Rolling the Dice...

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.
Warhammer 40,000.
Necromunda.
Blood Bowl.
Dungeons & Dragons.
Ludo.
Monopoly.
Craps.


The one thing that ties all of these games together is the use of dice - polyhedral lumps, either numbered or 'pipped' to denote a randomly generated number, between a range decided on by the number of faces the die has.

I've collected hundreds over the years, from tiny 4 sided dice to large, almost spherical 30 sided dice, all for use in my various games.

Just some of the Polyhedral sets I own - primarily produced by Chessex.

Apart from the polyhedral sets I seem to buy on a monthly basis, my main source of dice is Games Workshop.  Handily, what GW tend to do is bring out a set of faction - specific dice each time a faction is refreshed, or an edition of the game is released.  

GW Released dice - some of the nicest themed dice around!

There are a few things I look for in dice sets that I'm going to use in regular play:

• Are they of a good quality?
• Are the sides readable at a distance of 2 feet?
• Is the pack they come in durable?
• Do they roll 'true'?

You'll notice that I put rolling 'true' at the end of the list - this is because the majority of dice do roll true (i.e they're not badly weighted), or at least true enough as to not be a problem in casual gaming (we're not on about casinos here after all)- there are plenty of blogs out there cleverer than me who have opined at length about the rules of probability and the effect weighting dice has on that... so I won't get all Math Professor over that side!

So, here's a few sets from the last few years of GW, alongside their relative pros and cons (as I see them):

Harlequin Dice, 2014:

Presented in a tin, with a poly insert, these 10nr,  16mm 6 sided dice are translucent, with pips for 2-6 and a Harlequin icon in place of the Nr1.  The dice have a sheen about them in the plastic which gives a colour changing holographic effect to the interior, as if the dice are shimmering (which is in keeping with the Harlequin hold-field technology).

PROS: The tin is hardwearing and nicely presented, the shimmer effect is beautiful

CONS: There's only 10 of them - it would have been great to have a full tin, rather than half a tin full.  it would have been nicer to have the icon on the 6th face, rather than the 1st to denote a great success rather than failure, the poly insert feels a little cheap

Eldar Aspect Dice, 2017

Presented in a plastic pot with a removable lid, these 20nr 10mm 6 sided dice are bright bright green in colour, with numbers on each of the 6 faces, alongside the icon for the Eldar Striking Scorpion Aspect Shrine.  A set of dice was released for each of the Aspects, including Dire Avengers (deep blue), Dark Reapers (black), Swooping Hawks (grey blue), Fire Dragons (orange) and Howling Banshees (bone).  The pot is great for carrying the dice around, if not a little snug (the rounded sides of the pot doesn't allow for a uniform 'cube' to be fitted in the pot). 

PROS: There's 20 dice in a set - which is enough to cover their use as shooting and wounding dice for Eldar, they're colourful

CONS: Because there's an icon on each face, the number is smaller than it could be, making them a little difficult to make out at a distance

Daughters Of Khaine Dice, 2018

And so on to our last offering in this brief run down - the recently release Daughters of Khaine dice set.

The dice are presented in a hinged cardboard case, decorated with the artwork from the Daughters of Khaine Battletome, with a plastic lidded insert.

The dice, 20nr 16mm dice are split into two colours, a deep, marbled midnight blue and a pale white marble.  The dice have stylised pips (in pale blue and red), with icons on both the 1st and 6th sides.  

PROS: The dice are some of the nicest I've seen in terms of colour.

CONS: Hmm... the use of icons on both the 1st and 6th sides is a little confusing, and I think in terms of actual game use will take some getting used to in terms of which is which. The packaging is also the poorest of the lot, feeling throwaway, rather than to be used as storage of the dice. The card is quite thin, and the plastic insert flimsy. I can see me decanting these to a dice bag long term, which is a shame.

I can only assume that this change in style, between the use of the pots (which came in two sizes dependent on whether they contained 10mm or 16mm dice) to the cardboard slips is down to a refresh of design, or the use of a different manufacturer, to ensure that more dice sets can be made available (the older dice sets were notorious for being scarce, with some fetching 3 and 4 times their RRP on Ebay).  If this is the case, then it's a good trade off.

Of course, the new Daughters of Khaine dice didn't come alone.... 

But more of these in a future post!