The Speckled, Six-faced God

There are these little polyhedrons that guide the results of every 40k battle. Of course I'm talking about dice. Sometimes the dice are hot and really help you out in a battle, other times, they seem to taunt you with every roll, letting you down and turning your great tactical plan into a bloody mess. Although there is always the possibility of rolling a one, there are ways to reduce the effect of luck on your game.

Don’t Roll the Dice!

If you don’t roll the dice, they can’t affect your game, right? Well, there are ways to avoid rolling the dice, at least some of the time. Power weapons are one great example of this. Normally, when attacking an enemy model, you must roll 3 dice per attack, one to hit, one to wound and one to see if the armor save protects it. Power weapons let you ignore the last roll, meaning you no longer have to rely on luck for getting through the armor. Weapons with good AP values work the same way, by ignoring the armor save, they make attacks against armored opponents much more of a sure thing. Flamers work in this same regard as well, as they ignore the roll to hit, meaning you only have to roll to wound and to see if the armor save works. High Strength weapons give a similar advantage, by making the wound roll all but a sure thing (a 2+ is pretty hard to miss, though it can happen!) Twin linked weapons also give a bit of a buffer from the dice, since they let you reroll misses.

Roll Lots of Dice!

Quantity has a quality all it’s own. This is where the “law of averages” comes in. The more dice you roll, the closer to the statistical average you will roll. If you roll one die, you have a 1/6 chance of getting a 1, or a 6, or any other number. On the other hand, if you roll 100 dice, you should get about 15-17 of each of the numbers. What that means is that if you roll just one die, you might get a six and be triumphant, but you are just as likely to get a one. This means that luck will play a big role in your roll. On the other hand, when my squad of attack gaunts hits the enemy lines, I'm rolling 24 dice or so in one shot. That means that I should get about 4 of each number. Ultimately, about half of these will hit and, against marines, another half will wound, and 1/3 of that will fail their save. So, on average (which happens a lot more with lots of dice, meaning I can rely on the unit to do the average damage on a regular basis) that will kill two space marines. Since I roll that many dice, it gives me sort of a performance guarantee. It’s harder to have a bunch of ones ruin my day, since it’s harder to get that many ones! Rolling lots of dice can also be used to increase your odds. If you hit a space marine with a weapon and wound him, you’ve got a 1/3 chance of taking him out. If you hit him and wound him 3 times with a weapon, you’ve got almost a guarantee that he’ll die. If you have lots of models, a few bad rolls (or a few good ones from your opponent) won’t affect the game much. On Sunday, 10/6/02, I was refereeing a small battle between two new players, helping them set up their armies and play against each other. During the first few turns, the Space Wolf player managed to fail about 5 out of 6 armor saves, despite his 3+ armor. I reassured him that it was okay, since he still had more Blood Claws and Grey Hunters, so it would make up for it. It did, with the Blood Claws eventually engaging and defeating the enemy commander in assault and moving into the middle of the enemy army. Even though the dice were against him, he had taken enough models that he could afford the losses and keep going.

Take back control of your game from these little cubes and have your wins be clearly seen to be by your skill, rather than the vagaries of the dice!

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