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Hello all,
I was looking into Dice for my 40k games and I saw that GW has a dice block that has everything I would need, including the scatter die. In a previous game I played, the manufacturer produced special faction dice and they did not roll balanced AT ALL. I was just wondering if anyone has any experience with GW's and could give me an honest appraisal. My other options were companies like Chessex which claims they make "balanced" dice.

Thanks all! :-)

They're fairly decent, I find. Never had problems with any of my dice, anyway.

I find they roll like chessex, which as I've been told have about 16% margin of error because of the pits and rounded edges.

Havok210 wrote:Hello all,
I was looking into Dice for my 40k games and I saw that GW has a dice block that has everything I would need, including the scatter die. In a previous game I played, the manufacturer produced special faction dice and they did not roll balanced AT ALL. I was just wondering if anyone has any experience with GW's and could give me an honest appraisal. My other options were companies like Chessex which claims they make "balanced" dice.

Thanks all! :-)

They're not too bad especially since you get that scatter dice. I also have Chessex and I use them normal and when it comes to mixed weapons firing at the same time I'll use both however I have noticed I roll higher on the Chessex.

As fair as quality of dice they are rather poor. As someone said above 16% margin error due to being poorly made sounds about right.

If you play an army that roles a ton of dice at once like orks were rollong 40 dice at once isnt uncommon at all. Using the lower quality dice isnt nrealy as big of a deal as if you play marines or any other army that roll fewer dice.

If you want better rolls look on the net for straight edge dice. These will roll better then your dessex dice or anything like them.

THe process as to which rounded edge dice are made is what makes them roll poorly. Straight edge dice are made a little diffrently so they roll alot better but are better. The best is casino dice but they cost an arm and a leg.

Totally right, although most dice failures are only felt and not really there.

If you want perfect random dice, use a computer.

Vassal40k has that for example ;o), although there are still complains.

Dark Scipio wrote:Totally right, although most dice failures are only felt and not really there.

If you want perfect random dice, use a computer.

Vassal40k has that for example ;o), although there are still complains.

Except computers never actually produce random numbers. They're called pseudo-random, based on the fact that a mathematical formula underlies their generation. /

In order:
Cheesex/gw dice
Rounded dice
Straight square dice
Razor cut casino dice



Also there is gamescie ce dice, raZor cut and cheaper than casino, but only have numbers and not dots :/

in general..

Dice with divits to mark the numbers will have a higher chance of rolling a 6. this is because 6 is opposite to 1 and the 1 has less mass drilled out and so is more likely to land down as it is heavier. the difference is incredibly small however.

dice that are painted on are evenly balanced.


dice that are clear are better as well as you can know for a fact that there are no air bubbles.


check out this Dakka article for more

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/That%27s_How_I_Roll_-_A_Scientific_Analysis_of_Dice

streamdragon wrote: Except computers never actually produce random numbers. They're called pseudo-random, based on the fact that a mathematical formula underlies their generation. /

This is an irrelevant distinction unless you're working in cryptography, or have a prize and data set that would make cracking the transformation worthwhile. For a wargame, pseudorandom numbers are effectively random.

I think it varies, but my block of GW dice rolled absurdly High! This helped me, of course, but I felt bad after a while. I have some custom dice now so they've been shelved for good!

AlexHolker wrote:

streamdragon wrote: Except computers never actually produce random numbers. They're called pseudo-random, based on the fact that a mathematical formula underlies their generation. /

This is an irrelevant distinction unless you're working in cryptography, or have a prize and data set that would make cracking the transformation worthwhile. For a wargame, pseudorandom numbers are effectively random.

Ahh but the response was aimed at someone saying a computer is perfectly random, so he is being quite literal .

Anywho, I've always used the GW dice cube and honestly, I don't notice anything off.

Ive only ever really used casino dice, but thats simply because a friend works for a mainstream one and i get them cheap when they order.

However, i do find after a few games (4-5) the edges on the blunt, which does have an effect on the rolling, so im forever getting new ones.

As for GW ones, i use them in the store from time to time, but dont really rate them. (allways a mass of 1's or 6's, never a balanced roll with 30+ dice)

If you have the money, go for casino dice, and use them on a soft surface. GW dice are meh. They work, but people get tons of 1's.

I personally use Vassal or other RNG's but apparently they aren't random. Computah Scienze eludes my feelble mind.

I wonder if you can buy used Casino dice.


since they change out the dice often they should have some place to dump them.

I prefer Koplow dice. They have square corners, seem to end up pretty evenly random by game's end, and feel better in the hand. They have a size range along with a decent selectin of colors (though nothing like Chessex). BTW, Chessex now makes a square scatter die in a variety of colors. It has square corners, is the same size as the old style GW die, and has bolder arrows and scopelike hit marker. I bought one just because, and it does well.

CrazyThang wrote:
Ahh but the response was aimed at someone saying a computer is perfectly random, so he is being quite literal .

Actually someone set up a program that uses line noise on the internet to generate numbers. Can't remember the name of it at the moment, just the description. In so much as anything in the plane of existence can be considered random, that is it.

...actually I found it. random.org. Boy that was a hard name to find

I also forgot to add I usually rummage through old board games when a compy ain't around, so lots of risk and monopoly dice

Ive had no problems with any of my GW dice except one.

Its totally loaded, rolls 6's at least 80% of the time. My friends realised and banned it :( .

Space Hulk dice are also insanely bad. Always roll 1s.

I use Koplow, specifically their word number dice. They aren't precision dice but they're still larger and squarer than normal game dice and lack deeply drilled pips. They're also highly distinctive so I don't have to worry about getting my dice mixed up with those of my opponent. Showing off your fancy random number genitals is a common amusement among gamers.

I use GW rounded dice and they seem to be fairly good. Although they always seem to roll 3s for leadership tests.
I have no idea why...

Boss 'eadbreaka wrote:I use GW rounded dice and they seem to be fairly good. Although they always seem to roll 3s for leadership tests.
I have no idea why...

Lol.

Anyway, GW dice are perfectly fine.

wow I never knew the world of dice was so intricate I thought pilfering from random board games would be enough

Thanks a lot everyone now I'm paranoid and will only use RNG's :(

Actually hardware random number generators are just that - truly random. It's only s/w ones (like RAND() in excel) that are in theory predictable.

I like the gw dice mainly for cheapness, so you dont have to worry about losing them - they are random enough for my tastes!

Dice are hardware random number generators.

As an above poster has noted, there's an article on Dakka specifically examining GW dice (not really that good at randomizing is the conclusion). Given a bit of internet searching, you can also find information from Lou Zocchi about the manufacture of dice. The most salient points:

The more perfectly cubical the die, the more random it will roll.

Casino dice are manufactured to a very high tolerance, and are expected to be closest to genuinely random (but are very expensive).

Most dice are cast, painted, and then polished to remove the paint (and look pretty). These dice are NOT polished in any way that is consistent. They are polished in a machine which tumbles them around. It may polish each side evenly, or it may polish one or more sides substantially more than others. Polished dice (rounded edge dice) can have sides of different sizes, and edges with differing levels of polishing. They are going to be less random than casino dice, although not in any predictable (without examining each die) manner. Some may roll lots of 1s, some lots of 6s.

Unpolished, square edged dice, such as those produced by Mr. Zocchi (and sold now by GameStation, I believe) should be more random than rounded edge dice (taken as a group). There may be individual square edged dice which have enough "flash" (for lack of a better term) from being cast (and not being polished) that are less random, but, in general, dice which aren't haphazardly polished will be more random than dice that are.

If you find Zocchi's logic weak, consider either of the two following thought experiments:

Shaved dice were produced deliberately to cheat. Shaved dice have sides or edges which are uneven, to produce skewed results. When rolled, does the die know that the more rounded edges on one side were put there deliberately to cheat, or were put there unintentionally by a tumbling polisher machine?

You are playing someone. They need to make a crucial roll. Before rolling, they take the dice in question, a file, and vigorously polish down the edges on one or more faces of the dice. Would you think this was an attempt to cheat?

The other advantage of square edged dice is that they often (not always) are etched with numerals, and not pips. For those concerned that the uneven amount of material removed by a compared to a affects the randomness, the amounts of material removed by a "1" and a "6" are both very minimal, and much closer to each other.

In theory, I'm a big fan of square edged dice, but I have to admit that the look and feel of polished, round edged, dice with pips is more attractive and feels more like Warhammer to me.

On the other hand, given that polished dice can be non-random, and you can often actually figure out what direction a given dice is skewed in, I feel like the person with "good luck", or "lucky dice", is possibly (knowingly or unknowingly) cheating. After all, you may believe in something supernatural like "luck", but IF you know that your dice could genuinely be non-random due to manufacturing, and you know which direction their rolling is biased, and you still use them, aren't you knowingly using loaded dice?

What if I had a dice that rolled lots of low numbers and refused to use it. Then what?

From what I've seen, the GW dice with the metal case roll pretty good, where as the ones with the plastic die shaped case are poor. It could just be random chance though.

JSK-Fox wrote:What if I had a dice that rolled lots of low numbers and refused to use it. Then what?

I don't see how refusal to use a die that was known to be non-random could possibly be cheating in any game that presupposed random dice rolls. Now, if you used it for some rolls (say, leadership checks), and refused to use it for others (say, armor saves), then I would call that cheating.

I could see the existence of a "dice draft" system, where you get some dice at the beginning of a tournament and are expected to use them consistently throughout (with the assumption that the poorly manufactured high rollers and low rollers would average out), but I've never seen it.

Theoretically, one could argue that consistently and methodically eliminating all of your dice that roll lower than average would, of course, result in accumulating a collection of dice which all roll average or higher. However, your question was about refusal to use a single known low-rolilng die. I would stand by my statement that discarding any single known non-random die cannot be considered cheating.

This all, of course, supposes that you (the person in question) knows, or believes to know, that the die in question rolls non-randomly.

My point (on that comment) was that I still fail to see the distinction between "this is a lucky die that rolls high" and "this is a 'loaded' die that rolls high". If you believe that the die rolls non-randomly (in a consistent direction), then you should consider yourself cheating if you use it to achieve those rolls. Believing that it happens for you personally due to magic, and for others due to poorly manufactured dice, is bogus. The game assumes that you and your opponent each have the same chances of rolling a six (or a one, etc.). If you honestly think that you can "roll better" than your opponent, then, logically, you should believe that you are not playing fairly.