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Ivarr
09-09-2009, 09:30 AM
Ok, so I need some input from the general populous here...I have notoriously bad luck with the dice...my Space Marines fail 2/3 of their armor saves, my Necrons get back up with a "we'll be back" roll about 1/5 of the time...after failing 2/3 of the armor saves...I am an average/above average tactician...been playing the game plenty long to understand what works, but with the dice stacked against me no one would ever know it.

Can the influence of the dice on the game be minimized? Is it possible to build an army that takes the luck out of the game? Is there a list that can reward good play while minimizing the punishment for having abysmal luck with the dice?

Please don't try to turn this into an argument about whether or not luck exists, as I have had that discussion with 100s of players...until they play me...then they apologize for my dice, shake my hand and join the rather large group of people who say "You won't believe it!" to the next guy who wants to debate the existence of luck.

In any case, I am very curious about suggested builds or army tactics...

Cryl
09-09-2009, 09:34 AM
The more dice you roll the closer you will come to the statistical most likely result. I guess the way to minimise risk is to take the army that maximises the number of dice you roll... anything that lets you reroll would help, so FnP is good, twin linking is good etc

... if it makes you feel any better my necrons rarely get back up either :)

Rapture
09-09-2009, 10:30 AM
The game is based on dice. You ask that no one explains to you that everyone has the same chance because they all use a six sided die, but that it all it is. Due to the fact that shooting and assaulting always rely on dice there is no way to play without leaving it up to chance.

krispy
09-09-2009, 10:42 AM
i'd say it could depend on your dice - see this thread: http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=875&highlight=casino

theres a link on that page to a study some guy did concerning dice %'s

casino dice are statistically more even than the ones we get with these games, unfortunately they also carry a high pricetag AND they can break :P

you could jsut throw your current dice and buy a new set and hope you have more luck ;)

/k

Drew da Destroya
09-09-2009, 10:52 AM
Well, you could always play with some Orks. 30 shoota boys throw 60 dice (plus or minus some big shootas)... some of those will have to hit home. You don't have an armor save to worry about failing, and you can absorb a decent amount of casualties before it really starts to affect your army.

Go green tide!

Nabterayl
09-09-2009, 11:19 AM
The luck that you can "eliminate" or reduce in the game is generally offensive. You can increase your odds of killing a given number of units, or a single high-value unit, until the odds are to your liking. Add more shots, increase the Ballistic or Weapon Skill of the attacking models, increase the Strength of the attacks, better the armor-piercing capabilities - all of those things increase the odds that you will kill a given number of models. The number of any given type of models it takes to have a 99% chance to kill 20 CSM in a single phase, for instance, is a knowable quantity.

What's much harder to do is increase the odds that any given number of models will live, and I notice that all of the examples you give are defensive. You can have five million space marines on the table, and on average over time (assuming your dice aren't materially flawed), 33% of them are going to fail their armor saves. Nothing you can do will change that. You can add a second roll behind the armor save (WBB or FNP), but there's generally nothing you can do to increase the odds of that roll, either. A few armies can increase the Toughness of their models, but there's really no way to give a model so many defenses that it is effectively invincible.

So you can essentially guarantee that a given model will die, yes. You can't essentially guarantee that a given model will live.

Xas
09-09-2009, 11:20 AM
you could jsut throw your current dice and buy a new set and hope you have more luck ;)



QFT.

I own several "decks" of dice, some are average, some abysmal and some feel like allmost cheating (one of my GW scatter dices has a hit-statistic of above 50% :D).


if that doesnt help you have to try and play on the lower end of the spectrum. what does that mean? use units that have low characteristics and are cheap. if you fail 2/3 of your 3+ saves you are paying points for something you do not utilize. if you have bad luck with say gaunt or ork saves (6+) there is not much to be lost because you basically have to calculate to fail all anyways with a 6 save.

another thing you should try to maximise is rerolls. so nids are prolly the best army. gaunts are cheap and have a reroll to wound or hit in shooting. stealers give a reroll for melee and monstrous devourers reroll both hits and wounds. additionally the hughe number (for small) or high tougness (big bugs) means the bulk of "defens" doesnt rely on your saves.

AdamHarry
09-09-2009, 11:27 AM
The more dice you roll the closer you will come to the statistical most likely result. I guess the way to minimise risk is to take the army that maximises the number of dice you roll... anything that lets you reroll would help, so FnP is good, twin linking is good etc

Spot on. You dont need to take luck out, you need to take the dice factor out. There are two ways to do this:

1) Take armies that maximize the dice you roll and minimize the effects of dice on you? Whats that? failed 6/7 saves? Pfft, grats on killing those orks/gaunts/guardsmen. Oh and here is 90 dice coming back at you...

2)Or armies that let you get a lot of re-rolls. dakka bugs. Hive Tyrants with twin-link devourers for example. re-roll hits and wounds. pretty nice. Eldar with a lot of farseers for that "fortunate/doomy" feeling.

Unfortunately with necrons and marines you cannot really take the 'dice factor' out of the game. Every failed save will cost you, every missed shot will hurt you. Thats what happens with smaller, elite armies (smaller compared to ork/guard horde armies).

I would say "good luck" but i dunno if that will help :P

oni
09-09-2009, 11:35 AM
Buy "better" dice. Seriously!

The way dice are made is often less than optimal. It sometimes leaves them with odd, nonuniform shapes and oddly rounded corners. Most of the time you can't tell, but it's there and can mean the difference between rolling randomly or just poorly.

So spend the $ and get 'good' dice.

brother drakist
09-09-2009, 11:58 AM
I have a tendency to roll pretty poorly as well. I cannot tell you the number of times I have melted my marines with plasma guns. It's pretty ridiculous. Worst case I ever had was a Space marine squad that I chose to "go to ground." For the rest of the game they failed the LD roll to get back up, while failing every saving throw that came their way. The result of my bad luck? I do my best to keep fire off my units. Casulaties are a given but I have done well but don't even ask me about failed armor saves.

Aldramelech
09-09-2009, 12:07 PM
Buy "better" dice. Seriously!

The way dice are made is often less than optimal. It sometimes leaves them with odd, nonuniform shapes and oddly rounded corners. Most of the time you can't tell, but it's there and can mean the difference between rolling randomly or just poorly.

So spend the $ and get 'good' dice.

Suggestions?

ChrisW
09-09-2009, 12:42 PM
well if i had marked down every stupid result from dice i rolled ....... bah

everyone has bad luck, yes even in streaks that last for months at a time. been playing this game for better than 20 years, it happens.

i tend to favor the 16 mm die, the 12 to a cube type. look for clean edges and corners as apposed to the heavly rounded ones. sorry to say but i have a bin of the GW smallish type dice that i bring to tournies and give away to people who didn't bring enough dice, i hate them. they never stop rolling and usually end up on the floor.

get a few different colours and enough dice to roll what you need (ie 10 'zerkers are going to need 40 dice on the assault)

keep playing all luck breaks even baad luck.

DarkLink
09-09-2009, 01:15 PM
If you can't ever make armor saves, then try playing an army that doesn't rely on them. Most IG players are fine with not getting their 5+ armor saves most of the time, because they're used to it. They have lots of bodies out there that are effectively suicide units. They show up, do their job, then get killed.

Alternatively, adjust your playstyle. Fully mechanized armies will have to take far fewer armor saves than footslogging armies. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=101214 Here is an excellent tactica by a mechanized Grey Knight player. He realized that he could either take 2 250pt Grey knight squads, one of which would get shot to death by the time they got into close combat, or he could take a Land Raider with one squad. If the Land Raider managed to deliver the Grey Knights, the result was the same, but he didn't have to make armor saves on the land raider (he was also known for failing armor saves far too often).

Gamerfunk
09-09-2009, 01:15 PM
i have fearly good luck when it comes to rolling dice but i also will opet tp buy new dice if i have a bad game or two. i have a couple of friends that play with the same dice all the time and both will role bad on a normel bases. i just feel that dice are kind of like a glass of ice cold beer. in the begining its all good and the tast is amazing but when you get to the bottom and its warm you just need to bye some new ones to freshin it up and get your luck out of its slumber..

Rapture
09-09-2009, 04:48 PM
Buy "better" dice. Seriously!

The way dice are made is often less than optimal. It sometimes leaves them with odd, nonuniform shapes and oddly rounded corners. Most of the time you can't tell, but it's there and can mean the difference between rolling randomly or just poorly.

So spend the $ and get 'good' dice.
Or just use your opponent's dice. Now the game is consistent as both players suffer from the extra 1-5% chance of rolling poorly that is the current popular opinion regarding cheap dice.

ChrisW
09-09-2009, 09:40 PM
Or just use your opponent's dice.

don't ever touch an opponents dice!

you are required to bring your own dice, measuring stick, rules and templates. if you need dice at a game with me ask i'll give you a handfull of GW dice, but don't touch the ones i use.

Drew da Destroya
09-09-2009, 11:39 PM
don't ever touch an opponents dice!

you are required to bring your own dice, measuring stick, rules and templates. if you need dice at a game with me ask i'll give you a handfull of GW dice, but don't touch the ones i use.

Oh, superstition. Admittedly, it's become bad gamer etiquette to use your opponents dice, but it's mainly out of the strange belief that you'll somehow sap your opponents lucky dice, or something.

And yeah, you should probably bring your own templates and measuring devices, but that's mostly a speed-of-game/courtesy thing. I don't think there are any particular superstitions attached to using someone's flamer template... it's still going to be the same shape.

TSINI
09-10-2009, 06:57 AM
don't ever touch an opponents dice!

you are required to bring your own dice, measuring stick, rules and templates. if you need dice at a game with me ask i'll give you a handfull of GW dice, but don't touch the ones i use.



lol its this attitude that makes it easier for people to use weighted dice, if you HAD to use each others dice, then weighted dice wouldnt be any kind of benefit to you because they'd benefit the other player too.

come on people, stop with this MINE MINE MINE attitude over dice, it just makes it easier for people to cheat

krispy
09-10-2009, 07:10 AM
come on people, stop with this MINE MINE MINE attitude over dice, it just makes it easier for people to cheat

i agree with this - partly for numbers reasons, if i have about 30 matching dice that i have to play with and my opponent has 10 troopers firing multiple shots (20+) and they only have 6 dice i usually offer 20 dice in a handful to make it go faster - otherwise:
they roll 6,
count how many,
remember that number,
roll 6 again ,
add the new ones,
etc etc etc

i have no problems with letting my opponents use my dice if it makes the gameplay faster.
/k

josiah
09-10-2009, 11:10 AM
play orks

EmperorEternalXIX
09-10-2009, 11:41 AM
I think taking the luck out of the game is basically what we do whenever we strategize. Moving multiple units into position to fire in case one has a bad shooting phase, etc.

I once went to a tournament where the losing team got a consolidation prize of two new sets of dice. LOL

As far as dice superstition, I am extraordinarily superstitious about mine.

I have a tin of dice we call "The Cursed Bin." It contains my very first set of dice, a basic set of GW red and black, with some of those cool aquila/bullet hole ones mixed in. All of them have round edges and roll very poorly, and so we came to know them as cursed. I sealed them in this evil tin and never called them out again.

One day, a friend and I were playing and we were having a real slugfest of a game, but my dice like was being totally absurd. I hadn't rolled a single 1 until the onset of turn 3! Then another mutual friend approached me, a Chaos player, teasing that the Chaos gods would destroy my dice luck...and he opened the cursed tin. It was only a joke, but amazingly, at that point my luck started to collapse and I eventually lost the game, getting tabled. Since then this tray is forbidden to be opened, and my luck with any GW dice has been below average to say the least...

Using square-edged dice is a much more mathematically fair prospect. The rounded ones are prone to rolling that extra bit when on a more weighted side, so you will see a lot of ones. When I use my non-GW rounded edge dice (some nice chessex ones, they look cool and all but god damn they are so rounded they are almost circles FFS), I often don't ever throw a handful of dice without there being some 1's. In a Space Marine army this is beyond bad; we rely heavily on that armor save to deal with the shortcomings of our low model count, and so failing those saves almost every time you roll them is a fast way to being crippled.

These dice are so crappy I usually use them when I NEED to fail something (like lose a couple of sternguard so I can enact combat tactics).

Still...It is very difficult to find a set of square-edged dice these days, at least in my area.

Jive Tyrant
09-10-2009, 04:21 PM
As an experiment, you could not roll the dice, but just take the corrrect proportion as hits. For example, if you roll 6 dice and need to get 5+, then two of those dice have hit. If it's just one dice, 2+ and 3+ always hit, 4+ 5+ 6+ always miss. You get the idea. Then you are playing the odds without the dice rolls.

But I bet the OP will still get creamed, because luck doesn't matter in this game as much as tactics. And he's probably a glass-half-empty kinda guy too. Or maybe he's just cursed. It happens. ;)

Drunkencorgimaster
09-10-2009, 05:45 PM
On the plus side, you could probably go to Vegas and get a job as a "cooler."

Scoota
09-10-2009, 06:40 PM
In terms of shooting, you could use template weapons - Marines with flamers, plasma cannons, Vindicators, Whirlwinds, etc. Or take a Salamanders army with Vulkan Hestan.
Necrons... um, lots of monoliths?

In close combat, take a couple of Chaplains for your Marines, or as many master-crafted weapons as possible... you've got the option of more dice or more price on your war-gear.
Necrons... again, um.

Personally, my Nid army gives me lots of dice to roll - a unit of 32 hormagaunts (if you can get them across the table unmolested) will roll 96 dice. That allows you to bring along your bucket'o'dice and roll them all. Plus there's plenty of twin-linked and template guns for the 'Nids, and you can use Feeder Tendrils in combat for those low weapon skill gribblies.

Drax
09-10-2009, 07:20 PM
I had bad dice rolling for a little while to, I ended up buying new dice, and seem to do alright. Also I run aarmy where everything is twin linked so that has it's advantages there there have been plenty of times I have rolled double misses etc.

Rapture
09-10-2009, 07:58 PM
don't ever touch an opponents dice!

you are required to bring your own dice, measuring stick, rules and templates. if you need dice at a game with me ask i'll give you a handfull of GW dice, but don't touch the ones i use.

Not to sound mean but are you five years old? That is very, very silly.

Levitas
09-11-2009, 06:48 AM
Ex casino dice for 7 bucks each. Roll like a winner!

GM Rex Nihilo
09-12-2009, 04:43 PM
Question: Can you take luck out of 40k?

Answer: No ... nor should you! Random things happen how else are you represent this? If you use you imagination you can come up with reasons/stories why the IG veterans killed the Daemon Prince with their pointy sticks for example.

PhoenixFlame
10-23-2009, 11:49 AM
Ok, so I need some input from the general populous here...I have notoriously bad luck with the dice...my Space Marines fail 2/3 of their armor saves, my Necrons get back up with a "we'll be back" roll about 1/5 of the time...after failing 2/3 of the armor saves...I am an average/above average tactician...been playing the game plenty long to understand what works, but with the dice stacked against me no one would ever know it.

Can the influence of the dice on the game be minimized? Is it possible to build an army that takes the luck out of the game? Is there a list that can reward good play while minimizing the punishment for having abysmal luck with the dice?

Please don't try to turn this into an argument about whether or not luck exists, as I have had that discussion with 100s of players...until they play me...then they apologize for my dice, shake my hand and join the rather large group of people who say "You won't believe it!" to the next guy who wants to debate the existence of luck.

In any case, I am very curious about suggested builds or army tactics...

Well I won't claim my knowledge of 40k is exhaustive, however what it sounds like you need is a Nurgle Deamon army. You can get a pretty high model count going, you've got Invul saves and you have FnP. Beyond that take The Tallyman IC herald of Nurgle and you rack up all sorts of benefits such as better FnP and more Poison when you're increasing your tally (oh and you can start ignoring the other payers armor).
With troops at 13 pts for a 3W base and some of the best toughness values in the game you've got a lot in the way of dice roll mitigation.
Here's the big BUT however. You have to Deep Strike everything in. Now Icons will fix that problem for you.. but they have to be on the board from the start of your turn to do any good, which means you're still looking at 1/2 your force deep striking in "naked" and completely vulnerable to harsh treatment from bad scatter rolls. But here at least you can play it safe and put them places they're less likely to hit anything resulting in a mishap if they do scatter. That costs you something in the way of tactical deployment/flexibility but it does give you a way around some of the effect of scatter rolls.

It's not a perfect solution, the dice will effect the game period. But as far as a build/list to allow your tactics to mitigate the dice effect? Well this is the best I've heard of (tho there are some funky things you can do with Nids upgrades to get sick re-rolls of of stealers and it groups that can be highly effective as well.. plus you'll be tossing a lot of dice so that's good... but I think Nurgle is still better when you consider how fragile the stealers are)

2c

Phoenix

Additional:

Question: Can you take luck out of 40k?

Answer: No ... nor should you! Random things happen how else are you represent this? If you use you imagination you can come up with reasons/stories why the IG veterans killed the Daemon Prince with their pointy sticks for example.
I have a buddy I play with who lost his Daemon Price to a fire warrior. Yes that's right a fire warrior... in close combat... craziness.

Grimwar
10-23-2009, 05:06 PM
Please don't try to turn this into an argument about whether or not luck exists, as I have had that discussion with 100s of players...


I somehow doubt that.

Go by a few simple rules. Dont let your hand touch the table when rolling. This isn't a "luck" thing here its common sense the dice will flip 3 sides if you use small dice, and two sides if you roll big dice.

Example. I rolled a 6. I pick up the dice, the 6 is in my palm because it was facing upright, and my palm was facing downward.

I roll with my hand touching the table, obviously the side that the dice will roll off of. Because of the nature of the game, we dont chuck dice, we gently roll them because we don't want to strike our models or knock them out of place.

With that said, we naturally, and commonly among ALL players roll them sliding out of our hands.

If our hand is that close to the table, you will notice a consistent three side topple. Means the 6 has a high chance of becoming anything but a 1, because its not a four side topple. How that works is because you need two topples of any side to get the result of a 1. Meaning the 2,5,4 sides have a higher chance of being the result.

Now here's how dice work for the three side bad, three side good or ying/yang. You will notice 1, 3 and 2 are visible if you stare at the dice holding it on a certain corner. The other side has the other three results of the higher sides.

The 2 is opposite of the 5. The 1 is opposite of the 6. The 3 is opposite of the 4. Why? To get the average of a 7 among 2 dice for calculations. Both dice roll opposite side numbers, its an equal chance of getting a 7. 1+6 / 2+5 / 3+4 ...


With all of this. IF YOU ROLL above the table at least 2 inches, it will be a higher chance the weight of the dice will strike the corner and force it to roll randomly.


Dolts at GW didn't do their homework on the dice they chose for their dice set and why they have rounded corners. This causes more problems for small dice. Know the Vegas Dice? With Corners? They have those for a reason. Buy cornered dice if the problem persists. Make sure those dice are transparent (see through) so you won't be called a weighted dice user. Make sure they are very clearly transparent.


In a large scale test with GW-only dice it was calculated that they roll the lower half of the dice more then 54% of the time over 5 million dice rolls with twenty college students testing it over the course of a month. All recorded and calculated. I fail to find the result myself. Though I find I get more consistent dice rolls when I have my hand above the table at least two inches.

I also found out how to roll consistent high side dice rolls with how I pick up the dice and rolling them near the table. Don't ask, I won't share how. I just like to share that it's possible to cheat that way and that I know for sure it can be done from experience.

Aldramelech
10-24-2009, 02:17 AM
If you take the luck out of 40K your left with Chess........ No thanks.

Darkseer
10-25-2009, 12:43 AM
I also found out how to roll consistent high side dice rolls with how I pick up the dice and rolling them near the table. Don't ask, I won't share how. I just like to share that it's possible to cheat that way and that I know for sure it can be done from experience.

Oh, you mean like THIS (http://win-warhammer-40k.blogspot.com/2008/12/dice-rolling-101.html). :rolleyes:

There was a lot of 'luck' at the recent Grand Tournment heat.

Aldramelech
10-25-2009, 01:00 AM
I'll defiantly be looking out for that one!

I am planning to take part in my first tournament in 10 years in February and anyone pulling that **** had better watch out! lol

person person
10-25-2009, 02:08 AM
The reason they make GW dice rounded is with the material they save they can make almost 1 whole dice. IIRC.

But seriously, guardsmen= meat shield for artillery, then just to really screw em up...

Outflanking Russes!!! (http://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/at/2009/9/4/d0d5e0ef0fa12e891e368d04efe28dfe_15873.jpg__thumb)

Grimwar
10-25-2009, 03:37 AM
Oh, you mean like THIS (http://win-warhammer-40k.blogspot.com/2008/12/dice-rolling-101.html). :rolleyes:

There was a lot of 'luck' at the recent Grand Tournment heat.


More along the sense of two things.

1: specific corner of the dice when stacking in-hand a proper way, no matter how the dice are facing.

2: how the rolling ends up making the lopsided weight (very small but it works) roll directly to the higher number.

.. It took me about 500 tries or so to get it down with 15 1/2" dice every roll. Got to the point of persisting 4's and 5's. I still have not figured out the 6.

I doubt anyone here would spend hours testing and trying this if they don't know how it works or believe it works. Great to count on laziness!

MarshalAdamar
10-25-2009, 10:37 AM
I have found that (don't laugh) if you can imagine yourself rolling the number/numbers you want it helps.

I don't know why it does (for me); but My Orks average 50% on shooting and 50% +/- on their 5+ invul and there are times I approach 25 - 30% with my 6+

And I use dice that are right off the rack at my local game store.