By Mike Breman of Gilchrist’s Rampant Lions
Copyright 2007

My first two Rogue Trader Warhammer Fantasy Tournaments were each held at 2,000 point and had eight players. In my very first tournament, I was the only new tournament player. Only one of the twelve matches (one of mine!) failed to complete a full six turn game. In my second tournament there were several new players, and very few matches completed a six-turn game, with many games being called on time during turn three or four. What was the difference? It was mostly due to the players’ preparation and efficiency. This article makes a few suggestions to let you play a relaxed, fun game under the time pressures of a tournament.

Tournaments typically must be complete by a specific time. As a result, there is a limited amount of time allotted to each match, typically two hours. Anything that delays the start of the tournament, the round pairings, or the availability of the play surface, cuts into playing time. Most players will feel hurried completing a 2,000 point game in two hours, so any loss of playing time is a hardship.

To finish a two hour game you need to keep to a timetable that looks something like this:

For the casual player, this is lightning fast! The hard part is the middle portion. Eighteen minutes a turn! Each and every turn! How can that happen? Well, let’s break it down: To complete a turn in eighteen minutes, each player’s turn could follow a timetable like the following:

Psychology tests	1 minute
Movement	2 minutes
Magic and Shooting combined	3 minutes
Combat	3 minutes
Total Time	9 minutes

The first thing to do is breathe deep. It CAN be done! The key is preparation, mindset and practice. Concentrate on three areas to speed things up: starting time, between rounds, and during rounds.

Speeding Up The Tourney Start

Say you decide to play a tourney at your local game store at 10:00 AM next Saturday. How can you help that tourney start on time? The single most valuable thing you can do is get there early! A 10:00 am published start does not mean, “Please arrive at 10:00 am”. It means 10:00 am is the time that pairings and table assignments are given to players. It means you have until 11:59 am to complete your first match. Prepare your army for play before 10:00 am, so that you are ready to play at 10:00 am. To be ready for the start of the tourney:

1. If at all possible, pre-register for the tournament. Pre-registration ensures that the tournament holder will have sufficient tables, and allows first round pairings to be made in advance.

2. Bring all the supplies you need. This includes: dice (six-sided, artillery, and scatter), rulebooks (Base and Army), measuring tape, models, a pre-prepared roster, weapons templates, and movement trays. It’s not fair to expect your opponent or the tournament organizer to lend you the stuff you need. Bring your own! A special note on movement trays: I suggest you bring at least twice the number of trays that you need. See the section on Preventing Delays Between Rounds for the reasoning.

3. Bring some means of transporting your army in its movement trays to your playing table. Army holders are often supplied by the tournament site, but be prepared to provide your own. NOTE: Top-heavy models like standard bearers and many all-metal models are difficult to move ‘on the tray’. Speak with your local gaming or hobby store for possible solutions, such as magnetic bases or trays, weighting the model bases, or bases that hold multiple models.

4. Arrange your army, with each unit properly ranked in its movement trays, on your army holder, ready to move to your assigned table.

5. If necessary, have the tournament organizer or judge review your army roster before tourney start time.

6. Consider a visit to the restroom prior to the starting time.

Hobby Note: You can use the generic cafeteria tray or cardboard box top supplied by the tournament director as your army holder. But a personal themed army holder is a great way to start psyching out your opponent early! Holders complete with scenery, prepared spots for your fully-painted army’s movement trays, and matching bases on your units will also give you many bonus points towards the “best dressed army” award

Preventing Delays Between Rounds

Having completed your first round of the tournament, you may now have from 12:00 pm until 1:59Pm to play round two. If you haven’t cleared off the first table, you are not only slowing down your next opponent, but two other people whom you aren’t even playing! Therefore you do need to cut short your post-game victory celebrations, and prepare for the next game. (Or in my case, stop crying about yet another crushing defeat and move on to my next military disaster…)

1. Prepare to play with all of the supplies you need, just like you did at the start of the tourney. Here is the reason you brought twice as many movement trays! You do not have time to pack up your army between rounds and then unpack it again. When you are removing casualties during a game, place the casualties into a movement tray of the same type and fill from the back. Should the remaining models in a unit be removed, combine the models onto the tray with the most models. As an added bonus, victory point calculations get easier, as all the casualties are grouped by unit! After the game, combine surviving troops with casualties in the same manner.

2. Have your army ready at start time, with all units ranked up on your army holder. Since your roster (usually) cannot change between rounds, using the method above means you are ready to go!

3. If you are coming off a lunch or dinner break, be back to the tourney site before the start time.

4. Consider a visit to the restroom prior to the starting time.

How you can play faster

Nine minutes to complete your turn will go by in a flash. It is impossible to complete a turn in nine minutes unless both you and your opponent cooperate and pay attention. Remember that you are playing with your opponent, not against them! The clock is a common enemy, cooperate against it!

Note that the turn time guidelines presented above may not accurately reflect your specific army. You might need more time for magic or shooting, or you might have to roll 600 dice during close combat. (Darn those Orcs!) Whatever your army’s specific needs, plan how you intend to spend those scant few nine minutes of time. Practice the following tips in your casual games and they will help you in tournament:

1. Start by repeating the following personal mantra: “I do not have time to look up the rules… I do not have time to look up the rules… I do not have time…”

2. Make your decisions quickly. Don’t dither, and trust your instincts. You are commanding an army, and like any command decision, time is of the essence. If you wait to decide, the decision will be taken from you by the action of your enemy. In this case, the enemy is time.

3. Develop a basic methodology to each phase of the game to make sure you cover all the units. For example, in the movement phase, I sweep across the board from the most interesting flank to the least interesting flank. IE, if my defense of the left flank has to succeed or I will lose the game, I move my units in order from left to right on the board. This insures I’m spending my initial concentration on the units that are most critical to my battle plan, without overlooking other units.

4. Know the basic rules of the game. It is ok to be a little unclear on some of the very fine points of details like clipping, overrun, or lapping. That’s why judges are there. It is not ok to be unclear on things like turn sequence, psychology, or combat resolution calculations.

5. Know the specific rules that apply to your army but not necessarily the specific rules of your opponent’s army. Having an army book is great, but repeat your mantra here. Looking rules up is fine at need, but you don’t have time! Know how your spells work, how unit special abilities work, how character special abilities, bound items, or any other special circumstance fits into game play. It is not your opponent’s responsibility to know the details of how your army works!

6. Trust your opponent to know the rules of their army. (Repeat your mantra again – you don’t have time to ask your opponent look up rules, either.) If you suspect your opponent is taking advantage of the rules, either deliberately or via lack of knowledge, discreetly ask the judge to watch your game a little more closely.

7. Make sure you are solid on the basic stats of your units and characters. Your army roster will help you with this, but it is best if you memorize these details. <Insert mantra here.> Know each unit’s movement speed, weapon and ballistic skill, strength, toughness, initiative, leadership, wounds and unit strength per model. If you can’t memorize it, use a highlighter on your roster sheet to emphasize the basic stats, so you can find them quickly.

8. Play your game first. Help players on other tables as little as possible. Let the tourney judges do that, instead of delaying your own game. As a corollary, try very hard not to slow other player’s games with questions.

Dice Rolling Tips

A significant portion of time is spent dealing with dice rolls. Speed up your dice rolling, and you’ll be amazed at how much time you can save.

1. Learn how the To Hit and To Wound tables work. This may be the single fastest way to speed up play!

2. Batch-roll your dice. If you don’t have enough dice to roll all your attacks simultaneously, buy more dice.

3. For multi-turn combats, save recalculation time and remember the to-hit and to-wound rolls from turn to turn. “3+ to hit, 4+ to wound, right?”

4. Roll your dice briskly. Gamer’s superstition aside, shaking the dice in your hand for extended periods of time doesn’t change the odds; it just delays the game while getting perspiration on the dice. Ewww!

Hopefully, these tips will help you enjoy your tournament games of Warhammer Fantasy. Now get out there and start bringing home some trophies!

Notes to Tournament Organizers

Every tournament organizer can tell you horror stories about the player that shows up two minutes after dice start hitting the table, with a disorganized force of 200 Orcs and Goblins, no roster and a burning desire to play.  But the coin flips over:  every player can tell you horror stories about the poorly organized tournament that started late, with inexperienced judges who didn't know the rules, with numerous delays during the tourney such that the last round of play is cut short.  Tournament organizers also need to be on their game to keep everything running smoothly, too!

1. Supply copies of this article to first time players.

2. Allow and encourage pre-registration.

3. Supply army holders and require their use. If your store sells storage boxes for cards, the top of the 2400 count card box is perfect for 2000 pt. armies.

4. Have additional supplies available for the inevitable ‘I forgot something at home!’ Consider having ‘tourney packs’ with dice, templates and tape measure available at an appropriate rental price.

5. Start your tournaments on time! While your players are preparing to start on time, you should be doing the same! Have boards set up, floors swept, scenarios printed, and pairings scheduled well before that 10:00 am start.

6. Don’t play in any tournament you are directing or judging! You need to be impartial and fair in your rulings, and rules questions will inevitably slow down your games. Arrange to have another store employee or ‘friend of the store’ available to jump in to make an even number for a tourney.

7. Have sufficient non-playing judges to handle rules questions efficiently. If your gaming space is split, have one judge in each area.

8. Be ruthless about ending games on time.  Swiss pairing means the most important games between the best players occur in the last round.  Players feel cheated if these deciding matches have to be hurried, so make sure early rounds end appropriately to give your champions time to play!

9. Schedule sufficient time between rounds for players to move to the next table smoothly. You want the players to have plenty of time if they are reasonably efficient, not harried to death trying to meet impossible transition schedules.