So i have been looking at dust tac`s for a long time but it always ended up on the short end of other games.

I recently cleaned out many of the games i was playing and now find myself wanting new toys.

can you guys explain to me what is dust tactics?

I know it`s a board game , i know it`s miniatures etc etc..

I have been around boardgames/miniture games for the past 25 years, such as WFB, 40k, infinity, x-wing, warmachine, FOW, Bolt Action, etc etc

and the board games i have enjoyed much would be Decent, d&d, civ, settlers of catan and more.

Thanks

Dust Tactics is/was a Weird War II game with mixed real and science fiction aspects of the game. It was played on a grid so no need to measure distances or for movement. It was a great "beer and pretzels" game. The game expanded with just the German's and Allies being released and then the SSU (Russians).

Since the release of the SSU there has been little movement on a new faction other than some mercenary units. The Japanese were supposed to be released as a faction in 2013 with an alien race called the Vril a year later. This has not been done and there seems to be little progress on adding a forth faction.

FFG developed a really nice open table top play system for Dust Tactics called Dust Warfare, however about 6 months after this was developed it was announced FFG and Dust Studios would no longer be working together in distribution of the game. The game would be distributed by the same company that distributes Flames of War.

A Kickstarter was done a little less than a year ago releasing the three factions in desert patterns with some changes to already established vehicles (like open cockpits). The Kickstarter made its goal however there has been some kind of dispute between Dust Studio and Battlefront (the new distribution partner). The release of the items promised to the backers of the Kickstarter project has now been delayed for some 8 months.There are some questions about the future of Dust Tactics and the newly developed open table top game Dust Battlefield (a replacement to the no longer company supported Dust Warfare).

My advice, it was a great game when it first came out, the rules were simple and the game could be purchased at a really nice price. The game has been out for over 4 years now and little has been done to actually develop multiple playing factions. The game is published by a "modeling company" not a game company, so they focus on different types of models to sell within current factions rather than expanding. All the issues with publishing companies has turned off many old players and new players have avoided getting into the game. The game does still have a strong core following, though this following is mostly modelers people who rarely play the game. There are some pockets of games still going, but in the long run unless you live in one of these areas where you see people playing on a regular basis, I would strongly advise you to avoid the game. You will want to play and find no one does, many stores are familiar with the game but no longer carry it, and people who are familiar will tell you it was a cool game with pretty models but no one ever played it.

I realize this post is a bit old, but I thought I'd drop in with a bit more information. If you want into Dust now is the time to do it. There's a fire sale on the models around the web right now because the current distributor (Battlefront) burned a lot of people, including retailers. Whether it's their fault or the designer's fault is unclear but it happened. If you pick up a couple of the single player starter sets you can have a complete game set for you and a friend and just treat it as a stand-alone boardgame. I happen to have a huge collection of both the allies and axis sets, nothing SSU however. But I think you will find that since it may go the way of GW's specialist games it is better to treat it as a self-contained game. Perhaps buy up to 150pts per side so there's selection between missions but keep it small and simple lest you find yourself with a tabletop war game with no players.

Dust Studios has finally decided to stop fooling around with unreliable distributors and started selling directly. New stuff and re releases of older stuff with more new stuff in development. Exciting stuff going on with them.