Let us pray:
'Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, and why we died. All that matters is that today, two stood against many, we do not have enough dice! Valor pleases you, so grant me this one request. Grant me revenge more dice! And if you do not listen, the HELL with you!'
After my first game of the Conan board game, it was apparent that one complaint raised by reviewers was absolutely true - the core box doesn't come with enough dice.
If you aren't familiar with the core mechanics of the game, a key element is rolling special coloured dice to attack, guard, and so on. These come in three colours, red, orange, and yellow. Each face has 0~3 axes on it to represent your attack power. Red are the most powerful, then orange, then yellow. Use of each die usually costs a point of physical energy. For example, Conan wants to attack an enemy, he pays 5 points of energy to max out his attack (5 red dice), then he is using his two-handed axe (1 red dice). That's a total of 6 red dice.
How many come in the box:
It seems strange that there aren't enough dice in the core set to cover the main attack of the main character!
Did Monolith games go on to make separate dice packs? Yes, indeed! These sell for about 20~25 USD on eBay for 6 more dice, before international shipping (at time of writing. Jan 2022). In my case, add another 20 USD.
I looked at various alternative ways to get dice:
a.) Suck it up and pay for real ones - expensive (see above)
b.) Get someone to make a custom set - almost as expensive?
c.) Use a dice roller app with custom faces - not as fun as rolling the real thing?
d.) Find a 3D printing company and the files to print locally. A hassle here.
I'd nearly given up, but an idea came unbidden to my mind, and a short search later led me to blank dice being sold via Amazon. These are available in different colours and volumes at an affordable price. I bought 50 blank dice, 15 of which were in the right colours, for 9 USD, (including international shipping.)
To find similar dice to those below, search for 'blank plastic dice'. You want 16mm dice.
Now I had dice, the issue was how to get the design onto the blank dice? In the end I went with freehand, using a permanent 'label' marker. This comes with both a thin tip and a wide tip. The results here came using the thin tip.
Detail (the homemade dice are along the bottom row.)
As you can see, I didn't get the scale of the axes correct, but they are perfectly legible - perhaps more legible? Also, the colour of the new dice doesn't quite match the originals. However, in natural light the red and orange of the originals can be difficult to differentiate, and the blank dice actually are easier to tell apart.
This took about 45 minutes of freehand. Now I have three more sets to do and we'll be there.
Overall this was worth it to me. I saved money, I like 'making' things, and I'm making our next game smoother and easier to play.
Thank you Crom!
