Speeding up game play

[Lonewolf240]

I recently played in a tournament this weekend, and I played Horror Molly all three rounds same list even, and never summoned any thing except for Punk Zombies. Even with 2 hour round time I was never able to get into turn 4 or beyond. During the game I felt like we were making good time, until the TO called out time left then I really felt I was behind.  I wanted to know of any helpful tips other Ressers or even other players have for speeding up their game. Things that I can do personally rather than trying to rush my opponent. That being said however, if you have tricks to move an opponent along they may very well be helpful.

 

[Anung Un Rama]

Hmm tricky....all you can do is play your activations as fast as you can...if you feel an opponent is going too slow you can always have a chat to the TO....

[Nikodemus]

How many timed games/events have you played? Took me two or three tournaments before I started getting to round 5 more often than not.

Kind of basic but how well do you know your models? Less time you spend reading over your cards (TNs, damage tracks, abilities etc) the better. Second do you have a plan for your entire crew? I'm not talking anything overly specific, but say you bring a Necropunk to do Claim Jump. That activation shouldn't take you long at all. Interact, flip for Leap (you do remember what you need for a necropunk leap don't you?) and interact some more.

Something that helps me focus my play is to keep my eye on the VP differential. Sure any of my models could do a large number of things, but how many of those gain or deny VP? Which of those VP changing actions cause the largest swing in differential? It's not always super clear cut, but I find it helps.

I had a game a while ago using an elite-ish crew against McMourning Canine spam list. Very pleasant game, good pace. McMourning player seemed to have a good plan for most of his activations. Either his pups ran to tarpit my models, sit on head markers or they went and dropped schemes. With McMourning/Sebastian he quickly figured out my easy to kill & easy to reach models and went for those. It was all reasonably snappy without feeling rushed. The guy clearly knew his list and what he wanted to do with it.

[Falk]

till now i only played Seamus & McMourning on tournaments - mostly 5 rounds (but we play 2 1/2 hours-games). Tried molly 3 times in casual games. all games went for more than 3 hours!

Her Ablility to let another Horror do something AND reaktivate another minion AND sommon AND accomplice is hard to coordinate - at least in the first games.

Otherwise - in the learning-games with Mcmourning I needed also more than 3 hours (at 50Pts).

Play as often as possible - u're getting faster

[InvokeChaos]

I practice deployment and first turn movement a lot.  

Just to get faster about how to attack my schemes.  Obviously your opponent crew changes everything, but if you don't have to think about what you do, and only how to compensate for your opponent, then it speeds everything up.

I also set up play scenarios and practice "combos."   But then again I own like five factoins... so I have plenty to work with

 

[Ludvig]

It's really hard to finish turn 5 if both players aren't experienced in tournament play and familiar with their crews. I've never managed to speed up a slow opponent except for going in hard and killing all their models really early so they don't have too many choices. Auras that make them reluctant to do certain things usually slow the game down a lot if your opponent is prone to over-analysing moves so you might want to avoid certain models. Giving them an obvious theat without fancy rules but just hard damage will usually lead to them wasting attacks on it which is usually faster than when they try to work out their optimal combo. Some players just try very comboy crews without having the proper experience, would love to know how to avoid that.

[Peppi]

is a general problem of the game, and a cause of the "why is not so played"...is too long for a skirmish game. I seen rarely in the 3 tournaments I made games finishing in 5 rounds (all with premade strategy/schemes for every round), very very rare, usually 3-4 are the norm. also in my club the games rarely finish within 2,5 hours, again with premade strategy/schemes ...

all is very personal, the game is very deep and so on (bla bla bla)...but most of the people approaching a skirmish game is searching for a faster and easier game than the big brothers on the market, and malifaux is not the case. And most of the time is the reason why so many here stop playing Malifaux. Said this, it is still my favorite miniature game.

[MeatAndFauxtatoes]

You just have to know your models well when you summon a model you NEED to know the number and whether or not you need to burn a soulstone to summon and you NEED to know Molly's summoning rules off by heart. These rules are her bread and butter, you want to avoid looking at the cards for her core rules. You need to know her CA values off the top of your head.

Pro tip - the number required to summon a model is: SS cost of the model + 4. e.g. Punk Zombie is 7ss + 4 = 11.

Here's your script:

I'm attempting to summon a punk zombie, I need an 11 of crows, I burn a soulstone for a crow. *Place punk zombie* These models take a TN 15 WP duel or take 1 damage if they fail.

The goal is to convey what you're doing quickly and concisely, Molly has a long activation between summoning, her (0) action and a chain activation, so it's important to memorize as many values as you can to speed along the process.

I know it sounds silly but put your models out on a table and practice her summoning mechanics and flipping cards, it's pretty much muscle memory. You want to be able achieve a flow where one actions leads in to the next without thought.

[Ludvig]

On 2017-04-27 at 4:06 PM, Peppi said:

is a general problem of the game, and a cause of the "why is not so played"...is too long for a skirmish game. I seen rarely in the 3 tournaments I made games finishing in 5 rounds (all with premade strategy/schemes for every round), very very rare, usually 3-4 are the norm. also in my club the games rarely finish within 2,5 hours, again with premade strategy/schemes ...

I have played in and hosted a few tournaments and the top half of the tables usually had time to spare after turn 5 when we had rounds of two hours (building lists included in that time). Sometimes it slows down so you don't have time to finish turn 5 or get surprised by the last round call so you only finish turn 4.

In my experience it's mostly less experienced players who haven't played on a clock before who don't finish their games.

[Khaiden]

My best advice is to be prepared with all the cards and miniatures you will be summoning during the match. Preferably on a tournament trey of some sort.

Malifaux is a hard game but with very few actual time-sinks compared to other minature games. Duels are resolved fast since you dont roll lots of dice and since there are so few miniatures it does not take that much time moving them about compared to games with highter model-count. Spending time on valuating a activation on a difficult board-state is perfectly fine. This is how time should be spent. But spending time on finding stuff in your miniature bag, tokens and cards is not ok and something a lot of people could prepare a lot better to avoid.

Molly is super fun btw.. Wish i played with that master more.

Best Regards
Johan/Khaiden



 

[Rob Lo]

I'll go a little more basic than what's been said already even. My first games of Malifaux had me caught up in a trap of both playing the game and watching the game. I'd finish a turn, and then stand there watching what my opponent was doing as if I were a spectator just watching a match happen, instead of as the guy actually in the match. I'd watch them do whatever, they'd say "okay, over to you" and then I'd switch back to playing the game and start thinking 'okay, what am I going to do now?'  If you don't already have an 80+% idea of what you're going to do when your activation starts, you've wasted the time they were measuring and moving models around or reschuffling or whatever, where you should have been already planning out your turn. Yes, be involved in the turn, get into the story of it, decide if it's worth cheating the defense flips, etc, but don't zone out and go full spectator. Speeds up play a lot, especially if both players are actively working to get through the game like that.