Dust Warfare - Force Builder now available

By Maine, in Dust Warfare

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Poe said:

Etna''s Vassal said:

The improvement on "The Gunners" from one bazooka to two overrides the unit's ability to upgrade the unit to carry M9-D bazookas? I'm not so sure about that one. It sort of makes that upgrade pointless unless you give it to the "Death Dealers".

I'm going to pose this question over on the rules forum to get a consensus. I'm just not too sure about that call.

This has been anwered by Zach:

So I emailed Zach about the unit upgrades from Hades and the Core Rules…
Rule Question:
The DW:Hades book introduced many 'Unit Upgrades' for armies. In that section it says a unit may purchase one upgrade.
In the DW:Core Rulebook, the Allies Combat Ranger Squad and Axis Battle Grenadiers maybe be "upgraded" to replace guns with a second heavy weapon. Do these unit upgrades prevent the unit from then taking a DW:Hades 'Unit Upgrade'?
Each Soldier unit in a force may purchase one unit upgrade. This includes the unit-specific unit upgrades available to the Combat Ranger Squad and the Battle Grenadiers. If a unit purchases a unit-specific unit upgrade, it cannot purchase an additional unit upgrade from CB: Hades, and vice versa.
I hope this has answered your question. Happy Gaming!
Zach Tewalthomas
Assoc. Miniatures Games Producer
Fantasy Flight Games

Ah, okay.

I still think it's a silly ruling, but then again I'm not the maker of the game.

Time to go back and re-write my army lists. Thanks!

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Bumping back to front page.

On a side note, I had recently picked up Descent 2nd edition (I have the first edition base set since launch, and even though my wife and I liked it we barely played it due to the length of gameplay). I had considered making a Descent 2nd Edition quest editor, going so far as to plan out and research tech for the UI and feature set, including server side storage… and tonight I can't sleep, decide to check FFG's site, and lo and behold, they have a Quest editor which has a lot of similarities to what I was planning! (Although I would have used DOM for the tile editor, and not Canvas)

Oh well, saves me time for other projects!

Speaking of - are there any feature requests you folks have, other than printing out all army info, of course - I'm reconsidering my stance on that, but again it's a LOT of data entry. I've had a couple people offer to handle the data entry for me, but then they disappear… I'd estimate around 20 hours of work for data entry and programming, and this is a tool for a game I no longer play. The only other person in my club who picked up any Dust suffers from game/army-of-the-month syndrome and has moved on to other things.

Speaking of playing - if anyone is in the south Orange County, California area (Irvine/Tustin/Lake Forest/Mission Viejo/Laguna Hills) and wants to get in a game or 5, let me know. I'd love to play some more!

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Revision 18 is up - SSU IS-48A Karl Marx point cost changed from 101 to 91 as per FAQ 1.4.

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Revision 19 is up. I renamed the Gunners Combat Rangers and Battle Grenadiers unit upgrades to properly reflect their true nature.

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Bump!

Anyone else notice that the "Allies Take to the Skies" article used the Force Builder export format, sans points?

Guess folks at FFG use the Force Builder as well! Now if only they'd hook me up with the campaign books. ;-)

I've removed the paypal donation link, but left up the Snow Leopard Trust donation link. I made this decision after doing my taxes, and decided the small amount received was not worth the hassle of declaring Hobby income. I thank those who have offered financial or other support.

Thanks to donations I have the next campaign book covered, but if you wish to offer support by providing me with any of the future campaign books, feel free to contact me privately.

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Maine said:

Bump!

Anyone else notice that the "Allies Take to the Skies" article used the Force Builder export format, sans points?

Guess folks at FFG use the Force Builder as well! Now if only they'd hook me up with the campaign books. ;-)

I've removed the paypal donation link, but left up the Snow Leopard Trust donation link. I made this decision after doing my taxes, and decided the small amount received was not worth the hassle of declaring Hobby income. I thank those who have offered financial or other support.

Thanks to donations I have the next campaign book covered, but if you wish to offer support by providing me with any of the future campaign books, feel free to contact me privately.



I am not from FFG, but I did use the builder and added in units that didn't exist yet. :P

Your builder is basically the standardized format now.

Hope you liked the article. :D

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You are still doing an excellent job, and the force builder is in daily use over here in Germany..

I think I found a mistake, but I'm not 100% sure because I don't have the rulebook at hand.

In the force builder, you can't pick a MatrioshkaBabushka as a 4th section for a Red Platoon. I *think* it should be allowed according to the rules, however.

Keep up the good work!

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LannisterCrimson said:

You are still doing an excellent job, and the force builder is in daily use over here in Germany..

I think I found a mistake, but I'm not 100% sure because I don't have the rulebook at hand.

In the force builder, you can't pick a MatrioshkaBabushka as a 4th section for a Red Platoon. I *think* it should be allowed according to the rules, however.

Keep up the good work!

It's provided by the rules: "The KV-3 Heavy Walker is available as a Support Unit to SSU platoons that may field "Any KV47 Walker" as a Support Unit" (DW: CH, p.37)

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I don't know if that was your intention, but now that you quoted it, I'm sure you really can't field a KV-3 as a Red Platoon 4th section.

Thanx. My mistake. Keep on walking. Nothing to see here.

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Just a small update - I'm waiting for the Icarus book to arrive. My FLGS, Comic Quest Lake Forest, can be quite lazy about stocking some things, and so I ended up having to order it online.

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Now updated for Icarus!

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Second-gen Serum should be a valid choice for a Blutkreuz platoon led by a hero.

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Dakkon426 said:

Second-gen Serum should be a valid choice for a Blutkreuz platoon led by a hero.

You are correct; I had misunderstood the rule and thought heroes could not use the platoons special order, and so had not included it as I believed it to be a wasteful option.

I've uploaded the fix. Thanks for the bug report!

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In the Axis support options, "Horteon" should be "Horton". Also, you missed the Schwer Armor Axis platoon upgrade from Icarus.

I still use the Force Builder almost every day, and it's been invaluable for coming up with Regionals lists. Thanks for the awesome resource. :)

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Cannor said:

In the Axis support options, "Horteon" should be "Horton".

Actually it should be Horten.

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Great work Maine!

BTW, Axis - the Schwer Armor Platoon Upgrade appears to be missing. (or am I missing it?)

Thanks,

-BDub

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ItsUncertainWho said:

Cannor said:

In the Axis support options, "Horteon" should be "Horton".

Actually it should be Horten.

That's what happens when I post before rushing out the door. Yep, it should indeed be Horten!

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Both bugs have been fixed. Thanks for the reports!

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Got one more for you. Horten should be available to the Schwer Platoon and it is not.

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Frantic said:

Got one more for you. Horten should be available to the Schwer Platoon and it is not.

Fixed! Thanks for the report.

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Thanks for creating this. Love it!

Just a quick note. I notice that I cannot upgrade the Battle Grenadiers. I am not sure if this is intentional or if the button is hidden elsewhere in the webapp. Any help is much appreciated!

To be precise, Battle Grenadiers have the option to upgrade a STG47 to a Panzershrek. There used to be another unit option at 20AP for Battle Grenadiers with extra Panzershrek.

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enrgie said:

Thanks for creating this. Love it!

Just a quick note. I notice that I cannot upgrade the Battle Grenadiers. I am not sure if this is intentional or if the button is hidden elsewhere in the webapp. Any help is much appreciated!

To be precise, Battle Grenadiers have the option to upgrade a STG47 to a Panzershrek. There used to be another unit option at 20AP for Battle Grenadiers with extra Panzershrek.

Maine cleverly hid the unit upgrades right next to the section number. There is a > symbol next to any platoon section that can be upgraded individually. Click on that symbol and a drop down option box will appear.

Maine has done a fantastic job with the Force Builder. It is simple, easy to use and has an easy to understand output. Everyone I know who plays uses it and it has become the de facto way to build army lists for Dust Warfare.

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ItsUncertainWho said:

Maine cleverly hid the unit upgrades right next to the section number. There is a > symbol next to any platoon section that can be upgraded individually. Click on that symbol and a drop down option box will appear.

If you have any suggestions to make this more apparent, please feel free to share. Everything I have tried so far seemed less obvious or requires re-flowing the layout to make it fit.

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Maine said:

If you have any suggestions to make this more apparent, please feel free to share. Everything I have tried so far seemed less obvious or requires re-flowing the layout to make it fit.

I have zero complaints about your work. I was not being facetious.

I thought the unit upgrades in the semi-hidden menu was brilliant. It keeps the interface clean. Everything I can think of would be more invasive. The clean simplicity of the interface is a big plus, in my book.

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Maybe use the + box like you have for adding platoons for the upgrades instead of the >.