Saturday 16 January 2010

Terrible Dice


Bob scattered his entire Drop Pod-themed army off the table. Despair.

This post is about bad dice. I mean terrible dice. Consistent rolls of 1's. Gets Hot rolls at the wrong time. Scattering templates the full 12" away. The Imperium's finest failing Leadership Tests with Snake Eyes. Things like that.

I give you two memorable instances throughout my recent re-return to 40K (2008-2010):

1. I ran a Grey Knight Daemonhunters army (800 pts) in a round robin tournament, Vs. Marines. I moved the centrepiece of my army, a Landraider with  Grey Knight Terminators, to outflank an army consisting of rhinos, tac squads, scout squads, and devastators. After disembarking and wiping out a tac squad by the end of turn 1 ( i went second), my Grey Knights were all but annhilated by a round of shooting from krak missiles and bolter fire.

Rolling '1's 6no. times for a much needed 2+ save in a single turn, from just 2 squads of 5 men each. Ouch.

Understandably, it's the weight and rate of firepower that one needs to take down Termies. I would know this, as I once played a game where 3 Chaos Termies and a Lord deepstruck right in the middle of my forces. 2 rounds of battlecannon-fire, FRFSRF lasfire, and rapid plasma fire, only wounded the Chaos Lord once. So I knew Termies have a great survivability element.

But just not for me.

2. Playing IG against Marines. A Chimera had been wrecked and my 10 men squad of vets (with one meltagun, nothing else) disembarked. They were charged by a single bike-riding Space Marine captain, you know the type: powersword, multiple attacks, power armour, biked-up toughness, invulnerable save, etc.

The Captain strikes first, 5 attacks fail to hit!

A Space Marine heroic character, failing to even HIT lowly meatshield guardsmen? Surely, this is a mere abberation in the Emperor's Tarot, and that by the next turn the guardsmen will be wiped out.

It came to the guardsmen' turn on the same round of combat (lower initiative and all that). 11 rolls to hit (vet sarge gets an extra), 7 hits! 7 rolls to wound (6+ needed), 5 wounds! 5 wounds to save (3+ needed), 4 fails!

A Space Marine captain, heroic leader of a company of the Emperor's geneseed-modified finest. A mighty warrior, gang-banged to death by the humble guardsmen' lasrifle butts.

High-fives broke out between the guardsmen as they danced around the corpse.

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We still bring up incident no. 02 now and then for laughs. Anyone have similiar memorable experiences?

4 comments:

  1. I've had Grot mobs wipe out units of DE Wyches before.

    Also, i play Airbourne, reserve based IG and i've had games where my outflanking units come on in dribs and drabs, ALL on the opposite flanks to where i want them.

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  2. I know this well, sometimes I amaze myself with my ability to roll 1's.

    Although good on the guardsmen for giving the glory boy a good kicking.

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  3. It was a great event. The game did end up being a draw (KPs) but that was the highlight that had everyone in laughter, even the guy playing the Marines. He was in tears, sobbing softly in joy as you can imagine.

    I've also had a game where every plasma cannon (gun-servitors & russ sponsons) and plasma gun of mine Got Hot!

    Cursed dice.

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  4. Horrible dice. I have had my fair share. I once bought two blocks of blue and green swirl dice for my Eldar army. The next two tournaments I played in with the dice I had horrible rolls, so I put the dice away and went back to my green dice and once again starting doing well on the dice rolls.
    A friend had no dice, so I gave him the blue and green dice. I saw him about a month later at an RTT and he asked me I hated him. I asked him why and he said the dice I gave him in the matter of 6 games had killed 7 plasmagunners and 9 terminators....
    ....the point is...sometimes it is the dice.

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