How many times has it happened? Your plan has come together, your best troops are in contact with your opponents' worst and you just need the dice to.....WHAT THE HELL!!!! DOUBLE 1????? ARE YOU *~@$%of &* KIDDING ME???!!!!
Its happened to me more times than I care to remember - especially the dreaded 20 in Principles of War. I once had my fresh cavalry lined up to smash the mauled foot facing them. Anything but a 20 and I sweep them from the field and claim victory. Anything but a.....AAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!! WHY ME????
Lets call it the wrong roll at the wrong time.
It's the most frustrating element of wargaming (except when it happens to your opponent) but when you've done everything in your power to get the desired result, you've manouvered your troops with consumate skill, led your opponent into a trap of your devious design and given yourself a major advantage and then a little hunk of plastic lands on the wrong side and it all falls apart.
Like our recent Age of Sail battle where my ships could turn their French counterparts into matchwood on any roll but a '1'. Cue a succession of '1's that kill a few fish and seagulls but inflict nary a splintered bulwark
upon our French cousins.
Of course, real warfare is laden with stories of the winning side withdrawing without reason, surrounded troops winning against all odds and other anomalies but - come on! - why is it that I constantly throw the wrong result at precisely the wrong time. The Double 1 in FOG for instant Fragmented? The 1 for damage and 20 for Morale in POW. The '1' in Spearhead for 'Missed, Yank!'.
I suppose that's the fortune of war. So why don't my opponents suffer from it?