So what is the Foreign Legion doing during the time of Dust Tactics?

My guess is after the fall of France the remaining outposts in Libya became mercanaries. Or more plausible the Vichy French ordered them into service with the Reich. If you wish to look at it in a different light then it is possible they were absorbed into the Allied Armies after the fall of France. Now for the grain of salt . . . All of my assumptions of the history of the world of Dust Tactics is based on the world map provided with the game and my very sketchy memory of history class when I was in High School.I did get an A in history though

Katman said:

In real history the legion was indeed divided between the resistance and the Vichy. There are even some pretty impressive legion vs legion battles (where, as a side note, captured "rival" legionaires often joined the side that captured them, afterall, they were all the same group, sort of). It would be cool though to have a pseudo mercenary squad that anyone can buy for the game.

I tend towards the Legion going to the side that is most prominent in the region. The question is what sort of equipment would they have? Who would trust them with Vk weaponry? I think no one would. They might have advanced MG's and assault rifles, maybe even a little armor, but highly unlikely they will have walkers etc, though the Free French FLE would make cool models.

Ah yes the french. The only force to surrender to itself.

Haha.

Isn't there an old joke about USED FRENCH ARMY RIFLES FOR SALE: FIRED ONCE AND DROPPED TWICE?

i beleive the line is "never fired, droped once'.

theguildllc said:

Yeah, but 70% of the Foreign legion are not french, most are German, Swiss and English. Some are even Russians.

Its been 8 years since VK was discovered. The Foreign Legion is divided in two, one with the Axis one with the Allies. Possibly a third faction exists on its own. I could see the Axis experimenting with the Legion under their influence with crazy untested and just dangerous weapons. Something like 1#2. # is a special sign for Vapour weapons. You ay fire a Vapour Weapon as normal as a 1-1 weapon. But you may opt to make it a more powerful attack, up to the number before the # symbol. When doing so, for every two dice rolled the firing unit suffers a single 1-1 attack with no cover saves. Vapour Weapons ignore cover and resilience (damage resistance, whatever it is called).

Or something like that.

So the Super Secret Weapons of the Third Reich to be tested with foreign mercenaries? This might be cool in a comic book.

However, the Germans had many S.S. units made up of foreigners formed to fight "The Crusade against Bloshevism." There was even a British unit. The idea of Sigrid giving equipment to French mercenaries seems even farfetched for a comic book.

Why do you need the FLE anyways? If you want evil elites, go for a retagged S.S. unit, and if you want good guy elites, go with the SBS or SAS or OSS or whatever.

And dont get me wrong, I do like the FLE. I own FLE uniforms, and I think modernly they are awesome, but in this context, I do not think they would work since there are so many other options which are better.

However, I do think a walker based on the Souma or Hotchkiss tanks would be cool.

in regards to the national origins of recruits in the FFL during WWII, most were certainly not german, swiss or even russian. in time honored tradition most of the FFL were...wait for it...french. How so? The Anonymitat (miss-spelled im certain), the tradition of not checking the papers of recruits too closely wich allowed many a frenchman to claim he was swiss-french etc.

Now post-war is a different story, but noone can be certain since the annonymitat was still in use till recently. Now the FFL actually runs background checks, uses Interpol, and doesnt allow criminals into their ranks. though im sure more than a few swiss-french manage to join their ranks...

It would be interesting to see something like the FFL introduced into the Dust world. Armor 1 (normal troops) but with an extra die roll for attacking or maybe with a built in spotter rule to simulate well trained fire discipline.

It would be interesting to see many nationalities in Dust, each with its twist and each with its special ruleset.

mostrojoe said:

AND WE ALL KNOW HOW WELL THOSE ITALIANS AND CHINESE DID IN THE WAR.

Seriously, aside from a need for Soviets and Japanese, the rest of them would do what? What would the special ability of an Italian unit be? You certainly would not have any decent heroes or officers.

The rest of the Axis can use current Axis stuff.

The rest of the Allies, well, they use stuff very similar to current Allied stuff.

I guess I am biased though, I am an American. I think if Paolo Parente wanted the minor Axis and Allied powers to figure in the game, he would have made them. And he is Italian, so you cant blame the USA on this one.

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Really? Is your view of the world and history honestly that limited? The Italians didnt have any heroic soldiers or good officers, the rest of the world wasnt involved in the war, and you have Paolos entire release schedule and didnt share it with us...

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

In the year 2011 there is still someone that has these ideas... very sad.

mostrojoe said:

I dont think Fulminarex meant it hat way. I think his reference was that in general, for WWII genre stuff you only hear about Americans, British, French, Russians and Germans as main characters/special heroes. Ive rarely seen special characters for Austria, Italy, Canada (other than Logan aka Wolverine) and so forth. On the Pacific side of things, you mainly get Japanes and Americans.

I for one welcome a few characters from each major faction. But draw the line at needing a list for every army. One or two Italians or French with one or two specific units from said countries would suit me fine. Not every nation/army will have VK/Walkers/Lasers and so forth.

Another reason to support the Infantry Armor 1 cards and basic tanks cards for official dust use.

You mean Ozz 117 ain't Australian?

Katman said:

LOL guess he might be.

Well, i guess 'zombie hitler' would qualify for a special character from austria...

theguildllc said:

Cant be a zombie the body was too badly damaged...they put his head in a jar

in the background fluff for the Dust game it states that members of the now disbanded ss and ahnenerbe are searching for the body and plan to reanimate him with the wiederbeleben serum. (pg 8 operation sealowe)

Actually, I am not very pleased with the de-Nazification of the Axis. Not that Im a pro-NAZI sort of fellow or anything. It jsut seems like the are censoring the villains to make them less evil then the real world and to avoid the swastika issue (which, when marketing in Europe is a major problem). Truth is, if Hitler was assassinated and the nazi party disbanded and arrested and executed, Germany would have been out of the war earlier then it was (even with VK power). In reality Operation Valkyrie wanted to make Rommel the new Fuhrer and he was still a Nazi.

Its a PR move and I do understand it. But to me, the Axis will always be toned down Nazis and my force will still be done like the SS (or maybe Hydra LOL).

But it does provide room to have axis on axis forces in the game. The same as Majestic 12 provides for Ally on Ally.

Germany is out of the war. WWII is over in the Dust sourcebook. What they have now is a sort of 'hot' coldwar. Other than on the easternfront, there are very few major land battles. im sure as the game evolves, the background will too (think GW; squats, zoats etc...) to allow for bigger battles.

The problem with a lot of the minor allies on both sides is that they were...rather minor. The Italian Army gets a real bad rap because they actually didn't do much of anything useful after taking Ethiopia. They stabbed France in the back after they were already defeated. They bungled the invasion of the Balkans, requiring Germany to pull them out of it, delaying the invasion of Russia, then they bungled in North Africa, leading to the installing of the Afrika Korps under Rommel to sort them out. It wasn't that Italians weren't brave or smart, it was simply that they were very badly led and supported.

It was also true of the Germans. Many people praise Rommel's tactical and operational genius, and they credit the valiant British Navy starving him of supplies for his defeat. It is actually a bit more complex and you have to dig this out of the history books. German generals always expected to fight a war with good rail lines and internal communications. It was what their officers were trained for. The British were taught that their purpose was to "kill them all" and sink all the enemy's warships so that Britannia could rule the waves. How does this work together?

Convoy leaves Italy or Sicily bound for Tripoli. The Brits sortie a heavy cruiser + escorts. The Italians have a light cruiser + escorts protecting the convoy. The Italians form up and defend the convoy while leading the Brits away from it, if possible breaking off the action and going back for repairs at home. The convoy scattered at max speed for Tripoli. It worked too, about 85-90% of all the stuff shipped to Libya made it there.

Now, here comes the German problem. A lower ranking officer (Major equivalent, forget the German name) was the logistics officer for Rommel. He didn't have the troops or support to deal with getting the one working rail line up. So, he simply loaded everything on trucks and sent it forward. From Tripoli to Egypt, if a convoy set out with 1000 gallons of fuel, it delivered about 200, requiring the other 800 for the round trip. If it carried anything other than fuel, it needed that same 800 gallons for the round trip. If fuel is short, then supplies rotted in Tripoli.

All because the brave Italian Navy tricked the thick headed Brits, but the Germans weren't trained to take advantage of the situation.

Rommel himself praised the Italians, but they were deficient in many areas compared to the Germans: doctrine, degree of mechanization/motorization, quality of equipment, etc.

Also remember that the Germans are no longer fighting for their country and expansion after the assasination of Hitler. They are on a mission to take over the world to protect it from the aliens. This isnt WWII, that fizzled out , this is a cold war for the VK assets needed to fight the aliens. The Reich knows why they want the VK deposits . The Allies and the SSU seem to want the VK deposits for its miracle properties in industryl use. I think only the Reich knows the severity of the threat the world is facing and will use any means neccessary to fight it . And yes I am really glad the SS and Nazis are out of the picture for the most part . It will make it a lot easier to market this game in Europe and no swastikas .