Instead of spinning another tale of tournament etiquette gone a wry, let me describe the situation as neutral as possible. Please help me to deal with situations like this better in the future.
We, my opponent and I, are on the bottom of turn 6. My opponent has pretty clearly won on all 3 of the objectives. We are, however, unclear on the end time of this round, wondering if there is enough time left for a turn 7. The tournament packet stated all games should be at least 6 turns if possible, with a 7th turn on a 4+, don’t start a turn if you have less than 10 minutes left. My opponent is about to move his last unit, a Chimera with a scoring unit inside, and about to end his turn 6. He makes a statement to the affect that he needs to know if the game will end right now or if we will have an next turn, because that will determine how he will move this last tank. He freezes the game, sends someone to go find the T.O.
Several minutes go by (three to be exact). The gentleman comes back and states we have 9 minutes left. I insist on a turn 7 on principle. I take my last model, shoot my bolt, roll and pen, then roll a 1 on damage chart, fail to take out a Storm raven. He kills my last model and wins full points.
Okay, forget being neutral.
Different game, Different tournament: My opponent has a lot of infiltrating troops; I roll my non preferred wave. All objectives are placed in cover. My opponent holds all objectives on turn 1. I hide and cower in various corners, till I finally get the strength to take him on at the bottom of turn 4. I still have units coming in, about one-fourth of my army. My opponent informs me that we have 20 minutes left, there is no way I can win, good game. The tournament rules were: play 6 rounds; get a turn 7 on a 4+, only start a round if you have time to finish.
I insist on starting a round 5 and after a little arguing call over a T.O. We get a non committal answer, we start playing. We actually played 2 turns and finished turn 6 with a minute or so to spare, I about tabled my opponent, at the end of the game I had full points. Yelling and screaming, fist balling in response to my insistence. I did get an apology at the end. Both of us had a 1-2 record in a 5 round battle point tournament at this point, so both not even close to being contenders.
I realize I have time as a pet peeve of mine, but am I being unreasonable? I play 2000-point games at our club easily in less than 2 hours. My army (Daemons) does nothing during the deployment zone, I rarely bring shooting elements, I rarely have my whole army on the board at anyone time.
Let me know what you think I should do differently….
Stop playing in tournaments that expect 2000pt games to all get done in 2hrs?
ReplyDeleteTalk it over with opponents at the start of games? "We need to get 12 player turns done in 120 minutes. If we take out say 20mins for your setup and a cushion, that leaves us like 8 minutes per player turn. I'm going to set this timer up here and reset it at the start of each player turn, mine included, for eight minutes. We can go over a little on some turns, but we should try to make it up on others. I'm not trying to pressure you, I just run into incomplete tourney games too often and want to give us both a friendly reminder. My set up is done; please deploy and take your first turn; while you do that I'll be planning my turn. Good luck!"
Get a digital kitchen timer and have it with you when you play. Now there is no question on how much time is left. Really, the first guy was pretty much a jerk. Your request was perfectly valid.
ReplyDeleteThe second guy, well I'm happy that you got an apology. Win or loose, being a nice guy counts.
As a human being I find it perfectly reasonable of you to ask people to follow some basic rules without calling a T.O. or resorting to dirty trix.
I think sonsoftaurus is on to something. Why not just express your play-style to your opponent right at the start?
ReplyDeleteI think if the idea is presented properly, you could even get them to be pretty excited about playing 40k in a different way (with a game clock)!
Good luck with this, though, I know that you struggle with the idea of finishing games :)
PS - ep. 74 was fantastic (and funny)!
Before the game, briefly bring up this topic with your opponent. Some armies are designed to smack somone hard on turns 1 and 2. Other armies are designed to do their real work in the later rounds (which is what yours sounds like). Advise them that you can play fairly quick, but be aware that you will be wanting to play according to the TO rules and will likely need to play the entire time allotted. It sounds like it gives away your tactics, but I don't think it really does; Demons aren't an alpha strike army to begin with.
ReplyDeleteYou can't really break up the turns in even time allotments, because you need less and less time the further you are progressing in the game. The last turn or so can often be played in less than 10 minutes.
ReplyDeleteI guess the reason i am so 'time-sensitive' is that my army has the potential to half not be there till turn 5. My units can't do much of anything if i show up on turn 5 till turn 6. My army is a late game army
It is not giving away my tactics, but rather giving me the opportunity to do my tactics.