The Art of Speed Play

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Malossar
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The Art of Speed Play

#1 Post by Malossar »

The Art of Speed Play

Say this with me, “I will always be moving and always be thinking about my next turn.”

So you want to improve your Warhammer game but how do you go about achieving this goal effectively? Why play more games of course! This is the easiest way to do that when we all have busy lives and can usually only game one night a week is to get more games in. I’m not sure about you all but I don’t have time to play 3 games a night when each game takes roughly 2.5 hours.

Thus the Art of Speed Play. I noticed this was an article recently on Bell of Lost Souls, and while it’s an ok Blog, the article really didn’t do the notion justice. A few other caveats before we can begin. I’ve noticed in 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy that redirectors are king. Which by extension means that this game is won or lost in the movement phase. Yes I know it’s typically decided in combat, but when you’re out gunned by those drugged up naked harlots of death or the religious fanatics heralding disease we need to be able to get these combats in our favor and with support. That’s where redirectors and chaff come into play.

If you’re unfamiliar with Chaff and supporting elements stop reading now. Visit Furion’s Youtube Channel (Follow Furion) where he does an excellent job at breaking down how to properly build an army list for competitive Warhamer.

Finally a little background about myself. I play fast. I play fast armies with tons of movement and I play the game quickly. I like speed and I love the movement phase. In tournaments, I get through the game in approximately 1.5 hours. Yes that’s right. I’m usually cleaning the table when the TO is calling 1 hour remaining. Sometimes this is a little longer when my opponent is purposefully slowing the game down or is having trouble adjusting to my speed. The only game I had called for time was when playing an opponent who had a little too much fun the night before and hadn’t adjusted to the waking world yet.

Remember! Always be moving and always be thinking about your next turn.

Step 1: Write a list and stick with it.

This is no time to adjust the last few elements of your list. At least not yet. The best advice for playing quickly is learning your army list inside and out. Hammer out the kinks on the tabletop and not in your notebook or excel sheet. This is not to say that you should never adjust your list, but play a few games before tweaking as this will inevitably cause you to slow down.

Step 2: Everything handy needs to be within hands reach.

I love the magic cards GW has supplied us with. In fact I own multiple decks. I roll my spells and provide my opponent with a copy of the card. No more trying to explain each spell I’m casting, he has his own sheet to read from! This section also includes dice and templates. Yes I actually carry spare templates for my opponents. Also, the GW modular trays make finding exactly how many models were hit by that template a quick and painless process.

Step 3: They’re going to roll your dice, and its OK.

I hate when I deal 20+ wounds or have 20+ wounds dealt to me and I can’t simply scoop up the wound dice and roll them. Time is wasted counting out 20+ dice in hopes of making those reliable parry saves. I always offer my opponent my dice to roll for making saves. I know some people are really uncomfortable with this aspect.

I was once playing an Ogre Player who shot his Leadbelchers into my White Lions. He did an outstanding 18 wounds. With his dice in a nice pile I scoop them up roll my saves and pull my models. He gets very quiet for a moment or two before saying, “Please don’t ever touch my dice again.” I was stunned! I couldn’t believe it. I quickly apologized and brought up how he had rolled my dice earlier and thought it was OK. The game continues but there’s a definite pall over the game. I find out later that I had been dinged 2 sportsmanship points for the incident (and these are the only sports points I have ever lost).

So find out if it’s ok, but to increase your speed I recommend you handing your opponent your dice when your phoenix guard have just hacked their way through those lowly empire halberdiers.

Step 4: You can hold it.

I don’t take bathroom breaks during a game unless it is an ABSOLUTE emergency. Especially in a tournament hall where 50+ people are crammed in and there’s only 1 or 2 bathrooms available. Drink lots of water, make sure you stay hydrated but try and stay at the table as long as possible.

Step 5: Stand up!

Finally stay standing during the entire game. Not only is this proper sportsmanship (it shows you’re respecting your opponents turn and what he has to stay) but also this is a great way to stay focused during your opponents turn. This is essential. Remember that you’re goal is to get through your turn in about 10 – 15 minutes so use this time wisely. Pay attention to the match ups you want and how you can begin manipulating the board in the movement phase. By the time combat ends and your turn begins you should immediately begin declaring chargers and getting dice prepared. By standing, you’re giving yourself a wider view of the table and how the game is progressing over your opponent’s turn rather than waiting for your turn to begin.

Advantages of Speed Play

Games are shorter meaning you can crank through more games during your allotted time. This means more practice with the army, greater memorization, and getting a better feel for different opponents.

I find that this also really sets an opponent on their back foot from the get go. Some opponents try to match my speed of play, others are so preoccupied trying to slow the game down that they lose sight of their own plan. I need to clarify that I’m not being malicious about this. In my ADD brain I like things moving and getting to roll dice (it’s probably why I have never had fun RPing or playing many card games), which helps me personally process faster and enjoy the game more. What’s more suspenseful than an action pack game in the balance? Add a little speed and your excitement increases 10 fold!

At tournaments because I finish so early I get to walk around and see other people playing their games. I get to look at some great armies in action on the table and see some really epic games being played out. I’ve also noticed that I can also buy my opponent a drink after the game and really enjoy the conversation since we’re not being rushed to our next tables. I also can usually chat up some other early finishers and even have more time to browse vendor booths at larger Cons and Tournaments.

Final Thoughts:

Some opponents have asked me to slow down my pace because they feel that this is a dirty tactic and I’m taking advantage of my opponent by playing so quickly. Another complaint is that Speed Play is robbing my opponent his time to think about his upcoming turn. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I don’t want to come off arrogant or rude by saying how frustrating it can be when playing against a NON new player who spends 20 minutes staring at his magic cards deciding what to cast and then follows it up with a 30 minute shooting phase.

This is not for everyone and I advise using caution. I’m open to feedback on how to solve my local problem or rather the interpretation that speed play is somehow a dirty tactic.

Remember! Always be moving and always be thinking about your next turn.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#2 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

hi there,

it is indeed an important factor. After all, you don't want your final score to be affected by the fact you had not enough time to get that level 4 or finish last models of the horde formation, giving you a massive amount of points.

Quite interesting points. I didn't consider using opponent's dice to speed up the game. Do you think that will amount that much to time savings? People are touchy about their dice to the point of being superstitious. It may also be the same thing with touching their miniatures without permission. You might want to help them to remove tons of dead models but I would advice against. Losing sport points is harsh but I am not sure it is the most important factor.

I have found out that the main time stealer is actually deployment and pre-deployment chat. While it might not be a surprise here (since I have tons of units to deploy) I decided to speed that up. And it works. I started playing games on tournaments where I do finish my games in time and after full 6 turns too. It is not yet 1.5h record but I am getting there. How do I achieve that? Well, it might be due to more experience but I simply think that having a clear idea how you want to deploy army helps. I can think about it earlier. Even if the enemy and terrain are different, I try to think in general ideas. If I face fast and aggressive army i deploy further. If I play against defensive army, I deploy on the edge. Something like that. Oh, and having Loremaster as the only spell caster helps a little too!

Another thing I have noticed is that slow is fast actually. I mean that if I think a second how I want to move the unit and maybe put some dice here and there to check the distance I save time. Because I don't misjudge and don't have to get it back, correct it and things don't get messy.

Very good idea about the cards, handouts and all other things that might help. I need to make sure I have that too. I try to bring the copy of the list and explanations of the items for every of my opponent so I simply give them my copy and all is good. I have also seen spread sheets with miscast table and mysterious terrain explanations so that you don't have to look for pages in the rulebook again.

In general I totally agree, if you can speed up there is more fun!

Cheers!
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#3 Post by Elessehta of Yvresse »

Nice post Mal, a lot of good points. Standing up all day can get tiring, I never sit down at events, even between games I'm moving around checking things out. I'm normally well wrecked by the time I get home ^_^
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#4 Post by Prince of Spires »

Thanks for the post. As someone who generally does need 2.5 hours to finish a game it's much apreciated. Though maybe I just talk too much...

Some general thoughts:

step 1: definatly important. If you know your list it realy speeds up the process. Not having to look up important stats is a big saver. WS and I are the main offenders in my experience. The rest is uniform enough within an army to be easy to remember and also remember the exceptions (like s4 WL).

This does lead to a Step 6 that you missed:
Know the To hit and To Wound tables and how modifying armour saves works. If you know the tables then you immediatly speed up your game. It's much easier to say I need 3+, 2+ and then just roll some dice then having to look up what ws 6 vs ws 4 means and s5 vs t3 before each roll.

Step 2: good tip :)

Step 3: some people are just ridiculous when it comes to dice and superstition. Also, if you have a dice that is more likely to show a 6 then you're actually cheating. And cheating about as badly as you can in a game of WH. Dice are just dice and the game only works when assuming dice are perfect (as in each side has the same chance). Fair enough that you have your favorite set, but don't overdo it.

I personally find it common courtesy to just let my opponent use my dice for his armour save roll. It's not just faster, it's also easier and less prone to errors. You don't even need to count anything, just pick up all the dice that show a certain number or higher and you're good to go.

Of course, people can be a bit sensitive about this sort of thing, so it's perhaps better to check first...

As for your request for feedback, I suppose some people will just see the negative of everything. So you can't please everybody. Best thing is probably not force it on anyone but just let them play at whatever pace they want. After all, just like you might not like waiting for that 30 min shooting phase, others may dislike being hurried along to complete everything in 5 minutes.

Of course, you're not actively hurrying people, but sometimes body language can be misunderstood as well. I can imagine the standing up, perhaps leaning forward a bit (just to get a better look) gives some people a feeling of being rushed. Some people just take longer to reach a desicion. And especially in a tournament against an unknown players they can be used to taking this long in their own gaming groups. After all, how to play a GW of WH is different for everyone.

Of course, not having time enough to think about your next move is never a good excuse, since if you need that time, you can always take it in your own turn. So the best advise I can give is just accept that some people take longer and try to show in your body language and conversation that that's fine by you.

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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#5 Post by John Rainbow »

Malossar Dragonborne wrote: Step 3: They’re going to roll your dice, and its OK.

I hate when I deal 20+ wounds or have 20+ wounds dealt to me and I can’t simply scoop up the wound dice and roll them. Time is wasted counting out 20+ dice in hopes of making those reliable parry saves. I always offer my opponent my dice to roll for making saves. I know some people are really uncomfortable with this aspect.

I was once playing an Ogre Player who shot his Leadbelchers into my White Lions. He did an outstanding 18 wounds. With his dice in a nice pile I scoop them up roll my saves and pull my models. He gets very quiet for a moment or two before saying, “Please don’t ever touch my dice again.” I was stunned! I couldn’t believe it. I quickly apologized and brought up how he had rolled my dice earlier and thought it was OK. The game continues but there’s a definite pall over the game. I find out later that I had been dinged 2 sportsmanship points for the incident (and these are the only sports points I have ever lost).

So find out if it’s ok, but to increase your speed I recommend you handing your opponent your dice when your phoenix guard have just hacked their way through those lowly empire halberdiers.
Check the BRB here, it actually states in the rules that you roll to wound using your dice and then your opponent uses the same dice to roll his saves. Yes handing your dice over is actually a rule, albeit an often over-looked one. I'll try and find the pg.# later for this one to give you a reference if you ever want to use it in a game.
Malossar Dragonborne wrote:Some opponents have asked me to slow down my pace because they feel that this is a dirty tactic and I’m taking advantage of my opponent by playing so quickly. Another complaint is that Speed Play is robbing my opponent his time to think about his upcoming turn. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I don’t want to come off arrogant or rude by saying how frustrating it can be when playing against a NON new player who spends 20 minutes staring at his magic cards deciding what to cast and then follows it up with a 30 minute shooting phase.
I don't see why there should be a problem with this. Your opponent is not forced to match you for speed. If you are trying to push them to play faster then I agree its a problem but if not then I don't see what the issue with you playing fast is.

Another note is that army types are conducive to fast/slow play. I know we were playing the same lists for a while and that made playing fast a lot easier than playing slowly. I too was finding that playing with the Star Dragon, my games were over in roughly 1.5hrs at tournaments. This is obviously a feature of the list too - run forward in the first turn(s) and try to get in advantageous positions, not much magic or shooting and then charge into CC in later turns. Such a list has sped the game up by itself by both removing decision making - often a lot of time spent thinking here - and removing phases that need to be played out. List-type isn't so much a tactic for playing quicker but certain lists do lend themselves to that type of quick play.

In reality, I imagine the biggest factors here are experience, speed of thought (mental arithmetic) and number of games played. The more you play, the better you play and therefore the quicker you will be able to play. After having played many games against varied opponents you no longer need to check yours,theirs and game rules as often and you have also been in similar situations before about which you can draw some conclusions (i.e. can my 21 WLs beat those 20 WoC without support or do I need... etc). Being quicker with the mental arithmetic is both useful to play well as you can calculate the odds of things happening in your favour but also allows you to make decisions more quickly as you will have more of a gut feeling about how many dice to roll when you cast x spell to get y result, etc.

As you say, playing quicker then gives you more advantages:
1. You get more games in, upping your in-game experience much more quickly and improving faster.
2. You can see/react to game situations more quickly
3. You may get more time to think in your opponents turn if they take longer
4. There is perhaps some pressure on your opponent to match you and they may make (more) mistakes
5. Games more often go to completion at tournaments and you thus are more likely to win (stopping a game at a random point in T3 is never good for anyone)
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#6 Post by Loriel »

Nice tips, thanks Malossar!

Playing while opponents turn

I am perhaps the "fastest" player in our local gaming group. Secret to my "fastness" is playing in opponents turn. I usually decide what to do next while my opponent is making his moves. I do most of my "next turn" during my opponents magic and especially during his shooting phase. At least in my local group my friends tend to think alot about magic. Key idea here is to identify as soon as the game start the key spells that I want to dispel, and spells that I am willing to let through. In case of multiple combat / multiple hex & augments, it might be much harder to identify key spells. During shooting there isn't really anything active to do beside throwing AS / panic tests and all the "thinking" is happening at my opponents end, thus lot of time to thinking next turn.

One way to speed up the game is to calculate number of attacks in every close combat during opponents shooting phase. Put them in a piece of paper and perhaps static combat resolution (well that might change after CC so perhaps it is not the best. Allthough this might be rather provoking against some of your opponent.

Dice tricks

Another thing what I like to do that I usually place my dices in 5 die rows on spare times. That way it is faster to pick up say 15 dices to roll.

One of my friend uses different colored dices. He has for example exactly 20 black dices, 10 ... was it yellow... 5 something... I don't know if this really speeds things up, but in principle might be little faster at least when throwing tons of dices and when you need to roll 18 dices he just substracts 2 black dices and throws them.

Rules

Learn and study the rules, especially those that affects your army. We also printed out summary sheets.

And those simple rules for WS and S/T tables are extremely easy to memorize. I dare to say that anyone with homo sapiens brains can (if willing) learn it.

Friendly gaming "houseruling"

These doesn't work in tournament environment ;)

I like to have fluent gaming without too much worrying about every little detail on the game. We usually allow errors to be corrected during shooting etc. Say my opponent forgot to turn his archers so they could shoot some target, but that would have been "obvious" movement (since no other targets on their arc). If you allow this kind of generosity in your friendly gaming, then you get faster game since players aren't spending so much time to think about movement because if they might miss something they are punished. One way to have "punishment" is to have 4+ roll for it. This also leads more funner games.

another way to speed up game is to allow more fluent measurements. You can have very strict policy where everything is measured with laser point accuracy and use pythagora's theorem to accurately measure wheeling you obviously waste lot of time and IMO much fun in the game. Some my friends insist very strict policies. I for one likes to have more grander type of movement. Therefore I usually agree with my opponent that for example there archers are exactly 30 inches apart from target. Or this movement brings me to exactly 14 inches from your deathstar you so you need a 10 while charging. Then I approximately place them so. Then if we have very close calls I usually call for 4+ rule, since it usually speeds things up.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#7 Post by Paricidas »

Know the rules.

Know the rules.

Know the rules.

Dont remove casualities from r&f units

Keep tracks of the distances, so you dont have to messure everything. Tell your Opponent the actual distances, if HE messures everything.

Be generous to your enemy. The decision about the question whether the last archer on the left can see his target or not is normaly not worth a laser pointer messurement...

Somehow make clear which Units are deployed and which ones are not (no problem if you have enough space, if not, well...).

Write numbers from 1-6 on your Magic Cards, so you dont Need to open the BRB.

Keep track of your CR if a melee is fought with different initiatives.

Buy an IoB box.

Learn the results of the phoenix tablets.

Dont Play skaven

Play dwarfs
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#8 Post by Dragon fire »

Regarding the dice I always use my opponents dice. Why? Every set of dice is biased unless you buy vegas stile dice. Therefore if the dice rolls a lot of 5's and 6's for the to wound and to hit roll, they are very likely to do the same thing for the AS or WS rolls. And of course this also accounts the other way around with 1's and 2's. I recently read this article:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/That% ... is_of_Dice

After that I think that it's proper sportsmanship to share dice. And to be sure that one uses the same kind of dice for everything.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#9 Post by Eirik »

Paricidas wrote:Dont Play skaven

Play dwarfs
Interesting ideas. I wonder how this strategy would work for my high elves.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#10 Post by Jimmy »

Good write up Mal.

I can't believe that you got pinged sports for using your opponents dice however. What a drop kick.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#11 Post by jamierk »

Being a bit of a slower High Elf player with this year being the first year i've been attending some tournaments, i'm really keen to learn the tricks to speed up my play. I get caught up in the movement phase, not playing fast enough. I find having too many redirector and chaff units slows things down quite alot, especially when you have alot of roles for them to fill. I think focusing down and trying to redirect only particular units will speed this up.

Thanks for the tips, i'll definitely try to put them in practise in my next games.

Re: play dwarves, yes that speeds things up no end. No movement phase until i can anvil charge my hammerers. Job done.

Re: don't remove RnF models. Do you do that? Doesn't that get confusing later on?
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#12 Post by Larkspire »

Great post! I agree with it entirely.I used to play tournament chess,and the best time to think is while your opponent is thinking.
Playing fast is playing smart.
You are depriving your opponent of time to think,and at least thru body language compelling them to move faster...but there's nothing wrong with that.
Besides,moving quickly and with certainty can be intimidating to the other player and may cause him to falter.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#13 Post by Duranthalis »

John Rainbow wrote: Check the BRB here, it actually states in the rules that you roll to wound using your dice and then your opponent uses the same dice to roll his saves. Yes handing your dice over is actually a rule, albeit an often over-looked one. I'll try and find the pg.# later for this one to give you a reference if you ever want to use it in a game.
P.43 under the shooting saving throws (pocket version from IoB) says "Hand your opponent all the dice that scored successful...". Interesting that for close combat (P.51) it merely says "He rolls D6 for..." and doesn't mention anything at all about who the dice belong to. Typical GW.

Personally, I don't use other players' equipment/supplies (dice, templates, books, etc) unless offered as a courtesy (because some people can get to be quite uptight about this). I, however, don't really have an issue with my opponent using mine. The only time I ever dinged anyone sportsman points was for handling figures (he had this annoying habit of flicking casualties he inflicted to knock them over, despite my request to stop multiple times). I won't touch another player's figures (unless handed to me to examine)... something about the time and effort etc etc.

During 40K games, I would keep the reference sheet near me, with summaries of special rules (for my army) on my list, along with page numbers. And I flag my books with labeled tabs... (holdovers from my pharmacology text).
Last edited by Duranthalis on Fri Dec 06, 2013 2:24 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#14 Post by jamierk »

Duranthalis wrote:
John Rainbow wrote: So find out if it’s ok, but to increase your speed I recommend you handing your opponent your dice when your phoenix guard have just hacked their way through those lowly empire halberdiers.
Check the BRB here, it actually states in the rules that you roll to wound using your dice and then your opponent uses the same dice to roll his saves. Yes handing your dice over is actually a rule, albeit an often over-looked one. I'll try and find the pg.# later for this one to give you a reference if you ever want to use it in a game.
P.43 under the shooting saving throws (pocket version from IoB) says "Hand your opponent all the dice that scored successful...". Interesting that for close combat (P.51) it merely says "He rolls D6 for..." and doesn't mention anything at all about who the dice belong to. Typical GW.
Reckon we could petition GW to faq the 'whose dice do we use' rules in the book? They always demonstrate their commitment to clearing up grey area rules and sources of contention, no? ;-)
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#15 Post by Eirik »

Yeah, in a gaming hobby you should never touch the other player's possessions unless you're certain they're cool with it. It doesn't matter what the rulebook says. I think I've met weirder and more uptight people in this hobby than in any other circle of my life, so if anything this should apply more to warhammer than to other games.

Mal's situation sounds like an unusual circumstance; the other player was touching your dice but expected you not to touch his? Maybe you offered him your dice and he just went with the flow, but didn't mention that you couldn't touch his dice. Even in that light he still sounds like an awkward guy.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#16 Post by Eltherion »

My tips for speedy play if in time trouble at a Tourney.

You may want to miss a shooting or Magic phase depending on the situation if they aren't crucial to your victory.

If your Level 4 caster already has 2 wounds then the risk of him dieing may not be worth the benefit of him casting spells.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#17 Post by Paricidas »

jamierk wrote: Re: play dwarves, yes that speeds things up no end. No movement phase until i can anvil charge my hammerers. Job done.

Re: don't remove RnF models. Do you do that? Doesn't that get confusing later on?
Well, the one about dwarfs was not serious...

Not removing r&f models can get very confusing, so this is only an Option if both Players really Keep track of the game. Its also very situational.

However, it can Speed up things quite A bit if you have to do multiple games in a short Periode, as it really helps shortening the time between games.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#18 Post by Greenman »

Great post.

I'll try to put these methods into practice, as it seems the polite thing to do.
Plus get myself a she-pee..
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#19 Post by SpellArcher »

As a slow player, I agree with most of that Mal.

I also find it helps to play a strong list, I think less if I'm winning! I also actually find it helps to have more deployment drops. If you can chuck 3-4 units down without actually thinking, your other deployment decisions become easier.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#20 Post by Ferny »

Fastest game I ever played had star dragon, helmbus with 2xLv2, 4xRBTs, frosty, chaff...it was so easy! Chaff as per normal, RBTs are static, so all I'm actually left to move is a dragon, a frosty and a bus. 3 units! Shooting was dead easy. Magic was limited with just Lv2's. It's not that you can't play better or worse with this list, but there is sooo much less to think about when you have fewer units/combat units. I think I'll take that approach to my next tourney for the pure speedplay of it.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#21 Post by Scarlet »

I just wanted to add that confirming with the opponent on a situation can be a real time saver. For example, my mage moves to the flank arc of my oppositions unit of archers. Confirm with the opposition (if you have movement points left) that the mage is indeed out of sight of the unit of archers. If they don't agree, move it a bit more. Arguments are always the longest part of any game.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#22 Post by Ferny »

Mal - I wanted to resurrect this in the context of T9A and the choice between dropping everything at once vs matching like for like. I've seen a few people now suggesting that going second is no disadvantage, and may even be an advantage, but critically, counter-deploying is more crucial than first turn. However, I find that deployment phase takes a long time if I do it traditionally so I often go like-for-like until the key opposition piece is in place then dump or I just come up with a (probably less than ideal) plan and dump, sticking with it. These are examples where trying to speed up play, because I know I'm a slow player, impact on my performance.

Any tips for how to speed up deployment phase if I were to go through the like-for-like matching?
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#23 Post by SpellArcher »

I'm sure Mal's got his own ideas Ferny but here's my input, as a fellow slow player looking to minimise that:

In general I deploy stuff roughly cheapest to most expensive. Obviously fast redirectors are less commital to throw down than combat blocks. If my opponent puts something down I have a good counter to though, I'll stick the counter down opposite it immediately. It can also pay to put an infantry block down early. You usually want it fairly central to make sure it sees combat. That still leaves you free to emphasise either flank and have the block as an anchor, it can move either way. Missile troops can be dropped once you've figured out shooting lanes, though you might want to delay if there's something you want to especially counter. 24" stuff I try to have centre-left or centre-right to make sure it can shoot from the get-go. Obviously you have more flexibility with Longbows and RBT are extremely forgiving here. You can often predict where enemy Hordes and buses are likely to go because space has to be left for them.

The more games you play, the faster and more effective your deployment will get, organically. Especially if you keep list changes gradual, as Mal says.
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#24 Post by Prince of Spires »

Like SA, I'm a pretty slow player as well. For me the best way to speed up deployment is knowing my obvious or speedy (in the sense of fast unit) drops. They go first, and as they go down I get a feel for how my own and my opponents deployment will turn out. Crucial units generally go down last.

Obvious drops are things like warmachines going on hills or shooty units when there is an obvious shooting lane. You're not giving anything away by putting something in a place where it is expected to go. Fast units go down in out of the way places. They can go on a far flank, especially if they vanguard and thus can be relocated before the battle starts. They may go centrally in the second rank of the deployment zone in case they fly. Or, if I know I'll probably go for a refused flank and have an idea of which flank I might refuse they can go down centrally (and end up being the flank of my army).

This means that I have several drops which take little thinking to place. And that my opponent will have made a few drops which hopefully give something about his intentions away. After these 3 or 4 drops I can start dropping stuff like for like or executing my own plan. I generally find that there are 1 or 2 units in my list that are more crucial to my battle plan then the others. They usually go down as late as possible. Or at least, they go down only when I commit to a deployment and I know where the important stuff of my opponent is going.

I think the key to deploying faster is knowing the strengths (and weaknesses) of your own units and the role they play in your army. If a shooting unit is crucial in your battle plan its location is much more important. You don't want to waste a turn of shooting to relocate after all. And then you also know how important cover is to your shooting and thus how important firing lanes are. if you know something is fast or doesn't care about being stranded alone for a while then that helps finding a spot for it fast.

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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#25 Post by Ferny »

Sometimes there are easy choices - if I have a combat infantry block, I probably want them fairly central so they can get to where they're needed. Often eagles will drop behind cover objects. Reavers, as you say, might be on flanking duty.

But often it isn't so simple. Bolters need a clear line of sight, so putting them on the back-line early may restrict shooting avenues. Reavers and eagles may be needed for a light brigade charge into enemy artillery (if they're not on chaff duty), in which case placement needs to wait. Rhyma knights probably want to be on a flank, but you kinda need to pick the right flank IMO or else they can get overwhelmed.

I dunno, maybe it's cos I don't play the game enough or well enough, but I find even the 'easy' drops aren't so easy...
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Re: The Art of Speed Play

#26 Post by SpellArcher »

Ferny wrote:But often it isn't so simple.
Indeed not Ferny. But I came to Warhammer from chess and while very different, one of the similarities is pattern recognition. This comes with sheer volume of games played, you just recognise similar set-ups and combinations from before and this clarifies decision-making. One simple aspect of this is working out unit combos. Even early on you might often find that Unit A works well next to unit B, say a cavalry unit next to an infantry block, or archers next to RBT. So you might have a general idea of where different groups of units should go, though there are always exceptions, this gets refined with time. Some armies are also easier to deploy than others, the more units you have, usually the easier the deployment phase is because your opponent has to drop key stuff before you do. If the game is a favourable match-up, this also makes it easier, like how you tend to play more fluidly and quickly if you're winning.
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