Dust Warfare: my first few games and initial review

[Laughing Ferret]

I had a chance to try out Dust Warfare this past weekend, and for the most part liked it quite a lot.

For game mechanics I was very impressed.  For unit balance, I have some concerns about the high power infantry units, but too early to tell for sure yet.



Blog post of the review &games is here:
http://laughingferret.blogspot.com/2012/05/dust-warfare-first-games-review.html

-too long to fill it all in here.

[rob_the_robgoblin]

Great review, I just picked up the RUlebook for Warfare and I'm grabbing some bits and bobs to get started.

Do you need the unit cards for warfare, or are the rules for the units in the rulebook?

Also, do you think you missed something with the more odd infantry types? They sound really nasty.

Let me know!

[Laughing Ferret]

Thanks Rob!

We did play with a few infantry types that had some different weapons.The Americans used a command squad with flamers, which were pretty nasty.
I used both heavy laser troops and standard laser troops and the light walker with laser cannon for Germans and I didn't think much of them. The laser weapon is different from a rifle in that if you get a hit, you can roll the die again to try to get another hit.  The problem is, if you only hit 1/3 of the time, and hope to hit again after that you're hoping for a 1/9 chance to get a double hit.  That's not very good odds.  Even the heavy laser weapons and the walker still only roll 1 die.  compared to basic troops that have machine guns that roll 3 dice right away, the laser weapons are not very good. 
add to this the fact the laser troop's basic laser weapon has a 12" range compared to 16" for a common rifle, and there isn't much point to it.

lasers needed something else, maybe for every hit the additional die hits on a miss instead of a hit.  Rumor is, the next faction is Aliens, who have type 4 infantry, and very few infantry weapons can hurt type 4 infantry (which there are currently none in the game) but laser weapons can hurt type 4.

The rule book has all the stats for the troops released so far, but the soviets SSU have their own army book coming out, since none of them are in the rule book.  I don't have the link, but there are unit cards for free download on their forum that someone made- we used those,it's handy to have the cards nearby rather than flip through a book.  the unit cards that come with the minis are for Dust Tactics, and are of no use for Dust Warfare.

[rob_the_robgoblin]

Cheers chap, that's all I needed to know!

Just shelled out for a load of tactics stuff, but meh, can use it for both anyway!!! Just don't let the missus know!!! 

[rob_the_robgoblin]

Also, I'm hoping to see Brits, French and Japanese at some point. I'm sure the first two would be allies and the latter Axis, but it would be nice to see them represented. A heavy armour walking Churchill might be nice, or some French walking tankettes... 

[Bubbles]

Apparently the next armies after vril are MI-2 or M12 or something. I don't witch one but they're like MI-3 so special forces and the Axis get something called the Arrnembhe or something they are also like special forces for the axis. They both have issues with their respective governments so it allows some logic to have Allies and Axis on the smae team.

[Njall]

For unit balance, I have some concerns about the high power infantry units, but too early to tell for sure yet.

Only 3 soldiers in each squad so easier to suppress and vulnerable to artillery. (well that's the theory anyway.. I'm still buying and painting models, I have yet to play a game with those)

[Jakar Nilson]

Also, I'm hoping to see Brits, French and Japanese at some point. I'm sure the first two would be allies and the latter Axis, but it would be nice to see them represented. A heavy armour walking Churchill might be nice, or some French walking tankettes... 

In the original 1/35 model series and comics, the British and French fall under the Allied banner, and so got American walkers. The Japanese have their own designs, but the only model I've seen is a retooling of a German design. Which is a bit of a letdown, given how they have this quirky amphibious walker all drawn up for a decade...

[Njall]

British have paratroops (Red Devils) with a hero. And a light walker (Blackhawk)
I heard somewhere that French should have Foreign legion unit in the future.
There is the description of a Japanese operative in the Operation Cerberus rulebook (free download on FFG's site) so I guess we should have at least a model for her.

From what I saw in various rulebooks I think there should be in the future some kind of French Foreign Legion vs SSU vs Japanese content in Asia.

[tnjrp]

For unit balance, I have some concerns about the high power infantry units, but too early to tell for sure yet

In our two games so far, the Hammers with Rhino have been pretty much a game breaker. Admittedly we may have done something wrong especially since we didn't find suppression as that big an issue and based on looking at teh Internetz it seems it should've been, but all the same they could've pretty much single-handedly taken down an Axis force about 5 times their cost in AP

[tnjrp]

Also, it makes me even a little less enthusiastic to commit to DW that you don't get any of the DW stats for new minis in the DT minis boxes - but then it does say on the tin taht it is a game that uses Dust Tactics miniatures. I can understand that FFG wants to sell the Sino-Soviet expansion book as a separate item but there are a couple of Axis and Allies new minis featured in the "Operation Zverograd" as well and if you want to use those in DW it looks like you'll need to buy the book even if you don't give a toss about the Russkies per se.