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As it says in the title.

Let's assume your armies are already unpacked and your lists are already made, and you're playing a standard 2,000 point, non-tournament game.

From mission select to wrapping up the final turn and determining the victor, how long should a game of Warhammer 40k take?

Should 'by design', or should 'in practice'?

Our 1000-point games are often into turn 4 when we pack up around 3.5 hours in.
But, we hardly ever play, and chat while playing.

Our typical game of that size lasts somewhere around 2-3 hours.
It just depends upon how fast we're playing, how much looking stuff up there is, & how much time we spend BSing.

It depends a lot on who's playing. If I'm playing an experienced player, 2 hours is usually enough time. With less experienced players it often ends up being closer to 3.

Under two hours, not including chat or social time.
Would prefer it if turns could be faster, but resolving some things in 40k takes so much time.

However long it takes to get a good ratio of meaningful decisions to time spent. Six hours for a standard game isn't good, but neither is a 30 minute one-turn curbstomp.

In abstract, two hours is a good target.

before i would have votes 3h,

since i started playing OnePageRules tho, i'm much more inclined to playing shorter 1h games, lets you play more than one game and if you're approaching from a narrative point of view (campaign), playing multiple games lets you progress the story more. Heck, i've started playing almost exclusively the killteam equivalent, so games last 30 minutes top and its so much more fun than slogging it out for 3+ hours (especially since in hat 3+ hour, most of the time is spent waiting for your opponent)

3hrs is the sweet spot for me, not rushed, not lollygagging, just a nice "Medium Pace"...

2.

Means at a decent game night it'd be possible to get two games in (only one and it often feels like burning the evening out wasn't worthwhile)

At 3, playing a second game means 6 hours+ Add a break for food and some light entertainment playing games is basically an 8 hour day. That's not really reasonable, people have other obligations in their lives.

I feel 1 hour of play time per 1000pts seems reasonable.
A 2000 pt game currently takes me 3-4 hours to get through. I don’t think a game of 40K should be something you need to schedule your entire day around. Factor things like travel time in and anything over 2 hours and it really is something you have to schedule your day around.

Tbh I’d rather drive an hour to go have a sparring session with the guys the next town over and drive an hour back, because it takes less time than driving 20minutes to the store, playing a 3-4 hour game and then driving home.

Some interesting perspectives. Some are considering the chatting and chilling time, some are considering smaller point games, and some have looked at other rulesets to compare as well.

I don't really have an opinion tbh, but I think it's also interesting how the vote seems, at the moment, split down the middle between 2h and 3h. Notice that I didn't add 2 and a half hours, but I wonder if that would split the difference further?

Should it not depend on the points value of the game?

drbored wrote:


I don't really have an opinion tbh, but I think it's also interesting how the vote seems, at the moment, split down the middle between 2h and 3h. Notice that I didn't add 2 and a half hours, but I wonder if that would split the difference further?

If you aren't interested in our actual opinions on a subject? Then you shouldn't ask a question.

If you wanted our answers to fit only the options you list in your poll?
Then you should've told us that in your post.

No idea how long it should take.. It always seems to take the whole evening whenever we play

johnpjones1775 wrote:
I feel 1 hour of play time per 1000pts seems reasonable.
A 2000 pt game currently takes me 3-4 hours to get through. I don’t think a game of 40K should be something you need to schedule your entire day around. Factor things like travel time in and anything over 2 hours and it really is something you have to schedule your day around.

Tbh I’d rather drive an hour to go have a sparring session with the guys the next town over and drive an hour back, because it takes less time than driving 20minutes to the store, playing a 3-4 hour game and then driving home.

Interesting. "something you have to schedule your day around" for me is wargaming in a nutshell, no matter which system. If you want to do several 40K games a day you do 1000points games, that way we could squeeze in 3 games / day in our Garage Hammer tournaments. With 2000points? Yeah, you always plan two games but it's very rare you actually get to make two games because one takes 4-5 hours, longer if you include setting up the table and discussing the scenario (writing a scenario beforehand therefore I consider to be very important to save time, otherwize you're stuck for 4 hours with a boring standard mission ).
Oathmark has a similar duration, Lotr, too. Even Stargrave does, despite few models on either side. Since 8th edition at least I have the feeling not much time is wasted with reading books and the flow of the game has gotten much better, at least on our casual level.

Star Trek Attack Wing can be much faster, depending on preparation and game size, but it's more of a boardgame than a Wargame.

We do 2000pts w40k in around an hour, but games in 8th and 9th rarely go to 5-6th round without there being a clear victor at the end of turn 3-4. 3 hours for a 2000pts game, has include ordering food or taking a 45 min nap, for the older players, or something.

Ideal would be 2-3 hours.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
I feel 1 hour of play time per 1000pts seems reasonable.
A 2000 pt game currently takes me 3-4 hours to get through. I don’t think a game of 40K should be something you need to schedule your entire day around. Factor things like travel time in and anything over 2 hours and it really is something you have to schedule your day around.

Tbh I’d rather drive an hour to go have a sparring session with the guys the next town over and drive an hour back, because it takes less time than driving 20minutes to the store, playing a 3-4 hour game and then driving home.

Interesting. "something you have to schedule your day around" for me is wargaming in a nutshell, no matter which system. If you want to do several 40K games a day you do 1000points games, that way we could squeeze in 3 games / day in our Garage Hammer tournaments. With 2000points? Yeah, you always plan two games but it's very rare you actually get to make two games because one takes 4-5 hours, longer if you include setting up the table and discussing the scenario (writing a scenario beforehand therefore I consider to be very important to save time, otherwize you're stuck for 4 hours with a boring standard mission ).
Oathmark has a similar duration, Lotr, too. Even Stargrave does, despite few models on either side. Since 8th edition at least I have the feeling not much time is wasted with reading books and the flow of the game has gotten much better, at least on our casual level.

Star Trek Attack Wing can be much faster, depending on preparation and game size, but it's more of a boardgame than a Wargame.

I like to spend time with gf and pets, and gf likes spending time with me. So I don’t want to subject her to a 3-4 hour game she’s not involved with and I don’t really want to be fething off doing my own thing for 4+ hours a day every time I play.
I’d like to be able to play fairly regularly without it cutting too much into my day.

We enjoy faster games, so we generally play no more than 25PL. Games are quick, we can play a few back to back in a "Best of 3" thing, with no changes between games.

Regular games? 3 hours.

I find that three hours works out well for a 2000 point game, assuming both players are familiar with the rules.

Our local tourneys have two hours for a 2000 point game which includes set up/pre game discussion and it can be very hard to get to five rounds.

I think two and a half hours would work.

2 hours, but I'd include set-up in that. That's all I have the stamina for anymore, at least.

 sing your life wrote:
Should it not depend on the points value of the game?

...OP does specify a game size in his initial post?

 Dysartes wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
Should it not depend on the points value of the game?

...OP does specify a game size in his initial post?

I can't read XD

Karol wrote:
We do 2000pts w40k in around an hour,

How? Even without getting to turn 5 that seems extremely short. I've had a couple of games that ended that quickly, but they are the exception, not the norm. If you get to turn 3 you're only looking at 10 minutes per player turn on average, which seems very short considering the early turns are usually the longest.

Tournaments generally give 3hrs.

Something that doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet is that for a non tournament game it completely depends on the factions you and your opponent are playing. Guard vs Orks is going to take significantly longer than Knights vs Custodes. Take a basic Infantry Squad for example, not only do you have to move 10 models, but when firing you have to roll for the Lascannon, then the Plasma gun, then the Plasma Pistol then the Lasguns (in any order), this adds a huge amount of time on to the turn and that's only 3% of your army points wise. Not the case with a Knight, granted you are probably going to be shooting 4 different weapon profiles too, but once you have, you've now used ~20% of your army. A much quicker turn for the Knight player.

As a Guard player, I'd be far more chilled and enjoy it even more if I had 3 and a half hours for a tournament game rather than 3.

For 5th edition games with random turns of 5-7 at 2k points-

1-1/2 to 2 hours depending on how well each player knows their army (and how many distractions you have)

On an interesting side note-i have started our 5th ed games at around the same time as players playing 9th and we will get through all 7 turns of 5th while they are still on turn 3.

 aphyon wrote:
For 5th edition games with random turns of 5-7 at 2k points-

1-1/2 to 2 hours depending on how well each player knows their army (and how many distractions you have)

On an interesting side note-i have started our 5th ed games at around the same time as players playing 9th and we will get through all 7 turns of 5th while they are still on turn 3.

With how much time people are in the books or cards looking for the right stratagem or double-checking the special rules that a unit or weapon has, this doesn't surprise me at all.

drbored wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
For 5th edition games with random turns of 5-7 at 2k points-

1-1/2 to 2 hours depending on how well each player knows their army (and how many distractions you have)

On an interesting side note-i have started our 5th ed games at around the same time as players playing 9th and we will get through all 7 turns of 5th while they are still on turn 3.

With how much time people are in the books or cards looking for the right stratagem or double-checking the special rules that a unit or weapon has, this doesn't surprise me at all.

Exactly. There's been a massive increase in the number of dice rolled between 5th and 9th, which eats up a lot of extra time. The main time sink, though, is the constant checking of strats, special rules interactions and even stats. I used to be able to memorise the stats of every unit and weapon in my Codex but there's been an increase in those too, especially if you're playing SM. Every bolter is a little bit different, some auras affect Core only, but other affect everyone, or Core and characters, etc. All these factors eat into your time over the course of a game and they're all boring admin-type things rather than things you're doing on the table.

Under an hour with the right equipment - magnetic trays for putting squad members in small clusters of 5 and putting loose ones around them... You can also cut down on the time by memorizing rules and model counts. I have a printout with palm cards sitting spread out with each unit defined on them along with their rule interactions listed. There is no reason why a 2,000 point game should take more than an hour... Unless you are both playing complex sprawling lists...