Tuesday, August 3, 2010

ICGT wrap up, and a question of Dice Karma

Attempting to get my 3rd "Golden Ticket" and this time with free airfare I played in this past weekends ICGT.....

Let me start the wrap up by saying I had 4 great games, and W/L/D I had a really good time breaking out the newly repaired Thousand Sons CSM's for the first time since their victory at "Blobs Park". At the first annual ICGT I ended up with a respectable 3/1/0 record, with the final battle fought on table #1 vs an excellent opponent, and no matter how good my tactics were my dice failed me,  ultimately leading to my defeat...

To illustrate how bad they were, we will start with Blast Templates. In 4 games, 3 of the 4 going a full 6 rounds I fired 54 total blast templates, including Twin link shots I hit a total of 5 times, totally whiffing in my first 2 games in fact, serious not a single hit....

(yes I am OCD, I tracked the rolls after I missed 3 blast templates in a row first game)

Another example, in the final game, Two Daemon Princes attacked 2 different Chimeras in the same assault phase.......
Daemon Prince 1, with 5 attacks aiming for a tank that moved 6 hit three times needing 4's and pen'ed once needing 5 or greater on 2D6, in the end immobilizing it, and blowing off the Multi-Laser.
Daemon Prince 2, with 5 attacks again, vs a immobilized Chimera (Auto hits) and again needing 5+ on 2D6 got one glance and one pen, resulting in one stun and a weapon destroyed.... so 4 times I rolled a 4 or less on 2d6.....
Really outside 4 cover saves made back to back (4+ on 1D6) the whole game was like that, dice just rolling super below average...

Now this tourney I used my 5th set of dice, (set number 4 being stolen two weeks beforehand), and really I am looking for some tips or tricks to build some better dice Karma, Luck, or just something to get some average rolls...


So the question is, what do you do all do to get good dice, or assuming you keep the dice you have, what superstitions do follow to get some good dice love?

Weird post I know..... It's 02:01 AM, I am still working, and I started the day at 06:30... so take it with an exhausted grain of salt =-)

11 comments:

  1. Dice are unreliable. How many shooting phases have wiffed with my Tau army? The key to is play assuming you are going to wiff. Don't leave the game up to a roll of the dice.

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  2. Use mine, I've been cooking them for years!

    Honestly, Senor Tau has it. Play as if you are going to fail all your rolls. Or go buy a big bag of dice off of ebay or from one of those chinese companies.

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  3. @OSH,

    Not a bad idea, I plan my whole tactics around making the rolls. I have to assume most people do, banking on failing them... interesting idea.

    @MTD,

    Well, I do like being infamous...

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  4. Basically, you try to use movement to make your units harder to kill, forcing the probability against your opponent. You do everything you can in the movement phase to screw up your opponents plans. Movement is the only reliable phase anyways so use it to your advantage. Its something I am trying to improve since reading this post: http://whiskey40k.blogspot.com/2010/07/three-levels-of-40k-game-play-getting.html

    Read it. Its the most important article on 40k ever. sort of.

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  5. Not just b/c Tim linked an article I wrote, but ... playing expecting odds is unhealthy to say the least.

    Try to avoid being distracted by the girl at the end of the article.

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  6. @MVBrandt,

    Interesting and well written article, your points are well taken, as minimizing risk is of course a key factor in every game.

    With Blasts I assume I’ll miss, so I place them along a tanks edge, so a couple inches right or left and I will either hit the target, or the tank next to it, but who can factor for a 7” drift (after weapon skill modifier)?

    With Melee the default answer would be to double up, but ask the gods of RNG have proven, that’s not always the answer either.

    With Objective based missions, it is possible to win a game after flubbing every roll, believe me I have done it, but when KP or VP are the goal, luck can be reinforced and even counterbalanced by excellent tactics, hell 40k shares some of the basics of chess, move and counter, but it still comes down to having to roll a dice at some point.

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  7. Case in point, 6 TL railguns, 6 rail rifles, 14 kroot rifles, and an assaulting broadside unit failing to take down a single land speeder; costing me an objective and game. lol.

    Must read that article then get battle reports done.

    Gramps

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  8. Your dice have been cursed because you have not paid enough attention to your patron.

    Signed,

    Tymora

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  9. You just need to find the dice that jive in your direction my man. Ive been using my black and reds for about two years and they have always served me well. I'm a big believer in dice juju, sometimes you just have to go and buy some new dice.

    Tokes

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  10. @Vanduhar,

    That would explain so so much, I have lost faith and need to recapture it=-)

    @Tyr's-Vanguard,

    clearly time for some new dice

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