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I’m just curious to how people feel dice should be rolled in game, I’ve looked around to see if there were any other threads on this and couldn’t really find anything but here goes.

When rolling dice for whatever purpose let’s say to hit, 6 dice are thrown , the results are three 6’s and three 1’s. So the 6’s are the hits and the 1`s are the misses, should the player pick up the 6’s or the 1’s to roll for wounding?
The is a slight advantage to pick up the ones as the odds of rolling a one again on the dice are lower than rolling the 6’s again.

Just curious if there is a standard protocol, or if it is just a house rule thing?

As a bonus I’m curious is anyone else is a fan of if you miss the table with your dice i.e. it falls off the roll automatically fails. I am a big fan it forces people to carefully roll instead of throwing dice all over the place.

Pick up misses and leave the hits, that way both people can verify what's remaining. With my eye sight going the way of the dodo, I have mistaken a 2 for a 3 many times. I don't take offense when it's corrected.

As for there being an advantage for rolling a die that just rolled a 6 over a die that just rolled a 1, blah. Not an issue, man. You would have to roll a die thousands of times to demonstrate any true bias, statistically. Also, unless you're rolling on a craps-style table with one bounce on the table and one of the backboard, then you're doing it wrong.

All 40k should be played on Vegas tables, in Vegas, with Vegas Dice and drink girls...

The only thing I don't like about the dice on floor... I play orks.. I roll A LOT of dice.. sometimes while shaking the dice a little, some fall, or if I have a Tom of models in the center of the field and so do you, I'm forced to roll closer to the edge.. with so many dice one or two usually falls.. I'm not gonna miss one or two possible 5 or 6 each turn. Other than that, I pick up my fails n leave my hits there so if my opponent wants to double check they can.

I know a couple guys that are really superstitious, if they have enough dice they'll get completely new ones out of their cube to roll the wounds. Something about wanting completely new odds, since the other dice already did the work or something silly like that. I just roll with it

UrsoerTheSquid wrote:
I’m just curious to how people feel dice should be rolled in game, I’ve looked around to see if there were any other threads on this and couldn’t really find anything but here goes.

When rolling dice for whatever purpose let’s say to hit, 6 dice are thrown , the results are three 6’s and three 1’s. So the 6’s are the hits and the 1`s are the misses, should the player pick up the 6’s or the 1’s to roll for wounding?
The is a slight advantage to pick up the ones as the odds of rolling a one again on the dice are lower than rolling the 6’s again.

Just curious if there is a standard protocol, or if it is just a house rule thing?

As a bonus I’m curious is anyone else is a fan of if you miss the table with your dice i.e. it falls off the roll automatically fails. I am a big fan it forces people to carefully roll instead of throwing dice all over the place.

There is 0 advantage in picking up the 1's as compared to picking up the 6's, just saying.

My group will take the top off some game box to roll dice in. No dice on the floor that way.

Personally I pick up the fails so my opponent can count the successes himself if he feels so inclined.

I pick up misses, it makes it easier to check how many hits there are.

As long as the dice have been shaken a reasonable amount and actually rolled, I don’t have an issue with other people’s dice habits. I’m going to assume they are being honest. Heck, even if they are picking up a handful of dice, not really shaking them, and lightly dropping them on the table, that’s still OK. I could see someone palming a pair of dice to get the right results, but nobody can do that with squad level shooting.

Dice trays, or electronic dice for me.

When you use a dice tray, the inclination, if there are 4 hits, for example, is to pick up all the dice and roll 4.

If I'm feeling all fancy, I'll use amber dice for to-hit, red dice for wound, and green dice for saves

If I'm rolling lots of dice, I'll make sure I'm doing so on a chunk of table the opponent can clearly see. I usually pick out misses too.

The other protocol I find curious is whether people count wounds taken or wounds left on multi-wound models. Most of us count down from max wounds until dead, but one bloke (Canadian, so maybe it's a Northern Hemisphere thing ) counts his way up to max wounds.

I'm not a fan of the off the table rule, but that's because some days I'm a clumsy moron. I'll definitely roll the die again though, I'm not a fan of people who yell "Definitely a six!!" from under the next table over...

 Zed wrote:

The other protocol I find curious is whether people count wounds taken or wounds left on multi-wound models. Most of us count down from max wounds until dead, but one bloke (Canadian, so maybe it's a Northern Hemisphere thing ) counts his way up to max wounds.

For vehicle hull points and wounds, I put a counter for each that they have taken. So if a character with 3 wounds has taken 2, then there is a die with a 2 next to him. I'll explain as I go. If the other person wants to show remaining, I'm willing to if they reciprocate.

re. rolling: I prefer pick up misses, as that way both players have a chance to verify the successes. I know of a few players who "accidentally" picked up a couple misses and rolled Wounds with them.

re. HPs, I usually count up. My group is divided though as some count up, others count down. It's usually something I clarify as soon as it happens.

 kronk wrote:

 Zed wrote:

The other protocol I find curious is whether people count wounds taken or wounds left on multi-wound models. Most of us count down from max wounds until dead, but one bloke (Canadian, so maybe it's a Northern Hemisphere thing ) counts his way up to max wounds.

For vehicle hull points and wounds, I put a counter for each that they have taken. So if a character with 3 wounds has taken 2, then there is a die with a 2 next to him. I'll explain as I go. If the other person wants to show remaining, I'm willing to if they reciprocate.

I usually put how many they have left, so a 3 wound character that takes a wound will have a two next to him. As for my rhinos, I don't have the radar dish that fits in one of the two circles slots attached, so when it takes 1 hp I take that off. A second HP and I set a die in the hole, then wrecked I take off the "lid" of the transport section.

 Talys wrote:
Dice trays, or electronic dice for me.

When you use a dice tray, the inclination, if there are 4 hits, for example, is to pick up all the dice and roll 4.

If I'm feeling all fancy, I'll use amber dice for to-hit, red dice for wound, and green dice for saves

Anything but electronics. Have seen too many fail to be truly random. Besides, its easier to hack an electronic roller than it is to check a weighted dice.

Leave your hits pull out misses. Then roll the hits and pull out the ones that do not wound and have the opponent roll saving throws...


When your playing orks you have to do that because of all the misses you get it can be overwhelming.

 zombiekila707 wrote:
Leave your hits pull out misses. Then roll the hits and pull out the ones that do not wound and have the opponent roll saving throws...


When your playing orks you have to do that because of all the misses you get it can be overwhelming.

ORKZ DUN CARE ABOUT MISSES, ONLY THE WAAAAGHH! MATTAS.

 Zed wrote:
If I'm rolling lots of dice, I'll make sure I'm doing so on a chunk of table the opponent can clearly see. I usually pick out misses too.

The other protocol I find curious is whether people count wounds taken or wounds left on multi-wound models. Most of us count down from max wounds until dead, but one bloke (Canadian, so maybe it's a Northern Hemisphere thing ) counts his way up to max wounds.

I'm not a fan of the off the table rule, but that's because some days I'm a clumsy moron. I'll definitely roll the die again though, I'm not a fan of people who yell "Definitely a six!!" from under the next table over...

Locally I'm one of the few people who counts down on all my models.

Regarding rolling, I'm in the "pull misses" camp to make things easier. As for dropped dice, I always re-roll them on the table regardless of the outcome (same for cocked dice). I just feel it's a lot more consistent than trying that whole "slant test" thing people do (some of which only seem to do it when the die is a number they want no less).

My favorite table type is definitely one with a lip though. It's just so much harder to accidentally roll off one of those.

We usually just roll them in plain sight. If there is nowhere on the table to roll a large group of dice, then we get a tray.

Leave the hits, pick out the misses. Once your opponent has a chance to see the hits, pick them up, and roll for wounds, so on and so forth.

Now with scatter dice. I like to roll them as close to the target as possible without risking hitting models. That way resolving the direction of the scatter is easier. It irks me when my opponent rolls a scatter die half way across the table, and then struggles to interpret the direction of the scatter.

before my FLGS had to close (shop barely made enough to stay open, and owner had almost no time to spend with his family.) we had a few hard rules for our league games.

all dice must be rolled on a table. (for large pools like my orks, we could roll on a side table rather than where we were playing)

all cocked dice must be re-rolled. it is your opponents call on whether a die is cocked or not. (if i roll, you decide)

if it is difficult to tell, the player who wants the die result to remain may place a second die on top. if the second die falls off re-roll, otherwise result sticks. you only get one try to keep the result.

only pick up the failures, and give your opponent a REAL chance to double check before rolling the next step.
(we had some trouble with a player rolling into a piece of terrain, plucking up his "fails" quickly, and then rolling the next part before anyone could get to where they could see his roll.)

if you need both hands to roll your dice, break it up into groups. (this mostly applied to me. in Shiggles games i would try to roll my entire Initiative step at once)

In general, I do whatever is going to be fastest. If it's a 30-man IG blob firing Overwatch, I'll just pick out the handful of 6s, sweep the rest aside and roll again in the clear space. If, on the other hand, I'm firing Space Marines at BS4, I'll just pick out the misses. I don't conciously think about it either way, it tends to be that whatever it looks like there's least of (hits or misses) get picked out.

Anything that misses the table or does not land flat gets re-rolled.

As for Wounds/HP, I'm very much in the 'count up' school. You score 1 wound on my Wolf Lord, I'll put a D6 on his base/nect to him showing a 1. If you get 1 glance on my Rhino, I stick a D6 showing a 1 on top of it. Again, I don't mind either way if the opponent does something different (like counting down or just using Wound Counters) so long as it's clear.

 kronk wrote:
Pick up misses and leave the hits, that way both people can verify what's remaining. With my eye sight going the way of the dodo, I have mistaken a 2 for a 3 many times. I don't take offense when it's corrected.

This is the correct answer.

 cvtuttle wrote:

 kronk wrote:
Pick up misses and leave the hits, that way both people can verify what's remaining. With my eye sight going the way of the dodo, I have mistaken a 2 for a 3 many times. I don't take offense when it's corrected.

This is the correct answer.

I agree.

I also feel that the whole "If you can't hit the table with the dice then your model couldn't possibly have hit its target Har Har" nonsense. Sometimes dice just bang off things or roll strangely. Don't be mean about it, show a little decorum and patience. If you'd like, I can roll them in the middle of the table so they bang off your models instead of onto the floor. No? Then that settles it.

1. Roll dice in sight of opponent.

2. Pick up failures. Allow a tiny bit of time for the opponent to verify.

3. Any dice that isn't laying completely and utterly flat on the table itself is re-rolled. Preferably use a dice-box.

4. Markers are used to signify number of wounds sustained/inflicted on the model, just like markers are used to signify effects applied to vehicles. You wouldn't use markers to show what effects a vehicle isn't affected by......so why do it on a non-vehicle model?

Pull misses/fails, reroll if off the table, if a die can't support another one placed on top of it it's cocked and rerolled.

Not to be mean, but some of you guys think way too much about rolling dice. I just try to do it in the most straightforward way possible.

For the record, as far as I can possibly think of, as long as you are sending the dice for a good proper roll, the odds for any number over the next are so equal, it can't possibly matter what the previous result was. With most generic dice, the big air bubble that's undoubtedtly in the middle of each die makes more of a difference.

So you might as well grab whatever die makes your superstitions happy.

UrsoerTheSquid wrote:
I’m just curious to how people feel dice should be rolled in game, I’ve looked around to see if there were any other threads on this and couldn’t really find anything but here goes.

When rolling dice for whatever purpose let’s say to hit, 6 dice are thrown , the results are three 6’s and three 1’s. So the 6’s are the hits and the 1`s are the misses, should the player pick up the 6’s or the 1’s to roll for wounding?
The is a slight advantage to pick up the ones as the odds of rolling a one again on the dice are lower than rolling the 6’s again.

Just curious if there is a standard protocol, or if it is just a house rule thing?

As a bonus I’m curious is anyone else is a fan of if you miss the table with your dice i.e. it falls off the roll automatically fails. I am a big fan it forces people to carefully roll instead of throwing dice all over the place.

I always use the dice that hit, to wound. But this is a function of a sportsmanship issue. If you pick out all the mises, the opponent can clearly see you're not picking up things that arent hits and you're free to more quickly roll.

So I do it because I dont want to have to sit there and count hits. We can both visually see that they are if I take out misses and I can immediately roll. Speeds the game up a lot. And some people...no offense... But Id rather watch paint dry than wait on some people to count.

UrsoerTheSquid wrote:
I’m just curious to how people feel dice should be rolled in game, I’ve looked around to see if there were any other threads on this and couldn’t really find anything but here goes.

When rolling dice for whatever purpose let’s say to hit, 6 dice are thrown , the results are three 6’s and three 1’s. So the 6’s are the hits and the 1`s are the misses, should the player pick up the 6’s or the 1’s to roll for wounding?
The is a slight advantage to pick up the ones as the odds of rolling a one again on the dice are lower than rolling the 6’s again.

What you said here is an example of the logical fallacy known as the Gambler's Fallacy. The odds of rolling any given number (say, a 6) are the same on each roll of the same die. It really doesn't matter what the previous roll of that die was.

More on topic, we always take out misses to keep our games flowing faster at my FLGS. It is much easier than counting hits. And I will suggest what I saw on a previous post (in this thread) about how the OPPONENT should make the determination if a die is cocked to my local play group. We have been determining this for our own rolls, but the other way seems more fair.

kronk wrote:Pick up misses and leave the hits, that way both people can verify what's remaining. With my eye sight going the way of the dodo, I have mistaken a 2 for a 3 many times. I don't take offense when it's corrected.

As for there being an advantage for rolling a die that just rolled a 6 over a die that just rolled a 1, blah. Not an issue, man. You would have to roll a die thousands of times to demonstrate any true bias, statistically. Also, unless you're rolling on a craps-style table with one bounce on the table and one of the backboard, then you're doing it wrong.

All 40k should be played on Vegas tables, in Vegas, with Vegas Dice and drink girls...

Spetulhu wrote:My group will take the top off some game box to roll dice in. No dice on the floor that way.

Personally I pick up the fails so my opponent can count the successes himself if he feels so inclined.

These for me, also count wounds down with custom wound tokens I made (infinity ones printed, laminated and stuck on round bases)

I count up for wounds and hull points suffered. The way I see it is:

When there is no damage, there is no die - so we start at 0.

Therefore, it makes no sense to put a 3 next to the Land Raider after it suffered its first hull point - the counting looks (to me) like 0-3-2-1-Wrecked instead of counting up: 0-1-2-3-Wrecked.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I count up for wounds and hull points suffered. The way I see it is:

When there is no damage, there is no die - so we start at 0.

Therefore, it makes no sense to put a 3 next to the Land Raider after it suffered its first hull point - the counting looks (to me) like 0-3-2-1-Wrecked instead of counting up: 0-1-2-3-Wrecked.

You put a 3 down to show it has 3 hull points remaining. It's a courtesy to your opponent as counting up requires knowing that you know how many wounds/HP had to begin with and not every one knows everything about every unit.