I don't usually announce this here, but this will be my 9th and final group order of the special Chessex dice custom made for Arkham Horror. If you are interested, please hop over to the BGG forums for more details. I am going to hold this open until about the middle of this month or until we have our minimum order.

Dice come in one of three colors: Green (normal), Blessed (blue) and Red (cursed). Only the successful sides have a marking and number. All other faces are blank to easily determine the results of the skill checks.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/11875881#11875881

…so if the other sides are blank, how do you tell when you've rolled a one for upkeep on Retainer, Blessing, Curse, etcetera?

+ "Skids" O'Toole School of Hard Knocks ability ( roll two bonus dice for each "1" he rolled)

But nice design

Wolfgar said:

The odds of having a 6 appearing are the same as having a 1, so you can roll a die and lose the Retainer etc on a '6'. Nonetheless, some "normal" dice can come in handy (a CotDP encounter at the Unvisited Isle instructs the investigator to roll 1D6; plus some combos of Skills + Blessings allow you to score successes even on a 3), even if it's rare. I'm using Brian's dice since the first wave (a lot of time ago): they are sound dice, greatly etched and of good facture, and 95% of my checks are rolled with these, apart from the few exceptions I still roll the "normal" dice in the core set

ColtsFan ~ Great to see you/hear from you out here…9th order…wow!

With regard to these dice, not having the numbers appear does not change anything. The opposite sides of any standard die totals '7' ~ there is nnot one card combination out there in which you can't figure out what you've rolled if you're using each of the types listed here ( Blessed , Normal , and Cursed ). Julia highlights one of the ways you can use a Cursed die…which coincidentally is the one I use for any of the Upkeep Phase related checks. I, too, have used these dice since late 2010, when I ran the 3rd or 4th iteration and we placed an order for nearly 700 dice…good times!

Nonimus said:

For Skids I think you would have to look under each failure to see if it was a six on the bottom or not.

I use these dice, too. They are fantastic! For Skids, and for the skill cards that involve rolling a 1, I simply use the dice that came with the base game.

Dice involving a reroll on a 1 can be substituted by Chessex blessed dice, where 4 is treated as 1. Easy squeezy. The only incompatibility is if the character is blessed. Then you have to use base game dice, because you're interested in four different results (1, 4, 5, 6)

Yep 9 orders averaging about a 1,000 dice an order. We should push well above 10K total dice this time around.

Yes, there are a few workarounds needed but since the dice give you the same odds, most can be worked out. Like others have said, if you need a 1/6 chance of something, just roll the cursed die and if the "6" comes up, you hit your 1 in 6 for better or worse. The Blessed dice have half the faces so very easy to just flip and see what you would have rolled using the "any 2 opposite sides add to 7 rule." However, for very specific needs, just keep a few standard 6-siders handy.

For the vast majority of rolls though, these dice work great. Nothing like the instant gratification or utter devastation of seeing the results with no mental math going on.

Been using these for years - highly recommended.

(I did get the green & bone FFG ones too, but much prefer using the Chessex ones)

Shub-Niggurath said:

Interesting to know. Initially I wanted to get the Chessex ones, then with the recent price increase the FFG ones seemed to become cost competitive. I'm still on the fence.

dwightsboardgame said:

Yeah, that is why I want to get as many people as possible on this order and help push the price back down. Plus it seems like a great time to step down so I want to make sure as many people get the chance as possible in case someone else doesn't come along to pick it up.

Just wanted to chime in to say that I use these dice and they are fantastic! A very beautiful addition to the game. Having to pick up the red dice when cursed (or getting to pick up the blue dice when blessed) has real impact on how it feels to initiate a roll.

And seeing a sea of blank dice faces after rolling for a critical result adds to the game's ability to sap my strength and sanity!

As for checking to see if a 1 was rolled for Skids: I experience the little bit of time it takes to physically pick up a die to turn it over to see if a 6 is on the bottom-facing side as just another moment to experience a little dread-tinged hope, which is always welcome in Arkham Horror.

I do have a green-numbered gray die that I use for Retainer checks and the like.

I don't know if we have anyone that is international and hesitant because of the hgiher USPS costs. But we have two people trying to do a group order for Czech Repiblic and Australia. We also have an order for Israel that I can ask if he wants to doa group order there too.

The point is the higher international shipping would be split and then they would have cheaper "local" shipping, hopefully bringing down their overall costs.

***LAST CALL***

We have hit our goal to get the price break for the Normal dice. I don't think we are going to wait any longer on the Cursed or Blessed to reach their next threshold. So I am looking to close this order out within the next day or so. If you are interested, this is your last chance to get in. This will be my final order and no one has yet offered to step up and take it over for future orders.

If you want in, let me know and I will hold it open until you make a final decision. Otherwise, this is probably going to close within the next 48 hours or so (I might wait until the weekend to get everything together but just in case…don't wait!)