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.

Up until recently, I don't think I've ever seen the triple digits of dice being rolled. 90 shots for 30 Termegants with Devourers, or also 90 shots for 9 Ork Warbikers in Dakka range. However with the new Tau changes to Burst Cannons making them Assault 6 and being able to take 3 per model, you could potentially have to roll a whopping 162 shots if you fully kitted them out.

So that got me to thinking, is that the most you could potentially roll? Any combination of units and abilities is fine, so long as it is a single attack from a single unit. (melee counts too if someone rolls enough there.)

Who rolls the most dice?

Traditionally, orks do quite well in this exercise. Full mob in close combat with whatever buffs exist these days.

Could orks not quite easily roll about 120 attacks in close combat? Either this edition or editions past?

 Sim-Life wrote:
Could orks not quite easily roll about 120 attacks in close combat? Either this edition or editions past?

"Only" 90 for Boyz now unless they're under Waaagh.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Could orks not quite easily roll about 120 attacks in close combat? Either this edition or editions past?

"Only" 90 for Boyz now unless they're under Waaagh.

And only if you somehow manage to get 30 boyz in engagement range - more commonly you are rolling 30-36 attacks for a unit of boyz.

So no, orks are out for this one. Many high ROF units shoot more shots than orks throw attacks.

We can imagine a magical Christmas land scenario.

However, even under the Waaash! 30 boys could net you at most 121 attacks. Still not passing the Tau's 162.

Ork boys atks have gone down this edition…
But prior greentide gave an extra +1 atk per boy and ork psychic power was also commonly used for another +1 atk… heck even ghaz gave an extra +1 atk to goffs.. and boys were decent so people used 90+ boys

Squad of six Assault Centurions with dual Flamers and Hurricane Bolters against a large squad within 12" gets 144 shots, buuuut you don't roll to hit with the Flamers.

However, if you pump them to BS2+ (Recitation of Focus) and reroll 1's (Captain nearby), then on average you'd roll 141 dice to wound.

Not valid since 8th, the Imperial Guard could field units of 55 Guardsmen (5 10-man squads, 1 5-man squad). Without upgrades or Independent Characters, that was 49 Lasrifles and 6 laspistols. At Pistol range, that's 104 shots. With Front Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire, that goes up to a potential 153 shots.

For single model the Storm Raven can get 50 shots. I bet the Repulsor is up there too if it loads up of Fragstorms and fires at big squads.

There is some wild speculation as to whether Crisis suits will go to max 2 weapons with 1 support in the 9th codex. I'm not sure they will as that would mean a lot of players needing to chop off the extra burst cannons. But then this is GW... Another option is dropping max squad size to 6.

That would drop them down to 108 shots either way.

I've always enjoyed 30 Pink Horrors with The Changeling and a Daemon Prince. 90 shots re-rolling 1s to hit with their assault 3 guns. But then when they shoot back you start rolling your 4++ saves followed by 6+++ shrugs. Then you split your Pinks into 2 Blues with reinforcement points and start rolling some 5++ saves followed by 6+++ shrugs. Then you split your Blues into Brims and start rolling some 6++ saves followed by 6+++ shrugs. Only after they get 150 wounds through does the rolling stop.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Squad of six Assault Centurions with dual Flamers and Hurricane Bolters against a large squad within 12" gets 144 shots, buuuut you don't roll to hit with the Flamers.

However, if you pump them to BS2+ (Recitation of Focus) and reroll 1's (Captain nearby), then on average you'd roll 141 dice to wound.

In 8th I did have some Imperial Fist Centurions shoot at my 30 Pink Horrors once. I think they were 6 DevCents with 6 Heavy and 12 Hurricane Bolter shots each, exploding on 6s (could they get it to 5s ever?), re-rolling everything with a chapter master, re-rolling 1s to wound, then my save rolls. That was a long shooting phase. And yes, the "optimal" way to play it was slow rolling the whole lot so you can split the Blues/Brims midway.

It takes a bit of a setup but:

take 6 Mortian IG Infantry squads against Chaos
turn 1: merge 2 with "consolidate squads"
turn 2: merge another squad with them with the same strat
turn 3-5: the same, you now have a 60 man Infantry squad. Bring into rapid fire range and order first rank fire, second rank fire. Use "Vengence for Cadia" and "Volley Fire".

=> 60 x 4 =240 rolls, rerolling all failed hit and wound rolls => on average 300 hit rolls, all rolles 6es are rolled again (and also rerolled if they fail) => on average another 37 hit rolls for 337 in total.

Not exactly in the spirit of a single unit, but you did technically follow the rules... hmmm, this must be what GW feels when they release abusable rules. It was certainly a pretty creative idea to pump the numbers. I was just counting base rolls though, still 240 looks pretty hard to beat.

Lol. That looks like a winner!

Surely anyone who manages to actually pull that off wins the internet

Arco flagelants can pump out 93 attacks rerolling hits. Not bad for 10 models.

@ the IG squads: I made some mistakes, it's more:
60 guardsmen (including 6 sergants with pistols) make 234 shots, reroll half of them (+117) which on average produce 58 sixes that roll another time (+58) with rerolling fails (+29) for a total of 438.

Bit wait... it gets better... the same 60 Infantry with grenadiers strat against 10+ Chaos models using their frag grenades:
60x6 =360 hit rolls + 180 rerolls +90 hit rolls (in average) for the 6es +45 rerolls of those =675 hit rolls

^Noice. You broke it

 Tawnis wrote:
Not exactly in the spirit of a single unit, but you did technically follow the rules... hmmm, this must be what GW feels when they release abusable rules. It was certainly a pretty creative idea to pump the numbers. I was just counting base rolls though, still 240 looks pretty hard to beat.

If i recall correctly someone did the math on something similar with orks in past edition merging squads on several turns and being able to get a theorically number of thousands dice for wounds (with a lot if and rolling almost all 6).

There was a similar post in general discussions so maybe other dakkanauts can remember the title, there was some good numbers and posibilities there.

 Flinty wrote:
Traditionally, orks do quite well in this exercise. Full mob in close combat with whatever buffs exist these days.

Naaah, orks do roll a lot of dice but with shooting units, not choppy ones.

Dakkajet during speedwaaagh fires 42 S6 AP-2 D1 shots for example. Each Megatrakk scrapjet fires 25-32 shots during speedwaaagh and while in dakka range. A full unit of 9 warbikes fires 108 shots during speedwaaagh and while in dakka range, etc...

Well, it would be better to consider the ratio given by the number of shots per point cost of the unit.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Could orks not quite easily roll about 120 attacks in close combat? Either this edition or editions past?

Yes. there was once a thing called the green tide, a single unit of 100 orks and a warboss, and that was at minimum size this unit could have been 300 and 1 models. (7th edition)
They'd never all get to fight and roll all their attacks but 290 boys 10 nobs and a warboss. That'd be a lot of dice. Heck they could have taken shootas, that would only be just above 600 dice.

30 conscripts under FRFSRF in 12" is 120 shots.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
30 conscripts under FRFSRF in 12" is 120 shots.

You could also grenadier them and the potential increases by an additional 20 shots against >10 models bringing this up to 140 shots.

An all infantry guard army can throw down a disturbing amount of strength 3 dice

 Tawnis wrote:
Up until recently, I don't think I've ever seen the triple digits of dice being rolled. 90 shots for 30 Termegants with Devourers, or also 90 shots for 9 Ork Warbikers in Dakka range. However with the new Tau changes to Burst Cannons making them Assault 6 and being able to take 3 per model, you could potentially have to roll a whopping 162 shots if you fully kitted them out.

So that got me to thinking, is that the most you could potentially roll? Any combination of units and abilities is fine, so long as it is a single attack from a single unit. (melee counts too if someone rolls enough there.)

Who rolls the most dice?

Flesh-Eater Courts in AoS can roll up to 200+ with rerolls in AoS 2.0 using Crypt Ghouls. It was a good way to murder your opponent's will to live and general interest to play the game.

Have not seen similar things in 40k.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Could orks not quite easily roll about 120 attacks in close combat? Either this edition or editions past?

Prior editions orkz had +1 for over 20 models, +1 for ghaz, +1 for Weirdboy. So theoretically you could have a unit of 40 boyz (Mob up) putting out 6 attacks each for 240 attacks. Please remember...THEORETICALLY. As Jidmah mentioned, getting them all into CC was...rare