Last night I was late getting to the FLGS thanks to that thing called a job. CVinton was at the shop playing one of the newbs when I arrived. The Store has been closing earlier than it normally does thanks to the guy they have working that day. Although I was not going to get a game of 40K in I knew I was going to try out something new to the area.
CVinton and Old School Terminator have been delving into the realm of Dust Warfare by Fantasy Flight Games. I am a fan of Fantasy Flights products and you may be familiar with them if you play the 40K RPGs Rogue Trader, Dark Heresy, Death Watch and Black Crusade. I am always intrigued by other war games, especially when they are done by ex GW game designers. In this case the lead designer on Dust Warfare is none other than Andy Chambers.
For those of you unfamiliar with Dust Warfare it is a War Game much the same as Warhammer 40K. It is derived from Dust Tactics which is a board game after a fashion. It is played on tiles that make up the game board. Dust Warfare is played on a table top like 40K. That is where the similarities end. The system is very easy to learn and has a lot of depth to it. There is no weird language and rules that are open to interpretation. This is a major thing that has plagued 40k for years. It would also seem that Fantasy Flight is much more in tune with its customers and is working to make the game easier to play and get into. The best example is that there are some characters for Dust Tactics, that you can use in Dust Warfare, that are currently only available in $60 expansion boxes that are meant for use with Dust Tactics. They are planing on releasing these characters in blisters for Warfare players. Can you see GW doing that with any of their products?
I digress though. The Game itself is set in the Historical era of World War 2. The key differences is that the German killed Hitler and there was a discovery of a strange alien power source. This lead to the development of new weapons, many outstripping our current technology, and Walkers. Having started my war gaming hobby in Battle Tech I was intrigued by the walkers. In the game you have currently 3 factions. The Allies, The Russians and of course The Germans.
After playing like 3 small introductory games with CVinton I am hooked. There is a lot of depth in tactics and rules that are very clear. The models are nice and come for the most part pre assembled and even pre primed and ready to paint. They can also be about a 1/3 the cost of GW models.
This gets em to how the products are sold. Squads are sold whole. As in you get a whole squad with nothing else to buy. CVinton gave the example of a command squad that had an alternate option to it and the 5 man squad came with a 6th guy that was equipped with the alternate option. It also didn't cost any more. The walkers and vehicles come with all the weapon options available to them. I would also point out that they actually have models out that don’t have rules. This is of course the opposite of what GW does. The book expansions, the Russian one to be exact, also has Allied and German units in it. Oh did I mention there are no codexes and all the rules for the Factions, with the exception of the Russians which is the first expansion for the game, is contained in the main rulebook which costs $30 bucks less than the 6th edition Rulebook. In fact I am pretty sure you can get Dust Tactics, which contains 2 legit and playable armies which are balanced, and the rule book for just slightly more than the 6th edition rulebook. If you split the tactics box with a friend you can have the rulebook and an Army to go with it for about the cost of just the Warhammer 40,000 6thedition rulebook.
As I am looking into this game and the products more it is blowing my mind. I have been abused by GW and their haphazard way of releasing products and so use to the abusive relationship they have with their customers that this all seems to good to be true. So look for some Dust articles as I progress with the game. I see some Germans in my future.
I have also gotten in one game with the new Footdar. The outcome was very promising. The Judges Grey Knights cried uncle after 4 turns. Very promising indeed. I am going to be testing them against CVintons Space Wolves soon. We will see if I can get a new streak going.
Until next time.........
Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!