Malifaux on the Clock

[Cats Laughing]

I was listening to Fools Daily episode 169 "Tick Tock, Tick Tock" and I had an idea on how clocks could be incorporated into Malifaux.

 

I do have some experience with WarmaHordes and their 2 clock systems, so I thought I should start by laying that out here.

 

The two clock system in WarmaHordes are called Timed Turns and Death Clock.  

 

In timed turns, each player has a set number of minutes to complete their turn.  Each turn this time limit resets (ie: you cannot carry over minutes from a quicker turn). There is an "extension" rule that allows each player the option to extend their turn time limit by a small amount once per player per game.  Under timed turns, when a player runs out of time during a turn, their turn ends (regardless of any remaining unactivated models) and the activation moves over to their opponent (unless the extension is used).

 

Death Clock uses a chessclock system where each player has a total time limit for the game and switch back and forth as the two players activate. Again the time alloted is the same for both players, but under Death Clock, the players can spend as long as they like on each turn.  Once a player runs out of time, they lose.

 

In both cases there is an overall game clock held by the TO, and when that time runs out the game ends regardless of remaining time on either player's clocks.

 

The WarmaHordes Steamroller document lays out the specifics of these system.

 

Either of these systems work reasonably well for WarmaHordes due to the 'My turn - Your turn' (Igo Ugo?) system and almost complete lack of interaction during individual turns.  Converting these systems to Malifaux becomes somewhat difficult due to the alternating activation and heavy interaction, even during a single player's activation.

 

My thoughts on this, is that Malifaux could work with a modified Timed Turn system.

 

1. -Essentially, you would have a number of minutes to complete all of your activations for a turn. 
2. -While you are activating your models, your clock runs. Once you complete your activation (or activations, if you chain activate), you pause your turn clock while your opponent activates and runs their clock.  
3. -When your clock for the turn runs out and you have remaining activations you lose those activations* and your opponent continues with their activations until their clock or available activations run out.  
4. -I think it would be reasonable to have a single turn extension available.  
5. -I also think it would be reasonable to allow players to pause their turn clock while an opponent spends time thinking (deciding to cheat/which trigger to use, etc...) or performing a 'during your activation' reactionary item.  I don't think it's worthwhile to have a player's clock run while they are spending time thinking (ie: deciding to cheating, etc...) during an opponent's activation.  As noted in the Fools Daily podcast, you can assume that time would equal out over the turn between players.  However, I think it's reasonable for the active player to pause their clock so that covert time wasting doesn't become a "tactic".

 

*I had thought about declaring the models waiting to activate as paralyzed, but certain models gain bonuses against paralyzed models, so it would be a double whammy if your clock runs out against certain opponents and I don't think that's fair.  There may be other specifics that need to be worked out with respect to ending activations, and such.

 

 

Thoughts?

[LunarSol]

I think Deathclock style would simply work better, as any decent chess clock is designed to be slapped back and forth quite quickly.  I'd need to try it a few times to see if opposed duels present too much of a problem.  Malifaux does have a lot of potential to do more when the clock runs out though, since its a game where you can be tabled and still win.  I can see clocking yourself forfeiting strategy points or letting the opponent play out the rest of their time, for example, but both would need some testing.

 

I do think a timing system feels necessary for official play.  I hear too many battle reports concerned with the speed of their opponent and how it affects certain schemes (namely Bodyguard).  A timing system is as much about getting both players to play faster so that games come to a natural conclusion without having to come to time.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Yep, my feeling is the high quantity of reactions in Malifaux isn't conducive to a clock.

[zeeblee]

A primary issue I see is that this would favor crews with fewer models and punish both crews with high initial counts and crews focused on summoning.  If you had X amount of time per model, then that wouldn't be an issue, but X amount of time per player could heavily punish those who try to win via quantity instead of quality.

 

There's a similar issue in Warhammer 40k tournaments where horde armies cause massive problems for the standard limit of 2-hour games (it takes waaaay too long to move 100 Orks and still get more than two turns completed).

[Cats Laughing]

I think Deathclock style would simply work better, as any decent chess clock is designed to be slapped back and forth quite quickly.  I'd need to try it a few times to see if opposed duels present too much of a problem.  Malifaux does have a lot of potential to do more when the clock runs out though, since its a game where you can be tabled and still win.  I can see clocking yourself forfeiting strategy points or letting the opponent play out the rest of their time, for example, but both would need some testing.

 

This I totally agree with.  If there's one thing that would stop me from wanting to attend Malifaux tournaments, it would be a Deathclock that had clocking out equate to a straight loss as it does in warmahordes.

 

I could also see Deathclock working, but I do wonder about the back and forth during duels and how that might actually slow down the game more with too much time actually spent on flipping the clock back and forth 5+ times in a single activation.

[SpiralngCadavr]

There's a similar issue in Warhammer 40k tournaments where horde armies cause massive problems for the standard limit of 2-hour games (it takes waaaay too long to move 100 Orks and still get more than two turns completed).

QFT. Had a few hoard armies that I could roll over other armies with pretty reliably that just didn't have time, in a timed setting.

 

From what I understand, PP's system just has a different meta for tightly timed tournaments than regular games, which is kinda' interesting.

[Cats Laughing]

A primary issue I see is that this would favor crews with fewer models and punish both crews with high initial counts and crews focused on summoning.  If you had X amount of time per model, then that wouldn't be an issue, but X amount of time per player could heavily punish those who try to win via quantity instead of quality.

 

There's a similar issue in Warhammer 40k tournaments where horde armies cause massive problems for the standard limit of 2-hour games (it takes waaaay too long to move 100 Orks and still get more than two turns completed).

 

The time issue does cause a problem for armies with more models/activations/actions or long complex interactions.

 

I wonder if these slower crews have an effect on untimed games, by stopping games from getting to turn 5?  Not sure if that actually helps or hurts the slower crew.

 

Currently, if you assume 2 hour rounds, then you would have 1 hour for each player.  This would then (split across 5 standard turns) give 12 minutes per turn under a timed turn format.  That might not be enough for a large/summoner crew.

 

I think this is a difficult problem.

 

Timed Turns would ensure that you get to turn 5 at least, but might force slower crews to lose activations each turn as they run out of time. This will seem even more unfair if one player has a very quick crew and finishes all their activations with time to spare and the game goes to the full five turns, but there is still time left in the tournament round, but the slower crew has lost activations throughout the game.

 

Deathclock also has issues, as a slower crew will run out of clock first.  A clockout loss would be really painful, but other clockout penalties could hurt badly as well (loss of VP, etc...).  Deathclock also doesn't ensure that the game gets to 5 turns, which is one of the currently presented issues with having no clock.

 

Time per Activation is somewhere between the two options.  If you only have # minutes to activate a model, you could end up running out of time and losing AP.  If the "time per model" multiplied by the number of models in each crew (especially where summoning is involved) the multiplied by 5 turns is greater than the time limit for the tournament round, then you're not guaranteed to get 5 turns completed, which goes back to the same problem noted for both Deathclock and no clock.

 

I know my proposed solution isn't perfect, but I guess the idea is to see what ideas pop up and see if we can find a good solution.

 

(yes, play faster is the best solution

[LunarSol]

 

From what I understand, PP's system just has a different meta for tightly timed tournaments than regular games, which is kinda' interesting.

 

Not quite.  The meta difference has more to do with scenario play vs people that play strictly to caster kill.  Timed turns has more of a warping effect on armies played however, as certain complicated large activation feat turns don't work well.  Deathclock tends to work better for these kind of lists, as that one big turn can be mitigated through lesser turns.  A big reason deathclock has become the standard is that it plays more naturally to the game and is less restrictive of list design.  Feat of Blades was won with a list that fielded around 70 models for example.

 

A primary issue I see is that this would favor crews with fewer models and punish both crews with high initial counts and crews focused on summoning.  If you had X amount of time per model, then that wouldn't be an issue, but X amount of time per player could heavily punish those who try to win via quantity instead of quality.

 

Not really.  Malifaux actually has a pretty strong mitigation for this in the form of the round limit.  No matter how many models you play, you just have to be able to activate all of your models 5 times in, lets say an hour.  I think that's a fair expectation to have if the goal is to reach the game's natural conclusion.  Any extra rounds flipped could even result bonus time if it was really needed.

[Math Mathonwy]

I don't get it - it is quite usual for people to take time deciding on, e.g., cheating when defending in a duel. Or deciding where they get pushed from a defensive trigger or whatever. You would need to be slapping the chess clock utterly constantly or else your time could be used by the opponent.

[LunarSol]

I don't get it - it is quite usual for people to take time deciding on, e.g., cheating when defending in a duel. Or deciding where they get pushed from a defensive trigger or whatever. You would need to be slapping the chess clock utterly constantly or else your time could be used by the opponent.

 

That's fine.  Chess clocks handle that without issue.

 

Realistically though as I've seen it work with tough rolls, players basically only switch it over if their opponent pauses.  I suspect in Malifaux it would result in players not switching it on the actual flips, but switching it over to ask the opponent if they intend to cheat.

[lusciousmccabe]

I've been meaning to get a chess-clock and try something like this out. I was thinking timed turns with anything not activated by the end of the turn considered to activate and spend its AP doing nothing. I hadn't considered swapping time during duels, seems kind of cumbersome.

[ranger156]

if chess clock style timers were introduced would there be a certain type that would be "official" etc, also if it was introduced what impact would it have on events where the TO didnt use them, would his/her event be ranked and then would this then result in a second uk ranking, such as seen in other tournements where each organisation has regional tornements and masters tournements.

 

i know all that ive said is premeture but i think all that has to be taken into account along with the normal discussion about time clocks

[LunarSol]

Like an official brand of chess clock?  I can't ever imagine anything like that happening.

[Adran]

if chess clock style timers were introduced would there be a certain type that would be "official" etc, also if it was introduced what impact would it have on events where the TO didnt use them, would his/her event be ranked and then would this then result in a second uk ranking, such as seen in other tournements where each organisation has regional tornements and masters tournements.

 

i know all that ive said is premeture but i think all that has to be taken into account along with the normal discussion about time clocks

 

Unless it was a game rule (which I can't ever see it being) it would be up to the organiser to run it, and the players where they play. I can't see their presence/absence making a difference to UK rankings ever. The rankings already covers several different game types (single Faction, fixed pool, single master), and its up to players to play what they want.

 

On the clock front, my gut feeling is that the game is too back and forth to really want to use chess clocks (and I used to reagulally use them in 5 minute chess games), there are too many areas where you would need to flip it back and forth between the 2 clocks. I announce I'm plannign on walking, then tap it to my opponent while they decide how many disengaging strikes they want to take, if any, then they tap it back to me for us to flip the cards, I tap it back as I'm winning, then they tap it back when they are done cheating.

Mind you I haven't yet listerned to TickTock, I think thats tonights listerning anyway.