To few dices in the box!

By Battleshark, in DOOM: The Board Game

Finally after years of content slicing, we reached a point were a FFG game comes with not enough content to play it propperly.

Dont believe me? Well, if you own a copy of DOOM I strongly suggest to open it and have a look at the Cyber Demon Invader-card and Event-cards granting additional attack dice.

Let me explain why FFG/Asmodee has gone to far with pressing every last Dollar out of us this time.

The game uses, much like Imperial Assault for instance, cards for the Demons. On those, there is a collor code in the lower right corner, telling you which and how many dice to use when attacking.

The game comes with 4 red and two black dice and with the latter, the problems are on.

If a Demon (not only the Cyber) uses two black dice for its attack and an Event-card or Argent power, or even both, grant additional black dice, you end up having not enough dice to make your roll.

Your only chance is to track the result of the two black dice somehow manually and reroll them untill you reach the amount needed for the attack.

One ends up a lot of times doing so and I can't shake the feeling that this is intended, to push us into the infamous and soon to be released DOOM Dice-pack.

But not this time. I will not longer bow to such methods and I appeal to all of you to stay strong as well. Only when we, the customers say no, they may eventually stop slicing content down to far.

This is no rant! I love the game. It is a fast paced tactical action Miniaturegame which is fun to play. But having not enough dice to make a roll at once is bad catering for customers and should not be rewarded!

Get creative. Make your own custom dice or use a D10/D20 to track damage. Regardless, stay away from the DOOM Dice-pack!

Edited by Battleshark

Yeah that's a major complaint I have as well. Fantasy Flight *loves* dice in their game design. It's a shame they don't give you more in the box. This one in particular is a big oversight, the game is pretty high cost in retail as is, how expensive would it have been to add a couple?

Even apart from the problem you outline, it's also just kind of annoying having to pass the dice all around the table as you progress through activations. It would have been really nice if they'd tossed in a few extras. Still, it's more of a nuisance than an actual problem, and overall I absolutely love the game.

Another way to get around the too-few black dice problem is to just roll a red die, and add 1 to its roll. The red and black dice have the same distributions of results, the numbers are just off by one "hit" (i.e. red dice: 1 "miss", 4 "1-hits", 1 "2-hit" and the black dice: 1 "1-hit", 4 "2-hits" and 1 "3-hit"). So just roll a red die, add 1 hit to the result, and boom - you've got a third black die to use.

Edited by Demax51

I guess when I'm getting 37 high quality plastic models (not to mention a full playable game built around those minis) for $80, as well as six nicely made custom d6, the fact that I *sometimes* have to track results and re-roll dice (For the record, *MAYBE* 2-3 times per game so far) just doesn't strike me as a real problem.

The very fact that I'd happily pay $90 for this game means I really don't mind shelling out a few bucks for some dice.

Maybe I'm just used to being abused by SOME major miniature manufacturers, but the value in this box (and most boxes from FFG) is absurd, and I'm beyond pleased with how FFG treats its consumers.

I mean, they don't include sleeves in the box either, and some (myself included) would argue that they are FAR more necessary than more dice, not to mention the required number of sleeve packs come in under $10 (and, frankly, you wind up with a bunch of unnecessary extras if you buy them in packs)

There are 3 Invader cards in one family that, conditionally, add 1 black die (when attacking the marine with the least damage). There are 3 Invader cards in another family that, conditionally, add 1 red die (when attacking a marine without cover). If you have one or both of those cards in your deck, and if you play a Cyberdemon, Mancubus or Baron of Hell (also Cacodemon in melee range) you might need a 3rd black die and/or 5th red die.

That's a lot of ifs in my opinion, and it's easy to just make a mental note and roll one die again. If nothing else I'm sure we'll see a dice pack at some point :P

I get around that problem by rolling the two red dice, swapping one unused red with the black result (or recording it should it land on three hits), and rolling the substituted black die again.

When you regularly play D&D and have to roll a small set of dice over and over again, you honestly stop caring about having 'less dice' than required learn to keep a small paper pad and a pen on hand, or y'know... your cell phone. Which has a calculator.

This is actually not new, FFG quite often includes just the minimum amount of dice necessary to roll by one person without special effects on (see also Battlelore 2nd ed, imperial assault...). I don't mind too much personally, I think it is enough to play the game and I don't find passing dice and noting results for rare special attacks so cumbersome.

In the case of doom I think it is actually quite easy to just get around the problem with normal dice, which you might have lying around or can buy cheaply and use in other contexts. Just roll one normal D6 for each die in the pool (both black and red). A result of 1 is 0 hits, a result of 6 is two hits, any other is one hit. Then add 1 hit for each black die in the pool (if you have d6 of two different colors it gets even easier :) ). And that's it, that is the number of hits. I think this game doesn't really need custom dice, apart from the aesthetic factor, they are more useful when results are complex as in games like imperial assault, but with simple numbered dice with such an easy distribution it is really not that essential. :)

On 5.1.2017 at 6:57 PM, Demax51 said:

Another way to get around the too-few black dice problem is to just roll a red die, and add 1 to its roll. The red and black dice have the same distributions of results, the numbers are just off by one "hit" (i.e. red dice: 1 "miss", 4 "1-hits", 1 "2-hit" and the black dice: 1 "1-hit", 4 "2-hits" and 1 "3-hit"). So just roll a red die, add 1 hit to the result, and boom - you've got a third black die to use.

I should to go back and double check, but I think the black dice is "3 minus red". There is one black "3" and red "0", three black "2" and red "1", two black "1" and red "2". Taking red +1 would then be slightly better with 2 pips on the dice as a whole, that's 11 on the black, and 7 on the red + 6 for 13.

I was trying to find the dice faces online so I could print them out and purchase indented dice. That is what a friend of mine did for the first doom the board game. I will be doing that when I get a chance for the first edition. I can't find the dice faces like I can for the other games. Which would be great if they did make a dice pack for this game. I am not buying a second copy to get extra dice.

Expansion that includes an apologetic set of dice would be nice.

A-freakin-men! This game's been out for like two years now and no dice pack and no expansions. What gives? They crank out an expansion for imperial assault with every other breath and I don't even see anything on the horizon for Doom. We played through the game as much as possible in about a month and now it sits on the shelf, collecting dust.

Also, the boards and chambers could stand to be a lot bigger. Especially for the missions that involve some of the larger models; like the cyberdemon and the mancubus.

I thought the game had gone out of print until I got an email showing that the gaming website I bought it from had gotten more copies in stock earlier this week. Maybe there will finally be an expansion in the works?

Not having enough dice to play the game introduces unnecessary complications in the game play. As consumers, we shouldn't have to buy two copies of the game just to have enough dice nor should we be forced to find a way to create more dice through third parties. So yes, I also would like to see at least a dice pack released along with some sort of expansion.

I always chock it up to ''component limitations'' similar to how argent power tokens and demon minis are treated. If you are already chucking two black dice then its a waste to use a card that adds one since there are no more black dice to be used. I feel like it keeps the game fair and makes players use their cards that add dice more strategically. I never bother with scoring and re-rolling for rolls involving more dice than included in the box. It just seems easier to say that a roll containing all the dice is the strongest roll your gonna get in the game. Perhaps this will be addressed in an expansion.... Cmon FFG, we really want those other demons and a death match scenario... Who wouldn't gobble up an expansion with a massive spider mastermind mini and extra tiles to use it?

Sorry, joining this conversation way late as I just got the game earlier this week. After running a game for practice last night I noticed that I only had one black die and only noticed when I played a reaction card from the deck that included two black dice. I just rolled the black die twice but that got me looking for a suitable replacement if I ever lose my one black die or need to buy additional dice. Does FFS sell generic d6 with these attack pt values on each side?

On 7/11/2018 at 10:36 AM, evilromero said:

Sorry, joining this conversation way late as I just got the game earlier this week. After running a game for practice last night I noticed that I only had one black die and only noticed when I played a reaction card from the deck that included two black dice. I just rolled the black die twice but that got me looking for a suitable replacement if I ever lose my one black die or need to buy additional dice. Does FFS sell generic d6 with these attack pt values on each side?

The game should include two black dice, if you purchased your copy with less than that in the box you might consider contacting FFG/Asmodee. They have fantastic customer service and will most likely send you a replacement. FFG does not currently offer these dice separately for sale.

On 7/15/2018 at 6:23 PM, mfluder said:

The game should include two black dice, if you purchased your copy with less than that in the box you might consider contacting FFG/Asmodee. They have fantastic customer service and will most likely send you a replacement. FFG does not currently offer these dice separately for sale.

That's good to know. Thanks. I usually never misplace things as I'm super meticulous with my stuff so I was possessed for several days, like Captain Ahab, searching every nook and cranny for the thing until I nearly met my own demise when cracked my head hard on our drum rack. I even ripped open our vacuum bag tearing out its guts, inspecting every fiber and clump. Luckily didn't get dragged to the bottom of the sea though. I might have to reach out to their customer service.