Hey! Come look at these words I wrote about the single most important issue to ever grace the earth, GW Dice!
Just like that weird rash you got spreading in your nether regions, the Pimcron is back this week and if you keep scratching me I’m only going to get worse. Or something. Analogies are not my forte. But you know what is? Dice.
You see, after a decade of being the sexiest Warhammer player (according to Men’s Health May 2016) I have gotten to know dice pretty well. I roll them in my hands and dump them out to check to see how successful I am when I play Warhammer. But you know who is shockingly unknowledgeable about dice? A massive wargaming company that has spent 40 years making games using the things.
Games Workshop. (audible gasps in the crowd)
GW Didn’t Know How Dice Work
What do you look for in dice? First off, you want clear and discernable markings to quickly get results. Some of GW’s older dice require an ancient Egyptian decoder ring and four years of Calculus to decipher. The Sylvaneth dice give me a headache when I see my friends use them. These dice consist of a series of branches with different numbers of leaves on them.
To further complicate things, the dice set came in four different colors for the four seasons(?). So if they had color-coded the different results, like making 2’s blue and the other results literally any other color we would have been fine. I saw a rainbow once, there’s plenty of options. But nope, they decided that making all of the numbers equally all the colors was a top-notch idea. They did one thing right in having the faction marking as the number 6, but the faction logo for a company of tree people is apparently a thumbprint. So go figure that one out.
GW Didn’t Know What Dice Do
What about the old Nurgle Deathguard dice? They were clear enough to read and were nice to look at. But they had precisely zero mass and the ceiling fan would blow them around. Fierce laboratory testing determined they would have actually been heavier if made of Cheetos and Helium. They did not roll well at all. And if we do some real soul searching, isn’t this kind of a “you had one job” situation?
What other customer base would deal with this sort of complete failure in a product?
“Yeah, I bought this sweet-looking pistol the other day. Cost a fortune. . .”
“Nice! How does it shoot?”
“Oh, no. No. . . it doesn’t really do that. The whole thing is solid metal but it looks really sharp, see.”
“Oh. Well, to escape this awkward conversation, it seems like you have a tear in your umbrella, there.”
“Nope bought it that way. Real fancy, you know. It doesn’t work too well in rain but it’s got panache.”
“. . .”
“. . .”
“Is everything okay at home?”
“Yeah, no. I’m going to a financial therapist now so . . .”
“Probably for the best.”
So those dice remind me of when I dated my step-sister. Pretty to look at, but didn’t feel right when I held them.
GW Dice Were All Topsy-Turvy
What is the singular rule regarding dice in wargaming? The faction logo should be a good thing when you see it. Let’s do some quick maffs: What number is generally best in Warhammer? Sixes! You got it! So why did the lords of wargaming decide to put their faction logos on the 1’s for a while? The world may never know.
Games Workshop works in mysterious ways. I’m not going to be bothered to look up which sets were like this. There was quite a time when they forgot the single golden rule, making your own faction logo the symbol you most dreaded.
Then Came The Ugly Ones
The Beastmen dice caused me some trouble at my local game store. I was standing there talking to the owner and he was like, “Oh, the new Beastmen dice came in, check them out!”. He handed me the package of dice and every sphincter I owned gave up. They were nasty, brown, and embarrassing; not unlike the mess I made. Have you ever had to buy your local store a new mop? That is a unique kind of embarrassment.
Ugly AND unreadable? Sounds like a professional poker player.
The Last Horse Finishes The Race
Recently Games Workshop has been making plain, normal dice with solid colors and easy-to-read contrast. If it has a skull, it counts as a 1, otherwise, they just have a plain single pip. AND they discovered that you don’t need some crazy scheme, weird color, or nonsensical design.
What a breath of fresh air in an otherwise crazy dice market. I’m proud of you GW. That’ll do pig, that’ll do.
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