Watch out for people running 2 ship builds the slow play you the entire game. My friends and I were at a tournament yesterday and 4 different players were running 2 hard to kill ship builds where they would kill 1 or 2 of your ships and then run the rest of the time while taking between 5 and 10 minutes a turn choosing maneuvers and choosing actions. One guy wasted 5 minutes on a barrel roll.

Watch out for people running 2 ship builds the slow play you the entire game. My friends and I were at a tournament yesterday and 4 different players were running 2 hard to kill ship builds where they would kill 1 or 2 of your ships and then run the rest of the time while taking between 5 and 10 minutes a turn choosing maneuvers and choosing actions. One guy wasted 5 minutes on a barrel roll.

That's when you get the TO involved. If it's blatant stalling, he would be subject to disqualification.

that is acool behaviour and i would say something. Happily i haven't had the mis-fortune (yet) and here's hoping i never do...

It's one thing to have two ships, (assuming you were looking at a Decimator + Shuttle or double Decimator?) and run an alpha strike then not really engage again (still kind of tacky) but 5mn on a barrel roll? - that should garner the attention of an official.

edit: sorta ninj'd

7 of us went to the tournament and 3 of us made the top 8 tables after 5 rounds of swiss.

I suspect if this kind of behaivor continues at tournaments the TO will address the issue upfront, or at least I hope they do. Have some kind of store/house rule: X amount of ships in a list, you get X amount of time for movement and actions; don't like that the guy flying a swarm got more time, bring more ships next time. It shouldn't take you 5 minutes to decide on an action for 1 or two ships...

My friend was joking about bringing a chess clock with him.

While I despise slow play for time stalling, make sure you take context into play when dealing with this. I played a 2 phantom list over the weekend, and after 5 or so games my brain was mush and it took a while to think about decloak/maneuver outcomes for each ship...especially echo. I found myself thinking I was taking too long a couple of times, but it is draining to try to figure out all the possible combinations when deciding on what to do on the dial.

Be wary of thinking a guy is slow playing just because he only has two ships. I know I run a 3 ship list, but I can't just think about my 3 maneuvers, but also what maneuver actions I can take and where they'd end up. This is further compounded by if I'm going against maneuverable ships, I have to think what are they going to do, what actions they could use to change them, and how my actions would be different if they go elsewhere.

Some of the longest turns I've had came in my title match, my 3 ships (Proto, Psycho Tycho, EU Corran) vs. Whisper + Chinareau. Half the time it went a good 3 minutes before either of us placed a single dial. And we're both very experienced fast players, but without the pressure of a time limit, we were able to completely think everything through. Turns out we finished in 75 minutes anyways, so it didn't really matter.

We were at this event as well. I'm fairly certain this was an exaggeration. Everyone seemed to be ok with everything at the time. Did this tournament really warrant two threads of complaints?

Would your buddy be the one running the bs and zs or another player?

Being that is was my first store championship this year and also my first time ever playing at that store I did not want to be the guy who was calling the T.O. over complaining someone was intentionally wasting time, but I learned my lesson for the next tournament I play in and if I think someone is intentionally stalling I will call the T.O. over and let them determine that.

You can always politely ask them to speed it up. Also pull your phone out because I doubt it took 5 minutes to barrel roll, it probably seemed like it did to you though. But if you took your phone and timed it then you could provide evidence to the TO that he may be stalling.

I ran a two ship build at my last Store Championship with 60 minute tables and finished every game in 5 rounds of Swiss before time was called. It can be done!

In the event you feel a player is staling I prefer the method of 'Hey man, these are timed rounds, can we speed it up just a bit.' This usually does the trick. I am guilty of thought myself but at some point too much time is too much time. And if that doesn't work, you have no choice but to call the TO. Let him know that you have already said something once and you're hoping to help speed things up some.

You may be facing a new player who doesn't know the game very when and they may really be debating what to do next However intentional 'slow playing', especially with only two ships, is fairly obvious and should be snuffed out early in the event. Once a guy has been officially 'called out' for slow playing, this usually kills this tactic.

How exactly can you waste 5 minutes on a barrel roll?

Being that is was my first store championship this year and also my first time ever playing at that store I did not want to be the guy who was calling the T.O. over complaining someone was intentionally wasting time, but I learned my lesson for the next tournament I play in and if I think someone is intentionally stalling I will call the T.O. over and let them determine that.

So the incident in question here was a game you played, or one your buddy played? Or both? Anything more specific about the opponent/squad in question? There were a lot of two ship builds.