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Hey folks!

I've been searching the globe for someone who can make custom 12mm dice so that I can get some awesome angry marine dice. The big manufacturers won't go below 16mm, and the only manufacturers in china that will take an order require 20,000+ minimum order quantity.

I've found a manufacturer that make my custom design with resin instead of poured plastic for a 5,000 order count...but before I pull the trigger on 5,000 dice just to get some angry dice, I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with resin dice.

No experience, but I wouldn't expect them to be particularly well balanced, due to inconsistencies in the resin mix.

... Why not have a set 3d printed, after all you'll probably only need 50 at at the most.

insaniak wrote:No experience, but I wouldn't expect them to be particularly well balanced, due to inconsistencies in the resin mix.

I did some google research last night on using resin to make die; I saw some people home-brewing them with soft resin, and different manufacturers use polyurethane or polyester resins for minatures, or polystyrene for injection moulding; or acrylic resin for...I dunno. I found a resin casting subreddit; I'm going to go poke around in there.

OneManNoodles wrote:... Why not have a set 3d printed, after all you'll probably only need 50 at at the most.

I talked to a couple of 3D printing companies; who walked me through the geometry of how 3D printing works - and it wouldn't be a good fit to make dice.

I gotta ask...why not just get 16mm which are easily available custom?

Strangely enough I do, thanks to Tehnolog. One of the boxes came with this little resin 12mm dice that I primed and used an acrylic marker for the dots. It rolls well, although there was some flash I had to remove - because resin.

Can you get the resin company to send you a/some samples? that way you'll be able to see how they go

I dont see why you couldnt besides potential pockets and bad balance.

at the point of resin why not machine engrave the icon in. last i recall you can get blank dice.

Elbows wrote:I gotta ask...why not just get 16mm which are easily available custom?

I've chosen to play Angry Marines (counts as ultramarines) and I'm finding that shooting phases are an unreasonable number of dice. Like 400-700 dice rolls. 16mm dice are too big to roll more than 10-20 at a time. I bought a couple hundred 8mm dice and tried two games with them, but trying to sort through 50-70 dice at a time with dice smaller than my fingertips was a terrible idea too. 12mm seems to be the right size.

Also, the link in the OP walked through all the different places I've been searching for dice - I've hit all the big manufacturers in the US and Canada, the small engraving shops, custom dice makers, 3D printers, and ultimately some chinese manufacturers. I hired Custom Dice to design and prototype four dice with different topographies to achieve this effect.



But I really want this on my 6 facing:



Getting any black is going to require hand painting....and will cost me $2 - $4 per dice.

ChargerIIC wrote:Strangely enough I do, thanks to Tehnolog. One of the boxes came with this little resin 12mm dice that I primed and used an acrylic marker for the dots. It rolls well, although there was some flash I had to remove - because resin.

It came with a 12mm dice that was blank?

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:Can you get the resin company to send you a/some samples? that way you'll be able to see how they go

This is actually a chinese manufacturer, and I can hire them to design my dice and give me a drawing for $20, but I'm still going to have to pay for the mould, shipping ($440 total) and buy a minimum order quantity of 5,000 (at $0.40 apiece) to get any created. My mandarin is pretty sad (wo shi hui shuo yi doan zhong wen sa) and their English is only a little better than mine, so communication is rough. I might be better off finding a local who can speak / write Mandarin who can help me negotiate with this company.

Desubot wrote:I dont see why you couldnt besides potential pockets and bad balance at the point of resin why not machine engrave the icon in. last i recall you can get blank dice.

I can get 12mm blanks, but I still have to find someone to engrave and paint it.

Wait how are you getting 400-700 dice rolls?

what combination of models could do that? (in a single shooting or punch action)

 Desubot wrote:
Wait how are you getting 400-700 dice rolls?

what combination of models could do that? (in a single shooting or punch action)

Just to be obscene, a unit of 5x aggressors buffed by Guilliman have a maximum number of dice rolls in a single turn of 960 rolls. 240 rolls to hit, 240 rerolls to hit, 240 rolls to wound, 240 rerolls to wound. Those five aggressors cost 185 points. Imagine ever wanting to take more than one unit of aggressors.

Now...average dice rolls are going to be a lot less - but even rolling 70-100 dice to hit, with rerolls to 1s only is still a lot of dice.

 Dashofpepper wrote:


Getting any black is going to require hand painting....and will cost me $2 - $4 per dice.

Can't you just get the black parts machined and/or paint them yourself? It's not a lot of paint so you should be able to bash through them (maybe not 960 of them if you want to retain sanity, but it sounds like you only really need about 300).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dashofpepper wrote:

Just to be obscene, a unit of 5x aggressors buffed by Guilliman have a maximum number of dice rolls in a single turn of 960 rolls. 240 rolls to hit, 240 rerolls to hit, 240 rolls to wound, 240 rerolls to wound. Those five aggressors cost 185 points. Imagine ever wanting to take more than one unit of aggressors.

Now...average dice rolls are going to be a lot less - but even rolling 70-100 dice to hit, with rerolls to 1s only is still a lot of dice.

That makes it sound like a bad game.

 Dashofpepper wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Wait how are you getting 400-700 dice rolls?

what combination of models could do that? (in a single shooting or punch action)

Just to be obscene, a unit of 5x aggressors buffed by Guilliman have a maximum number of dice rolls in a single turn of 960 rolls. 240 rolls to hit, 240 rerolls to hit, 240 rolls to wound, 240 rerolls to wound. Those five aggressors cost 185 points. Imagine ever wanting to take more than one unit of aggressors.

Now...average dice rolls are going to be a lot less - but even rolling 70-100 dice to hit, with rerolls to 1s only is still a lot of dice.

... Is there some Stratagem i missed that lets you fire a 3rd time because the max shot per aggressor is 24 each. 6 for the gauntlets and potential 6 for the frags then doubled if stationary. total max for a 5 stack is 120 at most.

 Desubot wrote:

 Dashofpepper wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Wait how are you getting 400-700 dice rolls?

what combination of models could do that? (in a single shooting or punch action)

Just to be obscene, a unit of 5x aggressors buffed by Guilliman have a maximum number of dice rolls in a single turn of 960 rolls. 240 rolls to hit, 240 rerolls to hit, 240 rolls to wound, 240 rerolls to wound. Those five aggressors cost 185 points. Imagine ever wanting to take more than one unit of aggressors.

Now...average dice rolls are going to be a lot less - but even rolling 70-100 dice to hit, with rerolls to 1s only is still a lot of dice.

... Is there some Stratagem i missed that lets you fire a 3rd time because the max shot per aggressor is 24 each. 6 for the gauntlets and potential 6 for the frags then doubled if stationary. total max for a 5 stack is 120 at most.

No, there's not. Keep in mind that I'm just pointing out how ridiculously obscene the number of dice rolls can get for a single unit. If a unit of aggressors doesn't move, and doesn't die, and something deep-strikes / reserves, and they auspex scan (stratagem), and they roll 6s, and ...etc. THEN one turn of work with aggressors can max out at 960 dice rolls. In fact, I lied. I didn't even count in the possible max scenario of them getting overwatched and unloading more dice.

The point is, too many dice. It's obscene. I'm gonna make obscene dice.

Or you could just use the GW dice app.

As an update: I went through three manufacturers, three rounds of design and prototyping with them, picked one, negotiated them down from 20,000 minimum order quantity to ...well, still many thousands more than I need, and the prototypes finished!

I've greenlit the manufacturing run, paid for the mould, the dice, the shipping, and everything else and ....here's what they look like.

I cast a lot of models and pieces - for fun I made a D6 die and casted a few.

It basically only rolls ones and I wouldn't use it in an event

New angry marines Ebay store starting soon?

How many dice did you end up buying?

 Flinty wrote:
New angry marines Ebay store starting soon?

How many dice did you end up buying?

Uh...it was either 5,000 or 10,000. I also had to pay for the mould, design, and will have to pay for international shipping and customs. Once they get here, I intend to take mine out, then try dumping the rest at cost because I only wanted 200 to start with. =p

Wouldn't resin dice be suspectible for chinks which in turn affects balance which in turn affects distribution?

I would be suspicious of resin dice. Even if they were cast perfectly with no air pockets(if those are then distribution is already skewed).

tneva82 wrote:
Wouldn't resin dice be suspectible for chinks which in turn affects balance which in turn affects distribution?

I would be suspicious of resin dice. Even if they were cast perfectly with no air pockets(if those are then distribution is already skewed).

Shouldn't you be equally suspicious of plastic dice? Think of all of the hidden air pockets that you can't see because the plastic is isn't clear.

Serious disclaimer: Seriously, look up some of the stuff about preventing air bubbles in injection molding equipment. You don't worry about air bubbles on the surface of injection molded plastic dice because those are "miscast" and get thrown out.

How are they, weight wise?

I've got one of the free dice from Laserman and Frontline. It's plastic with an elastomer core.

But....

It's heavy, it doesn't bounce and roll well so that it's very.. hmm not very dicey. You have to give it quite a good throw to make it actually bounce and roll. Nice custom dice would be pretty cool.

 solkan wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Wouldn't resin dice be suspectible for chinks which in turn affects balance which in turn affects distribution?

I would be suspicious of resin dice. Even if they were cast perfectly with no air pockets(if those are then distribution is already skewed).

Shouldn't you be equally suspicious of plastic dice? Think of all of the hidden air pockets that you can't see because the plastic is isn't clear.

Serious disclaimer: Seriously, look up some of the stuff about preventing air bubbles in injection molding equipment. You don't worry about air bubbles on the surface of injection molded plastic dice because those are "miscast" and get thrown out.

I've certainly found plenty of voids in plastic minis & scale model kits when I've chopped them up to convert them

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

 solkan wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Wouldn't resin dice be suspectible for chinks which in turn affects balance which in turn affects distribution?

I would be suspicious of resin dice. Even if they were cast perfectly with no air pockets(if those are then distribution is already skewed).

Shouldn't you be equally suspicious of plastic dice? Think of all of the hidden air pockets that you can't see because the plastic is isn't clear.

Serious disclaimer: Seriously, look up some of the stuff about preventing air bubbles in injection molding equipment. You don't worry about air bubbles on the surface of injection molded plastic dice because those are "miscast" and get thrown out.

I've certainly found plenty of voids in plastic minis & scale model kits when I've chopped them up to convert them

Well, exactly. No one bats an eye at buying boxes of injection mold plastic dice until you show them what a salt water balance test is, and just how off balance their nice looking plastic dice are.

Pretty obscene dice, the unhappy face is the 1 and the finger is the 6 I take it.

What did they end up costing? I think it be fun to have a few for novelty

Really neat project. I would like to buy some too.