Lets take a look at what normal slowdowns might be, and what happened to me that slowed the game down to a ridicules crawl.
Movement phase
This one can take a while if the player is playing with a large number of models. My advice...... Move the first line of models, and stop measuring each model. There are times when each model must be measured, but most of the time, just the first and maybe second row please, If you play a large model count army, it is your responsibility to be able to move these models in an adequate amount of time. Beyond the first round of play, tournaments should almost install a player turn time limit. Really, How much time is too much time for a round of play? (Sounds like I should do a poll)
Shoot Phase
Most rounds are not that difficult. Shooting really does not take all that long, even if you have a lot. Tip of the day...... Have the correct amount of dice needed to get the shooting in quickly. (This should be a tournament rule)
Assault Phase
The Assault phase can take awhile for people not used to assaults. These should not take an eternity. Know your rules, and get the game moving.
What Happened, and Where the Game Broke Down
Here is what happened and where the Game Rules broke down the game. I was playing against Grey Knights, and I was lucky that the purifier died assaulting through wreckage or we would of had to include cleansing flame to the duration of the close combat rounds.
Instead the assaulting unit came with the new Psychotroke Grenades. Not normally an issue, however my opponent was able to roll a 6. This happened like two times, as a couple assault rounds later, another unit charged into the fray. The issue came down to, every model needing to make an initiative test, and that unit was 41 guys strong. Yes, he assaulted a combined infantry platoon. If a 6 result had not been rolled, it would of been OK, but going through and rolling for each model (we did it in groups) was bad. Then those that failed had to attack their own unit, this took even more time. Record keeping nightmare with 41 men.
Add that nightmare to the fact there was two independent characters on the grey knight side of things, and the groups of models that we had to roll for with the psychotroke grenades had to be the ones separated between the two characters. After the next group assaulted, one of the independent characters was already dead, but two more were then added to close combat, and another round psychotroke grenades was rolled. Yes he rolled a 6 for effects there as well.
I know that if he had not kept rolling 6's for effects the bog down would of been much less. However it happened, and a unit that was 41 models strong became unwieldy with wargear effects such as having to roll an initiative test for each model.
This was a timed game nightmare. Anyone else had issues like this?