Yesterday, after diving into every searchable review for almost a week, I finally purchased my Core Set of Dust Tactics. I've come to understand that it's good to buy it if there's a chance, because it'll no longer be produced in the future.

Anyway. These are my thoughts on the game. It can be good to note that I play a lot of board games, but have also played Warhammer (fantasy and 40K) and currently play Flames of War. So I'm not in either camp between board gamer or tabletop gamer: I'm both.

1. Value

The game really feels worth it once you open the box. Tons of content, beautiful models and really serious packaging. I was instantly impressed. I did feel that the comic book was just plain ridiculous (eight pages?!) and could easily have been more fleshed out, but that was my only gripe with the content. It's probably going in the bin, to be honest.

There were some spelling mistakes as well as phrasing and layout errors, but nothing that took away from the game experience and nothing that was too much to bear. Not like Mansions of Madness, which is a game I didn't buy because of all the errors I saw when I played it.

2. Setting

I like the setting, but it's not terribly original. Alternate WWII settings are all over the place. However! The designs for mechs/robots and the way they've portrayed the military units I really like. Overall, it was more the designs than the setting that sold me on the game, but the setting is growing on me. Maybe after playing it more, I'll like it more.

3. Rules and Gameplay

So, the game, then? I actually love it. It's simple, fast and extremely flexible. It's sort of a best of both worlds between boardgame and tabletop game. I'm actually thinking of running it at the local game store at some point in the future, to try and get more players playing it.

The gripe I do have is really with the packaging. I would have preferred to have more larger boxes with more units in them than to have to buy every unit type for a small price on its own. Granted, it's not that expensive -- especially not compared to any GW products -- but it's still a little annoying. I would have preferred if AEG's intended release plan for the Artillery Strike thing had been kept, as advertised. Then I could buy a box and get artillery, command and snipers in one box.

As compared to for example 40K, I also really like the scale of skirmishes. You don't have the enormous 20 or 10-unit squads, which means that the game plays even faster.

Also, the dice were never as much of a problem as I thought they would be, reading reviews. With multiple options to reroll, especially with some of the units' special abilities, bad luck is a smaller problem than it is in Flames of War.

4. House Rules

After testing the game for a bit and reading through the rules once, at least, I instantly came up with two house rules: tank facing and tank casualty cover.

Tank facing means you can only fire a tank's weapons in the direction it's facing, making facing important. Might already be part of the rules and I missed it, but the way I thought of it differentiated the german and allied tanks: allied tanks can rotate their turret and fire the main cannon and 50-cal in any direction.

Tank casualty cover means that a killed tank stays on the table and still works as a blocked square. Even if it's broken, the hydraulics and motors wouldn't just suddenly break down. It might be relevant to have a way to destroy it, like the walls in one of the scenarios.

I wouldn't go down the rout of facing as the walkers can tun in place as well as an infantryman, there bodies can also swivel just like a turret so there should be no difference between the allied and axis walkers., don't really need a move action for that.

I'm not saying they should need movement actions to turn. That would stay the same, with free choice of facing. What I'm saying is that the allied walker can then ONLY shoot with its hull-mounted MG to its direct front, whereas it can use the turret to shoot in any direction with the main gun and 50-cal.

The Axis walkers would then be restricted to only shoot to the immediate front with the main cannons, but use the MG against any target (seeing as it's swivel-mounted MG.)

It's not super-important, but I think it would add a little extra thinking to tank movement. Right now, line of sight is your only consideration.

I can't see how ruling this will make any difference then, you just point the limited arc weapons one way and fire the rest where you like, which you can do without any rules. Personally I turn my guns to face the enemy anyway, you roll more hits that way

You're right, of course... It would only make a difference if there were rules for flanking, side armor, rear armor and so on. Otherwise it's just cosmetic. And I don't think the ease of the rules is a bad thing at all.

I'll shut up now...

LOL, sorry The tabletop rules might go into different armour on the flanks, could crib some rules from there maybe when they come out. Personally I like the simple rules, side armour -1 or +1 dice when attacking flank, might be cool though.

Yeah, or an additional miss reroll, meaning that a sustained attack to the rear could be really devastating. Think I'll try that at some point.

Hull mounted MG on the Allied would count as a hull mounted weapon in 40k, or 90-degree front arc weapon. Yes, it could be fun in facing became a factor, but it would impede the speed of the game. Justification, the walkers spend too much time in a turn hunting and turning like infantry in hostile territory.

I also use the house rule where destroyed tanks leave a pile of wreackage behind. But I'd advise against making this impassable terrain, like a wall. It could really break several of the scenarios. In my games we treat the wreackage like an ammo crate, but you could also make it the equivalent of a tank trap if you preferred (though that robs the other side's tank the pleasure of stepping over its enemy's carcass.

As Mj. Mishap said, walkers can pivot (almost) like an infantryman. Should you really want to check facings when shooting you then should take into account both turret turning speed and walker pivoting capability (speed too). Way too complicated.

I would also not encourage you to introduce walker facing, not really worth the bother.

Though we might have to face such a thing soon enough, with the heavy walkers. If they are indeed 2x2, it would be quite odd for the forward-facing weapon to be able to shoot in any direction.

I dont think facing is that big of a issue to add. As a free action a walker can pivot its facing one step (North to East). During a move action it could also change facing one step (East to South) as it moves. So on any round you could pull a 180 face change (North to East as free, East to South as part of your move) and still fire. You could change one degree of facing and still use sustained fire or two steps of facing (the 180) and still fire but not as sustained.

Swivel mounted weapons could still fire in any direction. As you will usually be facing the enemy anyway, it doesnt really come into play all the much, but honestly, the enemy should get some sort of bonus if they manage to manuever and outflank you.

The swivel/turn of the walkers is not so amazing that they could pivot on the spot like a infantry model could.

The will always be the line between realism and abstraction (that's even a real word!). Where Dust leans as it walks this line will always upset somebody. That being said I like the beer and pretzel combat so I would say no facing.

I agree with Peace, so I think orientation should matter when a unit his hit.

-Jeff

Loophole Master said:

You don'y though, you just rotate the model.

Major Mishap said:

We dont know that, we havent seen the rules for Heavy Walkers yet or units that take up more then one square. For all we know, they may have facing and turn rules.

And for the sake of balance, and fun, I hope they do.

The game is called Dust TACTICS, not Dust FACING DOESNT MATTER AND NEITHER DOES MANUEVERS

Peacekeeper_b said:

Balance and fun? How can you suggest they are not balanced or fun if you haven't played them? I'm just citing current rules where facing doesn't matter,

Major Mishap said:

Because I dont think lack of facing is balanced. It makes sense on a man to man scale, but not a huge walker or tank scale. Sure turrets, maybe, but not fixed guns on the front of a vehicle.

And by fun I mean keep it fairly simple, I shouldnt have to do algebra or use a special turn tool to change facing on a model. Thus came the idea of one face direction change for free and an additional face change per movement. So you could basically face any direction you wanted to fire but it would cost you movement/sustained fire ability.

Did anyone consider that the heavy walkers are maybe, just maybe more in keeping with the Dust Warfare system and less with the current Dust Tactics game? They seem to fit better on a 4x4 up to a 4x8 battlefield then what a normal Dust Tactics game includes.

madmaxknick50 said:

The most of the current Dust Tactics scenarios are more what I would consider skirmish games, suitable for a 4x4 table, so there is room to "grow" into a larger tabletop format.

Personally, I think maneuvering is the absolutely most important aspect of the current ruleset. Because of this, I think facing should be relevant. Especially if you consider the Reactive Fire rules from Seelöwe, which make flanking extremely useful.

Introducing new rules doesn't necessarily make the game more complex.

I think it could be done like this:

If you face anywhere BEHIND a 180-degree arc of a mech's front (you can use the ref sheet or similar to determine this) you are attacking that mech's Flank and get a free miss reroll, as if you had been firing Sustained Fire. If you fire Sustained Fire as well, you get to reroll misses twice.

With this setup, you would have to be more careful with how you place your mechs in relation to anti-tank enemies.

Actually, it should be done even easier: if you draw line of sight through the rear-most edge of the square the mech occupies, you get the reroll. A lot more on par with how the rules work for line of sight.