Improving speed and efficiency

[SAYNE]

First of all, thank you for reading! I've been playing Malifaux for almost a year, but my actual amount of games is fairly low. Casual only, it's me, my girlfriend sometimes, and two other friends. We worked up to 50ss games while we were still learning the rules and it's been maybe a month or two since we've all really gotten comfortable with them. The first half of that year was me collecting and largely theory as it took me a while to rope in players.

Now, I'm a rather socially anxious person, particularly when it comes to strangers and games. This, and my overwhelming pile of greys, has kept me from joining a club with players more experienced than I. 

The point of this post is simple. My games last upwards of two hours sometimes even with one side often "calling" once the gap in VP gets too large. As casual as I am, I also refuse to deny my opponent their victory so I will usually stick with it if I can. I know in the rulebook it states games should last to about 90 minutes or so, and that's what I've been aiming for to keep my players invested and entertained, but it somehow always breaks 90 by the third or fourth turn (usually when schemes start becoming the focus) and I can see their attention and enthusiasm diminish. 

For reference, I play predominantly Gremlins, my GF plays an assorted mix of McMourning, Lucius, or Tara. Of the other two, one plays Tara exclusively (when my GF isn't), and the other proxies practically everything but has recently stuck to Arcanists Ramos or Ironsides. 

Rules wise, I feel we have the game down, but perhaps it's our lack of familiarity with our cards and (in the case of the proxies) our opponents models. 

Truthfully it's led me to start hiring my lists before I even start so I can eliminate that step (and predominantly elite high cost crews as well) just to keep the time investment down.

Perhaps I will build another table so we can get two games at once, with everyone playing.

I will edit this post with a battle report (never done one so I apologize in advance) and a timer for each step. 

Thanks again!

[Bengt]

The latest tournament document recommends 2h rounds rather than 90 min. Personally my casual games run closer to 3h, the few tournament games I've played have been faster as both players have had it in mind.

In general I've never found time recommendations on games even remotely realistic for new players, mostly thinking about board games here as they usually have times printed on the box...

[Ludvig]

Unless I'm playing in a tournament my games usually take over two hours, I don't think that's uncommon. Knowing your cards without needing to look at them can speed things up but my time goes to contemplating the optimal move aka analysis paralysis.

Letting everyone play at the same time seems like thr best idea, our club has a lot of table space, I could never stand waiting around for 2-3 hours.

Board- and miniature games always downplay the time investment. Including setup I would always calculate about double the time stated on the box.

[RustAndTheCity]

As mentioned above, typically tournament games are now 2 hours. Casual games are often longer with more chit chat during the game.

Some things that might help:

 

2 tables so you don't have people waiting to play.

Pick strategies, schemes and crews before arriving. Set the strats and schemes before game night and get people to pick their crews ahead of time.

 

[Nikodemus]

3 hours ago, SAYNE said:

Now, I'm a rather socially anxious person, particularly when it comes to strangers and games. This, and my overwhelming pile of greys, has kept me from joining a club with players more experienced than I. 

No need to force yourself into an uncomfortable situation if you don't want to. But try not to fret too much about your grey plastic. It's very much a club by club thing. Locally there's maybe five or so of us that play only or mostly with painted stuff, another bunch that slowly adds painted figures but have plenty of grey/primered models and a few that don't really bother with painting. It's all good. Certainly I prefer painted figures but above that I prefer people to play with.

By contrast a town over has a miniatures club that's very adamant about their "fully painted, based, wysiwyg" mantra. You local club could well lean either way.

As a regular tournament goer my casual games tend to last 2-3h, though I have had +4h games with newbies who aren't as comfortable with the game.

As for speeding things up, do you regularly switch up your models? As a newbie I found new models to be really hard to keep up with. Early on I played with mostly fixed crews so I properly learned my own models, and against new players I tend to use the same set of models so instead of constantly learning new model rules they can better focus on learning how to play the game well.

Have you heard of "Henchman Hardcore"? It's a quick play format using only 4 models per side. Changes things up a bit from regular Malifaux. It might get you more familiar with your models without grueling +4h games. You can find the specifics if you download Organised Play Formats from Wyrd's resource page: https://www.wyrd-games.net/resources

[Ludvig]

I never play unpainted myself and my tournaments usually push for painting but in casual games I just love to get the games in and I would never judge someone for not having their stuff painted. If you want to join a club you could ask them before, mostclubs just want more people to play so I don't think it would be an issue.

[spooky_squirrel]

3 hours ago, aquenaton said:

I am personally a slow player, I like to make jokes and discussing rules during the game, but if I need to play fast, maybe focusing on what you want to do can be a key.

If you plan ahead your activations, you will do everything faster. Of course it is not easy to predict your opponents moves, but you can have a general plan, like: "I will start the turn hitting and end it scheming, so first activations will be my figting dudes so my performer has her manipulative for some more time".

It is mostly practice and planning ahead.

Practice your models so that you know what you want them to be doing and not doing is a great place to start. With that practice, make notes. For each strat/scheme pool posted for a tournament I'll have a few different core crew ideas drawn up, complete with notes of what I expect them to do.
For instance, if I'm playing Colette with my Show on Ice core, I know that I'm going to use the Ice Dancer(s) to drop markers and move into positions that can threaten some good Turn 2 scheme/anti-scheme play. Luther is going to move up to where Sub Zero covers the Ice Dancer(s), Ice Gamin will walk up and put up Bite of Winter, and then the Silent One/December Acolyte will do what it was hired to do (like shoot things, hand out slow, scare people away from objectives). Then Colette and either Cassandra or Carlos will step in and start their business. I have these notes for every master I plan on playing into a tournament, and it speeds up the crew selection and first couple of turns.

[CapnBloodbeard]

Echoing others - a social game can easily take 3 hours or more as there's a bit more chit-chat.  Tournament play, being under a timeframe you do tend to get it done quicker.

As for how to get quicker?

- Know the rules as much as possible.  So much time is occupied by checking the book.  Even put sticky flags for quick reference on pages you frequently need (eg who can use soulstones)

- Know YOUR models as much as possible.  A big timewaster is 'hmm, okay, my turn......who do I want to activate.....what does Vik of blood do again?  Hmm....what about Johan?  Umm.....I wonder....let me see that student card......wait, what was Vik's ability again?'  - try to have a pretty good idea of at least the basics of your cards so less time is wasted reviewing that with indecision.  Also, being uncertain about your cards means you'll often miss doing awesome things (so many times I've forgotten the heal my Viks get from killing a model)

- just make a decision!  It's so easy to get caught into the trap of 'hmm, who do I activate?' or 'do I want to move this model up or don't I, I think I do, what firing lines is that in?  Hmm, what if I put it 1/4" this way?  No? what about 1/4" the other way?  Hmm, that's about the same...what to do.....what to do.....what to do......maybe instead I can....." - if after thinking about it for a short period of time you can't decide which option is better, then they're probably all about the same.  Make a decision, do a thing, see what happens.  Same with deciding whether to cheat and that sort of thing.  Think about it for a few seconds, then make a decision.

 

It can even help to have a rough plan when you start - know that your 2 6SS models are going to run up the side and drop schemes and your beater is going to attack the master, or whatever.  Of course be adaptable and expect your plan to go to crap, but if you have a rough plan then it makes decisions so much easier. 

 

[EpicWaffle]

Personally for me, it depends on who I'm facing but, even with Somer. I usually narrow down games in 1:30,  2 hours. That depends on the fact that I practiced all my models and know what they can and cannot do. This eliminate the "analysis paralysis" people were talking about before.  So as long as you plan ahead whith your models, you'll save up a lot of time. We're a very competitive club in Italy so we kinda train over that goal, but goes to say that when we're maybe trying new stuff or a new player join us, games can last 3h so there's that to take in count.

Best solution is to build another table (I builted my second at home with the boxes form minions to make buildings and I shaped the foam inside of the boxes  to make bushes, fences etc.) or to play with a certain time frame limit. It does indeed make the game faster, but it also make it more tense (tho is a great training if you aim to tournaments). Yet again, the 1 seems to me like the best solution (a club of our friends made a table with cans and straws, all painted bronze/iron, to simulate a sort of industrial site).

[Bazlord_Prime]

On 31/05/2017 at 2:47 PM, CapnBloodbeard said:

- just make a decision!  It's so easy to get caught into the trap of 'hmm, who do I activate?' or 'do I want to move this model up or don't I, I think I do, what firing lines is that in?  Hmm, what if I put it 1/4" this way?  No? what about 1/4" the other way?  Hmm, that's about the same...what to do.....what to do.....what to do......maybe instead I can....." - if after thinking about it for a short period of time you can't decide which option is better, then they're probably all about the same.  Make a decision, do a thing, see what happens.  Same with deciding whether to cheat and that sort of thing.  Think about it for a few seconds, then make a decision.

^This^ is probably what keeps our social games going 3+ hours. And the fact that most of us flit between masters quite regularly, so we don't really get familiar enough with them (there's too many cool ones!)

Try setting a fixed time to finish. You both agree, and have reminders on your phone every hour or so. Then you can both hurry each other up if the other is analysis paralysed with a gentle reminder like "Don't forget - we're finishing in an hour and it's only the end of Turn 1" 

[Paul7926]

Firstly, if you and your players are having fun then who cares if a game takes 2 hours or 2 days?  Your hobby, your games, you can do what you like.

Now with that said I do understand that you might want to speed up as you expand your games outside your group of friends.  As someone who has played most games over a lot of years in the hobby I can offer some advice.  I'm just getting back into Malifaux so I'm sure at the moment I know less about the game than you do rules wise.

Initially I plan to do some basic things to reduce the amount of 'clutter' that I need to worry about.  I'm going to limit myself to Henchmen Hardcore to reduce the model count and I'm going to stick to the same list no matter how bad it might be until I learn what my stuff does.  Even when I'm comfortable with with those 4 models and their interaction I'm only going to swap out one at a time for a new model to reduce the amount of new stuff I introduce.

I've noticed that something a lot of players in any game suffer from is 'analysis paralysis' where they contemplate each 'order/action' like it was a decision on which wire to cut to defuse a bomb.  Sure if you are at the final table of some national competition with enough experience to properly weigh up all the competing factors then that's ok.  The truth for the rest of us is that we are playing either friendly games or in small local competitions.  We simply can't evaluate every possible outcome before each decision.  Honestly I find the best thing to do is just give myself a few seconds to consider an overall plan and then try and execute it.  It will either work or not and the time to evaluate my choices is after the game.  Some time spent then honestly reviewing what happened will help you make better decisions faster in the future.  Losing the game is not the end of the world as long as you had fun playing.  Being unable to play or being too stressed about what should be fun is a disaster.

Something that can help and something that you are cutting yourself off from is playing experienced opponents.  I do understand your fears about expanding to a wider group and I'm not belittling them.  In my experience however if you can find an experienced player that loves the game and wants it to flourish they will have no problem spending the time to play you and answering questions.  My local Henchman (I think that is what the local people are called, so many games so many different names for the same thing) is great.  I played a small game against him last week and spent the whole time talking through what I was thinking and doing.  He was able to correct any errors in my understanding of the rules and also point out things I'd totally missed.  We had fun, I learned a bit about gremlins and the game rules and even with all the non game related chat we were done in 90 minutes (not a full game only 4 model henchman hardcore).  The actual result of the game was immaterial.  

Anyway, this turned into an essay.  Just keep on keeping on and you will get there.