Nice idea with the templates. I've often thought about a magnetic solution for additional precision, but it would take waaay to much work to implement, and might not work as intended anyways. My thought was that you could install a pair of magnets at the edge of each template, flush with the edge. Then repeat on the bases themselves.

Then, while moving, you firmly place you hand on your base, bring the template to the front, it will fully seat. At this point, you firmly place your hand on the template, remove the base, and move it to the front, where it will firmly place onto the template. This would lead to a lack of "wiggle" room in the template/base interaction.

And if you do it right, you could end up attaching the 3 straight and 2 straight onto the ends of the 1 turn (or anything else) to extend for those pesky bumps. For example, if the top right was always facing North on the template, and the top left was always facing South (and therefore the bottom left = N, bottom right = S) you should be able to have them attract to each other as well as the correct side of the base.

+1 on the precision templates, amazing!

very nice! wish I had a set of those.

wish sth like that would be mandatory, as it leads both to more precision and less arguing -> flying most casually

Anyone do the math on those dice results? I'm getting that all of the dice are biased.

Anyone do the math on those dice results? I'm getting that all of the dice are biased.

For any given face on the die, the mean number of times it should come up in 1000 trials is 125 with a standard deviation of about 10.5. So most faces on the ffg dice are within 1 deviation of the mean, all are within two deviations. So the ffg dice aren't too bad. The Sagaborne dice are much worse, but you'd need to test multiple dice to be certain

Anyone do the math on those dice results? I'm getting that all of the dice are biased.

For any given face on the die, the mean number of times it should come up in 1000 trials is 125 with a standard deviation of about 10.5. So most faces on the ffg dice are within 1 deviation of the mean, all are within two deviations. So the ffg dice aren't too bad. The Sagaborne dice are much worse, but you'd need to test multiple dice to be certain

Sounds like I'm going to have to repeat the process with the Nerd-X dice I just got (which are GORGEOUS) as well as re-do with the Sagaborn 19mm ones, and some more control FFG dice.

I think the Dice Tower is still a good randomizer, does anyone know of any way to mark the faces of the dice so that I can rub off the markings later (and also easy to read?) The stickers seem alright but I could see them messing with balance, arguably. Maybe different colored circle dots? Or a sharpie of some sort that can be cleaned up later?

I do have a friend that works in the Casinos around Blackhawk, CO, and he took in some of the Nerd-X dice and hit them with a caliper and weighed each. They are near perfect on all sides when measured against each other and weighted very well against each other (I don't know how close this means they are, but he was VERY impressed with their consistency in dimensions and weight). They do these tests on ALL casino dice that come in the door. I'll have to get his results, he did a full set of 6 attacks and 6 defense dice.

What are the arguments for and against pooling results (crit hit eye blank) versus individual faces?

I ask because while the die may not be balanced for all 8 faces, it may be functionally giving expected results.

What are the arguments for and against pooling results (crit hit eye blank) versus individual faces?

I ask because while the die may not be balanced for all 8 faces, it may be functionally giving expected results.

I would guess the For Pooling crowd would say you can test a lot more dice quicker, with arguably better "average" results. Roll 6 attack dice and count results.

The individual dice can separate out a singular die anomaly, which can be the single reason your 6 dice look like they are all hot when in fact you have 1 die that is hot and the rest are perfectly average. Label each face and count faces, not end hit/crit/miss/focus results. Testing individual dice is also a hell of a lot more time consuming.

I will say that magnetic mats do not quite help as much as one might think- they often interfere with getting a ship put into place correctly on the end of a movement template because the magnetic force doesn't apply perfectly downward.