"How often do you roll the dice during a single game?" Topic

1. Fewer than 100 rolls
2. Between 100 and 1000 rolls
3. More than 1000 rolls

I imagine less than 100.

Less than 100 for me too.

Once per adjudication that requires dice to be rolled.

Seriously. It's highly variable depending on the length of the game, the number of (atomic decision making) units, the objective, and scenario constraints. And then there's how your strategy interacts with your opponents'.

Air combat games are usually well under 100, while land battles probably usually run in the 300-800, and sometimes over 1000 range.

Once per unit per turn for movement, up to twice per turn for firing, possibly twice per turn for close assault. That makes a theoretical 5 rolls per unit per turn, though highly unlikely. Given games that tend to last 6 through 12 turns, assuming 10 units per side, that gives 30 to 60 die rolls per side though I suspect half that number is more like it.

How are we counting?

If my platoon rolls one die per stand to shoot at the enemy, and they have 8 stands, is that "one roll" of the dice as it is one event or 8 rolls?

If we count each die separately, then virtually every game is probably between 100 and 1000. If that counts as a single event, then a few games will be 100 or less. Consider:

If in a turn I roll:

Once for reinforcements
Three morale checks
10 infantry fires
10 armor fires
5 penetrations
3 kills
1 indirect range in
1 indirect effect

That's over 30 dice rolls per turn. And that doesn't even include assaults, leader casualties, special events, skill checks etc. etc.

Unless you play a very DBA style game it's hard to imagine rolling less than 100 per game of any length. Maybe a cowboy shootout.

I have never counted.

As few as possible as my lack of success is legendary.

I'd say >100.

It varies.

If I'm playing Napoleon's battles as a subordinate commander, one die each turn to tell me I can't move, and another die to tell me I've lost the combat. Ten, possibly 12 die rolls per game. Maybe twice that with enough artillery.

If I'm playing Lion Rampant solo, two dice each unit until I fail activation, 12 dice each side for each combat. If we say four units activated and one combat per side per turn and six turns, that's 384 rolls.

If I'm running a division in CLS, the numbers might get serious.

2 would be the safe bet but certainly over a hundred, but then I am playing both sides.

None if I'm playing Too The Strongest :)
Well over 100 if I'm playing Sword and Spear.

Once per unit to famil morale in turn 1' then one failed rally roll per unit per turn :)

Joking aside, now I want to count next time I play something.

Let's see, an "average" game of a thousand points per side comes out to roughly 5,000 men, divided by 60 men per base equals 83. That would be about 83 melee combat rolls per turn when both armies are fully engaged. But that would almost never happen. Added to this would be a missile fire roll per base per side. This is highly variable, from c. 10% missile troops to 5/6 for late HYW English, to 100% for Steppes armies. Probably half engaged in melee at the height of a battle is more realistic. But a higher proportion of missile fire rolls for missile intensive armies. Plus morale rolls per turn: the "back morale" checks occupy about one in six results, so another c. 14 rolls per turn. Units throw once per check, the most common being for 25% casualties; then seeing other friendly units rout. Say the winning side has one or two units take 25% casualties. The losing side has half of their units take 25% casualties and the rest test to see units routing: that would be five or more checks per game. The total of unit morale checks is therefore minimal when taken as part of the total. A game usually lasts ten to twenty turns. So an average of 600+ melee rolls per game of c. 5000 men per side is probably pretty close. And if missile type armies engage, this could double at least.

I recorded this for 10 games. 122.3 on the average for ALL players.

Wow. Lot of rolls. I guess each of the 83 stands tosses a die separately, instead of multiple stands forming one unit?

It depends on the rule system. I'm guessing we average about 6 to 7 turns of any game system per Friday evening (figuring about a half hour per turn, which is roughly 15 minutes for one side and 15 minutes for the other to move, fire, morale, etc.). If you have 10 units, and most are engaged for a turn, that might be 7 or 8 firing/melee rolls per turn, plus whatever morale rolls come your way. So, under 100 is not unusual for us.

In the last game (7YW variation of Shako), I had nine units in two commands. One die each command for initiative. First couple of turns maneuver only. Then, about 9 or 10 melee rolls for the cavalry during the game, plus another 5 or 6 morale rolls before they scampered off. For the infantry, probably about the same. Maybe a few more. So, call it about 50 for the game.

Probably 10 – 20 times, I suspect.

1. My enemies are doomed and concede after this point.

Wow. Lot of rolls. I guess each of the 83 stands tosses a die separately, instead of multiple stands forming one unit?

Not each stand, each pairing of stands, i.e. each individual combat, rolls 2D6 to resolve combat each turn. Missile fire, each stand/base shoots, using a different color of 2D6, so you can roll batches of matched 2D6; that goes much faster! Melee is one on one because we like the feel of skirmish gaming and can't give it up to play big battles.

In my case Russ it's every damn die rolled in the game from initiative rolls to rally rolls. I use big units and the MAXIMUM stands on the entire table top for any game can be 32, or 64 for both. The smallest is 7 per side or 14 total.

That still seems awfully low but some units never roll a die all game, and those who are in hectic combat don't last long so once eliminated they don't roll dice any more. Things also move very fast and you can have the whole army move with a single die roll, and with unlimited movement for initiative, you don't need many.

In fact you don't use dice for combat, only in rolling off combat effects, and so there is not many occasion for die rolls.

I have to admit I posted the original question as a joke, in response to the sometimes rather pointless questions that are posted on this forum.

I thought many would consider the question asking for the number of dice rolls during a game totally pointless, but apparantly, the joke is on me ;-)

Not at all, Phil. You've just proven the curious multifaceted nature of the hobby. Some gamers are annoyed or put off by lots of dice rolling. Others consider lots of dice rolling the right way to play. For one reason, many dice rolls smooth out the anomalies of weird dice rolls.

Yes, the "right" number of die rolls per game varies by gamer. :)

Fewer the better camp here. Fewer dice to roll, faster pace of game. That's my theory anyway. Probably why Otto's games move so fast.

I'd guess my mega-pirate game that had 32 players at start finished well below 1,000 total die rolls for all reasons.

Crumbs. Well if both sides average 30 moves each in a evening, and there will be less roles in the first ten moves so say an average 15 throws per person a go and and average of three people a side, 2x30x15x3 = 2700. Size of game and style of game varies so much, and I've probably underestimated but it is definitely over a 1,000!