Poor mans battle dice

[Trenacker]

I don’t like homemade dice.

Before I got into Axis & Allies, I was an avid player of Heroclix, which is a kind of superhero chess game that uses dice to help resolve combat.

It was very common for conventions, both local and regional or national, to provide customized dice as part of sign-ups, and per tournament rules, players could bring their own dice. When one player bought certified used casino dice and kept getting crushed, we began to feel something was up. After a few months of suspicion, we cleared the calendar and spent an evening testing the dice everyone was using. The results were sobering: even though not designed for cheating, custom dice were sometimes badly biased, both up and down.

My resort was to buy packs of dice from Hoyle, which I could at least put my faith in. I wasn’t seeking perfection–just something better than predictable, detectable bias.

Axis & Allies and HeroClix both try to get around the dice issue by allowing players to roll one another’s dice, but the problem is that, depending on which side you play, you either need better rolls on the attack more often (Axis) or better roles on the defensive more often (Allies at game start), so even using the same dice doesn’t really help if they’re meaningfully off.

[robert t]

The great thing about A&A is both sides need to roll low.
This, to a great degree, negates bad dice.
If the dice keep coming up 5-6’s, then this will effect both sides the same. Misses.

With all games using dice, there is a probability of skewed results.
This is why if you need a territory, put a lot more than needed into the battle.

[siredblood]

Dice roll and tumble and land where they may, to think too much about is crazy… roll this one, roll that one… “if I only rolled it with this side up, would be different outcome”… it’s too much… granted if every roll was a six, be weird, but that don’t happen, least in my games… I say just “roll” with it… you win some, you lose some.