Rivet Wars a game like Dust Tactics?

By Armrek, in Dust Tactics General Discussion

Recently Rivet Wars has been and is running as a Kick Starter Project at
Here's a little Rivet Wars short story inspired by the Rivet World:
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THE TRENCH RAIDER by Carsten Schwartz
Excited Herbert Von Schleichkärl jumped into the enemy trench under cover of the creeping morning fog. Sweat running down his back and the moistness of his adrenalin forced body threatening to disable his vision through the glass of the gasmask. This must be finished fast. Soon my gasmask must be removed to be able to see properly, he reflected, as dew slowly appeared on the inside of the glass of the mask. No problem I'll just sit here in the trench and clean my mask, before I continue. The raider silently passed a corner with an abandoned dugout, surveying the surrounding area, he found it to be a safe spot for the task at hand. After a couple of minutes the he carefully snuck on.
This was for real! He thought excited. Only a few months ago he had been awarded as the best raider trainee in years at the academy, Von Hindenburg himself had personally attended and pressed his hand at the finishing ceremony. After a few quite boring skirmishes he had been selected for this mission to gather intelligence behind the allied lines. After several minutes of hide and sneak he reached a larger bunker complex. Huge concrete walls filled the silent foggy morning landscape. What was that! He could vaguely perceive excited voices nearby. Carefully approaching the bunker he noticed a rusty venting grate. After careful inspection the raider deemed it safe to approach the grate in the damp concrete wall, silently the Herbert slipped though the sandbag and the barbed wire surrounding the small concrete fortress.
"I just got news late last night that a squad of 20 M3's will arrive in a couple of hours to lead the attack this morning", Colonel Brickton smiled as he brought the good news to his staff. Faces all smiling with enthusiasm looked back at him. The colonel paced the main staff room with an inner peace not to betray his joy of this news. The General had come through with his demands after all! He had tried to convince him of the need for a tactical advantage on this section of the front for weeks and here it was. He checked the small opening in the concrete wall to survey the muddy grey terrain covered in the morning fog, was somebody moving out there? Probably the morning patrol, that went along its business this hour.
That was to close for comfort, only moments ago an middle aged face with cunning and experienced eyes had appeared in one of the narrow window slits of the bunker near the vent grate. But no dogs barked and no alarms sounded, the raider considered his options. The M3's where a dangerous move and would surely be a set back if the attack started without a warning. He had to get back faster than a monowheel from hell. Cautiously he slipped of and disappeared into the all engulfing fog.
‘Mad’ Fred Larson strode confident forward guiding his patrol forward as he and his men performed their morning duty in the front line. Fred had recently been appointed leader of the morning patrol and looked forward to carry out his duty in a spotless manner. Somebody must have fallen ahead in the front line trench Fred though as he tugged the leash of patrol mascot Spunk to move him along. Spunk was a marvelous animal wide and muscular the bull dog had helped them out in several pressed situations, the enemy often never expected a wild muscular dog to be an option in combat, and their surprise often cost them dearly. The muscle driven animal appeared to be nervous, something out the ordinary must have caught its attention, Fred thought. The Patrol leader gave the sign of silence to his fellow soldiers and the patrol moved cautiously forward as Spunk started barking uncontrollably.
Just a piece of bad luck, that's all he reflected. It had been almost too easy to move back to the front line of the allied forces, and now the fog had started to disperse endangering his mission. My gas mask is dryer and I can see clearer, it's just a change of conditions that's all. The raider jumped into the front trench and rushed silently towards the point nearest to the Blight lines. But what was that, a patrol and a dog barking. Quick and silently the raider pulled out his newly acquired gas grenade and lopped it at the approaching patrol. A hiss, a bang and the patrol was down coughing their lungs up. Serves them right the allied scum! He thought. Von Schleichkärl slipped overjoyed through the dying allied soldiers, now the road was clear.
It’s strange what Spunk has got scent of in that in that wrinkled face of Fred reflected as the dog started barking more intensely, its eyes two angry lantern behind the glasses of its special design gas mask. As the patrol rounded a corner near a fresh dugout, Fred thought he could hear a vague hissing sound ahead of them, the squad leader started readying his gas mask. The hissing got louder as a hand grenade flew out of the morning fog and exploded amongst the men. But this was no ordinary grenade, white smoke surrounded the squad, and they started screaming and coughing. Fred felt the light disappear in his own private world and his legs go below him as he managed to get the mask on in the cloud of poisonous gas.
Spunk didn't like the loud noise and that his masters had been put down, the bull dog was angry and saliva was dripping out from the gas mask. Pure instinct made the dog jump into the shadow where the hissing sound had first originated. Even through the gas mask the dog's preprogrammed smell of the enemy suddenly became much stronger and its claws stroke home on soft tissue. “The evil that hurt my masters!” was the only message in Spunks ferocious brain as he clawed wildly and swung his spike clad tail at the intruder.
Where did that come from the raider thought as a large, white muscular dog with a gas mask and a vicious spike clad tail, flew out of nowhere attacking the soft unguarded tissue of his left thigh. Quick as a flash he smacked the dog on top of its large muscular head with the butt of his pistol, as it went down the white bundle of violence lashed its spiked tail straight into the right thigh of the raider. With a muffled scream Von Schleichkärl jumped clear and quickly limped silently away from the disabled dog. **** nobody had informed him of dogs that could survive gas attacks! Slowly but confident the raider nimbly limped towards friendly lines.
Hope some of the other guys have managed to get their masks on Fred thought as he slowly stood up and surveyed the damage, in the distant horizon a shadow with a spiked helmet disappeared into the fog over against the Blight front line. Somebody was in a hurry to get to the enemy lines and taking no chances.
It was a disaster, none of the blokes had even touched their mask they all lay dead with contorted faces that signaled horrible pain and death, blood mixed with white saliva running out of their noses, mouths and eyes. Spunk was whimpering nearby, but the white monstrous animal of a dog was slowly getting up and started barking insanely towards the Blight lines. This was no ordinary soldier who had attacked them this morning, he’d better report this to the section leader. Medic-Medic! He shouted as he moved away from the front line through the narrow communication trench.
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I recommend pledging! - You get a great game and a ridiculous lot of minis for the $90 reward or even more for the $150 reward.
But I would also like to know if Dust Tactics can be compared to this?

There are certainly similarities. Both games have walking tanks on a gridded board, both measure distance the same way ie diagonals, both have stat cards with weapons v's armour and each die has a 1 in 3 chance of success. Big difference in models, DT is realistic where RW's are cartoony with Wacky Races style vehicles. Both games have an almost identical high casualty rate but with RW you do spawn reinforcements every turn, in fact might crib this idea for some DT scenarios.

I'm sorry but the mini's for it look terrible IMO… I could never play a game with such silly looking figures…

They certainly are different, fun though :)

Rivet Wars is to Dust Tactics as Animaniacs is to Naoki Urasawa's Monster.

They have similar gameplay features, but they're not for the same audience. Animaniacs and Monster are both hand drawn animation, but they're not ment for the same audience.

The audience might be different bu the minis are fun and there's a cool sort of WWI background here:

Rivet Wars Background

I noticed Rivet Wars a few days ago and thought of DT right away. This is not a bad thing since that game will not appeal to all of DT fans but it will make other types of gamers take a look. Perhaps it could even help DT in the long run in little ways. I thought it looked neat.

The minis reminds me of the Playmobil toys I used to play with when I was young.

Fun but not my cup of tea.

allied_grunt_50mm.jpg 6290.jpg

Very true… I loved my playmobile back in the 70's…. lol… I don't know… maybe if I was younger it would be more apealing but I'm 40 so I wan't my "toys" to be more serious at this stage in my life.

It IS a cup of tea thing. I am 37 (almost 38) and find both games interesting. At the end of the day I am 3oish and still playing with toys so how can I (or any of us) pic the nits?

I'm 31 and have no interest in Rivet Wars. I watched the play through and thought it was a good concept at first, but by turn 3 or 4 I became bored and disinterested. The models look like something a 7-year-old would play with, I'll pass.

I just noticed in one of the pics that they have rivets all the way around the base… sort of like bolts all the way around a base…

Those are perhaps the most hideous minis i have ever seen.

mgentile7 said:

Those are perhaps the most hideous minis i have ever seen.

Yeah, they're pretty bad

To be fair I'd submit that they're not minis at all, they're toys.

And as far as toys go they're not bad, I'm sure my daughter would love them, but she's only 3.5 so I'm not sure I'd let her play with them.

But if she was say 5, I'd pick the game up for her to get her started in gaming, and keep her away from daddy's models which are not toys.

Miah999 said:

To be fair I'd submit that they're not minis at all, they're toys.

And as far as toys go they're not bad, I'm sure my daughter would love them, but she's only 3.5 so I'm not sure I'd let her play with them.

But if she was say 5, I'd pick the game up for her to get her started in gaming, and keep her away from daddy's models which are not toys.

I mean no disrespect to anyones child. For an adult though the minis are really out there.

mgentile7 said:

Miah999 said:

To be fair I'd submit that they're not minis at all, they're toys.

And as far as toys go they're not bad, I'm sure my daughter would love them, but she's only 3.5 so I'm not sure I'd let her play with them.

But if she was say 5, I'd pick the game up for her to get her started in gaming, and keep her away from daddy's models which are not toys.

I mean no disrespect to anyones child. For an adult though the minis are really out there.

Didn't think you did, I agree their a bit much for adults.

Miah999 said:

mgentile7 said:

Miah999 said:

To be fair I'd submit that they're not minis at all, they're toys.

And as far as toys go they're not bad, I'm sure my daughter would love them, but she's only 3.5 so I'm not sure I'd let her play with them.

But if she was say 5, I'd pick the game up for her to get her started in gaming, and keep her away from daddy's models which are not toys.

I mean no disrespect to anyones child. For an adult though the minis are really out there.

Didn't think you did, I agree their a bit much for adults.

I find them visually disturbing !!!! Dont know why?????

I've still a big kid and I love the design :) Besides you really need to check out the aircraft pack, fantastic value for Dastardly and Mutly style planes ready to catch the pidgeon :)

Like I said before I am fine for what they are, a cutesier version of DT. I think the minis are supposed to look simplistic and a bit childish. I am curious about the rules and prices for expansions. Currently my kids want to play Super Dungeon Explore over DT so something like Rivet might be more family friendly.

Fortunatey i dont have any children. I will need a few though to fund my retirement !!!

Yeah, faced with spending 150 dollars on Duplos or DT, I think I'll stick with DT