Why does Henchman Hardcore format prohibit summoning and adding remaining Soulstones to your cache?

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

Henchman Hardcore is a rather cool format, but:

1) Many interesting models are of almost no use in there because a lot of their power comes from summoning abilities (Mechanical Rider, or the poor Ferdinand Vogel).

2) Limited cache means that you are almost obligated to build an exactly 20SS crew, no less, or you lose something for nothing. 

Those restrictions make no sense to me, but I am kinda new to the scene, so it is likely due to me not understanding something. Anyway, why do those restrictions exist?

 

[Adran]

The summoning one is because summoning can be hugely powerful in smaller games, and by banning it in the format, you don't just find that the few models that can summon appear in every list. (It also sort of breaks the original idea of 4 models and that is all to make for a very quick game). I would say that Vogel is possibly the only model that is so reliant on the summoning rules to work that he is the only one that is a problem, and as far as I know models are designed to work in Malifux, with little consideration for the alternate forums, unless they would break them for being too good. SO a model being bad for HH but fun in Malifaux is not a good enough reason to chaneg them, because they work in their intended place.

I can't remember exactly why they decided no additional cache, but Nekima might have been part of the reason at the time. most crews can buy additional upgrades to fill their 20 ss if they want. 

 

The original rules were created for an earlier edition, to allow fast (20 minute) games at the end of the day,  they got updated and made official by Wyrd. 

 

EDIT -<MOD HAT>Also I think this is more a discussion rather than a rules question, so I'm going to move it </MODHAT>

[solkan]

Because you can't say "20 SS No Holds Barred" (aka a regular 20 SS game) if Henchman Hardcore doesn't have those other restrictions.  

 

[Ludvig]

Summoning in 20ss games would just be terrible and go against the whole idea of throwing yourself into the middle for a good scrap that is over in 20 minutes. Higher cost henchmen are usually more survivable than lower cost henchmen so adding caches would be bad. Facing Ryle with a 7ss cache and one other extremely durable model would be boring as hell.

Mostly I guess it's because someone created the format and wanted it like that.

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

On 3/1/2018 at 5:45 PM, Ludvig said:

Mostly I guess it's because someone created the format and wanted it like that.

That thing I can understand.

On 3/1/2018 at 5:45 PM, Ludvig said:

Higher cost henchmen are usually more survivable than lower cost henchmen so adding caches would be bad. Facing Ryle with a 7ss cache and one other extremely durable model would be boring as hell.

Kind of, seems worth testing, but you are likely right. 7 SS cache or other high amount could become a requirement, any needed suits could become guaranteed, and most good hits against the Henchmen will be prevented. Again, worth testing. 

On 3/1/2018 at 5:45 PM, Ludvig said:

Summoning in 20ss games would just be terrible and go against the whole idea of throwing yourself into the middle for a good scrap that is over in 20 minutes.

Why exactly would it be terrible? I believe that you likely do have some experience to cite for this, but I would like to understand things myself.

There are no summoning masters (because no masters at all), so no 25 activations at your first turn (hey, ratty dude) or 3 centaurs per turn (hey, some-other-dude). Models that can summon in HH have strong limits. For example, Toshiro needs Corpse Markers or Scrap Markers, an upgrade (1 SS and your only upgrade slot!). Mechanical Rider needs 8   the second turn and an 8 the third turn, a HH game shouldn't normally go further without one side already almost winning the game -- and taking the Rider means that I don't take Howard Langston, who can give away a lot more damage than the Rider and two 4SS models summoned. 

BTW, there are hard counters like Taelor. 

I also thought about countering summoners with simple chess clock. If the game should last no more than 30 minutes and you give 15 minutes per side, a summoner would need to flip a lot faster or simply lose by time. 

[LordZombie]

The rules are the rules, but like all the alternate Malifaux formats, you can change them. Play a few games with summons and caches, then play some with the other rules, you will see the difference. In the official rules, encounters are only 20 minutes, that is little time for setting up anything that is not scoring points. I run HH all the time in my community as it fits the time we have. Most of the time, no one can get to round 5 and that is with the official rules. 

[Ludvig]

I've done variations like changing the strategy and scheme so I'm not against experimenting with the format. I've never felt the need to try summoning in real HH though. This is based on other small games and theoryfaux. When I tried Sebastian for a demo crew with only canines, those are not ours and Maniacal laughter it got weird. His crew was less stones than the other crew but could run circles around it and all the auto poison on canines with Sebastian's poison sillyness decimated the opposing crew.

Models with summoning that I think would get disruptive:

Sebastian with those are not ours or any resser with summoning and adding Maniacal laughter.

Obedient wretches (seriously ugh on these in such a small game).

Rusty Alice with the abomination summon.

Myranda with Imbued energies to do the Cerberus dance.

Anna Lovelace.

Neverborn emissary for some silly changeling spam thing.

In a henchman hardcore that usually ends turn 2 or 3 the opponent won't have enough ap to get past those tiny models like zombies, rats or seishin and you usually cannot afford to have many support models to push you out either so a super small model will waste all the enemy momentum and allow out-activation. 

If you want to test added caches I suggest using a neverborn henchman that has the extra reduction upgrade, probably Barbaros or Nekima. I'd also try Victoria of Blood and Ryle. 

 

[-Loki-]

Wasn’t Nekima a big part of the ‘no cache’ thing? Nekima and a 7ss cache is pretty absurd at 20ss. She doesn’t really need support.

[santaclaws01]

7 hours ago, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

Why exactly would it be terrible? I believe that you likely do have some experience to cite for this, but I would like to understand things myself.

There are no summoning masters (because no masters at all), so no 25 activations at your first turn (hey, ratty dude) or 3 centaurs per turn (hey, some-other-dude). Models that can summon in HH have strong limits. For example, Toshiro needs Corpse Markers or Scrap Markers, an upgrade (1 SS and your only upgrade slot!). Mechanical Rider needs 8   the second turn and an 8 the third turn, a HH game shouldn't normally go further without one side already almost winning the game -- and taking the Rider means that I don't take Howard Langston, who can give away a lot more damage than the Rider and two 4SS models summoned. 

BTW, there are hard counters like Taelor. 

I also thought about countering summoners with simple chess clock. If the game should last no more than 30 minutes and you give 15 minutes per side, a summoner would need to flip a lot faster or simply lose by time. 

Serena bowman would be an auto include in every Neverborn list, Coryphee duet would be oppressive unless you specifically tech against it. Rusty Alyce summoning Abominations, with the potential of turning them into a desolation engine. Mindless Zombie spam in ressers for weight of numbers(especially now with Asura giving them a good attack and her summoning them for free). All just off the top of my head.

Also Toshiro is a henchman, so he can take Command the Graves and Misdirect, because who doesn't like just resummoning a Kominu to redirect on constantly.


 

 

51 minutes ago, -Loki- said:

Wasn’t Nekima a big part of the ‘no cache’ thing? Nekima and a 7ss cache is pretty absurd at 20ss. She doesn’t really need support.

Probably. People are already willing to have Nekima as not the leader and just go with some other chaff purely so she can have stones to work with. If you only had to give up 4-6 stones instead of 13 stones for it, I don't think anyone would forgo it.

[Adran]

On 04/03/2018 at 2:16 AM, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

Why exactly would it be terrible? I believe that you likely do have some experience to cite for this, but I would like to understand things myself.

There are no summoning masters (because no masters at all), so no 25 activations at your first turn (hey, ratty dude) or 3 centaurs per turn (hey, some-other-dude). Models that can summon in HH have strong limits. For example, Toshiro needs Corpse Markers or Scrap Markers, an upgrade (1 SS and your only upgrade slot!). Mechanical Rider needs 8   the second turn and an 8 the third turn, a HH game shouldn't normally go further without one side already almost winning the game -- and taking the Rider means that I don't take Howard Langston, who can give away a lot more damage than the Rider and two 4SS models summoned. 

BTW, there are hard counters like Taelor. 

I also thought about countering summoners with simple chess clock. If the game should last no more than 30 minutes and you give 15 minutes per side, a summoner would need to flip a lot faster or simply lose by time. 

There are very few non master summoners, but I think you would find that there are several crews that can add 2 or 3 activation's on the first turn which might well be enough to grant a very hard to counter board control. (And just to say Toshiro can have 2 upgrades). And if you really wanted you could still run a rat engine to get 10 + activations on the first turn. I'm not 100% sure how I can abuse that many activations just yet, but I'm sure someone could. 

Are these crews much more powerful than other HH crews? I'm not sure they are that much better, but they add a very different dimension to a HH game, making people have to adapt to their possibility. I think they are quite extreme on the scissors /paper /stone scale, so will eitehr do great, or rubbish. 

And I've seen several people talk about chess clocks, but I've not yet heard anyone that has tried using them and continued to be a strong advocate for them in Malifaux. Lots of people have suggested them, then used them and decided they don't work. I have never tried them myself, but time is not something I generally find as an issue in my games.  The nature of the game is one that is hard to split the times fairly, and often leads to more problems that it is set up to stop. 

As I said, from what I remember, the no summoning originally existed because the people that came up with the format wanted 4 models a side crews and no more. (plus the original idea used masters so summoning would have been possible)

But try out your ideas.  see if they are fun, and then  see if you can break your new format. (because if it can be broken, someone will). People have run lower SS tournaments and the top crews in those have most often been summoner based. That doesn't mean that they would dominate HH if you could summon, but its at least a concern).

 

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

5 hours ago, Adran said:

(And just to say Toshiro can have 2 upgrades)

Yep, thanks for correcting me, forgot that he is not an Enforcer for a sec. 

5 hours ago, Adran said:

there are several crews that can add 2 or 3 activation's on the first turn which might well be enough to grant a very hard to counter board control. 

That's true -- but there are such crews in 50 SS as well, for example, Hamelin or Nicodem. 

 

5 hours ago, Adran said:

And if you really wanted you could still run a rat engine to get 10 + activations on the first turn

Not sure, but worth asking my friend who knows Hamelin really, really well. I doubt that it will go that well without Hamelin and in 20 SS, though, because the rat engine will go out of fuel pretty soon.

5 hours ago, Adran said:

I'm not 100% sure how I can abuse that many activations just yet, but I'm sure someone could.

Well, I'm also sure someone will abuse it if it gets possible, because having lots of activations is a very big advantage in Malifaux. However, you also need some beater models to do the job, as HH is actually about hitting stuff, and you don't have much place. 

 

11 hours ago, Adran said:

I think they are quite extreme on the scissors /paper /stone scale, so will eitehr do great, or rubbish. 

Seems likely. Henchman Hardcore game result is usually decided in just a few rounds, I am not sure if it would allow you enough time for your summoning engine to spin up. For example, Toshiro needs corpse markers or scrap markers, which means that someone has to die: most options to spawn those markers seem a bit too expensive for HH. But if you get it to spin and haven't lost the game yet, damn yes, lots of Komainu or Ashigaru will probably win a game for you. 

 

11 hours ago, Adran said:

People have run lower SS tournaments and the top crews in those have most often been summoner based. That doesn't mean that they would dominate HH if you could summon, but its at least a concern).

Well, summoning is indeed very, very powerful. So here goes the counter -- chess clock. 

Could you please tell me what causes problems regarding the chess clock? 

My point was that if you do 25 activations per turn and your opponentt does 8 activations, it means that you need around 3 times more time for that to happen. You get an advantage, but you have to either do things faster than your opponent (e.g. flip cards faster), or you will get out of time. 

We also resolve a very problematic situation that happens at normal tournaments where only the round time is limited. When you play against a summoning crew, if you play slowly, thinking for a long time about your every move, you are less likely to forget something, and you also don't give your opponent more time to go further with the summoning and get an advantage. If you do play quickly, though, mistakes are more likely, and your opponent gets more tournament time to rotate the combos. 

Summoner builds also frequently only score points late in the game, so there is a chance that they won't get points if you run out of time. I know that slow play is considered cheating, but it's hard to prove, and henchmen that I know won't consider carefully choosing your actions to be slow play.

With chess clock, though, that's not a problem at all. You both have, say, 1 hour of time, and if you thing for too long or have too many models to activate, that becomes a huge hindrance. 

[Ludvig]

The issue comes when you need to flip over the clock for things like: having them state their defensive rules when you attack, asking if your opponent wants to stone for defense or a suit, declaring duel totals, considering to cheat or not, checking auras, asking your opponent if they want to use a stone for prevention, deciding and measuring where exactly they want their corpse and so on. If I ask an opponent about a model's defensive abilities while deciding who to attack should that come from my time? How slow does the player need to be to respond before I clock over to their time? What if they say "I measured earlier and this model is in this buff aura" to save time, should I then force them to remeasure using their own time or is that bad sportsmanship? Maybe they are allowed to measure it during my time and then do it really slowly instead.

[solkan]

 

Quote

Well, summoning is indeed very, very powerful. So here goes the counter -- chess clock. 

Could you please tell me what causes problems regarding the chess clock? 

Go out and play a game of Malifaux using a chess clock.

After you work out all of the details concerning whose clock each individual step of an opposed duel should be on, you can come back and explain how wonderful the process is.

"Just use a chess clock" is about as useful as saying "just use miniatures to win."  

[WWHSD]

 

2 hours ago, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

That's true -- but there are such crews in 50 SS as well, for example, Hamelin or Nicodem. 

...

Seems likely. Henchman Hardcore game result is usually decided in just a few rounds, I am not sure if it would allow you enough time for your summoning engine to spin up. For example, Toshiro needs corpse markers or scrap markers, which means that someone has to die: most options to spawn those markers seem a bit too expensive for HH. But if you get it to spin and haven't lost the game yet, damn yes, lots of Komainu or Ashigaru will probably win a game for you. 

The game is balanced around 50SS games. The smaller the game the more skewed some abilities get.

Seeing as there are only two ways score in Henchman Hardcore, being able to turn corpse or scrap markers into scoring models makes it much less risky to throw models into the middle to start scoring turf war since you can bring them back after they die. Killing one of your opponent's models is a two model swing which can be huge when you only start with 4. The summoning abilities  

 

[Fetid Strumpet]

The reason is that the original creators preferred the strongest models in the format to be Uber Killy models because it worked for what they were creating. You don’t like it feel free to change it, you aren’t having wrong bad fun if you change the rules to be more to your liking.

[Adran]

11 hours ago, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

That's true -- but there are such crews in 50 SS as well, for example, Hamelin or Nicodem. 

 

Not sure, but worth asking my friend who knows Hamelin really, really well. I doubt that it will go that well without Hamelin and in 20 SS, though, because the rat engine will go out of fuel pretty soon.

Well, I'm also sure someone will abuse it if it gets possible, because having lots of activations is a very big advantage in Malifaux. However, you also need some beater models to do the job, as HH is actually about hitting stuff, and you don't have much place. 

 

Seems likely. Henchman Hardcore game result is usually decided in just a few rounds, I am not sure if it would allow you enough time for your summoning engine to spin up. For example, Toshiro needs corpse markers or scrap markers, which means that someone has to die: most options to spawn those markers seem a bit too expensive for HH. But if you get it to spin and haven't lost the game yet, damn yes, lots of Komainu or Ashigaru will probably win a game for you. 

 

Well, summoning is indeed very, very powerful. So here goes the counter -- chess clock. 

Could you please tell me what causes problems regarding the chess clock? 

My point was that if you do 25 activations per turn and your opponentt does 8 activations, it means that you need around 3 times more time for that to happen. You get an advantage, but you have to either do things faster than your opponent (e.g. flip cards faster), or you will get out of time. 

We also resolve a very problematic situation that happens at normal tournaments where only the round time is limited. When you play against a summoning crew, if you play slowly, thinking for a long time about your every move, you are less likely to forget something, and you also don't give your opponent more time to go further with the summoning and get an advantage. If you do play quickly, though, mistakes are more likely, and your opponent gets more tournament time to rotate the combos. 

Summoner builds also frequently only score points late in the game, so there is a chance that they won't get points if you run out of time. I know that slow play is considered cheating, but it's hard to prove, and henchmen that I know won't consider carefully choosing your actions to be slow play.

With chess clock, though, that's not a problem at all. You both have, say, 1 hour of time, and if you thing for too long or have too many models to activate, that becomes a huge hindrance. 

As said, try things out, but the idea behind henchman hardcore as I see it is 2 crews of a fixed size both in points and numbers battling it out in a quick fight. Adding summoning changes that. (I',m not sayign for better or worse, it just changes it)  Even if all it is is using Toshiro to replace the models in your crew that got killed.I am not sure I could come up with a huge summoning engine that would fit into the time of a HH game, but the ability to replace loses does chaneg the make up of the game. 

If you find a good Hamlin player, you will find that the rat engine takes almost no time to perform because it involves no flips and its something that they ought to be well practised in, so they know exactly where everything needs to be. 

But the problem with Chess clocks is the amount of opponent interaction that occurs during your turns can be quite high. If I charge an enemy, they can spend at least as much time on flipping cards and deciding to cheat or not as I do. I'm certainly not suggesting people do slow play, but I do think that a player playing a summoner doesn't really take that much more time than a player playing a non summoner in actual amount of time spent. (They already know what they want to spend half their hand on, where as the other player doesn't, so might take fewer actions, btu most of the time can need to think more on how important those actions are).  Thats probably not true when you are learning the summoning crew, but in my experience games where both players know what they are doing, and 1 player can summon models don't take any longer than games when both players know what they are doing and neither player can summon. 

 

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

But the problem with Chess clocks is the amount of opponent interaction that occurs during your turns can be quite high. If I charge an enemy, they can spend at least as much time on flipping cards and deciding to cheat or not as I do.

In this case we need to make the clock easily reachable for both players like it is in chess so they can click it quickly, and formalize the duel sequence so you know for sure when to click the clock.

The general idea is that whenever you have to react, it's your time being spent.

For example, the opposed duel sequence could look like this. Each step involves a clock switch.

1. Your turn, your clock runs. You choose a model to activate and declare an action and its target. You ask your opponent if he agrees that it's possible or if there are defensive abilities to be announced, and switch the clock.
2. If your opponent considers the action legal, they have to announce Df or Wp and cover. They don't have to announce things like Hard to Kill or incorporeal -- if you want to read your opponent's cards, you have to spend your own time for that. So, if your opponent switches the clock back, it means that they agree and allow you to proceed. They cannot argue that the action wasn't possible after they switch now.
3. You decide if you proceed with the action as announced. If you don't, you return to step 1. If you do, you declare Soulstone use and flip a card for your attack, there is no way back after you flip.
4. Your opponent flips for defense and determines the duel winner. If they have lost the duel, they decide if they cheat fate. If they have won, they just switch the clock back.
5. You decide if you cheat fate and switch the clock. 
6. If your opponent won the original duel, they can cheat fate now.
7. You declare one trigger.
8. Your opponent declares one trigger. 
9. You determine success and flip for the damage if applicable.
10. Your opponent decides to use a Soulstone for prevention and flips and they do.  

That's a lot of switches, but comparable to such amount in quick chess. If we make the clock clickable really fast, things should go OK. 

The only real problematic moment is if players argue if something is possible or not. I don't know whose time should it be. We can probably stop both clocks and then make the player who was wrong get a penalty. For example, Player 1 wants to charge, Player 2 says that the charge is not possible, Player 1 doesn't agree. They pause the chess clock and probably start another timer, and call the judge. If the judge says that Player 1 was wrong, Player 1 has the amount of time spend on the argument cut from their overall time left, and their activation continues, if it was Player 2, then the charge action happens normally and Player 2 loses that time from their clock.

So arguing will only be effective if you are absolutely sure that you are right and won't work as a mean of slow play. 

1 hour ago, Adran said:

Thats probably not true when you are learning the summoning crew, but in my experience games where both players know what they are doing, and 1 player can summon models don't take any longer than games when both players know what they are doing and neither player can summon.

When things go smooth, let them go smooth. But when they don't, chess clock should help.  

 

[Ludvig]

Measuring to see if the charge is legal isn't an argument that should be penalized, it is part of resolving the action. Saying that the defender should have to eat thr time of a necesswry step of the action seems way off. Deciding if things are legal to do isn't slow play, that is generally what somr time is spent doing in a normal game. Determining if a model has cover is also an obvious part that the attacker ahould spend time on, they are declaring the attack and cover is part of checking LoS. If they want to avoid spending time o that they should declare obvious targets or be generous in saying when a model is in cover.

Your step 2 seems unnecessary, it is your job to check the legality of an action that you declare and asking about their stats seems like something you are doing that causes time to tick. They are only obligated to tell you such things if you specifically ask.

Iwould go so faras to say that one of the main reasons games slow down is a player asking a bunch of questions while deciding which action to take so that ahould reallt not penalize the player being asked.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

For example, the opposed duel sequence could look like this. Each step involves a clock switch.

1. Your turn, your clock runs. You choose a model to activate and declare an action and its target. You ask your opponent if he agrees that it's possible or if there are defensive abilities to be announced, and switch the clock.
2. If your opponent considers the action legal, they have to announce Df or Wp and cover. They don't have to announce things like Hard to Kill or incorporeal -- if you want to read your opponent's cards, you have to spend your own time for that. So, if your opponent switches the clock back, it means that they agree and allow you to proceed. They cannot argue that the action wasn't possible after they switch now.
3. You decide if you proceed with the action as announced. If you don't, you return to step 1. If you do, you declare Soulstone use and flip a card for your attack, there is no way back after you flip.
4. Your opponent flips for defense and determines the duel winner. If they have lost the duel, they decide if they cheat fate. If they have won, they just switch the clock back.
5. You decide if you cheat fate and switch the clock. 
6. If your opponent won the original duel, they can cheat fate now.
7. You declare one trigger.
8. Your opponent declares one trigger. 
9. You determine success and flip for the damage if applicable.
10. Your opponent decides to use a Soulstone for prevention and flips and they do.  

That's a lot of switches, but comparable to such amount in quick chess. If we make the clock clickable really fast, things should go OK. 

 

That's roughly how it would need to go. (I'm not sure I agree with what you have in steps 2 or 3 i think I would declare my action and ask for their reactions, defender has to declare soulstone use first, and both players should flip cards at the same time, so on the attackers clock))That's a lot of switching, especially when you are also needing to look at your hand and cards during that time. And that's 1 duel. Its doable, but its really hard and time consuming. (i think you would find that it doubles the length of time to do a duel where not much happened). speed chess I found was played 1 handed to keep the other hand free for the clock. Its not very easy to do that in Malifaux. 

If people find they are ion a group where slow play is an issue they could try clocks, but I don't think its a good answer.  Everyone can have their own view, but I've seen this discussion lots of times over the past 10 years or so, and almost no one that has tried to play the game with a chess clock has come back and said it is a good idea. I've never tried, but I know I don't have time problems in most games.  You can make it work, but I think it will cause more time issues than it solves. 

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

3 minutes ago, Adran said:

I'm not sure I agree with what you have in steps 2 or 3 i think I would declare my action and ask for their reactions, defender has to declare soulstone use first, and both players should flip cards at the same time, so on the attackers clock

Steps 1 and 2 don't exist normally -- they are to check if the action is legal at all, and they say whose time is consumed for that. Step 3 from my sequence is actually step 1 and part of step 2 from the opposed duel sequence in the rulebook. It doesn't really matter if you flip at the same time or not, it is important that nothing can change after you flip, and your opponent will have to flip anyway. And it is also important that it's not possible to delay a game by taking 5 minutes to flip a card. 

I understand that if you don't have problems to solve, this thing seems to be an unneeded overhead rather than a right tool to use. But if your average game lasts 3 turns, or even 2 turns, I bet that chess clock could help more than it would hinder the play. 

[Adran]

5 minutes ago, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

I understand that if you don't have problems to solve, this thing seems to be an unneeded overhead rather than a right tool to use. But if your average game lasts 3 turns, or even 2 turns, I bet that chess clock could help more than it would hinder the play. 

IF in 2-3 hours, you are only getting 2 turns done I think chess clocks would hinder more than they would help. Unless it is really all just your opponent taking a long time. 

 

[Fetid Strumpet]

I wouldn’t. Every few months or so someone always comes in with the idea chess clocks will solve the slow play issue in Malifaux, but it never works. Players have enough trouble remembering all the rules of the game and all the interactions that take place. Adding in trying to remember to hit your clock every time your opponent begins interacting with you has mostly been proven to slow the game down more than it helps.

[Ludvig]

13 minutes ago, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

I understand that if you don't have problems to solve, this thing seems to be an unneeded overhead rather than a right tool to use. But if your average game lasts 3 turns, or even 2 turns, I bet that chess clock could help more than it would hinder the play. 

Just having a conversation about both pkayers trying to finish games in a timely fashion should solve most time problems if it's the same player causing issues. In my hosted tournaments I've only had players not finish games within the given time on a handful of occasions. Most of those were at least in late turn four or mid turn five. I think a single game was turn three. If you are running out of time in turn two there must be something seriously wrong.

How much would you win by when your opponent runs out of time? 10 - 0? That would mean facing a slow player would give iu an insanely good differe tial for the tournament and almost be desireable. In most games you will get a healthy VP diff in four turns, especiqlly since most slow players are slow due to lack of experience.

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

10 hours ago, Ludvig said:

How much would you win by when your opponent runs out of time? 10 - 0? That would mean facing a slow player would give iu an insanely good differe tial for the tournament and almost be desireable.

10-N, where N is the amount of VP your opponent has already scored. So if you are losing 3-6 and your opponent starts slowplaying because of seeing that you are going to score now (like if you have Undercover Entourage and are going to approach their deployment zone, and some other scheme is up to be revealed). Under normal rules, you would call a TO, and things would depend on TO's judgement. With chess clocks, however, all that your opponent would be able to achieve is running out of time, and you would win 10-6. 

If your opponent is so slow that you have barely done it out of turn 2, and they have just scored 2 points, yes, you would win 10-2 and give a lot of Diff, but if the game would continue against such an inexperienced dude, you are actually likely to win 10-2 anyway. 

The point is, however, for the clock not to matter, to make players act faster so they actually finish the game without either player running out of time. 

10 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Just having a conversation about both pkayers trying to finish games in a timely fashion should solve most time problems if it's the same player causing issues.

And what if that happens routinely? 

 

10 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Every few months or so someone always comes in with the idea chess clocks will solve the slow play issue in Malifaux, but it never works.

I have found a few people around this forum who say the opposite, that it works and can even be a common practice. Why do you say that it never does work? Do you mean that in your opinion it just causes more problems than it solves? 

 

11 hours ago, Adran said:

IF in 2-3 hours, you are only getting 2 turns done I think chess clocks would hinder more than they would help. Unless it is really all just your opponent taking a long time.

It will make both players speed up due to not willing to lose 10-N just because you ran out of time. 

[Ludvig]

@Baskakov_Dmitriy

That would depend on the player. A new player who had several games that ended a bit prematurely in a single event wouldn't bother me very much. I would suggest that they start timing their games while they practice and pick familiar crews for future events.

A player that I know has the experience to finish games in a timely manner but somehow ends up winning against another fast player by turn two or three would probably see me very interested in their next match.

An experienced player that had recurring complaints of this kind might find it hard to register for future events.

This is all very hypothetical. I've never actually been called over to call out slow play, most of the tournament games I've played or hosted have ended with time left after turn five. A game ending turn two seems insane to me. If this was actually a regular concern I might also look to chess clocks. Poving slow play seems impossible so clocks solve that problem.