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 Marmatag wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Would you then agree that total time is the issue? The game is really ment to go to turn 4-5-6.

I would say just set the requirement that games are played through turn 4, and only ends earlier if someone is tabled, or gives up. I would *guess* that most games would resolve around 3 hours if that were the case, but by eliminating the time altogether, there's really nothing to be gained by slow playing.

That wont work though - tournaments have to run on a schedule. How else are you going to enforce a 4 turn requirement other than timing the match?

Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.

 mugginns wrote:
Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.

Players just take the best options, that's just how competitive games work. If Grey Knight Paladins were the best, we'd all have 30 model armies.

Implementing a timer would change what the best option is. If getting turn time down is important, there are basically two ways tio can be done, shoehorn the existing meta into shorter turns via threat of forfeit, or reducing points. Both have pluses and minuses,

Reducing points to say 1500, would nicely reduce game length, less models means less rolls, less movement, less decisions. Even if it straight reduced turn length by 25% that would be the equivalent of getting another turn in for both players. I think there is a good case for the fact that it would speed it up much more than 25% though. It would cut down on detachment spam, because a lot of detachments won't work at reduced points, less special rules and stratagems will speed the game up, and I don't think anyone is going to cry over the loss of soup lists. It also cuts down on over the top special characters like Mortarion, Magnus and Guilliman, they are fine at 20% of your lists points, but when they are a third of your points you are starting to get too many eggs in a single basket.

 mugginns wrote:
Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.

That may apply to casual play, but you can't expect people to take anything but the best for a large tournament like this. If you enter a competition, don't expect people to go soft on you. Me? I never play in tournaments, only casual play, and I play what I like. My opponents usually do the same.

 Cream Tea wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.

That may apply to casual play, but you can't expect people to take anything but the best for a large tournament like this. If you enter a competition, don't expect people to go soft on you. Me? I never play in tournaments, only casual play, and I play what I like. My opponents usually do the same.

Most competitions have good rules and aren't subject to such variables as WH. My daughter does competition skating (synchronized) - a comp has a very specific time limit, format, number of people on the team, etc. Their grading scale makes it so a team of almost-out-of-age-range kids can't steamroll a younger team. Hell, even in my racing events - the cars are basically identical by the time you deal with points and bracketing. It comes down to skill.

I would love to see a Warhammer tourney where players had to use pre-built armies of a specific composition. Then it comes down a bit of skill and a bit of luck, which are way bigger bragging rights than "I took 50 of the meta cheese and won". Or, for lulz - a victory with a top cheese army is worth 1 point, a win with a middle tier is worth 5 points. Let the underdog actually have a chance at winning,make things interesting.

Since the list building aspect of WH will always be skewed to bringing the most power/rule skirting grey areas as possible, I don't really view it as anything worth perusing personally either. For those enjoy that sort of thing, more power to ya. I'd rather make pew pew noises and have a beer when I play with little plastic soldiers.

Ehhh - reducing the points is very uninteresting to me. The game gets more interesting the more points you play at. I play a lot of 2500 point games and they are a lot of fun. IMO the game would be a lot more competitive at 2500. 2000 seems like the perfect spot to have quicker style Warhammer games. The worst part is someone can still slow play a 1500 game too - it doesn't actually solve the problem. A chess timer is absolutely the way to go with this. It's the only thing that address the real problem which is slow play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ncshooter426 wrote:

 Cream Tea wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.

That may apply to casual play, but you can't expect people to take anything but the best for a large tournament like this. If you enter a competition, don't expect people to go soft on you. Me? I never play in tournaments, only casual play, and I play what I like. My opponents usually do the same.

Most competitions have good rules and aren't subject to such variables as WH. My daughter does competition skating (synchronized) - a comp has a very specific time limit, format, number of people on the team, etc. Their grading scale makes it so a team of almost-out-of-age-range kids can't steamroll a younger team. Hell, even in my racing events - the cars are basically identical by the time you deal with points and bracketing. It comes down to skill.

I would love to see a Warhammer tourney where players had to use pre-built armies of a specific composition. Then it comes down a bit of skill and a bit of luck, which are way bigger bragging rights than "I took 50 of the meta cheese and won". Or, for lulz - a victory with a top cheese army is worth 1 point, a win with a middle tier is worth 5 points. Let the underdog actually have a chance at winning,make things interesting.

Since the list building aspect of WH will always be skewed to bringing the most power/rule skirting grey areas as possible, I don't really view it as anything worth perusing personally either. For those enjoy that sort of thing, more power to ya. I'd rather make pew pew noises and have a beer when I play with little plastic soldiers.

Great points. It's too bad armies aren't more or less powerful but "different". Then we'd have something a little closer to what you are talking about.

The one issue with timers is they need to make sure there is enough time for all styles of play. If I have 2500 points of Custodes, it's going to be much easier to play in a timely manner than something like 2500 points of Orks. As long as the timer allots for a reasonable amount of time for larger model armies, it should be fine. Being hurried puts you at an inherent disadvantage if you are having to move at a faster pace than someone else.

That's a tactical decision you make when list building. If you know you only have X minutes to play then you're going to have to tailor your army to reach that goal and/or practice a lot more to get quicker with your decisions.

 ncshooter426 wrote:

I would love to see a Warhammer tourney where players had to use pre-built armies of a specific composition. Then it comes down a bit of skill and a bit of luck, which are way bigger bragging rights than "I took 50 of the meta cheese and won".

Holy hell, this sounds like an amazing idea. I'd play the hell out of that tournament.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ehhh - reducing the points is very uninteresting to me. The game gets more interesting the more points you play at. I play a lot of 2500 point games and they are a lot of fun. IMO the game would be a lot more competitive at 2500. 2000 seems like the perfect spot to have quicker style Warhammer games.

These higher points values let you comfortably cover all basis and even add in flair, I understand the desire to play at this level, but at the same time, you can still play a themed, powerful and capable army at 1500pts. 2500pt tournaments used to be a thing, they were awful. Remember 'Ard Boyz? At 2500pts there's not enough room on many tables for some armies to even fully deploy.

Personally, Ive always been a fan of 2k. However, 1500 makes the most sense for organized play if time is an issue, and todays 1500 is 3E or 4E's 2k or 2250. 1500 also cuts down on a lot of the super powerful stuff and detachment/CP abuse, and its generally been GW's target balance point.

I get why people like 1850 and 2k, I like that too. But going to 1500 is dramatically simpler and easier than introducing and managing chess clocks just because people dont want to drop any toys from their list.

The worst part is someone can still slow play a 1500 game too - it doesn't actually solve the problem. A chess timer is absolutely the way to go with this. It's the only thing that address the real problem which is slow play.

You can slow play anything. But if 40% of games arent being finished at 1850 but obly 10% of games are not being finished at 1500, you remove most of the time related issues without having to introduce a new mechanic and cost, and made slow play much more obvious and difficult to pull off.

A chess clock can be gamed too, and is probably more prone to creating error in a game with lots of back and forth like 40k than it will solve in the overwhelmingly vast majority of cases, especially next to something as simple and effortless as a points reduction.


I can already see the drama around a couple missed clock hits or a mucked up action sequence or two players arguing over whos time is being used to call a judge, etc.

What does the WLT AoW do?

Hoodwink wrote:
The one issue with timers is they need to make sure there is enough time for all styles of play. If I have 2500 points of Custodes, it's going to be much easier to play in a timely manner than something like 2500 points of Orks. As long as the timer allots for a reasonable amount of time for larger model armies, it should be fine. Being hurried puts you at an inherent disadvantage if you are having to move at a faster pace than someone else.

I started 40k with Nids. I've also played GKs quite a bit. From my experience, the number of models is less a factor than the competence to the player. It literally only takes a few mere seconds to move more models. At the end of the day, horde armies only have about twice the UNITS even if they have 5x the models

Competitive players that want to use a horde list should be good enough to play them in close to the same amount of time as an average Marine player. It really is that simple
If you cannot do this (and I assure you it is possible) than maybe bringing that kind of list to a tourney isn't the most polite of ideas.

-

Our local Imperial Knight player is the slowest player in our scene, even more than the orks and tyranids player, because having only 4 models he spends a TON of time doing all the mental calculations about all the averages of shooting X weapon to Y unit. All turns.

As others have said, if you know your rules, you can end a 4 turn game in 2,5 hours without a problem. If you are playing a horde army, just make some compromises. Those 3 lasgun shoots aren't gonna give you the games.
Is something that I have seen in many games. In the last turns, you see people doing things that literally don't are gonna change the outcome of the battle.
If this is the last turn, why resolve the battle between our two units that are separated from all the rest of the game, when they haven't any objetive in range, theres no kill points, etc...? Resolve first the things that can actually change the outcome of the battle.

In the 90s and early 2000s, 40k tournaments were 1500 points. To include the RTTs and GTs.

 auticus wrote:
In the 90s and early 2000s, 40k tournaments were 1500 points. To include the RTTs and GTs.

From what I can recall (I played back in 3rd/early 4th and just started again), 1500 was typically seen as the "standard" in those days, while 2000 or even 2500 was more normal for WHFB.

 Cream Tea wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.

That may apply to casual play, but you can't expect people to take anything but the best for a large tournament like this. If you enter a competition, don't expect people to go soft on you. Me? I never play in tournaments, only casual play, and I play what I like. My opponents usually do the same.

Yup I super understand that but from what I can gather, 400 space ork lists aren't exactly world beaters.

I've got a local 1500 tournament coming up, and I'm really looking forward to it. So many fewer ways to game the system

It's not like this would be the first time the points value standard changed, last LVO it was 1850. If the game is too slow and too hard to balance at 2k, then it absolutely makes sense to try other points values.

Also here is how I imagine strict time limits will be perceived:

 mugginns wrote:

 Cream Tea wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.

That may apply to casual play, but you can't expect people to take anything but the best for a large tournament like this. If you enter a competition, don't expect people to go soft on you. Me? I never play in tournaments, only casual play, and I play what I like. My opponents usually do the same.

Yup I super understand that but from what I can gather, 400 space ork lists aren't exactly world beaters.

I can totally see some people loving playing both with and against 400 orks though. x400

In casual play, if you don't like what your opponents brings, you can either ask him to play something else or go play someone else. People have different opinions on what's fun, some may like lists that roll 400 dice a turn, and there's really no reason both you and your opponent shouldn't be able to enjoy the game. An opponent you don't like may be someone else's favourite.

In competitive play, if you don't like what your opponents brings, you can either grin and bear it or go play a fun casual game with a cool guy instead of playing in a tournament.

There are TFGs though, you wanna dodge those. Keep track of them so you can avoid them in casual play, and either prepare to grin and bear it if you come across them in a tournament, or just don't play tournaments.

 mugginns wrote:
Honestly part of the problem is with the players. Nobody wants to play against the list that is rolling 400 dice per turn or whatever. Don't bring lists like that. You'll still have fun, I guarantee it.

Wow, okay? This post was bad and you should feel bad.

Rolling for advancing, rolling for stratagems, rolling for shooting, rolling for charging, rolling for fighting... An army that actually plays in every phase of the game will roll quite a bit of dice. Just a fact. Most armies can fight twice, or shoot twice, and have some form of rerolls on top of all the dice rolling.

If you fire 200 dice, rerolling misses (hitting on 4's) that's 300 dice rolled expected per shooting phase until you get diminished. For example.

 Galas wrote:
Our local Imperial Knight player is the slowest player in our scene, even more than the orks and tyranids player, because having only 4 models he spends a TON of time doing all the mental calculations about all the averages of shooting X weapon to Y unit. All turns.

As others have said, if you know your rules, you can end a 4 turn game in 2,5 hours without a problem. If you are playing a horde army, just make some compromises. Those 3 lasgun shoots aren't gonna give you the games.
Is something that I have seen in many games. In the last turns, you see people doing things that literally don't are gonna change the outcome of the battle.
If this is the last turn, why resolve the battle between our two units that are separated from all the rest of the game, when they haven't any objetive in range, theres no kill points, etc...? Resolve first the things that can actually change the outcome of the battle.

Back in 4th, I played 6k+ games semi regularly and would finish 5 turns in about 4 hours. Because myself and my opponent knew our rules very well. I've played a 9k point game that only took 6 hours for 5 turns. What I'm trying to say is that, if you know your rules and don't sweat the small stuff. You can finish the game in plenty of time.

 chimeara wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Our local Imperial Knight player is the slowest player in our scene, even more than the orks and tyranids player, because having only 4 models he spends a TON of time doing all the mental calculations about all the averages of shooting X weapon to Y unit. All turns.

As others have said, if you know your rules, you can end a 4 turn game in 2,5 hours without a problem. If you are playing a horde army, just make some compromises. Those 3 lasgun shoots aren't gonna give you the games.
Is something that I have seen in many games. In the last turns, you see people doing things that literally don't are gonna change the outcome of the battle.
If this is the last turn, why resolve the battle between our two units that are separated from all the rest of the game, when they haven't any objetive in range, theres no kill points, etc...? Resolve first the things that can actually change the outcome of the battle.

Back in 4th, I played 6k+ games semi regularly and would finish 5 turns in about 4 hours. Because myself and my opponent knew our rules very well. I've played a 9k point game that only took 6 hours for 5 turns. What I'm trying to say is that, if you know your rules and don't sweat the small stuff. You can finish the game in plenty of time.

Tournaments are won and lost by sweating the small stuff, and 4th ed had a lot less special rules than now.

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
It's curious that "Eldar are tearing up the meta" when 2 of their 20 players were in the top 5, but there's much less criticism/doomsaying about Blood Angels achieving the same result, but with only 6 players.

I think what we're really learning is that it's a meta that's still being defined. Reapers were thought to be strong, sure, but there's a lot less reaper spam than people are implying. What it seems to me as the crux of powerful in this edition is the ability to use (read: abuse) force multipliers.

And that imperium players dont have an issue with things as long as they are winning

 quickfuze wrote:


And that imperium players dont have an issue with things as long as they are winning

Probably the most truth stated in this thread

 quickfuze wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
It's curious that "Eldar are tearing up the meta" when 2 of their 20 players were in the top 5, but there's much less criticism/doomsaying about Blood Angels achieving the same result, but with only 6 players.

I think what we're really learning is that it's a meta that's still being defined. Reapers were thought to be strong, sure, but there's a lot less reaper spam than people are implying. What it seems to me as the crux of powerful in this edition is the ability to use (read: abuse) force multipliers.

And that imperium players dont have an issue with things as long as they are winning

That's not even close to what is being implied?

 admironheart wrote:

 quickfuze wrote:


And that imperium players dont have an issue with things as long as they are winning

Probably the most truth stated in this thread

Yeah thats why Imperial Guard players and Space Marine players love each other and they always support the other faction This "Imperial players" has become such a big mantra this edition. Unbelievable.

 Galas wrote:

Yeah thats why Imperial Guard players and Space Marine players love each other and they always support the other faction This "Imperial players" has become such a big mantra this edition. Unbelievable.

I think there's always been a boogyman that's crept into a 40k codex writer's house each edition and threatened them at gunpoint to make some faction "too good". Or, at least in the eyes of other 40k players.

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that the result of it is that 8th edition will wind up being whatever edition 40k players deserve most.

After months of arguing with people on dakka about how the IG nerfs went too far, damn it feels good to be right. Pure IG lists got stomped. The only time they performed well was when mixed with imperial soup.

 Commissar Benny wrote:
After months of arguing with people on dakka about how the IG nerfs went too far, damn it feels good to be right. Pure IG lists got stomped. The only time they performed well was when mixed with imperial soup.

That's the problem with competitive tabletop hobbies with large investment and lock-in. People associate things being better than 'theirs' as making 'theirs' worse.
Imo there's no fix to knee jerk reactions for W40k unless all armies are interchangeable and models are re-usable which - thank goodness - should never happen.

 Commissar Benny wrote:
After months of arguing with people on dakka about how the IG nerfs went too far, damn it feels good to be right. Pure IG lists got stomped. The only time they performed well was when mixed with imperial soup.

Hmmm... no? They ended with 10 players in the top 100. Only Eldar had more (20) and Chaos if we combine all (Daemons, Death Guard and CSM, so three Codex) with 24. And the highest ranking list was 13. Yeah, maybe many of those Imperial Guard lists had souped imperial elements. Just like most other Imperial Armies (Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Adeptus Astartes) had souped Imperial Guard units, nearly all Eldar armies had Ynnari elements and all Chaos armies where some kind of soup. This is 8th edition. Thats why the Blood Angel army was such a surprise, because it was 100% BA.

Imperial Guard was the second codex with most representation in the top 100. Theres more powerfull factions out there, thats obvious. Only the most close minded individuals keep banging the "Imperial Guard are the most OP faction!" drum. But they are still in a very good place in general.

Just look at Tyranids, they had a very good codex both from internal and external balanced and THEY were stomped. Just because Dark Eldar spam makes them inviable. Outside that specific list they are a very good army.