Just some thoughts:

Sniper looks really powerful - 12 points for a unit that moves 12" and shoots, ignores cover and armor, hits on a 3+ and can pick off targets from 36" away. The new FAQ also improves their effectiveness. Against something like Heavy Laser Grenadiers, the Sniper makes his points back in 1 kill. Angela + Sniper Team can drop a 3-man heavy unit a turn with good shooting (2 hits from 3+, Frenzy from Angela shoots again at 3+, possible 3 dead).

Heavy walkers vs. none - Incredibly high amount of health and resilience. Price wise, it looks like a fair comparison, but I'm wondering if it really is? That's a lot of life to chew through.

Rocket Punch vs. Panzer Glove - Rocket Punch seems to win hands down.

Allied units that have Tank Killer - A lot of units have access to inverse anti-armor. Is this intended? Only 1 Axis unit have Penetrator, and that's on the 100pt Tank.

Laser vs. Phaser - Phaser seems to be a much better mechanic hands down. Laser, with its 1 shot and a 33% chance for an extra shot, resulting in a 10% chance to actually hit with the 2nd shot seems a bit…. pricey when compared to the 3/1 options of the Phaser vs. all Soldier types.

Is it by design that the StG47 vs. M1AR, the dual .30 and the MG44 Zwei have the same weapon stats? Are we ever going to see Soldier 1? Just some random stuff that I'm thinking about.

That's it for now, and these are only observations. I will be playing in the next couple of weeks to see if these are actual problems or not.

Just remember the thing that really balances rocket punch vs panzer gloves is suppression. The squads that have panzer gloves are immune and usually much more dangerous. That's what we've found anyway.

HERO said:

Snipers are powerful. The only real limitiations we have in our games is only one sniper team per 200 points. You almost have to go counter sniper to deal with them but I have also had some limited success using indirect fire weapons to harass them.

Heavy walkers can be a pain especially if you are not expecting them. The key is to get in behind them which is easier said than done but you pretty much have to dedicate the same points value worth of infantry or walkers to accomplish it. I have put the hurt on one with a hans coming in on its back side from reserve. He had the choice of turning completey around and showing us unarmored rear to my ludwig or my hans.

Pretty much no contest on paper between the rocket punch and panzer glove but as blkdymnd mentioned zombies and apes cannot be suppressed unlike hammers or reapers so it evens out a bit in that regard.

More than a few axis units pack panzerfausts which are not exactly devastating to heavy walkers but can put a dent in medium walkers and nuke light walkers. One of the reasons I love the hans is the ability to fire indirectly on top of having a tank killer weapon.

Heavy lasers are not bad but I agree that there is no contest between phasers and lasers. Laser grenadiers are about 3 points over priced in my opinion. Maybe the SSU or aliens will have some Infantry 4 units that will make them more worth while. I take them because I really like the models but they often do not perform as well as recon grenadiers.

Not sure on soldier one but it might go with the fluff of the Soviets and Chinese with the conscript style wave tactics they employed.

Greetings,

I have come to the same conclusion with phasers as well. Especially when they overcharge. Lasers in comparison just don't cut it. If hey kept the same mechanic as they do in the board game it might be a bit more balanced or maybe the potential for a second escalation effect roll (being able to roll the successful hits from the second roll).

So for a laser grenadier squad the maximum you will get against Infantry 2 is 15 points of damage. Average of 5.

For a heavy laser squad it would only be 9 at most with an average of 3 against infantry 2.

But compare this to phaser that ignores armour…. There is still no contest. If phaser only ignored cover as it does in the board game it would be a bit more balanced, althoug it still would come out on top on average.

Please bear in mind I've only played one gamevand me and a friend have been donig a lot of theoryDUST about what can do the most damage. A full platoon of Commandos comes out pretty much at th top.

Oh and with the phasers ignoring all armour saves, I guess that this also includes the damage resistance afforded by Axis heavy armour and the Zombies. Would you read it as thus?

Regards,

Khib Yusa

Heavy Laser vs. Red Devils Phasers

But you can fire with the Heavy Lasers from 16" while you have to go with the Red Devils into Reaction distance. So the chance of shooting with the Heavy Lasers unharmed i much higher…

HERO said:

1) Snipers are very powerful in low point games because they are cheap and there isn't a lot on either side of the board and your range is very long compared to most models you can field at those levels. As you scale up to higher values though you can field things like heavy walkers and more units which means they hurt tell you get in their face and start pounding them.

2) Heavy walkers are scary, but remember if you get into rear arc they have NO armor so you can destroy them with a few tricks and or fast moving units (which both sides have access to).

3) Rocket punches are nasty but they can be taken down easily with suppression which being immune to suppression is BIG.

4) Tank Hunter and penetrator are intended to balance out the fact that Axis can field far more tanks then allies at the same point value games.

5)Lasers are really really nasty when you attach sigrid and use her bezerk along with sustained fire. I think my max wounds I through out doing this was in the just shy of 10 wounds range. I had hot dice in that roll it was awesome.

6) there are rumors we will one day see soldier 1's and vehicle 1's but so far I dont know if they have any plans to in the near future.

Denied said:

Sorry, to say that but:

"This ability does not stack with the effects of a Substained Attack action (the player cannot reroll the dice twice)"

Rulebook p. 53

Pretty much what everyone else is saying . . . the only additional comment would be when you say that 'Snipers move 12"' . . . they actually don't. They don't have Fast, they have Agile, which states: "An Agile unit moves an additional 6" when making a Move Reaction " (p 53). So only 12" when they're running away from someone

Ehrfried von Trauwitz-Hellwich said:

**** I'm a dirty cheater, thanks for catching me. Still can get 10 hits though with 5 guys which is awesome!

Denied said:

Remember that Rocket punches are all on jumpers, which cannot be reacted to. This in effect is a partial suppression immunity, keeping the utilization gap Hammers vs. Affen somewhat wide and Reapers vs Hvy Recon Gren very wide.

Overall, I think the balance in Dust is good, but I can't really get my head around the following comparisons:

Grim Reapers vs. Heavy Recon Grenadiers

Same stats. Reapers are Jump and Grenadiers are Resilient, so that cancels. Shooting stats are the same, so that cancels. Melee stats leave Reapers roughly 2x as effective as Grenadiers vs most units and infinitely moreso vs heavier vehicles with no offsetting bonus for Grenadiers.

Base Hammers vs. Base Affen

Same stats, Jump vs Fast/Climb cancels. No shooting. Jump No- Reaction vs Suppression Immune favors Affen *slightly* but Rocket punch vs Panzer Fist is 2x as effective so overall balance swings back to Hammers. Not as big a divide as Reapers vs HRecGrens (especially against vehicles), but definitely a divide.

Now, this more or less gets thrown out when you throw Marcus/Rhino in and compare 'loaded' Hammers vs. Affen. Marcus obviously pushes them much closer and narrows the gap, if not gaps in favor of the Affen when looking at survivability, but it's unfortunate that game mechanics and balance would hinge on inclusion of a difficult to acquire, near-mandatory special character (seriously, start selling second hero paks and Hammer/Pfliegerfaust boxes!).

HERO said:

I think the big potential issue is in Sturmkonig vs No Heavy and Fireball vs No Heavy.

Sturmkonig vs. No Heavy is simply capable of killing 1-2 things/turn (orders) with no real risk of retaliation. Pounder/Luther is the most anti-armor that you can realistically expect to face and they have to roll exceptionally well, even including sustained attacks, to truly threaten it. An all-jump Allied Rocket Fist list is the only real hope in a No Heavy vs. Sturmkonig matchup.

More or less 'different verse, same refrain' with Fireball vs No Heavy. Fireball can shake off all the long-range shooting, with sustained fire lasers being the only real threat. But the big deal is that it can stomp up, suppress/kill 3+ units with all weapons fire, and then disgorge a firesquad that can easily kill an additional unit. That sort of synergy simply isn't present in the Axis lineup right now. It isn't 'lolgamebroke' because Konigsluthers can kill the Fireball and Sturmkonigs can kill enough stuff around the fireball to keep the game square, but I would say as the game currently exists (maybe flyers will change this) the Heavy vs No Heavy disparity is real.

I think the biggest problem in this thread is people are looking at the units on their own in comparison. Remember the Force Organization limits the numbers of certain units you can bring and which if any support you can bring in a platoon. A lot of the things that may make similar units seem better then their counter part is because the counter parts army has a bigger advantage overall in area X of the game (for Axis its Walkers, Allies its number of units and mobility on the board). When compared in such a manner it tends to make a little more sense. Sure you cant react to the jump infantry but they need to close the gap while our 4+ Walkers are lighting up the field from a distance, doesn't matter if we react to them or not we can put down enough firepower that we could potentially make them flee in a single turn.

I think it is better to compare the armies as a whole to one another and when we do you have to look at what lists you can build with them, rather then compare the units to their counter parts in the others army.

Better questions to raise would be why would you take Heavy Recon Grenadiers when it seems the Heavy Flak are better and cheaper overall, they can do burst fire to ignore cover which is huge and they are roughly the same stat line as the Recons only they are 4 points cheaper.

The only answer I have for this is in the Force Organization, Most platoons can only field 1 squad Max of Flak but they can field more Recons… Thats my only answer at the moment.

Like Phaser are better then lasers but only 1 unit and walker can use phaser weapons and the unit is a heavy squad where as Axis can almost build and entire platoon of laser wielding bastards.

Agree with most of what's been discussed so far, so I won't reiterate.I do want to add one more oddity to the mix however…

Dual .50 cal range 24" vs single .50 cal range of 16".

I find it odd that putting more bullets down range would actually also increase the range by 8". Especially seeing as how the dual .30's are the same range a single .30 cal. I wonder if the single .50 cal range is a typo, because every rl treatise on both weapons, the "Ma Deuce" has a much greater effective range than any .30 cal.

I agree with dual mounts having increased damage capability due to more lead down-range, but it shouldn't effect the overall effective range whatsoever.

Finally, I'll state this re: OP musings…

On paper, the Allies should win more often than they do on the tabletop here. I generally play Axis, and I'd consider myself a very good wargamer, but not as good as I've been so far, because my opponents are experienced sharp tacticians as well. I think I'll have to break out my Allied army for a while and see what happens.

I think the biggest problem in this thread is people are looking at the units on their own in comparison. Remember the Force Organization limits the numbers of certain units you can bring and which if any support you can bring in a platoon. A lot of the things that may make similar units seem better then their counter part is because the counter parts army has a bigger advantage overall in area X of the game (for Axis its Walkers, Allies its number of units and mobility on the board). When compared in such a manner it tends to make a little more sense. Sure you cant react to the jump infantry but they need to close the gap while our 4+ Walkers are lighting up the field from a distance, doesn't matter if we react to them or not we can put down enough firepower that we could potentially make them flee in a single turn.

4+ walkers is a bit disingenuous. To do so you're dumping a lot of points into additional support buys which further dilutes the utility of Axis' relatively specialized vehicles. The strength of Axis actually looks to be 1 Heavy walker and a plethora of Snipers, which keeps Allies' mass jump lists 'honest' due to how quickly a squad gets diluted once it begins losing models.

I can NOT figure out the html formatting on this site.

I don't disagree with you at all Sourclams. I will say this much though remember that while they were developing this game they were also writting and developing the next release with it as well so Zverograd and the SSU units are worked into the game play mechanics and balance wise.

I will say there should be a nice balance overall when the 3rd faction is released for Warfare.

sourclams said:

None of us can apparently.

I agree and at risk of a horrible analogy, the game currently feels a big like Starcraft without Terrans; Zerg (Allies) just rush hard and Protoss (Axis) have no hope but to cannon wall their base and eke out an 'economy' win. Terrans (SSU) need to come out so that they can bunker hop Zerg and keep them 'honest'.

SSU choppers can throw a big, big wrench into Allies' flamer/grenade/Fireball/Hammers loadouts due to their very limited anti-Air. That forces them to run a bit heavier on AA and lighten up the jump rush lists, which is a passive buff to Axis.

As a 40k player I understand your concern in the area of balance but I think your concerns are largely going to disappear after a few games, it is very hard to break this game system without the use of the very expensive heroes. Anyway here is my take on your concerns.

1. Snipers were one of my biggest concerns when we first started playing, we felt they might be overly powerful, but their not. For starters I think that using the right amount and type of terrain is important to the game balance (something a lot of people in 40k never figured out), with the right terrain a snipers fire lanes should be limited enough that a unit can sneak past the choke point and flank them. The truth is that snipers in our games tend to pop up, do some damage, then get suppressed and killed. In fact the easiest thing to do is shoot them with long range fire, kill one, and then hit them again with another unit forcing them into retreat. They are very dangerous, make no mistake, but like everything else in this game, they can be countered.

2. Heavy walkers are very balanced I feel, the right amount of durability for the right price. They also have a couple of built in weaknesses, like being so big that they will rarely if ever get cover, and the fact that their primary guns are not turreted mounted. This tends to balance them out compared to other walkers.

3. Rocket punches are better than panzer gloves, to balance out the fact that most of the time Axis players will have more walkers than the allies will.

4. Allies have Tank hunters to balance out the fact that Axis players will always be able to field more walkers.

5.Lasers are inferior to phasors, but far less units have phasors than lasers. Wow, that sounds weird when read out loud.

6. The SSU has the Chinese conscripts, which are soldier 1.

Chinese volunteers are infantry 2, not infantry 1

I thought they were infantry 1, huh maybe my eyes have betrayed me.

Xie said:

1. Fact remains that the only real defense vs snipers is to eliminate them quickly, stick a hero in the unit for ablative wounds, or content yourself to losing 1-2 models/turn. I don't think they're broken, but they are definitely powerful, ESPECIALLY against Inf3 lists where dilution is a big problem, doubly so when piece trading against a 12 pt model from across the table.

3. I think the better Axis lists will feature 1 superheavy and maybe 1 more "suppression" walker (kind of like actual Axis force organizations). There's just no real reason to heavily invest points in mass walkers; the only one versatile enough to justify doing so is the Sturmkonig, and at 400 pts I would happily play Sturmkonig-Konigsluther. If the axis light walker had the firepower of the Allies' quad 50s or 120w Phaser, I would take more, but as it stands Axis wants to run fewer, better walkers and Allies want more, versatile ones in a list (IMO, of course, but I've found that to be true in my games).

4. See 3.

5. Having more of a worse thing doesn't somehow make it better, though. It just means that there's very little reason to take the laser grenaciers or the laser light walker. The heavy laser grenadiers are worth it as a secondary, reactionary AT unit, but in a sniper-heavy meta they become less and less viable due to dilution and high cost.

Keep in mind more things are coming. The Axis Wotan-AR will be available soon. Armor 5 with two Schwere Laser Kanone.

Shadow4ce said:

I don't mean to sound persistently negative because I think this is a great game thus far, but the core issue with the lasers is that the lasers themselves are underwhelming for the point cost that gets slapped on them. Having yet another model with a laser won't make lasers any better as a weapon category unless 1. that model is cheaper, so that the laser opportunity cost is reduced, or 2. the laser is somehow 'better' (longer range, more dice, ignores armor) so that the utility is increased.

Wotan is probably going to have 2 Schwer-Laserkanonen for 2/2 vs inf and 2/6 vs vehicles for, guessing, 50 pts. That is a model that will rarely see play. Heavy Laser Grens will do a better (cheaper) job of sitting in the back behind cover/LOS blocker for reactionary sustained attacks against vehicles, Ludwig/Konigsluther better vs armor, pretty much anything better vs infantry.

Dual-flamer config, if it's double burst vs infantry and 2/4 against vehicles for, guessing, 40 pts, on the other hand, is a fantastic model. Great utility vs all targets, ignores cover/tank hunter thanks to the inbuilt flamer effects, and a resilient front-liner; a real brawler of a walker. That thing will get taken all the time.

One is a pretty good vehicle, one is a pretty bad vehicle, it has absolutely nothing to do (almost) with the vehicle part of the component, rather that categorically lasers are kinda poopy and flamers are fantastic.

Sourclams has stated my main objection to the upcoming German MK III walker: Lasers. Sorry, all, laser really suck in this game. All the reasons have been mentioned in the game already, but I'll add one: Given that regular cannon-based anti-tank weapons do multiple dice to hit with a single damage point per hit, and those simulate perhaps a couple rounds at best (particularly with the Pounder and the 88L56s), why couldn't the lasers get the same treatment - I would cheefully roll 3/1 for a vehicle-mounted laser, with additional rolls for hits. That would make them worth it.

Particularly since the reason we're getting stuck with dual lasers on the MkIII is because the original model had them, not because of any idea of effectiveness. (On those same lines, why weren't we given the ability to vary armament on the German walkers? The source material shows the MkII with arms mixed and matched. Changing armament was a matter of changing arms. Bad show, FFG editors and developers.)