blkdymnd said:

Exactly. Find a issue, figure a way to resolve it. That can be several options. Dont play, make a new rule, use the Tactics rule. Honestly a bybrid of the two would be best IMHO, but I like both. I will play both and I will be along for the ride as it changes, improves, whatever.

But much like the 40K RPG, the best thing that can happen is for FFG to lose the rights. IN MY HUMBLE OPINION.

But I do apprecaite every comment or opinion that is shared on the forums I go to. I just prefer when we all agree that no one has to prove the other right or wrong. They are just opinions.

Besides, the fluff is better than Warpath! LOL

I don't want to move I want to enjoy the game, that's why I am asking if somebody is working on houserulling it.

Gimp said:

Gimp said:

I'm not looking to get into the mess that this thread has devolved into, because some good points have been raised by everyone. I just wanted to point out that, according to the rules as written, a miniature never obscures other miniatures in its own unit. Done. Full stop.

The following paragraph explains that friendly units can draw LOS through each other, and that a unit can screen for a friendly unit that's behind it. There is nothing in it that contradicts the statement "a miniature never obscures other miniatures in its own unit."

I think that the rules are a bit loose in places (and occasionally missing entirely, in the case of minefield armor values — oops!). If FFG wants Dust Warfare to be taken seriously as a tournament game, the language definitely needs to be tightened up in places.

I'm just hoping that they get a rules forum and actively participate in answering questions.

Oops! No idea how I double quoted. Sorry!

Galadhir said:

Each problem/issue needs its own thread to have a community discussion on what one thinks the best way to deal with it is. That way, those who are looking for a fix can find multiple variations to choose from.

Peacekeeper_b said:

That's a brilliant idea, I hope that FFG will add subcategories to this forum so it would be easier to navigate, and answer some questions.

You all realize that the whole book had to go through a rewrite, Edit and Layout in a 3 week period yes? There were some major changes that needed to be made and the production team was only given 3 weeks to accomplish it all. A **** tall order if you ask me [and since I work in the RPG industry and have had similar deadlines], it is amazing there are not more minor errors. FFG is working on an errata that should be out soon. Yes there are some errors, are they critical and game breaking? Not that we have seen yet. Having played miniature games since 1978 I can tell you that playing the game several times is the only way theory can be proven. No matter how much you look at a system, you are not going to be able to know for sure if you are right until you play it. I thought [after reading the book] that the changes to Cover and Command Phase [since the playtest] were going to be awful. Was I right? NOPE! Both are very well done for the system and work better than the older versions with less dice to roll. Please play the game and make mistakes. Ask questions [there are some really good FAQ questions out here on the forum that are going to be answered very soon. But please, give the game a chance to work on the tabletop before making any kind of critical evaluations.

Oh and just so you know, FFG only has like 3 or 4 Editor/proofreaders on staff that have to deal with all the games they are putting out. Should they hire more? Yeah, they likely should, but that is a company decision and they can not afford to keep the 50+ editors they had for the Harry Potter books… FFG is a Giant in the industry [which means they have like 15-20 full time staff. Hell the company I work for only has 3 full time staff. Everyone else is freelance.

This game came out under a lot of really tight deadlines with major last minute changes. It is understandable that they made mistakes. No one is perfect and yeah, it sucks that the product is not as "clean" as we would like it to be [especially after the delays and extra time], but it is a good game with fewer problems than almost any other Miniature battle game I have played in a VERY long time!!!!

I am not attempting to fuel the fires or insult anyone here. I read every ones posts and respect all your opinions. Please understand that I love this setting and love the game. It will be an awesome game for casual play and tournament. League play will be awesome! There are so many things to love and since FFG has a policy to not answer threads on the forum, all we can do is hope they read these posts and understand where the confusing issues are and clarify in their FAQs. Thanks all and hope to meet you on the battlefield.

Gobbo said:

So If I were a bike manufacturer, delivered you a preordered bike without a front wheel couple of monts later than it was agreed, and told you that this wheel will be availible for you to buy next couple of months because we were bussy at the time in factory and we had no time to manufacture front wheels, you would be happy with it? Of course I am furious at what seems to be norm for FFG now, that they are releasing games not tested sufficiently and waiting for the public to point their mistakes so they then can release errata later.

I only wish there were more people like Christophe Boelinger and his company Ludically. Shame FFG.

Gobbo said:

Im sorry. While I am in the camp of thsoe who like the game and enjoy it and cant wait for more, the notion that "they were under a tight deadline and therefore I should not be upset that there are errors" is ridiculous. That shows you exactly why some people are mad. They rushed it, despite pulling it from last year they didnt focus on it like they shoudl and made a product that has errors. If you rush a car or a chair even and it doesnt work properly you can get sued. SO its not an excuse that they worked hard and have a small staff.

I am often under a tight deadline, with much stress and many changes, often coming in at the last minute. And no errors are tolerated. Dont tell me proof reading a book about war is more stressful than documenting war.FFG has a long history of bad typos and proofreading, and if the issue is the 3-4 proofreaders, well they should fire them and get new ones.

I agree with the majority of your statement, But you just dont cut them a break like that. I also work inteh industry as a freelancer and the company I work for, I have seen very few products with typos and errors even approaching the FFG lines (and I love Dark Heresy, despite its flaws, and I always give it a chance, I just dont give those who did their job poorly the compliment of my money without a gripe if it is subpar). As far as I can tell Chaosium has 2 or 3 full time employees as well. You know who does most of the proof reading for them? The writers.

But I still agree, its a good game. But dont just give FFG a free reign to continue with their normal business problems.

I am not saying to not be disappointed by the mistakes, I am just pointing out some of the valid, though not completely acceptable reasons behind what we are seeing. FFG puts out some amazing products and they are almost always worth looking at, I am just trying to be the Devils Advocate on the situation and trying to let you all know why we are seeing this. I don't think it is ever FFGs intention to give us a faulty product and ask us to fix it, but I understand the frustration. I am still quite proud to have my name in this book and will continue to support what I think is a great game.

Gobbo said:

Thats all good and nice. But they are not valid reasons, They are excuses. Excuses are used to distract from the issue. I like the game, hell I am close to loving it, but I wouldnt be proud to have my name on it as a proofreader/editor or designer at this point. (play tester, sure LOL. Because there are major issues that need resolved that should not have been in it in the first place.

Now dont get me wrong here, I am not advocating it be recalled, or everyone get a free replacement or that it is unplayable or we should all go forllow the Gimp. I am just saying that you can like a game/book/object, whatever, and still voice your displeasure in aspects of it. Its not hating, its not whining, its not complainng, its voicing disappointment. I can handle most of it, but a good deal of it could have been resolved already. Within the first 24 hours players were online asking why things were the way they were? Is Rhino Move 6? Does Sigrid have 1 health? Do grenades really delete all cover?

This things could be answered in a open FAQ thread by FFG and then collected into a PDF, not waiting weeks for a PDF.

Again, like your opinions in general, enjoy reading the forums, but FFG does need to step up its reaction time (maybe they are out of reaction tokens?)

Galadhir said:

That's a bit over the top. Do you really think the game is "missing a front wheel"? Is it totally unplayable? Cuz there are a lot of people riding around on bikes without wheels then. And a lot of them (myself included) are having a great time doing it. Are there problems with the book? Yes. Is it as bad as you make it out to be? Well, not for me. And not for a bunch of people who are playing and posting great play sessions here and on other forums.

Grim6 said:

If this games a bike without a front wheel, then I'm proudly riding around on a unicycle!

Also, they have no obligation to get the game out to you by their own deadline. They created a deadline, it didn't come out, big whoop. It's not the same as you buying a bike and having it constantly become delayed after you've all ready purchased it because at that point the company you purchased it from should have, and would have, most likely given you a credit/gift card in the amount of the purchase… So the idea you can compare a bike without a front wheel which is completely unusable to a game that is playable you've completely proven a point here and that is a lot of people aren't giving the game a fair shake. You make it sound like FFG physically attacked you or something, like they spat in your eye and pushed you on the playground while kicking sand at you. FFG doesn't owe us anything and by simply creating several flame threads it doesn't do any good when we attempt to say to them, "These are some things we'd like fixed."

Hell… they'll probably turn in GW now and never talk to us again, give us a time frame and push things back 2 years!!! That'll really show us!

Gimp, re: miniatures and obscuring:

It's not a clarification. Those are two separate concepts which you are conflating for some reason. There are a number of issues with the book, but this is not one of them.

The sentence stating that a miniature never obscures line of sight to its own unit is quite clear and stands on its own.

For me it's an inferior product that contain too many mistakes that could be avoided, and situation where obvious issues are not answered stright away just left for people to resolve them themself isn't helping at all. Is the game playable? It is but same is for Gruntz15mm (for example) where one guy just wrote his own rules and still didn't balance everything out, I am just saying it would be more enjoyable without that mess here. To show that it can be achieved to have a clean rulebook just look at Ludically, they are just 2 people !!! Their game Earth Reborn released in 2010 has complex skirmish ruleset, and here is their errata after 2 years forum.earthreborn.ludically.com/viewtopic.php , 4 entries and mostly artwork issues, the rulebook is 44 pages rules only.

I will play DW anyway because it appeals to me I am just furious at the level it was written, but I think I will have to houserule few things here and there before I will show it to my friends. To think the biggest company in boardgame scene releasing something like this is unbelievable, but after what they've done with Mansion of Madness I am happy that its still playable.

So, do you think it'd help to e-mail FFG and let them know that they have a bunch of people ready to spend money on this game, but are held back by the quality and balance issues in the book? For example, I took mine back to the shop for an exchange, but I would take another look if there was a revision later on down the road.

Since this thread is about issues, should we nail down the core issues why we feel this way?

I don't share many of Gimp's issues with the game, here are some which I share:

Badly balanced units (Laser Grenadiers, Allied UGL teams (cover removal from burst is a BAD idea), etc.), Angela joining units is ridiculous….

Typos

Errors like Rhino's and Ozzi's movement

Suppression mechanic that is otherwise good, but units should instead have a morale value (which is the amount of dice rolled to remove suppression, and

the value against which retreating is measured instead of headcount).

Reaction Mechanic: reaction movement is problematic when weapons have limited ranges (shouldn't be possible to evade out of range, though evading

out of LOS or into cover could be possible), reaction movement allows units to move farther in a round than without reacting.

Both of these issues are non-issues in Force on Force / Tomorrow's War, where weapons have unlimited range, and you can only do reaction movement if you have movement left from your activation.

That's about it.

This means I simply don't think the rest of Gimp's issues matter to me at all. In fact, I wholly disagree about his view on the armor roll: I think it's a great addition, since very often weapons discriminate between Soldier 2 or 3, or vehicle armour 4-6, often the same amount of dice is rolled.

But that's something we butted heads about when the game was on its way, so it should come as no surprise that I'm pleased about the way that turned out. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure if I like the fact that reduced units quickly become combat ineffective due to static cover and armor….but I can accept it.

I don't think the reaction mechanism needs changing… I don't think any of the units are broke or that anyone has played enough games to indicate otherwise… Just because it can be devastating if you let them (UGL / Grenade / Burst) attack you doesn't mean they will get the chance… Guess what units get target priority or hunted down with walkers that don't care about suppression.

For any complaint you have about a unit, there's an easy answer to counter it

typo's I agree with… but that's what tipex is for

BlackKnight1917 said:

I disagree. The first sentence specifies a miniature never obscures miniatures in its own unit . That sentence is internal within the unit, as it does not address specific interaction with any other units.

The next paragraph specifies that friendly Soldier models never obscure or block line of sight, but that enemy Soldier models do obscure line of sight. That paragraph specifically addresses how a Soldier unit interacts with other units for purposes of line of sight.

If the intent is to say a unit of soldiers can obscure line of sight to an unattached hero, but not to the unit's leader standing next to the hero, it's a strange way of viewing line of sight.

I don't worry if people do not share my opinions on what they've done with Warfare. My opinions are simply my own. I'm happy some people are really enjoying Warfare. If there were fewer issues, I'd be willing to invest more in the game.

The idea we should give FFG a break because they thought the game was ready, realized it had problems, rushed a re-write, and gave us a mess of problems, however, is ludicrous.

Using the bike analogy a bit differently: if you pre-ordered a bike, and it was delayed getting to you, and when you got it, it was rife with problems, and the manufacturer said, 'Oops! We were rushed at the factory because of some design changes we realized we needed to make. Don't worry, we'll fix it later.' would you have much interest in continuing to buy products from that manufacturer? I've changed brands on many products when a manufacturer started putting out products with problems. People should not be expected to wait for a company to fix things that are major issues after buying a product. That's the worst form of customer service. If there are major issues that somehow make it past quality control, they should certainly be issues that are made right as soon as possible, and not at the customers' expense.

Warfare has some very good core concepts, and a group could house rule it to their hearts' content fixing them to their satisfaction, but for people who bought a competitive tournament game, or simply like to play at multiple venues, they can't get too attached to house rules they can't use when they compete or play somewhere else. If they have to pay to get more books that 'fix' the problems, they'll have to worry whether each book is as rife with errors as the last one. FFG has established a rather shaky basis for trust in Warfare.

FFG set their release deadline, and nobody forced them to rush it. They changed it. That's fine. They didn't need to do a three week rush to fix things if they needed to do more to actually make a fully functional product. They chose to. They should have taken the time for another quality review before sending it to the printer's. They obviously didn't . Tactics is paying for Warfare while Warfare grows, which is an advantage many other games do not have. Steve Jackson Games is putting out their 35th anniversary Ogre game happily acknowledged as being paid for by Munchkin. I doubt there will need to be major errata and corrections when Ogre hits the streets.

I'd said before, when the delay was brought out, that I would rather wait and get a good, finished product. Many people voiced the same sentiment. We waited, and what did we get?

I would have been happy with a finished product faster, but it bothers me more they acknowledged they needed the re-write, but then didn't bother to take the time to do it right. Editors are not supposed to be rules writers. They are supposed to be people who check for spelling, grammar, etc… The rules writer is responsible for whether the rules make sense from a player's perspective.

I've done rules editing, and had rules writers happy I played the games, and could spot rules issues as well as standard editing, but that gave them a bonus from me. The rules are not the editor's job.

The editing on Warfare was bad, but how much of that was the limited supply of editors FFG uses, and how much of that was added by the rules writer during the re-write without giving the editors a chance to pick them out, I don't know, nor do I care. I purchased what should have been a completed product, and obviously is not.

In the end we're stuck with a playable game with a lot of very loose edges, rips, tears, holes. and missing rules.

Warfare could have started great, but instead we were given an unfinished mess. A playable mess, but quite definitely a mess.

A playable mess … sounds alot like AT-43.

Hey FFG, are you going to acknowledge any of the faults and give us an ETA on an errata? I find the lack of FFG staff on the forums disturbing

Gimp said:

I want to make sure I understand exactly what you are saying.

Are you claiming that a unsupressed normal infantry unit can arrange itself in completely open terrain t give itself a cover bonus? And that this self generated non-terrain, non-special rules, non-suppression cover would not apply to the unit when it shot?

Mecha-Gojira said:

As the rules are written, yes.

I don't have an issue with units blocking line of sight for enemy fire. I don't have an issue with an individual unit not blocking its line of sight, as many games accept a unit can be working well enough together and communicating to tell each other to get out of the way. I prefer mechanics where other friendly units don't get the same advantage, and can have their fire blocked by other friendly units, but that's a minor issue of preference. Even allowing models in the back that can't be directly seen, but could take fire that passed the front line soldiers and so be removed as casualties would be fine.

The rule, as written, is not that different than many other games I've played except that cover gives automatic saves against damage.

If you can't see a model, you can't damage it, so having unsuppressed units block line of sight makes sense, as does saying suppressed units no longer do as they are hugging the ground.

When you add vehicles becoming invisble and not blocking line of sight so long as a unit leader is in base contact (friend or enemy as written), and the idea that cover grants automatic damage saves no matter the source of cover, the rules get silly.

Gimp said:

Then you and I do not Agree on what the RAW is. "A miniature never obscures other miniatures in its own unit." is very clear and completely disagrees with your interpretation. A new paragraph appears and begins addressing soldier miniatures from other units.

To use the unit standing in the open suppose that I arrange them so that two of the figures are standing in front of the remaining three.

An enemy unit fires at them none of them are obscured because the only thing that would obscure the minis in the back is minis in its unit.