I'm designing a scenario for my gaming group to play and am interested in using a timer to add an element of quick decision making to the scenario.

Ideally, here is what I would like:

As both sides choose their dials, the timer is not running.

After one side completes their dial selection they start the timer for the opposing side.

Upon completion of all dials the clock will be stopped.

I only want the clock to run during dial selection.

For every two minutes a team has on their clock their opponent will be awarded X points. (Points will be used to indicate who won the scenario)

What I need help with:

- Since I have never tested this, how many points should be awarded to the opposing team due to excess time. (A few points, moderate points, a lot of points etc.. as I have not yet established scoring for the scenario)

- I could easily keep track of time with 2 stop watches, but I want the players to be able to see the time. What time keeping devices are able to do this? Not sure a chess timer would work, but I've never used one..

Not sure a chess timer would work, but I've never used one..

Not sure about the points... But this I think I can help with.

Chess clocks are meant to run for one person at a time. So if it's player A's turn the clock is running. After he makes his move, he hits the button that starts the clock for player B, which runs until player B makes his move and hits the button.

The clocks are normally set to X time, like say 45 minutes. Both players have 45 minutes to make all their moves for the game, so the game could last up to 90 minutes long.

My guess is a chess clock may not work. But you can get stop watch apps for a smart phone so I'd use that.

I guess it really depends on how many ships each side has, setting one dial vs even just 3 can lead to a huge difference in time. If you have only 1 ship left you'll usually set the dial in about 10 seconds. Can take a full minute or so to figure out and set a few dials. I dunno how to mitigate that and make it fair. Hard to understand how this will work with the scenario. If the scenario is just "who can set dials fastest" then I don't really see the point. What else is worth points?

As for time keepers, I would just use the stopwatch on a smartphone.

Really just getting started flushing the scenario out, but the general gist is a rebel assault on an imperial tibanna storage facility. Number of ships involved will rival an epic team game and size of play surface will be larger than 6' x 3'.

The scenario starts with the rebels deploying on their side and a Corellian Corvette in the middle of the map. Imperial player will start in a position to threaten the corvette with most of their ships, but must decide to engage the corvette or defend the storage tanks. Rebels are presented with the immediate decision of helping the corvette or hitting the storage tanks.

Rebels will be equipped with a custom designed proton torpedoes (basically it won't count into the overall points for rebel ships) that will be the only way they can destroy storage tanks. Rebels will gain points for destroying storage tanks and imperial laser / missile turrets.

Imperial forces will earn points for destroying rebel ships with a considerable number of points awarded for destroying the corvette.

As the scenario develops I intend to have a pre-made deck of cards with reinforcements for each side. (for example: Deploy 3 Tie Fighters in section 3 of the map)

Each side can play one card per turn and cards have an expiration. If not used before X round this card cannot be used. As I flush this aspect out my hope is that it will add variety to the replay value of this scenario. And leave the players with interesting options as the battle develops.

In Warmachine there are two ways that a game can be timed.

1) a set duration for the time for the game, say 90 minutes. For a 50 point game which is tournament standard, its a 100 minute game. After 100 minutes +/- a random number of minutes to shake things up, the game ends. To make sure no one is hogging all the time, each player is allowed 10 minutes per turn and one 5 minute turn extension once per game. So in these tournaments, the organizer times the round and each table has an egg timer to time the turns.

2) Deathclock. This is my favourite way to play.Instead of timing each turn, chess clocks will be used. Game times with no variable are used, but the chess clock replaces the turn length. Each player’s clock will be set based on the following equation:

Base round time × 0.53 = Player clock total (rounded up to the nearest minute)

When a player moves a model, rolls dice, or takes significant time to make decisions during the other player’s turn, the player whose turn it is has the option of switching to the opponent’s time on the chess clock while these actions are resolved.

When chess clocks are used, a player must take meaningful turns, fully activating all his models, or risk disqualification. If a player’s clock runs out of time, that player loses the game.

I dont think it can work with chess clocks in Xwing. The way I see it working is to use 2 egg timers per table. Say you want to have 80 minute rounds. Each player would set 45 minutes on their egg timer. Set up the asteroids and both lists. Once set up, start the timers. The timers run while you set your dials. Once the dials are set, stop both timers. Then each player in turn activates each and starts his timer. When he is finished his ship he stops the timer if he doesnt own the next ship in PS order, or just continues on if he does. Once all ships are moved and actions assigned, start those timers up again when shooting, starting when rolling dice and stopping when passing to the next player.

There is this weird time dialation effect in X-Wing. The battles are really a couple of minutes, but they take hours to play. Forcing the time like this would really give the feeling of a frantic dogfight, where you cant ponder the best manuever for 5 minutes.

I want to try it out some time.

Having played chess for years with clocks, here is my advice:

1 - I would really recommand to use clocks only during the planning phase: the timer starts at the same time for both players and each respective clock stops when the player hits the dial, stopping is personal clock and signaling that he cannot change any of his dials.

2 - I would really, really, really recommand against using clocks when you actually move your ships around. We used to play rounds of double chess (4 players, pieces exchanged) in school and we did it with 5 min per player for the total game... and let's just say, some pieces went flying, lol. I doubt that you want accidents when handling miniatures, especially since you might mishandle those of your opponent

I honestly think you're going to run into an issue here. Timers don't work well with X-Wing at all. This cripples both certain players, as snap decision making is not a common skill, and certain squads. Dual falcons will reign supreme at getting early points. 1 forward flip, 1 forward flip. While Tie Swarms will have far more trouble. Unless you can balance that, it's not going to work.

There's also the more general issue of timing in X-Wing, namely that there isn't the 'my turn, your turn' system used in most other games.

I know that the OP is looking for a timer for the planing phase, and has some different ideas for how that will work. But still you have to keep in mind that planing for 2 YT's or 3 X-Wings is a different thing then doing that for 7 Tie Fighters.

why not set a fixed time limit that is the same for both sides.... say x amount of minutes. or something like 1 minute per ship... however you use the time limit of the side with the fewest ships.. that way you have to balance swarms vs mega point single ships!! would make things kind of interesting...

I honestly think you're going to run into an issue here. Timers don't work well with X-Wing at all. This cripples both certain players, as snap decision making is not a common skill, and certain squads. Dual falcons will reign supreme at getting early points. 1 forward flip, 1 forward flip. While Tie Swarms will have far more trouble. Unless you can balance that, it's not going to work.

I agree that the timer idea for the 100 point game is not a good idea. But for a scenario, a game that will already take a very long time to play could be sped up by it. But maybe it isn't necessary.

There is this weird time dialation effect in X-Wing. The battles are really a couple of minutes, but they take hours to play. Forcing the time like this would really give the feeling of a frantic dogfight, where you cant ponder the best manuever for 5 minutes.

I want to try it out some time.

This is exactly what I wanted when I first started playing the game. In my mind it was a frantic dogfight and you made split second decisions. Which is why I was slightly disappointed when I started playing and ran into people who took 3-5 minutes to set their dials...

I'm also not a fan of the new rule that allows you to measure range to all possible targets. I'm a proponent of you choose an action, if you can't do it you lose your action. You target a ship and that's what you're firing at, then measure the range and fire.

Of course, on the flip side, as a noob I have been saved by these things I dislike too many times to count

I agree, maybe it would only be good for setting the dials, as the move and shoot portion is a bit too fiddely. But I hate it when people barrel roll and then take 3 minutes to find the optimum permutation of the barrel roll to make sure they are .05 mm out of an arc yet can return fire. That's one of the worst aspects of the game.

Having played chess for years with clocks, here is my advice:

1 - I would really recommand to use clocks only during the planning phase: the timer starts at the same time for both players and each respective clock stops when the player hits the dial, stopping is personal clock and signaling that he cannot change any of his dials.

2 - I would really, really, really recommand against using clocks when you actually move your ships around. We used to play rounds of double chess (4 players, pieces exchanged) in school and we did it with 5 min per player for the total game... and let's just say, some pieces went flying, lol. I doubt that you want accidents when handling miniatures, especially since you might mishandle those of your opponent

I'm not sure about pieces flying around. Its not like you have to speed through your turns. You have 40 minutes of time to set your dials for the entire. If you take 5 minutes to set your dials thats 8 turns. If you take 2.5 minutes a turn, that 16 turns. It doesnt take 5 minutes to set 8 dials, so there is no need to spaz out and move like a monkey on speed.

I honestly think you're going to run into an issue here. Timers don't work well with X-Wing at all. This cripples both certain players, as snap decision making is not a common skill, and certain squads. Dual falcons will reign supreme at getting early points. 1 forward flip, 1 forward flip. While Tie Swarms will have far more trouble. Unless you can balance that, it's not going to work.

As I said, I have played in Deathclock Warmachine tournaments where the miniatures are much more expensive, and there are many many more of them. Presently, the most ships you can have at 100 points is 8. You cannot tell me that moving 8 ships and setting 8 dials takes longer than moving 50 models. The choice of the number of ships should have an impact other than how many shots you get to fire each turn.

If you look at the regional results now, you can see that at least HALF the winners are:

Howlrunner + something

Dark Curse

Swarm of Ties.

Adding a time component adds another level of complexity.

There is this weird time dialation effect in X-Wing. The battles are really a couple of minutes, but they take hours to play. Forcing the time like this would really give the feeling of a frantic dogfight, where you cant ponder the best manuever for 5 minutes.

I want to try it out some time.

This is exactly what I wanted when I first started playing the game. In my mind it was a frantic dogfight and you made split second decisions. Which is why I was slightly disappointed when I started playing and ran into people who took 3-5 minutes to set their dials...

I'm also not a fan of the new rule that allows you to measure range to all possible targets. I'm a proponent of you choose an action, if you can't do it you lose your action. You target a ship and that's what you're firing at, then measure the range and fire.

Of course, on the flip side, as a noob I have been saved by these things I dislike too many times to count

I think I want to draft some Hardcore Xwing rules for a tournament. Stuff like:

1) Declare targets before measuring and checking arcs.

2) If you declare a barrel roll or boost and cannot legally place your ship, then you loose your action.

3) If you declare a target lock and nothing is in range, you loose your action.

4) Timed planning phases. Either an ever elapsing cumulative time countdown which only stops once you've set your dials, or a set time per planing phase.

Chess clock

There is this weird time dialation effect in X-Wing. The battles are really a couple of minutes, but they take hours to play. Forcing the time like this would really give the feeling of a frantic dogfight, where you cant ponder the best manuever for 5 minutes.

I want to try it out some time.

This is exactly what I wanted when I first started playing the game. In my mind it was a frantic dogfight and you made split second decisions. Which is why I was slightly disappointed when I started playing and ran into people who took 3-5 minutes to set their dials...

I'm also not a fan of the new rule that allows you to measure range to all possible targets. I'm a proponent of you choose an action, if you can't do it you lose your action. You target a ship and that's what you're firing at, then measure the range and fire.

Of course, on the flip side, as a noob I have been saved by these things I dislike too many times to count

But remember that this is a tactics game. It's not meant to feel rushed. It' meant to be about thinking.