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My current competitive list is Daemons/TSons and has roughly 150 bodies, 60 of which deep strike, which makes my Movement, Psychic, and Charge Phases extremely bloated. When I come up against another infantry-heavy list, this only intensifies. (My shooting phase takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, since I have two character pistols and a single unit of Horrors to shoot with).

I only get past T3 in 30% of my games, even though I am proficient in casting powers and choosing targets.

I know that this affects many competitive players. I think it's time to just go to three-hour rounds, especially considering the meta favors body-heavy lists.

Thoughts?

Chess clocks, plain and simple. Doesn't matter if it is unfair cause you have too many bodies, you get your alotted time

Yes, chess clocks are good.

However, you have not addressed the point of the thread. It's not "how to speed up play" or "how to keep things fair."
The point was "Should we make tournament rounds three hours?"

Chess clock with notes in practice games may help objectively assess what is taking time and can be improved in games.

Yes where possible with venue 3 hours should be the standard. That seemed to eliminate any issues with slow play at LVO. For that weekend with the Sunday RTT I had 8 of 9 games totally finish usually 45 to 60 minutes before the round end.

The only game that went to time after 5 rounds was playing against someone with around 100 models and no movement trays.

I didn't go to LVO this year. Did they up the rounds to 3 hours? I'm glad to hear that time frame makes it possible to finish games!

Yes 3 hours per round. The breaks were 30 minutes but as long as your games were not going time there was still ample breaks between rounds.

Also the majors are all 3 hour rounds, or have been 3 hour rounds for several years already (NOVA).

I'm of the opinion that no, they shouldn't. Or rather, no, they're not obligated to.

Probably going to rustle a few jimmies, so let me break down my thoughts on it.

Events create an environment of expected performance. Most usually breakdown your event score by Battle Points, Sportsmanship, Appearance, etc. to some varying percentage, some weighted more than others. Within those, a lot of events deviate or set standards of expectations and criteria that people must meet to achieve scores.

For example, ITC vs ETC vs rulebook. The way a lot of events approach creating the missions to be played directly change how you accrue Battle Points, and this dictates your army choice. The army you'd build for playing a Chapter Approved mission could vary drastically from an army you build for ITC, or for an ETC team tournament.

Appearance scores are very subjective (even with a grading rubric) based on the biases of the individual judges, and events that weight more heavily in appearance scores will impact/skew the type of people you might have attend that event (hobbyists vs gamers).

Even prize support. You can guarantee that an event that might offer a $10,000 grand prize for the overall winner will HEAVILY impact how much people try-hard to win. Just think about it; an event that was, say, 100% battle score, with a $10,000 prize for first place, would attract the toughest, built-to-win army lists and players gunning for first place. Contrastly, an event that might only weigh 5 or 10% on battle score, with zero prize support (or prize support that only awards sportsmanship/appearance), would probably be very casual/narrative, and more for people to just have a good time and socialize with little pressure to win their games as hard as possible.

In that lieu, time. Event organizers, for whatever reason (logistics, staff-on-hand, restrictions on venue re: opening/closing hours, maybe they want quicker games, etc.) will define a time limit that they want every game at their event to take, start to finish. In the same vein that they decide what missions to play (determines how battle scoring is done, which also impacts armies you might bring/expect to face), how to weight appearance with sportsmanship with battle points (could determine more casual players, if for example 75% of your score was sports/appearance, 25% battle score), the time restriction also heavily impacts the kinds of armies you might bring.

Event organizers will define all of this in a mission or rules packet that people receive beforehand, and the understanding is that people then know how the event is run, how missions are scored, how they achieve points, and the kind of army they should bring to do well in that event.

If you can't expect to reasonably play your 150/200+ model-count army in the allotted time of 2 and a half hours, if that's what the event organizer has set as the time limit for each game?

Then maybe you shouldn't bring that particular army to that particular event.


EDIT: I realize that as a community, the event organizer shouldn't hold all the power, and that basic supply and demand should at least dictate that you, as the consumer, should be able to vote with your wallet. It stands to reason that an event organizer needs to be accommodating to the player base they're trying to attract. If they find that the majority of people won't attend their event and the concensus is because they want 3 hour game times instead of 2.5, then maybe they should consider upping the game time to 3 hours. But that's up to them; it's their event, and they get to dictate how it is run, to their success or failure.

You are playing slow. I have 150 Models and 13 spells a turn and finish every game in 2,5-3 hours games. I also recommend a chess clock, I love using it.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
My current competitive list is Daemons/TSons and has roughly 150 bodies, 60 of which deep strike, which makes my Movement, Psychic, and Charge Phases extremely bloated. When I come up against another infantry-heavy list, this only intensifies. (My shooting phase takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, since I have two character pistols and a single unit of Horrors to shoot with).

I only get past T3 in 30% of my games, even though I am proficient in casting powers and choosing targets.

I know that this affects many competitive players. I think it's time to just go to three-hour rounds, especially considering the meta favors body-heavy lists.

Thoughts?

I have heard many people say that a competitive game is usually decided by turn three, why not shorten the rounds for tournament play?

 DV8 wrote:
Even prize support. You can guarantee that an event that might offer a $10,000 grand prize for the overall winner will HEAVILY impact how much people try-hard to win. Just think about it; an event that was, say, 100% battle score, with a $10,000 prize for first place, would attract the toughest, built-to-win army lists and players gunning for first place. Contrastly, an event that might only weigh 5 or 10% on battle score, with zero prize support (or prize support that only awards sportsmanship/appearance), would probably be very casual/narrative, and more for people to just have a good time and socialize with little pressure to win their games as hard as possible.

Are there any well known events that do both? It would be really nice to attend an event where you can play precisely your preferred format while also having time to peruse the other kind of format in your spare time.

Also, were chess clocks an official thing at LVO? I mean, if they weren't, what was there to stop your opponent just refusing to use one?

Edit: forgot to answer the actual question. Yeah. 3 hours (90 mins each) seems like a nice round number to me.

ITC code of conduct which was in effect at LVO requires use of a clock if either player wants one. In addition starting in round 5 all undefeated players needed to use one,.

You're 100% correct. Tournament players/TOs don't want to admit it, but if a significant percentage of games are hitting the time limit then either the time limit is too short or the point limit is too high. But for some reason a lot of tournament players both hate the idea of playing at anything less than 2000 points and are not willing to add an extra day to events to give more time per round. So we're stuck with chess clocks as the (completely broken and poorly designed) attempt at a solution while the correct answers are ignored.

3h here is standard. Works nice. Also funnily enough my orks tends to be not slowest generally. So far actually dark eldars I have found to take more time than me. All those rerolls and fnp rolls...

Model count does not say all. Orks are generally blamed for being slow. In practice I find them to be fast. Albeit codex slowed them down a bit. Index ork turns were generally easy peasy to play. IG took much longer and even knights werent' faster...

Extra days and extra hours can be big issues - lots of people can’t make three day events because of work or family commitments, and outside major events, lots of smaller tournaments can’t extend hours past the store opening hours.

Three hour rounds is lovely if possible, but if not, reducing points levels achieves the same thing.

Personally, I try to take simple, small armies to tournaments because I don’t want to be playing AS FAST AS POSSIBLE every minute of every game for nine hours a day. I’d rather take a smaller army, have a nice break in between rounds, and laugh at the suggestion I need a chess clock.

2 days 5 games or 1 day 3 games are standard here with 3h rounds. 1h lunch break. Good enough for me. Wouldn't even WANT 4 rounds. 3 rounds in a day is already more than enough.

Agree with Peregrine. I think lowering the points limit is the best solution, but only if a large number of games aren't getting finished. Having followed some of the after-action reports from the LVO I have to say the prospect of 3 3-hour games per day sounds horrible, especially as some people were reporting their games not finishing on time. I do wonder if the style of the ITC missions might be to blame, as they require a fair bit of set-up prior to actually putting models on the table.

As far as the OP is concerned it sounds to me like you're playing a bit slowly. I have to confess, I'm not quite sure how some people take as long as they do to play their armies and I'm struggling to figure that out here too. 150 models isn't a small number, but your first turn should be fairly quick given how many deep striking units you have off the board. I'd be interested to know what's actually taking the time during your games. Even with lots of spells and movement to consider, each individual decision shouldn't be taking that long. Are your timings based on experience during tournament games or is this practice games with friends? If it's the latter are you spending time chatting and generally not fully concentrating on the game all the time?

 Ginjitzu wrote:

 DV8 wrote:
Even prize support. You can guarantee that an event that might offer a $10,000 grand prize for the overall winner will HEAVILY impact how much people try-hard to win. Just think about it; an event that was, say, 100% battle score, with a $10,000 prize for first place, would attract the toughest, built-to-win army lists and players gunning for first place. Contrastly, an event that might only weigh 5 or 10% on battle score, with zero prize support (or prize support that only awards sportsmanship/appearance), would probably be very casual/narrative, and more for people to just have a good time and socialize with little pressure to win their games as hard as possible.

Are there any well known events that do both? It would be really nice to attend an event where you can play precisely your preferred format while also having time to peruse the other kind of format in your spare time.

Adepticon is the biggest one I know of. It runs the 40k Championship on Thursday (with the top 16 invite on Friday,) with AoS Championship running the weekend. But then there are a plethora of casual and narrative events that run simultaneously so you can pick and choose your events to build an awesome weekend. 4 more weeks!!

ArbitorIan wrote:Extra days and extra hours can be big issues - lots of people can’t make three day events because of work or family commitments, and outside major events, lots of smaller tournaments can’t extend hours past the store opening hours.

Three hour rounds is lovely if possible, but if not, reducing points levels achieves the same thing.

Personally, I try to take simple, small armies to tournaments because I don’t want to be playing AS FAST AS POSSIBLE every minute of every game for nine hours a day. I’d rather take a smaller army, have a nice break in between rounds, and laugh at the suggestion I need a chess clock.

Also don't forget the burden on the event organizers. The logistics of finding a decent event hall open for the hours you want, at a reasonable price that doesn't put you in the red, is a lot of work as well.

Peregrine wrote:You're 100% correct. Tournament players/TOs don't want to admit it, but if a significant percentage of games are hitting the time limit then either the time limit is too short or the point limit is too high. But for some reason a lot of tournament players both hate the idea of playing at anything less than 2000 points and are not willing to add an extra day to events to give more time per round. So we're stuck with chess clocks as the (completely broken and poorly designed) attempt at a solution while the correct answers are ignored.

I agree. I think dialing back to 1850 or even 1750 is a viable solution, preferable even to making the day drag on even longer.

 DV8 wrote:

 Ginjitzu wrote:

 DV8 wrote:
Even prize support. You can guarantee that an event that might offer a $10,000 grand prize for the overall winner will HEAVILY impact how much people try-hard to win. Just think about it; an event that was, say, 100% battle score, with a $10,000 prize for first place, would attract the toughest, built-to-win army lists and players gunning for first place. Contrastly, an event that might only weigh 5 or 10% on battle score, with zero prize support (or prize support that only awards sportsmanship/appearance), would probably be very casual/narrative, and more for people to just have a good time and socialize with little pressure to win their games as hard as possible.

Are there any well known events that do both? It would be really nice to attend an event where you can play precisely your preferred format while also having time to peruse the other kind of format in your spare time.

Adepticon is the biggest one I know of. It runs the 40k Championship on Thursday (with the top 16 invite on Friday,) with AoS Championship running the weekend. But then there are a plethora of casual and narrative events that run simultaneously so you can pick and choose your events to build an awesome weekend. 4 more weeks!!

ArbitorIan wrote:Extra days and extra hours can be big issues - lots of people can’t make three day events because of work or family commitments, and outside major events, lots of smaller tournaments can’t extend hours past the store opening hours.

Three hour rounds is lovely if possible, but if not, reducing points levels achieves the same thing.

Personally, I try to take simple, small armies to tournaments because I don’t want to be playing AS FAST AS POSSIBLE every minute of every game for nine hours a day. I’d rather take a smaller army, have a nice break in between rounds, and laugh at the suggestion I need a chess clock.

Also don't forget the burden on the event organizers. The logistics of finding a decent event hall open for the hours you want, at a reasonable price that doesn't put you in the red, is a lot of work as well.

Peregrine wrote:You're 100% correct. Tournament players/TOs don't want to admit it, but if a significant percentage of games are hitting the time limit then either the time limit is too short or the point limit is too high. But for some reason a lot of tournament players both hate the idea of playing at anything less than 2000 points and are not willing to add an extra day to events to give more time per round. So we're stuck with chess clocks as the (completely broken and poorly designed) attempt at a solution while the correct answers are ignored.

I agree. I think dialing back to 1850 or even 1750 is a viable solution, preferable even to making the day drag on even longer.

Yep, likely points too high. People are loath to reduce points for several reasons. One reason is that army effectiveness varies based on points. Some excel in low points games and others face significant weakness in low points. But one of the biggest reasons people want 2k to stay is they've managed to cheese it. Sub 2k cuts a lot of cheese out and "gaming the system" kind of stuff because you gotta leave your cheese at home thanks to mandatory minimum units (often called a tax by salty folks) eat more of the relative percentage of your total points.

IMO 1750 is quite fair, 1500 is pushing the points level where armies have vastly varied performance (not including "special units" or OP units.. just performance on the board based on basic army composition, dice to throw down, etc).

In older editions this was quite clear for example, in 5th. For 750 points an Ork Player could field 45 models. Generally speaking a space marine army could not apply enough dice to kill 45 orks.

Though perhaps one method should be to vary the points so folks can't game it to the extent they do. Flat 2k across the board and the variety drops as everyone math-hammers it flat. There are all kinds of interesting challenges that can be put down to make tournaments more interesting, faster, and less beardy.

Reducing Point per round might be interesting. Start big, and the Final Match is played with only 1250 points or something. If you really are a good player and not just cheesin it, you should be able to field your army and win at 1250, 1550, 1750, and at 2k.

Slipspace wrote:
As far as the OP is concerned it sounds to me like you're playing a bit slowly. I have to confess, I'm not quite sure how some people take as long as they do to play their armies and I'm struggling to figure that out here too. 150 models isn't a small number, but your first turn should be fairly quick given how many deep striking units you have off the board. I'd be interested to know what's actually taking the time during your games. Even with lots of spells and movement to consider, each individual decision shouldn't be taking that long. Are your timings based on experience during tournament games or is this practice games with friends? If it's the latter are you spending time chatting and generally not fully concentrating on the game all the time?

My first turn takes roughly 15 minutes. I have some spells to get off, a few Nurgling charges, and a large blob runs forward. Compare that to other armies' first turns, and I'm doing quite well timewise.

Problems arise whenever I play another high-model-count list, such as GSC; or literally ANYTIME I play Guard. Guard players have so many random shot weapons, rerolls, orders, and different weapon types. My list also presents a weird situation that slows down opponent rolling: I have a unit with -2 to hit. Combine that with "rerolls before modifiers" and Guard's various reroll options (especially against Chaos), and the opponent has to do quite a bit of counting in their shooting phase. "Do I reroll all misses, or are 3s right out?" And then they have to forget this between each unit and I have to remind them. And occasionally they have models with different BS, such as a Tank Commander.

Guard players also seem to spend lots of time mentally debating whether their mortars and battle cannons should go into the Plaguebearer blob threatening their center, or the Brimstones and Cultists holding my back objective.
Tau players have the same amount of shooting as Guard, but for some reason Tau players don't dither about with target priority like Guard do. They just always go, "Ok, everything into the Plaguebearers, let's roll."

I suspect that this isn't only my list, though, causing problems for Guard. Guard always have an unreasonably complicated and long shooting phase. It's only the most experienced and quick players that can RUSH RUSH through their shooting phase, just because of all the orders and different weapons.

Heh for comparison 1750pts tournament I\ll be attending is 3h rounds. Well except 3rd game which is 3.5h though that includes reward ceremony(which takes more than usual seeing this is casual tournament so main prize goes by random. Everybody rolls dice and highest keeps going until only 1 is left. Assuming it goes same as casual tournaments before).

Competive tournament last weekend(another organizer) was 5 games over 2 days, 3h rounds(except last game that was 3.5h for same reason as above) with 2k armies.

Lucky me!

It's time to go to lower points.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
My current competitive list is Daemons/TSons and has roughly 150 bodies, 60 of which deep strike, which makes my Movement, Psychic, and Charge Phases extremely bloated. When I come up against another infantry-heavy list, this only intensifies. (My shooting phase takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, since I have two character pistols and a single unit of Horrors to shoot with).

I only get past T3 in 30% of my games, even though I am proficient in casting powers and choosing targets.

I have been playing Drukhari for months (nearly the same list I had in 5th ed), and those first few games last summer I was running out of time at 2.5 hours rounds, 2k points, consistently. Chess clocks started to help, but I was still running out of my own time. With advice from better players, I started playing faster, but it was really smarter.

One Drukhari player had a far shootier list (Flayed Skull, all those reroll "to hits" and loads of venoms) and one suggestion was to start skipping inconsequential rolls, like skipping FNP for a 5 dude kabalite crew ( ). I thought,"He's nuts," but he went on to place "Best Drukhari" at SoCal Open last fall, so he likely knew something. Now, I pretty much roll every FNP I can. So that advice I disguarded, but I realized that with his busier list (venoms up the wazoo) that he must be doing something right. And really, it amounted to smarter play, and practice.

Movement:
There are more movement trays available now than ever, in more sizes and shapes. Go shoppin' I say.

Shooting in colors:
Prepare dice boxes in advance of the event with specific units in mind, especially for orks. With a little color on the shoulder pads or pants to designate the different units and then pre-count, and have it ready in its box. I did this for my 3 sets of wyches, blue, pink and orange to match the hair color on the models, designating different combat drugs. Each unit has the need for that, with 1 girl less in blue, and the pinks having the extra attack.You could do that for your ork units. Brandon Grant has color coordinated dice for his guardsmen. I remember a video from Sean Nayden extolling the virtues of such (he was busting another guy's balls about slow play, but the point is still valid). If you don't know, those two are multi GT winners and consistently, at the Top Eight of the events they attend. So, their practices ought to carry weight, yes?

Psy phases:
Have your choices for powers pre-selected before the event. Plan on which powers you'll use against specific armies, and have a 3x5" card for reference. That will save you time at set up and disclosure. Or just get really set on your choices and never alter them.

Combat:
Tougher, but just get gud at eyeballing, quick placement and those presorted chessex boxes or a dice app (use the GW sanctioned one). Do you have a 1" and 3" measuring tool?

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
I know that this affects many competitive players. I think it's time to just go to three-hour rounds, especially considering the meta favors body-heavy lists.

Thoughts?

As others have posted, the bigger GTs are 3 hours. RTTs tend to be 2.5, but that's because they're sharing a store, instead of having a dedicated venue.

Who am I and why should my input matter? I'm in the ITC's very competitive Southern Calif scene, since the ITC's inseption. I suck though, like a 2-4 WL usually, or maybe '50% wins' player at the big GTs. A 2W, 1L RTT is a good day for me.

However, I do see, talk to and hear about the big players, time limits, chess clocks, etc. I can't defeat the big boys, but I drink beer with them.

May I suggest *try* a chess clock? Give it 6 or so games, and see if you don't improve on your time. I did. I bought my own and don't see why I wouldn't play without it.

Learning to play your list within the time constraints of a tournament is part of playing the game competitively. Pure and simple. If you are unable to do that with the list, you need to either practice more or play something different for competitive play.

3 hour rounds are definitely the standard for the marquee events, as Mike Brandt pointed out about his event NOVA, I head judge the LVO 40k Champs and we are also 3 hour rounds.

Playing with chess clocks is a great way to ensure fair use of time and track slow play. If you use one when practicing you can will see if it's you, or your opponent, eating most of the clock. You can then adjust your play as needed. Chess clocks work well, the assertion they don't is usually made from a place of ignorance. Mostly it's players who don't actually attend 40k tournaments but have loud opinions online about the "right" way to run them.

Good luck, I am sure with practice, 3 hour rounds being more standard, and getting used to a chess clock you will be finishing your games in no time at all

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
Problems arise whenever I play another high-model-count list, such as GSC; or literally ANYTIME I play Guard. Guard players have so many random shot weapons, rerolls, orders, and different weapon types. My list also presents a weird situation that slows down opponent rolling: I have a unit with -2 to hit. Combine that with "rerolls before modifiers" and Guard's various reroll options (especially against Chaos), and the opponent has to do quite a bit of counting in their shooting phase. "Do I reroll all misses, or are 3s right out?" And then they have to forget this between each unit and I have to remind them. And occasionally they have models with different BS, such as a Tank Commander.

Guard players also seem to spend lots of time mentally debating whether their mortars and battle cannons should go into the Plaguebearer blob threatening their center, or the Brimstones and Cultists holding my back objective.
Tau players have the same amount of shooting as Guard, but for some reason Tau players don't dither about with target priority like Guard do. They just always go, "Ok, everything into the Plaguebearers, let's roll."

I suspect that this isn't only my list, though, causing problems for Guard. Guard always have an unreasonably complicated and long shooting phase. It's only the most experienced and quick players that can RUSH RUSH through their shooting phase, just because of all the orders and different weapons.

You are right about Tau: among my few opponents who have run out of time: tau players (marker lights, Greater Good overwatch, handing off wounds to drones). These guard players you are citing? I'd say they're just not good at the game. Smart/Good players (and therefore fast players) have target priority decided before their turn, if not before Turn 1.

A chess clock will fix all this. Guaranteed. I have been there, running out of time and then been there when my opponent is out of time. And a chess clock mitigates the slow player, to give you a fair allotment of play time. Anybody poo-pooing chess clocks hasn't used them. Trust me:
6+ years of GTs (2 to 4 a year)
7+ years of RTTs 12 to 14 a year)
And, I think, that chess clock is now owned for a whole year, as I'm pretty sure I took it to LVO last year.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
As far as the OP is concerned it sounds to me like you're playing a bit slowly. I have to confess, I'm not quite sure how some people take as long as they do to play their armies and I'm struggling to figure that out here too. 150 models isn't a small number, but your first turn should be fairly quick given how many deep striking units you have off the board. I'd be interested to know what's actually taking the time during your games. Even with lots of spells and movement to consider, each individual decision shouldn't be taking that long. Are your timings based on experience during tournament games or is this practice games with friends? If it's the latter are you spending time chatting and generally not fully concentrating on the game all the time?

My first turn takes roughly 15 minutes. I have some spells to get off, a few Nurgling charges, and a large blob runs forward. Compare that to other armies' first turns, and I'm doing quite well timewise.

Problems arise whenever I play another high-model-count list, such as GSC; or literally ANYTIME I play Guard. Guard players have so many random shot weapons, rerolls, orders, and different weapon types. My list also presents a weird situation that slows down opponent rolling: I have a unit with -2 to hit. Combine that with "rerolls before modifiers" and Guard's various reroll options (especially against Chaos), and the opponent has to do quite a bit of counting in their shooting phase. "Do I reroll all misses, or are 3s right out?" And then they have to forget this between each unit and I have to remind them. And occasionally they have models with different BS, such as a Tank Commander.

Guard players also seem to spend lots of time mentally debating whether their mortars and battle cannons should go into the Plaguebearer blob threatening their center, or the Brimstones and Cultists holding my back objective.
Tau players have the same amount of shooting as Guard, but for some reason Tau players don't dither about with target priority like Guard do. They just always go, "Ok, everything into the Plaguebearers, let's roll."

I suspect that this isn't only my list, though, causing problems for Guard. Guard always have an unreasonably complicated and long shooting phase. It's only the most experienced and quick players that can RUSH RUSH through their shooting phase, just because of all the orders and different weapons.

What you've just described isn't a problem with your army or play at all, but with your opponents. If the problem is mainly with your opponents then chess clocks are the way to go. They are designed for this very situation, in fact, in order to allow both players a fair allocation of time.

So do any of you folks have a chess clock that you really like? I would like a dedicated, battery-operated unit with digital readout.

I own one of these. Maybe not feature heavy but not sure that is necessary for 40k and it comes at a reasonable price point.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KTFG2OS/

Alpharius Walks wrote:
I own one of these. Maybe not feature heavy but not sure that is necessary for 40k and it comes at a reasonable price point.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KTFG2OS/

I own this one as well. Any basic digital chess clock sold on Amazon will work well.

Most of the 2 day events I've been to were 3 hours. Usually the smaller local stuff is 2.5 hours.