The Las Vegas is over and now that we have had a few days to digest, it is time to talk about a growing problem in the 40k Tournament community.

Not Finishing Games.

I have never seen so many games not even getting to turn 4 than I have seen over the last year. This isn’t about slow play, it is about something fundamentally wrong. It is affecting everyone from casual to competitive. The most notable example came in the second round of LVO this year, as one of the best players in the world couldn’t get past round 2 in 2.5 hours and it was all caught live on Twitch! Blame can be placed everywhere, both the players and the streaming itself, but not getting to turn 3?!?!? is no excuse. Then to have one of the players fly off the handle and rage quit afterwards is downright pathetic in the realm of personal responsibility. Both players involved are very experienced and for neither of them to track the time or take the advisement of the judges to speed things up is totally on them. Speaking of someone who played Green Tide last year, I always finished his games on time. I find this completely unacceptable considering the caliber of the players.

This is an extreme example, but one that illustrates an era now gone from the game. You just cannot hope to entertain finishing your games if you play loose with the time. This is has been a growing problem over the last few years, as rules get more complex. In addition to the complexity we now have a new class armies with “free stuff” making games no longer 1850 v. 1850 but can see one side getting close to 2500 points. Overwatch, a psychic phase, and mass dice rolling, have all added to an ever increasing time sink. It will only get worse, as GW is determined to give away more free stuff to armies. The scary part is the armies who benefit the most from shorter games are the exact ones who get free stuff, making for a insane feedback loop.

So, what solutions can we hope to come up with?

Well we pretty much have four choices or combination thereof.

• Reduce the Points
• Have penalties for not finishing.
• Timed Turns
• Increase Time for Rounds

All have drawbacks, but let us explore each one in some depth.

Let us start with penalties. The biggest problem with penalties is balancing enforcement and fairness. Enforcement only works best with smaller events, where judges can police every table, as an event gets larger so does the potential for collusion. Now collusion isn’t that terrible in most instances because if both players are having fun and don’t finish the game they probably won’t ding each other! Instead, if one side is being pressured or bullied this is where it becomes dangerous. The bigger issue though is fairness, what happens when one-side is just really slow, and now we have both player getting hurt when one is at fault. It can create a paradigm, where one player has to police the other to play faster, causing bad social dynamics between the players. You also have a question of when and how the penalties start? Do we dock people not getting to turn 2, 3 or, 4?

If I were to go the penalty route I would try and keep it as simple as possible. Depending on the number of rounds at the event, I would just have a check box for who finished games naturally or not. If you fail to complete your games two times or more you are hit with a penalty. Having the one time warning gives players a chance to speed up future games and it will be less likely a fast player dinged once will unlikely allow it to happen again. Now, this won’t stop colluding if a say group of players wanted to stop a specific player. Feasibly two people from a group could slow play another person out of an event, but I think this takes a certain type of evil only ETC European teams are capable of. People have also talked about progressive penalties or bonuses depending on what round you finish, but this again makes colluding all the easier for folks trying to game the system.

The second idea is having timed turns, by taking a page from Warmachine. Like using a chess clock to get turns done. In a game like Warmachine with lower model count and balanced phase mechanics is easy. It just won’t work in 40k because some armies ignore phases or having very minimal interaction with them. You would have to have a rollover mechanism built in so players are incentivized to play fast. There is also the army setup, which seems to be one of the biggest time sinks currently inflicting the game. Another problem with the timed turns is the complex interactions models can have in assault, which requires both sides to interact and use time. Personally, I love the idea of chess clock, but in practicality for 40k just isn’t there yet.

Then we have point reductions. This for some reason is a constant non-starter for many players. As a person who asked for 1500 constantly as far back as 4th edition, the time has come for it to be revisited.

The classic two arguments against a 1500 point standard are…

• I want to play with all my toys.
• It hurts certain codexes.

The first one is quickly becoming obsolete because every new codex units get cheaper and the rise of free stuff. As for the it hurts certain armies argument, well sure it is true, but guess what so does every other point level! The benefits for playing 1500 I think out weight the problems. 1500 makes list building more tactical, as scarcity leads players to make hard choices and hopefully more balanced armies. The ITC missions benefit from 1500 as fewer armies will be capable of always dominating certain mission types. Sure, it won’t stop extreme armies, but those will become even more susceptible to the Rock, Paper, Scissors situations.The most important thing is 1500 means less dice rolls and fewer models to use.

Lastly, a tournament can always increase time, but now we get into logistics and this solution is only available for specific situations.

So, what would I do if I ran event? I would probably do a combination of things.

In a perfect world I would just make games 1500 points, have three hour rounds, with a one and done slow play rule. Since I don’t live in a perfect world I think it is all about baby steps. Move points to 1750. Second, put a some sort of penalty in against players who cannot finish two consecutive games on time and considering games that get to turn five as complete. Finally, depending on the event I would allow players to go over time into breaks if they both agree.

This isn’t some sort of panacea for the problems competitive 40k is facing, but it is a start and one I hope all events and players consider.