D Day Dice Board Game Review by Brian Lewis

June 6^th 1944 the Allied forces are landing, can you lead your unit to victory on these heavily defended beaches?

D Day Dice is a dice game for 1 to 4 players that is played co-operatively, each player is leading a unit on one of the beaches in the D Day landings, their mission to take control of the bunkers at the top of the beaches. Each player has a unit dice which is used on the board to denote the location of their unit, this also tracks how the unit has spent at each location, each player also has a set of six custom dice, two red, two white and two blue, these dice form the basis of the game and when rolled these represent your resources on the battlefield. These dice each have the following symbols on them, a single soldier, two soldiers, a star, a medal, a spanner and finally a skull. There are also decks of cards included for regular and unique specialists, items and awards.

There are eight beaches to conquer in the game, they are designed to be played in numerical order as each beach gets more difficult as you progress, usually only one board is used in each game, and each map is split into numerous sectors, which allow for different routes to the bunkers. The first mission is a training mission played on the Slapton Sands beach board, it has three different levels of difficulty to introduce all the elements of the game, and some of the other beaches included are Omaha, Juno and Merville Battery.

Each turn players act simultaneously in the five different phases of the turn; Phase one is the most important and forms the basis of the entire game, you will roll your six custom red, white and blue dice up to three times, on the first throw you have to choose two of these dice to lock in, these dice cannot be re rolled again this turn, on the second throw you can re roll any or all of the four remaining dice, now you can keep or re roll for a third and final time any of these four dice, you now have your final tally of dice for this turn.  

Phase two is the upkeep phase where  you convert your final tally of dice to add to your resources, each symbol  has the following effect, a soldier result adds the number of soldiers shown to your unit, stars are used to recruit specialists, medals represent courage and enable your unit to advance on the battlefield, spanners give you item points, which you can then spend on items to aid your advance and skulls are the bad side of the dice as they negate the effect of one of the other dice rolled.

There are a couple of special rules which relate to the final tally of dice, these add an extra layer of choice to the game, in your final tally if you get three identical symbols on three dice of separate colours you get a “RWB” result known as a red, white and blue this gives you a special ability as well as the usual benefits of each dice, for example if you get a skull RWB on the dice in your final tally then you get the Dead Man’s Gift,  which means “you find a dead soldiers gear bag and gain +20 Item points this turn and you also ignore the negative effect of the skulls this turn”, or a single soldier RWB result gives you an extra four soldiers and you can also give another players unit four extra  soldiers. If you manage to roll one of each symbol regardless of colour you gain an Award card, these are one use cards that mainly take effect straight away.

Once resources have been collected players change the face of their unit die, the unit die is used to track how long you have been in your current sector, most sectors allow you to wait a maximum of three turns, but some sectors are too dangerous to linger in and must be vacated quickly.

Phase Three is where you can recruit specialists or buy items using your available resources. Different specialists are available depending on the map but they include the likes of a minesweeper, handy if you have to cross a mine field or a Corporal who allows you to re roll a dice in your final tally each turn, these specialists also count towards the number of soldiers in your unit. Items purchased are only useable once per game, when used they are turned face down; they give you a special ability for the turn in which they are played, examples of items include a walkie talkie which gives you an extra two soldiers or a grenade which allows you to ignore Machine Gun Fire for one turn.

Phase Four is the Movement phase, if your unit has the move symbol showing you must advance either forwards or sideways into a sector you have not been into before, otherwise it’s your choice whether to move or not. To move you look at the board and each sector has a courage level, you must spend that number of courage points to advance, if you can’t the game is over.

Phase Five is combat, each sector has a Defence number in it, in this phase you must lose a number of soldiers equal to the defence value, and if you ever have zero soldiers the beach is lost. Some sectors have a symbol to denote Machine Gun Fire, in the combat phase you roll a normal D6 and add the result to the defence value of the sector; this is the amount of soldiers you must lose.

Each sector can have other symbols which can either aid you by giving you extra soldiers, a new specialist or bonuses to your final tally or they can also contain mines, machine gun fire and negatives to your final tally, these are all marked clearly on each board and are different for each board, one board also allows random generation of the layout for a different game each time.

Bunkers have a defence value and upon entering one you lose this number of soldiers, if you still have soldiers remaining you have occupied the bunker, once each player has managed to occupy a bunker you win the game.

It has been remarked that why when you are charging up a beach on D Day does your unit get stronger? For me each turn represents your unit advancing up the beach, so on the way you can increase you unit size by finding soldiers on the way who have lost their unit or you can be reinforced from soldiers moving up from behind quicker than your unit, specialists who are pinned down in the field can join your unit, items left dropped by fallen comrades can be picked up and a rousing charge command by your leader gives you the courage to continue your advance.

The game is fast and fun to play, there is of course a small element of luck involved as with most games involving dice, but it is also a resource management game, you can clearly see each sector you could go through, so it is your choice where and when you advance. The ability to re roll most of the dice up to three times gives you a greater chance to get the resources you need and with the added layer of the chance to try for RWB results this gives you a welcome boost, for most games the use of specialists is a necessity and there is usually a specialist or two that will enhance any strategy you choose. The components are of a high quality, there are four player aids included for quick reference during a game, the rule book is made to look like a war journal, the rules are clear, concise and well written, the back of the book includes special information about each mission and which cards to use, all the other information is printed on the player aids and the map itself, so once initial setup is complete there is no real need to consult the rule book. The game also scales very well from one to four players, there are some abilities that allow you to interact with other players, giving them troops or swapping dice, so unlike some co-op games this doesn’t feel as if you are each playing a separate game, I have also been enjoying playing this game solo a lot, the solo rules do not feel like an add on and where a card would be more beneficial in a multiplayer game there are slightly different rules included for its use in a solo player game.  So for me a big thumbs up for D Day Dice.