Are you rolling your dice wrong?

Every tabletop wargamer knows the feeling: you line up the perfect attack, pick up a fistful of dice… and roll absolute disaster. Again. It’s easy to joke that our dice are cursed, disloyal, or harbouring a personal grudge against our beautifully painted troops. But what if the problem isn’t bad luck at all? What if we’ve been rolling dice “wrong” for years?

In this video, we take a cheerful deep dive into one of tabletop gaming’s most enduring bits of club folklore: the idea that how you roll dice might actually influence the outcome. It’s a topic that sits right at the intersection of probability, superstition, and the wonderfully odd culture of historical and miniature wargaming.

We explore a whole gallery of familiar techniques. There’s the dramatic flick, launching dice across the battlefield like plastic artillery. The long tumble, beloved of casino players and guaranteed to send dice rolling through terrain pieces. The chaotic high drop, which sounds like a bag of gravel hitting a tin roof. We also look at pre-roll shaking rituals, lucky (or banned) hands, and the ever-popular dice cup or tower for players who’d rather let gravity make the decisions.

Along the way, we gently untangle the myth from the maths. Dice are, after all, simple randomising tools governed by physics, not feelings. As long as they’re rolling freely and fairly, the results are effectively random. But that doesn’t mean rolling style is meaningless. Far from it. The way we roll dice affects the pace of the game, the clarity of results, and the shared drama around the table. It’s part performance, part ritual, and part social contract between players.

For historical wargamers and miniature hobbyists, these little habits are part of the wider joy of the hobby. We already spend hours painting figures, building terrain, and recreating battles from the past. A few dice-rolling superstitions fit right in with that blend of history, storytelling, and playful imagination.

This video is ultimately a celebration of those quirks. Whether you’re a careful cup-user, an enthusiastic flicker, or someone who shakes dice like you’re trying to wake them up, you’re not alone. Dice may be random, but the stories and laughs they create at the table are anything but.