I played in the System Open yesterday, and aside from the highlight of talking with Dee Yun again, meeting his super-nice kid, and getting curb-stomped by the Greedy Dragon himself, it was a remarkably miserable day.

I flew a list that would have been very strong a year or more ago, but is janky by today's standards: Thweek, Fenn, Manaroo. I flew it 75% because I typically enjoy flying it (although it had previously been with Talonbane, because I hadn't yet gotten Fenn painted; I haven't flown Fenn since playtesting the Protectorate), and 25% because I love the matching custom paint jobs.

I was not expecting to do well. I was really, really hoping to have fun. My flying ranged from "well below average" to "actually pretty good," trending toward the latter.

My first opponent was Dee, playing Lowhhrick, Miranda, Fenn. I was too aggressive with focused Fenn, diving him into R1 of Lowhhrick and Miranda. Miranda did 2 damage, after I rolled Focus-Blank-Blank-Blank, then Lowhhrick did two damage after I rolled Evade-Blank-Blank-Blank. In the next round, Miranda did 4 damage to Thweek with a perfect 5-die Harpoon after I rolled Focus-Blank-Blank. Then Lowhhrick killed Thweek at R3-obstructed after I rolled Focus-Blank-Blank-Blank-Blank.

My Fenn's attack, BTW, rolled Focus-Blank-Blank-Blank-Blank.

If you're sensing a theme ("Hey, Jeff, that is a lot of blanks!"), then yeah ... that was the theme of the day. But, believe me, it gets worse.

In four games, I attacked with Fenn at R1 six times. On three attacks, I rolled zero hits. On three attacks, I rolled 1 hit. 30 attack dice, 3 rolled hits.

In my second game, I played a fairly inexperienced player with Dash and Intensity Poe, and barely eked out a win. The [blanking] Blanking continued.

In my third game, to avoid elimination, I played a super-great local player I practice against all the time. He was playing Plot Armor. I flew really well, and we both had decent dice. His list is stronger and he has had a lot of practice with it. But I got the win, and (oh, Jeff, you so foolish ... ) thought the curse was over.

In my fourth game, I played Brandon Carey. I pushed Manaroo at his alpha strike Rebels, waiting to pounce with Fenn and Thweek, popped Countermeasures (shedding Cracken's TL), and these are my defense rolls in the game. (Every single defense roll was focused, BTW.)

• Cracken to Manaroo: Evade-Focus-Blank. Keep the focus, take 1 damage.
• Nym to Manaroo: Blank-Blank-Blank. Take 4 damage, Harpooned.
• Wedge to Manaroo: Blank-Blank. Take 2, including a crit, so take another 1.
• Wedge to Manaroo (somehow only does 1 hit at R1): Blank. Manaroo explodes.
• Nym to Fenn with Harpoon: Blank-Blank-Blank. Fenn explodes.

I conceded at that point.

Sometimes you simply have no chance. If anybody doubts this happened, BTW, that's why I named witnesses. I know it's remarkable -- even for me, it's remarkable -- but it happened, and it was just ... unbelievably frustrating. Not the losing -- I was hoping for .500 at best, given my squadron and the zero practice with it, and I got that -- but just the utter lack of an actual game. It's so dispiriting.

Huh, you were banking on green dice to come through with even average results?

You really didn't have a chance

5 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Huh, you were banking on green dice to come through with even average results?

I would have been fine with below average results. It wasn't "below average" that killed me. It was "nothing but blanks."

(Oh, and it also wasn't just green dice.)

That’s outrageously unfortunate! Thanks for sharing, though - always good for perspective. I’ve never had anything nearly this hard on variance...

2 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I was too aggressive with focused Fenn, diving him into R1 of Lowhhrick and Miranda. Miranda did 2 damage, after I rolled Focus-Blank-Blank, then Lowhhrick did two damage after I rolled Evade-Blank-Blank. In the next round, Miranda did 4 damage to Thweek with a perfect 5-die Harpoon after I rolled Focus-Blank-Blank. Then Lowhhrick killed Thweek at R3-obstructed after I rolled Focus-Blank-Blank-Blank-Blank.

Dice are so horrible sometimes. For a tournament with 5-6 rounds, I fully expect 1 game to be a loss from dice. It's always either my red dice or the opponents green dice sealing my fate. I actually have no complaints with my green dice. With a high variance list like Fenn + Thweek, all bets are off.

If Fenn is at R1 of Lowhhrick & Miranda, why isn't he rolling 4 dice & adding the evade from the title? Also, I have flown Thweek since he came out. He should NEVER be taking a harpoon from Miranda. Thweek can only tank a 4-attack missile if it's range 3 through a rock & he has his focus token. If done right, Thweek should only take 1 shot from Lowhhrick. After that, bendy barrel rolls mean Lowhy never sees Thweek again.

I hope your dice pain slowly fades and eventually becomes a bearable dull ache. The best thing about 2.0 is not the new things for the game, but what it removes. Now everyone will equally experience the joy of rolling natural dice. No more: Expertise, Pocus, Lone Wolf, Fire-Control (old version), & of course Maul + Ezra.

3 minutes ago, Dengar5 said:

If Fenn is at R1 of Lowhhrick & Miranda, why isn't he rolling 4 dice & adding the evade from the title?

Sorry, he did. (No evade versus Miranda, due to not being in-arc. Just Autothrusters.) Just didn't do cut-paste enough. (They were Blank. Again, any doubters please ask Dee!)

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Also, I have flown Thweek since he came out. He should NEVER be taking a harpoon from Miranda.

This was simply me blowing it. I just forgot Miranda had the Harpoon; had TLT on the brain.

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If done right, Thweek should only take 1 shot from Lowhhrick. After that, bendy barrel rolls mean Lowhy never sees Thweek again.

Correct. Unfortunately, Lowhhrick's first shot killed Thweek, obstructed, R3, with focus.

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Now everyone will equally experience the joy of rolling natural dice. No more: Expertise, Pocus, Lone Wolf, Fire-Control (old version), & of course Maul + Ezra.

Yeah, that's the compounding misery of blanking out. The incoming offense is so overwhelming, one or two blank-outs simply decides the game.

I can vouch for @Jeff Wilder horrible dice in the game with Brandon. I talked with Brandon and he said his game with Jeff was probably the worse green dice he had ever seen.

Tough luck Jeff. Sometimes its just not your day. Another list with scout,fenn,cobra list went 5-1? I think. He was 4-0 playing Darryl, not sure if he won his last game.

Brightside. 2nd Ed. not far away!

10 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I played in the System Open yesterday, and aside from the highlight of talking with Dee Yun again, meeting his super-nice kid, and getting curb-stomped by the Greedy Dragon himself, it was a remarkably miserable day.

I flew a list that would have been very strong a year or more ago, but is janky by today's standards: Thweek, Fenn, Manaroo. I flew it 75% because I typically enjoy flying it (although it had previously been with Talonbane, because I hadn't yet gotten Fenn painted; I haven't flown Fenn since playtesting the Protectorate), and 25% because I love the matching custom paint jobs.

I was not expecting to do well. I was really, really hoping to have fun. My flying ranged from "well below average" to "actually pretty good," trending toward the latter.

My first opponent was Dee, playing Lowhhrick, Miranda, Fenn. I was too aggressive with focused Fenn, diving him into R1 of Lowhhrick and Miranda. Miranda did 2 damage, after I rolled Focus-Blank-Blank-Blank, then Lowhhrick did two damage after I rolled Evade-Blank-Blank-Blank. In the next round, Miranda did 4 damage to Thweek with a perfect 5-die Harpoon after I rolled Focus-Blank-Blank. Then Lowhhrick killed Thweek at R3-obstructed after I rolled Focus-Blank-Blank-Blank-Blank.

My Fenn's attack, BTW, rolled Focus-Blank-Blank-Blank-Blank.

If you're sensing a theme ("Hey, Jeff, that is a lot of blanks!"), then yeah ... that was the theme of the day. But, believe me, it gets worse.

In four games, I attacked with Fenn at R1 six times. On three attacks, I rolled zero hits. On three attacks, I rolled 1 hit. 30 attack dice, 3 rolled hits.

In my second game, I played a fairly inexperienced player with Dash and Intensity Poe, and barely eked out a win. The [blanking] Blanking continued.

In my third game, to avoid elimination, I played a super-great local player I practice against all the time. He was playing Plot Armor. I flew really well, and we both had decent dice. His list is stronger and he has had a lot of practice with it. But I got the win, and (oh, Jeff, you so foolish ... ) thought the curse was over.

In my fourth game, I played Brandon Carey. I pushed Manaroo at his alpha strike Rebels, waiting to pounce with Fenn and Thweek, popped Countermeasures (shedding Cracken's TL), and these are my defense rolls in the game. (Every single defense roll was focused, BTW.)

• Cracken to Manaroo: Evade-Focus-Blank. Keep the focus, take 1 damage.
• Nym to Manaroo: Blank-Blank-Blank. Take 4 damage, Harpooned.
• Wedge to Manaroo: Blank-Blank. Take 2, including a crit, so take another 1.
• Wedge to Manaroo (somehow only does 1 hit at R1): Blank. Manaroo explodes.
• Nym to Fenn with Harpoon: Blank-Blank-Blank. Fenn explodes.

I conceded at that point.

Sometimes you simply have no chance. If anybody doubts this happened, BTW, that's why I named witnesses. I know it's remarkable -- even for me, it's remarkable -- but it happened, and it was just ... unbelievably frustrating. Not the losing -- I was hoping for .500 at best, given my squadron and the zero practice with it, and I got that -- but just the utter lack of an actual game. It's so dispiriting.

That sounds like it sucked but congratulations for sticking things out anyway. Don't worry, you'll make it all back some day...

10 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I would have been fine with below average results. It wasn't "below average" that killed me. It was "nothing but blanks."

I hear some aces (of Legend) can get 2-3 evades out of blank dice!

I try to make a point of never blaming my dice. Whilst it's sometimes true that if I had rolled better I would have won, it's likely also true that if I played better I would have won. I can't change how the dice go, but I can change how I play.

But this? Man blame those dice. They kicked your feet from under you and stabbed you in the back. Buy a new set and burn the old ones in front of them to scare them into treating you right.

Man, sorry to hear that.

You must have some luck banked somewhere after that tournament

Yeah my last game was like that even with tl and focus I couldn't roll more than one hit and my mate was never getting less than three.

Just dice based games for you, sometime the dice just screw you.

Look at it this way: you've used up like a lifetimes worth of bad luck on those dice. It should all be smooth sailing from here on out!

OP be like:

’BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK..,’

Shooting that many blanks, you should go see a doctor.

Try this next time.

I have 12 of each die. Before each match I roll them all. I take the 6 dice with the best 6 results from the reds and the greens and put them back in my case. Then I use the ones that rolled blanks/focus for the actual match. I figure those have gotten their bad results out of the way and are due to be good after that.*

*I have a statistics background so of course this is non-sense but hey, superstitions, right? And then there was the time I rolled something like 4 crits, 7 hits and a focus out of my 12 dice pre-roll. I lost that match - badly.

A friend asked me this weekend what the odds were of a Risk scenario where 2 defenders beat 30 attackers. This actually happened.

The odds were 37 million to one.

Beat that!

It really sucks to get so unlucky on a day where you really don‘t want it.

On the plus side though, chances are that you experienced the opposite or at least something towards the other end of the spectrum. We‘re just way more likely to remember those instances of horrible luck.

A wise man once said

https://imgflip.com/i/2b7mg9

Sounds like those green dice had a vasectomy.

11 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

On the plus side though, chances are that you experienced the opposite or at least something towards the other end of the spectrum. We‘re just way more likely to remember those instances of horrible luck.

At this point, I don't actually remember (or remark upon) merely "horrible" luck. It takes "astoundingly horrible" luck for me to remember it.

Because it has happened for me so much more rarely -- so far; luck exists, but only in retrospect! -- I actually remember every game in which my good luck is more than a SD away from the norm. (I've also mentioned those instances here, such as the time I won a Store Champ by beating a mirror RAC-QD, when his RAC had Kylo and mine didn't. That was remarkably fortunate ... that's at least a 90/10 against me, and worse in that case because my opponent was the superior Decimator driver.)

12 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

A friend asked me this weekend what the odds were of a Risk scenario where 2 defenders beat 30 attackers. This actually happened.

The odds were 37 million to one.

Beat that!

That literally happened in a game of Risk I was playing a couple months ago

Just now, Kieransi said:

That literally happened in a game of Risk I was playing a couple months ago

Are you his friend? ?

This was a game 10+ years ago, so, no.

2 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

That literally happened in a game of Risk I was playing a couple months ago

How many on each side? I can trivially calculate the odds now. ?

Just now, player2072913 said:

Are you his friend? ?

No, it was my brother, my dad, myself, and a few of my brother's high-school friends. My dad lost his whole army trying to take Siberia and take over all of Asia.

That kind of stuff is why I hate Risk.

Just now, MajorJuggler said:

How many on each side? I can trivially calculate the odds now. ?

I think it was slightly different than your scenario. If I recall correctly, it was like 25 or so attackers and 2 defenders, with the attackers withdrawing once there were only two of them.

Either way, Risk is a super frustrating game.