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In my own studies I have discovered that dice are only pawn in the dice gods game and instead of trying to influense my dice I try to stay in the dice gods favor by not trying to predict (eg. "Thats gonna DIE!", "My landraider is never gonna die.") the future as that seems to anger the dice gods.

I make a hole in the 1 pip of the dice and insert some lead, the dice then rolls mostly six.

More seriously, I'll throw away a dice that always roll below average (multiple games). I buy my dice at 8 for a dollar, I don't expect them all to roll average.

I make a hole in the 1 pip of the dice and insert some lead, the dice then rolls mostly six.

Hope that is a joke.

When I first got my dice I played a game, all the failed dice rolls, to hit, wound etc, got rerolled three times, if they couldnt come up with at least a four, they got thrown away, now I only have the good dice from the pack, I also find calling my krak missiles krak grenades when firing, and my multi meltas multi hitters helps....

Everyone knows that you just need to pre-roll all the ones out of you dice Or you can have you dice sit overnight with their ones facing up, that also helps. Sacrificing a land raider 20 minutes before a game using C-4 or other suitable, more legal fireworks also helps.

My dice understand that I don't care for them, and will destroy them should they fail me. It seems to work....

I do have one friend who stores his dice inside a desktop pyramid.
-Dave

darkdm wrote:So good people of Dakka, I'm curious to hear your story of how you make your dice roll better for you.

If it matters that much, buy some Casino dice, and practice drop-rolling them from your palm onto the table. If they just roll off your fingers and drop straight onto the table, you should be able to get consistent, repeatable non-random results every time. With practice, you will never fail a Ld test nor miss any single/double die roll.

This, of course, is why Casinos require shooters to bounce the dice off the far end of the Craps table...

I have at least 10 different types of die, and I switch for every single roll.

That, and I roll so many 1's during d&d that I get good rolls during 40k.

Howard A Treesong wrote:There's always the techniques involved in 'controlled dice shots' but this is a thinly veiled form of cheating. The outcome of dice are supposed to be random.

It's only "cheating" if you get caught by some who knows what you're doing.

It's all about the painting. Good or bad, I've found that once my models are painted, they tend to do much better in combat. Heck, my painted Grey Hunter squad (well, except for their faces, but meh) took on the Fateweaver and killed him in two rounds of combat. Meanwhile, my Drop Pod rarely scatters now that it's painted, and I've taken out vehicles with ease with my totally painted Vindicator.

I don't have any theories on getting better rolls (besides cheating of course), however when I play with friends we try and affect each others rolls with "psychic attacks" on their dice while it is still rolling. Of course you need to protect your own rolls with your "psychic shield".

When storing dice always leave them with their 6 side up. This way the dice gets used to how you want them to sit.
In addition always roll them eagerly expecting the result you need. They evil biggers can sense your anxiety and are more then happy to make it come true

I seem to have amazing luck in non 40k dice games. But in 40k it's very random and I find it's better to just let it happen. For my scatter dice I find that the AoBR scatter with 2 green DnD dice work well together. Either it hits or scatters right where it doesn't hurt me. I think it's scattered back once on a chimera but it was 1/2 str so

Believe in your dice, they'll make the game interesting.

Haven't done this in years, but we used to have formal executions of dice in front of their peers. All the dice would be laid out in a semicircle, then the offending die would be set in the middle. The other dice were lectured as to the consequences of repeated failure. The offending die was then burned with a lighter, then smashed with a sledge, usually resulting in tiny pieces of the executed die flying through the "witnesses" and knocking them all askew.

As I recall, it was a very effective technique.

Crying with laughter here GS

My mate swears by crushing the die as hard as he can in his hand and focusing on "good thoughts" before he rolls. Hes moderately successful

But my experience is that luck and rolls tend to balance out over the course of a game/series.

That hasnt stopped me hurling die off the wall whilst head desking though.

Place the offending die on a concrete slab. Surround him with his brother dice, with the 6's facing the offending die.

Smash the offending die with a hammer.

Put the other dice back in the bag.

EDIT: Ha! I just read Gitsplitas' technique. It works, man.

I always change the dice if I have to re roll failed ones.

Well some of these ideas are... interesting. and i guess even if it fails to improve your luck smashing the dice which 'Displease' you with a hammer will probably scare the crepe out of your oponent.

Personaly i have found that any atempt to manipulate my luck backfires, Lady luck is the fickle mistress of all wargamers (or at least those lacking actual skill )

Just grab lady luck by the hair and say 'Fix me a sandwhich!'

I've got my own theories, and it's been great reading eveyone else's. One of these days, I think I'll actually smash a die in front of it's fellows.

I think it has a lot do do with how much you use them. Most of my dice superstition comes from playing DnD, as that's what I've been doing the longest. Right now, I own "I don't know how many" sets of dice for DnD, and rotate through those during a session. I own about 8 or 9 (mostly Chessex) dice cubes for 40K and fantasy, and I have 1 set that rolls consistantly higher than the others, and 1 that just rolls poorly for me. If one set starts rolling badly, it gets retired for the evening. I think that giving my dice a "break" when they need it has helped my luck in some instances.

I have a set of gold plated DnD dice that out of the several dozen rolls I've done with the set, only twice has it ever given me a less than average on the roll. They sit in their own box and rarely get used, but they've only failed me twice, so it seems that it's working. I'm beginning to think it's time I invest in something similar for 40K.

Something that actally does help is to use straight edge dice. They cost a little more and a hard to find but that really do help will dice rolling. As your typical rounded edge chessex dice are made well rather poorly and have un even sides.

If I am rolling a single dice I always roll it with a few blank dice or ones of another color. I dont know why but a lone dice never seems to roll very well.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

darkdm wrote:So good people of Dakka, I'm curious to hear your story of how you make your dice roll better for you.

If it matters that much, buy some Casino dice, and practice drop-rolling them from your palm onto the table. If they just roll off your fingers and drop straight onto the table, you should be able to get consistent, repeatable non-random results every time. With practice, you will never fail a Ld test nor miss any single/double die roll.

This, of course, is why Casinos require shooters to bounce the dice off the far end of the Craps table...

I have seen people do this, I called a guy out on it and the TO required that he shake his dice in a cup and dump them on the table...

His rolling got a lot worse after that.

I roll dice that matches the unit as much as possible in color or will be color.

Pink and silver for my pink horrors,Red for Bloodletters, and those new skull dice for Skulltaker only.

Being an engineer with a fetish for precision I took a micrometer to all of the dice I could find and the best ones were all 0.010-0.020" away from being cubes. In order to remedy this I pulled out some Plastic stock and machined my own set that stay with .002" of being perfect cubes.

I have two piles of dice. One pile consists of all the dice that roll high and the other all the ones that roll low. This is so that I can utilize their talents. If I am trying make a roll that needs to stay low, I pull from the low pile. If I am trying to hit/wound I grab from the high pile. Sometimes I forget or get excited and grab out of the wrong group. The dice always tell me how I mixed them up (15 empire knights with 2+ save rolling all 1's).

1) Dice tend to repeat their previous rolls, even when they tumble around. If I need high numbers I reroll a high dice, if I need low numbers, I reroll low ones.

2) Get the resident IG player to bless the dice. DO NOT get the Sisters players to bless the dice, they're apart of the Order of Murphy.

3) As the die is rolling, focus every part of your mind on the die and the number favorable. I've killed many a death co. this way. or so I think

One time on a long plane ride I tried to play a game with my brother using only a pad of paper and a pencil. No models or dice. We decided to play MathHammer, where all of your rolls were the average result. 18 marine shots=12 Hits= 6 wounds= 2 failed 3+ Saves and so on. It was complicated and confusing, and really did not work, especially for only rolling small numbers of dice.

When i was playing D&D and Werewolf, before an important roll, i would hold the dice in my hands and chant 'pagawa sampa' over them. It was some weird phrase i remembered from Outlaw Star. Oddly enough, it actually worked on a more than a few occasions.

edit - ignore my sig for just this one post lol

themrsleepy wrote:Well.... This is only a once tested thing. Semi s for 40k ard boys, hmm how can i put this in the dakka family setting. Umm.. Well my wife was holding my dice and I did what young married coulples do The night before and morning of. Worked for the first game, I was rolling so incredible that he started picking my dice up to make saves, cept he was failing miserably. It really was rediculous. One example, I was throwing 15dice, hit on 3+ would hit 13 to 14, wound on 4+, wounded 9 and 10. Two turns in a row I did that with just that unit. Whatever works right (oh the dice dont have my stamina I rolled the worst ever in my second game.)

How long was the break between games? Your dice are tellin' you something.

Beer_&_Bolters wrote:When i was playing D&D and Werewolf, before an important roll, i would hold the dice in my hands and chant 'pagawa sampa' over them. It was some weird phrase i remembered from Outlaw Star. Oddly enough, it actually worked on a more than a few occasions.

edit - ignore my sig for just this one post lol

Awesome, and only made better by the fact that I not only remember that show. I have seen people sing jingles instead of chanting, and I'm perfectly guilty of doing it a few times myself.

Howard A Treesong wrote:There's always the techniques involved in 'controlled dice shots' but this is an acquired skill. The outcome of dice are supposed to be random.

If you don't care about morality, then you can learn to hand roll the dice (illegal in craps). It's BS, it also works.