Anyone have a full GenCon Dust Warfare Review/recap?

theres one starting on boardgamegeek. i'd link it, but this forum screws with my copy/paste when i'm on my Xoom.

Copied from Conrad on Boardgame Geek:

Took the Dust Warfare demo today at GenCon and I no longer have any reservations about this new version of the game. It's very straightforward with some nice additions.

Same units and stat cards are used. The multiplier for range and movement is six, which means the standard will be 6 inches on a single move action, 12 inches on a move-move. Range 1 weapons are 6 inches, range two are 12 inches and so on.

The standard battlefield area is 4 x 4.

Combat is resolved the same way with a few additions. If you fire at a squad and generate at least one hit, even if that hit is saved by a cover roll, you put a suppression marker on that unit. When that unit is next activated, its commander makes a suppression roll (looking for a hit on one die). If it hits, the unit is no longer suppressed and gets both actions. If it does not, the unit only gets one action.

I am not completely clear on the hits vs. the walkers because there were several people in the demo and it got a bit confusing at one point but as I understand it, when you attack a walker and score a hit, you choose where the unit is damaged -- with two guns and two legs as the targets for the two hit points. Presumably, if you knock out one leg it can only move half its normal distance.

For flamethrowers, there is now a 6x6 template to determine the units in the target zone. There were no artillery units in the demo but I'd guess there will be something along the same lines for artillery shots.

Walkers can also benefit from cover in this version of the game.

The rules are still in beta so there could be a few tweaks between now and the release, projected for October, but this should give you the basics of the upcoming new system.

DoomOnYou72 said:

So do heroes get cover? LOL.

As for walkers. Is it a choice, take a wound of damage or lose a leg/weapon or is it lose a wound and a leg or weapon?

I kinda like the AT-43 hit locations rules. But since you use dice with symbols on them in Dust I dont think that would work overall. So perhaps when you take a wound you roll 1 die and on a hit you suffer a weapon or leg hit and on a miss you just take the wound?

Do C weapons get the 6" multiplication or just base to base/close combat?

Lik the suppression rules, might have to adapt them to Dust Tactics. Any other morale rules?

Can you send a link to that BGG thread?

@peace: i think C weapons can only be used in close combat (i.e base to base)

Areus said:

That does make sense. I was just curious as in Dust Tactics C and 1 have the same general range (adjacent square).

Updated info:

Went through a second demo today and a few more details were explained.

To begin with, there is an extra phase. Each round begins with a Command Phase. Each player rolls 5 dice. Whoever scores the fewest hits gets the choice to re-roll and pass initiative or to keep the roll. In the Command Phase, you "spend" the hits you rolled. It costs two hits to active a tank, one to activate a squad. So if you rolled three hits, you can do three squads or one tank and a squad.

There is no reactive fire in the Command Phase.

You then move to the Activation Phase, which is like the standard turn we're used to with a couple of exceptions. Units that were activated in the Command Phase can be activated again but can perform only one action. The biggest deviation is combat against tanks.

Simply put, tanks are much, much tougher to kill in Dust Warfare. As the guy doing the demo said, "this game's really all about building your army around your tanks."

Say a Pounder attacks a Ludwig with a sustained attack and generates three total hits. First of all, Ludwig would get to make a cover roll because tanks get cover in DW. Say the cover roll saves one. Ludwig then takes an "armor roll." Because he's an armor class 4 vehicle, he rolls four more dice with hits counting as saves.

Say one damage made it through all those cover/save rolls. You then consult an armor damage table and roll dice based on the number of hits to determine specific damage to the tank -- it can be forced to back up, lose a weapon of the attacker's choice, have one of its walker legs disabled, etc.

It appears all of the rules may not be completely worked out, since they're still in beta. I asked about Artillery, specifically if it would use a blast template, but the demo guy wasn't sure that had been determined yet.

As an aside, there are some truly awesome Heavy Walkers in the pipeline. We're talking huge 100-point units that are serious bangers. They have the models on display at GenCon but not the unit cards.

Link to original thread: www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/682667/dust-warfare-explained

DoomOnYou72 said:

Seems a bit bulky and clumsy. But will have to see how it plays out.

DoomOnYou72 said:

Groan. Do not like that soundbite at all. Was hoping for a balance and not another mechwarrior style game. Maybe if they had some ordinary tanks I would be happy. Was hoping to be able to play and be competitive with 4-5 walkers max in my force.

DoomOnYou72 said:

I like the diversity of damage options (forced back, weapon damages, hull/real damage, movement/stat damage) but saves for the sake of being an armored vehicle? Dont they already have their own damage chart/category for weapons? But I guess it could/will/does work.

DoomOnYou72 said:

So probably not available in October then if that isnt all worked out.

DoomOnYou72 said:

Uh-oh. Souinds like its hitting that Rifts Glitter Boy stage finally. "Here is my Armor 7 Walker, it has 10 health and gets 7 armor rolls when you finally do hit it" LOL. Maybe we will get elite/veteran infantry card with more skills to let us ground pounders fans have some fun as well.

DoomOnYou72 said:

Thanks.

On a plus, Vehicles get cover YES!

Could you ask the following two questions?

1. Do heroes get cover?

2. Will there be Armor 1/mundane units?

Andy Chambers posted this on Facebook today:

"Glad you enjoyed demo. One slight clarification I should make is that tanks roll armor protection based on their damage capacity, not their armor type (that's already interacted with the weapon type y'see). I think its also safe to say that yes artillery will use a template in Dust Warfare, might be the same as the flamethrower one (6x6) or might change, tbd."

I wish I could ask but Im not there just relaying the info...

DoomOnYou72 said:

Ahhh. So let me see if I understand this.

Instead of rolling 4 armor saves based on being an Armor 4 tank, you roll 1 save per health of the vehicle? So is that remaining health or original health?

Or am I off the mark here? So its like having Damage Resilience but with a cap on how much can be used? So if you take 5 and you have normally 4 damage capacity you can only roll 4 and must take at least 1?

Thats the way its being presented. So far I like what Im hearing. As far as tanks being tougher I dont think its that bad and its going to vary alot due to list builds and terrain density on the table.

DoomOnYou72 said:

Well unless the extra-saves (damage resilience) and the benefit of getting cover now is offset by the decline of the vehicles efficiency with damage taken, then I think walkers will dominate the game if they stay the same points value. For 125 points I could field 3-4 walkers or 4-5 squads. Walkers would probably win that fight.

However, with the decrease in efficiency from damage, they may be on par with troops. In Dust Tactics a walker at ful, -1, -2 or -3 health functions all the same (provided it has 4 health). A squad typically has 5 health, making it alittle bit durable (other then the Armor 2 infantry issue LOL) but with each loss of a health it loses on set of weapons/weapon. With what I have read of the new Dust Warfare rules, the walker will lose an ability, weapon, movement or other setback with heach health loss.

I would like to see it be similr to AT-43 with each "wound" suffered being either a actual reduction in health/damage capacity or other function, such as a weapon, a skill/ability, a action (going from 2 actions per round to 1 action) or even a point of armor (from Tank Armor 4 to Tank Armor 3 for example).

Hopefully before the game is released we will see some of the beta rules.

I would like to see the option of adding veteran/elite cards to infantry units, Basically a add on to exiting units that give that squad a special skill/ability. They would cost 5 to 10 points each, you could have no more then one or maybe 2 per Armor Type. Amongst other restrictions (some would be limited to only specific armor type, or only to command squads, or not available to command squads or so forth).

Looks promising. I may have to buy a few extra boxes of tank hunters/killers for my axis!

I take it Dust Warfare uses regular D6's? does that mean the target dice from dust tactics are gonna be useless? I kinda liked em for some reason.. guess I could use em as markers or something...

Dust Warfare uses the same target dice as Tactics. It pretty much uses all things from Tactics.

Necross said:

From what I have gathered from the reports so far, the tables will be based on the number of "hits" you roll. The number of dice rolled will be based on the amount of damage you inflicted and so forth. Giving each dice two results, 0 and 1 (kinda binary). So two die have 0, 1, or 2. Three have 0, 1, 2 or 3 and so forth.

And as far as I can gather the charts are only for vehicle/tank/walker damage.

Andy Chambers is on the Official Dust Tactics FB group, he might be willing to take the time to answer Q's...

Why not just answer questions here instead of crappy facebook

theguildllc said:

Because it says I have to request membership and I never hear back from that group.

no, I meant why doesn't FFG just come here to this board to answer questions instead of using facebook

Necross said:

FFG doesnt talk to you unless its through a GenCon update video. You get about 4 of those a year.

peace, necross. beats the hell out of me why he doesnt and why they dont resond back. figured if you wanted answers there was a way to go about getting them.

Peacekeeper_b said:

OTOH if the game revolves around scenarios rather than straight shoot 'em ups - one easy way of balancing things would be to only allow infantry to take/hold objectives. Sure tanks/walkers may decimate infantry but if your opponent loads up with tanks he won't be able to win the game without at least one squad which will be the target for all your units.

whiskyrat said:

Ah yes, the Warhammer 40K Troops Contingency! Only troops can hold objectives. LOL. Always hated that as it made no since that your highly trained infiltration specialist and ultra expensive Imperial Guard Stormtroopers couldnt hold objectives.

But in a nut shell, this could work.

Infantry will still have the edge in some building/hangar scenarios if Walkers are still limited as to what they can enter.

Overall for both Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare I would like to see unit limitations. Like say, no more then 2 Infantry Armor 3 units, no more then 1 Infantry Armor 4 units, max of 5 Armor 4 or lower walkers, make of 2 Armor 5 or better walkers, max of 1 of each type of Command Squad. Max of one hero per each unit/squad of like armor class. So To field Manfred and Sigrid you would need at least two Armor 2 Infantry squads.

You can violate these limits based on scenario or by paying an extra fee of 5 AP for units in violation. So for example, you are fielding OZZ 117 but no Infantry Armor 3 squads. OZZ 117 will cost you an additonal 5 points to field. For a total of 29 points.

Don't see why you would need to add uneccessary complication in designing an army, if the points values are fair and balanced then it won't be a problem.