I recently bought A&A 1941 and I started to look into all these pretty house rules people conceive and use. I found some great and some not that great (at least for me), but I was really impressed that I could find no mention about the use of polyhedral dice in the combat system. Don’t get me wrong, I love good old six sided dice, but the thought of rolling and checking results separately for units with different attack/defense values on each combat round made me feel a bit lazy. Then I read about the “reduced luck” variant but, well, I want a quicker rolling, but not to the point of spoiling the fun in taking your lonely defending infantry unit to a glorious win!
I began to think about new possibilities. One idea was the use of different coloured dice, of course, but as a Maths teacher and poly dice enthusiast I had to calculate probabilities, and found that some of these dice could fit quite well in the game. My idea: all units hit when rolling 1 to 4, but they roll different dice depending on their attack/defense value:
| Att/Def value | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Hit probability | 17% | 33% | 50% | 67% |
| Polyhedral dice | 1d20 | 1d12 | 1d8 | 1d6 |
| Prob of 1-4 roll | 20%* | 33% | 50% | 67% |
*Units with attack/defense value of 1 are a bit favoured in their hit probability ―perhaps an interesting slight twist in the game?
This way you just pick up a handful of poly dice, roll and check all your 1-4 hitting results in one single throw. We all love our dear d6, that’s sure, but the idea seems quite interesting to me and I wanted to share it in case anyone finds it nice too. By the way, I have not tested it, so your thoughts and impressions are welcome. Cheers!
…yes, but if all units hit on 4 or less, then we dont need numbers on the dice. We can make special dice that got a symbol or color on 4 sides, and the other sides are blank. Then it will be easier to spot the hits.
Very well constructed post tzaraath, I have to agree with Narvik in the sense that 6 sided dice with their pips are much easier to read allowing quick identification of hits and misses. I do like the idea of symbols on colored 6 sided dice, there could be an “X” symbol on sides representing a hit, and an “O” on sides representing a miss. Orange dice are for units needing a 1, Green dice are for units needing a 2 or less, Blue for 3 or less, and finally Red for 4 or less. This way you can make 1 roll for all units involved using many multiple colored dice, and then players can just count all the "X"s for a total of hits in 1 full combat round.
I find both ideas really cool. Narvik’s means an even easier approach to mine, and YG’s is as easy and takes it back to good old d6’s. Time to dust off my dear blank d6’s and buy some blank polys!
You are in luck, Eagle games already makes this kind of dice
I went with blank d6 - 5 colors, and applied 1 dot, 2 dots, …. 5 dots on each color set. Now, is there a discussion on which color get how many dots? Leaning towards, yellow 1, black 2, red 3, blue 4, green 5. Also, are the 2 dots opposite or adjoining sides? (So many decisions!!!)
You are in luck, Eagle games already makes this kind of dice
Great!
@Carolina:
I went with blank d6 - 5 colors, and applied 1 dot, 2 dots, …. 5 dots on each color set. Now, is there a discussion on which color get how many dots? Leaning towards, yellow 1, black 2, red 3, blue 4, green 5. Also, are the 2 dots opposite or adjoining sides? (So many decisions!!!)
Sure, Carolina. That’s why I prefer my original 1-4 polyhedral dice option: no decisions! :-D
