Rolling a lot

[ChaplainCharlie]

Besides, involve your co-player! Throw dices 3 or so at a time and have the other guy pick away the hits or misses. He then hands you the hits once you're done and repeat. Quicker and faster. AND involves the other player, so it's less boring for them!

[Egaeus]

The problem with the pure statistical method is that you don't always make average rolls.
That is one of the main fun points of 40k.
No one remembers their game when the result was dead on the average, but that time five TH/SS terminators all rolled a 1 for their save when the gretchin assaulted them? Everyone remembers that.
Take that away and you ruin the game.

If you're using fair dice (although even this issue has been debated before) then overall your results should be about average. A big part of it is the distribution of those rolls. So, to use your example if those Terminators are throwing a bunch of dice for attacks (let's say they need a 3+ to hit) then you tend to overlook the actual distribution of rolls...all those 6s you roll in those groups are "just" hits, they aren't special...nor, really, are the misses.

But when you've got the sarge in the group who has to take his save on his own and needs anything but a 1 and fails...that isn't necessarily a statistical aberration, it's just bad timing on the dice.

So I'm not disagreeing that it's the vagaries of the dice that do make the game exciting and interesting, just with your premise that people don't roll "average".

[Gorbad Ironclaw]

You do end up rolling a lot of dice for what can often be rather little effect. 40k isn't the most streamlined/efficient game ever, its showing it's routes as a skirmish game that was transformed into a battle game. Unfortuantly the mechanics of it was never really updated to go with the new style of play, hence the possibility of rolling hundreds of dice for a single combat. The first time it's fun, the second time you are rolling batches of 50+ dice it starts getting a little tedious.