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.

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if these new Nurgle dice, the ones with bubons all over it that are somewhat hollow, are well balanced to use as actual dice or not. One of my regular opponents uses them and while I don't particularly notice any changes to the averages (my mind isn't really a computer calculating averages 24/7 though), another player says he doesn't like his opponent using them as anything other than markers, because they don't roll, being sharp-edged and all.

Anyone ever ran a test to see if they're legit to use ? I know there's a test with the dice in a glass of water and stuff but didn't test it myself.

I bought 2 sets of 20 when they came out and so far they seem to roll pretty evenly. The only complaint I've heard is that they are sometimes hard to read by people you play, so it may take a bit longer to point to each die and say: "that's a 5" etc. Otherwise they seem perfectly balanced to me.

Here's a video of Spiky Bits Rob reviewing these:



Look at 11 minutes in.

The complaint about being sharp edged is silly. Many "normal" dice have sharp edges. As to the dice themselves I don't see any problem with them except they may get stuck on pieces of terrain that have something sticking out or some rough edges. I say this with only seeing the video above so I don't know that this is truly the case.

I've always considered the 'sharp edged' dice to be preferable to the rounded edges and corners which roll all over the place banging into crap. Pretty sure casinos favor the sharp edges too. What's the general complaint for sharp edge? People placing the dice with 6 facing their palm and quickly slapping the their hand down to reveal all sixes? Shake rattle and roll those dice.

Only thing I can say about your dice is they were probably quite expensive compared to regular dice. I own 20 Ork dice that could've been money better spent elsewhere and these dice are simply a novelty, not much more.

We roll in a bowl at my store because it's much more convenient, rolling on the gaming table risks damaging the paint, models, scenery and make it harder picking them up if they roll in a unit or something. I prefer rounded edges dice personnaly, but my issue with the Nurgle dice lies with the balancing of the dice, not so much the sharp edges. I'd just like to know if they are effectively cocked or not (even if they're cocked on 2s or something).

 ProwlerPC wrote:
I've always considered the 'sharp edged' dice to be preferable to the rounded edges and corners which roll all over the place banging into crap. Pretty sure casinos favor the sharp edges too. What's the general complaint for sharp edge? People placing the dice with 6 facing their palm and quickly slapping the their hand down to reveal all sixes? Shake rattle and roll those dice.

Yes, casinos use sharp edged dice with flat faces and painted on numbers instead of divots. They also require that you throw the dice with enough force to bounce them off the far edge if the table as well. So the flat edge thing is only really applicable if your opponent isn't actually rolling the dice and instead judy letting them fall out his hand.

Would be interesting to put these dice through a balance check. I'm not in a rush to do it because even if done under video recording and the results published there will still be plenty who will twist any logic to refute it.

It won't matter if you balance test just one batch of those dice, all the sides are glued on, so there is bound to be extra blobs on glue all over the place inside those dice throwing off which side is weighted more heavily, and the uneven amounts of plastic on each face also makes it laughable to think of them as balanced.

I dislike those gimmicky dice unless they are rolled in a tower. Our DG player rolls like an absolute god with his unless they are rolled in store's dice towers.

They're dice. Sold by a company that sells a dice based game. There SHOULD be no issue.

stroller wrote:
They're dice. Sold by a company that sells a dice based game. There SHOULD be no issue.

Well the same gaming company sells unbalanced games too so what do we know ?

 Aaranis wrote:
We roll in a bowl at my store because it's much more convenient, rolling on the gaming table risks damaging the paint, models, scenery and make it harder picking them up if they roll in a unit or something. I prefer rounded edges dice personnaly, but my issue with the Nurgle dice lies with the balancing of the dice, not so much the sharp edges. I'd just like to know if they are effectively cocked or not (even if they're cocked on 2s or something).

Got no science to back this up, but I've seen the dice used and didn't notice odd balance.

They're constructed with lightweight rubbery material inside a symmetrical plastic frame. They are very light and it would have been better to have a heavier frame to minimize the impact of the asymmetrical rubber part, or any glue issues that may occur as per NH Gunsmith's comment, but realistically uneven weight distribution of such small magnitude should still not have a noteworthy impact. They're not casino dice, but neither are any dice you would usually consider fine. Can't have indented pips. They change weight distribution. You'd have to make sure that there isn't the slightest air bubble inside your plastic die, or else weight distribution is skewed. And yet, that's the market standard no one complains about. I think the Nurgle dice are no worse than this. You're not going to get cheated by someone using them.

Unless they're actually loaded dice (which they're not) then any uneven rolling will be so marginal as to be unnoticeable.

 Huron black heart wrote:
Unless they're actually loaded dice (which they're not) then any uneven rolling will be so marginal as to be unnoticeable.

They're made of multiple parts of different densities, with some voids between them. They could potentially be very uneven.
Trying to design a piece like that to roll evenly is an almost impossible task, you have to build it and then check how uneven it is. I don't think GW went through multiple iterations of the design until they found one that was as accurate as their other dice.
I think it's very likely they're more biased that typical dice, but someone would have to do the test to know for sure.

Well the good news is that the game itself is an extreme secondary far below the hobby itself for me. Out of three yrs in this hobby I've walked into the doors of a gaming store only once to pick up a paint pot I forgot to add to my online order. So it'll be almost impossible to run into me and my 'loaded' dice for a random pick up match.

stroller wrote:
They're dice. Sold by a company that sells a dice based game. There SHOULD be no issue.

You mean the company which sold range rulers that weren't the correct length? (the early red plastic ones)

 Huron black heart wrote:
Unless they're actually loaded dice (which they're not) then any uneven rolling will be so marginal as to be unnoticeable.

Marginal indeed.

it certainly doesn't stop Chessex dices from also being marginally bias one way or another because of manufacturing defects.

if it bothers people then they should invest in those casino or game science dice and make your opponents use them.

should a TO be worried? maybe. especially if its a huge event of some sort. at best they should have sealed dice cubes to hand out to people. especially if they are worried people are trying to bring loaded dice or what not as well.

this isnt even the final form of fussy variable control.

They are awful to read. When my opponents have them I ask them to use other dice. I could care less about if they are slightly off or not, i just want you to use dice that i can read quickly at a glance.

I'll take a look at those nurgle dice. Haven't seen them. The ones I have got ork gods laughing at you if you roll a one. Rest of the sides are normal. The ork gods side would be the lightest side of the six but I don't see a difference on rolling beyond wanting to give the ork gods the finger when their smug grins are showing.

Oh my.....they look like snot in a cage. OK my ork dice comparison doesn't work here...

They are very hard to read to me personally, same with the tzeentch dice. I have a friend who uses both at the same time as a joke and it's absolutely hell when he rolls a big batch of them at once. But they seem to roll normally at least.

I've only ever used the Nurgle dice as wounds/VP/CP counters.

They are just far too light weighted for my liking and when rolling them in batches they aren't clear for the opponent to see the results at a glance (a personal peeve of mine are illegible dice.. The Tzeentch dice for example are terrible)

They're a pain in the ass to read and I definitely have suspicions about how they're weighted. If my opponent uses them, I'll basically just let them tell me whatever they want about their rolls, because having to discern whatever the hell is going on with them is more work than it's worth.

They're pretty but man, do they suck.

I don't like them for couple of reasons:
1. They are too lightweight considering their large size, ie. too low density. They just seem to slide on the table instead of rolling and bouncing properly because of the sharp edges. If you apply enough force they'll just end up on the floor.
2. They are hard to read. I tried painting red dots on top on the boils but they wear out pretty fast. I also hate dice with a custom marker in place of 1 or 6. This is not an issue in friendly games but in tournaments it's really hard to keep up with fast rolling when someone uses mixture of dice where red dice have imperial eagle in place of 6 and green dice have eye of horus in place of 1 and blue dice has some crappy runes and numbers instead of dots.

Nurgle dice are great wound counters since no-one picks them up by accident.

Personally i dont like them at all, they are hallow plastic shields, with another plastic shell over it, way to much imbalance in them.

GWs newer dice though, like the custodes and the wytch elf dice roll really good