Using 6-sided dice in Combat

That's a very cool idea. Here's my suggestion to jazz it up...

Combat is fought in 3 waves. Each wave, a player may choose to select some
or all of his units to fight. Each chosen unit gets one dice.

Each unit will have one or more styles of attack. Prior to rolling the
dice, the player selects a die for each unit according to the troop type and style of
attack desired.

For example:

Orc Warband:
- Beserk! Use the red dice
- Engage! Use the green dice

Chaos Knights
- Support: Use the blue dice
- Charge! : Use the white dice

The players both secretly gather up their chosen dice and roll them. The dice
will have coloured spots (perhaps more than one) on each side. Rolling a red spot allows you to remove one enemy dice of that colour from combat. There would be a precedence order for deciding who gets to cause casualties first, based on dice colour. For
example missile troops using yellow die always attack first. Cavalry
using blue or white dice second, then infantry etc. Cards can also modify attack
order. Dice removed as casulaties may not hit back.

At the end of the wave of combat, both players may have some dice
remaining. They stay in place for the next wave, but move them to one
side so they are not disturbed by the next roll.

Now, play the next wave. The newly rolled dice are now considered in
conjunction with suviving dice from the previous wave. Attack order and
removal of dice rolls are as before.

Then play the final wave. The winner of the battle is the one with most
dice left at the end.

Notes
-----

Playing the battle in waves adds an element of strategy to the game
since players must choose between keeping reserves to see how things pan
out, and what surviving dice are on the table, and winning the initial
waves.

The attack order precedence of unit types will also determine which wave they are best played in, in conjunction with considering the forces available to the enemy.

There would probably need to be an incentive for winning early
waves, such as extra special bonus dice in subsequent waves to prevent
players from holding nearly all their dice back to the end of the
battle.

Further Modifications
---------------------

Each player has a dice representing the general. Adding it to a given
wave confers further advantages to that wave, but suffer consequences
if it is lost.

Could introduce abstract concept of terrain by :
- stating the victory bonusfor winning the first two waves (which is applied to resolution of subsequent waves)
- preventing use of certain dice in certain waves. E.g. no archers in final wave

Could introduce concept of morale at the end of a wave by removing dice
which are outnumbered by surviving enemy dice to a value greater than
that troops morale value.

Hope some of that makes sense...

Steady on, old chap!

'tis ok, simply assign multiple dice per unit, with the constraint that they must all be rolled in the same wave. The more dice you roll, the easier it is going to be to balance the probabilities of the various outcomes, I'd say. Plus IMO a battle with more dice is just going to feel like a better rumble.

The other thought I had was rather than going for three waves, go for two flanks and a centre, with the attackingplayer opening battle on whichever sector he likes. Seems more militarily plausible to me than the waves concept.