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I've seen a lot of talk about turn length in Kill Team, HH, ToW, 40k, AT, Li, and AoS.

But do you like set turn limits? Or do you prefer a random game length, where you can't plan for the game to end when you need it to.

I like a minimum # of turns followed by a roll to see if another turn is played. Followed by another roll at the end of that potential turn. And so on until the dice say stop.
I think 5 turns is a good minimum #.

I also like sudden death scenarios where at the end of a turn, if someone's completed the mission objective & the other guy hasn't countered it, Game Over.

Now for tourney play? Yes, I see the benefit of having a set # turns/time limit.

I like 6 turns personally. Gives you time to recover from a bad start and enact longer turn gambits, less chance of the whole game hinging on one good/bad turn

Random turn length can be fun, but it can also suck if you've got your units set up to capture a bunch of objectives and then the game just ends

The vast majority of games have a clear winner by turn 5, so any extra turn would not anything.

For those games which are not decided by turn 5, you just reward people who ignored the mission in favor of killing.

Not knowing when a game is over also sucks from a real life perspective when you don't have infinite time to play.

If you have game which you think is fun to play for one more turn, just ask your opponent to roll, but keep it out of official game rules.

To give a clear answer to the OP's question: I don't really care for the number of turns, as long as the average game is over after 3 hours. If you can fit 12 turns in 3 hours, great. More turns means more things happen, so I'm game. But I don't think you can fit more than 5 turns into 40k without stripping it down to a point where it's just not 40k anymore. People are already complaining that 10th is too simplified at this point.

I think static game turn lenghts is a bad idea in general. Game lenghts should always be mission dependent. Static number of game turns just creates another meta layer and people start coming up with all sorts of "metrics" about where they should be at for every turn.. boring and predictable.

All in all, I think matched play missions are hella boring and formulaic, not nearly enough variation and surprises in them.. What I always loved about games such as Space Hulk was the fact that some missions were MUCH HARDER for one side than others. Who was the better player was determined by playing each mission twice, with players alternating sides. Much more interesting that "fair fights all the time" IMHO

 tauist wrote:
I think static game turn lenghts is a bad idea in general. Game lenghts should always be mission dependent. Static number of game turns just creates another meta layer and people start coming up with all sorts of "metrics" about where they should be at for every turn.. boring and predictable.

All in all, I think matched play missions are hella boring and formulaic, not nearly enough variation and surprises in them.. What I always loved about games such as Space Hulk was the fact that some missions were MUCH HARDER for one side than others. Who was the better player was determined by playing each mission twice, with players alternating sides. Much more interesting that "fair fights all the time" IMHO

All of this.
I think many of my early lotr missions didn't have any fixed amount of turns, instead it was stuff like: The game ends when one side is reduced to x%. Others had 10 rounds or so.

I think for 40K the 5-7 turns with random game length worked quite well.

Variable last-turns is good, if the mission is vague.
If there is a set end-turn (extraction/explosion/whatever) for the scenarion, 5 is enough to get done, but 6 allows for more flexability and use of units/models.
Last-minute heroics and the mad dash to the objective, when there are only a few models left on the table, work well with a slightly longer game.

Games should be either fixed length or fixed victory condition. Your victory should not be decided on some random die roll that has nothing to do with anything you actively did during the game.

Five is fine. They could be 4 easy enough but turn 5 is basically a clean up phase anyway.

It's entirely dependent on how much units can achieve in a turn.

Turns are a way to alternate action economy between players. But ultimately it's down to how much you can do in one of those slices. The more you can do, the less turns are needed. That and IGOUGO also requires more turns due to the all or nothing nature of play.

alternating activation can get away with fewer turns because there's more interaction and counterplay during each turn.

definitly not 4. On the other hand there is a large number of games that end turn 1 or turn 2. Sometimes, especialy vs people that aren't very good at 10th rules, the game can end (because of scoring math) at deployment level.

I think that while important, there are bigger things to worry about (LoS, terrain rules, scoring in certain scenarios). Personaly I find 5 enough, 6 turns often end with people just go "this kills this, that moves there) you often play it even without moving stuff or rolling dice.

Nice thought there Karol. If the 6th turn of the game tends to be performative rather than decisive, then the game probably shouldn't be 6 turns long.

That was not the case when you used to determine who controlled an objective or other mission rule at the END of the game, rather than the highly abstracted 'stand on a location and accrue points over time'.

Not that I'm saying that's good or bad, just that they changed the game so that the end of the game is no longer as important. It used to be a pretty nail biting experience right to the end when you were all trying to muscle each other off the objectives or perform the tasks at the end of the game.


Maybe if they gave a bonus to whoever was on them at the end of the game in addition to the turn based meter, it would give you more excitement and value in more turns.

The idea is that whoever is in the superior position at the end of the game is more likely to be victorious in the long run, rather than temporarily holding the objective in turn 1 before being kicked off.

 alextroy wrote:
Nice thought there Karol. If the 6th turn of the game tends to be performative rather than decisive, then the game probably shouldn't be 6 turns long.

I think he is referring to the phenomenon that people often prefer to "talk out" turn 5 (and sometimes turn 4) because the game has already been decided and there is just no point in playing anymore. Turn 6 would fall victim to this even more often.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:
Maybe if they gave a bonus to whoever was on them at the end of the game in addition to the turn based meter, it would give you more excitement and value in more turns.

Uh, they do?

The idea is that whoever is in the superior position at the end of the game is more likely to be victorious in the long run, rather than temporarily holding the objective in turn 1 before being kicked off.

This has been abolished to reward interactive gameplay, while last turn scoring rewarded non-interactive strategies like gunlines and vehicle parking lots.

Enough so the game lasts 2 1/2 hours including tear down time.

I think a mix of pre-set objectives, and any turn when that objective is met the game ends, plus secondary objectives that can determine victory within the bounds of a certain number of turns. Sometimes 4 turns feels fine, sometimes 6 turns, it depends on the game.

I think it really depends on the kind of game you're playing. I'd really like to see GW experiment with varying turn lengths. I don't mean randomized turn length for games, but having mission lengths be another dial you could adjust for certain types of missions. like go with 4-6 turns as a general guideline and have them based on the specific type of main mission you are playing. Though I suppose that goes more into my general philosophy of thinking that missions should be more varied making some easier or more challenging for different types of armies, which would encourage list flexibility and discourage heavily skewed lists. It's a fine line though as you could easily overcorrect as well.

[Deleted]

It depends on where you're coming from, but of we can say we want a game where the battles feel right "in universe", and to avoid outcomes that feel overly "gamey".

In universe, a general /Warboss/hellish fiend of the pit is probably going to know what timeline he has to capture a position or destroy a key target, so random game length does feel a little strange.
Not to say you can't explain it away somehow, maybe he rallied the troops for a final push or his superior's granted one final chance to break through before being 'relived from duty'!

You can have fixed turn limits which feed more into the narrative though. For example the attacker taking all the objectives by turn 3 is a decisive victory for them, while the defender clinging on until turn 5 is a minor victory for them. In that way the fixed turn limits are clear to everyone and they also support the narrative.

 Kroem wrote:
It depends on where you're coming from, but of we can say we want a game where the battles feel right "in universe", and to avoid outcomes that feel overly "gamey".

I've never worried about how it feels "in universe". The action taking place on the tabletop is merely a snapshot of a (presumably) larger battle. And I don't need to have it defined how long "in-universe" that action takes.

Instead I'm interested in getting a decent amount of game play in here in the real world.

 Jidmah wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:
Maybe if they gave a bonus to whoever was on them at the end of the game in addition to the turn based meter, it would give you more excitement and value in more turns.

Uh, they do?

The idea is that whoever is in the superior position at the end of the game is more likely to be victorious in the long run, rather than temporarily holding the objective in turn 1 before being kicked off.

This has been abolished to reward interactive gameplay, while last turn scoring rewarded non-interactive strategies like gunlines and vehicle parking lots.

I'm just talking about how the game's end has lost its impact and thus how the number of turns are affected. I wouldn;'t make the last turn the only way to win, but allowing it to turn a slight loss into a slight victory makes people push harder right to the end of the game.

The current game allows you to stack the victory in the first few turns, so that you can be less worried about the end. I think the turn number is tied to the importance of the last turn and I think more enjoyable games make each turn valuable to victory.

How about every player gets 1 hour and 20 minutes of game time.

There is no set number of turns, but when you are out of time, your opponent can continue making turns until he is out of time.

Seems fair.

(To Knight players and othe small armies)

 Hellebore wrote:
I'm just talking about how the game's end has lost its impact and thus how the number of turns are affected. I wouldn;'t make the last turn the only way to win, but allowing it to turn a slight loss into a slight victory makes people push harder right to the end of the game.

The current game allows you to stack the victory in the first few turns, so that you can be less worried about the end. I think the turn number is tied to the importance of the last turn and I think more enjoyable games make each turn valuable to victory.

Some armies win by doing a strong early push and then dying, so even when the other army blasts them apart, it's a pyrrhic victory. Other armies play more defensively and try to thin out the enemy before pushing them off their objectives. Others leverage attrition strategies which mostly focus on disrupting enemy scoring and then do a decisive push on just one or two objectives to win.
Granted, I haven't played with the new deck yet, so maybe the balancing is off currently. Since tournaments care about how big you have won, players tend to favor strategies which get more VP.

However, I think that the army which "won" the most turns should win the game, whether that is 1,2,3 or 3,4,5 doesn't or maybe even 1,3,5 should not matter. Random game length is an issue for this idea.

In close games, 5th often has been the game decider and plays a lot different from other turns, as the second player gets to score by the end of it. This means that after the command phase, both players know what score the second player has to beat to win. The first player spends his turn 5 shielding objectives from the last push, trying to remove units which could score points or threaten an objective held by an enemy to bind resources. The second player then tries everything in their power to score points despite all those preparations.
It's a fun part of the game, but obviously doesn't happen when the game has already been decided in turn 3 or 4.

Number of turns doesn't matter to me though, it's how long to resolve a turn that's important.
10 turns that takes a minute to resolve is not the same as 5 turns that takes 1 hour to resolve. Each.

Not being able to finish a game in an evening is a much more egregious problem than not being able to precisely predict when the final turn is going to be.

I think you've got two issues with trying to make the game important right up to the end.

1. How much RNG do you want?
2. Should the game twist itself so that you have a climax on the last turn?

I tend to think that if you have one player "stack the victory in the first few turns" then... shouldn't they be able to sit back? I mean you've let them do that. (As Jidmah says certain armies are built differently and GW has to take that into account when writing their rules.)

But saying someone whose winning should win, is I guess a very different philosophy to wanting say most games to get down to a final dice roll - and everything before that was just stacking the odds on that dice roll. Some people have claimed to enjoy that - but I wouldn't find it very satisfying.

I never liked the old "I win if the game ends now, I lose if we get another turn" mechanic.

I feel GW has sort of tried to have its cake and eat it with Gambits, Secret Missions and now Challenger Cards to allow a player who is behind early to potentially catch up. None of these systems has been especially enjoyed by the competitive scene - and I'm not sure the more casual scene has enjoyed them much either. I think the problem is that its very hard to have a catchup mechanic which feels fair and can't be played around.

Right, those gambits were horrible. Basically you just abandon the mission game in turn 3 and then instead roll a dice at the end of the game to see who wins.

For me I find I get the most fun in games where the win/loss:

1) Is the greater result of choices the players made during the game

2) Is up in the air and a shifting element for the greater part of the game duration.


Basically when I play I want to feel like the choices I make matter and have a real impact on the game state; likewise for my opponent. I also want the potential to win for most of the game, but also the risk of losing.
This doesn't mean I do win, it means that the game state can change and shift and that no one is outright "I've basically won" on the first few turns and the rest of the game is simply them "mopping up"


GW tends to have problems with this because of their whole-army alternate turn system which can easily mean one good turn for a player can see them wipe out significant parts of their opponent. This is compounded by them making the games very lethal where a good round of shots can wipe out a unit very quickly etc..
They also generally like really swingy dice rolls. This is less where there's a chance for the dice to change the game state and more were the dice define the game state.
This basically starts to eat away at player agency during the game. This not only devalues the player; but also means that they have a hampered chance to learn and improve because the game state is being hinged on a lot of random that they cannot control (at least not without loaded dice).


Now of course you can end up with the opposite if you swing too far - once where units deal so little damage that they just meet up in the middle and nothing then happens because everyone is locked in combat for several turns just chewing away on each other little by little. Or where dice rolls have such low impact that the random is almost entirely removed from the game (though that in itself isn't a bad thing and dice-less gaming can exist; but in a dice rolling game its a bad thing)

I don't think that lethality is a big issue, assuming sufficient amounts of terrain.

Usually when I win or lose in turn 3, it's usually an accumulation of playing errors, dice and potentially balance. In a recent game against an eldar player, he was completely outplaying me and had a good lead. However, he flubbed his turn 3, did some bad decisions and had bad rolls on top of that. I completely swept him away after that.

And yes, I do agree that this can be blamed on IGOUGO - I essentially had an entire turn worth of mistakes and fails to capitalize on unhindered right in front of me. With alternating activations, less "bads" pile up at once, making the game less swingy.

Lethality on its own isn't the issue, however if you've got high lethality that means each hostile action has a greater impact on the game state.

If a player can therefore stack those hostile actions in a chain - eg in an IGOUGO game getting a whole turn of shooting - then you get it being a problem. The two basically compound each other and make the end result "worse" on the game state.

Of course high lethality with alternating activations can still be an issue in so much as it might mean the game ends up being a lot shorter in turns. This might take some of the fun out if you basically just "step forward; shoot and win/lose". Because now you're removing a lot of the layers of the game. Even if you mix in terrain you're still basically making each encounter very quick.

This works fine if you've got LOADS of individual squads in the game. It might even be required to make it fit a viable timeframe.

Lethality in 10th is highly impacted by tactics though. Most units are a lot more durable than they were in 5th editions, unless they get shot by weapons perfect for killing them.

Something like a LRBT is really hard to get rid off until you point actual anti-tank at it. Due to IGOUGO, you would have to expose the LRBT to some tankbustas sitting in a trukk in the same turn you plan to take out that threat. A bunch of rolls later, those six tank bustas who you thought would be dead for sure after they were hit with enough ordnance to level a city might have lost their truck, but are still alive and well. Now it's the ork's turn and they get to blow up your tank, take the objectivve and do the same next turn.

With alternating turns, you could have held back on moving the tank until the coast is clear. The issue wasn't that tankbustas can blow a tank to smithereens, but that you were forced to take all the decisions at once, and then see how they play out.

I think in general, we are talking about the same thing, I just wanted to make my view on this more clear.