traderghost said:

Yeah cause TSR didnt make a crapload of money off two of the same game, D&D and AD&D for like 20 years!

And like FFG doesnt have three, no wait, four Warhammer 40K games.

There is no conflict. It appeals to two crew of fans. One want some table top rules. The other wants to stay as is. You know what, FFG still makes the money off the figures they sell, not the game you use the figures for. So who cares if one player is buying one $40 book for a set of rules to expand the Dust Tactics from Grid Squares to Table Top Style? They are both still spending $15 on a box of grenadiers and $20 on a walker.

And it doesnt confuse newbies. Not at all. "Gee I want to play Dust, where should I start" "Well son you should start with Dust Tactics and if you want more details and options later, move on to Dust War or whatever its called."

Why not use 40K rules? Well, first, there are no stats for Dust in 40K and I dont think my friends and I would ever agree on what those rules should be well enough to play. And second, we want Dust Wars (or whatever they would call it) as a new ruleset because we dont like/are tired of/know the limits of 40K as it. We would like a different game, but one based on Dust.

I love DT as well, doesnt mean I wouldnt love DW as well.

Dont want a Table Top Champion and a Gridded Champion? Well dont. Run different tournaments. If you dont want to host a DW tournament then dont.

Why wait for TT rules and not just enjoy Dust Tactics 2 hour or less battles? Well, we do enjoy the DT game. We enjoy it a lot. SO much we would like to see it expand. And there are plenty of game systems/styles out there that can be done in 2 hours or less already. Ever hear of 40K in 40 Minutes? Or 2 Hour Games?

And I think Dust Wars the Table Top Skirmish Game is a prime sunject for FFGs print on demand shop. The only cost they would have then is using/updating the Dust TT PDF and then they charge as they print.

arkangl said:

Im sure people will find ways to fudge dust eventually as well. The rest of your comments are pure speculation with no support. You say it will go the same way as AT-43, yeah, it still can as Dust Tactics. I mean, it is still the same people at FFG whether they do a table top version or stick with it as is.

FFG will do what they have to to make a profit, for good or bad. They are a business. If they suddenly realized they will sell more by having giant killer easter bunnies join the Axis they will do it. Thats the reason they removed the Nazis from the setting, not for some special quality of good story telling in the fluff, but to have no issues with people displaying their books, figures and so forth. And there are many legalities about swastikas being displayed in much of Europe, especially Germany.

Its a business, releasing the PDF, if the have it, if it exists, and charging $45 through their Print on Demand will not hurt Dust Tactics at all. You still have to buy the established box sets and so forth to get the miniatures and stat cards.

I want to make sure that you all understand that I do respect your opinions and posts and love of the game, Im just saying that there is no reason not to make it a Table Top variation. And so forth.

I want more Dust. I want a RPG, a card game, a Warhammer Quest style board game and so forth. We have Android and Ember (or whatever its called) novels and a Mignight movie, and I say Dust deserves that as well.

I'm not sure if anyone already mentioned this, but this is from the FFG press release on 23 July 2010:

"If you want to expand your games of Dust Tactics even further, keep your eyes on our website for a downloadable ruleset that will allow you to move your Dust Tactics games onto your favorite tabletop terrain! These rules will be made available via a free PDF some time after the game’s release, and add a whole new dimension to your Dust Tactics experience."

Here is a link to their news posting: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp

So there are plans for a TT ruleset for DT.

arkangl said:

I seriously doubt that fudging is the problem you make it out to be. At an Ard Boyz event Id expect it considering its all about the power gamers, rules lawyers, and WAAC crowd for the most part. In any tournement enviroment theres going to be some level of fudging...whether its measurements, points, or those peeps that only remember the rules when it suits them. The same thing will happen in Dust Tactics if/when it gets popular because thats just how some people are and gaming seems to attract its fair share of them.

Dust was always meant to be a miniatures game from the beginning. Before that whole mess with Rackham went down it was even going to use the same base ruleset as AT43 for the game (if the posts go back far enough on TableTopGamingNews you should be able to find it). It makes perfect business sense to do it as in the long run I guarantee they will sell more models if they handle it right than by leaving it as just a boardgame. As it stands right now I have two obstacles to overcome with new players (that have been in the hobby any amount of time). The first is that the tiles turn off the miniature wargamers and the second is that the boardgamers are turned off by the amount of miniatures they have to buy. Dont get me wrong most of the people I have got to play it have had a blast but the mini gamers still want the table top rules and the boardgamers arent used to this level of investment for the most part.

Your assumption that FFG had anything to do with any of the mishandling and problems that plagued AT43 is completely off base. FFG was only the North American distributer for Rackham nothing more. And guess what FFG had all the same problems when dealing with Rackham that every other distributer that has ever attempted to carry there product had...unreliable and unable to fulfil orders. They were not in charge and had nothing to do with design, rules, or anything else...that was all Rackham.

I find it kind of ironic that the person who runs a really cool Dust Tactics blog with all sorts of great ideas and homegrown houserules is telling people that they shouldnt houserule their own games or play it the way they want. Dont get me wrong I love your site and read all the postings becuase I think you have some great ideas and posts. As for people leaving 40k the rules and price hikes can do that. So can being bored, finding something better, just wanting a change, or just suffers from the oooh look new and shiney syndrome.

Actually FFG had AT43's organized play as well, and the one league they ran for it was an abysmal failure. The confrontation one was slightly better.

blkdymnd said:

My bad I forgot about that...probably with good reason

arkangl said:

ive been playing table top war games for 30 years now ive seen this before FFG can do this quicker than that, depends if can work with some other company to bring out a supplement based on some else's game (eg nuts or any of the other weird war rules sets) and just on a personal note i wound prefer not to use the 40k rules or anything gw for that matter been there done that

Peacekeeper_b said:

Ok, let's hope FFG reads this then. Peace, bro

riftsinger - Exactly thats why I left 40k, but I kinda was waiting for something to come around that I like and not just go buy some models for a game I don't like.

DoomOnYou72 - I never mentioned FFG I only mentions the people who make Dust b/c Paolo Parente and people made AT-43. And I sorry I didn't mean to say I don't support Table Top gameplay I just ment don't use 40k rules in any way like the ones someone posted. If you look at them they are just a rip from a lot of 40k rules. Maybe try Mercs that seems to have some good mechanics to it or war machine.

Peacekeeper_b - GW is big enough to run a bunch of games like they do. "Dust Models" is starting off.

What some of people don't understand is that Dust Models' and the GW's games are not made by FFG they are the distributor. Dust Models still makes the rules for Dust Tactics and GW still makes the rules for Deathwatch and Dark Millenium.

Also RPG and other style games still would be awesome not sure about the adventure type game though. Couldn't you just make scenarios for Dust Tactics game itself and make them an adventure type game. (Which gives me an idea you might see later on my blog). Heck some novels would be nice. (Which is why I am trying to start up a webcomic)

arkangl said:

Deathwatch, Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Black Crusade are very much written, edited, play tested and produced by FFG. And Im pretty certain FFG makes the rules for Dust (based on the pre-FFG stuff Ive seen for Dust, thank god Paolo Parente isnt the one writting anymore) otherwise you probably would see rules that ban the use of non-FFG minis in their official tourneys and games. Im sure if Dust Models wrote the rules, they would have no issue with thier models being official.

I think you could easily use Dust Tactics as a basis for a Adventure Board game, you would just have to let the "pcs" have more Health and everyone would play a single character instead of a squad of 5.

You would probably also use smaller squares/grids. But that is easy enough to just state each 1 movementis equal to 3 or 4 squares.

Now that "I have played wargames for XXXXX years...." has been established, I do not see what the big deal with TT rules is. For one thing, all you have to do is eliminate the grid and convert everyhing to 10 centimeters. This is a round up but certainly makes it better than 9.5.

When you move a squad, you position them all within the 10 cm. Why is this so difficult to envision? Or you can create a handy-dandy stick a la Battlefleet Gothic to measure everything. Also, when you move the squad make sure they are all within 1 cm of each other and do not exceed the 10 cm.

Of course, then you have to have templates for flames and bombs, but how hard is this?

I seriously think people complicate things because they can and not because they no whats going on.

And I have been wargaming for 25 years, not all of them successful or fun, and some of them were 40K, which I am not proud of but it did give me an idea of what I did not ever want to play again.

TT rules would allow you to field larger armies, so that is a definite plus, and the TT rules will probably make Air units work, as I think the boardgame is too small.

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

disagree here.

First - TT 28 mm is skirmish scale . 20 miniatures one tank more less. "Infinity" base squads are good example. Greedy 40k created lots of misconceptions about that . 28 is about detail ,skills of individual minis not platoons/squads.

Trick with grids in Dust Tactics let you play with 1/48 miniatures with lots of units and still leave you with space for manoeuvres. You get lots of 28mm cool bits (like detail weapons ,wyswig etc) and still quite involving tactical game.

(btw rules about diagonal movement are more TT than boardgame'y.)

If you really need TT i recomend NUTS! with new weird war expansion. Translating stats is breeze .

Second - from rules point of view - tight LOS rules and move rules thanks to grid makes it far better choice for competitive tournament style of play.

Scenario publishing focus as opposed to army book is grate thing.

and finally you can quite easy turn any table top style board into grid board , so aesthetics is not an issue here.

And finally on space hulk / incrusion type game- we already have minis and indoor rules, all we need is some special terrain (hazard terrain , clouds of gas etc_) and indoor scenarios - great field for community to fill.

I hope they do get the official table top rules done soon. But, even as the game is now it's pretty easy to translate over.

1 square = 9 cm = about 3.5 inches. You could round up to 4" to make the math simpler. So if your gun can shoot 3 squares, then it shoots 12". Terrain should take up 4 square inches of space, like it would take up 1 square on a board. There's already rules for soft and hard cover. If you want normal D6's instead of the target dice, you just count a 1 & 2 as a hit, the rest as a miss. Or 5 & 6 as a hit, or whatever. There's lots of little things like that that you can easily adapt to a table top style.

There's also pics here somewhere of a guy that had a normal wargame table that just had a grid painted on it, and modeled terrain pieces taking up different squares. Something like that can work too.

Just use your imagination just because there's a rulebook it doesn't mean the game can only be played 1 way