the answer has to be just give rounds more time. 3.5 hr games would pretty much guarantee that people went under or at least got to turn 5 (you'd have to really slow play in order to only get 2 rounds in). So you only get 2 games a day in or play an exhausting 14 hour day (10.5 + lunch/dinner + downtime) Maybe cut lunch to incentivise players to finish early and leave themselves time for lunch?

Because I agree that only playing 2 turns is not really a game of 40k but a game of alpha strike and run.

**Vaktathi**

If you need chess clocks, its time to shrink the size of the game. 40k is not a game designed around a time constraint. If people want that, PP has some great offerings that are inherently designed around that. 40k has far too vast an array of forces to deal with that equitably, and too much switching back and forth in the fundamental game flow to not have it turn into a mess very easily, to say nothing of the added burden on the organizer of supplying them.

If time is an issue, instead of layering another gameable element onto the event, try running 1500pt tournaments next time, it will probably work out a whole lot better in general.

**Fan67**

Well, when your opponent is called to do things (saves, deny, interventions) you call press the button and let time go for him during ur turn.

The problem is ... are we ready to punish those players who forgot to press the button, essentialy gifting time to opponent?

I am a slow player. I admit. I once had 8 hour 2000pts game.
My average time is 4 hours for the full game.

I know how it hurts to play vs me, and spent much time reflecting:
#0 thing is tactical evaluation. I need to think less (orks?), but other things overshadow this:
#1 thing is deployment. I tend to play footslogging armies, my opponents use deepstrike and transports frequently. This already yields time disparity.
#2 is melee. CC armies are very sensitive to positioning, maneurs. Just to survive. My last army is a sandwitch of poxwalkers wrapped by cultists and brimstones in 7” to maximize the yield of zombies from the incoming fire.
Time disparity vs S&S and deep striking armies is enormous.
#3 is the ammount of rolls and rerolls, especially in multi-squad close combats and multi-weapon vehicles/squads. Who would have thought that 3 storm ravens with grey knights is one of the most time consuming lists despite low model count?

**Voidwraith**

bananathug wrote:
The problem that the equal time people are just ignoring is that different armies don't take equal time to play.

By doing this you are placing horde and large model count armies at a serious disadvantage to small model count armies (where's that guy with his 3 super-heavies?)

When one player tries to play fast to make up for the other player playing slow you end up with situations enabling people to pull a Tony.

I'm not sure what the answer is but in my tournies I pretty regularly get to turn 4-5. But it is more of a casual setting and the players are actually trying to play the game instead of gaming the game.

It's such a subjective measure if someone is slow playing or just has a lot of models to move. I think GWs greed has painted the game into this corner as they want more and more models on the table so points have ballooned up to 2k but trying to play games at 1.5k makes morty+magnus pretty much auto wins so the whole game would have to be redesigned in order to account for that.

I think the answer has to be just give rounds more time. 3.5 hr games would pretty much guarantee that people went under or at least got to turn 5 (you'd have to really slow play in order to only get 2 rounds in). So you only get 2 games a day in or play an exhausting 14 hour day (10.5 + lunch/dinner + downtime) Maybe cut lunch to incentivise players to finish early and leave themselves time for lunch?

Because I agree that only playing 2 turns is not really a game of 40k but a game of alpha strike and run.

Yep...longer rounds = more finished games with more accurate representations of who actually won.