Dont close combat attacks still require line of sight? I know they ignore cover bonus' but I'd assumed (rightly or wrongly) LOS was still needed.

superklaus said:

I missed the part where he said he hadn't played the game. At first I was just put off by the tone, and that the OP seemed overly critical and demanding of historic realism in his wierd war II / alternate reality game. But if this whole lambast was done without trying the game, then I would recommend that everyone taking advice from this review keep that in mind. That should be stated up front, first line of the review. "Hey, here's my opinion on a reading of the rules, without any experience playing the game".

Some of the things the OP seems very concerned about didn't seem to be a problem to us when we actually played. My original impression was that he was or played with very "rules-lawyer-y" type of gamers, and that's why he felt the need to clarify every little detail. Now I would say he should have played the game first.

That said, he has committed himself very publicly to disliking the game, and I don't think an actual game will change his mind.

Gimp, Gimp, Gimp…

No good deed ever goes unpunished; people so easily forget all the salient points you make over on the DT forums. You broke three unspoken rules as far as I can tell:

1. You gave what was requested -- a personal review;
2. You posted too much, far past the attention span of some readers;
3. And you called their baby ugly!

Beyond the semantics of realism/regardless of the setting, I am not shelling out $40 for something that already needs an errata; kinda did that with Dystopian Wars. Really FFG, you missed your first deadline because the first iteration was crap (word from inside the office), and then took the extra time to rewrite this iteration -- and it still retains the confusion and typos; try hiring a writer next time. And yes, this is something of a pet peeve that I see rampant in the gaming industry of late: poorly written and organized documentation; color paper and pretty pictures not withstanding. Personally I would rather see a black and white, softcover version of the rules, written in a clear and concise manner; fluff is just that -- fluff; or as it is the 21st century, a PDF that could easily and quickly be updated at any time.

Perhaps waiting and playing a game would have provided a different outlook, and carried more weight. But Gimp was asked for a review of the rules, as the rules came out, and not a play test. Regardless of Gimp's opinion -- and negative reviews provide more meat for thought than positive reviews, by and large -- I'll wait for version 1.2, and then see if DW is just another 40k/FoW clone, or if it can stand on its own merit.

Cheers!

Don't care if he called the baby ugly, get your points correct before you get on your soapbox. And I have played zero games that have been without the need for errata of some kind out the chute.

blkdymnd said:

Thank you for making my point!

As I said it is my pet peeve -- but one that should not be the norm, and isn't the norm in other fields. I work for a three-letter acronym, and while errors and typos will always happen -- it is not incumbent on the customer to find them for us. I wouldn't have a job, nor the company revenue, if what we wrote required an immediate errata. But, as accidents and errors do happen, this is one of the reasons we are getting rid of print material, and going fully to online information centers.

Just because this is a gaming company is no excuse for sloppy material. I suppose I am just p**sing into the wind here; if it doesn't concern the majority of customers, then it will never change -- but that doesn't make it a correct business model.

Cheers!

I agree it shouldn't be the norm. The video game industry is just as bad. I know I'm guilty of being apathetic to the quality of development while everything is errata'd, with the errata being errata'd…

And I should be careful throwing stones… Someone could probably find something to which I am apathetic about, and which is important to them.

It's just so infuriating!!

Cheers!

It's funny, for me the most bothersom things were the little typos, like "do" instead of "due", and when the flame weapons were first mentioned early in the book, it said the flame icon was after the slash when it's actually before the slash.

None of these things matter - they don't confuse me and don't reduce my ability to play the game or enjoy it. I just get irked about these little things that should be easily caught.

King Jareth said:

Very good point. And one I like. Besides, it only takes one line of errata to fix most of his objections if they even need fixing.

*Close Combat Needs Line of Sight or *Close Combat must be on same elevation

*Artillery weapons attack minefields with a number of dice equal to its density, the more mines the more likely it is to hit a mine.

And apparently Gimp has never been tasered! a VK powered fence is a scary concept! As is any fence with a current running through it thats amped up to be a defensive WAR obstruction and not just in place to keep cattle in line.

And leaders do lead from the front. Captains, Lts, Majors lead patrols on more occasions then I can recall. In my time in Afghanistan I have been on many foot patrols, vehicle patrols and combat patrols with senior NCOs and senior Officers leading the way.

Artillery is indeed used to clear minefields. We did it a lot in Afghanistan.

Peacekeeper_b said:

felkor said:

fair enough

KiltedWolf said:

Actually, the real unwritten rule was that the review was evidently given without a good understanding of the rules, as some people have taken the time to point out and try to clarify. Posts in other threads seems to confirm this. As it is, what he found ugly was actually a misunderstood impression of Dust Warfare based on an apparently cursory reading.

If the Dust Tactics crowd was clamoring for this review, then he may have had a better reception posting it in that forum. I can understand why people who enjoy Dust Tactics might not like Dust Warfare. I just think it's a shame that, according to posts in this thread, some people have taken his "impressions" to heart, and backed out of the game without trying it.

Their loss, and their fault for putting faith in a single forum post.

At least for my part, I made my own conclusions after reading the book a couple of hours before I read this.

Grenades and cover, unit balance (laser grenadiers….? What the…), errors, typos…

But I've not "given up" on anything. I'm just not willing to be the pioneer for this game just yet around here with my own cash as the stake.

I'll wait and see and definitely give the game a try if I can, if the game actually picks up. And if the rules get rewritten and updated, I'll definitely take another look.

Typos are annoying. Imagine if you went to see the Avengers like I did today, and the title screen would read "Avenger's".

Yeah.

Sami K said:

Same as I feel about any typos in this game. If I went to see the Avengers, I went to see the movie, I could care less about a typo on the title screen that I'm going to forget was even there when I see Iron Man, Hulk, etc start kicking ass. Same thing here, I read right through the typos and when dice drop I forgot they were even there.

blkdymnd, did you see my question to you in your minis thread in the DT painting board?

zuggzugg said:

I don't think so, I might have missed it

painting question regarding your heavy allies.

thanks, sorry to change topic for a sec.

zuggzugg said:

No prob, I'll go check it out…

Back to your regularly scheduled rants everyone.

Having talked with mack martin at adepticon and played 4+ games since i got home i can tell you much of those complaints are things added to the game for a reason. one thing that mack said resonates still today about the game, he tried to reduce the amount of rolls needed to play the game if you could roll less dice or none at all and get the same results. ie.. why make leadership rolls on a 2d6 with a 9% chance of failure for vets and 14% chance for nubs, when a simpler system could save you 20+ min every game.

The test games iv played so far, run quickly and already show that this game is about using your reactions and positioning your units more than overwhelming your opponent with dice rolls. I do agree on the double dinging the armor thing, but with out both parts you dont have simple system that allows for invul from some attack levels and added defence vs others. A big thing for me is that there is more return on strategy than die rolls.

at the end of the day, its a game. Chess isnt an accurate representation of medieval warfare but a set of rules by witch to play a game. Dust Warfare isnt an accurate representation of WW2 but a game with WW2 themed game pieces.

I dont know about anyone else, but when Im hiding behind a rock and a grenade lands beside me, I tend to stand up and run away from the rock, exposing myself to anyone looking as I abandon cover. Just saying.

Burnhamalive said:

Taking things short as I'm busy today:

For 1) I don't have issue with the alternate aspects of the game. I rather enjoy them. However, if you're going to reference historical aspects, they should have some semblance to the actual historical aspects. The game is set in a WW2 where the Axis changed things starting at the battle of Stalingrad. Unless they're running the rest of their history far different, they should use the actual history they're using.

For 2) I don't need complexity simply for complexities sake, but Warfare was said to be adding complexity to Tactics concepts for a more tactical game. Complexity simply to add complexity is worthless. It needs to enhance gameplay, or the added complexity is a detriment to the game. Warfare has excelled at that.

chaosvt said:

Thank you for the catch on Tank Killer rounds. That helps, though the entire armor roll for vehicles after using armor to determine attack value is a level of clunkiness the game doesn't need. It keeps vehicles alive longer, especially the heavies, but whether that is good or bad is personal preference. I was happy with the vehicle lethality without the armor rolls, as it ran smoother, acknowledged various armor values, and acknowledged vehicle combat is deadly. The Axis walkers would not have been so far above Allied vehicle protection capabilities, or there would have been far less chance of the technology being captured and reverse engineered so quickly. WW2 was a war where anti-tank capability by the end of the war was better than armor protection.

Models do not obscure frinedly line of sight, but per page 42, enemy soldiers do obscure line of sight and grant soft cover, while all vehicles treat their base as an area of terrain and grant hard cover. Per page 41, so long as a unit leader's base is touching an area of terrain , that area of terrain counts as open terrain for their unit.

I had forgotten about Scout Vehicle. It does give the Axis a single option from amongst the few vehicle options thay can take with any platoon to give up Fast on the Hans in order to bring it in using the Reserved rules. The Axis player can then spend ten more points on a single Hans to allow it to again have Fast for the turn it enters from Reserved. So a single Hans could cost 35 points to be able to make a 6" move whe it comes in from Reserved.

The sniper rifle ignores cover and armor saves, which I acknowledged makes it a more powerful weapon. As was pointed out in another thread, adding Angela to a squad makes all of the unit's weapons do the same based on the rules as written for Sniper, which is rather ludicrous. The increased power was not my issue (though applying it to a unit does bother me),: my point was that snipers could no longer SNIPE. Snipers are not power units, though Warfare has turned them into them. Snipers use pinpoint accuracy to accomplish important mission results by eliminating specific people and equipment. Tactics allowed for that, but Warfare has ignored it, relagating snipers to simply being long ranged indescriminate damage dealers.

Under the current Warfare rules, artillery does not ignore cover. Only Burst weapons, Close Combat weapons, and Grenades ignore cover. My issue includes that, but also the fact that Warfare ignores a common sense system already in place with Tactics: that a solid roof stops artillery from penetrating quite frequently. Not just bunkers, though bunkers are an extreme example. Sometimes a round will penetrate a roof, or a barrage will collapse a building, but someone in the middle of a large building away from doors and windows does not have much risk from artillery attacks. Tactics mirrored that, but Warfare dropped it for no discernable reason.

Soldiers train for dealing with barbed wire. Well trained soldiers (like all of the elite units in Warfare) know how to deal with barbed wire so it slows them down without being a complete disaster, even if they didn't have time to make major preparations. Electrified wire is likewise not incredibly difficult to deal with. By the end of WW1, soldiers died in barbed wire only when they were caught by enemy fire while crossing it. They did not get stuck to the point they could not continue with their unit.

A round exploding on armor without penetrating would send shrapnel around, though as it would either be a penetrator or shaped charge, the amount of shrapnel would be far less than a high explosive round in the same area. A Ammunition Detonation result damages one weapon, and then causes a 5/1 attack on every soldier unit within 12". All that can come about without even scoring any damage on the vehicle, and the vehicle suffers no more effect than a weapon being damaged. If a mechanic is nearby, they can be up and running normally the next turn. That allows an anti-tank attack to have a larger impact than any other attack in the game, yet allow the vehicle to continue operations. Amminition detonations are a tanker's nightmare even today, as until recent developments, it meant catastrophic destruction of the tank and crew.

I don't have a problem with an Allied commander dropping more artillery on implacable troops. I have a problem with the official tournament structure allowing the Allied player to know about the choice of Implacable, and being able to use that knowledge to force the Axis player to spend points in specific areas of the Battle Builder, or to have wound up spending points on Implacable and it having no effect. It can be house ruled, but not as an official tournament rule for competitive play. The Allied player can put one point toward conditions to avoid Limited Visibility, and if the Axis player is choosing first, they then have to decide if they want to spend two points on Conditions to allow Implacable to do anything, or accept the Allies can place another point there and make the points spent for Implacable meaningless. That Allied player still can choose to allow Implacable to work, so they have not lost control of the Battle Builder. Only the Axis player has, which makes Implacable, which is reasonable in battlefield application, a weakness for official competitive play.

I'll switch order here, and point out that I was not commenting on Rocket Fists versus normal fists and knives. I was commenting that the Axis equivalent Panzer Gloves that had been equal in Tactics were now far less effective because they used normal hit rolls instead of inverted hit rolls. Markus' heavy panzer glove suffered a huge reduction in anti-infantry capability as well as the restriction to normal hit rolls. The units had been equivalent in combat, but the Axis close combat specialists were left alone or reduced in capability while the Allied troops got a huge increas in capability when they used to be equivalent. The change made no sense.

The rest boils down to a simple consideration: I do not mind suspending disbelief for gaming. I rather enjoy it. What comes down to being the core of many of my complaints is that I am a simulationsit. I like to have logical common sense structure to wrap my suspension of disbelief around for competitive wargames. When the Warfare rules go against what I see as logical structure for combat troops, it becomes much harder for me to suspend my disbelief. Tactics had no morale rules, and I could accept it as a simple game with no morale rules. Warfare is saying it is adding morale effects, but not doing so in a manner that reflects the way troops behave.

If you're going to do something in a game, try and have it make sense.

Knightdrake said:

That's what my post was about. I like science fiction and fantasy in wargaming, but I like it to be believable science fiction and fantasy.

Walking tanks are silly, but cool looking. Aliens are not a problem. Having them work like sensible constructs, instead of layering on ridiculous ways for the to interact; that's a problem for me.

Others can be quite happy with Warfare and all of its warts. I wanted a more tactical game than Tactics, and found one that I felt was less tactical, but more complex in ways it didn't need to be, and less complex in ways Tactics had resolved simply but more logically.

This post was my opinion, and it doesn't bather me if you don't share it. Some people wanted me to post my views, and so I have. My views are only valid for those that share them. Agree or not as you wish.

So gimp, how many games had you played before you wrote that review?