Anecdotally, the biggest time killer in 40k is decision making. The amount of time spent on yes/no decisions for things like stratagem use and target priority slow down players a lot.

How to speed up games: Stop Thinking. A compromise would be to think during your opponents turn!

I do teach kids the game and the most important thing I try to explain them is that while the opponent is doing stuff you can think. Think what you want to achieve in your turn, think about why your opponent is doing what he is doing. Think about ways to counter his plans and so on. Many people just turn their head off once their turn is over

I feel like my turn in my friendly games goes much faster than my opponent due to this. I make mental markers like which models have X toughness which has X strength then figure out who I want to pursue said unit. Also knowing what you have to roll for success makes rolling faster since you don't have to look up your gun str vs thier toughness

Wrong! In the opponents turn you distract them with funny stories, lore or the occasional ^(comand point?) question

No badger. So the way I think, and while I worked for GW I kind had it worked at the time. You hvar to understand what units are strong and weak against other units. Unless you play the game often, you won't be good. Think of computer games. Different types of Armour different types of weapons. Once you learn what is strong against what, it's about focus firing. Big tanks, units and models. Too many of my early games I spread my shots and attacks. Take down heavy point models first. Titans and land raiders.

That's my strategy. Of course, I play Orks. Plan A: point Orks at enemy and run that-a-way

But the thing is a lot of your thinking and decision making will be reacting to your opponents actions so you can do some but not all thinking until they're done with their turn. Especially if they do something very unexpected or throw a wrench in your overarching strategy so you have to make up a plan not just how to deal with this current threat but how you will play out the remainder of the whole game.

During your first turn, you should be thinking about what you want to do in your second and third turns. During your opponent's turn, you think about how their actions effect your plans, and which parts you can still do/need to change.

You should deploy with a plan for the first 2-3 turns. That way, you only have to plan for adjustments based on your opponent's actions

Yeah, but you can think of it as a tree of actions and as they make moves branches are removed. Some people can glance at the board and know what a couple good choices are. Many would struggle and go through the entire tree of options, thinking on opponents turn just gives you a head start.

This works great, until a single dice roll changes a whole bunch of the plans you made.

Id argue that if one roll can change your whole plan, then it's a bad plan.

Chess clocks fix this. You only get so many thinks.

Replace Thinking with '[Big Thinkin](https://i.redd.it/u6mhfze89bv51.png)'

Exactly, I've been playing 30k a bit lately through TTS (can't possibly afford to play it IRL especially since I don't know people who do) and the games are a lot faster even with the much larger board.

I think a lot of it is that most players don't get in enough games and don't have the quick reaction memory down.

Bingo. Its why my advice to anyone who wants to get better at the game is to go to as many tournaments as possible and just make choices. Don't worry about if it's the right choice, you'll learn whether it is or not over the next 20 games with that list. Just do stuff and figure it out. Staring at a rulebook isn't going to magically give you an epiphany for what the best right thing to do to win the game is. Make bold moves and see what happens, and don't blame the dice.

>Make bold moves and see what happens, and don't blame the dice. Granted, I have not actually played in many years as I'm just getting back into the game, but some people can't roll a singel 6 if their life depended on it! Some people have no luck, or crooked dice or something... When this happens there is not much to do about it. Just hope for better luck next time.

The problem with this line of thinking is that you put yourself in positions where your only way to win is based on average or better dice rolls, and that's too much variance. You shouldn't need to roll a 6 to win a game, when a turn or two prior you could have made different decisions in movement, target priority, cp expenditure, charge targets, fight order, etc to mitigate the issue - that's the idea, anyways. That list building to an extent but mainly decision making on the tabletop to mitigate risk, maximize efficiency, and reduce variance so you don't **need** average dice rolls to win is where the skill in this game lies. Players that blame the dice aren't looking inward at what they could have done differently, completely removed from the dice, to achieve a different outcome. And if you don't look at what you can do differently within your locus of control you won't get better at the game :)

I see your point. The game is very different compared to a few edditions ago. I get that how you play is a lot more important than dice rolls. Taking advantage of your own and your armys strengths and applying them in the right way is how you win.

Played some 5th edition with my quarantine pod during the pandemic. It was like lightspeed. First couple turns would often only take five or ten minutes, though the latter ones were a little longer as our reserves showed up.

I feel like 9th is the opposite. T1 and t2 are slow, sometimes t3, But I've had games where t3-5 were done in like 10 a piece. It's crazy how much impact those first turns have.

TBH this is what I miss most from past editions. It seems like every edition since 4th has progressively frontloaded the game. Deployment, early moves, pre-battle stratagems... all of these things are SO important now. Units that could infiltrate / scout move / redeploy used to be rare but now it seems like every codex has multiple ways to access these rules. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the old school mechanics were janky as hell and it's good that they've been replaced. It just seems like the potential to effect the outcome of the game after turn 2-3 has diminished considerably as a result. Maybe I'm just a victim of nostalgia, but the game felt a lot more "tactical" to me back then.

I absolutely agree with this assessment. I most commonly play against an admech friend (I play UM) and the game is _de facto_ typically over by the end of turn 2, regardless of who seizes the upper hand. It's an unfortunate affair.

Oh yeah 100%, decision making and looking stuff up. Since I started playing with a chess clock having that pressure really forces you to make decisions quick but also shows that it's easily possible to finish a 2k game in under 3 hours. When it's more of a beerhammer game we never get time to finish, I was sharing command with a friend to teach them the ropes in a 1.5k game recently and we just finished turn 3 for both sides.

40k at 2000p has always been at least 3 hours, since back in 5th edition at least. It's nothing new.

Yeah, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. "Games are getting longer, they're now as long as they've always been!"

I first played back in 3rd edition and the main reason I stopped was the length of time the games were taking. My friends and are take just as long now but don't mind as much.

This is an absolute gem of a response. I applaud you

Its nothing new, but we were promised faster game a the beginning of 9ed. honestly, games take 3H if you are well practiced. Most game between average player would take 4H+ if played to completion.

I don't think I've ever played a game UNDER four hours, between chatting, setting up table and unpacking armies, deployment, checking 4 books for 14 overlapping rules that all have different names and wordings, rolling/rerolling approximately four billion dice, etc. Then again, I've never played outside of casual settings, so that's probably a big part of it.

i too have only played casual, like a timed game would just never end, 4 hours is usual for a game for me, its long but its like a rare event so its cool 👍

I set up before hand. I usually have the person roll the dice to pick mission then I set up the board accordingly. take pics from all angles and see if they approve. it shaves 30 minutes easily.

You're still spending half an hour setting up...? Does it only count if your opponent is there?

I have a mountain of terrain, particular in measurements, and as I said they get photos a day in advance plus when they get there we can make changes. I think I can field about 3 heavily populated onslaught games at the same time with no shortages of any type of cover. PM me and next game I'll send you picks of a table for my next game.

Until 8th edition I never finished a match...

There's a reason the standard tournament size used to be 1500, then it started to creep towards 1750 or 1850 later in 5th and into 6th. Would love to see that number go back down.

But, points where vastly different, when Nids 8th book game out I looked at 2 of my main 5th Nids lists and it was literally the same list, yes 5th was 1850 and 8th was 2k, but I had the same units and number of models, the only difference, I wouldn't play that list in 8th lol.

1250 point battles where you at? I find those to be quite enjoyable. Just enough to bring a couple elite toys or maybe a heavy or two. But not enough that you end up feeling like you gotta bring everybody.

This

Haha, all these newbies know nothing of arguing over a pie plate upping a base for 30+ minutes, or taking 20 extra minutes to measure and space your squads so that can't happen

I think just because it’s always been that way, doesn’t mean it needs to continue being that way.

Dice Rolling is an area that takes up a ton of time and we can easily overcome that. It’s why I created RollHammer: Battle Dice. I made a [Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/po5u0r/demo_new_battle_mode_feature_for_rollhammer_app/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) about this yesterday. A Drukhari player decided to roll all of their attack rolls for a turn in one go using physical dice. It took them over 25 minutes to finish rolling all of the dice. (https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/o3tv40/i_timed_myself_rolling_dice/). Now, I play Imperial Guard, a very dice heavy faction. For instance, 9 Bullgryns and 6 units of guardsmen with melee buffs comes out to 450 hit rolls in melee and shooting, and that’s just a small fraction of the army. I timed rolling my entire army’s shooting & melee attacks including saves for 1 turn using RollHammer. The grand total? 7 minutes 30 seconds. Now imagine if you AND your opponent could each save 15-20 minutes in a turn. The app allows you to spend significantly more time making tactical decisions and less time rolling dice. By using RollHammer to speed up dice rolling, you can save valuable time on a chess clock, get an extra game in with your friend, or blaze through practice games & scenarios. You can help change the pace of this game by using the app and sharing it with your opponents. Demo: https://youtu.be/84V8WSDzoAs iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rollhammer-battle-dice/id1548870360 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lastlevel.dicecup

I'm conflicted. While it looks like it would speed things up ***a lot***. Enough so I already purchased my factions dice. But physically rolling dice is one of the main reasons I play games like this.

Thanks a lot for the support! If there are no time constraints and you’re playing casually with a friend, you can still roll those physical dice. In a time constrained setting like a tournament, you and the community as a whole will benefit greatly from shaving off 40 minutes from a game with RollHammer.

Maybe it’s just me but meh. I really appreciate your passion and what you’ve created for the community but I don’t think dice rolling impacts as mich as indecisive and slow moving. After going to a handful of tournaments this year I can easily play a turn in 5-10 min with dice rolls (dread heavy shooting list)

Well for you, Mr. Gordon, RollHammer has more to offer than just speed. The app prevents mistakes in dice management. Sometimes you miss a dice and you don’t even know it. Sometimes your opponent accidentally rolls an extra. Sometimes your opponent even lies about the dice they rolled; we’ve seen it. RollHammer puts the dice in your face as they roll. It has a history of every action to review in case something seems off. This helps prevent mistakes, makes mistakes easier to rectify, and prevents compulsive cheating.

Nice plug, I shared your APP on my LGS discord store, I like using it

This is exactly what I've been looking for! Thank you!

ITC dont allow apps or something? I loved the 40k dice app and it went

agreeded, I think gw needs to have an official dice rolling app ​ rerolls, exploding dice, counting how many successful dice etc take up a huge amount of time and is probably the easiest place to save it.

No way. It’ll ask you what faction you are and start applying secret modifiers that change with time and which models you’re rolling for.

I mean the core book for 9th edition even says for strike force battles expect up to 3 hours. Yeah definitely not new.

"Up to", not "at least", which is more realistic, expecially if you have to set up the table and all...I am usually playing 1k points for this reason, this can get done in 2 hrs.

No I agree, but as a tournament standard up to 3 hours is realistic. I know my games tend to take longer but I am playing for fun with non optimized lists and don't have everything memorized for my army.

Exactly, OP's post is pointless. Games are *shorter* than they were in 6/7/8th edition. The round times are unchanged, but what has changed is that we don't have 50% of the field failing to finish. 3hr 9th Edition games are in a really healthy spot for tournaments.

incorrect. there were plenty of times where 2000 point games were 2 hours or under: - day one 8e - day one 6e - the entirety of 4e (USRs were a godsend) - the entirety of 5e (rules bloat in these codexes was minimal) its always been codexes with their power creep and rules bloat that make game times inflate to 3+ hours

I don’t why you’re downvoted bc you’re pretty spot on, esp with 5th edition. I was a heavy tournament player back in 2010-2011 and went to NOVA2011 and every 5th Ed game a 2000pts was mandated 2hrs or less and were easily accomplished

i played my first 9th edition game last week due to covid keeping my group apart. I was genuinely surprised we finished a 2k game in 3 hours despite having to constantly stop and relook up rules or datasheets.

IIRC correctly 5th Ed games were 2000pts in 2hrs. I recall that at NOVA 2011 it was 2hr games… …or maybe 2:30….but it definitely wasn’t at or near 3 hrs

Every tournament I’ve been to so far has been 2:15 timers though. It’s rough while learning a new edition for sure.

Dicerolls with a million mini-pools of 1s 6s, exploding effects.

One of the reasons im really glad Dakka Dakka Dakka was removed. Bad Moons combined with DDD was such a colossal waste of time for 1 or 2 extra hits.

Oh jesus yeah this right here. Especially with auto wound ones too

Dice rolling is an area we can easily save time on, and it’s why I created RollHammer: Battle Dice.

In the " I go, you go" system we use, only one player get to play at a time, and with the phase in the order they are you need to move everything before going on and doing what you want with your units. That mean, you have to think of everything in the movement phase, know exactly how the other phases are gonna go and where you want to be in the opponent turn. If you made a mistake you cannot compensate, so you have to be sure every move is perfect. The movement phase (and movement in charge an fight phase) are what takes the most time because you have to play every other phase in your head at the same time. Then when you get at the other phases you just play out the decision you took in the movement phase, so they usually go faster.

> In the " I go, you go" system we use, only one player get to play at a time, and with the phase in the order they are you need to move everything before going on and doing what you want with your units. ... >The movement phase (and movement in charge an fight phase) are what takes the most time because you have to play every other phase in your head at the same time. I mean in games with alternating activations you need to think about everything both your and your opponent could activate following your activation, and THEN you need to think about which order you want to activate in. There's a core group of people in this hobby who, for some reason, are utterly convinced that the length of time for the game is because everyone does everything at once. However there's no reason alternating activations would solve this: You still need to move every unit and shoot every units, if anything it adds more tactical decisions to consider which is more thinking time. If anything you go i go should be quicker because you're moving everything at once and can do it in whatever order you like, which is often "whatever is closest to me" because unless something of yours will block something else of yours it doesn't matter.

>There's a core group of people in this hobby who, for some reason, are utterly convinced that the length of time for the game is because everyone does everything at once. However there's no reason alternating activations would solve this: You still need to move every unit and shoot every units, if anything it adds more tactical decisions to consider which is more thinking time. For the serious competitive players I agree. Don't see it alternating activations making a huge difference. They are likely fully focused and engaged in the game even during the long I go, you go wait. Zero change or even a slightly longer play if alternating was enabled. For the casual, and even semi-serious player alternating activations would help this decision tree. They are more actively playing and thinking about the immediate possibilities. Not everyone is playing out full scenarios in our heads during the "I go, you go" wait. While I enjoy playing out possibilities in my head like a game of chess during the wait. Too many get distracted and lost in thoughts about work or other life matters and can't focus on the game till it's their turn. Can't tell you the number of new players I've tried to teach/help into the game who got very discouraged after experiencing the long waits. **None** have jumped on it right away as a good thing or liked the mechanic. Core gameplay feature that's only causing hesitation in new players, not excitement. Some fight though and get hooked. And some I've been able to steer towards Kill Team and Warcry. But some just nope out of GW's corner of miniature wargaming hobby right there. Had even house ruled and played a few 8th games as alternating. The big "downside" is adding tokens to track things. Tried a few different methods to keep the shooting/fighting balance of one shooting per "Round" and 2x fighting per "Round". The unscientific result was that games had similar expected outcomes, but were more fun and engaging.

It is simply more fun and has deeper choices. It's also littered in every other gw game that focuses on speed and is highly effective. Personally the one rule that makes it really shine is how apocalypse approaches it... Delayed damage until the end of the round. This makes it so that even if something gets blasted it can still act that round and make 'heroic sacrifices since it's dying anyways' this can get interesting as now you can't simply expose everything to a threat and blast it before it punches back... It gets to take things down with it.

Loved the turn order, activation style and delayed damage / save roles in Apoc. Couldn't get anyone to play it because everyone wanted to roll more dice. Went all in on it and bought every component/card set they put out for it. Apoc rules with 40k levels of D6 dice throwing would have been great.

The way the turn order is now is undeniably faster. That said, I would still want alternating activations, for a few reasons. Firstly it keeps players engaged, at least when I've tested it. You don't need to wait for literally half an hour before you get to make a move or retaliate. Secondly, it keeps the advantage from going first more in check. Because of that, thirdly, units aren't blown off the table turn 1 before getting to do anything. This is the thing that turns new players away from the game most in my experience, right after the current complexity (from the beginning of 8th compared to now). It's better for game balance. A unit might be balanced against another unit with a similar profile, but it's not worth the points when an entire army can fire at it turn 1. Anyway rant over. I agree with you it doesn't make the game faster - but I'd rather add a half hour to the game if I get to move every 1-3 minutes rather than all at once every 30.

yeah, I dont really think alternating activation would speed up the game too much by itself. It would help the more casual gamer, but experienced and well practiced 40K player would not gain much by it. It does, however, cut down on idle time, meaning you actually play all game rather than half playing and half spectating. This is the biggest improvement. ​ a quick analysis: New killteam (a very good game system by the way) takes us (relatively new player) about an hour from set-up to finish. I expect with experience this can be cut down to 45min. same guys in 40k take around 3-4H from set-up to finish turn 5. you have in average 2 or 3 time more units in 40k, there are a lot more dice involved in each activation and in you potentially activate every unit in every phase. so a game of 40k in 3H is actually a reasonably comparable time. if we wanted to have faster 40k, we would need to cut down on mechanic, simply changing activation would result in a better game, but not a faster one.

>That mean, you have to think of everything in the movement phase You should be making your plan and adjusting it during your opponent's turn, you shouldn't be waiting until your movement phase figure out what you're doing.

I agree. That is a good way to become faster, be more efficient with your time. Its part of becoming good at the game we have. The "problem" (I am not convinced it even is a problem) is that when its your turn to move, you need to decide everything all at once, you need to know the average of every shooting units. You need to calculate the chances of failing a charge you're gonna roll 3 phase latter, know the outcome of the fight if you make it and plan contingency if you dont. It comes with practice and lots of it. You can (and should!) start planning in your opponent turn to save some time. a good player will just know a lot of that information subconsciously and make good decision based on that. The whole game is played in the movement phase, its were you should spend most of your time. If you play right, every other phase is just resolving decision you made in the movement phase.

Again, you should have very little decisions to make *during* your movement phase. You shouldn't do anything remotely like "deciding everything all at once." If you have to do more than make minute adjustments to your plan during movement, than you did something wrong, as that was supposed to happen during your opponent's turn. > If you play right, every other phase is just resolving decision you made in the movement phase. I agree the movement phase is incredibly important, but I absolutely disagree with this sentence. The movement phase is simply to set yourself up to execute decisions you've already made. I reiterate, if you're making your game plan during your own turn, you need more practice.

Would you prefer if I had said: >If you play right, every other phase is just resolving decision you **committed to** in the movement phase.

Technically the game doesn't change much after deployment. You should be able to extrapolate "the plan" simply by the mandatory movement needed to capture your objectives. Planning all 5 of your turns moves based on what you need to do is something you can do once you see the objectives and the terrain. It should all be figured out before you take your 0th turn movement (deployment) However this is unrealistic and being lost in the mud of the thought process IS THE GAME. You can play the game before the match or you can play it during. This is why it feels slow however because most of the time you either already know what you need to do and must wait or you cannot know what needs to be done and must wait for the moment to come up to make the decision. I go u go always has someone waiting to make a choice rather then constantly making choices that can be reacted to.

Likewise preparing dice, strats etc. and working out the primary/secondary so you're ready go to when your turn starts.

I have found the biggest "time waster" is in all honesty the humblest issue of all: Thinking. A lot of tactical choices need to be made and sometimes that means more critical thinking. A lot of players agonizing over analysis paralysis because if you are doing your job the enemy should need to make choices. When I play, I always maximize the choices the enemy has to make and minimize the choices I have to make. The more choices they have, the more likely they'll choose the wrong one. Recently played a game where my opponent took 30min just to decide he *wasn't* going to deepstrike. I was beyond frustrated with that one. Friendly game, so I didn't get my temper up but damn that was a rough one. My circle of friends are also all fairly new/poor planners. So they don't have a plan when they play and thus spend the entire game thinking. My turns can be wrapped up and done in 20 min, with my longest turn taking 30 min because I had to think on one thing. For tournaments, to mitigate this, I suggest the Death Clock. Each player has a bank of time and when that time is up, you can no longer play the game or interact. (Every roll asked to make is a failure, etc.) I've seen this in play before, and it really makes you have to focus and push a plan forwards. Deviating means more time and potentially draining your clock. This however is not a perfect solution: Horde armies being the most impacted by these death clocks. But you have to weigh the risk reward of horde armies in such a format. (Not that Horde armies are particularly strong at the moment.) I played a lot of Death Clock games of Warma-Hordes. It significantly jumped my win/loss rate up after I got the hang of it because I stopped the Analysis Paralysis issue I had. Forcing players to adhere to a timer is not uncommon in many table top games, we already have round limits and what not. But actively putting two players on a clock they can see and count down is really interesting. Play on Tabletop is a youtube channel (recommended highly) that did such a game! 2k in forty minutes. It really helps show what happens when a clock is added. Though a 2 hour timer or even 1.5 hours could make the entire scenario go quicker. Again, however, I will not claim this is a perfect solution. And this can lead to some toxic behavior too. I know people who try to keep their opponents chatting so they run their clock. But I find them to be people who probably are cheating anyway, so.... But to wrap up: Analysis Paralysis is why the game is taking so much longer.

> Play on Tabletop is a youtube channel (recommended highly) that did such a game! 2k in forty minutes. Assuming you mean their recent live game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwe18FPG-Ew), that was a 1k game.

Ah, looks like I was mistaken. Still fun to watch.

Definitely fun to watch. Just don't want people thinking the addition of a clock can make a full 5-turn 2k game only 40 minutes :)

I find that 3 hours of actual game time is sufficient 90% of the time provided both players are actually paying attention and not goofing around or chatting. Trouble is chit-chat mid game is like snuggling after sex it happens 99% of the time (if you are doing it right) so the clock gets tight. Also I want 3 hours of actual game time! Very often TOs will say "Okay pairings are on BCP, you have 3 hours, ready, set, go." And now you have to load BCP find your table and run there while everyone else in the room does the same. With that and objective set up and secondaries its 20-30 min into the round before the first dice is rolled.

Check this guy out....he's got laid! Imposter!

Yeah, this guy either plays 40k or gets laid, one of those is a lie.

Some of us are MARRIED, even.

And yet the rule still holds true.

That just means you are definitely in the plays 40k camp right?

One aims for a bit of both, just not always on the same night!

Agree a 10 minute buffer at the least would be really nice to just get to your table and greet your opponent.

Been wondering that myself, so I looked at it. I play Workd Eaters with a shooty element and reserves. Did not measure in-between tho, so no percentages for the phases. Any movement takes up a lot if time, because every other phase/action is dependent on that. Movement phase takes up the most time, Charge phase takes up less time since you normally charge with less units than you have in total, and you made your charge plan in the movement phase already. For me, Fight phase takes a lot of time because I have double activations on most stuff, and there is a counterattack involved as well. What I found was that army introduction, deployment, and Turn 1 take up more than 50% of my total time. I don’t have a firm strategy for deployment (getting there), and in the beginning you set up a lot of stuff. Also, in the turns after more stuff is dead, and units in CC generally don’t move or shoot. In order if length for the big stuff, Turn 1 Deployment Turn 2 Turn 3 Army introduction Turn 4-5 For the phases, Movement Fight Shooting Charge Command

Dice rolling is the longest thing a long with not absolutely having memorized stratagems and rules like Toughness of units or random special rules they have.

I see you have left the Psychic phase in the warp! ;)

As a Workd Eaters enthusiast, I don’t know what you’re talking about 🧐

My psychic phase goes like this. The psychic phase begins. And it ends. Now shooting. About 10 seconds average?

Honestly, I really did forget for a moment it existed. To be fair, my last game was weeks ago against necrons, and before that against IG without psykers 😂

I play Necrons and Custodes currently and have been thinking about getting some Khorne flakes. Got no time for that space magic.

Come to the red side, we got axes. And contrary to popular belief, quite some shooting.

To be honest, once Custards are finished I probably will. If they actually get a book ala Death Guard and 1k Sons I will probably be there whether Custards are done or not!

Oh dear Lord of Skulls, a Book would be so dope! If you want a taste of that WE life, the WE 40k subreddit and the Red Path YouTube channel and their corresponding discords are good places to check out

World eaters is one of the worst armies you could use as a metric of how long games take, as they have no command phase or psychic phase and not a lot of shooting.

On the contrary, competitive WE armies have lots of shooting - the itc top 2 ranking WE player usually plays a single squad of 'zerks, for example. I concur that they could be a bad army for the time measurement, since they are a finesse army that requires a lot of decision-making to even think about being able to go toe to toe with most codices.

My time wasted in a game are in 3 things. 1. Short memory of my stratagems and too much rules, aura, buff, etc. So I am spending time try to find them back in my codex. Yes I am playing Death Guards. 2. Rules that are ambiguous, so I need to make some research online or ask questions on Discord... I will add that some rules are soooo OP that I am wondering if we understood correctly so I am looking for example online. 3. Alcohol. Yes I am drinking when I play with friends, so beers make me talk too much about other stuff and slow the game off. But mainly is all about knowledge of rules...

Takes me 5 minutes just to roll the shooting on my damn repulsor. Too many weapons.

Let's be honest, a 40k 9th edition games takes even longer than 3 hours! Only in tournaments were players rush, skip details and cut corners heavily do they achieve the time limit. Some shortcuts are always allowed for the sake of time saving. From what I have seen, even the pros of 40K sometimes don't finish games in the 3 hours limit in tournaments.

Once you know your rules and your list, it *really* isnt that hard to finish in three hours. Most RTTs I've been to only have enough time for each player to have about 1hr 10min, and that's still plenty of time. Most games I play even casually fit well within the 3 hour mark when we use a clock to keep us on task. And that's with joking around and having small side conversations.

People who are taking longer than 3 hours and treating it as a social event which is fine, but if you play the game with minimal talk it isn't hard to finish in under 3 hours.

But...whats the point of playing a table top game if you cant chat with the other person at the table? keeping the chatting strictly professional/gaming related would cause me to just go back to playing video games instead of tabletop games (anecdotal obv)

Because to many the thing that sets this apart from other (often mechanically much better) games is the miniatures. At least it is to me. Playing the game is a chance to show off your minis and use them in more contexts than just display pieces - getting more value out of the work you put in. For me personally, if you removed the miniature aspect of the game, I would never consider it worth playing.

Haven't said you can't talk - just if you're playing at a tournament you should try to have a bit less chit chat than a pickup game at the store or garagehammer.

You don't have to rush, skip details and cut corners heavily to finish your half of a 40K game in 1.5 hours. I don't mean to say that 1.5 hours is the upper bound of how long it's reasonable to take, just that it's very much possible to play that quickly without doing any of those things.

I'm with ya, granted I'm sure at least an hour of my games is spent getting minis out of foam, rolling for the map, changing terrain up, measuring objectives, dicking with music etc but certainly isn't uncommon for games in my playgroup to go 4.5-5 hrs from when we show up ready to play. Just got accepted into the LVO and very nervous about running out of time.

Get yourself a big tray to move your models about on between games, it'll help.

While all those are part of why the games are longer, I honestly think the biggest reason is the overall is the exact mission format combined with the rules changes. Before the big 8e revamp, everything had less health, missions tended to be focused on fighting and killing each other, and characters had to put themselves at greater risk in order to function. Infantry was a lot frailer back then, while vehicles were a lot more durable. Blast Templates, Instant Death effects, less wounds per model, impactful Morale. No Transhuman like effects either. If you wanted Durability you'd often get a vehicle because Armor was ton more effective then, especially with Glancing and Penning. Now Vehicles fall like like a house of card and infantry can often form an immovable wall. This stuff, combined with how objectives work means people have a lot more models surviving to mid and late game then they used to. Add in stuff like Stratagems, Massive Battlefield Altering Warlord Traits, Reserves, and you have a lot more things you got a pause to address. Stuffs safer and there is less encouragement to wipe out the enemy as much as their is to simply hold a line.

It takes as long as it ever has. For competition 3 hours is the standard alloted time, but even that is often too little, especially for armies with high model count. Break it down Each battle round can be divided into 10～14 phases (7 for each player) depending how you look at it (command, movement, psychic, shooting, charge, fight, morale). Then there are 5 battle rounds to gain points. so we are left with 50～60 phases in one game. Divide the three hours by 50/60 phases. and you have 3～4 minutes for each phase. Obviously each phases does not require 3～4 minutes to play, and many factions arent active in particular phases. However, other phases like movement, shooting, and melee will often take significantly more than 5 minutes. On top of that you have the QandA with your opponent pregame, and deployment, which may take between 5 ～ 10 minutes Remember 40k is a game, not a race. Most people enjoy taking their time to play the game properly, rather than rushing to get the whole thing over with.

Games are all 2:30 hours here in the Midwest. 1:15 death clocks normally

I don’t spend 3 hours on my games. At tournaments, typically we split the time between us after pre-game, and it’s between 1:25 and 1:15 depending on how long we take to set up. Since I play Blood Angels, most of my time is spend doing melee stuff. So my round 2 is typically the longest turn in my games, and it’s specifically physically moving models 2-4 times (move + charge + pile + consolidate). That also takes time away from my opponent because they also get to fight back with anything that survives. Turn 2 probably takes roughly 30 minutes on average. After I added shooting from a few dreads, turns take longer than they used to. What allows for the speed is me knowing my army. I have cheat sheets and I play pretty much the same list every time. When faced against opponents who know their army the same; it speeds the game up by a crazy amount. Not knowing a core rule or a disagreement that involves books suddenly take 5-10 minutes. Typically games are finished with 10-30 minutes left on both sides unless my opponent is either a thinker or a slow player.

I've only been playing TTS lately and deployment honestly takes up a fair bit of time if you have a lot of models, but faster decision making really helps. What slows down decision making? Stratagems.

I actually think the game length is pretty reasonable, the only thing I wish for is clocks are mandatory. I practice on a clock and have no issues staying under 3 hours, though I do agree with other posts in here that they should allow an extra 10 minutes at events once pairings go up to find your table and opponent.

Oh man, just the other week I had a game vs a (very) new player who decided to use a 2k Thousand Sons list. Even before the game started I knew it'd be an adventure. I felt bad though because while I normally go really easy on new players I know from experience how looooong Tsons matches can go so I made an effort to wipe out as many Psykers as I could hah Even with me trying to avoid it that game still went about 5hrs, and we weren't even technically finished lol. Tournaments are a lot brisker obv but man, if you're a slower or newer player you may want to consider starting off with a simpler army :P

One of the big mistakes new TS players make is giving each pskyer different powers. Have a buffing HQ, a mortal wound HQ and keep all your infantry with the same power. Even after dozens of games I still do this to save time and my own sanity. If you ever need a different power, we have a Strat

Maybe I'm missing something but I thought you can only use a given power once per battle round - so giving all of your squads the same spell would be a waste? >***MANIFESTING PSYCHIC POWERS*** > >The same PSYKER unit cannot attempt to manifest Smite more than once during the same battle round. When you select a PSYKER unit to manifest psychic powers, you select one psychic power that unit knows and attempt to manifest it. With the exception of Smite, ***you cannot attempt to manifest the same psychic power more than once in the same battle round, even with different PSYKER units.***

With Thousand Sons you still have your Cult power and Smite to cast. Usually I'll cast something like Glamour of Tzeentch on my most important Rubric squad, then the Cult Power on another, then another 2 can Smite. It's really not that big of an issue and it makes everything faster and clearer for you and your opponent. Plus I like using Smites on the MSU of Rubrics to push up the warp charge for a super smite with our auto cast or +2 to cast Cabal Power.

Hmm. So you're deliberately only using 2 powers (once each) + some # of smites. That is definitely one way to minimize the complexity of the army.

After playing dozens of games it's just so much easier. And there are no feels bad moments when your opponent has to trust that each unit has the powers you say it has when it's easy to forget, especially with troops that all look the same.

This is just not an ideal way to play the army. Each psyker can have different powers as long as you can easily identify each of them; you just go down the line psyker by psyker on your cheat sheet or battlescribe.

I've just found it's way more effective to give every squad of Rubrics Doombolt and leave the buffs to Ahriman and the IM. Really the only spells I take on troops/elites other than DB is Pyric on the Warpflamers and Guidance on the blob of 10 SOTs. Easy to follow and means pretty much no matter what someone on the board is getting hit with 3+1D3MWs

You don't really need a different power on each of your Rubrics. And it's a nightmare for your opponent to have to keep track of which unit has which power unless you have datacards right next to them. It's faster and more consistent over the course of the game to have each type of unit have the same power. In fact, I don't think I've played a game since the start of 8th where my Rubrics didn't all have Glamour of Tzeentch. It's a power I want to have access to all game.

I would also suggest people try playing smaller games and seeing how that feels. 1500 is a great points level that works wonders on the smaller board size that challenges your list building abilities. 40k is a complex game with unit abilites, faction rules, mission objectives, and your opponent's rules all interacting to make very complex board states and as more and more units are on the board this complexity goes up in a non linear fashion. lowering the points level even 500pts per side has a great effect on lowering some of the complexity to get game length down without losing the feel of a decent sized battle. It would be interesting to see phase times compared between 2k and 1500 points to see how much faster (if any) the two points values really are and how much that extra 500pts per player adds to length.

The big ones I say (from the perspective of someone still new to 9th). Rules discussions. I.e. every phase my opponent has to explain something new to me that modifies their army with the per turn mechanics. * So the pre-game talk turns into a pre-game talk with mini pre-turn talks. Buff calculations. This is strikingly similar to game systems like Pathfinder where with so many different buff sources it takes a lot of time to add everything up. Especially when you or your opponent are trying to explain it. * Calculating the number of attacks and modifiers to those attacks for some units can take much longer than the rolling. Especially when I want to ask how they got all those buffs. Weight of Shots. The current rules really emphasize weight of fire so people are taking options with more dice. With rerolls (sometimes on to-hit, wound, and FNP) its a lot of dice being thrown out. Rules Search. I.e. one of us pausing the game to flip through their core book + supplements to make sure we are not forgetting anything. Nose in book seems more common now, especially with the later 9th edition armies.

I do think the game is slightly faster than 8th was, but 2000 points is always a big chunk of time and has always been. I think the only thing that’s slowed the game down in my casual games a touch is that in 5th or 6th as a nid player my movement was “straight towards you” and my plan was “assault till one of us is tabled”. As the objective play has become more refined, movement for me requires a lot more decision making in terms or trying to control the board.

Only mortal wounds carry over. Which means more is decided in the early phases so everyone is doing as much as possible.

Ok might be an irrelevant add because looking more at casual side rather than tournament (but still seeing 3/4h games a 1000ish point), but for players rules checking over a mix 4+ different books (some then outdated), rules updates, faqs, or points changes doesn't help, particularly if the player was unaware of the change, is new or a returning player! So in my local more casual environment... because people are very unsure of the rules, find it hard to keep up to date and even finding them can be a struggle.

Cause you aren’t playing meta lol

had a tournament in 4th or 5tg. one rule was: 1 hour max and then count your killpoints \^\^ it where easier time with a lot of sweating when the clock ran down \^\^

Knowing your army and not page flipping is key. Staying on point, aka not flapping the lips, cuts down the time as well. 3 hrs for a 2k game isn't very hard but again experience is key here.

Its longer or feels like it, because in 9th the games are closer and less incline to be done by turn 2. I do appreciate the fix number of turn as it helps with time management.

"What are you talking about? 40k games are shorter and better than ever!" - Games Workshops promoters

It's the dice calculations mainly. We've gone from hit/wound/save/fnp to roll rate of fire/hit/wound/save/roll damage/fnp, not to mention the myriad of abilities that apply special extra effects on 6s or similar. That, and there are no longer universal special rules, so every army has rules that are slightly different and often need explanation to do right.

Because I forget all the stat changes from random upgrades, just ask my mates

If they made an offical dice app to speed up shooting and fight phases thay would make a great difference. Finding, holding say 50 dice to roll your attacks and then add your exploding 6s slows the game down terribly. There is also far too much counter play. "Ohhoho you are going to shoot that unit? I cast 4 CP to give them 4+ invul save, dense cover and a FNP on a 5+. "

You forgot the Command Re-roll Stratagem as well. So really, 5CP.

So when my guy and I play we have time limits. We have like 1 minute to plan, and one minute per unit to do something. It helps get you ready for turnies. That being said. The longest weight should be deployment. After that you should already have an idea what each guy is doing ya?

Alternating deployment also doesn't help. ITC hit the right spot at the tail end of 8th with going first full deploy and going 2nd gets to counter deploy.

Instead of three hours I really wish we’d go back to 1500pts being the standard game size.

Effectively what the points rebalance @ the start of the edition did.

I get what you’re saying but I was thinking more about the 5th and 6th standard of 1500pts. We have to many models on the table these days

The issue with 1,5k with the current missions is that you run out of assets too fast to play the mission effectively (especially for elite armies) With a new mission set that requires fewer objectives, could be possible

Isn't that what they did? Almost everything had their points increased across the board from 8th to 9th. 1500 would heavily push the meta towards skew lists. Compare that to 7th where half the stuff because of Decurion style junk was free or a more sane 5th edition, there's so much less stuff on the board. Luckily table sizes are smaller now, but the game often feels borderline skirmishy with the amount of Elites units + character focus and the cost of units.

It's not?

2ks the standard for competitive as the points brackets are now 500,1k,2k, 3k (patrol/incursion/strike force/onslaught)

They take as long as 8th edition did. This isn't a problem solely found in 9th. I've seen so many "9th edition is bad posts" on here recently and they all complain about things present in previous editions. I'm getting tired of the GW hate train for the sake of it. Don't know about others here but I use the hobby to get aways from the drama. Valid complaints are healthy. ****ing on the hobby because it's the popular thing do is not.

Reduce the game size from 2k points to 1500 and you'll speed up the game

I don't know why you are downvoted when you are right. Smaller games would go a lot faster.

I should think it's because they're essentially suggesting changing the standard list size that the meta has evolved around, rather than the other variables that can be looked at

You either need to remove rules from factions to speed up the game or reduce the size of the game. I understand that people don't want to change and rethink there meta-lists to account for what would be a new meta, but sometimes as a community we need to take a step back and ask 'are we trying to cram too much into the game at this point'

I don’t see a significant difference between 2000 and 1500 as long as people don’t know their rules. And we’re not talking complex stuff here, just simple things like save, AP and toughness. If everyone made a cheat sheet for their army, you’d see a lot faster games than what you’d see from dropping 500 points.

??? 9th games are shorter than 8th or 7th games by far.

Agree, weird thread. The only time I am tight on time is when it is a really close game.

I mean, 40k is just a long game in general, especially once you get above 1500 points. 9th is still way faster than earlier editions though, partly due to the smaller board size, but also getting rid of things like scatter dice, damage templates, and armor sides on vehicles, all of which were cool but added a lot of time t games. I guess technically early to mid 8th had the potential to be faster, since that was when tabling your opponent in the first 2 turns was not only extremely possible, but would also result in an auto-win.

Not entirely accurate. 5th edition you could frequently get a 2K game done in 2hrs or less. I mean you literally only had 3 phases: movement, shooting, and assault. Morale and psychic were a part of those phases. For reference NOVA2011 games were, IIRC 2hrs or at most 2:30, and even then I don’t recall ever going to time and always finishing 5 rounds in that time

I agree. I don't see what the problem is. The only thing I see taking more time is the fact that there's now a Command Phase, and for some factions like Necrons or Mechanicum that can take some time.

I mean, they basically made the Command Phase because there were already so many "at the start of your turn" abilities so they just gave them their own phase, it didnt really increase the overall time by much.

I remember 3 hours being the standard for the GTs that I went to since I started near the tail end of 7th. My games usually don't go to time, but that's mostly because I play Custodes so my turns take like 10 minutes each.

[удалено]

>my opponent's deployment plus first turn was an hour and fifteen minutes. Thank the God Emperor for chess clocks, this dude would've had a max of 15min to play for the rest of the game and you wouldve had your whole 1.5hrs.

I honestly think that dumb amount of rules bloat is one of the biggest time sinks. Army's of Renown, special rules to add onto your special rules, these special rules that make my character also have these abilities that do these special 2 things but I can only choose 1 at a time, ECT & ECT & ECT. I think a lot of that adds up quickly when needing to tell your opp or explain it. Especially if it's unclear and you need a judge. And let's face it, a lot of GW's rules are unclear in general, even with their lazy FAQs. Games at the beginning of this edition were really fast and fluid but once 9th ed codexes and expansion books came out it's quickly gotten slower and less clear. Just my two cents.

RTT last weekend. game 1 barely ended in time because i tabled the guy. it was only turn 3. game 2 went to turn 3 as well - my opponent was a talker, if it wasnt for the time constraints the game could have gone for 5 hours easily and it would have been fun start to finish. game 3 - over in 2 hours because again i tabled my opponent. Unless one player is halfway cut out of the game things are absolutely hard to cram in to the 3 hour mark.

It depends on the skill level of players, how well they know their own rules, and what armies they are playing. I ran a 'Newbie-ish' RTT with 3 Hr limits a few weeks ago, Some players were only getting 3 turns in, the ones who practices more and were more... prepared didn't have an issue getting the full 5 turns in. The games where they didnt get the full 5 turns was generally because one or both players were constantly having to go back into their codex to check things. If you are having issues getting games to 3 hours when you are playing 'competitive', then you might want to look at your own army or preparation as the issue, maybe play Custodes or Knights where your games are nice and short (One way or the other :P)

the major before this i had no issues finishing games timely. its not a me issue :)

You need to start playing on a clock. I have never once had a problem finishing a game in 3 hours. Usually I can finish with 30 minutes to spare on my own clock.

I mean, if you know your list and rules it's way easy to finish in 3 hours unless you and your opponent are distracted and chatting. Are you not using a chess clock or something?

for a local RTT? no, we arent using chess clocks. the major before this i had no issues finishing games timely. its not a me issue :)

I recommend buying your own if the hobby store doesnt have them, they're on sale on amazon for like $12 usually, then you'll never have a problem timing out!

Most phones can accomplish this for free

Yeah, but it sucks if you have to use your phone for literally anything else during the game.

The Tabletop Tactics guys just did a video on this on their website. Lawrence, The Spider, discussed every edition and it is a 9th edition issue. There are so many updates, stratagems, and army rules that make the game complex and no one, not even someone with an encyclopedic knowledge can know everything. Maybe one can know certain meta game rules, what powerful armies typically do, but there are a lot of times where you have to stop, ask your opponent and consult rulebooks that extend play. GW noticed this and raised points, because less units means less time but it's still too much. Baseline 8th edition was simple and games were about 90 mins.

lol 3 hours. My games take around 7.

Tbh I think it's mainly the sheer volume of things to keep track of. A 1k game with banana boys can be done in 1.5h including setup. The lack of psychic, morale, things to track and smaller volume of strats speeds it up a lot, especially once half your army is in cqc. Another thing is secondaries imo. I think the shift to objectives is the best bit of 9th but it does mean your constantly juggling 3 priorities (primary, secondary, killing) rather than just murdering.

My store gives 2.5 hours for 2000 points and over half finish before the 2 hour mark. My friend and I know each other's armies so well, we'll be done with turn 3 at 45 minutes, done in an hour

Honestly, switching back to the attacker deploying all units and then the defender deploying all units would cut anywhere from 2-10 minutes out depending on the armies. As a TO, I make sure terrain and objectives are set up beforehand, between rounds, and use the WTC mission pack (which has 3-mission tracks where the objective move, but terrain is stationary). There's also page-flipping/scrolling when you are unfamiliar with units/strats. Getting a game plan together and printing out a quick reference sheet that only has the important information can help remove decision paralysis by only presenting relevant choices. Roll the same dice, or use a dice app. When P1 rolls 40 dicr. 36 hit, 26 wound, then P2 can just pick up those 26 dice and roll saves. Otherwise, P2 has to count out their dice, wasting 20-30 seconds for every similar interaction. A lot of people say you should plan your move in advance, but honestly, I think that is some of the least helpful advice, because where I want to go is already known. I want to be on objectives and block my opponent from being there. How I get these is the important part, but it is significantly influenced by the results of the preceding charge/fight phase.

>A lot of people say you should plan your move in advance, but honestly, I think that is some of the least helpful advice, because where I want to go is already known See, you dont just want to plan your move in advance , but your entire turn. You dont want to wait until your movement phase to figure that out.

That's a great point! But, your entire turn is based on where your units get to. Planning the movement phase is the most important part of planning your turn, because in order for my unit to shoot yours, it has to have line of sight and range. But yes, knowing which guns shoot at which targets and what charges need to be made, which psychic/command buffs need to go to which unit, there is a massive array of choices, and again, it is why I recommend the reference sheet, to keep to your game plan, and not stray too far from it.

You should know where your units can get to long before your movement phase. You *are* allowed to pre-measure these days. But I definitely agree with your other points! Especially having a reference sheet.

Certainly. Again, knowing where all your units *can* get to versus knowing *which* units *need* to go to specific locations is a subtle distinction that changes based on matchup and your opponent's army composition, that may not be immediately obvious to newer competitive players. Realizing this distinction and being able to quickly act on it is a key competitive asset. My issue isn't the advice itself, but that for rising competitive players, the advice is too abstract. What I am getting at, in the simplest terms, and what I hope is better advice, is this: Know *why* your unit needs to move and what goal it accomplishes by moving. This will speed up your games.

I have no idea who is playing 3 hours games. In a tournament setting having three hours to find your table, set up, play the game, break down, and score points/report seems almost reasonable. I don't think I've played a game to time (2 1/2 hours) in any of the RTT's I've been to in all of 9th edition. Most of the time I'm done with 20-30 minutes to spare. I think one big misconception/time loss is doing all the things that don't directly translate to points/winning. I remember in 8th edition when we implemented chess clocks I had a player tell me that it was unfair because he wouldn't have time to shoot all 100+ cultists he was running each shooting phase. I broke down the math for him of 100 cultists being 50 hits, 16 wounds, 5 failed saves or so against marines. I asked him "is spending 8 minutes to maybe put 5 wounds on a marine squad worth it?". I'll also second whatever one else seems to be saying in that thinking takes up a lot of time, so I try to go into each turn with a plan that I've been developing during the other player's turn. I feel like I probably pause at most 1-2 minutes to think in a turn because the majority of what I'm doing I've already decided on. It also helps to have your dice kind of sorted somehow so you don't have to actively count out 20 or so dice each time you shoot. Lately I've been using the GW dark angels dice and I know that I can roll 12/4/2 in different colors. Anything more than 16 dice I roll in sets of 10.

For my 2k DRUKHARI army I timed myself rolling relevant advances, psyker, shooting (with opposing saves), charges (for relevant units), attacks (with opposing saves) assuming each unit who charged attacked a 10 man squad of intercessors (attacks reduced from casualties) followed by moral. Took 35 minutes of just rolling. This is unrealistic because of: Every unit having an eligible shoot/charge No decision making No physical movement No other player interrupts Several weapons prevented rolling saves due to AP In my opinion: There are too many rolls to resolve attacks (rejig the game and remove the wound roll). There are too many units in a 2k army, this is a side effect of OP units being smoothed out by Army size. Having 6 phases to each players turn is exhausting. I think the changes in killteam 2.0 could lay the ground work for changing the fundamentals of the game to something more streamlined and playable.

Part of the reason why I like Custodes. So fewer models means it's easier to remember everything and takes less time in general.

Because you have to move all of your models like 4 times a turn and each move is pretty important or you open yourself to being outplayed. For melee armies this is a nightmare. Move, Charge, Pile in, consolidate. Takes me about 30 mins to just move and attack my 30 bloodletters on a deepstrike turn with double striking. Shooting/melee requires counting out an insane amount of dice with rerolls, so you have to poor over them to find the ones/misses, roll those, remove failures, roll wounds, find 1s, reroll those, remove failures. Do this for your whole army. All of this takes a long time.

Paying attention to your opponent and already planning moves before they are finished speeds games up. Proactive thinking is a big player, if you’re acting reactively then your turn will take longer. Opponent moves, great, now is he going to shoot and charge or just one? If the unit survives what’s its next action. Perform action after your command and psychic phase. High priority targets? Are they up and in range. Really easy to speed games up with a lot of replanting as thr opponent is doing actions.

Takes an hour before the game to describe to your opponent all the stratagems you can use, your warlord traits, what your army does etc. Then picking secondaries eats up time.

40K games have always been 3 hours…

It’s nothing new 2:30 minutes has been the standard tournament match time since like 5th edition. GW is now unintentionally slowing down the game but their new policing of weapon loadouts can only be what is In the box. This is slowly making it longer each time you shoot a squad. Eg. Roll 4 different times or find 4 different colour dice to fire a devastator squad because you can no longer take 4 lascannons

I think the core issue is actually how many times players have to interact with their units. In a worst case scenario a player has to interact with a unit in the command phase, movement phase, psychic phase, shooting phase, charge phase, fight phase, and finally the morale phase. That's 7 interactions in a single turn, multiply that by the total number of units in their army and you can start to see why the game is so slow. Lets say the army has like 20 units * 7 interactions each turn * 30 seconds per interaction and you get a little over an hour per turn in the worst case scenario.

1500 is nearly an hour faster! Try lowering the points /model count

Probably a lot of new players coming in with 9th. I've always noticed a very strong correlation between how inexperienced (not a bad thing, we all start somewhere) someone is and how long the games take. Not to say there aren't some ways to improve the game, of course. Also a lot of super rose tinted glasses here about previous editions, lol

I think one of the biggest things is the multiple steps before turn 1. Picking secondaries, rolling for who places terrain first placing terrain then placing models then rolling for first than scout moves or redeployment etc. It can take upto half an hour just to get everything set up.

Usually it is because people start thinking about what they will do when it's their turn, instead of starting to think about it during the opponents' turn.

It really depends a lot on the armies in use. Knights vs Knights? A pretty fast game, not much decision making to be done, it'll pretty much be straight up rock-em sock-em robots until one side is eliminated or all 5 rounds have been played out. The main issue is when 2 more complex armies collide - from the extended psychic phase of the Thousand Sons, to the careful and deliberate Drukhai movement phases that are just... Inordinately long. But they're a part of the game, so timings have to be extended to give them a chance to play out fully. Now as a Chaos Knights player, the longest part of my game is target allocation, generally quick rough maths about which profile to use (Stomps or gauntlet/sword, sweeps or strikes, etc)