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Hi Dakka,

I'm curious to know how people react in a game where the dice gods totally hate you.

So, on the weekend, I'm playing a game and:

a) 5 Vanguard Vets rout my lychguard, orb lord, obyron squad and SA them (I rolled 14 attacks for 2, count em - a massive 2 hits ). Then, having rolled more 1's and 2's you could count, rolled 11 for the morale test! :face palm: Followed by, you guessed it on the SA test.
b) I fire 40 shots at some SM character. I get 3 wounds......which are then saved.

As this currently seems to be a regular occurrence (apparently my luck subscription has expired - trying to work out how to renew it ) I have developed a finely tuned response. This primarily revolves around bad language and running away from anything.

But seriously, when I'm having one of those days, I find myself going to great lengths to avoid any CC, castling up the warriors/troops and relying on flying mech to do damage.

Any other tactics I should be considering?

Pick out the dice that rolled bad. Or just get new ones . I rolled 2 1s on my Ork SAG , I put those 2 specific dice asida and rolled 2 different dice for my 2nd SAG. I got 2 6s . If some dice no work, try different ones.

Redundancy is my suggestion and a hard lesson from playing Tau.

Yes Tau has long ranged high strength guns, but very few of them have a decent rate of fire and the base Ballistic Skill of the army is a 3. As a result Tau players find that they miss a lot of shots or jsut can't put enough rounds on target to kill those Marines or anything else with 4+ Toughness and a better than 4+ save.

That's why with Tau you don't rely on 1 unit to do the job on its own. Pick the target that needs to die most and focus fire every appropriate weapon you have on it.

For example, my necron playing friend and I were playing a team game vs a large Space Marine force. Space Marine player had a deathstar composed of a Chaplin plus 10 Vanguard Vets, everyone had jump jets, everyone had power weapons, everyone had jump packs.

We didn't count on the Ghost Ark full of warriors to shoot it up, we used 2, and 2 of my firewarrior squads. In one turn of firing instead of a deathstar he had a chaplin and a veteran sergeant. Mathematically he had more than he should have, but by being redundant with our firepower we were able to make good even though the dice were against us on this one.

So don't like your luck? Stack the odds.

Nice, good suggestions. Thx!

Anther thought with Necrons, the Stalker lets you reroll misses . . . that means instead of 2/3rds of your shots hitting, you're at 8/9.

well for me the games are always rather good, i roll 50/50 and the game itself is fun...but i suck at deepstrike lol. Usually when it all goes to hell instead of the table top i just laugh and tell myself it's all fine, it'll be fine...i can totally manage with what i got no worrys man, it's a good list good units i can still win with half n army...yeah man it's cool...and laugh

because i know that at the end of the day, i don't care lol, i got out of the house, met some cool people, blew stuff up had stuff blow up and it was a good day, the results will be better next time, quantum physics tells me it will be so. and i get to have an ice-cream as consolation

It's a dice game after all. This day you win big, the other day you can't roll even a 2+ save with FNP.

I think the bad rolls only appear to be more common, because the emotions linked to them are stronger.

I haven't seen someone jumping around because his roll was better than average, but I have seen people cursing their mothers because of a failed cover save.

I've learned to just expect the worse no matter what and plan accordingly. Let's say I have a russ firing at a marines squad in the open and I have a chimera 9 inches away. I immediately say to myself "ok, its probably gonna blow up the chimera. what do I do then?" Although I've had my share of good rolling too.

Played at a little team tourney recently and got my foot guard paired up with dark eldar against guard and space wolves. dE reserves entire amry, and I'm left to fend for myself for the first few turns. I was playing against double my points, and only lost 6 guardsmen (yes, you read that right) and suffered a stunned russ for the first 4 turns of the game. The opposing team had 2 long fang squads, a leman russ, several chimeras, and even a punisher! I made so many saves that game it wasn't even funny. I even walked a PCs right past the punisher and they survived!

However, this came back to haunt me, because for the rest of the tournament I failed literally every save I was called to make. I had used my luck up, so to speak

MrMoustaffa wrote:I've learned to just expect the worse no matter what and plan accordingly. Let's say I have a russ firing at a marines squad in the open and I have a chimera 9 inches away. I immediately say to myself "ok, its probably gonna blow up the chimera. what do I do then?" Although I've had my share of good rolling too.

"Plan for the worst and hope for the best."
-I don't know, but I am sure someone important said that at some time

The Dice Gods don't just hate me, I am on their permanent %^$#-list. The only thing I ever pass are Leadership rolls, as I never roll higher than a 3. Meanwhile my friends (who are using the same dice as me, collective dice pool) consistently rolls high.

My armies may not hit or wound very often, but by God, they will never fall back!

"The Our Por'O would like to Parley with the Commander of your forces."


Seriously, Bad Dice Days just happen. One day you roll so many 5's and 6's that people are accusing you of using loaded dice, the next day a good roll is 2.

Just keep the mission in mind and keep hammering away. Most games are won by playing the mission while your opponents are kill happy when your dice go cold lol

You must sacrifice a small furry animal over an alter made of a giant dice. You then use the blood to annoint your dice. You must then clean the dice in extra virgin olive oil.

For general good luck, your traditional fuzzy dice work well.

Well, at my FLGS, the standard treatment for dice that fail us is to send them to the coffee shop a block away via "armstrong airmail" the other dice in the cube tend to roll better (but not always) and we have recovered some of the bad dice and had them turn good so...

I had a similar problem last game I played. 2k vs IG, I get seized on, one of my fragon serpents is immobolized, and several others shaken. Next turn I roll triple 1's for armor pen(1 in 256 chance) with my prisms and nightspinner. Next turn I lose an entire squad of avengers and an autarch in a fortuned serpent, eldrad almost dies, I lose a whole unit of storm guards, and stun both my prisms. By turn 3 my dice finally start to cooperate as I start doubling up on firing targets and throwing rocks against scissors.

I managed to eek out a victory by playing objectives. You have to prevent the dice from pissing you off so much you do something stupid. Redouble your efforts and shooting. Overkill things, and stagger your shooting and assault so if one shot fails you have another shot to follow. If it works, then have another target.
And remember, it is better to happen in a casual game than a tourney.

"Keep calm and pass the ammunition"

As a person with a well-documented bad luck, I can tell you that there is only one solution - buy better dice.

If you're like most 40k players, you probably went out and bought one of those 36-die bricks of chessex dice. Chessex makes very bad dice. They don't roll very randomly, and they tend to bias low (as in, they bias towards 1's because there is more weight on that side than on the 6).

Start by buying some nicer dice (like kopchow brand) and then get yourself a couple pair of REALLY nice dice like game science or zontik or some casino dice or something. That way when you have a die roll or four that you really, really want to be actually random, you have the tools at your disposal.

Square dice, make sure your dice are actually square. Ones with beveled edges can be improperly weighted.

Square dice also don't roll as far, meaning you won't be chasing dice accross the room.

As someone said, just play to the mission.

There's also no harm in going for a heroic draw, your opponent may even enjoy it too, if you're good natured about it.

I remember drawing a Capture and Control game by having my last surviving guy pounding on a tactical squad on my opponents objective while the rest of his army was spread out recovering from wiping out the rest of mine.

Cheat, with various nefarious dice tactics
(I'm not seriously suggesting this of course)

I roll one dice as a forecast for the pack, if it rolls good and true then roll them then and there, if it rolls bad shuffle them about in your hands, still luck but it just seems "right"

Focus on the mission, and on the things you can control (mostly movement). Keep your chin up and roll with the punches. Often it turns around.

Failing that, buy new dice. Maybe the ones you have are genuinely flawed. And anyway, a new set of dice is always nice for a gamer. It's like a new haircut, or going to the barber for an old-fashioned shave with a straight razor. Or like some women tell me they feel about buying a new pair of shoes.

Lols, so apparently I'm not alone!

Thanks for the tips guys, particularly on the dice. I did get the Chessex dice with the beveled edges, so I'll get some different ones.

It's always a fun game and I do enjoy it even when the dice hate me. Plus, when I win despite the dice hating me, well

Thats ok, one time was playing C:SM, running Assault heavy. I multi-assaulted a Firewarrior squad (they had the last objective that meant something- low and behold,

I rolled nothing but ones to hit, yes, nothing but ones...i don't know how in hell it happened, but it did. Everyone at my FLGS's jaws just dropped.

Put some super glue on the offending dice and set them on fire as a warning to the others.

Roll the dice a different way, if you pick up dice sitting as ones or teos, pick up ones that show six up and roll that dice. If you consistently get bad rolls you are rolling the same dice the same way.
pick up a pick up a six and roll it the same style and chances are or vice versa.

It's totally superstitious, but if the Dice Gods are failing me then I'll reaffirm my allegiance to the Dice Demons (oddly enough, when I do so my luck tends to turn around more often than not). Also, if I really need a dice roll to go off well I'll get a bit cheeky... I hold the dice at waist-level, smile stupidly at my opponent, shake back and forth a few times, and the let 'er fly.

I keep my dice in physical contact with chaplain Grimaldus and a techmarine to keep them at their holiest. I also make sure to tell my dice before every roll that my cause is just. Also also I find that matching dice to your army helps a lot. For example my templar use pure white dice while my dark eldar use exotic purple and silver dice.

Remember faith in the Dice Gods is faith in yourself!

After a game which watched 2 Lictors kill 6 Nurgle Terminators without a single rend...

I shook my opponent's hand.

Simply because when your luck is that bad and your following shooting phase does nothing then it ain't going to get much better.

I read this thread and called a friend of mine, "hey, they've got a thread on what to do when your dice go cold." He says, "I know where this is going!"

I take a 10lb sledge to the little miscreants. Very seldom have the same dice roll bad two games in a row.

I put 40 wounds into a tac squad this weekend, and I managed to kill 3 of them.

when 40k is stupid just keep playing, eventually it evens out.