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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.