So I was inspired to look at which die is the best to add to an attack pool, to optimize attacks.

It turns out the winner is the blue die, up to 4 blue dice, with the runner up as the red dice, again up to 4 dice. Once there are 4 blue dice, black dice become the most valuable.

Now you may be asking how did I determine this?

Simple, I looked at the post-Brace expected damage and the probability of rolling at least one accuracy symbol.

Then I did an iterative assessment between blue and black dice:

6 blue : 4.1 damage

5 blue, 1black : 4.19 damage

4, 2: 4.21 damage

3,3: 4.14 damage

2,4: 3.95 damage

1,5: 3.59 damage

0,6: 3 damage

So, this comes to a somewhat simple rule, assuming you are targeting a ship with one brace token:

Maximize the number of blue dice up to 4. If not blue dice are available, maximize up to 4 red dice, then add blacks.

I just did a quick check, and this holds true even if there are already red dice in the attack pool.

Note the damage increase is small between 3 and 4 blue dice.

lol, wrong game... coulda sworn this was imperial assault forum....

It's more accurate to say that Blue is the more reliable die. However, there are many instances where you would prefer the other dice.

Lot of upgrade cards benefit from Black or Red dice. Screed would be very inefficient if your build is all about maximizing your blue rolls.

Sometimes you need to take a gamble and unleash your Black or Red dice to outright destroy or cripple a ship with a timely critical hit. Ships are constantly moving every round and opportunities to close in and take one down with a good, solid hit are limited.

Also, the accuracy results on the Blue dice could well be blanks if the enemy ship has redundant defense tokens such as those in the VSD, CR90 & Neb-B.

I think game state is a more reliable indicator of the "best dice" you should use.

I disagree.

You have to get the average amount of damage, and also knowing the range of damage (2 red dice =2-6 damage, 2 blue=0-4 damage. 2 Red has an avg of 4.33 damage but 2 blue has an Avg 2.33 damage.)

Once there is 4 dice, the opponent will want to use the white die to try to cancel all the damage (You can get the value of the white die by taking the normal blocks and adding them to x (which equals to either the average or you can do min and max for all potential block, then divide the result by 6 to get the average).

I think you have the wrong game.

Yeah I saw the comment about the white dice and thought... Umm no??? Unless you're playing IA.

So a few notes...

1 - You have to separate the potential ship states to figure out what the best spread of dice will be. A ship with an unexhausted token, vs. an exhausted token (where we have to assume some probability function for when the token will be perma-burned, probably increasing with the amount of damage to a ship) vs. no tokens.

Or, in short, it may very well be the case that a blue die is better for the first shot but a black die is better for the last shot.

2 - We also need to know more about the context. Does the ship have upgrades we should factor in (for instance, X17s, ACM, or Screed), as that can change the expected value of any given die.

3 - How tough is the ship we are firing at? In addition to brace, are there results that would allow us to kill the ship entirely with a single shot, and how much remaining firepower do we have in the round? As in, if adding a black die lowers your expected outcome on average but increases the probability of actually destroying the ship (as a double hit might be the push you need to have a chance of a total kill), I am not sure this is an inferior result.

While I agree that blue dice are underrated, I'm not certain the analysis here is complete without a greater understanding of the game state. As a rule of thumb, I would agree with add a blue, but this will fail to proudce the best outcome in a significant number of game states.

It's more accurate to say that Blue is the more reliable die. However, there are many instances where you would prefer the other dice.

Lot of upgrade cards benefit from Black or Red dice. Screed would be very inefficient if your build is all about maximizing your blue rolls.

Sometimes you need to take a gamble and unleash your Black or Red dice to outright destroy or cripple a ship with a timely critical hit. Ships are constantly moving every round and opportunities to close in and take one down with a good, solid hit are limited.

Also, the accuracy results on the Blue dice could well be blanks if the enemy ship has redundant defense tokens such as those in the VSD, CR90 & Neb-B.

I think game state is a more reliable indicator of the "best dice" you should use.

The only brace token allows damage reduction. If there is no brace, or there is a way for the opponent to use the brace (e.g. ECM), you do need to adjust the strategy, and use black dice if available.

And, the really neat part of the analysis is for the CF command.

Let's say you have an AF2 at close range in the front arc of the Dominator VSD-1 with a CF command. You use the Dominator title to roll 3 red, 2 blue, 3 black (incidentally, this is the same as the spoils ISD). Do you add a Red, Blue , or Black die?

The expected base damage is 6.75. Taking into account the 62% probability of an accuracy token, the overall expected damage is 5.48.

Now, if you add a black die for moar damage, the expects base damage rises to 7.75. Awesome, right? The expected brace adjusted damage is 6.29.

However, if you instead add a blue die, the expected damage is only 7.5. But the probability of an accuracy result rises to 72%. This gives a brace adjusts damage of 6.44.

Now while the increase in damage is relatively small (.13), it can make all the difference, as the actual damage is a binary value dependent on the appearance of the accuracy token: you either do 7-8 damage (crippling) or 4 damage (soaked by shields)

I disagree.

You have to get the average amount of damage, and also knowing the range of damage (2 red dice =2-6 damage, 2 blue=0-4 damage. 2 Red has an avg of 4.33 damage but 2 blue has an Avg 2.33 damage.)

Once there is 4 dice, the opponent will want to use the white die to try to cancel all the damage (You can get the value of the white die by taking the normal blocks and adding them to x (which equals to either the average or you can do min and max for all potential block, then divide the result by 6 to get the average).

I think you have the wrong game. We are talking Star Wars Armada not Star Wars Imperial Assault

Red has 0.75 avarge dmg, 1 acc 2 blanks.

Blue has 0.75 dmg, 2acc no NO BLANKS thats why its so good, it alwayes has some effect. On avarge 4 blue will do 2 hits 1 crit 1 accuracy, block brace and deal 3 dmg.

Black has 1.0 dmg avarge NO ACC and 2 blanks. On avarge you do 2 hits 1hit/crit 1 blank. After brace its 2 dmg.

I disagree.

You have to get the average amount of damage, and also knowing the range of damage (2 red dice =2-6 damage, 2 blue=0-4 damage. 2 Red has an avg of 4.33 damage but 2 blue has an Avg 2.33 damage.)

Once there is 4 dice, the opponent will want to use the white die to try to cancel all the damage (You can get the value of the white die by taking the normal blocks and adding them to x (which equals to either the average or you can do min and max for all potential block, then divide the result by 6 to get the average).

I think you have the wrong game. We are talking Star Wars Armada not Star Wars Imperial Assault

Red has 0.75 avarge dmg, 1 acc 2 blanks.

Blue has 0.75 dmg, 2acc no NO BLANKS thats why its so good, it alwayes has some effect. On avarge 4 blue will do 2 hits 1 crit 1 accuracy, block brace and deal 3 dmg.

Black has 1.0 dmg avarge NO ACC and 2 blanks. On avarge you do 2 hits 1hit/crit 1 blank. After brace its 2 dmg.

Damage is not the only important thing here though. Getting through defense tokens, being the first or second attack, etc is also important.

This is why I love this game, there is no aspect of this game that is "better". This game requires context in every example.

Does the target have ECM's, are you using XI7 Turbolasers and does the target have Advanced Projectors? Are you using Assault Concussion Missiles? These are all questions worth answering and have to be taken into consideration.

The importance of upgrade cards is insignificant next to the power of the force, or my wife.

The importance of upgrade cards is insignificant next to the power of the force, or my wife.

Don't forget H9 Turbolasers. Now you have a guaranteed accuracy as long as you roll a hit.

Don't forget H9 Turbolasers. Now you have a guaranteed accuracy as long as you roll a hit.

My dice hate me no matter what colour they are.

Wil Weaton is blessed with good luck in my book.

My dice hate me no matter what colour they are.

Wil Weaton is blessed with good luck in my book.

There is no such things as bad luck, only bad dice.

(followed with the offending dice being thrown into a corner or stuffed into a box, never to see the light of day again)

Hey, these aren't some run of the mill d6 here.

The same dice roll quite alright for my opponent.

Hey, these aren't some run of the mill d6 here.

The same dice roll quite alright for my opponent.

Come now. It's not the dice that matter, it's how you use them!

Exactly what my opponnent says.

My dice hate me no matter what colour they are.

Wil Weaton is blessed with good luck in my book.

There is no such things as bad luck, only bad dice.

(followed with the offending dice being thrown into a corner or stuffed into a box, never to see the light of day again)

I played a game a few weeks ago where I kept rolling multiple hit/crit on my black dice each attack. I went through my opponent so fast she accused me of cheating. During this same match she kept rolling multiple blanks with red dice. She said I wasn't allowed to use black dice anymore because they were rigged.

There is no such things as bad luck, only bad dice.

(followed with the offending dice being thrown into a corner or stuffed into a box, never to see the light of day again)

One game store I heard of had a deal they offered for people with bad dice.

They had an acrylic cage, and hammer you could rent for $5, you'd use the hammer to smash your dice, ideally with the rest present to observe what happened to their brother/sister die. Rent also included a free die of your choice.

then they'd put the remains in a big jar which was on display to further intimidate other dice.

There is no such things as bad luck, only bad dice. (followed with the offending dice being thrown into a corner or stuffed into a box, never to see the light of day again)

One game store I heard of had a deal they offered for people with bad dice.They had an acrylic cage, and hammer you could rent for $5, you'd use the hammer to smash your dice, ideally with the rest present to observe what happened to their brother/sister die. Rent also included a free die of your choice.then they'd put the remains in a big jar which was on display to further intimidate other dice.

So I was inspired to look at which die is the best to add to an attack pool, to optimize attacks.

It turns out the winner is the blue die, up to 4 blue dice, with the runner up as the red dice, again up to 4 dice. Once there are 4 blue dice, black dice become the most valuable.

Now you may be asking how did I determine this?

Simple, I looked at the post-Brace expected damage and the probability of rolling at least one accuracy symbol.

Then I did an iterative assessment between blue and black dice:

6 blue : 4.1 damage

5 blue, 1black : 4.19 damage

4, 2: 4.21 damage

3,3: 4.14 damage

2,4: 3.95 damage

1,5: 3.59 damage

0,6: 3 damage

So, this comes to a somewhat simple rule, assuming you are targeting a ship with one brace token:

Maximize the number of blue dice up to 4. If not blue dice are available, maximize up to 4 red dice, then add blacks.

I just did a quick check, and this holds true even if there are already red dice in the attack pool.

Note the damage increase is small between 3 and 4 blue dice.

Well, then once you go black, they never shoot back.

Yeah, given that tokens available, range, and target priority vary wildly in this game, my initial opinion is that there is no best dice, although blue dice don't really have the weaknesses other dice do.

My thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of each die.

Black: Highest average damage, But shortest range. After wave 2, it will be the strongest die against non-unique fighter squadrons due to dependability.

Blue: Most reliable die thanks to medium range and no blank faces. Very strong when facing Unique Squadrons because they have fewer defense tokens. However, it lacks the explosive potential of the other dice, making it less effective if you are able to dictate the face that is rolled. In addition, their vaunted reliability is wasted on ships that are currently defenseless (And non-unique fighter squadrons).

Red: Longest range of the dice, but the least accurate (3/8 faces have no damage symbol compared to 2/8 on the other dice). However, having an accuracy symbol and a double hit face make being able to dictate the results of a red die stronger than that of other dice.

Honestly, the results of the dice matter less to me than what specialized crits matter to my fleet. If I'm running Dodonna's Pride, Blue dice are the best. If I'm running Assault Concussion Missiles, black is my best friend.

I'm really looking for a good "Red Crit" ability coming out in the next wave or two. The closest thing we have is the Salvation title.