I met up with a friend at The Adventure Game Store in Davie, Florida. Neither of us had played before but I have 4 core sets and a revised core set, and nearly everything is painted. We played a scenario similar to GENERAL ASSAULT, but made the playing are 1 row larger and wider. We each had 350 point armies. The action went pretty fast, the best thing about Dust Tactics as it currently stands. The objective was to get a figure to the other guys starting edge.

ALLIED FORCE:

Rosie, with the Crack Shots

Joe, with the Death Dealers

Rhino, with the Hammers

OZZ, with the Tank Busters

Grim Reapers

Hell Boys

Mickey

Steel Rain

The Boss

Forward Observers

I do not think I forgot anything

AXIS FORCE:

Sigrid, with the Snipers

Lara, with the Fliegerfaust unit

3 Lothars

1 Ludwig

1 Hermann

Zombies

Kommandotruppen

Recon Grenadiers

The battle raged on for 8 rounds, possibly 9

We literally got down to 4 Axis units left and 1 Allied.

The biggest impressions made were:

Tank Busters are highly effective. If I had had 2 of these I probably could have won.

Sigrid and the Snipers is one hell of a combo. Two times in a row she rolled well over 15 HITS, and this was near the end of the game. If we had known how nasty she was, she should have been out front all along.

Mickey is exceptional, really so. Fast, Self Repairing, and murderous against troops.

I actually found the new and old units to mesh well together.

Damage Resilient is very effective, and I feel it is nearly overwhelming. The allied trade off of being faster and jumping does not really compare.

Lara and the Fliegerfausts was a pretty nasty unit.

Overall, I was most impressed by the Sigrid/Sniper squad. Really awesome.

I will generate a full report of the battle after I go over the notes with my competitor.

I think one of your most important lines in there was that the old and new stuff meshed together well. I totally agree, I still use a good amount of armor 2 troops (even though I have a lot of armor 3 troops), and they do pretty well. When you can take a squad of Recon Boys thats half the cost of any type 3 unit, you can still whittle that type 3 unit down enough to be ineffective.

About the Sigrid-Spotter combination. Someone brought that up in another thread about the heroes and I have been thinking about it.

I'm thinking it's not quite right to have the Spotter's ability affect ALL of Sigrid's attack dice. A spotter makes it easier to hit someone, it doesn't increase the damage of your weapon. Spotters are paired with other soldiers "in order to increase their accuracy" . After a laser weapon's initial hits are counted, the repeated rolls are due to the laser's cutting power, not its accuracy. I don't think these rerolls should be affected by the Spotter ability.

The same line of thinking would apply to a hypotetical combination of a phaser weapon and a Spotter. I think the Spotter would affect only the initial "to hit" roll, but not the subsequent "damage" roll.

I realize the rules don't explain any of the above, but I just don't think they considered the combination of such weapons as lasers and phasers with the Spotter ability. But I think it would be in the spirit of the Spotter rules that such damage-exclusive rolls be unaffected by it.

That Sigrid/Spotter combo was devastating. If my opponent had used them from turn one, I would have been slaughtered. I tried the Rosie and Spotter combo, but had less effect due to poor dice rolling. If I had Stephan and a Spotter, that would be gruesome against walkers and troops alike.

Yeah, the Mickey is quite good. I am thinking of running my Pounder from the starter as a Mickey, and when I get another Allied Walkers box, start using a Pounder then. Medium walkers are just so slow...

Yep, I was wondering about that in the heroes thread I started. Seriously, Lasers + Spotting may be too grotesque, but then you can only use it on Sigrid right now (unless we get a Spotter hero or squads with a Spotter). OTOH, Sigrid is only range 3, so if the combo works with all blanks being hits even on the laser effect, then it just makes it a bigger target from longer range. Consider: the squad has only one more hit than a BBQ Squad which can be equally brutal vs infantry. After all, even if Sigrid rolls a bajillion hits, only five will count vs infantry.

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

I doubt that, now that you know her effect you will take countermeasures against that unit, you will kill her on turn 1 or 2 next game. I felt the same when I first faced the BBQ squad that easily decimates a walker and unit in 1 shoot action, its rare that that happens now.