I was fortunate enough to get the chance to play two games of Warhammer over the past weekend.
The first game was an epic struggle with one of my buddies and his Lizardmen. He was gracious enough to announce that he would not cast Dwellers Below unless things went horribly wrong. I returned that I could use all his spells with the Third Eye of Tzeentch, so we had a very nice little prisoner’s dilemma brewing. It was a back and forth match that saw us separated by about 50 victory points at the end, meaning it was one of the most fun ties I’ve been a part of.
Following that, I played one of the vets and the new Tomb Kings book. It was close to start. A random “river of light” roll saw my Trolls get weapon skill and initiative 10, along with a +1 strength bonus from the Warshrine. Needless to say, they and a unit of knights plowed their way through a unit of archers apiece, before running into infantry blocks and the charge of a chariot unit with the flaming banner that they just weren’t quite hard enough to handle. After that, things took a turn as my infantry met his proceeded to absolutely grind their way through them. I found the most challenging part of the game to be deciding which of his spells to let through, as he had entirely too many dice to stop them all. Unfortunately for him, I think GW has seen the problem they created with the eight main lores and are fixing it by toning down the army book lores. Of course, that makes for a very unbalanced system…
Two paragraphs in the bag. Neither of them really relates to what I want to say in this space, but they do lead to it. We all know this is a dice game. We all whinge and moan about those terrible ones that we just roll all the time. It comes with the territory. I don’t know any wargamer that isn’t superstitious to some degree. But what about the other end? What happens when you’re just rolling out your mind and keep climbing higher and higher on the bell curve until you start thinking about non-stop flights to Vegas? I don’t care how much skill your opponent has, when you save on your armor 30+ times in a row, the odds begin to skew in your favor. And I’m not speaking hyperbolically, because we started counting.
Obviously this can happen. We all catch hot streaks. But it’s been like that three and a half games out of four, and I’m starting to think it’s my custom club dice. I’m scared to take leadership checks, even on an 8 or a 9, outside of the Casket of Souls and a voluntary flee reaction (which I then needed two turns to rally from), I’ve only needed to check twice. And when my buddies have to take inordinate amounts of models off the table over and over again, I start to feel bad and neither of us enjoys the game as much.
So what then? My dice aren’t modded. I’m not picking and choosing which dice I’m throwing based on needing to roll high or low (which has been done by others in the past). I don’t pick up the small dice for characteristic checks. But I am rolling sixes so hard it looks like a hub for cargo trains most of the time. At what point do I start to think about picking up different dice to play with? It’s not an issue of the legality of the game, but rather, an ethics one. At what point do things begin to get murky in terms of the spirit of fair play?
Hmm. An interesting problem. Think about this one: what would you do if it were the reverse? If you suspected that your bones were rolling nothing but single pips, how long would you let your streak ride before switching dice?
ReplyDeleteI'd say you should keep a second set on hand and sub them in at some point if you're beginning to think this is something more than luck. At least using other dice gives you a control (in the scientific sense).
ReplyDeleteI mean, ethically, if you're convinced that your dice are giving you some advantage beyond the superstitious, it's probably right to stop using them.
Nate, I've gone out of my way to avoid some dice, even going so far as throwing a couple away. But I feel like for a group of dice, I'd let it ride for quite a while, blaming myself more than my dice. It's the whole "A poor tradesman blames his tools" thing. Maybe ten games?
ReplyDeleteSola, I might give that a run at some point.
The IFL dice are crap. They either roll really, really well or really badly. I've stopped using mine entirely (except for when I've forgotten to pack my other dice for whatever reason).
ReplyDeleteIt's a lovely thought: but when you have dice that just either refuse to roll well or when you see someone :cough: just roll out of their ass so consistently... you've just got to accept that they're bad dice. When it's that clear that they're bad: it's time to put them away.