Chess clocks have become a fundamental staple of competitive 40k it seems. I have generally disliked them personally for sometime, as they are outside the normal rules. The game is not designed for their use and most players are practiced with them. Also the concept of rolling my saves on my time for wounds you inflicted is lunacy IMO. Further more, I want to know who the best 40k player is, not the best 40k time manager.
But I get what people were trying to achieve with the introduction of Chess clocks. But IMO it hasn't really stopped exploitation shenanigans and achieves something far worse.
The concept is that they prevent someone from cheating their opponent out of a win by preventing slow play.
However, in my opinion, they are cheating people out of a win by forced play. What do I mean by that? Well I am glad you asked.
I'm going to refer back to LVO a few months ago. One of the semi-final games. Orks vs Eldar. Two very fundamentally different armies. This could not be more starkly seen by the fact that the
Eldar (list linked here) had 48 models (with some of those in reserve) and the
Orks (list linked here) had 193. Or just over 4 times the number of models.
Now this is usually where people jump in and say "well the Ork play just needs to play faster or he should play something else"
But this wasn't some scrub table. This was in the TOP 8 at LVO. That Ork player knew how to play the game, how to play his army, and how to play it fast. And he was using a Dice App for all his rolls. So the idea that he to just needed to up his game is bull crap.
What really made me hate chess clocks was watching the Eldar take just as much time to deploy, then pick up, then adjust, then redeploy etc. etc. the same 6 bikes again and again IN THE SAME TIME THE ORK PLAYER SPENT DEPLOYING 90 BOYS.
See, the fundamental problem is the Eldar and Ork factions are INHERENTLY DESIGNED IN DIFFERENT WAYS. I know that is obvious, but I am going to break it down. Each Eldar unit has higher damage potential to accompany their higher point cost. They DO MORE IN LESS ACTIONS. The Orks however, being high model count and low points cost TAKE MORE ACTIONS TO DO THE SAME AMOUNT OF WORK. Its just the nature of their Army.
This is why chess clocks work... FOR CHESS. Both sides are identical. Obviously they are not in 40k.
So the Ork play KNEW he needed time, where as the Eldar player KNEW he could waste it. He knew later in the game he'd have time to spare on the clock where as teh Ork player likely wouldn't. And why did they know this? Because the TIME IS FORCED SPLIT HALF AND HALF.
Now how is that in anyway fair when you consider that the armies fundamentally work differently. Absent a time limitations, in a normal game of 40k, I guarantee you 9 times out of 10 and Horde army is just going to take longer to play their turns than an Elite army. It just makes sense. As I said before, more actions to cause equal damage. Its the way they are designed. And actions take TIME.
Furthermore, if an hour is 3 rounds, and player A runs out of time, but play B ends turn 6 with 20 minutes left, they didn't even use the full 3 hours. Now its too late to go back and give those 20 minutes to your opponent to give them a sporting chance with another shooting phase. Like I said at the beginning, I want to know who the better 40k player is. IMO you are no longer playing 40k if one of the players can take NO ACTIONS in their own turn.
So I am going to ask you a question- if you had 3 hours to play a game with your friend at home, what would be more important to you? That you each had 90 minutes to play OR that you finished a game?
I would argue it should be FINISH THE GAME. I play Custodes. I may only need 50 minutes to play out 6 full turns. Why should I deny my opponent the 40 minutes of a game I would take from them by using a chess clock. I am FORCING them to play faster, possibly to the detriment of the way their army is designed. And that just seems unsporting to me.
But Slow players you say. People who intentionally eat time of the game so that they have an advantage in scoring.
Well, I didn't say a clock wasn't the solution. Just not a chess clock. Rather, why not a stop watch?
Here is the concept:
Each player writes down the start and stop times of their turn.
If a game finishes 6 turns- give BOTH PLAYERS bonus points
If a game finishes 5 turns- both players get full points for their game
If a game finishes 4 turns- CHECK THE TIMES. If one player used more than 60% of the time of the game (108 minutes of a 3 hour game), then that player get a points PENALTY. If the times are below that threshold, split the penalty to both players
If a game finishes 3 turns or less- CHECK THE TIMES. If one player used more than 60% of the time, they get a larger PENALTY. If they used more than 67% of the time (120 minutes of a 3 hour round) they take a LOSS despite any other outcome. If the times are below the 60% threshold, split the penalty to both players.
This way actively PUNISHES slow players, rather than just limiting armies that NATURALLY NEED MORE TIME TO PLAY A GAME OF 40k! Furthermore, it doesn't require any alteration of how the game is played. There is no "you can no longer do X actions". There is no longer a forced distribution of time. Rather only the final outcome of placings in the rankings is affected.
Now is this solution perfect? No. Any system has flaws. The immediate I see is that a particularly slow player could still suppress the score of a good fast player. Sure they will take a penalty, but the winner may have had the potential to score higher. And I am not fully sure what the answer is to that. But I also don't believe that many games will fall afoul of this problem? And certainty no more than the current number that have to rush through turns, either skipping actions or making mistakes as they do so. So I am of the opinion the risk is worth it. Especially by offering than bump for finishing 6 turns.
