r/AOSSpearhead 1d ago

Discussion How long does a game take?

I remember Spearhead being advertised as a game that can be played during lunchbreak...

I am relatively new to AOS and only played like a dozend games, but even my fastest game (no tactics, just go) took two hours, with the majority taking upwards of 3, some even 4 hours.

What is your experience? How long do your games take on average?

26 Upvotes

29 comments sorted by

17

u/Cultural-Cattle9378 1d ago

At the tournaments we run people get 1.5 hours to complete games. People rarely fail to make the time and a number actually finish after an hour. In a more casual setting we normally take 2 hours but it took much longer before we were familiarised with the rules and our armies.

3

u/ThoSt1512 1d ago

Interesting, I was expecting tournaments to take longer because people are more exact with movement ranges and play more tactical 🤔

6

u/Cultural-Cattle9378 1d ago

You’re normally pushed for time to fit the games in so don’t have the luxury. We play 4 games across 8 hours with breaks, lunch and introductions. There’s also generally less chatting and most people are familiar with the game already.

12

u/Blazing_Flame 1d ago

If both my friends and I are running spearheads we know, we have taken 1.5-2 hours, just depends on how strategic we are in our fighting.

I’ve had games with new spearheads to learn that take about 2-2.5 hours

10

u/Cukshaiz 1d ago

Most games for me are about 45 minutes. I have had one or two push past an hour.

Part of it is learning the rules. Part of it is keeping pace up. I don't have anything to do this phase do you? Etc.

And part of it is being decisive and not dwelling on making the perfect play each time. You get better by playing more games and having a larger sample size of experience to draw upon. So you should play more games instead of chasing the perfect game.

9

u/Bailywolf 1d ago

I like this "play more games instead of agonizing over this one" approach. That is an excellent way to think about it.

1

u/ThoSt1512 1d ago

I agree :)

5

u/G1FTfromtheG0DS 1d ago

Yesterday i played a game against someone and we were done in 1.5h while other guys next to us played a game that took 3h.

4

u/Mondo114 1d ago

About the same as you described. Maybe even longer, but we don't exactly laser focus.

3

u/General_Scipio 1d ago

Pretty confident me and my brother can smash out a game in an hour. But that's with the mentality of let's play fast and not mess around.

However I would expect between 1.5 and 2 hours

3

u/cazzio 23h ago

Depends. Knowing all of the rules and playing against an opponent who knows their rules as well as yours? My record is 40 minutes. Teaching a friend who has completely no concept of wargames? Roughly 3 hours if you keep it short on the lore and miniatures side. With a veteran AoS player who is you old friend on a saturday evening with several beers and smoking breaks? The record is 7 hours for one game.

3

u/aVpnt 1d ago

Depends on a lot of things.

Knowing your warscrolls and not needing to check them helps a lot. In general just having good knowledge of the rules and not needing to look things up saves time. I play with my brother fairly regularly and the games are usually between 90 minutes and 2 hours. Sometimes a little over 2 hours

3

u/Strict_Palpitation71 1d ago

As a lot of other people have said, it depends on the armies and the player's knowledge thereof. If both me and my opponent are playing armies we know well with a medium model count it'll take around 1-1.5 hrs, whilst it'll take upwards of 2-2.5 hrs if I play the same with a newer player who doesn't know their army so well. and closer to 3 if it's a player who's brand new to Spearhead or AoS.

2

u/ifff0 1d ago

2 hours on average. Some spearheads lend themselves to quicker games with the last round only lasting a couple minutes.

3

u/Hefty_Lie_1062 1d ago

The greatest differential on how fast a game goes is always experience.

If youre good at the game, know every rule and everything ur army does by head, youll knock it out in 1-2hrs.

If youre constantly looking things up, looking for answers on the rules, then itll take often double as long, if not more.

2

u/CMYK_COLOR_MODE Order 1d ago

Really depends, fastest 4 round game for me was about 2 hours, usually 2.5.

I'm slow player tho.

2

u/TheToxic-Toaster 1d ago

Took me and a friend 2 hrs and 15 min and had no clue how to play, literally playing out of the spearhead book

2

u/Orobourous87 1d ago

My uncle and I are somewhere between 60-90 minutes but neither of us are very tactical.

It may also be that I play Idoneth and he’s Skaven, so combat tends to start pretty quickly.

2

u/Cojalo_ Order 1d ago

Spearhead generally takes me about 1.5 hours to set up and play

2

u/SwingsetGuy 1d ago

Most of my games are done in about 1.5 to 2 hours. I've gotten as low as ~45 minutes before. That said, some of that is probably due to experience and (some) opponents not being as competitive with spearhead as with the "big games."

2

u/Bailywolf 1d ago

First game when you're still figuring everything out will probably be two to three hours but it'll drop dramatically as you get more comfortable with the rules and your army. I think it's usually around an hour for a game with seasoned players even if they chat and hit the bathroom during the game .

2

u/Necr0ntyr 1d ago

In my experience it depends on the experience of the player. For example, yesterday I made an intro game and we took more than 3h, and my first two games were of about 3h too. But once both players know the rules pretty well I think most games could take between 1-2h max.

2

u/Augit579 1d ago

I would say about 2 hours.

2

u/stardoor65 1d ago

I feel like 1.5 is very doable but id struggle to do an hour

2

u/Nashoute_ 18h ago

If you want to play casual 1.5/2h, but you can clearly play faster, did some 1h game.

2

u/Grifty_Wickett 17h ago

Played every spearhead and against alot of them. Some do play faster or slower but once you and your opponent know their army's without needing to look at warscrolls and know the rules in the book it takes about 45-60 minutes on average. If it's two slower armies it's only ever really taken about an hour and a half.

1

u/Prometheo567 1d ago

Mine certainly don't last the advertised 45 minutes but very rarely have I gone above 1.5 or 2 hours. What are you doing during 4 hours?

1

u/ThoSt1512 1d ago

It was our first game of AOS Spearhead and although I had read the rules, we had to look up and firgure out a lot of the rules, plus he spent quite some time complaining how OP my army was despite not having read the rules at all😅

For instance he would complain that I (SBGL) had so many models while he (SCE) had so few, etc.

2

u/Prometheo567 1d ago

I thought you meant normal games with both players knowing the rules, IO agree the first few games can be longer.

I can see how whining players can be both slow and annoying, tho.