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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.

Hate to break this to you, but the events have to be timed meaning time constraints will always impact which armies are best. It's another reason why some people I know think a net list is an auto win then lose repeatedly in open play games. These guya are engineering their armies for 2 turn games in a very specific format.

BTW you may be the only person alive to think placing a handicap on horde armies in 8th is somehow a bad thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Voidwraith wrote:

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.

They have already come out and said they cannot have any more length added though. You guys are being wilfully ignorant to the fact that this is an event with only a finite amount of time that costs money. I mean they could always move the event to the salt flats and take two weeks but then we would have another list of problem.

Skimmed this big thread and still don't see who's going to pay for 250 chess clocks.

In regards to soft scores, Reece did briefly talk about some upcoming changes in the ITC here (time 3:09:35);

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/223437441

It was fairly vague, but FLG is already considering some options.

 axisofentropy wrote:
Skimmed this big thread and still don't see who's going to pay for 250 chess clocks.

How about adding it to the entree fee. They aren't that expensive and you only need 1 per pair of players. Or you make it a required game aid sort of like trays, books dice etc. Hilarious to me that people can afford a new army every two weeks to chase the meta but a chess clock is out of the question.

https://www.amazon.com/Wholesale-Chess-Basic-Digital-Clock/dp/B073XRPS7Z/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1517252179&sr=8-2&keywords=chess+clock+timer

 Red Corsair wrote:

 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.

"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 key line there was tiny # of players. We have a good community as a whole. The # of TFG WAAC players is tiny, and it's rare that they make top 8. Being TFG is also a crutch and when they can no longer pull that off TFG will implode when they go up agaist top tier players. This year's incident will just result in the judges being more vigilant in the future with a greater presence at the 8 tables on day 3

LMAO here is one for the expensive cost of.....nothing....

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chess.clock&hl=en

 Red Corsair wrote:

 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.

Tournaments are basically always like this - it's never been a very good predictor of what armies are actually the strongest. It's always been about what army does best over a 3 turn game. Which leads to shooting being even more dominant.

 schadenfreude wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

 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.

"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 key line there was tiny # of players. We have a good community as a whole. The # of TFG WAAC players is tiny, and it's rare that they make top 8. Being TFG is also a crutch and when they can no longer pull that off TFG will implode when they go up agaist top tier players. This year's incident will just result in the judges being more vigilant in the future with a greater presence at the 8 tables on day 3

There is two problems with this. First of all, having greater presence suddenly at game 7 onward does nothing to fix the rot occurring at the event as a whole. The dicks will still be dicks until they can't be. But the key is in fact that it is a tiny number, so why are you suddenly worried about a tiny number? So rather then implement something that will be healthy for 99% of the field we better not on account of the same crowd that will manage to make any event suck for their opponents. You are failing to recognize that any person willing to maliciously slow play another player is going to manage to taint any format. It's the underlying culture and attitude thats the cause.

It's remarkable, that these clowns that make it to the top tables still have the audacity to do things like this when it's being recorded and streamed to literally thousands. Wtf was Tony thinking? "Gee, if i slowplay and cheat my opponent out of his movement phase, people will congratulate me on being soooo clever". Makes you wonder how he got all those other tourney wins, like ATC and such

njtrader wrote:
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.

Agree completely. I don't like chess clocks personally, but if time is a problem I can easily adjust to them if necessary. I played my Sisters vs an Ork player at an event a few years ago where he had 207 infantry models in 1750 points (don't remember the edition, 6th probably). I didn't even get my turn 4 because his movement phases took up 30+ minutes each. No offense to people who like horde armies, but too effing bad. If you can't play them fast enough to insure your opponent gets a fair amount of time to play the game then don't bring the damn army.

People like Tony ruin it for everyone. It is obvious he has no morale code.

 silashand wrote:

njtrader wrote:
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.

Agree completely. I don't like chess clocks personally, but if time is a problem I can easily adjust to them if necessary. I played my Sisters vs an Ork player at an event a few years ago where he had 207 infantry models in 1750 points (don't remember the edition, 6th probably). I didn't even get my turn 4 because his movement phases took up 30+ minutes each. No offense to people who like horde armies, but too effing bad. If you can't play them fast enough to insure your opponent gets a fair amount of time to play the game then don't bring the damn army.

Like I said the meta will adapt to chess clocks as a standard, and there is a real argument to be made for the standard size to be dropped to 1750 or even 1500 points with a sustained community driven alteration to what is and is not acceptable at the highest level of play.

Institute chess clocks and the meta WILL adapt. Hordes will still be a thing. If you want to use hordes, get efficient. No more dick moves.

njtrader wrote:

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.

Except "Do you want to deny" hhmmmm let me spend the next 5 minutes of your clock deciding.

"roll your saves" ok... one second... let me go find my dice... wait wrong dice, one sec. who are we saving for again? Why are we saving again? Ooops need more dice... ok let me get a good roll *proceeds to shake his hand with dice for next 30 seconds*. Oh darn i lost 5 models... hmm let me spend a minute or 2 deciding which ones to remove. Have to be slow/gentle...dont want to break any of my delicate models. One at a time should be fine right? Its your clock anyways.


You could easily waste half of your opponents clock throughout a game if you tried to. But if you make clocking a thing, and even if you make people clock themselves when rolling saves/denys/removing models etc etc. Certain lists will be made to either abuse this.

I guess you have never seen a chess clock have you, you see it has these two huge obvious buttons and when one guy demonstrates such behavior you simply tap the big button on your side. This is a key feature, it switches the clock over to HIS time. When he finishes being an ass he can simply tap the clock button back to your time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I love how at this point we have reached a situation where things are clearly busted, yet trying a solution is somehow the problem. If chess clocks fail then so be it, you look for new solutions, but this bull headed response by some is incredible. I have used a chess clock in 40k, it isn't perfect but it helps players with time management and after a while you get faster which is the point.

tekn0v1king wrote:

njtrader wrote:

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.

Except "Do you want to deny" hhmmmm let me spend the next 5 minutes of your clock deciding.

"roll your saves" ok... one second... let me go find my dice... wait wrong dice, one sec. who are we saving for again? Why are we saving again? Ooops need more dice... ok let me get a good roll *proceeds to shake his hand with dice for next 30 seconds*. Oh darn i lost 5 models... hmm let me spend a minute or 2 deciding which ones to remove. Have to be slow/gentle...dont want to break any of my delicate models. One at a time should be fine right? Its your clock anyways.


You could easily waste half of your opponents clock throughout a game if you tried to. But if you make clocking a thing, and even if you make people clock themselves when rolling saves/denys/removing models etc etc. Certain lists will be made to either abuse this.

If my opponent is taking that long to decide, I tap the clock over to their time. Let's see how quick their decision making becomes then.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
4/8 top players are Eldar soup/Aeldari - clearly OP, must nerf!

3/8 top players are Imperial soup/SM - *whistles and walks away*

Makes you wonder about the motivations of some people...or I guess some people just like to complain in general.

People have been calling for Guard to be nerfed to the ground since the edition started so I have no idea what you're talking about.

...Did you miss the part where they actually did nerf the guard significantly? Repeatedly? (Besides, these are more SM-focused than Guard...which is why I said "soup/SM" and not "soup/IG")

Interestingly, you just demonstrated my point exactly - Ynnari also took a massive nerf (also called for over a long time), but you jumped to the defense suddenly of Imperium players...

I've stated previously in this thread that the Death Company Captain is probably too strong for his points, but sure, I'm white knighting for a faction I don't even play.

He's really not. He's 'under pointed' in the sense that he's using a lot of things drawing from command points and artifacts. So of course he has an outsized effect. But a captain that isn't a warlord, has no artifacts, and has no command points spent on him is perfectly adequately pointed. The death company captain's strength weakens your army in other areas that aren't completely fungible with points.

 Colonel Cross wrote:
Really the only thing in those top lists I've seen that made me go "yuck, that's dirty" is the triple Eldar flyer. Wouldn't they have been at -2 to hit? Obnoxious.

It was such a large gap between eldar's release and sudden alaitoc dominance that I had thought my original estimation of an alaitoc based list was wrong. But it turns out Alaitoc seems to actually been suppressed by chaos soup with Malefic lords everywhere, and with the nerf to those, Eldar rocket back to the for front as the dominant anti guard army. Specifically, Alaitoc exists as a hard counter to guard with the ability to repeatedly stack minuses to hit. I feel vindicated in part as I called it originally, but a bit ashamed I didn't stick out out through the lean times.

Eldar in general are also by far the best positioned army to counter minus to hit cheese (which is super helpful against the mirror and almost every tournament level chaos army)

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

ashmizen wrote:
Really? 5 out of the top 8 is under represented?

Sorry, I'm confused, what percentage is needed for Eldar to be fairly represented?

I think you missed the point. It was sarcasm. I was using your logic to "prove" a clearly false point to demonstrate that the logic was poor.

It isn't though. The Blood angels in the lists in the top all were reliant on blood angel specific units and abilities. Nothing in them except the scouts is something that codex space marines can give an army. And Mark Wright's outlier force that had intercessors of all things. But Death company, Sanguinary guard, and the characters are all blood angel specifics. While the space wolf army literally was a ton of characters leading guardsmen around. Nothing in that draws from codex space marines.

I know it's easy to lump all space marines together, but there ARE some significant differences between the codexes, and its these differences that are being leveraged for tournament lists. Except scouts, which are great for their job.

Ordana wrote:

 Thud wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
Wow I feel so bad for Alex what happened in his semi final. :’(

Wasn't a great advertisement for tournaments, was it?

Its hard to argue with players who don't go to tournaments "because they are all WAAC dicks" when this is the side of the scene that gets shown to the world.

This is why I don't go to tourneys often. People like this bother me.

perrin23860 wrote:
I can only hope that the major podcasts and tournament organizers have the balls to call out these shenanigans. It's far too prevalent. I've heard tournament organizers defend this crap and or turn a blind eye for far too long. Some are in strong denial that it's even a problem.

I've been going to tournaments longer than most. It's always been an issue. Slow play, fast dice, rubber band tape measures, intentionally playing rules wrong, etc... it's like these clowns always rise to the top tables too, wonder why...

Kudos to Nick. Don't really know the guy, but I thought he handled it just fine. He had to be expecting similar antics vs himself, so he just used the same tactic to teach this guy a valuable lesson.

As far as the event, I'm certain it was truly enjoyable for most. I hope that junk doesn't detract from all the hard work those guys put into it. Never been, but it's on my bucket list, as I've heard wonderful things about it. Greatly admire what FLG has succeeded in accomplishing out there.

Nick isn't a saint, but at least he's friendlier when he rules lawyers you.

 Hulksmash wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Colour Of War wrote:
I cant help but feel this is why I prefer tournaments with sportsmanship and painting scores as well.

Those last couple of games really go against the spirit of the hobby which is a shame.

Problem with sportmanship scores is that it just adds another venue for WAAC's to exploit. 0's for each opponent.

This is such a tired argument. The whole reason why sportsman ship were dropped from these events hunged on the argument that 99.99% of players were good natured and acted mature and polite. You can't then say that those same people would use sportsmanship scoring maliciously without totally undermining the event and community at large.

So you saw how things ended up for this tournament, and you don't think players like that could be a problem?

To be fair it does kinda fall into that 99.99% (exaggerated but say 95%) of players being good natured. It's unfortunate that it happened but playing on those tables a lot it's still pretty rare you get someone who agrees to play intent and then plays gotcha instead. Mostly because after that people at that level are going to make you come to regret it (hence Nick's approach where Nick would have let that go 999 games out of a 1000).

For me the bigger issue was and continues to be TIME. Slow play isn't punished for anything. Honest to goodness games need to finish turn 4 or it's a loss for both players. That has it's own issues but I'm so tired of seeing tournament deciding games not getting past turn 3.

You need a death clock. Either turn by turn, or overall. I personally like overall. You have, let's say, an hour and a half per person to play the game. If one person runs out of time in turn 3, well means he's skipping his turn 4 and 5.

Benlisted wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:


For me the bigger issue was and continues to be TIME. Slow play isn't punished for anything. Honest to goodness games need to finish turn 4 or it's a loss for both players. That has it's own issues but I'm so tired of seeing tournament deciding games not getting past turn 3.

I totally agree on the time front. 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? Playing Nids, which regularly want to run 80+ models at 2k, I can get to the end of turn 3 or maybe 4 in 2.5 hours but it's very unlikely to go further than that unless one of us is getting utterly stomped. In my mind the only sensible solution is to reduce the points levels, to at least 1750 but frankly preferably 1500.

Sadly it means that massive armies that require a lot of time are penalized. But, honestly, you CAN mitigate this with planning. Movement trays are useful, but, in particular, count your dice before hand. Have all the dice you need for a unit in a container, and roll that when they fight, shuffle that dice off to the side and keep going, each unit with its own dice pool until your turn is over, and then, while your opponent plays, you collect your dice.

Rickels wrote:

njtrader wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Chess Clocks. And punish slow play. I have go to tournaments for my first games in 8th edition, and even checking CONSTANTLY my codex because I didn't know half my rules I could play easy to the end of turn 3 (For both players) or even turn 4 if the game had many casualties for both sides. In less than 2,5H.

How can a tournament level player have a 1:30 hour turn? In the biggest tournament in the world? In the finals? Thats just INSANE.

It's unacceptable, not insane. It's totally unacceptable and how FLG missed this is beyond me. You need equity when it comes to time management. It is absolutely unfair for one player to monopolize the game with their banter and their BS.

Chess clocks absolutely must be used.

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

That's why you give each player an overall time pool. You can take as much of that time up in a turn as you want, but you have a hard limit and when you run out, you run out and your opponent keeps going

 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.

Easier to have, as others have noted, the KoW style time pool so that you can decide how much of your time you take up a turn.

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

Which made things SOOOO much better, yeah

 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.

Unless 40k players at the high end are just more donkey-caves than Warmachine players, this hasn't bared out in reality.

 Vaktathi wrote:
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.

And, for some reason, Tony will still take an hour for his first turn despite having 500 less points.

Iunno, maybe limit the clocks to the top tables to punish the arseholes, but it is not a good look for the game.

 schadenfreude wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

 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.

"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 key line there was tiny # of players. We have a good community as a whole. The # of TFG WAAC players is tiny, and it's rare that they make top 8. Being TFG is also a crutch and when they can no longer pull that off TFG will implode when they go up agaist top tier players. This year's incident will just result in the judges being more vigilant in the future with a greater presence at the 8 tables on day 3

They make it to the top 8 all the time. Tony is a regular at the top. And so's Nick. Again, Nick might be nicer about it, but he still does it.

 Red Corsair wrote:
I guess you have never seen a chess clock have you, you see it has these two huge obvious buttons and when one guy demonstrates such behavior you simply tap the big button on your side. This is a key feature, it switches the clock over to HIS time. When he finishes being an ass he can simply tap the clock button back to your time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I love how at this point we have reached a situation where things are clearly busted, yet trying a solution is somehow the problem. If chess clocks fail then so be it, you look for new solutions, but this bull headed response by some is incredible. I have used a chess clock in 40k, it isn't perfect but it helps players with time management and after a while you get faster which is the point.

There is a habit in the human condition that appears in all walks of life from politics to gaming which is "Oh the solution isn't 100 perfect and fix all problems? THEN DO NOTHING!" even when the solution will fix most problems, as long as it doesn't address every conceivable issue some people will go "It doesn't fix EVERYTHING, so it's clearly a waste"

perrin23860 wrote:
It's remarkable, that these clowns that make it to the top tables still have the audacity to do things like this when it's being recorded and streamed to literally thousands. Wtf was Tony thinking? "Gee, if i slowplay and cheat my opponent out of his movement phase, people will congratulate me on being soooo clever". Makes you wonder how he got all those other tourney wins, like ATC and such

I take small pleasure in the possibility that he's out there and reading these, knowing that the vast majority of the community thinks he's a scumbag.

I came in 24th place with my IG 5W 1L but 2 other IG players had higher scores than me. The main reason I came in 3rd for IG is that they beat me in score because I did not play fast enough. I could blame it on my opponents instead because the game would just go a lot faster if they had the common decency to fail all of their armor saves and die, but the fact is that I am more responsible than they are for not going to turn 6 in my 2 wins that ended before turn 6. Because I was not fast enough and 2 games I was playing ended early I easily lost out on a potential 28 points between the 2 games, and without time limits I probably would have scored 20 to 25 of those points. Nothing my opponents did was malicious (except passing armor saves) and I sure as hell wasn't intentionally shooting myself in the foot during games that I was winning.

The big factors are this:
#1) I brought a lot of infantry with a lot of low AP shooting because deep down on some subconscious level I must really hate myself.
#2) I slipped into 3rd gear on occasion when I needed to be in 5th
#3) I should have had more practice games in the last 2 months

Ok maybe I did shoot myself in the foot a bit by bringing a massive number of guardsmen but I like my guardsmen and had a great time playing them. My point is incomplete games happen, and the current ITC system heavily rewards players who finish turn 6. The 2 other IG players who scored better than me earned their points and higher rankings. Multiple games that end before turn 6 are highly likely to knock someone out of the top 8 and are extremely likely to knock someone out of 1st place for their faction. Overall I think the system works. Over 2,800 games were played in the championships by about 470 players and there is only a handful of games that people are talking about. We have a good community with a few bad apples, and I don't see any easy solutions for how to deal with them.

 schadenfreude wrote:
I came in 24th place with my IG 5W 1L but 2 other IG players had higher scores than me. The main reason I came in 3rd for IG is that they beat me in score because I did not play fast enough. I could blame it on my opponents instead because the game would just go a lot faster if they had the common decency to fail all of their armor saves and die, but the fact is that I am more responsible than they are for not going to turn 6 in my 2 wins that ended before turn 6. Because I was not fast enough and 2 games I was playing ended early I easily lost out on a potential 28 points between the 2 games, and without time limits I probably would have scored 20 to 25 of those points. Nothing my opponents did was malicious (except passing armor saves) and I sure as hell wasn't intentionally shooting myself in the foot during games that I was winning.

The big factors are this:
#1) I brought a lot of infantry with a lot of low AP shooting because deep down on some subconscious level I must really hate myself.
#2) I slipped into 3rd gear on occasion when I needed to be in 5th
#3) I should have had more practice games in the last 2 months

Ok maybe I did shoot myself in the foot a bit by bringing a massive number of guardsmen but I like my guardsmen and had a great time playing them. My point is incomplete games happen, and the current ITC system heavily rewards players who finish turn 6. The 2 other IG players who scored better than me earned their points and higher rankings. Multiple games that end before turn 6 are highly likely to knock someone out of the top 8 and are extremely likely to knock someone out of 1st place for their faction. Overall I think the system works. Over 2,800 games were played in the championships by about 470 players and there is only a handful of games that people are talking about. We have a good community with a few bad apples, and I don't see any easy solutions for how to deal with them.

Pooled time for each player. The meta and players will adapt. The bad apples will bitch and whine but whatever.

It's witnessing crap like this that made me retire from competitive playing of any kind. This behavior just isn't in 40K...but any high level wargame I've played. What a lot of people overlook is that this crap filters down to the local levels and it ruins communities. I've seen it first hand. For me, a big way of eliminating a lot of this crap is to enforce FULLY PAINTED ARMIES. Not this minimum 3-5 color nonsense, but fully painted and based armies. That way, if the people in the top 8 really want that win..they are going to have to paint their gak or pay an obscene amount to have their flavor-of-the -month-beat-face army painted. Most of these guys HATE painting and if you stick it to them that way, then maybe...just maybe they'll tone down the douchery. 40K is as much as a hobby as it is a game. RESPECT the hobby. All the armies in the top 4 are shameful representations to the public of what 40k is. You really think that's a good look for the game, the brand, etc. to outsiders? Way to be great ambassadors to the game you morons. It's obvious not a single one of the top tables cares about any of the background of this game. None.

 schadenfreude wrote:
I came in 24th place with my IG 5W 1L but 2 other IG players had higher scores than me. The main reason I came in 3rd for IG is that they beat me in score because I did not play fast enough. I could blame it on my opponents instead because the game would just go a lot faster if they had the common decency to fail all of their armor saves and die, but the fact is that I am more responsible than they are for not going to turn 6 in my 2 wins that ended before turn 6. Because I was not fast enough and 2 games I was playing ended early I easily lost out on a potential 28 points between the 2 games, and without time limits I probably would have scored 20 to 25 of those points. Nothing my opponents did was malicious (except passing armor saves) and I sure as hell wasn't intentionally shooting myself in the foot during games that I was winning.

The big factors are this:
#1) I brought a lot of infantry with a lot of low AP shooting because deep down on some subconscious level I must really hate myself.
#2) I slipped into 3rd gear on occasion when I needed to be in 5th
#3) I should have had more practice games in the last 2 months

Ok maybe I did shoot myself in the foot a bit by bringing a massive number of guardsmen but I like my guardsmen and had a great time playing them. My point is incomplete games happen, and the current ITC system heavily rewards players who finish turn 6. The 2 other IG players who scored better than me earned their points and higher rankings. Multiple games that end before turn 6 are highly likely to knock someone out of the top 8 and are extremely likely to knock someone out of 1st place for their faction. Overall I think the system works. Over 2,800 games were played in the championships by about 470 players and there is only a handful of games that people are talking about. We have a good community with a few bad apples, and I don't see any easy solutions for how to deal with them.

This obviously is not the case because the guys on the top table were averaging 2 turn games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, if nobody at the event makes it past 3-4 turns then a 6 turn incentive becomes less meaningful.

BTW congratulations on the showing, well done mate!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CaptKaruthors wrote:
It's witnessing crap like this that made me retire from competitive playing of any kind. This behavior just isn't in 40K...but any high level wargame I've played. What a lot of people overlook is that this crap filters down to the local levels and it ruins communities. I've seen it first hand. For me, a big way of eliminating a lot of this crap is to enforce FULLY PAINTED ARMIES. Not this minimum 3-5 color nonsense, but fully painted and based armies. That way, if the people in the top 8 really want that win..they are going to have to paint their gak or pay an obscene amount to have their flavor-of-the -month-beat-face army painted. Most of these guys HATE painting and if you stick it to them that way, then maybe...just maybe they'll tone down the douchery. 40K is as much as a hobby as it is a game. RESPECT the hobby. All the armies in the top 4 are shameful representations to the public of what 40k is. You really think that's a good look for the game, the brand, etc. to outsiders? Way to be great ambassadors to the game you morons. It's obvious not a single one of the top tables cares about any of the background of this game. None.

Your preaching to the quire on my side. There was a push at around the time of 'Ard Boyz that utterly ruined events by allowing garbage looking armies to compete. I hate the argument that not every player is an artist because guess what, not every player is Napolean Bonepart. Theres ways of scoring painting on an objective level that are fair and balanced and reward players that put time into their army regardless of talent.

BTW you know it's bad when GW are embarrassed to stream the top contenders.

 schadenfreude wrote:
I came in 24th place with my IG 5W 1L but 2 other IG players had higher scores than me. The main reason I came in 3rd for IG is that they beat me in score because I did not play fast enough. I could blame it on my opponents instead because the game would just go a lot faster if they had the common decency to fail all of their armor saves and die, but the fact is that I am more responsible than they are for not going to turn 6 in my 2 wins that ended before turn 6. Because I was not fast enough and 2 games I was playing ended early I easily lost out on a potential 28 points between the 2 games, and without time limits I probably would have scored 20 to 25 of those points. Nothing my opponents did was malicious (except passing armor saves) and I sure as hell wasn't intentionally shooting myself in the foot during games that I was winning.

The big factors are this:
#1) I brought a lot of infantry with a lot of low AP shooting because deep down on some subconscious level I must really hate myself.
#2) I slipped into 3rd gear on occasion when I needed to be in 5th
#3) I should have had more practice games in the last 2 months

Ok maybe I did shoot myself in the foot a bit by bringing a massive number of guardsmen but I like my guardsmen and had a great time playing them. My point is incomplete games happen, and the current ITC system heavily rewards players who finish turn 6. The 2 other IG players who scored better than me earned their points and higher rankings. Multiple games that end before turn 6 are highly likely to knock someone out of the top 8 and are extremely likely to knock someone out of 1st place for their faction. Overall I think the system works. Over 2,800 games were played in the championships by about 470 players and there is only a handful of games that people are talking about. We have a good community with a few bad apples, and I don't see any easy solutions for how to deal with them.

Well, first off I gotta say congratulations! That's a very solid showing. Regarding time it's tricky, I understand it might feel bad knowing you lost out on points but at the same time a guard army should really have some guard imo. How many guard did you bring?

GW should really make a ruling on huge number of dice rolls. Any number of dice over 36 can be rolled by half and doubled rounding up for each result.

I don't know the exact wording the rule should have but the idea of it is that no one should be rolling more than 40 dice at a time. It's just a huge waste of time.

The issue with chess clocks is that 40k is a game which is in no way intended to have an equal split of play time.

The game positively encourages 20-man elite armies vs 300 model hordes. At no point in the game have there been rules that imply that both players should be 'active' for the same amount of time. In 40k, it's absolutely fine and normal for one player to take longer if he has a ton more models to move.

If you impose a chess clock, there are a number of obvious results. First, less horde armies and some thematic army builds will disappear. More importantly, less 'casual' players, who might have a new army they've pushed to get ready in time, or who don't play 40k as much as the tiny number of top-table players. We're saying 'unless you can play THIS fast, don't come'. That will drive people away. Despite the name, the majority of tournament attendees aren't super-regular 40k experts. They're people on a fun weekend away with added beer & geeking.

If games aren't finishing, there's a simple way to solve this. Get two average-skill players with big horde armies they're relatively new to. Allow them to play a game with plenty of time for thinking, checking rules, and not feeling pressured and rushed. That's your round time. Don't like it? Reduce points and repeat.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
The issue with chess clocks is that 40k is a game which is in no way intended to have an equal split of play time.

The game positively encourages 20-man elite armies vs 300 model hordes. At no point in the game have there been rules that imply that both players should be 'active' for the same amount of time. In 40k, it's absolutely fine and normal for one player to take longer if he has a ton more models to move.

If you impose a chess clock, there are a number of obvious results. First, less horde armies and some thematic army builds will disappear. More importantly, less 'casual' players, who might have a new army they've pushed to get ready in time, or who don't play 40k as much as the tiny number of top-table players. We're saying 'unless you can play THIS fast, don't come'. That will drive people away. Despite the name, the majority of tournament attendees aren't super-regular 40k experts. They're people on a fun weekend away with added beer & geeking.

If games aren't finishing, there's a simple way to solve this. Get two average-skill players with big horde armies they're relatively new to. Allow them to play a game with plenty of time for thinking, checking rules, and not feeling pressured and rushed. That's your round time. Don't like it? Reduce points and repeat.

You do realize we are talking about a competitive setting that already has a time limit. The chess clock is not creating these issues - it is the time limit. The only thing the chess clock does is give a player who is a good player and knows how to play their army the ability to finish their turns without some idiot taking 80% of the time by stalling. Why are you defending slow play? We aren't talking about hordes...you can play a horde army relatively quickly compared to someone who is deliberately slow playing.

There should at the least be clocks on the top tables.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
The issue with chess clocks is that 40k is a game which is in no way intended to have an equal split of play time.

The game positively encourages 20-man elite armies vs 300 model hordes. At no point in the game have there been rules that imply that both players should be 'active' for the same amount of time. In 40k, it's absolutely fine and normal for one player to take longer if he has a ton more models to move.

If you impose a chess clock, there are a number of obvious results. First, less horde armies and some thematic army builds will disappear. More importantly, less 'casual' players, who might have a new army they've pushed to get ready in time, or who don't play 40k as much as the tiny number of top-table players. We're saying 'unless you can play THIS fast, don't come'. That will drive people away. Despite the name, the majority of tournament attendees aren't super-regular 40k experts. They're people on a fun weekend away with added beer & geeking.

If games aren't finishing, there's a simple way to solve this. Get two average-skill players with big horde armies they're relatively new to. Allow them to play a game with plenty of time for thinking, checking rules, and not feeling pressured and rushed. That's your round time. Don't like it? Reduce points and repeat.

You do realize we are talking about a competitive setting that already has a time limit. The chess clock is not creating these issues - it is the time limit. The only thing the chess clock does is give a player who is a good player and knows how to play their army the ability to finish their turns without some idiot taking 80% of the time by stalling. Why are you defending slow play? We aren't talking about hordes...you can play a horde army relatively quickly compared to someone who is deliberately slow playing.

the time limit does not seem to be functioning however. If you just drop the points level to something like 1500 with the same time block, you solve most of the honest slowness and make the dishonest slowness dramatically more difficult to pull off and easy to call out, an you do it without introducing any additional tools, coordination mechanics, potential drama points, or costs.

Also, with top tables that are having their games livestreamed, one would think that, at least at those levels, slow play would be much easier to spot and call out, and should be receiving mote judge attention anyway.

You drama fiends sure do provide a lot of entertainment for the people who actually were at the event and involved in the goings-on at the final tables, returning home to see you all losing your minds about stuff you have no context for.

"the rot at the event"

"cheating"

"no moral code"

"ruined it for everyone"

What a bunch of absolutely hilarious garbage. Keep up the good work, dakka.

We are not different that football spectators. Yeah probably theres not bad blood between the actual players, but the fans... oh the fans.

DJ3 wrote:
You drama fiends sure do provide a lot of entertainment for the people who actually were at the event and involved in the goings-on at the final tables, returning home to see you all losing your minds about stuff you have no context for.

"the rot at the event"

"cheating"

"no moral code"

"ruined it for everyone"

What a bunch of absolutely hilarious garbage. Keep up the good work, dakka.

Thanks for your insight...

Defend those crap built and painted models as a representation of the brand of 40K to outsiders. I don't think anyone did any favors to promote the hobby and game as a whole in the final rounds. To think otherwise is intellectually dishonest. Meh.