What Are the Custom Dice Pack and Neutral Unit Identifiers for Cthulhu Wars?
The Custom Dice Pack ($11.99) replaces your table's generic six-sided dice with custom-engraved dice built for specific Cthulhu Wars spellbooks. Neutral Unit Identifiers ($29.99) is a set of 144 colored rings that snap onto neutral monster bases so you can see which faction controls them at a glance. Neither adds new rules. Both solve a real problem once your Cthulhu Wars table fills up with factions and monsters.
Most collectors buy the O4 Edition core box, then chase faction expansions and painted miniatures. These two accessories rarely make the shopping list, mostly because they don't show up in "what to buy first" roundups. They should. Once you're running four or five players with neutral Great Old Ones on the map, both earn their keep fast.
What Problem Does the Custom Dice Pack Actually Solve?
Cthulhu Wars spellbooks use dice results tied to specific symbols and effects, and stock six-sided dice don't carry those symbols. Players end up cross-referencing a card or rulebook page every time they roll for a spell, which slows the table down right when the game should be moving fastest.
Custom dice fix that by putting the spellbook's actual symbols on the faces. Look at the die, read the result, move on. It's a small thing that adds up over a four-hour session with five players all casting spells on their turns. The pack's product page lists it plainly: custom dice for Desecration, Thousand Forms, Dread Curse, Ghroth, Ubbo-Sathla, and Azathoth.
Which Spellbooks Does the Custom Dice Pack Actually Cover?
Two of the six are core content. Desecration is the Yellow Sign's spellbook, and Thousand Forms belongs to the Crawling Chaos (Nyarlathotep), both core factions that ship in the O4 Edition base box alongside Great Cthulhu and the Black Goat. If you've only ever played the core four factions, dice for those two spellbooks are immediately useful.
The other four are expansion content, and this is where accuracy matters. Dread Curse of Azathoth is the spellbook for the Opener of the Way, an expansion faction; Azathoth itself is the Great Old One tied to that faction, not one of the core box's four. Ubbo-Sathla is the Great Old One associated with the Tcho-Tchos, Petersen Games' human cultist expansion faction, sold separately at $59.99. Ghroth is a spell-specific die added during a later Kickstarter wave, used for a cultist-elimination effect rather than a core faction ability. None of these four show up if you own only the core box. They matter once you've added the expansions that use them.
That split is worth knowing before you buy. If you're strictly a core-box player, you're paying $11.99 for two spellbooks' worth of dice and four you won't touch yet. If you own or plan to own the Cthulhu Wars expansions tied to those Great Old Ones, the same pack covers your whole table.
What Are Neutral Unit Identifiers and Why Do Neutral Units Need Them?
Neutral Unit Identifiers is a set of 144 plastic rings, sized for the 25mm, 40mm, 50mm, 60mm, and 80mm bases used across Cthulhu Wars miniatures, with an equal number of rings in each of the first nine faction colors. They exist because neutral units in Cthulhu Wars can be recruited or controlled by any faction at the table, and once that happens, remembering whose monster is whose gets genuinely hard.
Picture a five-player game deep into the third act. Neutral Great Old Ones and their monsters are scattered across the map, control has shifted twice already, and nobody wants to stop the game to ask "wait, is that yours or mine?" A colored ring on the base answers that instantly, without a house rule, a notepad, or a memory test.
How Do You Use Neutral Unit Identifiers During a Game?
Sort the rings by faction color before you set up, so you're not digging through nine colors mid-turn. Match the ring size to the unit's base. The set covers everything from small 25mm cultist-scale figures up to the largest 80mm neutral monsters. When a player takes control of a neutral unit, snap the matching ring onto its base. If control changes hands later, pull the old ring and swap in the new one. It takes seconds and it's the whole mechanic.
Pack them up by color when the session ends. A small bag or divided tray keeps them sorted for next time, and you'll thank yourself the next time you're setting up in a hurry before game night.
Who Should Actually Buy These Accessories?
The Custom Dice Pack makes the most sense for anyone regularly rolling Desecration or Thousand Forms spells, or anyone who's added the Opener of the Way, the Tcho-Tchos, or the later Kickstarter content that uses the Ghroth die. If you're brand new to the core box and haven't touched an expansion yet, it's still a nice-to-have, just not urgent.
Neutral Unit Identifiers is squarely for collectors running bigger games. Two-player sessions rarely need it since there's only one other controller to track. Once you're at three, four, or five players and multiple Cthulhu Wars expansions are in the mix, the rings stop being a nice extra and start being the thing that keeps a long game from grinding to a halt over "whose monster is that."
Do You Need Cthulhu Wars Expansions to Use These Accessories?
No, but they scale with your collection. Both accessories work fine with just the O4 Edition core box. The Custom Dice Pack still covers Desecration and Thousand Forms, and the identifier rings still help once neutral Great Old Ones enter play, which can happen even in a core-only game if you've picked up a neutral Great Old One pack separately.
Where they really pay off is as your Cthulhu Wars expansions collection grows. Add the Tcho-Tchos, the Opener of the Way, or the Sleeper, and suddenly you're tracking more factions, more spellbooks, and more neutral monsters at once. That's exactly the moment these two accessories go from "nice to have" to "why didn't I buy this sooner."
What Do These Accessories Cost and Are They Worth It?
The Custom Dice Pack runs $11.99 and Neutral Unit Identifiers runs $29.99, both in stock at the time of writing. Compared to a $249.00 core box or a $59.99 faction expansion, neither is a big spend, and neither requires you to own a specific expansion to get some use out of it right away.
The math is simple. If you're already spending on faction expansions and premium miniatures for the table, an $11.99 dice pack that removes a rules lookup and a $29.99 ring set that removes a "whose monster is that" argument are cheap upgrades to game night. They won't sit on a shelf looking impressive. They'll sit in the box you actually open every session.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does the Cthulhu Wars Custom Dice Pack cost?
The Custom Dice Pack is $11.99 on the Petersen Games store and is currently in stock. It ships as a standalone accessory, not bundled with any faction expansion.
Are Azathoth and Ubbo-Sathla part of the core Cthulhu Wars box?
No. The core Cthulhu Wars O4 Edition box ships with four factions: Great Cthulhu, the Crawling Chaos (Nyarlathotep), the Black Goat (Shub-Niggurath), and the Yellow Sign (Hastur). Azathoth belongs to the Opener of the Way, and Ubbo-Sathla belongs to the Tcho-Tchos, both sold as separate faction expansions.
What size bases do Neutral Unit Identifiers fit?
The set includes 144 rings covering 25mm, 40mm, 50mm, 60mm, and 80mm bases, with an equal spread of rings across the first nine faction colors, so it fits everything from small cultist-scale monsters up to the largest neutral miniatures.
Do I need every Cthulhu Wars expansion to use these accessories?
No. The Custom Dice Pack and Neutral Unit Identifiers both work with the core O4 box on their own. They become more useful as you add Cthulhu Wars expansions, since more factions and more neutral monsters on the board is exactly the situation they're built for.
Do these accessories change the rules of Cthulhu Wars?
No. Both are presentation and bookkeeping upgrades. The dice still roll standard results for their assigned spellbooks, and the rings only mark ownership of a neutral unit. Neither changes a rule in the Cthulhu Wars rulebook.
Cthulhu Wars is built by H. P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror mythos, which has its own long publishing history outside Petersen Games (see Wikipedia's overview of the Cthulhu Mythos and the entry on Azathoth for the source material behind the faction). For a broader look at how the base game plays before you add accessories or expansions, There Will Be Games' beginner's guide to Cthulhu Wars is a solid outside read.
Ready to clean up your table? Pick up the Custom Dice Pack for faster spellbook rolls and the Neutral Unit Identifiers set for tracking neutral units, both in stock now on the Petersen Games store.
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