I am new to Dust Tactics and I have the revised core set. It seems to me that Lara embedded in the Flak Grenadiers is way more powerful than Rhino and the Hammers. Since their weapons a C, then the enemy always gets to retaliate. I have been playing the Victory Bridge scenario solitaire to get a feel for the game and the mechanics and the Axis have consistency owned the Allies.

I know I need to play more aggressively with the Allies and it seems the scenarios don't favor that as much.

How can getting attacked back compare to burst weapons (or even regular guns) with range 4? I have always like the idea of mobility but it does not seem to be working for me.

Take care and have a great day.

As I am going to get the RCS in a few days (birthday present), I am rather interested in an answer as well. Are the two sides really that unbalanced? If they are, can you do anything about it? Do you need to play a special strategy, or do you just have to buy another Allied squad to even things out? If you know or have any suggestions, please answer. Please!

I'll repost what I posted on BGG:

Problem is that the Revised Set doesn't seem to be very well balanced, specially for inexperienced players.

Hammers really shouldn't be going after Lara and Flaks, they should be pounding down on Armor 2 troops, who often can't even retalliate, or walkers. You'd be better of using the Hell Boys against the Flaks, I think.

But better yet, get some expansions to give you a little more strategic choice. Lara & Flaks are completely stumped by a medium walker, Mickey owns them.

My son (8 years old) have noticed this, too. He refuses to be the Axis army (good boy!), but it's all I can do to keep from totally annihilating him. Most of his squads are "C", while most of mine are 3 - 4.

I just bought him the Spec Ops kit (snipers and spotters), one of which has a range of 6 and great soft cover. Hopefully that gives him some options.

They really should've included either the Tank Busters or Grim Reapers instead of the Hammers in the Revised Core set. Granted it is a good "tactic" to get you to buy more.

Lara is great though but it sometimes feels like the reason us Axis players have no other "living" human infantry armor 3 heroes.....

Maximum said:

I would like more living Armor 3 choices for the Axis, but I think it's more simply balancing the field.

The Axis have Lara, Markus, Grenadier-X and Totenmeister at Armor 3, while the Allies have Action Jackson, Ozz 117, and Rhino.

The Axis have more Armor 3 heroes, but they're also more restricted on what units they can be fielded with. Lara is the only one with a lot of flexibility, but they also wanted to make the Axis special troop types more appealing.

The Allies got one more Armor 2 hero than the Axis, but their biggest advantage is that only Action Jackson is limited in what unit he can be fielded with, while three of the Axis heroes are restricted.

Okay, now I know that the RCS is indeed unbalanced so I know what to expect in my first games and what tactics to use. Furthermore, I've learned that a Mickey, the Grim Reapers or the Tank Busters could probably even things out a bit. Thanks a lot to everybody who helped by posting here, and if you've got any other hints, please go on!

I would like to disagree with the majority on this one. I do not think that either side is over-powered/unbalanced in this set. While having only melee weapons can be difficult, jump and movement 2 if used properly can make up for it. Keep doing double moves behind terrain (or your walker) until you can pounce on his walker or light infantry. Yes the Flak Grenadiers have a burst weapon, but it also has to be reloaded, and if you aren't moving while in LOS of the Flak unit you are asking to be wiped out. The axis def 3 infantry literally have half the movement of the allies. Also bear in mind the the Hammers lose no effectiveness against heavier targets, compared to the flak getting a few dice (or none) vs. walkers.

When we played the campaign, I lost with Axis

I wiped an entire squad off the board this afternoon in one roll with rhino and his buddies. Yeah, you got to get in close, but that's a lot of dice to roll against armor 2 squads.

I have seen the Hammers and Rhino do well, took out a Ludwig, Luther and laser grenadiers but they are really deadly versus walkers and arm 2 infantry.

I don't see the Revised Core Set as unbalanced, but only as the Allies having a steeper learning curve to use well.

That can make nes players feel the set is unbalanced, so I think a different mix would have been better, but as it is it gives players a taste of a greater variety of unit types.

The Hammers are far from my favorite unit, but they are workable.

I have now introduced 3 friends to the game and have played the first 2 scenarios with each of them. The first scenario "Recon in Force" does not really count since there are no heroes in it. In the second scenario, the when I have twice played the allies against the axis (a new player) I have won but I have "balanced" the game by replacing the Hammers with the Grim Reapers.

The wins have more to do with a few key tactical errors than anything else. The first game against a friend who is more strategic, he almost won with the allies and I was half rooting for him.

I agree with the comments that it may also be due to lack of experience and the nature of the particular scenarios.

Take care and have a great day.

During the last four weekends I have played with my local gaming group the "Victory Bridge" campaign from the Revised Core Set, and having played all scenarios two times (so each faction could play both Attacker and Defender role in any given scenario) I have come to think that the perceived unbalance between Axis and Allies (specially the hard time playing the "Rhino"+`"Hammer" combo versus the Axis "Lara"+ any "Heavy Grenadiers") is not some nefarious plot from FFG to make us buy more units, but because the unit forces in the Revised Core Set are specifically tailored to be competitive in the scenarios from the "Victory Bridge" campaign if the faction is playing the role that has been tought for her in that particular scenario.

I will give you an example to clarify my words: the scenario "Counterattack" represents an attack from the Allies to retake the Cobden bridge from german hands, so the Allies should be the "Attacking" faction by default. We made the mistake to play this scenario for the first time with the Allies being the "Defender" faction, because we thought that the desployment zones were a nonsense (the Attacker deploys in the middle of the bridge that the Axis has taken, while the Defender deploys at the perimeter - ¿shouldn't be otherwise, the Defender deploying inside the bridge and the Attacker attacking the perimeter?). But we found that playing the "Counterattack" scenario with the Allies using the Defender deploy zone put them at an enormous disadvantage, because it was almost impossible to close enought to bring the Axis inside the range of their weapons.

Then we realized that we were playing wrong that scenario. The Attacker deployment zone was placed inside the bridge because it represented an aerial assault, with Allied soldiers and walkers being released by parachutes and landing in the middle of the bridge, surprising the Axis defender because they were trenched in the perimeter of the bridge, to defend it from an outside attack. So when we reversed the deployment for both factions, the scenario became tactically sound, because now the Allies had the chance to deploy with the Axis forces inside the range of their weapons, and the Axis player had to leave quickly their "entry points" to avoid being killed just after entering the map, giving the Allies the chance to deploy, kill some Axis troops, regroup inside the bridge, and prepare for the Axis counterattack.

Therefore, the units from the Revised Core Set were not chosen to play with them a standard 130 points battle, but to play them specifically for the scenarios of the "Victory Bridge" campaign, were the higher mobility and close combat power of the Allies and the endurance and long range firepower of the Axis have been taken in count in every scenario.

Agrivar said:

Dear Agrivar, I do not agree with you that the deployment zones are nonsense. For me they make perfect sense and follow the story line of the entire campaign: Axis (attackers in the story) take the bridge and the Allies need to push them off it. In my understanding the attacker should remain constant for the entire campaign.

Following your logic, the next scenario "Seize the Explosives" should also have the allies as the attacker, which does not make sense to me. What are your thoughts?

I do agree with you that there is a balance of units and I like the wide variety of units, especially for the axis and that they have been chosen/crafted for the scenarios.

Thanks for your input.

Take care and have a great day.

I just finished playing the Victory Bridge campaign twice - one time with the Axis being the attacker, one time with the Allies attacking. I used only the units included in the RCS to try out the balance of those two forces. Surprise result: When attacking, the Axis clearly won the campaign with 5 wins in scenarios. When defending, the Axis lost to the Allies that won 4 scenarios. That's a bit strange because the Allies were supposed to be the defenders in Victory Bridge.

On a side note, I think it would be better if the campaigns had an odd number of scenarios to avoid draws.