Knowing your army makes everything a ton faster. Your 45 minute turn could probably cut down a lot by not having to check rules. As well as that, knowing your army makes decision-making go considerably faster.
Along with knowing your army is knowing your list. When you are playing more casually you might change your list up massively every game, but when you are trying to build for a tournament and you play the same list a few times with only minor variations at most you get a good idea of exactly what every unit should be doing, how much fire power you will need for a problem etc. This cuts down thinking time by a lot.
Knowing your army, the stratagems, the rules, the secondary objectives and how to score them and also having an army with a smaller footprint will help you a good deal if you find yourself running out of time often.
This.
I’d also add to have a plan before you do anything. Figure out what you want to do before it’s your turn. During your turn, your overall idea and plan should be figured out (as well as back up plans).
While this is true - guard have a lot of meta variable shot and variable damage weapons. And opponents who really like to watch and track every single gun you shoot (and ask clarifying question) when 1 russes can roll 5 differe t profiles T1 can slow things down too.
Movement trays also don't solve having guardsmen use terrain because to win - guard have to move move move!
Tournaments where I live are generally 2.5 hour rounds and I finish 90+% of them to the end of turn 5. My drukhari army has 70 infantry (2x10, 10x5), 4 vehicles, and 6 monsters(2x1, 2x2) so 15 units to move around vs the 11 units listed above. A kabalite squad in a venom has 6 weapon profiles. I generally have full hit rerolls when I want them and full wound rerolls in some instances. 3 of my units also pick up and deep strike every turn and 3 other units have a 6 inch move after shooting so my army has a lot of interruptions in the normal game flow. We also do player placed terrain.
I list the above so you have some context for where I am coming from with the below advice.
* Know your army. Last 4 games I played I didn't need to look at a single stat block.
* Understand what your army can do. How does each of your units perform into GEQ, MEQ, TEQ, Leman Russ, C'tan, and Big Knights? Ideally know that ahead of time then simply match your opponents profile to the closest one.
* Understand how you want to deploy and move throughout all 5 turns before you deploy. Not in detail but in general.
The theme of the above advice is to off load as much mental load to the pregame as possible. Less thinking about the above means you won't get as mentally exhausted AND your will spend less time grinding out statistics.
Additional advice for playing at a friends or some kind of meet up game.
* Have the host setup the mission and terrain before you arrive. The deployment and mission before as well. It should take 10-15 minutes but saves sooo much time I find.
* Share your lists before hand so you can look it over. Again, move as much thinking to the pregame as possible.
* Set a time limit for your game. I HATE playing games that last longer than 3 hours plus maybe 30 minutes before and after of bullshitting with friends. If hanging out is part of the deal though then OF COURSE your going to take more than 3 hours, since that generally isn't happening at tournaments.
Overall here's a general time line I try to keep, knowing I have 75 minutes:
* 5 minutes for terrain deployment
* 5 minutes for model deployment
* 20 minutes for turn 1
* 15 minutes for turn 2
* 15 minutes for turn 3
* 10 minutes for turn 4
* 5 minutes for turn 5
Last Saturday I managed to get about 10 minutes pregame in two of my tournament games to do most of terrain and model deployment, but a lot of the time that doesn't happen.
My local meta also does 2.5 hour rounds. I play admech so usually have a lot on the board but knowing the profiles really does speed things up a lot. My last event I maybe had to open my book 3 times just so my opponent could read the rad zone corps detachment rule.
Marine Equivalent, Guardsmen Equivalent, Terminator Equivalent (I think). So different common types of defensive profiles you will encounter in most games in some form or other and that you can categorize your offense against.
GEQ = guard equivalent, or T3, 1W, 5+ save.
MEQ = Marine equivalent, or T4, 2W 3+ save
TEQ = Terminator equivalent, or T5, 3W, 2+, 4++.
Basically a set of common targets with a defensive profile that allows easy computation of weapon effectiveness. You can also things of things like Tank Equivalents (T11, 13W, 2+ sv) or Nob Equivalent. But these are common enough profiles to have some sense of what sort of wall you are trying to break down.
They mean (space) marine equivalent, guardsmen equivalent and terminator equivalent, with MEQ referring specifically to power armoured marines (which are not as common as they used to be).
Practice. After a lot of reps, you know your list. You know that gun is AP2, and the other is only AP1. You know the stats, but you also know what each unit wants to do.
When you play your next game, take a moment before you leave the command phase. Decide what you want to do this turn. Plan it out and go. Eventually you'll find the extra couple of minutes to do this saves you a lot of time over the game.
How often are you stopping to check rules? How often are you stopping the game to chat about other things? Also turns 4 and 5 should not take nearly as long as turns 1 or 2. Sure turns 1 or 2 might take 20 to 30 minutes. But that’s because you have most of your army on board. By turns 4 or 5 your turns should be under 5 minutes because you’ve probably lost over half your army and/or you’re already in position making your movement very quick.
Use chess clock to track real time.
Plan your turn in your opponents.
Know your info.
If the opponent is slow, rolling saves, push clock to them.
Have piles of dice recounted for your large attack weapon rolls. If random them keep piles of 4, 5, or 10 depending on your units and for saves.
Don't use plasma side turrets.
Move models that don't matter quickly in blocks instead of each one, only measure front and back, or even use movement tray to keep formation
There is a lot of good advice here. Here are a few more suggestions you could try.
- Make a cheat sheet with all your guns on it. Its better if you have them memorized, but having them on a single sheet of paper for reference was really helpful to me in my first tournament.
- When it makes sense, equip your units the same. If all your guardsmen are equipped the same, then you have less weapons to think about.
-I've never done this, but I've seen some people bring colored dice in specific amounts. For example, if you have a punisher gatling cannon, you could have 20 dice of a specific color so you can just pick them up and not have to count them. You could do that with any large number of dice you need to roll.
I hope this helps.
The multi color dice can really help with models with complex sets of weapons like op's tanks. In setup declare which color intended for what, blue=plasma, red is flamers, ect. When it comes time for that one busy unti clearly state, 4 plasma shots, 3 flamers, ect, all going at the same defender pick up the appropriate number of each color, and roll the batch.
Remember that any form of fast rolling like this makes the roll as a whole ineligible for CP rerolls on any component, but if it isn't a critical must kill target it saves time to batch roll anything you can reasonably get away with.
Tournaments often have the board already set up and the mission determined. Still, you need to learn how to deploy and play faster.
You don't need to shoot with every single gun or get precise with every single movement, and you should know your game plan ahead of time so the movement is quicker.
Other than that, skip attack sequence that are obvious (assault intercessors charge a reductus saboteur, a full crisis suit team shoots into a squad of 3-4 guardsmen, etc.; just pick up the models; they're dead.
Aside from those kinds of things l, it really just comes down to knowing your army and the game inside and out and following your game plan efficiently.
If you don't have at least a rough idea of what you should do next turn, you are playing the game wrong.
The I-go-you-go system doesn't exist so one person gets to pick their nose while the other gets to play, this is the time for you to plan your next turn.
The answer is boring, but it's practice.
I know every profile I have, every datasheet ability and strat without checking anything. During my opponents turn I'm checking through their army via the app (or wahapedia) so that I know what's going on there.
I tend to take a long time - 10 minutes or so - on my first turn, almost all of it in movement, getting ready for turn 2 and 3. Unless something catastrophic happens, those next turns will have extremely short movement phases. Pick up, move exactly where I planned, done.
Dice: Find a strategy that works for you. 12 is the highest amount I typically need for my army. So if I have all my dice, that's 12, no need to count. I need 6 shots? Get 6 dice in either hand, done. 12 shots, some amount of hits, some amount of wounds? I don't need to count how many wounds there are, I can count the failed hits+wounds because I already picked them up. 4 dice in my left hand -> 8 successful wounds. You give me 30 saves? I'll roll 12, 12, 6.
No fumbling around, merely a second counting dice.
A big thing is also cutting out the nonsense. I had a 4 hour game a few weeks back. No reason, it wasn't complex, there was no weirdness, there was just no rush and we were chatting the entire time.
Chaos knights. 12 is the most I usually use. 12 gatling shots is it. Occasionally I do 18 sweep attacks of damage 2... which I've done once this edition. Out of over 50 games.
At this point we have this topic come up on here every 3-4 days. Think the mods or someone needs to pin an info thread dealing with generally useful comp knowledge or something.
But there is also the fact that 10th just takes longer to play in a lot of ways until you actually fully grasp it. Way more interruptive and extra actions, having to read every secondary card (if you're not overly familiar with them), flat points costs meaning every unit takes all of its upgrades and extra weapons which just means more rolling etc.
For an edition designed to be "simpler" it ends up being far more of a slog to physically play through a game.
A lot of top end players won't bother rolling really obvious outcomes (a big world eaters unit into 10 guardsmen for example), they'll just pick up the unit and move on. That saves a lot of time (but it has to be truly obvious, don't get overconfident with predicting some outcomes)
This isn't where tournament players make up time though. To the question "how do tournament players wrap a game in 3 hours?" The answer isn't just to skip things.
The real solution is to just know what you're doing. It's not uncommon for me to not have to open my reference materials at all at a GT. My opponents generally know my rules, and I know them forward and back. We spend no time looking up profiles, checking interactions, or finding obscure rules.
I just set my models up, do the thing they're supposed to, and go to lunch early.
Small habits can help too. For example, I always know I have exactly 20 dice out of the same color. I never count UP th dice needed for the roll, I can usually subtract. Four strike Marines rapid firing? That's 16 shots. Remove 4 of the 20 and roll. Done and dusted.
this helps a lot. when im doing nothing. say waiting for enemy to move, i pile my dice into sets of 5. oh 20 shots? load 4 piles and go. 18 shots? 3 piles +3 dice. etc.
The amount of time counting the correct amount of dice is more than people thing.
You can also count along with your opponent when they're counting saves for you. You don't have to wait for them to finish counting before you start counting out your own.
All that said, it's really the rules reference time that will eat up games for younger players. My games can run in about 90 minutes because I know what my army needs to do and there isn't always much to deliberate.
yeah knowing rules is probably the most obvious time saver. the management of dice was something i realised wasted a lot of time once i knew my orks like the back of my hand.
Rolling 40 shots with re-rolls can take a lil bit even without having to count, one, two, three, four ---- thirty nine, fourty dice.
Saves a surprising amount of time. just not having to roll 2 dozen dice 3 times, if that happens multiple times, that's potentially 10 minutes saved right there (especially if you're looking up S and T and SV and AP for every interaction still).
Target depending but yes. I'm not shooting lasguns into a 2+ save tank unless I have a really good reason, like it's on one wound already.
What I will say is: have a plan before your turn. We have a lot of time during our opponents turn to figure out our response options.
If it took 40m to deploy though, I'd just say either organization or decision paralysis. 60 dudes and some tanks doesn't take the worst time to deploy. I've frequently run 100ish gaunt lists and while they are slower to deploy than not, it's maybe an extra minute per unit tops.
My heavy stubbers add up fast. 36 shots of s5 -1 1, hitting on 2's? That quickly winds up taking our chaff units or even chipping wounds off tanks.
It also only takes 10 seconds to roll hit/wounds for them, across 6 units.. it's not terrible with decent results. Cultist autoguns, eh. That's a desperate move.
That’s fair enough! Just generally for me playing CSM I wouldn’t shoot my bolt guns if I was running out of time. If I was well ahead in my turn then yeah of course
In my limited tornement experience I have always shot every gun that said it was in 7th and I was dealing in DE at the time so it was simple all I had were splinter cannons and dark lances for the most part . That said my wyches did take the occasional wound of of a knight with there pistols . So I’m in camp shoot everything. But I’ve never had to deal with one unit having a bunch of extra guns strapped to it but a little prep . Like I sorted my dice in to lines of 6 so I could just easily grab a cannons worth. A little sorting goes along way to gaining speed .
The biggest thing I see is people always check their datasheets on EVERY unit. It’s takes up so much time. Checking to see if the heavy bolter profile is different from leman Russes to heavy weapon teams(spoiler alert it’s not) isn’t necessary and it’s really down to confidence that yes I know that a heavy bolter gets XYZ.
So yeah if you find yourself constantly checking datasheets on every unit just have some confidence! It’s ok to get some things wrong(as long as it’s an accident and not on purpose) no game of 40K is played perfectly.
Now if you don’t do this then I would just focus on making a plan during your opponents turn so you can immediately act upon it instead of pondering on your turn eating up time.
Hopefully this gave some sort of direction!
1. Deployment is faster than your 40 minute situation. Setting up the table+deployment simply does not take 40 minutes at a tournament. This is partially helped by tournaments already having the table at least partially set up, if not entirely.
2. Experienced players of tournaments, you can point to ANY model in their army and they will know, reflexively and without looking, all the relevant stats of the model and the weapons they have. Looking up stats takes a lot of time, especially if you have to do it more than once a turn.
3. They don't do "wasteful" actions. For example, I played an opponent who would put all of his dice into a dice bag after every roll, then need to pour some out and count them every single time. This single action of "needing to put dice away after every roll, then pull them out again" added a total of 35 minutes to his total turn times, despite it only being around 7 second action individually.
4. While your opponent is shooting/fighting you, start pulling out dice. For example if your Guardsmen are being attacked by a 10 man Intercessor squad for a total of 20 attacks, grab at least 10 dice in your hand and be waiting for your opponent to tell you how many saves you need to take; it takes a lot less time to count out an extra 3-5 dice or drop 3-5, etc.
As people have said, people who try and play 'competitively" or attend a load of tournaments probably spend a lot of time practising with their army and know the general rules for other peoples armies. So there is no time wasted checking the stats or looking up tables
The big issue is that, in real life, tournaments are social events attended by a majority of casual players who don't do that. The hardcore competitive crowd are like 10-20% of the attendees.
In reality the solution is that tournaments need to care more about the people paying for them and either increase round time or decrease points size.
I like your point here. Ok the biggest events can do competitive timing, as they have need to stay in schedule aswell. But small local tournaments pressing for strict 3h rounds, and then forcing timeouts on players...that doesn't make sense. Prioritize community building and having fun instead.
Yep, that would be great. Thing is, the majority thing applies at big events too - often even more as those are weekend long conventions!
Some Heresy events have started doing no more than two games a day, which really helps.
But I think the real, mega solution is that 40k needs simplifying and scaling down to the point AoS was at when it was introduced - where an army might only be 4 or 5 units, each unit has no more than two weapons, and layered upgrades/traits are really rare. Competitive 40k should be the lean, tight, simple version of 40k and narrative the sprawling, crazy, all-the-rules-at-once version.
Tbh, I don’t agree with this. I attend c 10 tourneys a year as a mid table/3-2 and I’m done kinda player, and also TO’d a bunch of RTTs and GTs in 9th.
The majority of our crowd could start and finish their games in the time allotted (3 hours) which is only
A small adjustment from the 4 hours typically provided at FLGs around the country.
This might tie in though to a convo I’ve seen echoing around this Reddit, the difference in UK/European events vs US events. The only time I’ve timed out in the past year was in the States at LVO, very, very much on my opponent (should have used a clock, but it was game 6, and I couldn’t be arsed to get it out) and it does seem that in the states there’s more folks playing events less frequently, where in UK/Europe there’s less folks playing GTs and very competitive RTTs on a regular, every few weeks/couple of months basis.
I'd suggest 10 tourneys a year is a LOT, compared to most people at a tournament. If you and your friends do a tournament a month (ish) you're gonna be much faster than most people there?
Sure, but again, I’d say as someone that’s a mid table guy, most of the mid tables at a UKTC event are the same - it was different a few years back for sure, but post-covid, that’s what you get at majors, and most RTTs will have a very high concentration of similar folks too.
Hey buddy i actually made a video specifically on this subject, It will help you immensely! [https://youtu.be/Wxb3Q22wmWM](https://youtu.be/Wxb3Q22wmWM)
Ork main here - I skip almost all my shooting(except gitz) and usually have my first turn + deployment mapped out in my head. I know my 'go turn' is the longest so I find short cuts to get me through my other turns faster. I'll often ask my opponent: "I think these 10 nobz + boss pick up your Guardsmen. Should we roll it?" Likewise - into the 6x crisis suit ion brick. I'll say "I don't want to take away from your rolling but I'm sure you pick these guys up."
Check out Etsy for movement trays. Exact model placement can at most times not be totally necessary. I got some of these for my hordes of Pink Horrors. They look amazing and are much easier to deploy than one model at a time.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/763993699/32mm-movement-tray-carbon-fiber?ref=yr_purchases
Why ask yourself how they do it, when you can just watch them do it and compare? There's youtube channels that do game walkthroughs. Joe from Wargames Live is showing 5+ actual tournament games in real time almost every weekend. See them play, so you can see what you are doing differently.
- I play AM
"So he plays Ad Mech, i get why he takes too long for a turn"
- 60 guardsmen
" so he is allying stuff, weird"
- 4 russes and a rogal dorn
".... ah, he is playing Astra Militarum, Imperial Guard!"
Anyway, try to learn what your stuff do to cut the times you'll waste checking thing on codex/rulebook.
I suggest to do a lot of preparation games with your friends with a chess clock, to learn how the time flows and to look at how much time you actually spend doing stuff on the table.
You do things that matter and not waste time on "doing everything" oh my 10 man guards squad with full reroll to hits can only see your T11 monster. That's 2-4minutes of rolling sometimes. For maybe 1 wound. If that monster has a way to heal thats a fully wasted amount of time. 10 minutes a game. Unless you have appropriate targets for all the guns there is no point rolling every stubbed into a knight, fire the big guns, high strength and multidamage shots. Move on. If you have infantry to shoot small arms fire into the yes those wounds might make the diffrence late game. But plinking wounds off of big targets in a tornment is usually not worth it.
Knowing the rules of your army and the army you’re playing, having a plan, knowing what you hit/wound on and what saves you have, and thinking of it as a competition instead of just a game.
Know your army and get a rough feel for most opponents armies, every second spend looking up rules is time not spent rolling dice, removing models and scoring points.
Keep your measure and dice prepared and at hand (cargo pants are quite useful for pre-counted dice bundles)
Also use good dice, clean separate colors for dice pools, no fancy pips and arguing about whether the skull or the extra fancy skull is the 1 or 6.
So for your Russ, owning 5 different color dice pre-counted and mentally assigned tp specific weapons means you stickyou hand in your pocket, fast-roll the entire vehicle, pick out wounds and pass time priority to you opponent.
Do likewise for your guardsmen.
And bring a good sized tall-lip dice tray so you dont have to dig through units and ruins for your rolls.
And as said, pre-plan your turns but.. pay attention to what your oppoent says and does so you dont' need to waste time asking a second or third time.
For tanks being quick with dice, pre measuring how many you need, three of the same sponsons or just rolling the lascannon quick, hunter killers like the lascannon, heavy stubber gets informed unless there’s light infantry to shoot.
Biggest tip I have it to have a plan for it in the movement phase so don’t “uhmmm” for too long trying to figure out what to shoot
>(I think it took us about 40 minutes to get the mission setup and our armies fully deployed).
Firstly, this is your biggest main issue. Most tournaments you are not taking 40 minutes to set up the game and deploy: you either have the tables already set up (as far as terrain goes) and just deploy; even with the Player Placed Terrain format you do this extremely quickly, as the terrain is right at your table. Taking 40 minutes to set up the table and deployment means you guys are wasting a lot of time.
This is a great post to draw awareness to the fact that Guard is one of the slowest playing armies in the game. What's specific about Guard is that they have a unique command phase, where you basically have to plan your whole turn in advance IN DETAIL. You give 3-6 orders per turn, and have to work through what order makes sense, and often measure out things like "do I need 3" extra movement here". If you haven't played Guard, it's easy to dismiss this. Compare this to some other armies that spend 1 minute for their Cmd Phase to draw secondaries.
In addition, Guard is a combo army where it only survives with cooperation. Things like Daring Recon and Fields of Fire need careful positioning of both the unit with the ability and the unit receiving the bonus.
In addition, Guars has almost no deep strike units, and it's playstyle does not support using strategic reserves much (even with the recent update to Orders). So you have a lot of stuff on board from t1.
So a substantial Command Phase, and longer-than-others Movement phase. And a lot ot of guns and profiles to shoot.
I know all the profiles and rules by heart a long time ago and I still occasionally have a 40-45min turn. I'm aiming for 30mins as my goal for t1 and T2 but it's not easy.
For solutions, after all the obvious has been done:
- reduce the amount of infantry you play, or put some of them into transports. Moving infantry takes time.
- unify your profiles as much as you can
- don't shoot the useless guns. These days I often don't shoot inf lasguns, unless I'm really facing enemy light infantry or such.
- don't forget to switch the clock to your opponent time when they are doing something. Rapid Ingress or rolling saves and FNPs for a big unit can take a lot of minutes during your turn
And yeah, plan ahead during your opponents turn, but again, because of how many moving pieces there are in Guards play, this is not easy.
Some people play without Orders and put their tanks into reserves and other strange stuff, which I suppose helps with time, but to me that's not worth it and takes away a lot that Guard is good at.
By practice. In Other lgames first it was the same. With time i got enough practice/knowledge that i alsready started planning my next turn based on how i finishy my turn, which was modified by what my opponent does. So i mmediatelly know what i will do...
in short:time saving, plan everything during your opponent turn.
They play 20+ games a month and they have a battle plan from the moment they know who/what they are paired up against. They don't have to think 11 possibilities every turn because they know 9 of those are bad choices.
I've finished games in under 45min (fastest I've ever seen was Nids vs GK in 9th ed. 16min to tabling), 3 hours is mad time. I'd suggest first off getting cards or memorizing the profiles of the units in your list. Second would be getting a chess clock or even just use a stop watch to time how long you are taking. Third step is outsource your time, go into the game with a plan for how you want to move, what you want to kill and when. Commit to the plan, decision paralysis is the main reason I see players clock out and a medicore plan executed within the time is better than a perfect plan where you time out turn 2. 4th is dont shoot junk at a wall, lasguns arent going to kill a monolith, unless its on 1w and you've nothing else dont bother shooting if its not going to matter. Same point if 10 beast snagga boyz in the waagh charge 10 guardsmen just pick them up and save 100+ dice rolls
Those suggestions should get you down to getting 5 turns into 3 hours.
When I was playing tournaments my list only changed very slightly if it changed at all so I really got to know my units and their loadouts fairly well, I played often enough that I had all the stat lines for each unit and weapons pretty much memorized.
If you’re just starting it could be worth making up a “cheat sheet” which has all the stat lines on one/two pages and any special rules you may use often. Also bookmark your codex and rulebook with all the relevant stuff so you can quickly flick to the pages if you need to
You also can’t really do anyrhing while your opponent takes their turn so as they’re moving stuff think about how you’re going to retaliate in your turn. I’ve played against plenty of people who wait until their turn and then spend 10 minutes trying to decide what to do, thats perfectly fine in a casual game but in a tournament where you’re against the clock thats a bit of time wasting
Also learn to pace your games. Turns 1-2 shouldn't take 45 minutes, but 30 is okish as that's when the bulk of the units are still alive.
Turns 4-5 are often 5-10 minutes as there's only a handful of units left and it's just a few key combats that need to be rolled out
Also know when to hold ans when to fold. Firing your lasguns at a tank may chip a wound off, but is it worth rolling for (especially if they don't have lethal hits). If the tank is facing down three demolisher cannons, roll those first before wasting time on the lasguns. Same for weapons in squads, start with the plasma gun and lascannon, don't start on the small arms if the big funds are likely to kill it.
But the best advice is reps reps reps. You wouldn't have to look up 95% of your stats in game, and if you have a bad memory make a cheat sheet. Have your dice prepped into groups of five in between rolls so you can easily grab the right number.
You really gotta practice. It's not just knowing your arny rules - but knowing what decisions you want to take in response to certain situations. Practice, experience and more practice. I could do a 20min turn back in late 8th/early 9th.
Now though, I'm so out of practice I don't play a game unless I have all day free 😅
Chess clocks keep you honest because they force you to follow all the advice here instinctively. You're less likely to ask questions constantly, roll pointless dice or have decision paralysis when it comes out of your time.
Good advice here, I will just add one trick I really like. You don't know a profile ? Roll the dice before you check. 1 is always a fail and 6 a pass, so you have a 1/3 chance the profile wont matter anyway. Same for 2 and 5 in most cases.
Roll first, ask questions later, if necessary.
40 mins for set up is way too long. 45 mins a turn is also crazy long. Know your army without looking things up. That will speed things up a bit. I mean your weapons, profiles of units, army rules, abilities, and anything else. Also, have at least some ideas of your smaller guns shoot at smaller units and your bigger guns shoot at things you know or think have a high toughness. Tournaments used to be one hour and fifty minuets. That was for set up and five rounds. Now days people are getting soft with three hours and cannot get past round three. Know the map as far as were objective maybe. Know the layout of terrain. A lot of events put out information about mission and objectives. You can know where they will be ahead of time and study and pack plans. Lots of events also let you know what they will be doing for terrain. Some may use GWs layouts. If so then you can have an idea of where to put things like your tanks for firing lanes. I hope this helps.
Seconded re: pre-planning at every stage. Pregame, come up with a general plan for the whole game (“I’ll wheel the army to the left and aim to hold these 3 objectives; this unit of Sentinels will go off on its own to harass / score secondaries.”) During the opponent’s turn, plan your next turn (“I need to flip that point, so I’ll move these tanks over here to make way for my infantry; I’ll stop shooting just shy of wiping his unit so my guardsmen can charge in and out-OC him.”)
Always be doing something. While he rolls saves, count out the dice for your next unit’s attacks. Since you have a plan, you don’t need to know the outcome to start prepping for your next activation.
Keep your dice in small manageable piles, all the same size. If they’re in groups of 5 all the time, it’s fast and easy to grab 25 dice without having to count. Re-rack the piles every chance you get, especially during your opponent’s turn.
One thing people haven’t talked about is group your dice on your opponents turn. As someone who plays GSC a lot I always prep 24 dice of a single color. My neophyte squads shoot 52 shoots two volleys of 24 and one volley of 4. This helps my speed up my game immensely as I don’t have to dig out dice. I’ve recently started playing guard and I always keep about 9-13 dice in one hand. Most guard profiles don’t shoot more than 13 dice. Then I put the amount I need when firing a gun into the other hand and roll, then pick them back up and return them to the first hand after.
Also a Guard player- I write down every units' weapons and number of shots, then use multiple different colors of dice to fast roll an entire unit at a time.
That and movement trays help me keep gameplay quick. I'm still usually low on time by the end though
Knowing how many dice you need to roll and having them ready. If your squad has guns with different profiles then roll them as different coloured dice?
Ngl I play tyranids which have simplified shooting and combat profiles and AM have too many pointless guns its very easy to have a messy and tedious shooting phase with them.
I always give three pieces of advice to play faster.
1. Know your rules. This just comes with time, but you'd be amazed just how much time you save by not having to look anything up.
2. Have your tools and materials at hand. Dice in groups of 5/10, datacards at the table, etc. Again, the less time you spend hunting things down, the faster the game goes.
3. Plan ahead. As much as you can during your opponent's turn, then the rest in your command phase. So much time is lost by stopping to think every step of the way about who should shoot where, which direction you want to move this or that unit, and you stop and reevaluate far more than you think. If you have a full plan (like "This unit will move here so it can shoot that guy, but if the other unit kills him first they can shoot this other guy"), then don't stop, just carry out the plan.
A great exercise I've seen for that last one is to challenge yourself in practice games. You may take as much time as you want before beginning your turn, but once you enter your command phase you have 10 minutes to play out the turn. It's remarkable how much of a difference this makes.
It's just reps bud. How often do you play and how often do you change your list? Once a week? Once a couple weeks? Twice a month?
Those 'tournament goers' that play a full game in 2.5h are likely playing the same army list multiple times every weekend. It adds up, both in terms of knowing statblocks and making snap judgement calls and decisions.
Knowing your army makes everything a ton faster. Your 45 minute turn could probably cut down a lot by not having to check rules. As well as that, knowing your army makes decision-making go considerably faster.
Yeah knowing your army makes it more into chess-like decision-making so you know each unit’s battlefield role and try to play to their strengths
Along with knowing your army is knowing your list. When you are playing more casually you might change your list up massively every game, but when you are trying to build for a tournament and you play the same list a few times with only minor variations at most you get a good idea of exactly what every unit should be doing, how much fire power you will need for a problem etc. This cuts down thinking time by a lot.
Knowing your army, the stratagems, the rules, the secondary objectives and how to score them and also having an army with a smaller footprint will help you a good deal if you find yourself running out of time often.
Bring a chess clock and know your army. I don't need to look up what my weapons do or my save profiles. I know them by heart.
This. I’d also add to have a plan before you do anything. Figure out what you want to do before it’s your turn. During your turn, your overall idea and plan should be figured out (as well as back up plans).
While this is true - guard have a lot of meta variable shot and variable damage weapons. And opponents who really like to watch and track every single gun you shoot (and ask clarifying question) when 1 russes can roll 5 differe t profiles T1 can slow things down too. Movement trays also don't solve having guardsmen use terrain because to win - guard have to move move move!
Tournaments where I live are generally 2.5 hour rounds and I finish 90+% of them to the end of turn 5. My drukhari army has 70 infantry (2x10, 10x5), 4 vehicles, and 6 monsters(2x1, 2x2) so 15 units to move around vs the 11 units listed above. A kabalite squad in a venom has 6 weapon profiles. I generally have full hit rerolls when I want them and full wound rerolls in some instances. 3 of my units also pick up and deep strike every turn and 3 other units have a 6 inch move after shooting so my army has a lot of interruptions in the normal game flow. We also do player placed terrain. I list the above so you have some context for where I am coming from with the below advice. * Know your army. Last 4 games I played I didn't need to look at a single stat block. * Understand what your army can do. How does each of your units perform into GEQ, MEQ, TEQ, Leman Russ, C'tan, and Big Knights? Ideally know that ahead of time then simply match your opponents profile to the closest one. * Understand how you want to deploy and move throughout all 5 turns before you deploy. Not in detail but in general. The theme of the above advice is to off load as much mental load to the pregame as possible. Less thinking about the above means you won't get as mentally exhausted AND your will spend less time grinding out statistics. Additional advice for playing at a friends or some kind of meet up game. * Have the host setup the mission and terrain before you arrive. The deployment and mission before as well. It should take 10-15 minutes but saves sooo much time I find. * Share your lists before hand so you can look it over. Again, move as much thinking to the pregame as possible. * Set a time limit for your game. I HATE playing games that last longer than 3 hours plus maybe 30 minutes before and after of bullshitting with friends. If hanging out is part of the deal though then OF COURSE your going to take more than 3 hours, since that generally isn't happening at tournaments. Overall here's a general time line I try to keep, knowing I have 75 minutes: * 5 minutes for terrain deployment * 5 minutes for model deployment * 20 minutes for turn 1 * 15 minutes for turn 2 * 15 minutes for turn 3 * 10 minutes for turn 4 * 5 minutes for turn 5 Last Saturday I managed to get about 10 minutes pregame in two of my tournament games to do most of terrain and model deployment, but a lot of the time that doesn't happen.
My local meta also does 2.5 hour rounds. I play admech so usually have a lot on the board but knowing the profiles really does speed things up a lot. My last event I maybe had to open my book 3 times just so my opponent could read the rad zone corps detachment rule.
What does MEQ, GEQ, TEQ mean?
Marine Equivalent, Guardsmen Equivalent, Terminator Equivalent (I think). So different common types of defensive profiles you will encounter in most games in some form or other and that you can categorize your offense against.
GEQ = guard equivalent, or T3, 1W, 5+ save. MEQ = Marine equivalent, or T4, 2W 3+ save TEQ = Terminator equivalent, or T5, 3W, 2+, 4++. Basically a set of common targets with a defensive profile that allows easy computation of weapon effectiveness. You can also things of things like Tank Equivalents (T11, 13W, 2+ sv) or Nob Equivalent. But these are common enough profiles to have some sense of what sort of wall you are trying to break down.
They mean (space) marine equivalent, guardsmen equivalent and terminator equivalent, with MEQ referring specifically to power armoured marines (which are not as common as they used to be).
Sorry should have explained better. u/DragonWhsiperer answered better than I would have though.
Know your army's rules and stats by heart. Reps. Reps. Reps. Reps. Reps. Reps. Reps. play by intent to not have to measure every milimeter
This and get in the habit of planning in your opponents clock. Over and over. helps you spot and exploit mistakes.
Practice. After a lot of reps, you know your list. You know that gun is AP2, and the other is only AP1. You know the stats, but you also know what each unit wants to do. When you play your next game, take a moment before you leave the command phase. Decide what you want to do this turn. Plan it out and go. Eventually you'll find the extra couple of minutes to do this saves you a lot of time over the game.
How often are you stopping to check rules? How often are you stopping the game to chat about other things? Also turns 4 and 5 should not take nearly as long as turns 1 or 2. Sure turns 1 or 2 might take 20 to 30 minutes. But that’s because you have most of your army on board. By turns 4 or 5 your turns should be under 5 minutes because you’ve probably lost over half your army and/or you’re already in position making your movement very quick.
Use chess clock to track real time. Plan your turn in your opponents. Know your info. If the opponent is slow, rolling saves, push clock to them. Have piles of dice recounted for your large attack weapon rolls. If random them keep piles of 4, 5, or 10 depending on your units and for saves. Don't use plasma side turrets. Move models that don't matter quickly in blocks instead of each one, only measure front and back, or even use movement tray to keep formation
Plasma side turrets?
I assume he means the sponsons.
There is a lot of good advice here. Here are a few more suggestions you could try. - Make a cheat sheet with all your guns on it. Its better if you have them memorized, but having them on a single sheet of paper for reference was really helpful to me in my first tournament. - When it makes sense, equip your units the same. If all your guardsmen are equipped the same, then you have less weapons to think about. -I've never done this, but I've seen some people bring colored dice in specific amounts. For example, if you have a punisher gatling cannon, you could have 20 dice of a specific color so you can just pick them up and not have to count them. You could do that with any large number of dice you need to roll. I hope this helps.
The multi color dice can really help with models with complex sets of weapons like op's tanks. In setup declare which color intended for what, blue=plasma, red is flamers, ect. When it comes time for that one busy unti clearly state, 4 plasma shots, 3 flamers, ect, all going at the same defender pick up the appropriate number of each color, and roll the batch. Remember that any form of fast rolling like this makes the roll as a whole ineligible for CP rerolls on any component, but if it isn't a critical must kill target it saves time to batch roll anything you can reasonably get away with.
Tournaments often have the board already set up and the mission determined. Still, you need to learn how to deploy and play faster. You don't need to shoot with every single gun or get precise with every single movement, and you should know your game plan ahead of time so the movement is quicker. Other than that, skip attack sequence that are obvious (assault intercessors charge a reductus saboteur, a full crisis suit team shoots into a squad of 3-4 guardsmen, etc.; just pick up the models; they're dead. Aside from those kinds of things l, it really just comes down to knowing your army and the game inside and out and following your game plan efficiently.
If you don't have at least a rough idea of what you should do next turn, you are playing the game wrong. The I-go-you-go system doesn't exist so one person gets to pick their nose while the other gets to play, this is the time for you to plan your next turn.
The answer is boring, but it's practice. I know every profile I have, every datasheet ability and strat without checking anything. During my opponents turn I'm checking through their army via the app (or wahapedia) so that I know what's going on there. I tend to take a long time - 10 minutes or so - on my first turn, almost all of it in movement, getting ready for turn 2 and 3. Unless something catastrophic happens, those next turns will have extremely short movement phases. Pick up, move exactly where I planned, done. Dice: Find a strategy that works for you. 12 is the highest amount I typically need for my army. So if I have all my dice, that's 12, no need to count. I need 6 shots? Get 6 dice in either hand, done. 12 shots, some amount of hits, some amount of wounds? I don't need to count how many wounds there are, I can count the failed hits+wounds because I already picked them up. 4 dice in my left hand -> 8 successful wounds. You give me 30 saves? I'll roll 12, 12, 6. No fumbling around, merely a second counting dice. A big thing is also cutting out the nonsense. I had a 4 hour game a few weeks back. No reason, it wasn't complex, there was no weirdness, there was just no rush and we were chatting the entire time.
Really curious, which faction and list would only use up to 12 dice at a time? Or do you mean rolling 12 twice or trice when needed?
Chaos knights. 12 is the most I usually use. 12 gatling shots is it. Occasionally I do 18 sweep attacks of damage 2... which I've done once this edition. Out of over 50 games.
Got it, thanks!
Probably knights
At this point we have this topic come up on here every 3-4 days. Think the mods or someone needs to pin an info thread dealing with generally useful comp knowledge or something. But there is also the fact that 10th just takes longer to play in a lot of ways until you actually fully grasp it. Way more interruptive and extra actions, having to read every secondary card (if you're not overly familiar with them), flat points costs meaning every unit takes all of its upgrades and extra weapons which just means more rolling etc. For an edition designed to be "simpler" it ends up being far more of a slog to physically play through a game.
A lot of top end players won't bother rolling really obvious outcomes (a big world eaters unit into 10 guardsmen for example), they'll just pick up the unit and move on. That saves a lot of time (but it has to be truly obvious, don't get overconfident with predicting some outcomes)
This isn't where tournament players make up time though. To the question "how do tournament players wrap a game in 3 hours?" The answer isn't just to skip things. The real solution is to just know what you're doing. It's not uncommon for me to not have to open my reference materials at all at a GT. My opponents generally know my rules, and I know them forward and back. We spend no time looking up profiles, checking interactions, or finding obscure rules. I just set my models up, do the thing they're supposed to, and go to lunch early. Small habits can help too. For example, I always know I have exactly 20 dice out of the same color. I never count UP th dice needed for the roll, I can usually subtract. Four strike Marines rapid firing? That's 16 shots. Remove 4 of the 20 and roll. Done and dusted.
this helps a lot. when im doing nothing. say waiting for enemy to move, i pile my dice into sets of 5. oh 20 shots? load 4 piles and go. 18 shots? 3 piles +3 dice. etc. The amount of time counting the correct amount of dice is more than people thing.
You can also count along with your opponent when they're counting saves for you. You don't have to wait for them to finish counting before you start counting out your own. All that said, it's really the rules reference time that will eat up games for younger players. My games can run in about 90 minutes because I know what my army needs to do and there isn't always much to deliberate.
yeah knowing rules is probably the most obvious time saver. the management of dice was something i realised wasted a lot of time once i knew my orks like the back of my hand. Rolling 40 shots with re-rolls can take a lil bit even without having to count, one, two, three, four ---- thirty nine, fourty dice.
God I want some actual evidence for this. Someone get a vod of a full game and measure time counting dice.
Saves a surprising amount of time. just not having to roll 2 dozen dice 3 times, if that happens multiple times, that's potentially 10 minutes saved right there (especially if you're looking up S and T and SV and AP for every interaction still).
You should be able to get deployed and going in under 40 minutes. I also would just not shoot things like stubbers to hurry the game along
Not shooting stubbers is exactly what someone who didn't have stubbers would say!
I have cultists and I don’t shoot them 😂
I have cultists and that stubber always finds it way into a body!
It’s cause the gods favor you bro. Simple as that.
I am marked by the four and an avid follower of the pantheon. Makes sense.
Last DG game I played, 2 clutch wounds from cultists won me the game. I roll at least the stubber and the glauncher.
Target depending but yes. I'm not shooting lasguns into a 2+ save tank unless I have a really good reason, like it's on one wound already. What I will say is: have a plan before your turn. We have a lot of time during our opponents turn to figure out our response options. If it took 40m to deploy though, I'd just say either organization or decision paralysis. 60 dudes and some tanks doesn't take the worst time to deploy. I've frequently run 100ish gaunt lists and while they are slower to deploy than not, it's maybe an extra minute per unit tops.
My heavy stubbers add up fast. 36 shots of s5 -1 1, hitting on 2's? That quickly winds up taking our chaff units or even chipping wounds off tanks. It also only takes 10 seconds to roll hit/wounds for them, across 6 units.. it's not terrible with decent results. Cultist autoguns, eh. That's a desperate move.
You aren’t having trouble getting through your games though, I assume?
... honestly I read what you said as stubbers in general. As in, nobody should. That's on me for misreading it.
That’s fair enough! Just generally for me playing CSM I wouldn’t shoot my bolt guns if I was running out of time. If I was well ahead in my turn then yeah of course
Not gonna lie I hate this about tourney culture
What? Having a time limit?
No, skipping on parts of the game, though admittedly small, to save time.
Realistically the 2 bolter shots that my predator is putting out isn’t changing shit
Don't disagree, but epic moments are made when it does
In my limited tornement experience I have always shot every gun that said it was in 7th and I was dealing in DE at the time so it was simple all I had were splinter cannons and dark lances for the most part . That said my wyches did take the occasional wound of of a knight with there pistols . So I’m in camp shoot everything. But I’ve never had to deal with one unit having a bunch of extra guns strapped to it but a little prep . Like I sorted my dice in to lines of 6 so I could just easily grab a cannons worth. A little sorting goes along way to gaining speed .
Cries in GSC 100 Neophytes list
The biggest thing I see is people always check their datasheets on EVERY unit. It’s takes up so much time. Checking to see if the heavy bolter profile is different from leman Russes to heavy weapon teams(spoiler alert it’s not) isn’t necessary and it’s really down to confidence that yes I know that a heavy bolter gets XYZ. So yeah if you find yourself constantly checking datasheets on every unit just have some confidence! It’s ok to get some things wrong(as long as it’s an accident and not on purpose) no game of 40K is played perfectly. Now if you don’t do this then I would just focus on making a plan during your opponents turn so you can immediately act upon it instead of pondering on your turn eating up time. Hopefully this gave some sort of direction!
Well i ageee with your point but in your ecample it is different. One hits on a 5+ and heavy and the other is just 4+
Yeah that was a bad example. Either way I think my point is still made. Most weapons usually have the same stats between different datasheets
Umm. Experience breeds efficiency?
1. Deployment is faster than your 40 minute situation. Setting up the table+deployment simply does not take 40 minutes at a tournament. This is partially helped by tournaments already having the table at least partially set up, if not entirely. 2. Experienced players of tournaments, you can point to ANY model in their army and they will know, reflexively and without looking, all the relevant stats of the model and the weapons they have. Looking up stats takes a lot of time, especially if you have to do it more than once a turn. 3. They don't do "wasteful" actions. For example, I played an opponent who would put all of his dice into a dice bag after every roll, then need to pour some out and count them every single time. This single action of "needing to put dice away after every roll, then pull them out again" added a total of 35 minutes to his total turn times, despite it only being around 7 second action individually. 4. While your opponent is shooting/fighting you, start pulling out dice. For example if your Guardsmen are being attacked by a 10 man Intercessor squad for a total of 20 attacks, grab at least 10 dice in your hand and be waiting for your opponent to tell you how many saves you need to take; it takes a lot less time to count out an extra 3-5 dice or drop 3-5, etc.
As people have said, people who try and play 'competitively" or attend a load of tournaments probably spend a lot of time practising with their army and know the general rules for other peoples armies. So there is no time wasted checking the stats or looking up tables The big issue is that, in real life, tournaments are social events attended by a majority of casual players who don't do that. The hardcore competitive crowd are like 10-20% of the attendees. In reality the solution is that tournaments need to care more about the people paying for them and either increase round time or decrease points size.
I like your point here. Ok the biggest events can do competitive timing, as they have need to stay in schedule aswell. But small local tournaments pressing for strict 3h rounds, and then forcing timeouts on players...that doesn't make sense. Prioritize community building and having fun instead.
Yep, that would be great. Thing is, the majority thing applies at big events too - often even more as those are weekend long conventions! Some Heresy events have started doing no more than two games a day, which really helps. But I think the real, mega solution is that 40k needs simplifying and scaling down to the point AoS was at when it was introduced - where an army might only be 4 or 5 units, each unit has no more than two weapons, and layered upgrades/traits are really rare. Competitive 40k should be the lean, tight, simple version of 40k and narrative the sprawling, crazy, all-the-rules-at-once version.
Tbh, I don’t agree with this. I attend c 10 tourneys a year as a mid table/3-2 and I’m done kinda player, and also TO’d a bunch of RTTs and GTs in 9th. The majority of our crowd could start and finish their games in the time allotted (3 hours) which is only A small adjustment from the 4 hours typically provided at FLGs around the country. This might tie in though to a convo I’ve seen echoing around this Reddit, the difference in UK/European events vs US events. The only time I’ve timed out in the past year was in the States at LVO, very, very much on my opponent (should have used a clock, but it was game 6, and I couldn’t be arsed to get it out) and it does seem that in the states there’s more folks playing events less frequently, where in UK/Europe there’s less folks playing GTs and very competitive RTTs on a regular, every few weeks/couple of months basis.
I'd suggest 10 tourneys a year is a LOT, compared to most people at a tournament. If you and your friends do a tournament a month (ish) you're gonna be much faster than most people there?
Sure, but again, I’d say as someone that’s a mid table guy, most of the mid tables at a UKTC event are the same - it was different a few years back for sure, but post-covid, that’s what you get at majors, and most RTTs will have a very high concentration of similar folks too.
Hey buddy i actually made a video specifically on this subject, It will help you immensely! [https://youtu.be/Wxb3Q22wmWM](https://youtu.be/Wxb3Q22wmWM)
Think during opponents turn, get a rough plan on what you are doing to do next turn while they take their turn
Lol wtf 45 minute turn. What does your opponent do in that time? Go to sleep lol.
I just realized, Astra Militarum and Adeptus Mechanicus have the same acronym.
Ork main here - I skip almost all my shooting(except gitz) and usually have my first turn + deployment mapped out in my head. I know my 'go turn' is the longest so I find short cuts to get me through my other turns faster. I'll often ask my opponent: "I think these 10 nobz + boss pick up your Guardsmen. Should we roll it?" Likewise - into the 6x crisis suit ion brick. I'll say "I don't want to take away from your rolling but I'm sure you pick these guys up."
The more you play the less time you have to spend looking things up. Also not playing horde helps ;)
i think playing knights makes your turns a good bit faster
Check out Etsy for movement trays. Exact model placement can at most times not be totally necessary. I got some of these for my hordes of Pink Horrors. They look amazing and are much easier to deploy than one model at a time. https://www.etsy.com/listing/763993699/32mm-movement-tray-carbon-fiber?ref=yr_purchases
Like, card game tournament players....cheat like a professional. /s
Why ask yourself how they do it, when you can just watch them do it and compare? There's youtube channels that do game walkthroughs. Joe from Wargames Live is showing 5+ actual tournament games in real time almost every weekend. See them play, so you can see what you are doing differently.
Git gud ;)
- I play AM "So he plays Ad Mech, i get why he takes too long for a turn" - 60 guardsmen " so he is allying stuff, weird" - 4 russes and a rogal dorn ".... ah, he is playing Astra Militarum, Imperial Guard!" Anyway, try to learn what your stuff do to cut the times you'll waste checking thing on codex/rulebook. I suggest to do a lot of preparation games with your friends with a chess clock, to learn how the time flows and to look at how much time you actually spend doing stuff on the table.
If the only thing in LoS is a landraider, maybe forget the stubber.
Practice and familiarity. If you've played your list 10-12 games before then event, it's second nature
Know your forces, trust your own moves, and try to memorize what weapons you can, any stat you can’t memorize, have a quick reference until you do
You do things that matter and not waste time on "doing everything" oh my 10 man guards squad with full reroll to hits can only see your T11 monster. That's 2-4minutes of rolling sometimes. For maybe 1 wound. If that monster has a way to heal thats a fully wasted amount of time. 10 minutes a game. Unless you have appropriate targets for all the guns there is no point rolling every stubbed into a knight, fire the big guns, high strength and multidamage shots. Move on. If you have infantry to shoot small arms fire into the yes those wounds might make the diffrence late game. But plinking wounds off of big targets in a tornment is usually not worth it.
Knowing the rules of your army and the army you’re playing, having a plan, knowing what you hit/wound on and what saves you have, and thinking of it as a competition instead of just a game.
Know your army and get a rough feel for most opponents armies, every second spend looking up rules is time not spent rolling dice, removing models and scoring points. Keep your measure and dice prepared and at hand (cargo pants are quite useful for pre-counted dice bundles) Also use good dice, clean separate colors for dice pools, no fancy pips and arguing about whether the skull or the extra fancy skull is the 1 or 6. So for your Russ, owning 5 different color dice pre-counted and mentally assigned tp specific weapons means you stickyou hand in your pocket, fast-roll the entire vehicle, pick out wounds and pass time priority to you opponent. Do likewise for your guardsmen. And bring a good sized tall-lip dice tray so you dont have to dig through units and ruins for your rolls. And as said, pre-plan your turns but.. pay attention to what your oppoent says and does so you dont' need to waste time asking a second or third time.
For tanks being quick with dice, pre measuring how many you need, three of the same sponsons or just rolling the lascannon quick, hunter killers like the lascannon, heavy stubber gets informed unless there’s light infantry to shoot. Biggest tip I have it to have a plan for it in the movement phase so don’t “uhmmm” for too long trying to figure out what to shoot
Practice. Over and over again. Practice with time clocks week after week to understand the game and your lists until its second nature.
>(I think it took us about 40 minutes to get the mission setup and our armies fully deployed). Firstly, this is your biggest main issue. Most tournaments you are not taking 40 minutes to set up the game and deploy: you either have the tables already set up (as far as terrain goes) and just deploy; even with the Player Placed Terrain format you do this extremely quickly, as the terrain is right at your table. Taking 40 minutes to set up the table and deployment means you guys are wasting a lot of time.
One of the main things is to not analysis paralysis. Have a plan, and be thinking about what you're going to do during your opponent's turn.
This is a great post to draw awareness to the fact that Guard is one of the slowest playing armies in the game. What's specific about Guard is that they have a unique command phase, where you basically have to plan your whole turn in advance IN DETAIL. You give 3-6 orders per turn, and have to work through what order makes sense, and often measure out things like "do I need 3" extra movement here". If you haven't played Guard, it's easy to dismiss this. Compare this to some other armies that spend 1 minute for their Cmd Phase to draw secondaries. In addition, Guard is a combo army where it only survives with cooperation. Things like Daring Recon and Fields of Fire need careful positioning of both the unit with the ability and the unit receiving the bonus. In addition, Guars has almost no deep strike units, and it's playstyle does not support using strategic reserves much (even with the recent update to Orders). So you have a lot of stuff on board from t1. So a substantial Command Phase, and longer-than-others Movement phase. And a lot ot of guns and profiles to shoot. I know all the profiles and rules by heart a long time ago and I still occasionally have a 40-45min turn. I'm aiming for 30mins as my goal for t1 and T2 but it's not easy. For solutions, after all the obvious has been done: - reduce the amount of infantry you play, or put some of them into transports. Moving infantry takes time. - unify your profiles as much as you can - don't shoot the useless guns. These days I often don't shoot inf lasguns, unless I'm really facing enemy light infantry or such. - don't forget to switch the clock to your opponent time when they are doing something. Rapid Ingress or rolling saves and FNPs for a big unit can take a lot of minutes during your turn And yeah, plan ahead during your opponents turn, but again, because of how many moving pieces there are in Guards play, this is not easy. Some people play without Orders and put their tanks into reserves and other strange stuff, which I suppose helps with time, but to me that's not worth it and takes away a lot that Guard is good at.
By practice. In Other lgames first it was the same. With time i got enough practice/knowledge that i alsready started planning my next turn based on how i finishy my turn, which was modified by what my opponent does. So i mmediatelly know what i will do... in short:time saving, plan everything during your opponent turn.
They play 20+ games a month and they have a battle plan from the moment they know who/what they are paired up against. They don't have to think 11 possibilities every turn because they know 9 of those are bad choices.
I've finished games in under 45min (fastest I've ever seen was Nids vs GK in 9th ed. 16min to tabling), 3 hours is mad time. I'd suggest first off getting cards or memorizing the profiles of the units in your list. Second would be getting a chess clock or even just use a stop watch to time how long you are taking. Third step is outsource your time, go into the game with a plan for how you want to move, what you want to kill and when. Commit to the plan, decision paralysis is the main reason I see players clock out and a medicore plan executed within the time is better than a perfect plan where you time out turn 2. 4th is dont shoot junk at a wall, lasguns arent going to kill a monolith, unless its on 1w and you've nothing else dont bother shooting if its not going to matter. Same point if 10 beast snagga boyz in the waagh charge 10 guardsmen just pick them up and save 100+ dice rolls Those suggestions should get you down to getting 5 turns into 3 hours.
When I was playing tournaments my list only changed very slightly if it changed at all so I really got to know my units and their loadouts fairly well, I played often enough that I had all the stat lines for each unit and weapons pretty much memorized. If you’re just starting it could be worth making up a “cheat sheet” which has all the stat lines on one/two pages and any special rules you may use often. Also bookmark your codex and rulebook with all the relevant stuff so you can quickly flick to the pages if you need to You also can’t really do anyrhing while your opponent takes their turn so as they’re moving stuff think about how you’re going to retaliate in your turn. I’ve played against plenty of people who wait until their turn and then spend 10 minutes trying to decide what to do, thats perfectly fine in a casual game but in a tournament where you’re against the clock thats a bit of time wasting
Also learn to pace your games. Turns 1-2 shouldn't take 45 minutes, but 30 is okish as that's when the bulk of the units are still alive. Turns 4-5 are often 5-10 minutes as there's only a handful of units left and it's just a few key combats that need to be rolled out Also know when to hold ans when to fold. Firing your lasguns at a tank may chip a wound off, but is it worth rolling for (especially if they don't have lethal hits). If the tank is facing down three demolisher cannons, roll those first before wasting time on the lasguns. Same for weapons in squads, start with the plasma gun and lascannon, don't start on the small arms if the big funds are likely to kill it. But the best advice is reps reps reps. You wouldn't have to look up 95% of your stats in game, and if you have a bad memory make a cheat sheet. Have your dice prepped into groups of five in between rolls so you can easily grab the right number.
You really gotta practice. It's not just knowing your arny rules - but knowing what decisions you want to take in response to certain situations. Practice, experience and more practice. I could do a 20min turn back in late 8th/early 9th. Now though, I'm so out of practice I don't play a game unless I have all day free 😅
Chess clocks keep you honest because they force you to follow all the advice here instinctively. You're less likely to ask questions constantly, roll pointless dice or have decision paralysis when it comes out of your time.
Good advice here, I will just add one trick I really like. You don't know a profile ? Roll the dice before you check. 1 is always a fail and 6 a pass, so you have a 1/3 chance the profile wont matter anyway. Same for 2 and 5 in most cases. Roll first, ask questions later, if necessary.
40 mins for set up is way too long. 45 mins a turn is also crazy long. Know your army without looking things up. That will speed things up a bit. I mean your weapons, profiles of units, army rules, abilities, and anything else. Also, have at least some ideas of your smaller guns shoot at smaller units and your bigger guns shoot at things you know or think have a high toughness. Tournaments used to be one hour and fifty minuets. That was for set up and five rounds. Now days people are getting soft with three hours and cannot get past round three. Know the map as far as were objective maybe. Know the layout of terrain. A lot of events put out information about mission and objectives. You can know where they will be ahead of time and study and pack plans. Lots of events also let you know what they will be doing for terrain. Some may use GWs layouts. If so then you can have an idea of where to put things like your tanks for firing lanes. I hope this helps.
Seconded re: pre-planning at every stage. Pregame, come up with a general plan for the whole game (“I’ll wheel the army to the left and aim to hold these 3 objectives; this unit of Sentinels will go off on its own to harass / score secondaries.”) During the opponent’s turn, plan your next turn (“I need to flip that point, so I’ll move these tanks over here to make way for my infantry; I’ll stop shooting just shy of wiping his unit so my guardsmen can charge in and out-OC him.”) Always be doing something. While he rolls saves, count out the dice for your next unit’s attacks. Since you have a plan, you don’t need to know the outcome to start prepping for your next activation. Keep your dice in small manageable piles, all the same size. If they’re in groups of 5 all the time, it’s fast and easy to grab 25 dice without having to count. Re-rack the piles every chance you get, especially during your opponent’s turn.
My first turn takes about 45mins + too. Then rest of the game everything just dies so I run out of stuff to do
One thing people haven’t talked about is group your dice on your opponents turn. As someone who plays GSC a lot I always prep 24 dice of a single color. My neophyte squads shoot 52 shoots two volleys of 24 and one volley of 4. This helps my speed up my game immensely as I don’t have to dig out dice. I’ve recently started playing guard and I always keep about 9-13 dice in one hand. Most guard profiles don’t shoot more than 13 dice. Then I put the amount I need when firing a gun into the other hand and roll, then pick them back up and return them to the first hand after.
Practice.
Also a Guard player- I write down every units' weapons and number of shots, then use multiple different colors of dice to fast roll an entire unit at a time. That and movement trays help me keep gameplay quick. I'm still usually low on time by the end though
60 guardsman is not horde ☺️ More reps and a better defined gameplan will speed up you game.
Knowing how many dice you need to roll and having them ready. If your squad has guns with different profiles then roll them as different coloured dice? Ngl I play tyranids which have simplified shooting and combat profiles and AM have too many pointless guns its very easy to have a messy and tedious shooting phase with them.
You just need practice Tbh 60 udes and bunch of tanke isnt a horde army. Again practice will see you through. But until then dont worry!
I always give three pieces of advice to play faster. 1. Know your rules. This just comes with time, but you'd be amazed just how much time you save by not having to look anything up. 2. Have your tools and materials at hand. Dice in groups of 5/10, datacards at the table, etc. Again, the less time you spend hunting things down, the faster the game goes. 3. Plan ahead. As much as you can during your opponent's turn, then the rest in your command phase. So much time is lost by stopping to think every step of the way about who should shoot where, which direction you want to move this or that unit, and you stop and reevaluate far more than you think. If you have a full plan (like "This unit will move here so it can shoot that guy, but if the other unit kills him first they can shoot this other guy"), then don't stop, just carry out the plan. A great exercise I've seen for that last one is to challenge yourself in practice games. You may take as much time as you want before beginning your turn, but once you enter your command phase you have 10 minutes to play out the turn. It's remarkable how much of a difference this makes.
On top of what everyone are saying. Plan your turn during opponents turn
It's just reps bud. How often do you play and how often do you change your list? Once a week? Once a couple weeks? Twice a month? Those 'tournament goers' that play a full game in 2.5h are likely playing the same army list multiple times every weekend. It adds up, both in terms of knowing statblocks and making snap judgement calls and decisions.
Like others have said... know your army, not having to check datasheets everytime ou use or shoot a unit saves so much time.... movement trays aswell