How to Overcome Bad Luck

Jimsolo wrote:

Be flexible.  Good tactics should be able to overcome bad luck.

Be superstitious.  I prefer to put dice I've just rolled on one side of the dice pile, and take dice to roll from the other (so they get a 'cool down' period).  If I need to roll a single save or some such, I will try to pick up a die that just rolled a one.  My heart says the odds of it rolling TWO ones in a row are much lower, even while my brain is giving my heart a cookie and a patronizing pat on the head.

I would rather have a general who was lucky than one who was good. - Napolean Bonaparte

Unfortunately good tactics cannon overcome bad luck. I've witnessed a landraider explode to single snapshot from a lascannon. I've managed to get my raider a 2+ save and it still exploded and still killed 80% of the crew. Contingencies help buffer bad luck. If you prepare for the worst case scenario then when it happens, overcoming it won't be so daunting.

But you're not really overcoming bad luck, you're just learning to cope with it.

Now someone jokingly earlier said cheat. That is definitely a way to overcome bad luck! However, unless you're really good at it, you'll get caught and likely pay some consequence for it. So what does a professional do?

You stack the odds in your favor. This is why people love prescience. This is why grotesques have become a staple in my list, because one of the best rules to exemplify my point is Feel No Pain. After you fail a save, the grot should lose a hit point, BUT you get another roll on top of it. It negates a failed save. Twin linked is another example. If you fire ten shots and miss all of them! Statistically when you re-roll those missed shots you'll land 6-7. Also volume, more is better. Three dark lance shots cost about the same as 9 haywire wyches. Mounted splinter cannons have a cost to mounted disintegrators of about 2:1. Would you rather have 24 Poison(4+) ap5 shots, or 6 S5 AP2 shots?

Or basically:

Re-roll your mistakes, and force you're opponent to roll so many dice he's bound to roll a one somewhere.

Siticus the Ancient wrote:

You could also try blood sacrifices! Nothing overcomes bad luck and horrible rolls as a bit of blood to slake the bloodthirst of your models and make them perform better! So next time you cut yourself while converting something, smear a droplet or two under the bases of your models for that sneaky early Pain Token. Works like a charm!

Haha, I accidentally did this with my Grotesque, cut myself while cleaning the model from all that extra resin that GW provides with the model. The wound opened during painting and i got a nice bloody touch on the skin. Later this Grot got his unit obliterated, rolled snake eyes for ld and managed to kill a Chimera before exploding and killing 6 guardsmen

There is some good advice in this thread, and I will echo shiodome's and Mushkilla's comments on Bloodbowl. There is no game better to learn luck management. It's good fun too!

One other comment - luck rolls both ways. It's common to see advice on minimising risk, but in my experience this is only half the story.

What you really want to do is maximise the risk to reward ratio.

Basically, for every risk you take on, ensure that the potential reward outweighs that risk. Easier said than done sometimes, but practice with this in mind.

Ive noticed that my dice rolls are amazing if I am winning. Then, inevitably, my opponent will kill something I didnt want him to kill. Then at that point, the dice Gods look down upon me in shame and smite my rolls. Its almost as if the dice "feel" your negativity. Act like you dont care, like theyre chicks at a bar lol. I often will notice one of my venom rolls will roll horribly, i will then take those dice and put them in time out for a turn or two. that seems to work well lol. Realistically, there is nothing you can do when it comes to rolling. However, square dice DO roll more statistic, that is a fact that I have researched.

the other alternative is to force your opponent to make mistakes and focus EVERYTHING you have to capitalize on his mistake. Our movement is so fast and in your face, it often takes a lot of people by surprise and/or it intimidates then into making a mistake. use that to your advantage. I have been told I am a "tight/aggressive player". My opponents dont like playing me becuz they know if they make a mistake I am all over them like white on rice. no self horn tooting, I just HAVE to play this way and REALLY pay attention to whats going on. I find it amusing that some of the players in my META forum talk about how to beat DE and they get answers like "why the hell are you having problems with dark eldar." However, 7th is proving to be a completely different animal. should be fun to figure it out =)

PowerFromPain71 wrote:

Hello everyone.  I know this is kind of a strange topic to bring up in a tactics forum, but I've been playing Dark Eldar for 3 years now and my greatest struggle is with terrible dice rolling.

I recently played a 2,000 point game with my friend who played Grey Knights.  Although it was a close game, my opponent won by 1 victory point.  During the after action debate, he said my plan and tactics were good, and my army list was well built.  The thing that cost me the game was rolling a lot of 1s and 2s with most of my dark lances at the beginning turns of the game.

Now I know that luck plays quite a big part in this game, but I am wondering how other players bounce back from bad luck early on.  Or how they try to reduce how big a part dice rolling plays in their game plan.

I know this is quite a strange topic to bring up, but if anyone has any advice at all, it would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

PS. If you are interested in the list I used, I posted it up on the Army List Forum.  

I really don't know if this answers the question. But I have frequently said on my blog and to anyone who asks, "The Best Generals make the dice as irrelevant as possible".

This isn't nearly enough space to really convey a real solution, but just consider that any attempt you make to down an AV 14 vehicle (just as an example) really requires 8-9 Meltas to be sure. The trouble most people get into is they piecemeal their effort to that end. It's been my opinion that bringing overwhelming force to the4 point of attack is better than the "Spray and Pray" technique. What happens if you get unlucky and the enemy sees what you're trying to do they will whittle your ability to do it. So a failure means you literally are goingto lose your statistical ability to succeed. Now this is a dice game so that means nothing in some games. In some games, one lance and BOOM.

So sometimes if there are priotirty targets and you want to ensure their demise against the dice, you must perhaps NOT deploy and NOT advance, even giving ground, in order to draw the enemy target into a killing field. This has the advantage of not only giving you the best shot, but it also gives the rest of the units your bringing to bear the opportunity to wreck faceon what comes out if luck goes YOUR way, while not assuming that it will go your way.

Patience isn't the watchword for most Generals. their attitude is "Pump out the damage early before i start getting whittled. But if you're not even a target until you WANT to be? There's power in that. There are times when positioning can even make KILLING that AV 14 vehicle completely irrelevant. Thats another weapon Dark Eldar have: Speed. Draw an enemy into you and then forego attacks and zoom 48 inches away. That Raider will never bother you again. You lose a roun but keep all your stuff intact.

Again, not enough room here, but think about that. Making the target irrelevant is as good as killing it sometimes.