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Post by reddust82 on Dec 10, 2018 2:20:03 GMT
A scenario came up in my meta earlier today about playing to the clock and even making unit/model choices based on how much clock a unit inherently eats up. The prime example of this was when I mentioned that I felt bombardiers were worth taking even though their AOE weapon will obviously eat through more clock time what with scatters and such. I mentioned that I felt that was somewhat mitigated because there are various ways to make my own units immune to blast damage so if a scatter deviated back over my own guys I didn’t even need to worry about doing the measuring and placing of the template because there is no way they could be damaged by it. The devil’s advocate, however, said that if he was the opponent, he would still require me to measure out the direction and distance “to make sure” because obviously he wants me to use more time.
And just so you know, this was a friendly spontaneous what-if conversation, no one was being a jerk about anything. But it did bring up a situation I’m not sure about handling when it comes up. What are the rules concerning what you may and may not do to conserve the clock? And is anything formalized? Is it written down any where in text so you can show your opponent and say, “Hey, since there is no legitimate models anywhere close to the deviation direction that could be hurt, I don’t need to waste any more time.” I don’t think this will be a huge issue in my gaming group, but clarity would be most welcome as in a close game it really could make all the difference.
Any other general advice or “avoiding the argument” tips regarding clock management would be great, too. What is your experience in this regard?
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Post by auraco on Dec 10, 2018 3:15:29 GMT
I've never had a problem with people just letting deviation go when the aoe is clearly going nowhere relevant. This includes a couple of convention in eastern Canada and and the New England Area of the US. Say I miss with an aoe attack against someone with solid ground, we just both agree to not waste time with that.
Technically someone could do it, but even in game with poor sportsmanship I've yet to see someone try to justify that one.
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Post by josephkerr on Dec 10, 2018 3:23:44 GMT
If I roll unboosted pow 8 blast vs arm 20, do I actually have to roll the damage dice? Ive never met anyone whos making me take needless rolls. Its just common sense they dont want their own clock eaten if you decide to rules lawyer. Normally people who wanna police the rules for gain wont bother with useless measurements.
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Post by Armchair Warrior on Dec 10, 2018 16:20:47 GMT
I've never had a problem with people just letting deviation go when the aoe is clearly going nowhere relevant. This includes a couple of convention in eastern Canada and and the New England Area of the US. Say I miss with an aoe attack against someone with solid ground, we just both agree to not waste time with that. Technically someone could do it, but even in game with poor sportsmanship I've yet to see someone try to justify that one. I play at GenCon every year and this has never been an issue, including your dice question. Technically? That’s a question I’d encourage you to put on the rules forum. |
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Post by leotherat on Dec 10, 2018 16:55:53 GMT
I would think that this falls under the same category as mathematically impossible rule interactions. For example it has already been ruled on that if there is no way that a model could not be hurt or not be removed from the board no roll is necessary just apply as needed and move on with the game.
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Post by sand20go on Dec 10, 2018 20:49:50 GMT
1) Vast majority of people are fine
2) There is an opponent that would take on my clock a ridiculous amount of time to calculate (remeasuring, fiddling, etc) AOEs. Guess what. I don't play him any more. My psychic problem solved.
3) My latest peeve is people clocking over EVERY time for toughs or other things. - and I looked it up in the SR packet - you are supposed to announce you are doing so AND it is both players mutual responsibility to get it back afterwards. Last weekend an error on that. when I didn't notice he had clocked over for a very quick retal strike (pow 16 vs. ARM 17; Def 11 vs. Mat 7 so very quick to resolve). Clock ran a good 10 minutes on me. Seems good sportsmanship remains - doing it quick and avoid the clock fiddles - especially on clocks that don't have lights or other obvious things that indicate it is your clock that is running.
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Post by reddust82 on Dec 10, 2018 21:20:34 GMT
Yeah, I guess it just boils down to hopefully people not being jerks. The more I think about it the more worries I get, though, because we do have one guy who I honestly don’t think is trying to be a jerk, but he does approach the game from a using-all-the-rules to help gain an edge perspective. He’s not trying to cheat, but he’s a strict rules guy and knows the rules well and will make sure their played accordingly, especially when “proper play” is going to benefit. I can see him saying, “You chose a unit with an aoe scatter weapon, you have to deal with the consequences of that when it comes to the game clock. Now finish your measurements.” Etc. I hope not, but it would be an awkward situation if it came up, I think.
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Post by sand20go on Dec 10, 2018 21:28:04 GMT
Yeah, I guess it just boils down to hopefully people not being jerks. The more I think about it the more worries I get, though, because we do have one guy who I honestly don’t think is trying to be a jerk, but he does approach the game from a using-all-the-rules to help gain an edge perspective. He’s not trying to cheat, but he’s a strict rules guy and knows the rules well and will make sure their played accordingly, especially when “proper play” is going to benefit. I can see him saying, “You chose a unit with an aoe scatter weapon, you have to deal with the consequences of that when it comes to the game clock. Now finish your measurements.” Etc. I hope not, but it would be an awkward situation if it came up, I think. Well he is right.
But some of it is just to do it FAST. So, if it scatters into a direction where nothing can happen we usually can resolve that in under 10 seconds. Remember, all AOE's 3 and 4 nip the model targetted on a 1 or 2 and all 5s nip on a 1, 2, or 3. So those you have to measure.
Widget keys are your friend. Use em to make sure of what is in and what isn't.
And bombers are just a 10 man unit. Be glad you are not menoth. They have SERIOUS clock issues in some builds - usually meaning that they CRA or simply skip an attack.
And note, if you WANT you can CRA with your bombers. RAT 8 doesn't miss many things ;-)
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Post by Armchair Warrior on Dec 11, 2018 1:15:53 GMT
On the tough checks, if it’s just one roll that might be extraneous, but if I’m fielding a table full of doomreavers I actually have no beef with someone clocking to me for tough checks. My reposte is to just be ready with my dice when getting attacked and then there’s no chance for them to do so.
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Post by reddust82 on Dec 11, 2018 1:25:00 GMT
I guess my point is like what happened in a game a bit ago, my opponent ran up a chaff unit to clog up my bombardiers. I charge in, get a kill which triggers quick work and so I target an enemy model right in front of other bombardiers. My bombardiers have iron flesh on them so are immune to blast damage. The shot misses and deviates back over my bombardiers. At this point I’m hoping both I and the opponent would I agree that I don’t need to measure and place the template to see which bombardiers are hit because they can’t be hurt by the blast dams he anyway. The situation I’m “worried about” (you know what I mean) is if the opponent demands for me to carefully measure and indicate which of my own immune models would or would not be hit even though it truly doesn’t matter because they’re immune anyway.
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Post by Netherby on Dec 11, 2018 2:10:55 GMT
Someone would have to be a monumental ass hat to suggest you need to:
a) roll damage against something that you cannot damage.
b) determine the exact landing point of irrelevant deviations.
I've never encountered this and higher level players certainly wouldn't ask you to do it. Even swapping the clock over for Tough rolls most people would consider rude, unless the opponent is taking a very long time to make them or they need to make several in a row.
If someone insisted on you doing those, I would call a judge.
All that said, some stuff is a time sink and you should consider that when you build a list. Simply having a lot of models will eat more time. It's definitely something to consider, but more pressing is thinking about if you actually make the attacks. If your unit of Bombardiers is likely to miss most of their attacks and the blasts aren't doing a lot, then you should probably just not attack or just do a single full unit CRA.
Making attacks 'because you can', is probably the biggest single time sink you can make.
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Post by Armchair Warrior on Dec 11, 2018 2:41:34 GMT
Making attacks 'because you can', is probably the biggest single time sink you can make. Truth. |
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Post by sand20go on Dec 11, 2018 3:50:18 GMT
On the tough checks, if it’s just one roll that might be extraneous, but if I’m fielding a table full of doomreavers I actually have no beef with someone clocking to me for tough checks. My reposte is to just be ready with my dice when getting attacked and then there’s no chance for them to do so. I don't disagree but I also think this is where errors come in. If my dice are in my hands ready to go and you clock it over to me I am focusing on the game and, I can tell you, a ton of time I am not thinking to clock it back to you. You, sadly, have no incentive to point out my error. and the clock goes merrily running along. The spirit of the clock over rule was to avoid abuses of taking 10 seconds+ for every tough roll. |
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Post by Armchair Warrior on Dec 11, 2018 12:12:01 GMT
As a practical matter, in my LGS people aren’t going to swap the clock if you aren’t taking time off the clock to make the roll and mark damage, but if you’re Johnny-on-the-spot then it doesn’t come up. The good players will stay hovered over the clock and pass it back to themselves if they’re punching it over for you to roll and mark damage, which I think is a nice clean way to play.
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Post by Netherby on Dec 12, 2018 1:41:17 GMT
If you change someones clock over, you should definitely change it back. Continuing to play knowingly on their time is cheating.
If this ever happened at an event I was running, I wouldn't hesitate to disqualify someone who did that.
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