Warhammer is a game of strategy, tactics, grit, and wits. It is also, however, undeniably a game of dice – dozens of them* chucked and whittled down until precisely zero of your opponent’s Heavy Intercessors are removed from the table.
See, that’s the trouble with dice – they’re never on your side. The so-called ‘laws’ of probability dictate that you fail a 2+ saving throw one time in six, but the iron laws of reality ensure half of your Custodian Guard die to a few meagre lasgun volleys. That same law also guarantees that your opponent will never roll a one all game.**
Love dice? Love seeing them tumbling about on lovely game boards? Tune into Battle Report on Warhammer+ for loads of the little six-sided rascals.
In short, there’s something afoot with dice, and here at Warhammer Community, we’ve put our top people on it. The plan? Roll a few dice, see what happens, draw 100% accurate conclusions.
Experiment One – Generic Dice
For our first roll, we jammed our hands down the back of a sofa and plundered an odd assortment of plain old starter set dice. Rolling ten in total, you’ll notice decidedly indifferent results. That’s a lot of wayward Dakka.
Clearly, something’s missing.
Experiment Two – Generic Dice But We Blew On Them For Luck
Using the same dice as before, this time we blew on them before we rolled, making sure to keep a safe two-metre distance from anyone else. Alas, it’s clearly not lucky air that these dice are missing.
Experiment Three – Grand Alliance Dice
Our peer-reviewed double-blind tests have so far proved one thing beyond all reasonable doubt – generic dice are, as they say, “no dice”. Switching things up, we grabbed the new Grand Alliance (Death) dice from a passing pallet and gave them a shake.
The results were as clear as Hysh on a sunny day – there are skulls where the six should be, and that’s enough skulls to single-handedly pay the Bone Tithe.
Experiment Four – Faction Dice (For The Right Faction)
For our fourth experiment, we wanted to see if the results changed if we rolled some faction-specific dice. So we picked up a set of the new Stormcast Eternals dice and thought really, really hard about Sigmar.
You cannot argue with the science here – this roll is clearly better than the generic dice.
Experiment Five – Faction Dice (For The Wrong Faction)
In the pure spirit of inquiry, we realised we’d have to compare what happens when you roll faction dice for another faction. In this case, still screwing up our eyes and picturing Sigmar, we rolled a fistful of Chaos dice. At that very moment, one researcher shattered a mirror, another’s umbrella spontaneously popped open, and all those threats we’d ignored in chain emails over the years began to come true.
The dice were never seen again.
In Conclusion
Science has spoken, and we must heed its voice – As you can see from our dice dissection, it’s imperative to have the correct faction dice for your army.
So whether you’re playing the Bringers of Death in Warcry, an Ogre team in Blood Bowl, House Delaque in Necromunda, Orruk Warclans in Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Thousand Sons in Warhammer 40,000, or any other faction in any of our games, make sure you’ve got luck on your side by using the right dice.***
* Hundreds if you’re in the Adeptus Mechanicus.
** Check out last Wednesday’s edition of Battle Report on Warhammer+, in which Nick was almost entirely incapable of rolling anything but a one.
*** Please note that the in-house scientists at warhammer-community.com cannot be held responsible if your new dice let you down at a crucial juncture in a game.