Monday, June 26, 2017

8th Edition Command Dice - Thoughts

I decided to order a set of Games Workshop's "command dice" when I ordered my copy of the hard back 8th edition rule book.


These die are a bit of a novelty thing for me if I'm perfectly honest. In the picture above, I show them fresh out of the plastic cylinder tube (top of image) that they came in. The skulls on the die in the middle of the image make it tough to see or discern the actual number being rolled in my opinion. For die, it would have been better to just use pips or a single number in a recognisable font. 

That said, the express purpose of these die is to keep track of the command points that one has in their pool. It is for this purpose that I'm going to give them a pass mark. The thing is, these die are very obviously different to any other die in anyone's collection. As such, they are hugely distinct. This is fundamentally what makes them perfect for this kind of "keeping tabs" usage. I will personally be using them in this manner. Most assuredly, I will never be using them for rolling purposes. 

The final six die (lower part of the image) are for combat statuses. They make it simpler to keep track of various things that are going on during the game and the phases that happen. I am uncertain if I will actually use these particular die. I'm a bit on the fence about them. Take, for instance, the ones that show footprints inside an arrow. The design is precisely the same as the plastic counters / markers that came out with 5th edition. I never even used the full array of counters -- particularly the run ones! Hence, my feelings about these 6 die are exactly the same that I had in 5th edition. Just a bit of a gimmick really. 

Hence, overall, I'll be using some of these die, but not all of them. Would be interested to hear other people's point of view in the comments or via Facebook


2 comments:

WestRider said...

I got them as well, since I just grabbed the Gamer's Bundle that GW offered in their pre-orders. It seems to me like it would have been better to reverse the ratio, since I can't imagine playing a Game large enough to need more than a couple of the Command Point Trackers, while an MSU force might well have more than 6 Units in need of marking some special status.

I'm also kind of unclear as to the point of the Drop Pod one. I can see some use for the others: marking Units that have fired this phase (1), that Fell Back, and so can't shoot/charge (3), that Advanced (4), that are benefiting from Cover (5), or that Charged, and so need to fight first (6). But I can't figure out what I might want to use the (2) for.

jabberjabber said...

I was wondering about (2) myself the other day. I ended up thinking it might have derived from an earlier iteration of the rules wherein there might have been some restriction following a deep strike or similar. Perhaps.

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