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Ok, I have a problem. I play orks and in a tournament my shoota units need 34 Shootas dice, 6 big shootas dice and a slugga dice. Then in combat need 76 boyz dice and 5 PK nob.

The dilemna here is this; With so many models on the board time is already being lost by the boat loads in tournaments and as some of you know time is crucial.

and the question; How do I deal with ordering dice without having to own around 700 of them?

Thanks in advance for any help & suggestions!

Get different color dice and a plastic dice case, split the dice in to sets of 5 or 10, makes it easy to count out and the different colors allow you to roll everything at the same time.

There's a great article on this site about how to play Horde armies, specifically in tournament settings. If you haven't read that already, I suggest you do.

That aside, if you're not wanting to re-roll a few dozen dice several times, then you're going to have to just suck it up and buy an @$$load of dice. I heavily suggest color coding them. Get one of those dice bricks from Chessix, maybe two or three... If you are doing the rolls combined (rolling shootas and big shootas in the same handful), you're going to need to follow some consistency throughout the game. Pick one color for each attack type, ie; maybe green for your most common attacks, like shoots and choppas and red or yellow for the other weapons like the big shootas or power claws. Stay consistent with those colors for the entire game.

Bring something to roll your dice in, like the top off a shoebox, and even bring a dice cup (plastic or styrofoam cups from fast food places work for this!). It's pretty likely there won't be room on the table for you to be rolling your 80+ dice and if you tried they'd go everywhere bouncing off and under models and you'll spend several minutes simply trying to clean up after every roll you make.

I hope you are aware that there is some controversy over dice cheating. Your opponents is going to see these massive handfuls of dice and is going to try to watch your rolls. Don't kill your sportsmanship by always swapping what colors of dice you're using for what weapons, and don't swap sizes of dice either. A big annoyance for opponents facing off against the dice hordes is when the players pulls out a sack of dice and no two are alike.

This may or may not be legal, but if you're allowed to bring in laptops, I've seen these dice programs, where you enter the ammount of dice you want, and how many sides it has. Some are more complicated than others. I think some D&D discs have them. Anyways, it then gives you the total (if you whant it) and shows you every individual role. It's absolutely completely random. in-fact my dad made one. They might accuse you of cheating though and they would have to use it too to make sure or something. They probably won't let you use it, but you never know.

And with hordes, just like everywhere else in the game, pick up your failed rolls, not your sucesses. That way, once you have picked out the failures, your opponent can look into your shoe box (or whatever you are rolling in) and see nothing but sucessful rolls. This allows them to confirm that you did indeed roll the number you claim. If you are, in fact, using a shoe box for this, you can then just put the lid back on, shake it up, and take the lid off again for your "to wound" rolls.

TheCapm wrote:This may or may not be legal, but if you're allowed to bring in laptops, I've seen these dice programs, where you enter the ammount of die you whant, and how many sides it has. It then gives you the total (if you whant it) and shows you every individual role. It's absolutely completely random. in-fact my dad made one. They might accuse you of cheating though and they would have to use it too to make sure or something. They probably won't let you use it, but you never know.

The problem with this is that without knowing how the generator is programed, it's impossible to know if it is random or not. I could easily program one that was well done and very random (you can't actually make one that's completely random, but you can get close enough that it doesn't matter) or I could make one that's weighted to any degree I like. I suppose the same could be done with dice, but it's a lot easier for your opponent to examine your dice than it is for them to examine your code. All in all though I think it takes away from the feel of the game to use computers rather than real dice but that's just my personal opinion on the matter.

Very true.

The shoebox is viable, so would be a smallish rubbermaid container with a flat bottom. Slightly more durable, and the lid clips on to reduce the chance of dice making good their escapes.

Ok so I devised a fiendish method!
My total dice will be 76, as the most I need at any one time are 76.
20 of those are Red for Choppa Boyz shooting.
34 are Green for Shootas shooting
15 WHITE for Lootas (all 15 rolled by *D3)
6 BLACK for killa Kan shots (3) or if theyre charged (6) or if they charge (9)
5 other colour.
I'll keep these in sets of 10 quick grabbing.

This became a problem as say for example, Shootaz charge, thats 57 attacks with 4 PK attacks, I'd have to use all the reds, all the greens, 3 white and then 4 to count as PK attacks.
My genius plan came unravelled, if I worked on it it'd work as if choppaz are charged them have the same amount of attacks as shootaz charging and such.

With hindsight I realise I should just have 76 white with 4 red dice. This covers the 76 charging boyz with charging noib largest situation and equals exactly 80, so I can bunch them in 10s.

My over-thinking ended up losing to the simple idea!

It's not possible to make a completely random computer program. There is a technical reason for this which I can't remember, but it's true.

Also, ordinary dice aren't random. They roll 1 more than 6.

Casino dice are a lot more random.

Ok just realised a better system;
38 Red dice because shootas being charge get 38
19 WHITE because if they charge they get 57 (38+19=57) and Choppas charged get 57 attacks, too
19 BLACK dice because (38+19+19=76) Choppaz charging get 76 attacks
15 Blue for Lootas (Getting charged=30, Charging=45, D1=15, D2=30, D3=45)
for PK attacks in the boyz and shootaz squads just use 3/4 blues, same for meks, same for killa kan shots/attacks

What are your ideas on this?

Kilkrazy wrote:It's not possible to make a completely random computer program. There is a technical reason for this which I can't remember, but it's true.

This is true, but most sane programs use random seeds based off something inconsequential (like the least-significant digit of the time... i.e. the millisecond the computer is counting with) as a seed to make things more random. it's a number that changes often and is pretty close to random. If you've ever used a modern electronic slot machine they sue similar tricks and are considered random enough for the gaming licensing agencies.

'Random' is, essentially, just a way of saying "a whole lot of variables with sloppy precision." If a die-rolling arm was built and launched a die repeatedly from the same position into the same 'landing pad' with the same conditions (air flow, etc.) it'd probably tend to land the same way, too.

Still, real dice make the most sense if at all possible. I like the tupperware container of dice idea.

Balance wrote:Still, real dice make the most sense if at all possible. I like the tupperware container of dice idea.

I like it, too. Put the lid on, shake, take the lid off for results.

I typically bring a Chessex dice cube of 36 small dice, strutctured as follows:
1 - marker
4 - heavy weapons
4 - special weapons
9 - for mass improved shooting / HtH
18 - for mass basic fire / close-combat

4 colors means I can roll 4 re-rolls / plasma rapid-fires simultaneously.

Typically, white = Plasma, black or red = Heavy in mass-roll situations.

Maybe I'm just dense... BUt why not just buy about 40 dice, and roll your different weapon types in different intervals?
That's been a very common thing everywhere I've played.

Okay... Here are my slugga shots to hit.
(rolls dice)
Here are my slugga shots to wound
(rolls dice)

Now, here are my Big Shoota Shots to Hit
(rolls dice)
Here are the Bog Shoota Wounds
(rolls dice)

"Okay. That's 4 Slugga wounds and 2 Big Shoota wounds you need to save."

Simplicity.

For combat... You just roll half at a time.
"Okay. I get 76 attacks on the charge with the boyz @ Initiative 2. Here are 38 of the attacks."
Figure out hits
"Here are the second 38 attacks"
Figure out hits

Then roll wounds as appropriate (dividing if necessary).

Seems a no-brainer to me.

Eric

P.S. If you DO decide to buy that many dice, you ought to call Chessex. They custom-make dice (customized "1" or "6" side... or both) and, at that level, they're not too expensive per die.

That's how I've always seen it. Why make it more complicated to remember? You can't be accused of cheating or get something wrong if it is so simple a dead monkey can understand.

If white is *always* plasma, etc. then there's nothing there, especially if you remind what's what when you roll:

"white is plasma, red is lascannon, grey are bolters; all needing 3+..."

Swordbreaker wrote: A big annoyance for opponents facing off against the dice hordes is when the players pulls out a sack of dice and no two are alike.

why is this a big annoyance. I have a dice box that I have been chucking dice into for years there are probaly 200 dice in there and about 50 different kinds. i always can build a good combo to just roll all the shooting or hand to hand attacks in one go.

I have two chessex blocks; one set opal, the other black. I pour both on my side of the table, and roll things separately, the majority get the opal dice, and I grab black dice for the onesy-twosy rolls like an apothecary or sgt's PW.
Rolling them in smaller batches seems to make it easier to track for both me and my opponent. You can easily see the fail rolls I am picking up with 10 dice vs. 70 dice and me picking things up quickly to keep things moving.

The Big Mek wrote:Ok so I devised a fiendish method!
My total dice will be 76, as the most I need at any one time are 76.
20 of those are Red for Choppa Boyz Chopping
34 are Green for Shootas shooting
15 WHITE for Lootas Looting
6 BLACK for killa Kan shots Kanning
And a grot in a pear tree!

Question for Horde players:

Are you against people touching your dice? Or do you let them
use your dice to roll saves?

I like when people roll my dice for saves. they are generally really bad rolls.

Im with the others, this is a bit silly.

You may HAVE 76 boys, or 36 shootas, or etc etc

But you'll rarely if ever need to roll ALL of them at once. Your 76 boys will basically never all charge in simultaneously or be alive to do so.

I've played versus armies with hundreds, hundreds of orks. I've played apoc games where thousands of models were present.

We all just brought 20-40 dice. It worked fine.

You'll spend more time picking out the colored dice and counting off the different ones and telling your opponent what is what, then you would just saying,

I'm rolling the shootas now, toss dice, roll to hit, roll to wound, set wounds aside, now Im rolling the big shootas, roll to hit, set wounds aside.

Then say: You need to make xxxx total saves. Or, 5 models die (its apXXXX) and 5 need saves.

You can end up rolling large numbers of dice for relatively small numbers of models.

A unit of 10 Striking Scorpions has A1 +1 for Mandiblasters, +1 for CCWs, +1 charging = 40 attacks excluding the Exarch. That's not 76 dice, but it's a good pile of stuff to roll.

So it's good to have a brick of dice.

skkipper wrote:I like when people roll my dice for saves. they are generally really bad rolls.

But are you suspicious that they are "stealing" your good rolls?

JohnHwangDD wrote:You can end up rolling large numbers of dice for relatively small numbers of models.

A unit of 10 Striking Scorpions has A1 +1 for Mandiblasters, +1 for CCWs, +1 charging = 40 attacks excluding the Exarch. That's not 76 dice, but it's a good pile of stuff to roll.

So it's good to have a brick of dice.

I know you can have a lot of attacks, but a brick of dice (20-40) is plenty. After 40 ish you just have issues picking them up and rolling them, at that point it makes more sense to roll in batches regardless of how many dice you have.

I have 36 for my orks, and it still hasn't caused much of a problem. I just roll in groups.

no my dice have no good rolls.

it is just fun to pull out 68 dice(my high at baltimore last year) and roll them. berzerkers can make dice quickly. when I am rolling big numbers, i don't throw in the special dice

rolling 40 twice takes longer than 80 at once. Time is the crucial element here as sheer deployment and moving phases take up alot of my time as an ork player.
My plan is just to stack in 10s and have afew different colours just to say 'These four are PowerKlaw attacks' etc.

The tupperware idea, though aesthetically not pleasing, sounds quite good! It'd be awkward taking the body off to leave the top with dice each time, and leaving it in the 'body' of the tupperware makes the edges in the way of dice, thus giving my opponent reason to be suspicious about which dice I'm picking up. Can someone please explain these dice cups to me?

Do you simply roll from the cup and scoop up all the hits?

Using my hands should really be out of the question as picking up say even 25 dice takes a long time!
Any other suggestions or the best way to use tupperware (shoeboxs are too large!)

The largest quantity of dice I've ever rolled at one time was 59 (storm guardian squad with warlock and two flamers) for an assault.

Of this, ONLY the warlock's witchblade had special rules or a different WS, so he got different coloured dice. If I attached another character to it, he would get a third colour.

I have around 130 chessex dice (12mm - functionally identical to GWs dice) in red, black and white. 80 white, 30 black and 20 red. I have small hands, and even I can manage to roll 60 dice at a time, picking out the 'misses' and separating them, before rolling the remainder.