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What do you think about the number of turns in a Warhammer 40k games?

Should a game have more than 5 turns? Many more?

To have room to do manoeuvres? To build up pressure?

Should a single turn be extremely important?

Is the time length of a game evenly important?

Of course, compared to five turns, speed and damage could change to match another number of turns.

5 seems reasonable enough. With how long ranges are and how fast units move, extra turns doesn't really change anything. The game is also quite slow to play in general (and some players I've played against are also painfully slow!) so adding more turns doesn't seem like a great idea.

At least 5 turns.

Random game length from 5-7.


Begone final turn Land Speeder rush!

I've always been mildly disappointed that GW games have so few turns. This is not because bigger numbers are better, but because turns are the intervals at which changes can occur. I prefer very dynamic games, and the short turn length of GW's games preclude great rolling battles.

That said, the rules are geared for the current turn count, with a lot happening per turn, so simply increasing the turn amount would just make the game tedious. And frankly, the games with alternating activations (particularly AT) don't suffer so much from the low turn count, so it is possible that I am misdiagnosing the issue entirely.

I like a random element to game length to prevent very "gamey" outcomes. If you rush the objectives you might make it, but it's a risk and you might need to weather another turn.

So whatever the number of turns is, I like to see there being a chance of one more turn.

Charax wrote:
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

 sigkill wrote:
I've always been mildly disappointed that GW games have so few turns. This is not because bigger numbers are better, but because turns are the intervals at which changes can occur. I prefer very dynamic games, and the short turn length of GW's games preclude great rolling battles.

I can agree with that and I think that it feels worse in a GW game because you've got whole player turns instead of alternating activations. So when its not your turn you've got a lot less to do outside of rolling for saves and removing models. Alternate activation games might have the same number of total turns, but because it switches between players constantly there's much less of a "dead" time.

4-6. 7 is too long, 3 too short, and 4 turns is already pushing it with brevity.

We never played with a set number of turns. It was always until 1 party gave up or both parties agreed the battle was over.

 Da Boss wrote:
I like a random element to game length to prevent very "gamey" outcomes. If you rush the objectives you might make it, but it's a risk and you might need to weather another turn.

So whatever the number of turns is, I like to see there being a chance of one more turn.

Idk. Random game length lead to some pretty weird and "gamey" behaviors. A bunch of jetbikes and falcons zooming around in circles between objectivesto keep up flat-out saves while hoping the game ends on the turn you need it to didn't exactly feel like it was simulating the lore of the game. Also, losing a battle because there was a 1/3rd chance that victory would be declared on turn 5 but you don't have the durability to face-tank a counter-attack after standing out in the open wasn't really forging any narratives.

 sigkill wrote:
I've always been mildly disappointed that GW games have so few turns. This is not because bigger numbers are better, but because turns are the intervals at which changes can occur. I prefer very dynamic games, and the short turn length of GW's games preclude great rolling battles.

I agree with this on paper (it's why Warhammer tends to fare well in video game formats, where battles can occur in real time) but it's hard to imagine an edition where you could go much further than 5 turns without the game becoming a massive slog. I do not think any edition of Warhammer is rapid-fire enough for that. I think the 7 turns the game could sometimes reach in some editions is more or less the upper limit.

6. That’s what I was used to. And that’s my only reason and indeed argument.

 Overread wrote:

 sigkill wrote:
I've always been mildly disappointed that GW games have so few turns. This is not because bigger numbers are better, but because turns are the intervals at which changes can occur. I prefer very dynamic games, and the short turn length of GW's games preclude great rolling battles.

I can agree with that and I think that it feels worse in a GW game because you've got whole player turns instead of alternating activations. So when its not your turn you've got a lot less to do outside of rolling for saves and removing models. Alternate activation games might have the same number of total turns, but because it switches between players constantly there's much less of a "dead" time.

Arguably it's the same number of rounds but each activation is a "turn" in itself, albeit a limited one. It's definitely a different dynamic.

Orkeosaurus wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 sigkill wrote:
I've always been mildly disappointed that GW games have so few turns. This is not because bigger numbers are better, but because turns are the intervals at which changes can occur. I prefer very dynamic games, and the short turn length of GW's games preclude great rolling battles.

I can agree with that and I think that it feels worse in a GW game because you've got whole player turns instead of alternating activations. So when its not your turn you've got a lot less to do outside of rolling for saves and removing models. Alternate activation games might have the same number of total turns, but because it switches between players constantly there's much less of a "dead" time.

Arguably it's the same number of rounds but each activation is a "turn" in itself, albeit a limited one. It's definitely a different dynamic.

The word 'turn' might be too loaded here, but either way AA increases the number of interaction points compared to pure IGOUGO. A four-round battle in OPR's Grimdark Future feels more dynamic to me than five rounds in 40K. There's more opportunity for play and counterplay without requiring a direct reaction system a la Infinity/SST/HH.

I do miss six rounds for 40K though. It doesn't increase game time much but it allows for some nailbiter moments in a close game.

Yeah same here - there's parts of 40K I like but I feel like as armies have become bigger and more complex having a whole turn has, for a long time, just felt wrong.

There's so much "out" time for a player who's turn it is not and there's so much potential for one player to have a great turn and wipe the board with their opponent. This meaning the whole game can feel "over" in a single early turn.

Meanwhile Alternative Activation games feel so much more dynamic and its honestly rare to get a whole turn go in one players favour or to FEEL like it has.
I suspect unless you play with super missmatched unit counts (eg a super swarm vs super elite army). But even so a lot of the times I walk away from a 40K/AoS game I feel like
"I don't know what I could have done to have avoided that"

Whilst in alternate activation I feel like there's a lot more
"Ok I could have done X better and know not to do Y next time but that Z works really well".



It might also just be the way rules are written too - modern GW games feel like there's so many extra BITS like command skills and so forth layered ontop of units and army profiles. Instead of lots of army building choice that is then just reflected on the unit profile; its loads of abilities and so forth that don't feature there and adds a whole other layer to remember. Esp when a lot of them are situational.

I should have placed a bet that this thread derails in to alternating activations within the first page

There are three big constraints that have defined 40k for the last five editions:
- expected number of model on the table
- IGOUGO
- rule detail level down to individual guns/weapons of single models

Between those three, playing more turns just takes too long. Casual players can't finish their games, tournaments can't fit enough games in a day, new players get bored
Unless you change one of those things, 5 turns with 2 turns being heated is pretty much the sweet spot.

That said, in most editions, adding an extra turn or two rarely changed the outcome of a game. Outside of crusade, conceding a clearly decided game is more common than games where "just one more turn" would have made a difference.

Random game length can go die in a fire. It did nothing but make the outcome of a game luck based - you might as well just roll for victory points at the end of the game.
Having the player who didn't go first score differently in the last turn makes the last turn much more tactical than random game length ever did.

Also, with 40k’s lethality, what’s going to be alive after turn 5 anyway?

4-6 sounds about right to me personally (The bigger the board, the more turns required)

And indeed, 4 turns of Kill Team feels a lot longer than 4 turns of 40k. AA feels more exciting for me personally, with much more conuterplay going on than IGOUGO

 Nevelon wrote:
Also, with 40k’s lethality, what’s going to be alive after turn 5 anyway?

Even if they tone down lethality, that just means that both players will be moving and attacking more over the course of the game because less things die. As a result the game would take even longer.

Random game length means you have to accept some risk in your planning, I think that's a good thing. If it's all a sure thing pure mechanical averages, then I find that a bit boring after a while. The tension makes the game more exciting.

And Eldar will always hate Random Game Length because it makes it harder for them to fly all their skimmers in on the last turn and claim victory, but I don't see that as a reason to get rid of it from the game.

 Da Boss wrote:
Random game length means you have to accept some risk in your planning, I think that's a good thing. If it's all a sure thing pure mechanical averages, then I find that a bit boring after a while. The tension makes the game more exciting.

And Eldar will always hate Random Game Length because it makes it harder for them to fly all their skimmers in on the last turn and claim victory, but I don't see that as a reason to get rid of it from the game.

In editions with fixed game lengths, the tension comes from having to plan around whether or not units will die when attacked, whether or not charge rolls succeed, whether or not your opponent will move in a way that denies you a given objective, etc.

Games should be a series of meaningful chocies. Random game length never felt like it created meaningful choices for my eldar. Instead, you were just forced to expose yourself to a beatdown towards the end of the game, and a single die roll either won or lost the game for you. It was kind of just a "roll for victory" roll. It felt like more of a bandaid to cover up the shortcomings of end of game scoring than anything.

Variable game length was needed in a score at the end format. It made boring gunlines at least put some thought into moving. Also in an era where only troops could score it added a interesting wrinkle in listbuilding; you needed to make sure you had enough boots on the ground survive until the end.

In practice it gave a lot of power to units like jetbikes, which could hide most of the game and do a zoom and win.

It did give you that “king of the hill” moment, like the cover of the RT rulebook, where you defiantly stood your ground and hoped you would last.

So many games ended with a win on the die roll to see if there was another turn, where if would have been a loss otherwise. I guess that can make the looser feel good. “I may have lost, but if we went another round I would have kicked him off the objective”

In theory I’d like a longer game, on a larger board, with less lethality, Some more time for movement and positioning, instead of playing rocket tag in a closet. In practice that would take up more space and time, which I understand is a big barrier to getting the game actually played,

What we have mostly works.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Also, with 40k’s lethality, what’s going to be alive after turn 5 anyway?

Even if they tone down lethality, that just means that both players will be moving and attacking more over the course of the game because less things die. As a result the game would take even longer.

Maybe? A big contributor to the lethality of the game are things like re-rolls and sustained/lethal hits. If you strip out a lot of those you get a less lethal game, but probably a similar number of dice rolls as you have more stuff alive, but fewer dice to resolve for those units. Removing those extra rolls would likely have a non-negligible effect on game time. I think it would likely still take a bit longer, but probably not significantly so.

Slipspace wrote:
Maybe? A big contributor to the lethality of the game are things like re-rolls and sustained/lethal hits. If you strip out a lot of those you get a less lethal game, but probably a similar number of dice rolls as you have more stuff alive, but fewer dice to resolve for those units. Removing those extra rolls would likely have a non-negligible effect on game time. I think it would likely still take a bit longer, but probably not significantly so.

I'm not really convinced by this. I mean I sort of sympathise on the other thread (FNP could be scrapped to save time. I think random shots and random damage weapons could potentially go the same way.)
But turns 1 and 2 tend to take far longer than turns 4 and 5 not because of rerolls, but because you have a lot more units. So yes there is more dice rolling, but there's also just a lot more thinking time. You and the opponent have a lot more options when you have say 10-15 units and the game state is sort of in flux, rather than 2-3 and its pretty obvious if you've won, lost, or it will all come down to some final charge.

Lethal hits actually speed things up by eliminating wound rolls, not slow things down.

Point taken on sus hits though.

Curious to see whether more reroll abilities are offensive, defensive or either/both. It feels like offensive has the edge... But I haven't actually researched it, so that's just a feeling.

Slipspace wrote:
Maybe? A big contributor to the lethality of the game are things like re-rolls and sustained/lethal hits. If you strip out a lot of those you get a less lethal game, but probably a similar number of dice rolls as you have more stuff alive, but fewer dice to resolve for those units. Removing those extra rolls would likely have a non-negligible effect on game time. I think it would likely still take a bit longer, but probably not significantly so.

Neither lethals nor sustained hits have a real impact on rolling speed, talking as someone who regularly rolls buckets of lethal and sustained hits every game (thanks Makari!)

Re-rolls have become rather rare for most armies, so that's not a problem either.

The biggest time sinks in 10th are
- charges/pile in/consolidate
- Every unit being equipped with at least 3 different weapons plus leaders with another 1-3 weapons each
- People not knowing when to use stratagems

 Jidmah wrote:

- Every unit being equipped with at least 3 different weapons plus leaders with another 1-3 weapons each
- People not knowing when to use stratagems

I really feel these with how GW likes to write out their rules. It's not just remembering the info its there its the constant page/ap flipping to find the information and where its located.

Stratagems are worse because its a whole separate list of things; many situational.
Honestly I'd prefer to see them gone and simply replace with abilities on unit cards for specific models.


I don't want to remember that "overwatch" is a thing under a random name on a separate page from my shooting units - just give units more abilities that ping on a command point on the unit card alongside the stats for their weapons and points. Just all the information you need in 1 spot. Summary tables are cool to have too but a nice neat unit profile should be dead simple to make (every other game has them and GW has cut down so many options most codex unit pages/cards are half empty anway)

+1 to Jidmah's point about charges/pile-in/consolidate, and I'd add basic movement with regards to terrain. I'm not a fan of excessive rolling (OPR shows just how much faster everything resolves when it's simply roll to hit -> roll to save), but right now I find the biggest time sink is the precision involved in managing individual models. Instead of carefully spacing unit coherency to minimize template effects as in prior editions, it's carefully positioning models to minimize LOS, maximize attacks, or prevent the enemy from falling back in combat. More time spent resolving decisions you've already made means less of the total game time spent on the meat of it, making meaningful decisions in the first place.

Which is why I don't think the prior discussion about AA is a derail, it's more approaching the same issue from the other end: the thing that makes a game feel short or long isn't necessarily how many turns it's simulating, but how much opportunity for player engagement there is as a function of play time. A four-turn game that involves a lot of back-and-forth and concludes in an hour feels better than a six-turn game with only a couple of big decision points and takes two hours to resolve. How the mechanics are executed matters more than the turn count.

Edit: And yeah, how rules are laid out and referenced is a huge part of that. The way 9th Ed expected you to just remember everything, or constantly flip through your codex for stratagems or unit/weapon stats, was poor design. 10th's streamlining and introduction of play aids is a huge improvement to playability, which in turn makes the game go quicker, which in turn makes it feel less tedious and more engaging.

 Overread wrote:
Stratagems are worse because its a whole separate list of things; many situational.
Honestly I'd prefer to see them gone and simply replace with abilities on unit cards for specific models.


I don't want to remember that "overwatch" is a thing under a random name on a separate page from my shooting units - just give units more abilities that ping on a command point on the unit card alongside the stats for their weapons and points. Just all the information you need in 1 spot. Summary tables are cool to have too but a nice neat unit profile should be dead simple to make (every other game has them and GW has cut down so many options most codex unit pages/cards are half empty anway)

I think that would make matters even worse. The time sink part with stratagems is that something happens, a player thinks he has some stratagem to react or save the day, searches through is app/printed list/wahapedia, fails to find it, and then does the same thing for the next action. The less regular a player play a detachment, the worse it gets.

If you would print such reactive actions on datacards, it would make the problem even worse, as they would now start digging through all their dataslates instead of just 15 stratagems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
A four-turn game that involves a lot of back-and-forth and concludes in an hour feels better than a six-turn game with only a couple of big decision points and takes two hours to resolve. How the mechanics are executed matters more than the turn count.

Four hours simply isn't doable for tournaments or on weekday evenings. Even GW stores in my area expect you to leave the table after 2.5 hours. No matter how awesome that would feel, if both players are reasonably fast players, a game should be playable within 2-3 hours at max.