Goki Wooden Dice Plate

First up, my camera news. My new Canon camera arrived yesterday and I'm absolutely delighted with it. I'm not quite ready to take photos of my miniatures with it but it shouldn't take me too long to master it. It is similar in many ways to my old Nikon but also different enough to make me feel the need to fully read the instruction manual first. Always a good idea, in my opinion! I fitted a 32Gb memory card to it and I also bought a shutter release cable to use for photos that I take with my tripod. With close up photography anything that helps reduce camera shake is a good thing. I have loaded the software that comes with the camera onto my computer. I have taken a few test shots and its all looking good so far. I'm hoping to have some new photos to show you on Sunday.

So for today this is very much a filler post but it's something I thought might interest you. Last month I ordered this Goki wooden dice plate from Amazon UK. It was, to be honest, more of an impulse buy than something I was particularly looking for. That said, now that I have it, I think it is an essential gaming aid. As you know, I play a lot of board games and skirmish war-games. Normally, I'd just roll my dice on the table or on a blank area of the gaming board. Occasionally, but not very often, the dice would roll off the table, which was always frustrating and annoying. Now, with my dice plate that never happens.
The plate is very solidly made and sturdy. It measures 10" (25.7cm) square and just over 1" (3cm) tall, which is just a nice size for rolling dice. The inner height of the walls is 1" (2.5cm). I have never had an instance of dice "jumping" the walls and I have used dice of different sizes to fully test it. The base is covered in green felt, which helps reduce the noise of the rolling dice. The plate comes with five six-sided dice as shown above.
An alternative to the dice plate is the dice tower. These can come in a wide variety of materials, shapes, sizes and designs. I got a plastic one as a free stretch goal with my Zombicide season 3 Kickstarter. There's another one on the way with my Zombicide: Black Plague Kickstarter expansion set. However, I don't like them. They're just too noisy and dropping dice doesn't feel the same as rolling dice.
The Goki wooden dice plate costs £10.14 on Amazon UK. I very rarely comment on Amazon about the products I buy there but on this occasion I did and I gave it a five star rating. To me, it is an indispensable gaming aid.