Dice of Ice

Sharing pain is good (said the Dark Eldar player to the Eldar player over lunch).

I play a lot of Warhammer, 2-3 games per week.  My armies, of considerable size, by end of January will include in no particular order:

Orks

Necrons

Chaos Space Marines (& Black Legion)

Space Marines (& Blood Angels)

Astra Militarum

Militarum Tempestus

Sisters of Battle

Grey Knights

Eldar

Dark Eldar

Tau Empire (& Farsight Enclave)

I think it’s safe to say I am more well versed than many on the issue of not only what to anticipate from the enemy, but also the enormous myriad of armies and play styles that you can use.  I’ve tried them all just about and my blog is dedicated to the variety that you can find pleasure in playing.

Despite all that knowledge, experience, and most importantly, copious opportunities to actually play AS these armies, I’ve found no solution to bad dice rolling, nor the frustration I feel when the game is taken from my hands by the Dice of Ice.  Not just for a round but for a game!

It’s one thing not to be overly good at the game.  You hardly notice the dice then and many people enjoy PLAYING more than winning or losing anyways.  It’s also one thing to play a certain army for financial reasons and sometimes just lose because the army you have is the one you have.  Sometimes that means mismatches that you aren’t’ fiscally able to do much about during this blizzard of codex drops we just went through the last twelve months or so.  Understandable there again.

When you have the resources of nearly the entire 40K universe at your disposal with nigh limitless ability to adapt and learn as the new codex’s drop by actually PLAYING them in order to find the strengths that you then must plan for in your normal armies, it is nothing short of galling to lose with those now prepared armies after all that effort and resource spent, because of the Dice of Ice.

The dice in War games give us drama and that’s important.  If there were never opportunity for disaster and miraculous comebacks, then we might well not enjoy the game as much as we do.  I am not blithe to it.  But I am human.  And there is a line in the game where one bad dice roll may screw you and you’re like “okay Good game” as compared to a literal torrent of bad rolls, round after bloody round.  By all rights your opponent should be shivering in a corner and quivering with fear but instead he’s dancing on your grave and it’s all you can do to hold your embarrassment at bay.

There is no solution of course.  These things happen and one has to move on and accept the ultimate truth of war games:  you cannot win them all.  Stop trying.  Most of us do eventually accept that.  the Dice of Ice, on the rare times they strike, are such a jolting and unrelenting reminder that after such a game we are HAPPY when we get just one bad dice roll a round!   We welcome it like a friend instead of dreading it like death.

Dice of Ice struck, of course, which is why I felt the need to share the pain.  Venting is good.  I will try to keep it in mind as a humbling reminder that no matter how good you are, how well constructed the force, and no matter the number of mistakes your opponent may unwittingly make…  You can always be cut down to size by the Dice of Ice.  So revel in your victories gracefully, let the close defeats roll off of you like water off a ducks back and pray that you have practiced enough grace in both cases that the Dice of Ice don’t return to humble you!

If you have a really good Dice of Ice story, let’s hear it!