Reducing armies to 1500/1750 in tournaments [proposal]

[Are Verlo]

Hello brothers,

 

Can I have your attention for a moment?

 

A few tournaments I have attended were ran with 2000 point armies and 2.5 hour games. The latest tournament even ran "hard dice down" after 3 hours.

Even when playing 3 hour games, many of the games ended abruptly in round 4 or a half-finnished round 5.

 

I´m no slow player and rarely play horde armies at tournaments and think 2.5 and even 3h is too little to complete 5 -7 rounds in a game.

 

My suggestion is to reduce the armies to 1750 points or even 1500 points. This gives better time for games to finnsih in a normal fashion.

 

Would you attend a 5 game tournament with 1500 points?

 

I would love to try.

[Panzer]

Games ending after 2-3 rounds during tournaments is pretty normal for 40k. Most of the time because the time ran out, not because it's decided. Reducing the game size to 1.5k won't change all that much there.

[Are Verlo]

Games ending after 2-3 rounds during tournaments is pretty normal for 40k. Most of the time because the time ran out, not because it's decided. Reducing the game size to 1.5k won't change all that much there.

 

I feel that reducing the number of models on the board would definately quicken up the games? Even if 1500 won´t reach turn 7, it will more often reach 5?

Most the tournaments I attend practice "hard dice down" on time and that is actually fair, but somewhat terrible too. I´d much rather play smaller games and have them concluded in turn 6 :-)

[Blackcadian]

Our next club tournament will be a 1500 one. We’ll most likely use chess clocks, too.

 

A game that doesn’t make it past turn 3 isn’t fun for anyone imo. In fact I probably wouldn’t attend a 2000 pt tournament rather than the other way round.

[Calistarius]

The 2000 point limit is there to try to give us non horde players a chance. 1500 points in 8th edition is great for low cost high volume armies. Not so much for us. There’s a lot to sacrifice to keep it competitive and under 1500.

 

I also agree with Panzer. Reducing the point limit won’t speed the games up. On average, it has more to do with players trying to critically think and counter their opponent throughout their turn. If players would stand back and form a plan during their opponents turn and enact that plan it would help speed things up. Stop talking through every move. Also, help your opponent measure things out, and help them move large bobs of models. Helping each other will also speed things up.

 

This may not be a popular opinion, but anyone taking more than 30 minutes per turn at these events is indeed a slow player.

 

Edit: Also, use the GW official dice app on your phone or tablet if you’re rolling more than 20 dice. It’s fast, efficient and official. Convince your Ork, ‘nids, and Guard buddies to do the same. I can confirm it helps.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Calistarius

[9x19 Parabellum]

I, for one, would support 1500 pt games. I like the difficult choices i have to make on what to include at 1500 vs. 2k.

 

EDIT: also, my experiences don't reflect your guys'.  I have significantly faster games at 1200 pts than I do at 1500 pts than I do at 2000 pts.

 

1200 points is my buddy and my standard game size for "late night gaming" on Thursday after we play D&D. We generally start set up at 10 PM and are done by 12:30 AM (that includes setting up board terrain, getting minis out and seeing all the other D&D players to the door).

 

On the rare occasion we do 1500, we typically go past 1 AM.

 

Most of my 2k games have run 3.5 to 4 hours.

Edited February 21, 2018 by 9x19 Parabellum

[Calistarius]

3.5-4 hours is too long for competition though. Friendly games at home our your local gaming store is different. Also, your lower point games SHOULD be faster than 2000. But at a tournament the lower point limit won’t matter as much when every move is being over analyzed by players.

[9x19 Parabellum]

3.5-4 hours is too long for competition though. Friendly games at home our your local gaming store is different. Also, your lower point games SHOULD be faster than 2000. But at a tournament the lower point limit won’t matter as much when every move is being over analyzed by players.

 

I agree it's too long.  That's the point. So if 3.5 - 4 hours is "normal" game time for a 2k point game, I don't see there is any reasonable chance of squeezing that into 2.5 hours, given that people are, as you say, going to be over analyzing each move. 

[Are Verlo]

3.5-4 hours is too long for competition though. Friendly games at home our your local gaming store is different. Also, your lower point games SHOULD be faster than 2000. But at a tournament the lower point limit won’t matter as much when every move is being over analyzed by players.

I see what you are saying, but I would argue that less variables to think through/overanalyse would lead to quicker games.

[Calistarius]

What if instead we keep the points limit at 2000, but start applying penalties when players take “too long” for their turns? If a tournament uses battle points in conjunction with win/loss we start taking points away based on the time gone over the allotted turn limit it could incentivize everyone to finish their games.

 

I don’t know what the answer is. I just think lowering the limit would do more harm to the overall competitive nature of the game than not finishing 5 turns.

[Panzer]

 

3.5-4 hours is too long for competition though. Friendly games at home our your local gaming store is different. Also, your lower point games SHOULD be faster than 2000. But at a tournament the lower point limit won’t matter as much when every move is being over analyzed by players.

I see what you are saying, but I would argue that less variables to think through/overanalyse would lead to quicker games.

 

Or it actually takes longer because you have less stuff to fall back on after a bad decision so every decision you make weights more. :P

 

Anyway, in my experience, yes it goes a little bit faster but not anywhere fast enough to matter for tournaments.

[Calistarius]

 

 

3.5-4 hours is too long for competition though. Friendly games at home our your local gaming store is different. Also, your lower point games SHOULD be faster than 2000. But at a tournament the lower point limit won’t matter as much when every move is being over analyzed by players.

 

I see what you are saying, but I would argue that less variables to think through/overanalyse would lead to quicker games.

Or it actually takes longer because you have less stuff to fall back on after a bad decision so every decision you make weights more. :P

 

Anyway, in my experience, yes it goes a little bit faster but not anywhere fast enough to matter for tournaments.

This is my experience as well, since every loss suffered hurts more.

[Crimson Ghost IX]

My friends and I have started playing 1750 Battalion only ITC missions here locally (as 8th detachments already seem pretty broken to some of the guys)

 

We are still lucky to finsh a game to actual completion in 6-8 hours to be honest.

Counting set up, talking about kids and life, beer, spectators & 40k chit chat etc too however.

If we sucked all the fun out it we could possibly get done to completion of the current ITC scenarios in 4+ hours.

 

I post to offer as somebody who plays pretty commonly and watches events constantly online this tho:

 

That I agree with those saying points reductions will hurt some armies more than others for sure.

It seems the balance stab made by the studio is for 2000 points.

 

I do not feel that the game will be really much faster unless points are drastically changed.

1500 might have an effect, but 1750 has done nothing really to time here.

Battalion only did speed things up a little because there is less spam, less how does this affect my combo thinking, less looking things up, less "discussions".

Really affected the imperial armies badly tho and I dunno if we are gonna stick with it for the long term.

 

I think the game is mechanically unsuited for fast play crushed into 3 hours generally as it stands right now really.

Scenarios etc top to bottom need to be rethought if that is the goal and where the effort should be put in probably.

I don't feel a points trim and timeclock are really gonna get you 6 turns in 3 hours from the majority of the players.

 

 

TL;DR

Plan for 3 turn game scenarios and find something fun to play that works in the time avail seems a good place to place energy.

[Panzer]

To be fair most games are also mostly decided by the end of turn three. People usually have spent all their CPs then and both armies would have taken heavy casualties or even taken out completely.

I've seen few games that still turned around after turn 3 in 8th. It's not very satisfying to end a game early, I agree on that, but I don't think it makes that much of a difference.

 

And yeah our games usually take 6-8 hours as well but then again we usually play 2v2, drink lots of beer and whiskey, have lots of banter and is usually around 3k per side (1.5k per player), so that hardly represents the norm. :P

[The Unseen]

Dropping points down to 1500 would absolutely cut time down by a lot.

I think 40k tournaments need to drop that down, because games not going past T3 regularly is absolutely crazy, the game is meant to be played an average of 6 turns.

 

And I would say in my dozen or so games of 8th so far, about a 1/3 of them have swung around after turn 2 or 3.

 

My game last Sunday swung around literally on turn 6, before that I was in the lead.

I ended up losing by 1 pt.

 

And chess clocks for tournaments should become mandatory imo.

Slow play is pretty common, and they work a lot better than each turn being timed individually.

Turn 1 takes a lot longer than turn 6, but a chess clock means even if your first turn takes half your time, if you move quick, you could still finish a game.

 

If you run out of time before your opponent does, they get to keep doing their turns till they run out.

[Brother Crimson]

Dropping to 1500 will help.

 

Fixed table setup can help too. Yes there is less diversity but when all tables are the same way you deploy faster.

 

Use mission with fixed objective placement instead of player determined.

 

Accept dice app. Rolling 100 dice with reroll to 1 to hit and wound takes forever.

 

Accept templates or trays for horde army.

 

In itc champion pack turn 3 vs 6 can change everything, if you don’t encourage game going to completion armies scoring secondary early will have an edge vs slower armies that rely on objective holding.

 

Go for 3 hr if you time limit, this is a reasonable time limit.

[Calistarius]

Chess clocks won’t be used correctly. People are already taking too long each turn without having to remember to punch their time. Then start asking players to punch time during other people’s turn? The results won’t be accurate. Then what will you do when someone uses all of their time? Hard dice down? Not likely. People won’t attend your event. Especially if you’re doing this to accommodate your slower average players.

 

Set a time limit for the game. Give each player an allotted time per turn. You can scale the time for each turn accordingly if you’d like. Then apply point deductions for the players if they exceed their time. That’ll prevent people that sandbag their games for advantage from reaching the top tables. It’ll fix itself.

 

1500 points won’t make a bit of difference for reaching the natural conclusion for a game. You’ll see more spamming chaff than we currently do, and deliberately playing slow to reduce mistakes. It’ll be totally psychological and involuntary for most.

 

Leave the points alone. Encourage people play faster and they will. If there are people finishing all of their games at events like LVO (which there were plenty), then everyone can finish their games. If your opponent is playing slow. Politely ask them to pick up the pace, and offer to help where you can. Start timing yourself during friendly games to get better at playing faster yourself. I promise it is more than possible to finish a 2k point match in under 2.5 hours. .

[Brother Crimson]

@Calistarius

 

Depending on the nature of the tournament, points can make a difference.

 

We try to run regular semi-competitive tournament at our store and decided to go towards lower points that we will raise in the future events. The idea is that many players recently have their new codex and it gives them time to master their army. Less points is less units to manage and less CP/stratagems to decide to use or not. Eventually we will go to the 2000 points normal limit once we see it goes smoothly at lower points.

 

If you run a GT/Warzone-style tournament and aim for competitive players in a larger area I agree you should just go and aim to get games completed at 2000 points under 3 hours. People are supposed to know their stuff on this level.

 

I also agree the chess clock is probably not the answer, we have to switch back and forth with interrupts, overwatch attacks and the fight phase that involves both players. 

[Calistarius]

I can get behind that idea. If smaller events want to do a lower point value that’d be fine with me. I just don’t want to see that be the norm for them all you know?

 

If lowering the points makes people more comfortable then perhaps create different brackets based on the point limits? Faster players that are comfortable at 2k have the option, but are subject to penalties for exceeding time? Then the lower point brackets are there for those that aren’t wanting to play in that environment? Once all the books have been out for a while merge the two together again.

 

A problem for this idea would be how do we track the cumulative points in the ITC format. We couldn’t exactly crown one winner. It’d have to be a winner from both? These are just fluid thoughts I’m having.

[Ishagu]

No need to reduce points. Just have the judges announce the time periodically. All games should start at the same time. Calculate the amount of time per turn and have the judges call it out.

 

EG: "Player 2 Turn 2 ends in 5 minute"

 

If people can't keep up they should play different armies that are faster.

[D3L]

No need to reduce points. Just have the judges announce the time periodically. All games should start at the same time. Calculate the amount of time per turn and have the judges call it out.

 

EG: "Player 2 Turn 2 ends in 5 minute"

 

If people can't keep up they should play different armies that are faster.

this sounds like a bad way, maybe the worst way of cracking down on time, can you imagine the rush & shear number of dice counting (and movement placement) mistakes made by the competitive 'bros' when they're up against a surprise wall, these chaps panic at the slight hint of losing, I'd be worried they might flip a table in a huff

 

the chess clock timing that was mentioned in the other thread sounded plausible

 

on another note, do we really need another thread about timing?

[Xenith]

Games should be the recommended 1500 pts anyway. If you complain you cannot fit all the toys you want in your army unless it's 2000pts, then you need to get better at list building.

[Ishagu]

 

No need to reduce points. Just have the judges announce the time periodically. All games should start at the same time. Calculate the amount of time per turn and have the judges call it out.

 

EG: "Player 2 Turn 2 ends in 5 minute"

 

If people can't keep up they should play different armies that are faster.

this sounds like a bad way, maybe the worst way of cracking down on time, can you imagine the rush & shear number of dice counting (and movement placement) mistakes made by the competitive 'bros' when they're up against a surprise wall, these chaps panic at the slight hint of losing, I'd be worried they might flip a table in a huff

 

the chess clock timing that was mentioned in the other thread sounded plausible

 

on another note, do we really need another thread about timing?

 

When you take an exam you have a time limit. Anyone can write better essays if they have more time, but the time limit is part of the challenge.

 

Aspects of this can be applied to the game. Anyone can play better if they have unlimited time to think and move models.

 

Time limit and time keeping is part of the challenge of competitive play. That lovely net list you saw? You better learn how to play it quick if you're going to an event.

I chose to run elite armies when I attend tournaments precisely because I'm not an overly quick player. I'd certainly do better if I took 120 guardsmen to bubble wrap my units but that would slow me down significantly.

 

If players want to run the strongest lists that happen to include disposable horde spam then they have to play them fast. If you can't play them fast don't take them.

The time keeping system I'm proposing is easy to implement and far more fair to players who often stand around whilst their opponents slowly move hordes around or waste time overthinking.

 

Also, I outright refuse a 1500pt limits because it affects said elite armies far more that forces like Guard, Orks, Nids, etc. Not to mention that lowering points does nothing about the fact that some players take far, far longer during their turns than others - a combination of army composition and slow play. The play speed of the army and the player ABSOLUTELY should be a factor when deciding what to take to a strictly competitive event. No one should entertain the idea of punishing a player who brings an army of 18 models because the guys who bring 200 aren't able to finish two turns.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Ishagu

[StraightSilver]

I've only just started to play 8th Edition regularly and I have to say as a Marine player I would struggle to be competitive at 1500pts compared to other armies.

Having said that I am not a tournament player and MSUs do favour Marines in terms of morale/battleshock.

However none of the games I have played so far have gone past turn 3. This isn't just due to time constraints (although 8th edition games feel painfully slow compared to 7th) but also because so far all of our games have shown a clear "winner" and "loser" by that stage.

Turn 1 in 8th feels absolutely brutal and devastating! This might be due to lack of terrain which I feel is way more important this edition.

I'm not saying I disagree with lowering the points values to speed things up (which I think it would) but this would have to be offset by missions/terrain to be fair.

[Ishagu]

Exactly, lowering the points utterly neuters some armies. I certainly wouldn't be able to play my Custodes at lower levels. It's not an idea that should be taken seriously.

 

PS: Straightsilves, you definitely need terrain otherwise static gun-line armies win based on who goes first. Often I'll play games where not even a single unit is destroyed in the first turn and it becomes far more exciting and tactical.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Ishagu