Some people had asked me to look over Warfare, and give my opinion. I tend to be long winded, so feel free to skip this post if you're completely happy with Warfare, because I'm not. So long as you're having fun, rock on.

Warfare, for me, needs a significant amount of rework before it's a game worth playing. The core capability is there. Andy Chambers has been working on his reactive mechanic system for several years now, and it's a reasonbly workable system. I like the board game he mentioned he drew inspiration from. I liked what he did with it for another miniatures game. I like what I see of it layered behind the morass of mediocrity Warfare currently is.

That said, some major points (skipping others that have been mentioned in the errata thread or I don't want to take the time for right now):

Measuring of all distances is declared to only consider the horizontal component, but never the vertical. That sounds nice, and on a nice flat playing board, or on a table without much terrain, it stays workable, even if silly. As terrain is added, such a mechanic requires the use of a plumb bob if you want accurate ranges. Tactics accepted they were using separate ground and miniature scales, as most miniatures games do. They still acknowledged the problems inherent in firing at elevated targets, which any marksman will acknowledge exist. Since Warfare decided to go for a true line of sight mechanic, using line of sight ranges would be far simpler. It would also eliminate the ridiculous concept of an infantry unit charging up a 45 degree hill being able to move over 40% faster than they could on level ground (hills are not classed as difficult terrain). balancing that is the silliness that a normal infantry unit cannot climb more than one level of a building per turn, though that climb does not count as movement distance.

The worst point: close combat is a 3" ranged attack, so there is no reason to climb a building with close combat troops unless there's an objective up there. Move within 3" horizontally of a unit twenty stories up, and you can punch them in the face from the ground. No vertical distance considered as per the rules.

Suppression is announced as a way to track unit morale in the game, but instead only counts how often they've been shot at. There is no mechanic to show actual morale differences between units. If a unit takes a hit, even if they save (and not even requiring the hit for some weapons) they take a suppression marker. Since they decided to change the unit stats anyway, why not allow different classes of morale like real soldiers, with elite getting a set number of dice to resist suppression, and lesser units getting fewer. Then, you would have actual morale instead of bean counting.

Reaction allowing a unit to move out of range from weapons fire has been tried in several other games that allow reaction movement. All have found it to be laughable because it is so unrealistic. People don't outrun arrows, and don't even see bullets to try and outrun them to get out of range.

Reactions have way to many exceptions, with none of them making sense. Jump troops can never be reacted to on a move, though they're flying high above cover while they do so, which kills a lot of paratroopers when enemy soldiers are around. Assault doesn't allow a reaction at the end of movement, but only at the beginning. So a unit with Jump, a unit doing a forced march with Assault, and a unit with Fast are all moving at the same speed , yet no reaction can happen against the easy target Jumpers, limited reaction can happen against the the rushing Assaulters who are ignoring cover for speed, but full reaction can be used against the Fast unit.

Units giving cover, as written, gets silly fast. A unit can move in a blob, with the leader at the back of the pack, and will give itself soft cover until it takes a hit and is suppressed, at which point it gain soft cover for hugging the ground. Gorillas never suffer from suppression, so they can advance giving themselves cover across every open field. Zombies don't gain from light cover, or they could too. Any unit can walk behind a walker, using it to give them hard cover as they advance, and so long as the squad leader touches the base of the walker, it counts as open terrain for them. For players using felt forests, as soon as a squad leader enters the forest, everything within the forest becomes open terrain for their men.

The concept of a unit touching difficult terrain being reduced to a 3" move was used in similar form for Mage Knight, but people have always considered that an overly simplistic system. Here, Warfare goes just as simplistic when it adds nothing, and makes movement foolish.

Attacking vehicles is ludicrous. Let's take the big boys, with the Punisher and Konigsluther. They both get special abilities, with the Konigsluther cutting the Punisher down to four Armor (immediately increased back to five for fire from the front due to the Dozer Blade) to offset damage. The Punisher gets to hit on blanks instead of normal hits, doubling its average damage. So, the Konigsluther gets an average of two hits on a normal attack, which the Punisher reduces by an average of 1.67 hits with its armor roll. The Punisher gets four hits on average against the Konigsluther, which it gets to reduce by 2.33 hits on average. Each round of firing, the Punisher suffers 0.33 points of damage, while the Konigsluther suffers 1.67 points of damage. That's not an even trade, but then it gets better. The Konigsluther gets to roll two dice on the critical camage chart on average, even if all damage were negated. The Punisher gets to roll four. The Punisher has only a slightly worse chance to get a weapon destroyed result (9.9%) than the Konigsluther has of getting an external fire (11.1%). The Punisher will get a fire result 29.6% of the time. The Konigsluther has to roll above average to even have a chance to get to a weapon destroyed result.

Of course, the idea that a lucky armor roll could completely negate the damage from an attack, but that attack still cause an internal ammunition explosion is even worse, though the idea that a vehicle can suffer an internal ammunition explosion, yet still remain perfectly healthy, while troops around it get blown up, is so sad it's comical. Vehicle damage should relate to actual damage, though the way the armor mechanic has been set up, vehicles would be far too survivable without its silliness.

Skills are largely blase, with changes from Tactics sometimes needed, but Sniper is a ridiculous piece of work. Snipers in Tactics were exactly that: they picked off men and material that was significant, with a spotter making them better at it. For Warfare, they've become much more dangerous, with far longer range (hint: normal WW2 snipers didn't fire as far as modern snipers, not just because of equipment, but mostly due to training and tactics), and the ability to ignore armor and cover saves. Hurray! but wait, they can't actually snipe any more, and just do damage like any other weapon. Snipers were tactical assets in Tactics, so why not let them do what they are designed to do in Warfare?

Artillery indirect attacks no longer ignore cover as written, and neither do Spray weapons, though the Nebelwerfer shows something was missed as it says the opposite. How artillery interacts with targets inside buildings is not addressed, with even a Normandy bunker being meaningless as other than cover instead of something artillery can't handle.

Tank Killer weapons and the Allied Rocket Punch get stupid, with both gaining the ability to hit on blanks. The Axis higher tech panzer gloves couldn't figure that out, however. The Axis got Penetrator Weapons, but only for one gun, and it's far weaker than Tank Killer. The Axis got one Penetrator Weapon, one Tank Killer, and nerfed Damage Resilient. TheAllies got four vehicles with Tank Killer, and three squads and two heroes with Rocket Punches.

Jumping a bit, looking at fortifications: Something I didn't mention in the errata thread on Minefields is the requirement that a unit end a Move action in range of a Minefield marker. A unit moving fast enough to cross past the marker will never be attacked. Vehicles can also clear minefields, but most were not very good for it in WW2. Massive Artillery bombardment might clear a minefield, but it was also never guranteed. Minefields are also rarely as non-persistent as Warfare allows, though the cost for the area is very low.

Barbed Wire has ridiculous rules. Barbed wire does not kill people. It slows people down so weapons can kill them. Vehicles are also a standard way to clear barbed wire, because it can't slow down their mass. Electrified wire needs to be near heavy generator equipment to be dangerous as more than a shock. Making electrified wire this dangerous is less realistic than Monty Python's killer bunny.

Army Special upgrades show a really poor level of balance. Consider the two Preparatory/Nebelwerfer Barrages; the Axis suppress every soldier unit not more than 50% in some form of cover, while the Allies roll for every unit, with a 55% chance for every soldier unit, regardless of cover. That sounds reasonable, except that the rules specify the Allied player knows the Axis force composition before setup, and so can mitigate the automatic result, while the Axis is stuck with 55% of their soldier units suppressed on average.

The Allies get the option to buy an extra hero, while the Axis get an extra Panzer. Rather ironic, when the Allies had better vehicle production, and the Axis had a far better NCO & officer corps to draw from. The reverse would make far more sense.

Lightning War can currently only help the Axis in one specific scenario that is not in the tournament rules, as they have no units inherently capable of being Reserved. While they might get such units, the option should have been Reserved until those units were released.

The Axis getting Dug-in in another miss when it comes to the way Germany trained to fight. It would fit for the Soviets, but the Germans did not push defensive positions nearly as much as other armies. They trained for mobile warfare, and walkers would accentuate that concept.

Implaccable is another option that sounds good until it intersects with the Battle Builder. With the Allied player knowing the Axis has Implacable, they can threaten to put points into Conditions to force the Axis to counter Off Target Shelling, and so control the Battle Builder far more than they should. With that threat, the upgrade becomes worth far less.

The Allies' additional upgrades give them Air Drop, which I've noted as poorly worded or overpowered, a one time GB-9 air strike I can't picture any commander with sense spending points on with its cost, and Additional Resources to make their Long Toms (I still find that name detestable as a veteran) and Smoke Screens more probable. Spending 10 points to give the Long Toms a 55% chance to come in is probably one of the better bargains available.

Jumping back to the scenarios from the Battle Builder (though there are problems with the others), [sarcasm] I'm glad Mack likes 40K enough to bring over Unprepared. [/sarcasm] No modern army leads with its command elements like that. Support might bring up the rear, but that is combat support like offboard artillery. By the end of our WW2, all of the armies knew to lead with tanks in the open, infantry in towns, command always slightly to the rear, and everything close enough to support each other. The continued reference to 'battle lines' also shows a marked lack of understanding of realistic military tactics. Please try doing a little research other than through 40K or Flames of War.

Many of the units had changes from Tactics that made them make far less sense. Just because a gun can shoot far away does not make it an indirect artillery piece.

Smoke Screens are never planned to cover an entire battlefield. The small area option from Tactics made sense for how they are used. Turning the entire battlefield into a low visibility area only for infantry (except for burst and spray weapons that someone see in the murk) has nothing to do with how real battlefields use smoke. Smoke is not used when it will interfere with your unit's abilities unless they need it to survive immediately (ex: tank smoke launchers). It would also take far too much smoke material to cover a Warfare battlefield.

Platoon structure is another nightmare that looks like it was ported over from 40K. A platoon TO&E is a good place to start for building a realistic force. The platoon options given, however, are not functional TO&E's, but rather some strange amalgamation from the mind of someone with no understanding of military theory.

A quick example as I'm getting frustrated thinking about what Warfare could be versus what it is:

An Assault Platoon is a platoon assigned to assault a position and take it. One would expect that to be obvious. What does the Allied Assault Platoon have? A range of squad options with the possibility of extra snipers or observers by having them as other than support, and then the ability to take only light and heavy walkers.

Consider what some weapons were designed to do: Vehicle mounted flamethrowers (Hot Dog Medium Walker) were designed to attack fortifications during assaults. The Petard Mortar (Steel Rain Medium Walker) was designed to bust open bunkers for D-Day. Short barelled howitzers (Mickey Medium Walker) were designed to give quick support for assaulting infantry units. Three of the four medium walkers were designed with assault weapons, yet none of them are allowed in an ASSAULT platoon.

The platoon lists look more like someone wanted to spread the wealth, so people who have been collecting might have to still buy more for certain platoons, and new players would have to make larger bulk purchases whenever they wanted to field a new platoon. Actual tactical utilization of the various units was, at most, an afterthought.

I was looking forward to Warfare, because I have no problem with game complexity, and am willing to deal with a lot to have a solid, tactical game.

Warfare, instead, is looking like Dust 1940K instead of the solid game it could be. I had hopes when it went back for a re-write, but now there is so much invested in what I'm seeing as worthless drivel that I don't know if it can be saved. There are people enjoying it, and I hope they can continue to do so, for the sake of Tactics if nothing else, but instead of a more tactical game than Tactics, we have a terrible waste of Andy Chambers nice core system that is simply more complicated without adding any meat to it.

You should write up a pdf of your alt./revised Warfare rules and platoons.

Many games have fan mods.

Also send your resume to FFG?

Kommissar Zeitsev said:

Second. also i would like to preorder a copy of gimp warfare please.

Where were you when FFG wrote the rules?

I think what you are forgetting is that this is FFG. Errors and typos will overwhelm anything they publish.

However, I assume some of the things they intended to fix in playtest were probably left out and some entries seem to be shortened to meet the page count (the book should be another 50+ pages with more fluff, more examples and clarifications and more rules).

I agree, I do not like suppression as is because it doesnt really take into account green or veteran or specialy trained squads very well (the BK guys get to ignore suppression, and a few heroes have effects on it). I would have rather seen more stats added (morale, for example).

I do not like the armor roll system. Its double dipping. I am harder to hurt because I am Armor 3 and I get 3 dice to reduce even more damage! And I dont like cover capping out at 2 (soft, hard) and if you go to ground in hard cover it should be 3. But i would rather it be the Dust Tactics style of cover, roll against each hit.

I suspect we will see a errata in a few weeks/months, rules updates in Zverograd and a Dust Warfare Revised book in 2 years.

But in the end, its still a good game.

A waste of Andy Chambers, for sure. Maybe he was there designing the otherwise very nice turn structure (orders / reactions (barring the moving away from fire thingy), and then when he left the project to move on after laying out the foundation, the team couldn't finish it properly?

In this case, we should probably call on FFG to be class acts and take a lesson from FoW, and simply issue new mini rulebooks to V1 rulebook buyers.

Failing that, I suppose I'll go back to 40k et al a bit poorer.

Kommissar Zeitsev said:

Please tell me you're joking?

His complaints boil down to:

1-It's not historically accurate (about a game where an alien ship crash landed in Antarctica)

or

2-The game should be more complex to add realism.

Burnhamalive said:

Let's keep this civil -- we can disagree without sarcasm. Whether or not you agree with someone's opinion, you can show respect -- especially in light of the time and care taken with Gimp's response -- his verbosity I feel being part of his nature, and quite useful; you can not ever fault him for making a trite or glib posting.

1. Sure the fiction part is an alien ship crashed in Antartica and its technology was reverse engineered. But, if you are going to place this occurrence within a well known and documented point in history, and build a game around it, you need to maintain balance and accuracy with parts of history. You don't get to make up rules just because… -- the rules must follow a canon, and an especially logical one when dealing with historical forces, units, and equipment. For example, Gimp's point about assalt troop, snipers, or the role of tanks.

2. No, I don't read that -- the game is already complex, or not depending on your point of view and frame of reference. The game should address realism as part of its makeup; see #1. Complexity doesn't offer realism as a matter of course, and neither does realism beget complexity.

Like Gimp stated -- if you enjoy the game, disregard his opinion. But for those of us on the fence about it because we don't want yet another 40k clone, his point are valid, reasonable, and provide a nice starting point to begin formulating our personal opinion.

Cheers!

Not the glowing review I was hoping on reading, but oh well, my DW book is still on its way. Despite the issues you've listed with the ruleset Gimp, is it still fun?

To those that have played it, how does the this ruleset compare to something smaller scale like Warmachine/Hordes?

I do like what I'm hearing about walkers being tougher to kill and the weird lack of measuring on elevations seems like its going to need a house rule or two.

Maximum said:

For one thing, it seems to play really fast, which I think is a really good thing. Even playing with a relatively small Warmahorde force, that game can still stretch out for a long time. With DW, we played our first 150pt game in less than 1.5 hours, and that was with A LOT of talking, book reading, etc. Looks like some people are saying 300 pt games in less than 2 hrs.

For another, you don't have the same level of rulebreaking synergies. That's one reason I didn't stick with Warmahorde for too long - you feel you need to know every little possible power exploit for your enemy, or you discover that what should be a sound tactic gets you killed in turn 2.

Lastly, the hybrid integrated turn really does change everything. You don't just move all your stuff, and then sit back for 20 min while your opponent does his thing.

Gimp may not like the game, but I'm blown away by it. This is the the most tactical game I've played, in that I felt I really needed to consider how my squads supported each other, and how I positioned them to handle what I expected my opponent to do. I personally can't wait to play again.

Don't let one overblown review ruin it for you, there's plenty of great reviews on it. Check some of those and just make an informed decision

blkdymnd said:

I actually prefer negative reviews. It allows you to see the worst side of a game and compare it to the positive to get a better picture of the game.

Not to mention what one person considers a negative might be a positive for you. Example: Razor wire, I have no issue with it being very deadly. After all removing a model from the table doesn't mean he is dead. Just so injured, or otherwise incapacitated, that they cannot continue to fight.

Tank Killer counts misses as hits on the vehicle damage chart not the actual attack roll.

A miniature never obscures other miniatures in its own unit so units advancing in the open do not grant themselves cover.

Unit leaders whose base touches or is within area terrain ignores it for obscuement but not LOS. Says nothing about seeing through vehicles.

The Hans axis walker has Scout which means it can enter from reserve.

The sniper rifle ignores cover and armor which very few weapons do.

Many artillery/ or artillery like weapons/upgrades and spray weapons are also burst so they ignore cover. if you dislike them hurting people in bunkers, house rule bunkers to either block it, or make them like a vehicle and create your own vehicle damage options and stats.

Soldiers "stuck" in Barbwire don't fight so well, so rather than rendering them helpless but leaving them on the table they are simply counted as dead.

Armor soaking damage and ammunition explosions resulting is odd if your very literal. how hard is to imagine your shell explodes on the armor and shrapnel flies everywhere?

Why is it so hard to believe americans would drop more artillery on impalcable troops? And if the american wants to spend both his scenario points to counter an upgrade let them. Gives you control of the other 2 groups. or you can choose scenario points secretly, and/or without looking at army lists.

New house rule: vertical distance is also measured. should solve all your vertical distance complaints.

Nobody likes getting shot at. Veterans keep their heads down too. If you insist on nominating vet units. house rule an upgrade cost per unit to allow them to reroll the suppression removal dice at the beginning of a units turn.

Game is different from real life. Suspend some disbelief about organization and platoon options.

Yes rocket powered fists are better than normal fists/ knives from a fluff standpoint.

I had to laugh at complaints for lack of realism or not following historical canon. I prefer the saying,"keep your reality out of my fantasy". It is a make believe setting of aliens and walking tanks, I expect liberties and abstract to be used.

Burnhamalive said:

Burnhamalive said:

Not quite.

Serious wargamers in my experience (I have been playing tabletop games since the early eighties) are always searching for the "holy grail of game design": a game with the right balance of fun/playability and common sense realism. This is more or less important on an individual level, but we all crave it to some degree or we would still be playing with green army men or Battleship…

I don't know if all of his points are valid, but he makes a good arguement in a number of areas, and i am curious to see if i encounter the same concerns when I start playing. I appreciate his effort to give a critical appraisal and to attempt to clearly layout and explain his concerns.

In fact it is far more useful then the many "the game is totally awesome111" posts that offer little sbstance or critical evaluation.

In the end we can all play the game as we see fit: as written or with any number of mods/house rules that we find improve/add to the playability/enjoyability of the game.

I have played many, many minis rules sets in the past 22 years. All of them had problems, limitations, and issues. But I submit that anyone interested in this game and who bought a copy owes it to themselves to play it and then decide if they like it or not. To let a single post of this kind give you buyer's remorse is a little premature. I'm not going to address every single point Gimp raises as it's late and there are no doubt small rules issues that need to be resolved. But here are some of my main objections to Gimp's comments.

First, the complaints the Gimp has about this game's balance, in my opinion, are mostly what is called theoryhammer or theorymachine. That is, Gimp has read the book and made a lot of assumptions about game balance. I submit that any and all game balance issues need to be tested over time before anyone really knows what the problems are. I do hope FFG playtested these rules well, but maybe they didn't. That said, a single mathematical run of the super heavy walkers against each other does not tell you if the lists are overall well-balanced or not. Don't panic, as the man once said.

Second, the complaints about realism are to me rather humorous. This is a sci-fi game set in an alternate universe. To get worked up about the Axis getting extra panzers because "the Allies had better production" just doesn't make sense here. Axis production levels of zombies and gorillas are quite high in this setting, I believe. Let's not get worked up about the fact that in this alternative universe German walker production is better (they did get VK first and field walkers first, right?) or that these Germans learned to dig in well. As a fellow veteran, a sci-fi weapon called the "Long Tom" does not offend me, for the record.

Third, it is an overreaction to dismiss this game simply because the minefield rules are unclear and there are no building rules. You can house rule these issues until a clarification or expansion address them, and if someone is running a tournmanet they can clarify the rules for there event. No big deal, folks. And, are you going to use minefields every game? There are some vertical movement rules on p.39, by the way.

I also think Gimp's review suffers from a number of narrow or negative readings of the text. For example, soldiers do not give cover to their own units. It says that clearly on p. 42: "A miniature never obscures other miniatures in its own unit." Yet Gimp is outraged about units giving themselves cover. That's simply incorrect.

Among Gimp's many criticisms are a number of conclusory statements: Moving as a reaction has been "tried and rejected as laughable" by the gaming community, half speed move for rough terrain is "too simplistic", etc. I reject these assertions as universally true. Tomorrow's War, for example, allows movement away from shooting as a reaction and is a nominee for Origins 2012's Best Miniatures Rules. Halving a unit's movement in rough terrain is done in many rule sets, among them Warhammer, which I hear sells a lot. It may not be totally realistic, but it isn't unheard of, certainly.

I could go on, but do I really need to defend the deadly sci-fi electrified barbed wire?

I, for one, am going to play this game thoroughly and repeatedly before I pass a final judgment. I will hope for some FAQs to correct obvious errors like the Type 3 heroes having a move of 6, etc. But at first blush, Dust Warfare looks like a good game to me, one that is more ciomplex than Tactics but not too complex for a quick and fun evening of play, and I am going to give it a fair shot.

By contrast, I think Gimp started out not wanting to like this game, and succeeded. I think the game he is looking for is out there, and it's called "Advanced Squad Leader". I recommedn you get a copy, my friend. It should make you happy.

BlackKnight1917 said:

I'm going to say one thing… To all those that are frightened about the rules… that dislike the rules… It's a game. It's not the law, it's not the commandments of all tabletop. You don't like the rules? Change them abit. That's what my local AT-43 group did. The close combat in AT-43 SUCKED. As a Therians player there was so many broken rules in the rulebooks for specific armies that we laughed at some of the problems. If I followed Gimp's approach we would have thrown all our minis out and convinced people not to play the game… Instead, we all bought multiple armies and came together and said… "Let's fix this and make it fun." You know what it resulted in? Us playing AT-43 every single thursday for about 5 hours for 2 years straight. We played well after Rackham went under and we stopped when our local hobby shop went under.

Also, remember… I'm sure they changed some things in the rulebook and revised it before it came out for another reason, balance. And the SSU book is coming with new rules and updated units for Axis and Allies. They've all ready said there are new units coming. I'm sure they'll have rule amendments in there. Everyone's entitled to not like something or to like something, but let's also look at it like this… The biggest wargame right now is Warhammer 40k. It's not up for debate, they've been around 25 years and probably have the most players. Ask a Tau player, ask an Eldar player, ask a Chaos Space Marine player if they're happy with playing against any new codex written by Matt Ward. Ask if they enjoy playing against Grey Knights. If we were to look at every game as a simple statistic then by hell, we should never play a game because there's no such thing as perfect balance. "Well their walker tank has this 1 up on this walker tank." you know how you solve that problem? Find out what unit you CAN FIELD to take that out. The one thing I haven't really heard anyone complain about is the fact that the SSU has extensive use of flyers and not that many units seem to have an attack against flyers. That sounds like it puts the Axis and Allies at a disadvantage… I'm not going to play the game then… nope forget it, it's not fair and balanced…

It's a tabletop game. Play the freakin' game. Why are we complaining on a website about the game? Let's just go play the game!

Snowshadow said:

That reinforced my point. Don't let a bad review make up your mind, see both and make an informed opinion

I usually just lurk, but I thought I would point a couple things out. While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, there are a few rules that you have wrong, from my reading of the text. So here are list of things you got wrong from a factual standpoint. I spent a lot of time playing this at Adepticon, we've been playing it as our core mini's game for about a week now. I thought you might like to know that many of your issues are just from your reading the book really fast.

Units can't screen for themselves. The LOS rules are measuring from a unit, not to a unit. Units don't block LOS for themselves.

Tank Hunter doesn't make blanks a hit on the first roll, only on the damage table.

This one is a bit subjective, but a point you might appreciate. Heroes (who are the elites in my opinion) clear suppression on a reversed roll. I know it isn't exactly what you were looking for, but there are places where more elite units clear suppression faster. An idea for your home brew (if you want to make this the game you want to play) maybe it would have been cool if units rolled their soldier score to remove suppression.

Only vehicles are reduced by most terrain. Soldiers run right through it. The only terrain in the book that reduces move for troops (from what i can tell) is water so deep they have to swim. There is a terrain chart, most things aren't hard for Soldiers.

If the damage on an attack against a vehicle is completely negated, the attack doesn't roll on the chart. That is pretty clear in the rules.

That's all I have on that front. We've been having a blast, but you seem to have a lot of issues where you expected this to be a realistic military tactics game. I saw Zombies and Walking tanks, so I don't think this is the one you want. You mention a lot of things that you don't like, which are valid, that really help the game play well, in my opinion. I sometimes take implacable on my platoons, and the barrage. I like forcing my opponent to clump up in terrain (anything that limits his deployment is good in my book, even if only psychologically). My force works really well with off site shelling, so I think it's great when I can tricky my friends into spending their 2 points there, allowing me to dominate objective and deployment. Best few points I can spend!

So this whole discussion is because the OP didnt even testplay DW once and nonetheless felt competent enough to give a negative review of it? Thats arrogant and respectless from his side and the community should ask themselves if such a poor behaviour should be tolerated.

superklaus said:

To be fair Gimp is active over on the Dust Tactics forums and I can understand people will probably have asked him for an opinion on Warfare, however I do think it would have been more usefull after playing the game where maybe some of the basic rules hickups he made could have been ironed out.

King Jareth said:

I think playing the game once or twice before writing such a glowing negative review should be "a requirement" and not just "useful. "

Do what jazz musicians do: play around with the changes. If you don't like the tune, don't play it.

Gimp said:

A lot of these choices seem to have been to keep things simple. Measuring level range, rather than line of sight range, hills having no effect on movement, touching terrain leading to a flat reduced movement across the whole turn(Flames of War also does this… it is preferable in my mind to 40k's "Now, how far are my guys going to move this turn. Ok, Roll 2d6 and take the highest!"), simplifying close combat etc. I think Andy Chambers likes what he sees as streamlined, non-fussy mechanics (him and Jervis Johnson consider Epic 40,000 one of the best rules sets they worked on, and it was, quite unfairly in my mind, reviled by many players due to the massive streamlining it carried out).

As far as:

Electrified wire: I don't know the mechanics, but while they are unrealistic, Dust is not a realistic setting (it has walking tanks, zombies and gorillas). Deadly electrified wire fits totally with the theme.

Axis getting extra tank, Allies getting an extra hero: The Germans are famous for their tanks. Yes, the Allies had more of them, but one of the most iconic elements of the German WW2 army were the Panzer divisions. Allies are famous for being the stars of most war films, therefore having more characters makes sense thematically , even if not realistically.

Command leading from the front: not very realistic, but very war movie. Dust seems to be a lot closer to war movies than real life.

Battle lines: There were no longer lines of troops facing each other off, but there were front lines, where battle occurred. Doesn't seem an unfair term to use.

Unrealistic Platoon structure: This is a game where the standard squad size is 5 isn't really working with a realistic command structure. Also, realistic structures would be really dull: 3 basic squads and a command squad that realistically shouldn't have funky powers. I think you are over thinking this.

Assault Platoon: Could also have be thinking an assault platoon means a fast moving unit that is meant to try and out maneuver the enemy. Slow flamethrower tanks don't fit that.