Hey, I found Dakka again...
I have (stole?) 2 prototype cubes from RiTides at Nova, and have had some time to test them out.
Re: Grabbing other things. They can, but not much. I tested it out with some of my magnetized Leman Russ, which have WAY too powerful magnets holding on sponsons and hull weapons. The cube didn't pull anything off the tank, as the magnets touching each other were more than powerful enough to hold. If I took off a gun and dropped it very close to the cube (<1/4"
it did slide over and stick. If I dropped it halfway between the tank and cube, it went to the tank. (Like I said, I used magnets way more powerful than is needed.)
I put a super strong magnet on the base of a resin model, so total weight about 4 nose hairs, give or take. I made sure the polarity at the bottom of the base matched the face of the cube. It turns out, the cube doesn't affect it at all until within ~1/8", and then only to repel the model. Apparently the vertical field of the model interacts with the field from the FACE of a cube to repel if the model's base would stick if sat on the cube.
If I reverse the model's base magnet, it does attract, but again only within 1/8".
I emphasize face above, because if you move the cube towards the model edge first, nothing happens. You can touch it with the edge of the cube and it behaves as if there were no magnets at all.
With regard to metal, you can get them to stick to a hobby knife blade, but only if you touch it to the face. The cube won't "jump" to the metal.
Also, the face tokens being in the cube dulls the magnet power a little more, so they are even less likely to affect the table state when put together.
General comments, even though I helped RiTides design them a bit, the cubes in person are really impressive. They have a really satisfying weight to them due to the magnets, and are a good bit smaller despite having the same token sizes. And the full color tokens are gak hot. Plus, putting the tokens in and out is a lot easier, even without a fancy schmancy suction cup
Blue
tac does just fine, but you can also drop/roll/throw the cubes across the room without losing tiles. (I said you can... sometimes one or two pop out, but you don't get the catastrophic cube coming apart effect.)
As to how they roll, I got really, really bored and rolled them a LOT the other day, and they seem to be better than Chessex style dice out of 500 rolls. Which, ok, low bar, but still. They are heavy enough and evenly weighted enough (no cut outs at all) that they approach decent gaming dice, although they would need sharp cornered edges to compete with casino dice.
So yea, good job RiTides! Now just change the 1 or 2 things I think you should, and they will be perfect!
and thanks for your thorough thoughts, including the rolling test - your feedback has been invaluable!
