Howdy Veeky Forums, I'm here hoping y'all would share some of your sage advice. I haven't won a game of 40k the entire 5 years I've been playing. I've stuck to my Dark Angels throughout, and I've gotten a lot better at my strategic decisions, but I still struggle with dice rolls. I know a lot of people like to blame their dice, but I think I've got some exceptional examples:
48 Bolter shots, 8 plasma shots, and 12 heavy Bolter shots = 3 dead Seekers of Slaanesh
Squad of 5 terminators charge 1 Burna Boy, 3 terminators die to overwatch, other 2 die in melee with Burna Boy
Cast 7th ed Mind Wipe on unit of Nob Bikers, bikers improve in performance, go on to win the game.
I've never wounded a model with a weapon that has "Melta" in its name, despite taking at least 4 Melta weapons in each game.
In conclusion, I'm considering expanding into a second army so that I have more units to paint, model, or kitbash. Do you have any recommendations for armies that are minimally dependant on dice results?
(I realize that's a but ludicrous for a table top game but which army is least luck reliant by comparison to other armies?)
I haven’t played since 4e and just getting back into it now, but from what I gather these stratagems are a pretty good way to boost your army in tangible non-random ways. I would say use the army that has the best stratagems.
Or you can go guard and drown your opponent in so much fire your roles won’t matter.
Get some better balanced dice, like some actual gambling dice from Vegas. It sounds like your biggest problem is simple luck, and as stupid as it sounds your cheap roundedged GW or Chessex dice can be iffy. I won’t preach about cosmic luck but I have a friend with a chessex d20 that almost exclusively fits either way. He switched to some sharper edged dice and he doesn’t have those problems anymore.
Yeah, I know there won't be a perfect answer. I have no idea how they could balance one. Thanks for the suggestions. I went with a similar concept in 7th ed and made a full dreadnought force so I didn't have to roll armor saves. After several sets of dice, failing almost every roll in other dice games (D&D, board games, etc.) to include playing on a digital format (Fantasy Grounds, roll20) I've come to the conclusion it's not the fault of the dice themselves, but that I have to use dice at all. I haven't used Casino cut before, so I'll give them a try and worst case I'll have more dice in my collection.
Isaiah Walker
Casino Dice are a fucking meme. Don't fall for it. You have them throw them in a very specific way, including a bounce off the opposite wall of the table, or they'll be less balanced than even your shittiest opaque dollar store die.
Easton Lewis
>I went with a similar concept in 7th ed and made a full dreadnought force so I didn't have to roll armor saves.
You know, while you'll still have to roll some dice an all dread force is still an option in 8th if you go Blood Angels (or get Forge World stuff but screw that), at least you'll be rolling easy to achieve numbers with that
I suggest contacting the Catholic Church and informing them that you are currently suffering under a Gypsy Curse and require the services of a young priest and an old priest to attempt to lift the malign Gypsy magics. They may require you to convert to Catholicism before they'll agree to do it.
Austin Barnes
I do still like Dreadnoughts, but they're a lot less powerful as a standalone now that they can't ride in drop pods like they used to.
I may eventually run it as blood angels anyway just to have a librarian dreadnought. That concept just sounds so damn bad ass to me.
Brayden Bennett
Yeah, if I could go back in time about 12 months to when I got back into 40k I'd strongly consider BA just for that; a librarian dread, a couple of furiosos, some support, that sounds super fun (and easy to pack and transport)
Hudson Ramirez
Hire a manservant to roll the dice for you.
That is of course assuming you're not a filthy liar, because what you are suggesting is statistically improbable and this sounds like a stupid meme post.
Dominic King
I'm literally a statistical analyst for the USAF. I want to fucking pull my hair out every time I roll like this.
I might start using a dice tower, or ask my wife to roll for me (she's the slaaneshi daemons player).
She actually wanted to start 7e iron hands because she wanted to play an army that could emulate that moment of tanking stupid amounts of firepower. She didn't get very far before 8e dropped, so now she's starting custodes (that and she won't have to paint a lot of models).
Joshua Wright
I imagine he's exaggerating and ignoring all the times he rolled well as they were possibly less significant rolls. I imagine consistent poor selection of targets too so the odds of success would be lower than expected. I think most players who play frequently can list a handful of times they were super unlucky.
Levi Hill
There was a time I had a company master with TH/SS fight a Wraith Knight one on one. Knocked the Wraith Knight from full down to 2 wounds (I don't think they had hull points, right?) before the guy rolled a 6 on his D sword, finished the company master, and then the rest of my guys.
I've had a few good moments, yeah, but I've still never won and I'm wondering if there's an army I could try that would be a little less harsh.
Could be down to the units you're using. I've gotten loads of use out of my Dark Talon and Darkshrouds are meant to be amazing. Not to mention we have options like the Stormraven now. Maybe up your gunline. We have a Stratagem that gives +1D to plasma weapons, so you could use plasma inceptors/devs/hellblasters with a company master to reroll 1s blasting mufuckas for S8 -3/4 3D
Luke Peterson
Aside from the omitted data for rhetorical purposes we are dealing with really big numbers here. I've no doubt that somewhere out there (possibly in the past or future) there's some mentally-challenged player completely devoid of any skill who's winning all their games. Probably writing a blog about how to break the meta
Jack Russell
Really? I've never had a darkshroud last longer than turn 2, and that was because I brought 3. I'll give them and the Dark Talon a shot.
And yeah, I guess I'll have to reapproach my lists with stratagems like that in mind. Thank you for the suggestions!
>Casino dice >You have them throw them in a very specific way, including a bounce off the opposite wall of the table, or they'll be less balanced than even your shittiest opaque dollar store die. What? How can that possibly be true? Am I autistically missing sarcasm?
Bentley Lee
You are missing idiocy.
Jason Sanders
>Buy better dice >minimise randomness I'd go into Orks at the minute, It's very easy to give 6 point ork boyz 6 attacks each on the charge with that weight of dice it'd be impressive to deviate any real distance from the mean, it bell curves insanely. Shooting similarly relies on weight of numbers to counteract shitty BS and the like, and ends up being much more reliable than you'd expect, and they have suprisingly reliable damage on their weapons, with D2 big choppas, deffguns, killsaws, and D3 dred klaws, rokkit launchas, etc.. It means you can mathshammer things much more reliably, it's not as swingy usually. Another army I'd reccomend is AdMech, specifically Mars. Cawl gives you the best reroll buff in the game, allowing you to reroll natural or modified fails, units like vanguard and beep boops have such a high rate of fire you'll get a great distribution, like with orks, but the great BS and reroll buffs makes AdMech shooting as reliable as Ork Melee, and units like Onagers have mechanics in place to minimise randomness (neutron laser being D6 damage, but any result less than a 4 is counted as a 3)
Also, buy better dice, GW dice are notorious for shitty balancing, I always get better rolls with other brands, or maybe that's just bias. Investing in units built for reliability for your dark angels also isn't a bad idea, lieutenants and captains are designed to make your list run smoother, and making sure you have plenty of CP lets you reroll everything important.
>t.Someone who also can't roll for shit but still wins games
Cameron Torres
I know, but I'd still be interested to hear if there's any sort of justification beyond "Uncle Bubba tol' me he dun lost his caravan out at the Vegas cuz of them dices".
Joshua Nelson
Thanks for the in-depth pitch, mate. I'm not going to lie, I've seriously considered Orks, especially since most of my most devastating fumbles have been to the greenskins.
I think some of them are cool, but I personally don't like Admech for my own unfair reasons. No offense intended to Admech fans and/or players. You make a good point and I'll give them a begruding second look as well.
I only have 1 set of GW dice, and then I have about 2 or 3 pounds of dice (not the "pound o' dice" bundle, just a shit load of dice) and have more or less had the same result. My next step is to either go buy about a bucket of plain, vanilla, Bicycle dice, some fancy casino cut dice, or go custom order a set of dice that have something cool on the 6 face, so I can at least smile when I roll leadership. (Any recommendations for a brand to order from, anyone?)
In seriousness you make a good point and I'll be giving each of them a thorough look to see what I'd do with them. Only downside is my Ork friend may accuse me of stealing this thunder, but that's what he gets for modeling his Ork Klan with trophies from my dead Dark Angels.
The dice are heavy so they don't roll without some force. They kinda plop if you just drop them
Julian Davis
IIIIIII still think you should submit yourself to Chaos. Then you shall be blessed with good luck as I have been >;D As long as you oppose Chaos, you'll continue to have misfortune. I've tried to show you the light, but you don't listen. You know I'm always right ;P Why keep fighting it?
Embrace it You need to start rolling so many dice that all the failed rolls will mean nothing. Quantity over quality you know? I suggest Orks
Chase Barnes
>After several sets of dice, failing almost every roll in other dice games (D&D, board games, etc.) to include playing on a digital format (Fantasy Grounds, roll20) I've come to the conclusion it's not the fault of the dice themselves, but that I have to use dice at all. I haven't used Casino cut before, so I'll give them a try and worst case I'll have more dice in my collection. you can simply check that. Due to the way dice are made sometimes they can have airbubbles in them or be otherwise unbalanced. Check youtube for a tutorial or something.
>Casino Dice are a fucking meme. People pluggin casino dice for wargaming or roleplaying have issues, no doubt. But the fact is: Casino dice are machined and not made via injection molding, so there are no statistical anomalies due to air inclusions or uneven polish.
Seriously though OP, maybe you should just ask in /40kg/ about listbuilding advice in respect to your local meta.
