Review: Q-Workshop Dice
I was wondering through my FLGS the other day looking for a new board game, and I stumbled upon an awesome set of steam punk polyhedral dice. Sweet. I noted they were by a company called Q-Workshop and stored it in the back left pocket of my brain, right next to the knowledge that Michael Jackson narrated the ET vinyl, in case I ever found myself in need of a shiny new pair of dice. Sadly I hadn’t been doing any role-playing, kind of found myself drawn more to war gaming, so I figured it would be about as useful as said MJ trivia.
Well lo and behold a few short weeks later I found my board gaming group and war gaming group colliding and crying for D&D. Was I excited? Maybe. Cautious? Yes. I haven’t GM’d in about 5 years, but you know what helps? That’s right, a dope set of new dice. I placed an order from the super cool folks over at Q-Workshop directly; getting a set of the steam punk dice I was ogling, a set of their elven (blue on clear) dice for my bride, a set of the forest (green on black) for our druid player Mal, and two sets of the Arkham Horror dice for the board game (more on those puppies later).
They will bring her many glorious victories, they are her precious...
Well first off, shipping from Poland is a slow process, it took a few weeks to arrive, but the wait was well worth it. The packaging was super nice and far cooler than my old Armoury plastic tube dice I am still rocking. Now no surprise here but there was an exchange rate at work, so the dice came out to about $16 USD for the most expensive set we ordered, with most coming in around $12 I believe, not too shabby for super nice dice.
As for the quality of the dice, well I couldn’t be more pleased with the steam punk set or the Arkham Horror dice. The steam punk set is a nice ivory\beige with black engravings. All the dice are covered with cogs and pipes, really cool and easy to read. Mal’s Forrest dice are a different story, perhaps a different color scheme would have been better, but at least in our low light setting (we’re running Pathfinder’s Carrion Crown module set in my world) it can be difficult for her to read the dice. Now in Q-W’s defense, Mal is brand new to role-playing and she is still learning about the different dice and how to read them (anyone remember their first attempt at a 4 sided?), but in general while all the engravings are cool, it can be a bit much. Likewise the blue ink on clear transparent dice of my wife’s set is hit or miss as well. The elven fonts mixed with elven stylized numbers makes a cool looking die, but can take a second to read. I think these drawbacks are minimal personally, and will lessen the longer they use them. Our low light horror setting doesn’t help things either. So when buying a set just keep in mind the contrast of the design and colors, or just be prepared to deal with slightly more difficult dice to read.
Mal likes her dice..too much...
Now I know I jumped the Arkham Horror dice, well they deserve their own mention seeing as they aren’t polyhedral, and a licensed product. Packaging, 100% equal with Q-W’s quality. Readability, super easy. My god these things are great. If you know anything about the Arkham Horror board game, then you know on a D6 only 5’s and 6’s count as successes unless your blessed or cursed. So in general you’re only looking for those numbers to come up, nothing else usually matters. It can be tedious when rolling thirteen dice to hunt for the numbers, not impossible, just slightly time consuming in an already long game. Well these appropriately colored green on black dice (very Lovecraftian of them) have the Eldar sign star marking the 5 and 6 slots on each die. Bam. Awesomness in your eyesocket. Our group can’t recommend these dice enough if you’re an avid or even sometimes Arkham Horror player. And while you’re at it get two sets, you’ll use them all I promise. There is also a nice aged beige color, but I really like the green on black. Each pack comes with five dice.
So final thoughts on Q-Workshop, they send you some free promo dice with your orders. Nice touch, who doesn’t need more d6’s or 20’s. The dice in general roll well, but evenly. I appreciate that these days. I once would spend twenty minutes finding the high and low d20’s, but now I prefer the even rolls. And supposedly the paint or ink used won’t wear off. So in general, these guys get my vote, go check them out and maybe even get your own custom dice made…that’s right they make custom dice, for really reasonable dice. You know you need more dice…just sayin.
So there you have it. Dice are the gamers best friends. How many sets do you have? Me? I’m pretty minimal with only 3 full sets with an additional four d20’s and a handful of d6’s. One of our gamers, David, has a gallon bag half full of dice…
