Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So this isn't meant to be a rant or anything...I just wanted to know if I'm alone on this. I hate 6+ rolls. Seizing the initiative. 6+ cover from stealth. 6+ invulnerable for SoB. Deny the Witch rolls. Any time you're required to roll a few number of dice, it always feels like a problem.

My reason is that 6+ rolls are extremely unlikely (roughly a 16% chance). So as an opponent, you can feel "cheated" when it works against you - it shouldn't work, statistically. It's always annoying to have a plan fail due to a lucky roll.

On the other side of the coin, what if it's up to you to make 6+ rolls? They almost always feel useless - they fail about 84% of the time. I'm sure almost anyone playing an army without psychic defense might agree. How good is Deny the Witch? Most games, it will feel like it doesn't do anything at all. (Although that's just an example)

So either way - if the 6+ works or fails - someone might be frustrated. It either feels like a worthless roll that never works...or your opponent is annoyed that you made such an unlikely roll.

To clarify a few things: 1) I know it's a dice game and there is randomness in nearly everything. I'm just opening venting 2) For larger numbers of dice, this no longer applies. Snap shots, 6+ armor saves, etc...If you save 1 out of 4 Orks, I don't think anyone would have a problem with that.

What are your thoughts?

Most of my bugs have a 6+ save. I like to refer to it as "I don't take armor saves! HAHAHA!"

Look at the other side, if everything you have is a 2+ save it should always work, but when you roll ones multiple times in a row it's WAY more frustrating.

Not a rant, just venting?

Anyway, the 6+ roll is for very unlikely events suceeding, like seizing initiative. Unless GW changed dice, this is what's going to cover these events.

I play IG and orks, we LIVE for providing so many shots, we're going to get that magic 6 at least once.

Hell, today I killed a Grey knight paladin in the mysterious river that lets you reroll your 2+ armor save, with a friggin lasgun. Throw enough shots at the problem, and we can get "lucky" pretty consistently. However, I play armies that naturally compensate for their lower "skill" per model, by massed numbers. While a 5 man unit of termies may get super unlucky fairly easily and roll 5 ones, it's really hard to roll 60 ones to hit with IG or orks

So no, they don't bother me. You've got roughly a 16% chance to pass it. I routinely go to ground in the open with guardsmen, because I know at least one or two will somehow make the save.

I do have a weird trend of ALWAYS getting seized on if I went first, but that's mainly because the dice gods hate me.

I imagine these +6 up saves bother more "elite" armies far more though. Watching a 60+pts termie praying for a 6+ save must be nerve wracking, as opposed to watching a 5pt guardsman trying to make it, where you're thinking "man it'll be awesome if he makes it, but if he doesn't, no biggie, about another 120 where he came from"

Its roughly the same idea of having 2+ saves (aka you need 1s to die)

You feel cheated if it happens too often and the opponent feels cheated if it never happens

aka

100 shot into those termies and not a single death, ffs
5 shot into my termies and they all died... wtf

Nature of the game. I like it.

A 1/6 chance is still pretty excellent odds at doing anything...

Consider some of the other odds in this game.

A lasgun fired by a standard guardsman kills a standard marine 5.4% of the time.

A Guardsman Lascannon HWT will pen AV14 8% of the time.

The list goes on, I'm just too lazy to mathhammer anymore.

Point is, yes; a 6+ is a very low chance, but it still happens. These things are not meant to be likely. Noone said killing a terminator or seizing the initiative should happen often under regular circumstances, because they are SUPPOSED to be unlikely occurrences.

It's a game of dice, man. Every side of the die shows itself once in a while.

My thoughts are that I don't understand what you are venting about.

my temp manager, once played a game where the person he played got the initiative, let him go first and then seized the initiative

i like the glancing on 6+ necron warrior roll fire everything at their land raider first turn, get four 6's and it blows up

While it's probably true that the rolls even out over the game, I never seem to get the 6's when I really need them. All my rolls after penetrating hits are 1's or 2's. I never seem to get rending, unless someone has FNP or an inv save. In that case they always make their save.

My rolls are actually pretty average so never had have this problem,
I do hate 6+ saves though so I tend to gear them so that they would at least have a 5+ save of some sort.

I don't feel "cheated" when someone passes a 6+ save. If anything I find it entertaining, and there's been more than one triumphant moment where 4 Ork boyz passed all 4 armor saves in close combat or something silly like that. I also couldn't bring myself to "hate" anything as silly as a die roll in a game. That word gets thrown around way too much on this site though.

Shield of Faith.
Because when faith is all you have, you cling to it.

I understand this is a wargame and the goal is to win. But when my opponent gets a lucky 6 that is so crucial that it changes the game- then I'm happy twofold. For one, the game just got epic and more exciting. That's what I play for anyways. The awesomeness that can happen. It's boring when everything goes as it should and evens out. An two, I'm happy for my opponent. He must be feeling so excited about making an invulnerable save that would have killed abbadon you can't help but be excited with him.

I think i've failed a deny the witch roll once out of all my games in 6th, i cant help laughing everytime my enemy fails to do anything with his fancy new psyker powers.

I have no problem with 6+ saves.
It's a 1/6 chance which isn't that low.

I mean, take shadowrun, that can often need a 12+ (a 6, followed by a 6), or hell, 17+ (a 6, then a 6 then a 5+)to succeed (I remember once needing, and making, a 22 ), Vampire / WoD games that need 9/10 on a D10, or even things like DnD which is 20 max or WH RPGs, which are often D100, with need a 95+ or on rare occasion 99/100.

To be honest I'd love for warhammer to switch to a rolling D6 system like Shadowrun or a D10 system, but it's not going to happen.

Ignatius wrote:I understand this is a wargame and the goal is to win. But when my opponent gets a lucky 6 that is so crucial that it changes the game- then I'm happy twofold. For one, the game just got epic and more exciting. That's what I play for anyways. The awesomeness that can happen. It's boring when everything goes as it should and evens out. An two, I'm happy for my opponent. He must be feeling so excited about making an invulnerable save that would have killed abbadon you can't help but be excited with him.

I have had game changing rolls from 6s, Ones that broke an entire terminator squad, or one that just go lucky.