Aos Dice Calculator

Estimate expected damage for an Age of Sigmar attack sequence in seconds. Enter attacks, hit and wound targets, enemy save, rend, damage, and ward to see the math behind your combat profile and a visual breakdown of each step in the sequence.

Interactive Calculator

Expert Guide to Using an AoS Dice Calculator

An AoS dice calculator is one of the most practical tools a competitive or narrative Age of Sigmar player can keep open during list building and matchup planning. While the tabletop game thrives on cinematic moments and high-variance dice spikes, most strong decisions come from understanding averages, thresholds, and risk. A calculator lets you cut through guesswork and answer the questions that matter: how much damage should a unit actually do, how much does rend change the outcome, and how much survivability does a ward save really create over multiple combats?

At its core, an AoS dice calculator converts a sequence of die rolls into probabilities. In the standard combat sequence, attacks are generated, each attack makes a hit roll, successful hits make a wound roll, the defender attempts armor saves modified by rend, and then a ward may ignore some allocated damage. Because each step filters the total number of successful outcomes, the expected damage output is almost always much lower than the raw number of attacks printed on the warscroll. This is why experienced players rely on probability instead of intuition.

Quick takeaway: the biggest mistakes in damage estimation usually come from forgetting that probabilities compound. A profile with 4 attacks hitting on 3+ and wounding on 3+ does not produce 4 wounds on average. Before saves, it produces 4 × 0.667 × 0.667 = about 1.78 successful wounds per model.

How the calculator works

The calculator above uses the expected value method. That means it multiplies the number of attempts by the chance of success at each stage. For a standard flat-damage profile, the workflow looks like this:

1. Multiply models by attacks per model to get total attacks.
2. Convert the hit target into a probability. For example, 3+ equals 4 successful faces out of 6, or 66.67%.
3. Convert the wound target into a probability the same way.
4. Adjust the enemy save by rend. A 4+ save facing rend 1 becomes a 5+ save.
5. Convert the adjusted save into a failure probability, because failed saves are what matter for damage.
6. Multiply by damage, then apply ward failure probability.

In practical terms, expected value gives you the long-run average. It does not guarantee a specific combat result in a single game. Instead, it tells you what outcome is most reasonable to plan around. That distinction matters. If your plan only works when your unit rolls well above average, then it is not a dependable plan. A calculator helps reveal those weak assumptions before they cost you a game.

Why attack sequence math matters in Age of Sigmar

Age of Sigmar rewards efficiency. During list construction, every point spent on a unit, enhancement, prayer, spell, or command should ideally improve either damage reliability, objective control, mobility, or durability. Damage efficiency is one of the easiest areas to test mathematically. If one buff increases your expected damage by 15% while another only improves output by 6%, the better choice often becomes obvious. Likewise, if a unit looks scary on paper but underperforms into common 3+ save targets with ward support, a calculator will reveal that immediately.

Understanding expected damage also improves target priority. Suppose your hammer unit can remove either a lightly armored screen or a heavily armored elite target. A fast estimate of average wounds lets you decide whether the expensive elite kill is realistic or whether you should preserve tempo by clearing the screen. Over a five-round game, these choices add up dramatically.

Core probability benchmarks every player should know

Many AoS attack profiles use standard D6 thresholds. Memorizing the most common probabilities speeds up both play and analysis. The table below shows the success rate for a single D6 roll at common target numbers.

Target Number	Successful Faces	Single Roll Success Rate	Failure Rate
2+	5 of 6	83.33%	16.67%
3+	4 of 6	66.67%	33.33%
4+	3 of 6	50.00%	50.00%
5+	2 of 6	33.33%	66.67%
6+	1 of 6	16.67%	83.33%

These statistics are simple, but they are foundational. If a unit hits on 4+ and wounds on 4+, only 25% of attacks will become wounds before saves. If the defender then has a 4+ save, only half of those get through, which means just 12.5% of attacks become unsaved wounds before wards. Multiply by damage and the real output becomes much more manageable than the raw profile suggests.

How rend changes the matchup

Rend is often one of the highest-value offensive stats in the game because it attacks the defender’s consistency. Against lightly armored targets, increasing rend might not matter much if the enemy was already on a poor save. But into elite units with 2+ or 3+ armor, each point of rend can create a large swing in expected damage. This is especially important when comparing units that appear similar on the warscroll but differ in armor penetration.

Base Save	After Rend 0	After Rend 1	After Rend 2	After Rend 3
2+	83.33% saved	66.67% saved	50.00% saved	33.33% saved
3+	66.67% saved	50.00% saved	33.33% saved	16.67% saved
4+	50.00% saved	33.33% saved	16.67% saved	No practical save
5+	33.33% saved	16.67% saved	No practical save	No practical save

This is one reason premium combat units or buff combinations with reliable rend tend to perform better into armored metagames. A damage profile without rend may still look efficient against screens, but can collapse into elite saves. If your local environment or tournament field includes many high-save armies, testing rend breakpoints with a calculator is essential.

Ward saves and why they feel stronger than expected

Ward saves are applied after a wound or damage point gets through normal saves. Because they occur at the end of the sequence, they directly reduce the final amount of damage that sticks. Even a 6+ ward matters over time. A 6+ ward ignores 16.67% of incoming damage. A 5+ ward ignores 33.33%, which is a huge durability gain when applied across a multi-model unit or high-wound centerpiece.

Players often underestimate how much a ward reshapes combat math because it does not alter the visible armor save step. However, from an efficiency perspective, ward is effectively another layer of defense. If your unit expects to deal 12 damage after normal saves but the target has a 5+ ward, your expected final damage becomes 8. In many important combats, that difference means failing to bracket a monster, failing to clear a scoring unit, or leaving enough models alive for a deadly counterattack.

Expected value versus spike potential

A common trap in AoS analysis is overvaluing best-case outcomes. Players remember the turn where a unit rolled hot and erased a target, but forget the many turns where it landed close to average. Expected value keeps your planning disciplined. That said, spike potential still matters when a unit throws a very large volume of attacks or has explosive special rules. The larger the attack pool, the more results tend to cluster around the average. Small elite attack counts, by contrast, can be highly volatile.

This means calculators are best used for planning around realistic outcomes, while your tactical judgment handles the variance. If your unit only barely kills a target on average, you should assume there is significant risk involved, especially with a small number of attacks. If your calculator shows you comfortably exceeding the target’s wounds, the play is far more reliable.

Where the math comes from

If you want to study the fundamentals of probability more deeply, a few excellent academic and government resources explain expected value, distributions, and uncertainty. The NIST Engineering Statistics Handbook is a highly respected government reference for statistical methods. For academic overviews, introductory probability material from institutions such as UC Berkeley and Penn State can help explain why repeated dice processes settle around predictable averages over time.

Using an AoS dice calculator for list building

One of the smartest ways to use this tool is to compare profiles before a game ever starts. For example, you can test whether ten elite attacks at better rend outperform twenty lighter attacks into common save profiles. You can also estimate how much a damage buff matters against targets with and without wards. Over the course of army construction, these comparisons help answer practical questions:

• Does this hammer unit actually remove a 10-wound target on average?
• How much does a command ability increase my kill probability into a 3+ save unit?
• Is extra rend more valuable than extra attacks in my local metagame?
• Can my list realistically punch through common ward-supported anvils?
• Do I need redundancy because my primary damage source is too swingy?

By testing multiple target profiles, you can build a more rounded list. Some units thrive against low-armor hordes, while others are dedicated armor breakers. A calculator exposes those distinctions far better than surface-level warscroll reading.

Common mistakes when estimating AoS damage

1. Ignoring save modification: rend has a dramatic effect on expected output and should never be skipped.
2. Forgetting ward saves: a target with a good ward can survive far more often than raw wounds suggest.
3. Using maximum damage instead of average damage: this leads to overconfident charges and poor target selection.
4. Neglecting the number of models actually in range: in real games, not every model may get to attack.
5. Comparing profiles only into one target: strong lists need damage that works across several defensive profiles.

Advanced interpretation tips

As your experience grows, use calculators not just to predict a unit’s output, but to understand damage bands. Ask yourself what happens if you roll slightly below expectation. Does the plan still function? If not, you may need support pieces, backup threats, or better sequencing. Likewise, think in terms of efficiency per activation. A unit that deals 9 expected damage every turn can be more valuable than one that sometimes deals 15 and often deals 4, depending on your role requirements.

Another useful technique is testing breakpoints. How much extra value does one more attack provide? How much does moving from wound on 4+ to wound on 3+ actually matter? When you see the percentage jump in expected damage, buffs become much easier to prioritize. Since many AoS effects stack multiplicatively rather than additively, even small statistical improvements can create noticeable performance gains.

Final thoughts

An AoS dice calculator does not replace tactical skill, but it gives you a more reliable foundation for making tactical decisions. It helps you separate cinematic possibilities from dependable outcomes, reveals when a target is realistically killable, and highlights which buffs or profiles produce the best return. Whether you are preparing for a tournament, tuning a casual list, or simply trying to understand your warscrolls better, probability awareness is one of the fastest ways to improve your game.

Use the calculator regularly, compare multiple defensive profiles, and build habits around expected value rather than wishful thinking. Once you do, your target priority, combat sequencing, and army construction will become far sharper and more consistent.