Skythian DBA Army Finished I/43b

I finished my 12 Units of Skythian Light Horse. This army allows for the entire army to made up for Light Horse! I have never played with an army with more than 2 Light Horse, so my learning curve is probably going to be in steppes (pun). Here are some pictures so you all can see what I wound up with. I’m happy with the basing, adding a tad big of higher grass like stuff to the green flocking looks subtle and better in person than in the pics. I may still highlight with paint, some of the grasses patches with a lighter color. But I can safely call these done and move on to my Early Samurai Army from the Khurasan figures I have received.

Click to enlarge as usual.

 

August 29, 2010 | Categories: Wargames | 11 Comments »

Strategy of the Warlords Part 1

Tony Aguilar commented on my last blog entry about the new Japanese TV show, which roughly translated would be Strategy of the Warlords. Tony asked for more information about who was being featured on the show, so I had my beautiful wife do some wargamer research for me. She translated the Japanese and I figured out what the heck it translated too in our DBA history terms lol. Many Japanese names for things are pretty different from what we call it, even translated, so it took a bit of work but we have now compiled the list of the two most recent shows and the upcoming broadcasts.  (Please note I created the graphic above as the show guards its images and video aggressively. Their artwork is quite a bit more impressive than my own Photoshop efforts

So, here is a listing of what battles they featured in the most recent two aired shows:

Takeda Shingen vs Uesugi Kenshin (20 Years after DBA Book IV/59)

In case you don’t know these guys, they’re very well-known Samurai commanders who faced each other a number of times at the battle of Kawanakajima. In the fourth meeting in 1561, they had a very famous encounter where Shingen had to defend himself against a mounted Kenshin with only his command fan. Here is a bronze statue from the Kawankajima (different linked website) area, which is in Nagano Prefecture:

This combat meeting has been the fodder for countless movies in Japan and elsewhere.  Here are a few pictures that relate to the Kawanakajima battles:

And if that doesn’t satiate your Takeda Shingen vs Uesugi Kenshin, here are a couple of videos from Japanese YouTube:

This second one is a reenactment of the incident between the two held as a festival in the area in Japan. Good stuff!

3 Kingdoms Chinese (DBA Book II/63)

The previous show on the TV Show Strategy of the Warlords on NHK, was about the 3 Kingdoms Chinese which the show listed the dates from 180 AD – 280 AD. I know precious little about this period of history. Heck for that matter I don’t know much about Chinese history in general. DBA has been the only reason I’ve been introduced to any of it. I do find the images fascinating. There is no shortage of TV shows, movies, comics and video games about this period!

The DBA army looks very sound, and a lot of fun to play. I especially like it has an Arty element that can be fielded. I’m loathe to field any army anymore, which does NOT allow for an arty piece in the game!

Here are a few wonderful images from this period of colorful Chinese history:

And whoever this cat is with the long beard, he’s obviously somebody famous he’s all over the place when you look this period up. I’m sure you Chinese history buffs would know this instantly. Alas, I don’t but here’s a pic:

And here is a movie poster for a flick about this period which came out recently:

And there have been plenty of fun, ridiculous and some newer really cool movies about this period:

About one minute into this next one you can see guys wearing a hat with an arrow through it, just like Steve Martin used to wear. Priceless! lol Still, I’m pretty intrigued now!

In Part 2 of this post, I will go over the next four shows for Strategy of the Warlords. There are a couple of famous guys from the Mediterranean and a couple more from Japan History. Stay tuned for Part 2 of Strategy of the Walords! Same Bat Channel, Same Bat Time!

Musashi

August 13, 2010 | Categories: Wargames | 3 Comments »

The Power of the Yen

The Japanese Yen was in the news today because the US Dollar is at a 15 year low exchange rate to the Japanese Yen. The strength of their monetary unit isn’t the only way they’re completely kicking our butts here in the US!

I receive Japan TV through our Brighthouse Cable service. We mainly subscribe to watch the Grand Sumo matches which are held every other month beginning each January. Japan TV is a feed from Japan’s main public channel, called NHK.

NHK is broadcast over the entirety of Japan. Essentially every single person in Japan can watch NHK. The programing is somewhat conservative in nature, but then so are the Japanese in general.

How does any of this have anything to do with wargaming?

I’m watching NHK the other night and there is a show that comes on, which  is clearly a group of four people, two men and two women in a studio environment talking over a large miniature battlefield which has been constructed on set. My Japanese isn’t up to par to fully understand their discussion, but it’s clear with the decor of the show and the miniature battlefield that they are talking about some great battle and the commanders who participated.

Any wargamer would instantly recognize the set up, even if broadcast in a foreign language. So needless to say, I was fascinated to see this show on their national broadcast with such high production values. The miniature armies were more rounded wooden type pieces, not detailed like we play with in DBA, but the various unit types were represented with different geometric shapes like chess pieces.

I call my wife, Yukiko, in to explain exactly what they are talking about. It turns out that what I thought was happening was exactly what they were doing. Japan television has a national broadcast with a show that focuses on great generals from history and has guests analyze the decision-making process and what they might have done differently, during a certain battle.

Translated the show would be called, “The Strategy of the Warlords.” I mean is that cool or what?

Unfortunately, you have to subscribe to a pay service to see the videos of the show if you don’t catch it when it airs, so I don’t have any clips here to post. Just take my word for it, wargamers in the country would be pretty gassed if we had something like this. They are hardcore serious about not allowing any video clips or even images from the show to be copied in any way, so I just made that banner with the name myself in Photoshop to have something…anything graphical.

So you see why I say the Yen isn’t the only thing the Japanese have over us! The show isn’t translated so currently it’s all that useful for me. I guess it will be more motivation for me to continue my Japanese language education!

名将の采配

Musashi

August 11, 2010 | Categories: Wargames | 4 Comments »

Scythian DBA Army Progress Report

DBA Book I 43a Scythian Army

I am waiting for my Xyston figures for my Phokian and Cypriot and Phoenician armies. They should be here any day, but in the meantime I finally decided to paint up these Scythians. They are Chariot figures I’ve had since the mid 1990′s. I’m not immune to the problem of a pile of lead needs painted.

I choose armies mainly because I like the period, not because I think they’re going to just be awesome in a tournament. I’m still competitive and want to win but if you’re going to spend all the time it takes to get an army ready for tabletop play, it seems you had better really enjoy researching the history of that army!

You don’t see a lot of Skythian armies, outside of steppe themed tournaments because all of their light horse is pretty tough to win with. The history of the people though, is very cool and there are a LOT of grave goods which really helps get excited about the history. The Scythians were located on the Northern crossroads of the Bactrian Empire, influences from many different places yet a decided Hellenistic bent in their preferences. Herodotus wrote that the Scythians were, “immensely rich.” This does seem accurate if you consider the sizable number of gold items which have been recovered from the Scythian period.  There are marvelous traveling collections of their treasures. A serious amount of wonderful artifacts have been found, luckily. And this despite the usual extensive grave-robbing.  Here are a few nice pieces of Skythian artifacts:

The DBA I/43a Skythian army runs from 750BC-301BC. It allows for a few variants, but it’s almost all Light horse either way you slice it. I decided that it would be fun to have a LH General and almost required once you get in excess of 9 LH because otherwise the general will quickly get out of command range, even on a 24″ board.

I haven’t built this army for or care if this army fights on a 30″ board. Clearly a LH army would benefit from the extra room to room more than any other army, but part of my fascination with armies is the satisfaction of taking an army that is unique, and sometimes monotype and trying to do well with them. For sure one thing will happen if you play monotype armies. You will get very very familiar with that troop type in a lot of different situations if you play them a lot. Since I’m still new-ish to the upgraded 2.2 rules, this has an appeal.

Plus, I have this idea that when I field this army and we are telling each other what unit is what, I will have the fun of saying, “Yep, they’re all the same. All light horse. Every last one of them!” Maybe that satisfaction will wear really thin when I start getting hammered regularly but for now, it’s the fun of monotype armies. I enjoy the combined arms ability of my Early Seleucid army but there is something cute and irresistable about a Skythian army made up of 12 Light Horse, which is what I’m painting.

The later Scythian army can have a Knight General which would be a lot of fun to paint, and at some point I will order some figs to be able to do that. That way I can field the b list as well which goes from 300BC-50AD. The army has a serious reach historically! All I need to do is paint one 3KN stand and swap that General unit out for my a list LH general. What could be easier.

I just started painting these guys this week. I hope to be done with them in another week and then move on to my Phokians which will no doubt be here by then! Here are some pics of my progress. (15MM of course)

Musashi

August 4, 2010 | Categories: Wargames | 1 Comment »

Random.org

My BFF Tony Aguilar posted on our long running Dice Etiquette thread asking if I had tested the randomness of any computer random number generators.

As they say in the beer commercial Brilliant!

The one that claims to have this whole random thing really down pat, is Random.org.

Computers have a fairly poor reputation for being able to generate randomness. It’s a bit like someone trying to write a program for a computer’s animated human face; the warm smile is near impossible to pull off. I guess the warm part is what trips them up

Nevertheless Random.org says they have the magic bullet when they say this from their website:

What’s this fuss about true randomness?

Perhaps you have wondered how predictable machines like computers can generate randomness. In reality, most random numbers used in computer programs are pseudo-random, which means they are a generated in a predictable fashion using a mathematical formula. This is fine for many purposes, but it may not be random in the way you expect if you’re used to dice rolls and lottery drawings.

RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs. People use RANDOM.ORG for holding drawings, lotteries and sweepstakes, to drive games and gambling sites, for scientific applications and for art and music. The service has existed since 1998 and was built and is being operated by Mads Haahr of <!– who is a Lecturer in –>the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland.

Okie Dokie! Let’s put them to the test!

Computer programs do not face any of the concerns which us non-virtual world dice throwers are subject to. The material the die is made affects its action on the rolling surface. There is no gravity to contend with. There is absolutely no concern needed regarding the precision of the machine that made the die. There is no fear the six-sided cube is truly square. There are no pips to drill or not drill, to fill or not fill. The issue of the one pip weighing less is gone. This, and a million other dice concerns for DBA are covered at this threat at Fanaticus.org: Dice Etiquette.

As an aside the Japanese use dice with a larger one pip shape to offset any bias the die might exhibit due to the lower weight of only the one dot, such as shown here:

Since Random.org doesn’t have any of the physical limitations of actual dice I was intrigued with the idea. I duplicated my test methodology I used for the dice from my previous post. That is, I tested by having Random.org’s computer program “roll” 30 times, and then 60 times.

If you don’t remember from the previous post, a perfect average for 30 rolls would be 5 for each number and 10 for each number with 60 rolls. The ideal decimal expression of that for any number of rolls is .1667.  Anything under .1667 and there were fewer than expected, and more than .1667 were more than expected. A ”P” value of less than 0.050 would indicate it is out of the acceptable random generation range.

There is an automatic built-in 5% error rate with the P Value. I have no idea of the algorithm is using so no clue on what their error rate might be (plus or minus). The possible error rate, again, only applies to the P Value, not the distribution. The distribution is what it is; me simply recording how many of each type appeared. From a DBA standpoint the distribution is more important than the actual PASS/FAIL test the P Value represents.

I reloaded the website between 30 and 60 roll tests and cleared my internet cache just in case.

Here are the results with the actual breakdown of the distributions also given:

Random.org 30 Rolls Distr. 60 Rolls Distr.

1′s                                 5                             11

2′s                                 4                              9

3′s                                 7                              11

4′s                                 2                               7

5′s                                 5                               8

6′s                                 7                               14

30X Result         60X Result            30X P           60X

1′s -  .1667                .1833                   (0.608)      (0.669)

2′s –  .1333                .1500

3′s – .2333               .1833

4′s -  .0667               .1167

5′s -  .1667                .1333

6′s -  .2333                .2333

So, if you stare at the numbers long enough (do not do this at home without a parent’s permission), you will find that Random.org produces…………………….Drum Roll please…………………..

A die which absolutely HATES fours consistently, and LOVES sixes consistently. The rest of the distribution looks pretty darn random. The P Value is within the accepted range for both.

Now, I made it very clear last time I posted, but I will do so again. 30 rolls is the MINIMUM you need to make any kind of observation about the variance in a die’s performance. 60 is frankly, only marginally better from a sample size standpoint. 1000 rolls would be my idea of the minimum really needed to make a really solid argument for that die’s performance. I chose 30 because it’s the minimum which almost anyone can do quickly with their own dice, and 60 simply because it is double and easy to see a pattern, if one truly exists, at that small sample size.

I am under no delusions that this tiny test on ANY of the dice is conclusive. But it is a fun starting point for conversation about how dice are not dead on .1667 that we would like to think. Statistically, after one million throws maybe the math will equalize to those numbers. I will have to be satisfied with the number 1000.

Yes, soldier, I am planning on rolling some dice 1,000 times! I will shortly perform this same test for Random.org with 120 and 240 “rolls.” I can do this relatively quickly because there is no actual die involved. I will post here when that is completed and add it as an EDIT at the bottom of this posting.

I will probably look like this after I’m done:

I am going to wait so I can order some GamesScience 6 siders and some GameStation precision backgammon dice before I begin that insanity! Those are the two dice manufacturers that the average human can purchase and feel they have done all they could to come up with ”unbiased dice.” Casino dice direct from the factory are not easy to acquire but I will look into that at some point as well.  Dice cups are equally half of the equation and I strongly recommend them. Precision Dice without using a Dice Cup is Peas without it’s pod.

I recommend using Dice Cups to further your efforts to properly randomized your die rolls! But if you are looking for something really unique and different, how about this Meyer Dice Tube?

Check back or subscribe to my blog if you want to see the Random.org test numbers when I’ve run 120 and 240 versions of the numbers!

Musashi

MORE TESTING DONE!

I have completed more testing on Random.org’s die generator, as promised. I “rolled” their virtual dice 500 times!

I’m very happy to report that the die numbers did indeed equalize which was what a good performing randomizer should have done with a larger sample than 60 rolls. 500 still isn’t 1000 and while there is some difference between 1′s and 6′s, since the trend from the first two tests did NOT continue and the difference of both one and six is not terribly great, I believe more rolling up to 1000 would probably narrow it even further.

The one thing I did notice was a lot of “clumping”. There were many times one number was repeated more than two times in a row. The exact number was 11 times a number was repeated 3 times in a row and 1 time it was repeated 4 times in a row. Need to find a stat guru to find out if that is excessive or typical in a roll of 500 times. That was the only thing that jumped out at me. It could be pure dumb random luck or maybe how the program keeps itself closer to the .1667 median. From a DBA perspective, if you got on a string of 1′s..you’d be sunk. Although that doesn’t mean it can’t happen randomly obviously.

So, it seems clear the program will come out near the ideal .1667 or close enough to it to not care, if a large number of rolls are involved. The problem would be if the program accomplishes this either directly or as some byproduct by having clumps of numbers appear. If that is the case, the program is only accurate over the long haul. IF, and I only mean if, the clumping is a real phenomenon then that would be a poor way to determine DBA rolls. The DBA game might only involved ten die rolls, or 20 or 30 maybe in a long game. We don’t roll enough to overcome possible built in clumping!

Still, this was just for giggles. It’s a test of a computer algorithm, it says nothing about DICE…since there are no dice involved. I thought you all would enjoy the information though.

Here are the numbers

Random.org 500X P Value =0.48

1′s                       97   (1.940)

2′s                      79    (.1580)

3′s                      78    (.1800)

4′s                      80   (.1620)

5′s                      72    (.1460)

Musashi

August 4, 2010 | Categories: Wargames | 2 Comments »

My Dice Results

This is a follow up to my previous blog on Dedicated DBA Dice. I have now acquired just enough information about Dice Testing to be truly dangerous!

This blog is to assist you if you’ve ever wanted to find out if the dice you’re using are truly random or even more interestingly, if they tend to roll one number more than another statistically.

Since I last blogged, I sat down and worked out Pearson’s chi-square test based on the help of several websites.  The following information supposes you are rolling a six-sided die 30 times, using an accepted error rate of 5% which is unavoidable with this small number of rolls.

Now I’m not math major and this whole equation thing was giving me no small trouble. I did finally deduce the terms involved. You add up the number of times each number is rolled. This is the “Distribution.” On a six-sided die, each number should come up evenly throughout no matter how often you roll total. Of course the more you roll, the finer the distinction becomes due to the larger sample size.

When you know how many of each number has been rolled in your sample size, you then subtract 5. The number that results is the “Error”. Then you square the error, which gives you the “Squared Error.” When you add up all of the squared errors, you wind up with the “Sum of the Squared Errors,” or SSE.

What? Your eyes have glazed over already? Have no fear, mine did the same! Actually to conduct your own dice roll testing this explanation isn’t sufficient. Have no fear, soldier, there is an answer!

Thankfully, you DO NOT have to worry about that equation above. It kicked my butt too!

I found a nice gent who has a blog called, Giant Battling Robots-The mathematics and statistics of games, which has a spreadsheet he created that you can download which does ALL the work for you. All you need to do is change the distribution numbers in the first green box on that spreadsheet. You can roll a minimum of 30 times, or knock yourself out and go for the holy grail of 1000 rolls. 1000 rolls isn’t any harbinger of specific accuracy but it is a nice round number that if you were to roll 1000 you could probably say with some certainly what your likely die behavior is.

So let the rolling begin!

The dice I chose to test around my house are not chosen for any other reason than they were easy to find. I did purposefully chose dice from a couple of board games since those dice were no doubt manufactured originally from a larger concern. Also these are vintage games. Later, I may buy some brand new dice and test them as well to compare to the “old school” dice I have lying around.

First the Statistical Beauty Contests should be introduced.

First of all Kudo’s to GDW….see they have themed the die they included in the game–it’s Blue! I purchased this game new in 1983 and have had it ever since. The die then therefore dates at that time.

I purchased this now classic game new in 1981 and have had it ever since. Therefore again, the dice are from that era. I chose one of the brown dice to test.

Just a loose blue die I had sitting around. It’s believe it’s about fifteen years old. This die had the most rounded corners of all of the dice.

Just a loose white die I had sitting around. It’s believe it’s about fifteen years old. This die had the most square corners of all of the dice.

Before I offer up the results, I want to point out that the original blog that set me on this path Delta’s D & D Hotspot, did a follow-up to the original article that I read where he too actually tested dice sitting around his house. As he is math guy he saw no reason to actually test his dice as his point was the math equation portion of it and the theory does not need to be tested further. He did test some dice he had anyway, just for giggles. His results are in his Feb 2009 blog post but the short of it is that, in his sample size at least, the dice with the sharpest corners were the most consistently randomly distributed in their rolls.

He took that information to mean that the stuff he had been hearing from Lou Zocchi was true in his experience as well. I believe Lou recently got out of his business GameScience, as now a company called GameStation is his website forwarding link to purchase stuff.

In short Lou espoused a product with unfinished sharp edges. No one seems to have questioned his rationale statistically until one small rolling flaw was found in a 100 sided die. He subsequently fixed that. A pretty impressive record of achievement! A real gaming pioneer!

Unfortunately I do not own any GameScience dice to add to my testing for this blog post. I will order some soon though.

I conducted two rounds of testing, one doing the math figures for 30 rolls per die contestant and the other using 60 rolls. I did not just add 30 more rolls onto the first 30, I rolled each die, a fresh 60 times. I doubled the numbers to see if any pattern developed, but any testing using this many rolls will still result in not a very refined conclusion. Nonetheless it should provide an adequate conversation starter. When I get some GameScience dice I may test it by rolling 200 times and compare to another die rolling 200 times to give a slightly better sample rate.

Again, if you want to do this testing yourself, just pull up that spreadsheet from Battle Robots. Just let me know if you can’t figure out how to make the spreadsheet work.

On the spreadsheet, for a 30 roll sample, each number would be expected to show up 5 times. This is the Expected Count on the chart. When you roll each die 60 times, each number should show up 10 times , to be evenly distributed randomly. Utilizing the spreadsheet, the expected probability will always be 0.1667 due the six-sided die we’re using. The figure in front of that is the observed probability percentage. This figure is calculated for you when you type into the green box the number of times you threw the number one on the die, the number two, the number three and so on. You roll each die and just write down the number that appears. You track this on paper and at the end, just count the frequency that each number appears. This is what you are typing into the first field. It is ALL you need to do. The program does the rest for you! Make sure you click off of the last field you enter and make sure the math adds up to 30 or 60 or however many rolls you have decided to document.

The last columns show the P value (just a statistical way of tracking) of the whole thing. For a six-sided die any number UNDER .050 would be considered not properly randomized. IMPORTANT: You cannot COMPARE P value from one die to the other! The random nature of the test precludes this from having any meaning. A P value of .65 if not better or worse necessarily than a P value of .89. Something below .05 would be a problem however, assuming the 5% error threshold has not afflicted the rolls.

What you can compare is one observed probability from one die to the other. When you do your testing, you will probably find that it does fall into the above .50 range, meaning the die is properly randomized. What you will see however, is that within the distribution, some dice will show more sixes or more ones or what have you. These individual die number results can be compared with meaning. So you can say, at least in this limited statistical example that this die should roll more sixes than another die, comparing their observed probability percentage for the number of sixes rolled by each die. In that regard it should be predictive!

That last sentence is why I went to the trouble to roll each die 60 times to see if the numbers that came up the most for any given die were repeated when you doubled the sample size. A perfectly random 6 sided die would have an expected probability percentage of .1667, each and every time. In a perfect world anyway Consistency can allow you to draw mostly positive conclusions about a die. At least you know what you’re getting with consistency, even in an uneven distribution. Mainly to draw a really solid conclusion you would simply have to roll more. The holy grail of 1000 again, springs to mind

All of the rolls were on a wooden dining table using my left hand to attempt a similar throw. The dice were not allowed to contact anything but the table from start to finish of the roll. Again the dice are shooting for a rate of .1667. A number larger than that and the die is throwing MORE of that number and lower number is throwing LESS of that number than the expected distribution of 5 each for 30 rolls and 10 each for 60 rolls.

So, Finally here are the results:

BLUE MAX DIE       30X            60X

P Value=                            .85                 .73

Die Roll of One                .1000           .1167

Die Roll of Two                .1333           .1333

Die Roll of Three            .2333           .2000

Die Roll of Four              .1667            .2167

Die Roll of Five               .2000          .1500

Die Roll of Six                 .1667            .1500

Circus Maximus DIE       30X            60X

P Value=                            .94                 .55

Die Roll of One                .2333           .2500

Die Roll of Two                .1333           .1167

Die Roll of Three            .1333           .1833

Die Roll of Four              .1667            .1500

Die Roll of Five               .1667            .1333

Die Roll of Six                 .1667            .1667

Blue Die        30X              60X

P Value=                            .73                 .64

Die Roll of One                .0677           .1833

Die Roll of Two                .1667           .1000

Die Roll of Three            .2000           .1667

Die Roll of Four              .1000            .1667

Die Roll of Five               .2333            .2333

Die Roll of Six                 .2333            .1500

White Die          30X                60X

P Value=                            .49                 .82

Die Roll of One                .0667           .1500

Die Roll of Two                .1667           .1333

Die Roll of Three            .2000           .1667

Die Roll of Four              .1000            .1667

Die Roll of Five               .2333            .1500

Die Roll of Six                 .1667            .1500

Conclusion

This is a long way from being my field, but based on these number, I would say it shows that if I wanted the chance to roll the greatest number of five’s and sixes, I should choose the Loose Blue Die and the Loose White Die. They are exactly tied for that. Both of these dice threw a low number of “one’s” intially but even when they threw out more one’s ….. it was at the expense of the 2′s, 3′s, and 4′s….not the 5′s and 6′s which stayed exactly the same!

The Circus Maximus Die wins the ignominy of rolling the most 1′s consistently. It is relatively average otherwise. No army with elephants, Artillery or War Wagons should pick up a Circus Maximus Brown Die lol.

The Blue Max Die has a fat middle bell curve, with low 1′s and 2′s relatively. A good hedge your bet kind of die for DBA

It should be noted that all of my dice are fairly standard decent looking manufacturer. None of them would be considered promotional dice, or themed dice. I am now highly suspect of any dice with custom graphics on it. If sharp edge dice do offer the closest .1667 consistency as I suspect, than all the fun I was going to have coming up with themed dice would likely come at the expense of a fair and equitable game!

Do I think tournaments should all start using GameScience dice only? Probably. Good luck implementing that!

Will I still look into using my Phokia Me and Phokia You dice for friendly non-competition games? You bet!

Musashi

August 1, 2010 | Categories: Wargames | 4 Comments »

Dedicated DBA Dice?

I was reading an article on Fanaticus.org this morning on the subject of dice etiquette. It seems there can sometimes be some strife with people changing out dice during a game frequently to change their luck. It’s a fun thread  so if you want to read it later it’s here:

http://www.fanaticus.org/discussion/showthread.php?p=106312#post106312

After reading that thread, and with too much time on my hands on a Sunday morning, I gave some thought to my own dicing habits.

At our recent DBA Game Day in Avon Park, I used a glass Queenline honey jar with a small white die in it. This seemed logical since I run a beekeeping business. The die made a nice, “the Gods are really making this roll random” sound to it. Very satisfying. The problem was the die was too small to be seen clearly through the glass due to the fact the glass is not completely translucent and my die was white and too small to be read easily.

So the size, shape and color of the die and relief pips are as important considerations as the vessel utilized to put it into play.

Instead of having dice that are themed to myself, Tony Aguilar (His blog is linked on my blogroll), has dice, themed to the Army he is fielding. He has Kanji dice for his Asian armies, for instance, which I congratulate him on for realizing the superiority of Japanese everything (my emphasis . He uses Roman Numerals when playing with Roman armies as another example he has cited. Needless to say, this sort of themed genius struck a chord and the Musashi Mashed Potato(e) Mind was put to work.

I decided that my soon to be painted Phokian army needed its own dice. So, I thought wouldn’t it be cool if you could order your own custom dice. I prefer Casino style dice, which are called “Floating face dice” type. I suppose you could just fashion some yourself but once you start drilling or engraving into dice yourself, you make a lot of people nervous I did some internet searching and came up with this:

Custom Imprinted Casino Style Dice
These economical dice feature smoothed edges and a translucent red casino look. They are available in 5/8″, 3/4″, and jumbo 1″ sizes, with or without spots. The minimum order is 250 pair for 1″ dice and 500 pair for 3/4″ and 5/8″ dice.

Size     Quantity Pricing per Die
500     1,000     2,500     5,000     10,000
5/8″ (#1102)           $1.02     $0.90     $0.85     $0.72
3/4″ (#1103)           $1.25     $0.99     $0.89     $0.79
1″ (#1104)                $1.60     $1.35     $1.25     $1.15     $1.05
*Prices are for each die, not pairs

I had previously come up with the idea to make my own imprinted T-Shirt for my Phokian Army for the University of Phokia (Phokia U). Continuing with my phonetic paronomasia,  my idea this morning is to have a die made for my Phokian Army that were just like these red ones, but the ONE pip would be imprinted with PHOKIA ME and the SIX would be imprinted with PHOKIA YOU. I find this incredibly amusing.

It’s hard to read the pricing above since the table didn’t come over in the copy and paste but I will translate. There is a minimum order of 100 PAIR. That is 200 total die(s). Can you imagine? I’d wind up with 200 PHOKIA ME and PHOKIA YOU dice? lol Well, it’s lol, until my wife, Yukiko, finds out that I spent $320.00 dollars! The standard Casino dice are 3/4 inches and that also my preferred size. So, if I go down to that size, 200 of these Phokian Themed Dice would run me $250.00! Getting better, but about $249.99 more than she will think makes any sense.

I welcome any rationale  anyone can give me that I can give to her that will justify this much desired purchase!

Of course I may find myself with having to utilize existing dice. I own a good number of vintage board games. It occurred to me that many of these games have weird\odd\unique dice in them. Now, having priced dice myself, suddenly more sympathetic to board game manufacturers who go through the trouble of inserting dice custom made to their game!

I’m currently painting a Skythian Army and I thought just a die with a horse imprinted on it would be cool. So, the hunt is on for a horse racing dice game which can supply me with that. Ebay is your friend. My fellow soldiers, here are pics of just a few:

There are TONS of horse racing games out there. If you’ve never checked, trust me, TONS! This is quite wonderful I think, as my wife and I love to go play the ponies at Tampa Bay Downs when the season is in.  So far, every time we’ve gone I’ve not lost any money and have made enough to pay for our burgers and croissant. Yes, I said croissant! But that’s another story.

Another source of fun dice for your DBA gaming are collectors. Yes, my Soldier, there are people who collect any and all dice! Some people are into numbers. There are even dice groups organized around this. (http://www.dicecollector.com, and http://www.dicecollector.com/DICELINKS.HTML )Here are a few of the people interested in numbers seemingly:

Some people collect unusual dice, out of production dice, usually from vintage board games. I’m not sure how the board gamers out there feel about people snatching their dice from these games, but for your Dedicated DBA Dice needs, these are the people to go to! Here is a picture of one gents collection just to give you an idea. For the record, I wouldn’t recommend you actually use dice just like this. It might start a DBA Shouting match:

There are other game groups trying to pool resources. The Miniatures Page has a link about this effort too here http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=122708. After reading that thread I became a bit more hopeful us DBA gamers can execute fun themed dice for our armies.  One maker of dice who covers the challenges of ordering small numbers of custom dice is Crystal Caste Custom Dice.

Another manufacturer listed on the TMP link is a company we’re probably all familiar with.  Check out their website if you’re getting serious about your own custom DBA Dice:

Whew….Ok, So after all of that. Guess what? You’re unlucky dice might be EXACTLY that. Fun Themes might be good for some giggles, but are the dice you’re using REALLY random?

Check out this link for an eye-opener: http://www.d20source.com/2010/06/most-six-sided-dice-biased-by-75

I will excerpt the important sections here for you:

Most Six-Sided Dice Biased by 75%

posted Wednesday, June 23rd 2010 by Jonathan Drain
News, Reviews & Culture

The myth is true: Warhammer six-sided dice roll 1s more often. That’s the conclusion of an American engineering professor who rolled dice 144,000 times and dissected them using a hydrogen-cooled diamond saw.

The experiment tested Games Workshop dice, Chessex dice, and precision casino dice. The GW and Chessex d6s rolled a ‘one’ 29% of the time, when the average should be one in six or 16.6%. That makes the dice almost 75% more likely to roll a ‘one’, giving your rogue a crappy damage roll or your Warhammer unit a pass on a leadership test. The casino dice were spot on at 16.6%.

The best theory is that rounded edges cause dice to keep rolling longer. Gravity paradoxically favours the heaviest side at the top, since gravity causes dice to stop rolling:

Game room logic, poor source of anything, would dictate that the side with the one is heavier and would therefore be on the bottom more. Unfortunately this is just not true, take popcorn or batholiths as an example. The 6 is too light to stop the momentum of the dice, the rounded corners cannot prevent the dice from turning due to the weight. In the end 1s are by far the most common result.

Dice inventor Lou Zocchi has a similar theory.

and one comment from that article:

1. Sian

   June 23rd, 2010

   Not a new article (it’s been kicking around since 08) but it’s good to bring up now and again,and lends subjective evidence for the ‘lucky/unlucky dice’ that everyone has.

   Personally, any future dice purchases of mine will be Gamescience. Lou knows his stuff, and what would you rather have, pretty dice, or dice that actually do their jobs? Dice with a bias (one way or the other) kind of wreck the whole reason for using dice in the first place.

Now some people think that since this data was never allowed to be reviewed it is some plant by the Casino companies to validate their dice and the true random nature therefore inherent in gambling dice.

I normally like conspiracy theories, but still, what about our fun DBA Themed dice? I still want some! Finally I found a solution. Use whatever dice you like, but you should a sample test to validate the dice you’re using. Maybe throwing your “bad dice” across the room wasn’t so crazy after all!

Here is the way to do it from another blog site:

http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2009/02/testing-balanced-die.html

I encourage you to read the whole thing. Lord knows, I can’t do all those match equations, but here is the main paragraph about it:

Testing a d6: Let’s say you’ve got a d6. Roll it 30 times. Keep a tally of how many times each face comes up, from 1 to 6. (Note that we expect the number of appearances from each face to be about 5; 30/6 = 5). At the end, go through the counts and subtract 5 from each, square them all, and then add them all up. For a fair die, the total at the end should be no more than 55.

According to the blog there, testing 30 throws will result in a 5% error rate, where a good die might read as good and a bad die might read as good. 5% isn’t bad, but I may roll more times to see if the result changes much. 30 rolls would just be the minimum sample size needed apparantly.

The next thing I will test for is the type of “rolling” that is done. I will test with a dice cup and just rolling it on a table and maybe in my Queenline Honey jar to see if the numbers look different. This might take awhile but I will blog about it as soon as I have the data.

So there is my answer! I will find some custom dice that theme properly with my armies and then test them to make sure that they are truly random!

Musashi

August 1, 2010 | Categories: Wargames | 4 Comments »