The Nadya is a close assault unit as evidenced by its flamethrowers. It would seem to me that this unit could have benefited from the assault skill and airlift ability.

The Nastasia is essentially the SSU version of a Luther. This walker has a fairly good range of 6. Assault seems mostly wasted on this unit. The unit has a range of 6 so the Airlift ability is wasted on it.

The Natalya seems to be a Good Assault unit. Berserk is definitely a good skill for this unit. It would seem to me that this unit could benefit from the Air lift ability as it would allow the unit to close with the enemy faster. But of coarse this skill was not given to this unit.

The Natasha seems to be a little short on fire power. The All in one ability will give it a chance against another medium walker, but only once.

The Nikita is the most botched of all SSU units. Assault and airlift are completely wasted on this unit. It can't inflict as much damage as the Lothar but costs 4 more points??? The Assault and air lift ability need to be dropped from this unit and the points adjusted to say 34.

The Nina is the only SSU walker given the Air skill that it actually makes sense for it to have it. But of coarse you buy another walker for the price of the transport.

Personally I think the whole transport walker are a waste anyway.

I think if the player spends the points on a transport chopper they should be allowed to transport any armor 4 or 5 walker they choose. The idea that the walker needs to have and pay points for the skill is stupid.

I know I am far from the only person to express these views. The real is will Dust fix these problems or continue to handicap SSU walkers like the Nikita and Nastasia.

Oh I agree. That to me is the big problem with the SSU. Air-lifted walkers is a GREAT idea, but why the heck is the assignment of the airlift ability completely nonsensical for the most part?

Exactly my point of view! I really wonder if I should invest in the walker transport at all because the points are wasted if there is no powerful, useful walker to be transported - that is, a walker that really becomes more powerful by being transported.

Yup agreed and to add to that the regular chainsaw and flamer walkers are pretty much useless as well as they are to slow to get into range before getting wiped out - whatever the terrain.

Who makes those rules? That is so stupid that either the person only thinks about the company benefits (but i don't see a lot fromt that point) or just stupid non-dust player person! So how someone like that can invent units for such a game?!

LOL!!! I just finished playing Borderlands 2 with friends and am now sitting on my desk looking at my Premium Walker Transport saying "This chopper and walker look so great, can't wait to feild them and see what they can do".

Now i'm reading this…Air Lift walkers are meh according to the majority.

I'll try to give my opinion on those units and feel free to burn me alive in public for what i'm gonna say:

1) SSU Walker Transport: 40 points, Range 4, Aircraft Armor2, Move 2, HP 6 - It's a lot for one unit. But consider "Advanced Deployment". It's a matter of timing and surely most of you already know this. No one would first deploy a chopper transporting units (squad or walker). Instead you will wait for the best moment to deploy let's say Nina with Advanced Deployment and hope that you get Initiative and strike first.

Nina: 34 points, Range 3, Vehicule Armor4, Move 1, HP 4, Assault - On it's own this walker, if deployed strategically, could do a lot of damage and surprising your enemy early in the battle. Sure the duo Chopper+Nina cost a lot but imagine the damage…

Ok now consider adding Nikolaï as Nina's Pilot. Take Aim? Hell yeah! One major drawback is all those 3 cost 100 points. That's a lot of points for only 3 units.

Then, field Yakov, the Legendary Tactician. When rolling for initiative you consider misses as Hits. Quite helpful for round 2! He cost 30 points and IMO is best acting as a solo Hero, roaming the battlefield and giving his cover bonus to squads that need it most.

With Yakov you're almost certain to act first in most rounds, plus you have the firepower to destroy any enemy Walker as long as you roll well. With Nikolaï there's almost nothing to worry about as long as the duo stays alive.

***We're now at 130 points***

The you have to field some squads and for that why not add the Airborne Transport.

2) SSU Airborne Transport: 40 points, Range 4, Aircraft Armor2, Move 2, Carry Cap. 8 HP 6 - Fill the Chopper with the Fakyeli, The Fonvizon Commissar (that have the Assault skill) and Red Yana. For 97 points you have a deadly force that can land anywhere on the battlefield on first round. Add to the the 2 Assault available through the Fakyeli and the Commissar plus the 4 HP of Red Yana. Not that bad!

***We're now at 227 points***

3) Koshka and Grand'ma: Both for 54 points, some range, some CC power, Fighting Spirit, Assault, HP 5 for the Walker and HP 4 for the Hero - A duo that can't work without each other but for lots of points. Grand'ma is a good unique Walker that must be used carefully. You don't want to expose it and let it die quickly but you want it to do the job and get in the middle of the melee quickly. Hard to mast duo but tremendously fun to play!

***We're now at 281 points***

4) The Medvedi: 44 points and the usual Command Squad skills needed to achive victory.

***We're now at 325 points***

5) The Frontoviki: 19 points, some firepower and range. "Jack-of-all-trade" squad with HP 6.

***We're now at 344 points***

For 344 points you have 2 choppers, 2 walkers, 3 Heroes, The Command Squad, the Battle Squad and 1 Commissar. If like me you're playing with 350 points armies, the SSU is really fun to feild simply because each game you have to take some decisions as to which units i'll leave out. Allies and Axis don't have that problem, you generally field the same units that you know are good and that's it. But with the SSU you axctually have to think about which unit will be the best for this match. Which Hero or squad should I leave out? Which "Air Lift" Walker shoud I use? What is my opponent fielding?

But I understand the debate about the Ari Lift Walkers, 2 out of 3 don't need the Airlift Skills and it's a shame the put it on these. But instead of saying They're bad, why not try to use what they have the best you can? Why not Air Lift a Nikita or Nastasia and deploy it behing enemy lines and away from LOS? Then make your move and hit hard on the enemy!

They cost a lot for what they can dish out but consider they can deploy ANYWHERE on the first round. It opens up a really cool startegy for the SSU player and timing is the key.

From my side of the table, the SSU is a really fun army to play, hard to master but fun as fun can get. Only for this fun factor i'm gonna keep fielding and enjoying them. A tight win or a laughable lost is what makes the SSU my number 1 army.

None said thyer aren't a good army. in fact they seem the most interesting to play IMO couse they lack the powerfull and not so costy armor 3 units. But still making your main arilerry weapon airlifted is not something you can explain with sense! The point is most of ppl feel that sth bad is happening to dust, and bad/stupid decision are made!

The point here is that one would hope that designers of Dust would care what their fan base is saying about the game. I would think that listening to your costumers should be a priority.

I am not saying the SSU is broken. Far from it, I think they will be a very competitive Army.

But this does not change the fact that the walkers are broken. Rather than making the best of a bad situation. Dust could fix the problem.

Why have a blog for your fan base if you will not listen to them.
Further if you fix the product more consumers will buy it!

So the question now is are they listening? Do they care what we think?

Panzer soldier said:

It's not that they're not listening, you're just barking up the wrong tree. Dust Games develops the models and rules for Tactics, FFG distributes and converts the models to be playable for Warfare. If you have such an issue with the game, drop Dust Games a line on their site. Paolo and Olivier are pretty approachable designers for the most part.

I certainly understand the debate about SSU Walkers and I completely agree with this.

But being a gamer that simply enjoy gaming with his buddies all I want to do is field those robots and see what they can do.

On the other hand, I'm glad there's passionate people like some of you that like putting time and effort in finding flaws and debating about them. It's what's make this community so alive and fun to be part of.

One thing I can't wait to see is the stats on those Heavies that are coming, tanks and walkers. For my SSU army I plan to buy only one heavy unit and it'll probably be a tank but which one…cool problem!

SolennelBern said:

Isn't the Fakyeli a 5 man squad? Plus a commissar and Red Yana would be 7 figures. The chopper only holds 6. Unless Yana wants to hang from the landing gear, I think you have a problem.

blkdymnd said:

Dust games doesn't have the forum, FFG does. I think the point is valid that whoever is developing the game would be wise to keep their ear to the ground, or eye on the forum, regardless of what site the forum is on.

fhaugh said:

My bad I thought it was 8.

The SSU troop transport does have a carrying capacity of 8.

blkdymnd said:

My old friend blkdymnd I suspected you would answer. So let me para phrase FFG are the wrong ones to fix the issue , but….

Doesn't FFG produce Dust Tactics as well. Point the finger at the other guy. Weak as always.

I will play and drop Paolo and Olivier a line. I will be sure to quote your response as well.

If I get a response I will post it. It is nice to know that FFG is not responsible for any rules or stats that have to do with Dust Tactics, so noted!

Weird cause on my airborne transport unit card it shows capacity 8…not 6.

Think the error comes from the rules. When they explain the Carry Capacity skill they give an example and state that 6 is the max. Nice work

EDIT: Here's the proof…pic from Dust Games webstie…same as the one I have in front of me right now

This is yet another balls-up in the crossover with DW in trying to make it as difficult as possible for DT vets to play DW, in DW the carry capacity is 6 - go figure .

Major Mishap said:

Yeah, my buddy and I are about to start playing DW and I noticed the lower carry capacity…sucks. I also don't get how they justify some of the point costs. I'm looking at what the allies and axis get for a 35 point walker, then look at my Natasha which is 5 points more and just scratch my head. I have 3 kv-47s that are pretty much worthless in DW.

Panzer soldier said:

I'm here for you! To your question there, on the Tactics side, FFG literally only distributes and does organized play. Paolo, from all I've heard, actually lives at the Hong Kong factory. I agree though that FFG is more the face of the game and should probably have more more active communication even if its just passing along quotes from Paolo and Olivier about the hold ups

My apologies. I had always thought the chopper was cap 6. They are a bit more scary with the ability to carry eight A2 or four A3 infantry.

It does raise a question though. Can you willingly leave out a member of the squad at the start of the battle? For example, I can't fit Rhino and the 3 Hammer into the Fireball (four A3 inf = eight A2 inf), but could I bring them into the battle one man short just to make them fit?

blkdymnd said:

The main point here is that the majority of the fan base, "customer" have problems with aspects of the game. I would think that the company would take this seriously.
Tough **** this is the way it is just deal with it, is not an attitude a company should take if it wants to remain in business.
Yes a response to these concerns would be nice.

I don't even know why I put up with this game?????

**** it's so funny when someone says "I don't even know why I put up with this game " or "Everybody has problems with the game"…

Everyone will have problems with EVERY games out there. Some aspects won't please you while others will. You didn't made the game, they did and they did it following their own ideas and concepts. They had the idea, they developed a game around it and they offer it to us gamers.

DT and DW are 2 different games with 2 completely different mechanics. You can't simply transpose every stuff from one another.

The customer, me included, will alwasy have something to say about a product, ALWAYS. We'll find something that we don't like and we'll call out loud that this product is sh**.

When I buy a game, I buy an idea, a concept, thought out mechanics that I think will appeal to me and my gaming buddies. If someone doesn't like the game I won't blame him/her. If someone doesn't like some of the game mechanics, i'll gladly listen to what he would do to make it better. I bought FFG/Dust Games ideas and I play with their games.

Why don't you write what serious problems you have with this game and offer alternatives and variants. While at it, don't forget that YOUR ideas won't necessarily please everyone out there. Are they making your games better? Great, use them! Share them! But don't expect everyone to like them though and if we don't, I hope you won't mind receiving some critisism…

SolennelBern said:

I don't think anyone who commented on this post thinks Dust tactics is ****. Why would we take the time to care to be fans if we hated the entire game.

I was very specific as to the fact that the SSU walkers where broken and why. This view was supported by the majority of other fans. Did you fail to read this whole post?

I understand that no set of rules will be perfect in everyone's eyes. But you are missing the big picture here.

If the majority of your customers are saying aspects of your rules are broken. Then maybe you should listen.

Are the designers of the rules so arrogant as to think nothing in the rules needs to be improved or corrected! I think the track record of Tactics speaks for itself so far.

Maybe the designers are to lazy to put forth the effort to listen? We don't know. We just have people like you who seem to take things personally but no one says “Hi I am Oliver a rules designer and I like or dislike your idea because.” That's rite no one has the courage to step up!

I have been a war gamer for 30 years and have designed my own rules. I welcomed comments and criticism. I am not perfect or so arrogant and insecure that I can't consider other peoples ideas.

As I have said before your fans are beta testing these rules every day. What an opportunity you have to improve your rules by listening to them. If you won't to be sure that an idea is the most popular one then have a vote.

I can't believe FFG and Dust don't do this already.

So again does anyone care what the fans have to say?

Panzer soldier said:

Don't worry I didn't took anything personally. I'm just one of those people that just like playing, simply playing. I don't tend to over analyze games and rules, I just like to sit up with friends and play a game.

But, I do appreciate enthousiasts and passionate people like you who take the time to do this work and check any weakness and report them. I am also annoyed by the lack of FFG representative on the forums and find it really disturbing and irrespectful.

With that said, my post was just targetted toward the fact that too many people don't seem to be able to have fun anymore and stick on the negative.

Anyways, thanks all of you passionate gamers for your time in scanning and spotting those weak spot and contribute in improving good games.

I think Dust Tactics Is a great game and I play it every chance I get. I also think the fans should be allowed to have a voice. I take it personallythat the designers of a such great game can't find the time or make the effort to let us have a voice.