How dices roll on poison

Personally, I don't play any other tabletop games nor have I, the only other I played was 'Heroscape' but that was when I was way younger, but I gotta ask, how do your guys rolls do when your attacking with Splinter Cannons? Since I don't play any other dice rolling games or any activities like that, I don't really have a specific way I roll my dice, but I wonder if that would affect anything, anytime I roll with high shot units, I usually do pretty bad, in recent games, my Venoms splinter cannons with full Salvo's weren't doing very well at all. If I hit, which I did moderately, I would literally land like 2 wounds, on a squad of Ork boyz, who then have their 4+ armor save and ofc they make it continuously. The only real reliable weapons I seem to land with are Darklight. Anytime its poison against most enemy squads its never good. If I'm firing at units with no armor, I'll usually pick them apart before they get close enough to do anything.. But Poison on tyranids is a given bane.

Anytime its against armor though it never seems to succeed, I've had a time where my Scourge were decimating Space Marines, but, its rare for that.

Maybe I just have horrible luck with the dice lately, but does anyone have any similar thoughts, or any type of rolls you do that seem to help out? Or is this just kind of how poison is?

With regard to rolling dice, just make sure they have a good surface to roll on (so that they don't come to a stop almost immediately).

Anyway, one thing I do is pick up as many 'failed' dice as possible for my next roll. So, if my splinter cannons roll 8/12 hits, I'll pick up the 4 dice that missed, and 4 of the dice that hit. In all honesty, this could be more OCD/paranoia on my part, but it might be worth giving it a try and seeing if it makes any difference.

Otherwise, it is possible (albeit unlikely) that your dice were badly-made and so favour some numbers over others. I say unlikely because I don't think it would make that much of a difference (it's the sort of thing that's usually only noticeable over thousands of rolls). But, you could always borrow someone else's dice (or use another set if you have them) and see if your rolls improve.


With regard to poison in general, 2 splinter cannons should average 4 wounds against any non-gargantuan target (prior to armour saves). So, that's your benchmark. After saves, you'd expect to kill 2 'Ard Boyz or 1 and a bit Space Marines.

One other thing to bear in mind:

Spoiler:

I read an article not long ago where a university researcher (and 40k player) tested the dice that come in a GW box set hundreds of thousands of times in a controlled setting, and found that they had a bias towards rolling low numbers.

This has something to do with the hollowed out spaces on the die and momentum, the more material on a facing the more likely it is to land face up.  They proved this by filling all the divots on the dice with resin material of the same density and repeating the process, which yielded much more even results.

So basically in order to get "fair" die you need ones that do not have divots in them, which the casino industry has known for decades.  Casino die are therefore the most likely source of consistently random rolls, but cost a small fortune.

I know that most dice manufacturers also put the dice in rock tumblers to smooth them off and remove the mold lines. But, the rock tumblers often strip different amounts off each side - leading to dice that aren't quite cube shaped and hence favour some sides over others.

Casino dice also require a serious throw to be random (hence the distance and tumble requirements in craps). Without a die cup, dice tumbler, or something to ensure a proper shuckle, they aren't going to give you random results either.

Jimsolo wrote:

Casino dice also require a serious throw to be random (hence the distance and tumble requirements in craps).  Without a die cup, dice tumbler, or something to ensure a proper shuckle, they aren't going to give you random results either.

I'll admit I hadn't heard that before.

Ya, you have to put a lot of arm into casino dice because of the weight, but I find the cost of the dozens you'd need to play 40k prohibitive anyway.  For the most part I try to find "painted on" dice rather than hollowed out ones.

If that researchers's theory of momentum carrying the heavier sides to the top holds true, the dice would still be very slightly biased towards the 6 dots of paint on one side over the 1 on the opposite.  I tend not to mind bias though as long as it's unnoticeable, and in my favor

For reference, here is what you should expect:



Note that as the opponent's net save increases, the chance of any given venom inflicting no wounds at all becomes quite high.

(I've omitted the chances of inflicting more than 6 wounds in a salvo from the chart, for readability - they are exceedingly slight)

How I roll? Simple. Pick up the dice and throw them in a flat surface.

Well good to know guys, I know I may sound like a broken record saying how it seems like our codex was jipped in terms of battling other races.. But yeah, I had to get an average, I guess 4 wounds from a single venom on average will at least give me a place to start when it comes to when I should start getting frustrated before armor saves are even thrown out.

Although poison fire is cool, Darklight will always be my favorite reliable weaponry when it comes to games.

How many dark light weapons do you get in a 1500 points game?

The Fume Knight wrote:

Although poison fire is cool, Darklight will always be my favorite reliable weaponry when it comes to games.

I'm the opposite. I almost always inflict more damage with my poison than with darklight. In fact, I've been seriously considering losing the blasters from my warrior squads as they literally have done nothing in the last half dozen games I've played. I don't think they've even killed an infantry model, let alone a vehicle!

It depends, normally I'll run 3 ravagers all with dark lances, a trueborn squad lances and blasters, which usually allows me to take out threats that required me to use Darklight on them, But I do plan on switching up my regular 1500pt list.

Hahaha well for the most part poison for me will do work on big monsters, but regular infantry its been awful, Tyranids get wrecked by my poison, a single Kabalite warrior the last in his squad, landed two wounds on a hive tyrant to finish it off, it was pretty cool.

Count Adhemar wrote:

The Fume Knight wrote:

Although poison fire is cool, Darklight will always be my favorite reliable weaponry when it comes to games.

I'm the opposite. I almost always inflict more damage with my poison than with darklight.

I struggle to inflict damage with either.

Count Adhemar wrote:

In fact, I've been seriously considering losing the blasters from my warrior squads as they literally have done nothing in the last half dozen games I've played. I don't think they've even killed an infantry model, let alone a vehicle!

Yeah, I might do the same and see if those blaster points could be better spent elsewhere.

Usually, my wound throws are awful. Despite having 50-50% chances to (for example) wound a pool of 12 hits, i often land to 3-4 wounds prior the saving throws.

Thanks for reminding me I need to pick up a few dozen more dice off ebay btw. So far half of the corsair units I've built have 60 or more range 36" shooting attacks per round

stilgar27 wrote:

Thanks for reminding me I need to pick up a few dozen more dice off ebay btw.  So far half of the corsair units I've built have 60 or more range 36" shooting attacks per round

Corsairs are the only release in about 3 years that I've actually been excited about.

when im rolling for venoms its usally 10-12 hits followed by 1-2 wounds

Yes. It is no good lol. I wish more wounds would go.