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when I first saw a dice tower, I thought no way would I ever want to use something like that in my mini wargaming experiance. But the more I think about it the more I think it could be a useful tool.

Pros:
1-A nice way to ensure randomisation in regards to rolls.
2-Keeps dice from falling off of the table, falling into cracks, etc.
3-No dice cocking.
4-No accidentally throwing dice into models.
5-Eliminates rolling into box tops where you can't see what's being rolled all the time.
6- If the bottom reciever is big enough you could roll large quanities of dice and keep them together without scattering all over the table.

Cons:
1-Bulky device to carry around.
2-Could slow the game down a bit.(free hand rolling is probably much faster)
3-Another expense


I'm thinking of building my own out of plexiglass. And make it easy to disassemble.

Thoughts?

GG

Sounds interesting . Have you tested one out ?

An Australian company makes a portable one which slots together and apart.

http://www.miniaturescenery.com/ProductPage.asp?Code=DTP

It wouldn't be hard to make your own version in perspex sheet or MDF.

Might as well just use the randomization function on a calculator.

I would never use a tower. None of the ones I have seen have any chance of coping with the 25+ dice I need to throw with my Ork or Tyranid army.

We have made a nice dicebox with green felt, 40k icons, no too high walls and and inward slanting inner walls like a pooltable. Works wonders.

It's also annoying as hell to see used for every, single, roll. It does actually take longer to play a game with a tower probably by about 10+ minutes. It's worse with dice heavy armies like guard or orks. Just roll the dice on the table like all the other kids

You could also try to make one out of a carboard box, o somtheing similar.

I won't look any good, but that will be cheap xD

Used em in the past... a neat idea but not necessary! Free rolling the dice is simpler and much faster!

I built the miniature scenery one, and I've taken a full box of 36 chessex dice and just tipped it in and had it work just fine. It's a nice way to avoid killing models with dice, but as was mentioned, it's something else to have to carry around, so I don't know if it's a good tournament accessory.

Whats a dice tower? I have never heard of one...

Interesting to see that with the recent claims of cheating and other BS that these are now coming up more and more.

As if the game was never, never, ever played before with just rolling the dice on the table.

EagleArk wrote:Whats a dice tower? I have never heard of one...

Here is a cool scratch built warhammer dice tower http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27382657

But anyway, to answer your question. The idea of a dice tower is to throw your dice into the top of it, and the dice tumble there way, through a series of angled platforms, down to the bottom. It's a nice way to keep dice randomised and controlled.(I.E so they don't go off the table or colliding into models.)

GG


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Kilkrazy wrote:An Australian company makes a portable one which slots together and apart.

http://www.miniaturescenery.com/ProductPage.asp?Code=DTP

It wouldn't be hard to make your own version in perspex sheet or MDF.

Yeah, that one would be too small for warhammer type games where you can roll 30+ dice, at a time, sometimes. Also I would want to make it out of plexiglass(perspex?) so that there is no obstruction to viewing the dice.

GG

Interesting.

generalgrog wrote:Yeah, that one would be too small for warhammer type games where you can roll 30+ dice, at a time, sometimes.

Redbeard wrote:I built the miniature scenery one, and I've taken a full box of 36 chessex dice and just tipped it in and had it work just fine.

insaniak wrote:

generalgrog wrote:Yeah, that one would be too small for warhammer type games where you can roll 30+ dice, at a time, sometimes.

Redbeard wrote:I built the miniature scenery one, and I've taken a full box of 36 chessex dice and just tipped it in and had it work just fine.

I should have clarified on dice size, as I use the 16mm chessex. But hey if it works for you, great.

GG


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Here is a homemade wooden tower that lloks long enough for me. He even has plans on how to build it.

http://pshobbyshed.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-to-build-dice-tower-or-how-i-did.html

I think I would mod it a bit and make it a bit taller, and of course use plexiglass.

You know the more I think about, looking at that collection tray I wonder if it really would slow things down that much. I mean you are going to be picking out your misses anyway. So after you pick out your misses you just drop the hits back into the tower..... rinse and repeat.

The more I think about it, the more I want one.

GG


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Brother Ramses wrote:Interesting to see that with the recent claims of cheating and other BS that these are now coming up more and more.

As if the game was never, never, ever played before with just rolling the dice on the table.

This actually has more to do with my clumsy habit of rolling 30 dice everywhere when I play my orks.

GG


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Sorry for the multiple posts but I saw this and had a complete nerdgasm! The engineer in me just said, "I have to make something like this and make it better."




GG

That is rather super.

I wonder just how random dice towers are. It seems to me that the dimensions of the floors and catching area would control the number of face changes the dice make, depending on the size of the faces.

I suppose it largely depends on how the dice are put into the top. If you shake them in a cup first, they will be about as random as you can get.

I like the neatness of a tower, the way it collects the dice. Also, if done up nicely, it could be incorporated into the scenery. (Dice volcano, Dice fusion reactor, Dice communications tower...)

A dice tower is certainly on my (very long) list of things to do

That dice tower was rolling at least one six almost every time. Law of averages, or shenanigans?

The Dreadnote wrote:That dice tower was rolling at least one six almost every time. Law of averages, or shenanigans?

Well there is a 1 in 6 chance of getting a 6 and he was using 6 dice.

GG

You would need to record 100s of trial rolls to get any sense of a non-random distribution.

It's unlikely to get a 6 in every roll of a set of six dice.

A dice tower, a cup or using Vegas dice rules (when playing craps, your dice MUST bounce off the opposite walls before coming to rest to count as having been thrown) are the only true ways of ensuring randomness when casting dice. I've got a crafty 8 year old at home who has figured out how to "roll" (aka drop) dice when playing to get her rolls, so we've implemented a throwing table and a skull shaped cup that we use to make sure her luck truly is random. They really like shaking the dice in the skull before casting them, but the racket is starting to get to me -it's a plastic Halloween pint beer mug. The portable dice tower looks like a clean design, think I'll be breaking out my scroll saw this weekend and make one...

Here is my dice tower. I built it for D&D using Hirst Art Blocks. It's not that great for 40K because you can probably only roll about 10 dice at a time without it getting too crowded. I've only ever rolled 4 at a time, to be honest. I might make a bigger one, but that's a lot of castings. I enjoy it, though. As for how many turns a die makes, there is plenty of room for the dice to rattle around inside. You can hear them bouncing around rather violently, but i can't say for certain how many tumbles each die gets.

I don't get the whole dice tower thing. Not just for warhammer but for any game.. i mean... why? just roll the ice on the table.. how is that not random enough? You need to roll 40 dice? put em all in your 2 hands cupped together and dump em in an open spot on the table. Still random. Even if you have to roll just 1 dice, you can just hold it over the table and drop it straight down. It will bounce and roll a little. still random.

I think it's nice when people build one and make it look all cool, as a modeling project and stuff.. but I'd never need one personally

As referenced above, just rolling the dice on the table isn't random enough for the casinos at Las Vegas, and they know a bit about probability and dice rolling.

Whether it actually matters for a game of toy soldiers is something else.

It only matters when your tired of playing someone who drops their dice <6 inches from the table surface and the dice kind of land flat (ie little to NO tumble when they hit the table). Now that I have my own table and can get my children to play, we use a table to throw down dice and I think soon this idea of a tower. Besides, i think they will get a kick out of it LOL.

And remember randomness isn't the entire picture. You also have the issue of out of cotrol dice that go whizzing into nicely painted models, or completly off the table.

There is more to this, than just randomness.

GG

Necros wrote:I don't get the whole dice tower thing. Not just for warhammer but for any game.. i mean... why?

I spend as much time painting and converting my D&D minis as I do my 40k minis. Rolling dice that close to my minis, knocking them over and chipping them, just isn't cool.

That, and I thought it would be fun to do.

I built one, out of foam board. The one I made can handle a GW dice cube no problem. I'm in the process of making it into a terrain feature for home games, then it can be used as is or as an objective.

they can be helpful but i see them as not really being needed, but they do help keep dice in line if your low on space...

but depending on what theyre made of, they can be VERY loud and annoying when rolling dice through em...

Hmmm... after seeing that lego dice tower I'm kinda tempted to try making one out of a huge box of K'nex I have laying around. I'll start working on that later tonight and see if it seems feasible at all.