help badly needed against the bad dice curse

[theluc]

hi to everyone in the lounge, new member and like all of you fantasy and 40k is a passion.

been several years in the hobby part and didnt play that much even if it been years in already collecting modelling and painting. Now thing have changed, playing more as my pals have operational armies and more time on their hands played a few games already and i dont think my lists are bad but i just keep losing with the curse of bad dice rolling, mostly rolling 1s when its not the time ! ive read many forums to try to help me out but now i call for help..so ill list down my inventory of black legion space marines and if with what i got is possible to eradicate or at least tone down my bad roll curse, i would be more than thankful

HQ
1 termi lord
1 sorcerer

ELITE
14 termi with 2X power fist. 1 lightning claws. 1 chain fist. 2 chaos glory icons
1 deady with twin linked lascannon

TROOPS
2 CSM squads with psword champ and lascannon
2 CSM squads with pfist champ and missile launcher
2 CSM squads with pfist champ and meltagun

5 rhino APC

FAST ATTACK
none

HEAVY SUPPORT
3 Obliterators
1 Defiler
4 land raiders ( plan to build 2 more )
1 pred with Hbolter sponsons and dozer blade
1 pred with Lascannon sponsons
( planning to build 3 vindicators )

LEFT OVERS
1 CSM with lightning Claws
2 CSM with heavy bolters
1 CSM with a Chaos Glory Icon
4 CSM

so here is my arsenal and we play 3100pts games main opposition is tyranids, marines, tau, IG and soon orks
so if you guys think are able to play around with what i got and do a winning list, id be greatful. plz note that investing more is not possible since i got other priorities thats why i scratch build most of my heavy support...thanks

[mercer]

Well Daemon Princes are better than Lords, though if you take a daemon weapon on a Lord and keep rolling 1's I would drop it.

Terminators are always a good start.

Chaos Marines seem ok, but I'd drop the heavy weapons and give them two special weapons.

Heavy support are ok.

I would get a list sorted out and pop it in the army list section and take it from there.

[Nikephoros]

There are a few ways to hedge yourself against bad luck:

1. Redundancy. If there is a job worth doing (i.e. anti-tank) bring mutilple ways to do it. Never rely on one (or 2) models to do any job. Make sure multiple units in your army are capable of doing it.

2. Overkill. Lets say you are debating whether to commit a second unit to an assault vs 30 ork boys. Mathhammer says your first squad should be able to kill them with average rolls. Send in the second unit. Doing that ensures the orks will die by eliminating bad luck. This is an old maxim of concentrating firepower, and its very applicable to 40k. Another example. You have 6 las cannons in your army and the opponent has 4 monstrous creatures. The smart thing to do is concentrate fire and kill one per turn rather than have each las cannon try to do a wound on each.

3. Do the math. Often times people think they have bad luck when they dont. "Oh man I rolled for saves and 6 terminators died!" Which sounds like bad luck until he tells you the dire avengers did 36 wounds, which is exactly what probability would expect to happen. If you do quick math hammer all game you'll see that chances are you roll about average, like everyone else.

[weeble1000]

Hell, I'd just get a new set of dice. As a bonus, you can consign the old set to the depths of some closet gaol as punishment for their betrayal. Perhaps they'll learn their lesson in a couple of years.

[Fizyx]

I'll agree that redundancy is extremely important to success, especially in the first few turns of a game.

Overkill is a tricky thing, though. I play fantasy more than 40k, so positioning and committment of forces is something I do in my sleep. In 40k you are not as constrained with movement, but the principles still stand: You need enough troops to overwhelm the opponent without leaving any holes in your defenses. This is not something that you can teach, but something you have to learn from countless hours of playing your army. You mentioned you were relatively new to the gameing side of the hobby; give yourself a few months and once you have a hundred games under your belt (it will come fast, trust me) see how bad your dice are rolling now

Lastly, just a few comments about probabilities. In this game, probabilities are a tricky fish. Yes, you can come up with statistical averages all day, but that fact is that multiple dice rolls that are based on the result of previous dice rolls have a very large deviation.

In probabilities, standard deviation is the value we give to a range of "very probable" outcomes. That is, it shows the variation from the average. If you start from the statistical average, one standard deviation encompasses 34.1% of the area under the probability curve in either direction. For the prurposes of advanced mathammer, 68.2% of the possible outcomes can be considered to be "likely." I actually like to error even more on the side of caution.

If you follow that logic, that means if you compute the probability distribution of whatever dice roll(s) you are making, those "bad rolls" are asually less than one standard deviation from the average. Do you need a graduate degree in mathematics to be a good 40k player? Obviously not (but it helps.) However, many of these mathematical principles veteran players already know through experience, which is probably the single biggest improvement you can see in your game.

Good luck!

[theluc]

thanks for the thought Mercer, thing is that daemon prince are a kind of must.. i dont have the figure so i just dont play it but my lord is with termi and power weapon so the rolling one curse, he has nothing to do with it.

for the normal CSM i was thinking of replacing lascannons for flamers and meltas ( every one knows what a plasmagun does on a roll of 1 ) same with missile launchers but that is when i get the chance of getting a new box of troops ( which i dont think will be soon )

thanks of the thought of a list but keep in mind my group and i dont proxy and the theory of investment is clearly not possible so even if i like the time taken for a list which you might place a 35bucks figure i dont have will leave a hole in the list. but thanks ill check out what you might cook up with my inventory

thank to Nickephoros for the reply, as in rule 1 and 2 please look at my inventory previously posted and for the 3rd rule i do know that masses of dice rolls do help more than alot which is also rule no 2 but defending or attacking if my 8 twin linked lascannons just wont hit i call it bad luck.

hahaha weebles know what tried that now got like 3 set of dice, they are as traitors as my CSM, being so much blessed by chaos it me who will turn into a spawn

[theluc]

2 squad 2 lascan

2 squad 2 missile launcher

14 termies

4 land raiders

2 pred

3 to come vindies

i think its redundant enuff no ? or is it that i need to repeat all squads same now in 5th

[EmperorEternalXIX]

The problem is actually probably your dice, my friend.

You must find the elusive "square edged dice brick" ... the amount of 1's that roll on rounded edge dice has always seemed disproportionate to me. Just the other day I rolled nine 1's with a set of these rounded edger chessex crapolas. 9 1's. That is statistically impossible considering I was throwing 11 dice at the time.

With my set of square-edged dice, I have never rolled so catastrophically bad, and have become convinced that something is amiss. Unfortunately the square-edged dice are VERY difficult to find these days, and I have lost many of them, and so I've had to settle for these rounded ones for ease of use since I have multiple colors of them.

If I could find one or two good bricks of the square edged ones, I would throw every other die I ever owned in the trash.

[Fizyx]

The odds of that are roughly 1 in 263000. Improbable? yes. Impossible? no!

In other news, I would melt those dice ASAP. Prefereably in sight of the rest of your dice. lol.

[EmperorEternalXIX]

Chessex seems to get a real kick out of this crap, too. They have rounded edge dice, and then they have the custom dice, which are so round they are almost a frigging sphere. Idiotic considering we use them on tables covered in sand and terrain, mostly.