Thought about blog

I was thinking of making the articles pdf and embedding them using iframes what do you guys think about doing that? It may take longer to load not sure but you will be able to save the articles rather than just having them up like they are now.

New Units Announced

FFG announces Snipers and Spotters on the way for Dust Tactics click the link on the side bar to see them. Look pretty interesting considering that there is 2 of each. I guess they'll be small squads.

Reviews

About the models

The models for Dust Tactics are nicely modeled. There are minimal mold lines around the edges and it is already primed for you to go a head and paint. The figures have rotating torsos just like AT-43. The walkers are nice and have interchangeable parts. You can swap weapons and attachments to each walker. Another nice thing is that the head can be yanked out and replaced if desired to do so. You can go get other WWII head and swap with the figure heads. The scale is a little hard to find the figures are 35mm and the vehicles are 1:48 scale.

Extra Models

The figure can be some what hard to find. I found for my superhero cards use Heroclix they are 35mm and make the models I have made cards for. While I was on miniaturereview.blogspot.com I found Pulp figures makes a bunch of WWII miniatures, West Wind Productions makes sell a bunch of Weird War 2 companies, Brigade Games and Hobby Supply is also nice. A couple of miniature games I plan on adding to my game is Grindhouse Games’ Incursion, Fantasy Flight Games themselves’ Tannhauser, and Darkson Design AE-WWII. These companies’ games are about 28mm-35mm and have nice looking models.

The vehicles are easy to find you can go to your local hobby store and pick up a wide variety of WWII tanks at that scale. Tamiya makes most of them. Another company I found that has nice scaled models is battlemart.com they have a large amount of models that they cast themselves in resin and are usually about 4-6 pieces to put together rather than a fully detailed model.

If you have any sites that sell models that could be related to these models send me an email.

Discussions

Thoughts about tournament play

When it comes to tournament I’ve won a bunch in Warhammer 40k. The thing about it is though people like to go by the book in that game. It’s very straight forward will you mess up you don’t get a mulligan. The biggest is the people who strictly enforce the rules during the game. Dust Tactics isn’t that way though. Since it is one unit at a time it is easier to remember what the unit’s special abilities are, and what weapons they have. The rules for the game are very simple and have no loop holes you are either doing this or you not there is no it does not say I can but it doesn’t say I can’t. A couple of things come to mind when playing in a tournament for Dust Tactics or when playing any game for that matter.

1) Don’t be the person everyone hates to play. If you are strict with rules maybe you need to either not play this game or go through anger management.

2) If someone for gets something and right before your turn remembers allow him to go back and do it.

3) Do not try to make loop holes in this game. It is very straight forward with rules and how things follow in the game. If you are a tournament runner use common sense and don’t allow this to happen. If someone finds a rule to exploit pull them to the side and tell them you do it again you can leave.

4) This game is a fast paced game does not take forever to make one turn. You have 1 unit to move that’s it and you can either shoot or not. In 40k you cannot premeasure but in this anyone can count. So while you opponent is moving his one unit make you decision then.

5) Thing that comes to mind is the 5^th page of the Warmachine rulebook you don’t know it read it. It basically says don’t cheat, bring you game, don’t be a wuss.

6) Don’t be a poor sport when losing. Yea this is a brutal game and you will lose units really quickly, but I’ve learned that the game can be turned around easily.

7) When your opponent is removing models and he accidentally removes his heavy weapon or specific model he forgot to keep on the board let him put it back. Wound allocations do not apply to this game so there for he probably over looked the model.

8) Sportsmanship is a big thing in games like this. So if someone forgets the rules remind them.

9) When facing people new to the game go easy. Yes, you can win but don’t make it that they never want to play this game again.

10) Lastly have fun. It’s just the game. Win or lose you should be happy about the game you just played.

Sunday Play by Play

Saturday Night Game

My friend Alex and I were going to go see Green Hornet and we had an hour to waste so we decided to play a quick game of dust. So before I just do random scenarios I thought I would do all the scenarios once in the book and show a play by play for them.

Set Up

First scenario is Reconnaissance. The only difference my friend and I did was we used all 16 points in this game. So my friend chose Axis and Attackers while I chose Allies and Defenders.

So first was setup of the Scenario.

 

Then the second thing to do was deploy he win the dice roll to deploy first and he spread himself apart while I kind of clumped together.

First Turn

So first turn I won the dice roll and it was basically a move turn. Most of our units double moved. I did not move my Hotdog to protect it from the Luther and Ludwig Cannons. All my units moved right up and stayed behind cover. My friend didn’t know what my hotdog was going to do so he moved his units 1 move. His Laser squad ran up as fast as possible. My Pounder moved on the outside keeping away from the heavy cannons.

Second Turn

Second turn my friend won the dice roll after roll at least 10 times. His first move was to move was to double move the Luther. Then I moved my flamer squad once flamed it and dealt 4 lucky hits from the flamer on the tank and used my fast move to go behind cover. Next He moved his Ludwig double also where I moved Joe and the MG squad double. Then he moved his laser squad closer into range and unleashed the lasers from Sigrid and the others on Joe squad using berserk to reroll his attacked. He dealt 4 hits to the squad and Joe and the MG remained. Then I moved my rocket squad and dealt 3 lucky hits to the Ludwig. He moved his MG squad closer to shoot my Flamer Squad and I moved my Hotdog to closer. His MG squad doubled to help against the flamer and my pounder moved to set up for next turn.

Third Turn

Third turn my friend won the roll and fired with the Ludwig at the rocket squad killing 2 men. Then I returned fire not damaging it. The he fired with his laser squad and not being able to fire able to damage the squad. Then I returned fire with the Pounder almost wiping out the squad all that was left was Sigrid. Then his rocket squad fired at my flamer squad and killed 3 men and I sustained fire the MG squad at the laser squad killing Sigrid. His MG squad moved to try to help the rocket squad and I moved my Hotdog to fire at the rocket squad killing 2 men. Then I used the AR on the flamer squad and fired at the rocket squad not damaging it.

Fourth Turn

Fourth turn my friend won the roll and fired the Ludwig at my Rocket Squad killing 2 men and leaving the rocket himself. I returned fire and destroyed the Ludwig. Then his rocket squad shot my flamer squad and finished them off. My hotdog flamed the rocket squad and killed the remaining men. He then moved the MG squad closer to my Hotdog. Then I moved the rest of my men closer to the MG squad.

Fifth Turn

Fifth turn I won the roll and moved my hotdog a step closer to the MG squad and fired at the MG squad killing 2 men. Then he moved closer to me and used the Panzerfaust dealing 2 hits to the hotdog. I moved the pounder closer and the rocket squad closer to the MG squad.

Sixth Turn

Sixth turn was pretty much you won so I’ll let you kill my guys and my Hotdog flamers the MG squad killing what was left. Victory to me.

Show Off Friday

Today I wanted to show my 2 Heroes from the Dust Tactics Box. I painted them first before all the other figures. Joe I did the way it is in the book and not the way they should on the card. I liked the greens and browns rather than the blues and blacks.

Bazooka Joe

Sigrid Von Thaler

Remember if you have any painted models and want to show them off send me an email with the pics and I'll post them on the blog.
Email

Dust Tactics Events

If you know of any Dust Tactics events or tournaments just send me a email and I will post them on the blog. I will see if I can get a calender with events on it and have a link to them on the blog.

FYI there will be a Dust Tactics tournament of 16 points on Saturday February 26th, 2011 at the store I go to called Groovy Geckos Comics and Games in Williamsburg, VA the link is on under my links for address and directions. If you want to go just give Charlie the store owner a call. Just so you know 16 points is one full force in the box including Hero. The price is $12 and this includes lunch. You do not need to know how to play to come to the tournament. Nothing has to be painted due to the game just recently coming out and all. If you want to go or have any questions just give Charlie the store owner a call.

I will post a reminder later on so people can remember when and where.

Homegrown Thursdays

Here's a couple of House Rules I designed that made for my boards and friendly plays.

-When vehicles are destroyed they are not removed from play but instead become rubble. Take of the turret to show destroyed and lay on side. The rubble is impassible and blocks
line of sight.
-Heroes get a cover save just like units. Vehicles get a soft cover when hard cover set up.
-For bigger games the weapons get weaker as they go further distances. To show this for weapons with unlimited range firing for every nine squares it passes through remove one
dice. This does not include 9 diagonal moves as in each one counts as two. Minimum of three dice unless the starting dice is less than three.
-Barbed wire is impassible for infantry and non vehicle heroes. Infantry units and heroes receive soft cover always unless the two corner rule.
-Flight - Ignores terrain when moving. Unit can land on terrain. Heroes can only join a squad with jetpacks or flying ability.

Home Made Units

Today is Captain America, Red Skull, and The Rocketeer. I plan on doing some Superheroes and other Media Characters that were fighting during WWII. I already made these models using Heroclix models that are the same scale as the Dust Tactics Models. Pictures of the models will be out on Show Off Fridays just keep a look out for them on the blog.

 

Made some updates to the cards.

Paint Chart

Someone on a forum ask about the equivalent of the Games Workshop to some of the popular miniature paints and I found a chart on DakkaDakka.

Paint Chart

Preparing for painting

Preparing for Painting Miniatures

When I decided to paint my models I did some research in historic books to see what they US and Nazi army wore for the arctic and winter warfare. I found that the US either wore just wool olive green uniforms with some brown or they wore white smocks. The Nazi’s pretty much did the same thing but grey. I also found out that the US wore different shows than the regular infantry. Their shoes looked just like the other infantry with the coverings but they wore mostly black winter boots underneath. So when I found this information out I decided to brainstorm and figure out what my paints are going to be for each unit. I decided for the Allies the Olive green is going to be used obviously and a bluish white. While the Axis I am going to use grays and a grayish white.  Their shoes are going to be brown and black for the Allies and black for the Axis.

Paints are a big part of the models if and when you want to paint you models. I like Games Workshop and Valejo Paints. There is also P3 paints, flames of war have their own paint line that would work, or you can just go to an arts and craft store like Michael’s Arts and Craft and get apple orchard bottle of paints. You will know a difference between cheaper paints and more expensive paints though, like ability to blend and thin the paints.  If you want to use the same colors as I but a different paint company just download the chart for the paints of Games Workshop paints and compare.

I tried to remake the exact green used as the primer for the models in Games Workshop paint colors and I found that 1:5:2 chaos black, camo green, and dark angels green works the best. The axis is fairly easy it is just Codex Grey. The shoes I decided to use a technique I found where you highlight using darker colors. The technique is applying Kommando Khaki brown and wash with Devlan Mud and Gryphonne Sepia. Then highlight using Beastial Brown. It gives a nice leather look to everything. This technique will be illustrated later but for now I am just saying do some research and pick the colors. Valejo paints also has military model colors that are perfect for painting. For the shoes will be black whit gray highlights. I would make the white for the models differ depending on the force you want to paint. I plan on making the Allies a bluish white so I am base coating with Space Wolf Grey and Highlighting with Skull White. I plan on making the Axis to be a grayish white so I am basing the models with Fortress Grey and Highlighting with Skull White. The look will give the same result but the white will be slightly different and show the distinguishing differences between the 2 forces. Washes are also nice with for making the shadows stand out better. I used Devlan Mud on the Allies primed models to give a dark brownish green look and I used Badab Black for the Axis to give a dark gray look. I also used water down washes of Asurmen Blue on the white for the Allies and Badab Black on the white for the Axis to give a control of adding shadows to white. Metallic you will mostly need just various silvers Boltgun Metal, Chainmail Silver, Mithril Silver.

Mostly paints all depend on preferences and your skill at painting, brushes do as well. I like just the plain brushes you get a Michael’s Arts and Craft. They come in different brands and different types of hair. I prefer Synthetic bristles but again this is all you preference or wallet. Synthetic brushes are fairly the cheapest brushes and are perfect for acrylic paints. Do not get brushes like for Testers Paints you will not have control of the paint and it will look really bad. Nice thing that brush companies make is packages of brushes. This usually comes with between 6 and 10 brushes. The pros are its cheap and you get a lot of brushes. The cons are that the brushes if not treated well will fall apart and you will be replacing them often. The individual brushes are the complete opposite. The pros are that they are durable a bit more and don’t fall apart as easy. The cons are that they are a bit pricey and you only get one at a time.  The type of brush should all the same though. You should have a round 2 and 4 size brush for overlaying paint and brought coats of washes, round 1 or 2 size brushes for dry-brushing, and various round and liner 3/0, 2/0, 0 and 1 size brushes for details. Also for dry brushing you may want a round bristle brush with a flat top on it. These brushes all depend on how much detail you want to add to your figures. If you want to add a lot of detail I’d go as low as the 3/0 but you if you only want a couple of layers of detail go as low as a 0. You will want a bunch of 1 or 2 size brushes for dry-brushing because you will go through a lot of them if you decide to dry-brush I would buy cheap ones of these since you will be replacing them anyways.

On top painting supplies remember you will also need something to put the paint on and blend. I would recommend a small palette with a bunch of spots to put paint. They cost like $2. Also 2 cups for water you do not want to make it a normal drinking cup unless you plan on cleaning it every time you are done.  You want 2 because if you do not do it when you use metallic paints the metal flakes in the paint will come off of the brush in the water and when you use your regular paint you will have a metallic look to it.

Buying extras for Dust Tactics

Extra Things Dust Tactics Players May Want To Buy

If you have played or plan on playing something you may want to by to help your gaming experience. First some new dice if you already have dice you are good but don’t use the dice in the box they are pretty bad. Mine the symbol is off and can unbalance the dice, the hit marker sides are bumped which causes an even less chance of landing on a hit. The dice can just be regular 6 sided dice or actual custom dice and the hit sides are just 1 and 6. Also if you didn’t buy the big box and are buying individual units then you need dice. I was told eventually Fantasy Flight and Dust Games will make decent dice. If you decide to get custom dice or a newer box with corrected dice get a container to put them in, if you plan on keeping them in the box. Otherwise they will get all over the place in the box and you can lose them.  

I got custom dice done at Chessex.com they were $2 a dice up to 25 or $1.50 a dice 26 and over.

Another thing you might want to get is a cheap wall laser leveler. I bought mine at Home Depot for $15. It helps with determining line of sight.

Dry Erase Markers will be nice also for marking the cards with limited ammo. These are cheap at Walmart or Target.

You may want to give yourself a better visual and buy 1/48^th Scale History Scenery. This will be explained further in depth in later article.

Optional Things That You Might Need

If you didn’t buy the big box you may want to buy large foam core board(s) you need 33” x 33” worth of board or enough to make 9 11”x11” squares. This will be shown in an article later in the blog.

Also if you would like to magnetize the robots you should buy 1/8” x 1/16” (for guns and accessories) and 3/8” x 1/16” (for torsos and turrets) rare earth magnets. I found these magnets work well for these models. This will be for magnetizing you robots to customize them and have interchangeable weapons. This too will also be explained further in depth in later article.

I found ebay the cheapest for these I got 200 of each for no more than $20 including shipping.

If you’re like me you will want to paint you models so you will need paints. Paints and painting will be discussed later.

Things You Don’t Need To Buy

One thing you don’t need to buy is a measuring tape there is no measuring for this game. At least not yet.

Codexes or rulebooks since PDFs are only of the rulebook and the stats come with the models.

About the Game

Info about the development of the game

Dust Tactics was released by Fantasy Flight Games in November 2010 with the initial box set. The game was developed by Dust Games and game designer Paolo Parente. Parente is said to have been developing this game and the background history for it for over 10 years.

Plot

The year is 1947. The war that started eight years ago when Germany invaded Poland isn’t over. Rather, the conflict has spread worldwide, and but a handful of countries cling to relative neutrality. Throughout the world, three major superpowers fight to claim exclusive control over a revolutionary source of power: Vk. This rare ore, mined from deep within the earth, has revealed extraordinary properties and ushered in the design of gigantic combat robots capable of challenging the world’s most advanced tanks. The initial discovery of Vk, which seems only to be found in the most inhospitable places on the planet, is shrouded in rumor and propaganda. One thing is certain: each major superpower wants not only to control Vk, but to deny it to their enemies. Elite troops and massive combat robots wage violent battles to claim these energy reservoirs... and this is the story of such a battle.

Extras about the History

The Nazis found an alien spacecraft in Antarctica and used the technology to start building their walkers. The Allies and Russia stole the tech and made their own versions of the walkers but still not as advance as Germany.

The 3 super powers mentions above are: Axis (Germany (leaders),Most of Europe, Japan, and Micro-Asia), Allies (United States (leaders), North America, Brazil, Most of Africa and Australia), and Sino-Russia (Russia (leaders), Most of China and the Asian continent, parts of Africa, Half of South America, and Small part of Alaska).

The Manhattan Project was canceled and atomic energy and the atomic bomb were never created.

The mechs all look different based on Super Power: Allies look like tanks fitted to legs instead of tracks,
Axis looks like a typical mech with leg a cockpit and the weapons as arms, and Russia looks like giant exo-suits.

The Game

Dust Tactics is a tactical miniatures board game for 2-4 players.  The scale is skirmish like Privateer Press’s Warmachine rather than full wargame like other games such as Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000.

The game is played on a 9 tile board with grids.

It has been announced that the game will later become a wargame. 5 expansions have been announced to be released in the future.

In the initial box set you get everything you need to play the game: 36 fully detailed models for both Axis and Allies (these models are not painted but are primed)(each side gets 1 Hero, 3 Infantry Units and 2 Walkers), the card stats for each unit, 9 tiles to make a game board, 18 terrain tiles, 2 tank-traps, 4 cargo crates, 12 dice (each dice is 6 sided with 2 sides with hit and 4 blank), rules and scenario books, and a free comic.

Since the initial box release there have been small expansion boxes of units that are in the big box and plans for more to come to expand the game. Each one comes with a card with all the stats needed for each unit.

Also Dust Games have released walkers for the game. While these walkers are not “official” models they do have stats for the 3 current ones (Loth, Jagdluther, and Fury of Ivan).  They are in development of making terrain for the board. Dust Games is like the Forgeworld of Warhammer 40,000 to Dust Tactics. http://www.dust-models.com/

You also are encouraged to make your own rules and models such as adding tanks and units. This game is 1/48th scale models for the walkers and 35mm scale for the figures. So if you want to you can also go to your local hobby store and purchase extra models to expand your gaming.

This game is short and fun to play. It takes about 10 minutes to set up and should only be about 30-40 minutes to play.

This game is a brutal game so expect to lose a lot of models.

Dust Tactics also has a Strategic Board Game. The Dust Strategy Board Game is a combination of Axis and Allies and Risk. It was released before the Tactics game. It is perfect for making campaigns for Dust Tactics.

The rulebook does not have to be purchased but can be downloaded at Dust Tactics Rulebook

About the blog

Welcome to The War Continues. This is a fan based blog for dust tactics. The blog with have posts of everything Dust Tactics including: reviews of models and expansions, tactics, scenarios, rule clarifications, painting and modeling, terrain, and homegrown rules.

Show Off Friday

BlkDymnd from the FFG Dust Tactics Forum posted these. Check them out really nice alternate color scheme for Joe and Rosie.

And he got custom Green Dice made to look like the Allie Symbol.