Dust Warfare Review: SSU Infantry

The Red Horde!

The other day I got the first batch of infantry for the Sino-Soviet Union for Dust Warfare/Tactics. The Frontoviki, Fakyeli and Medvedi squads. I have also ordered the MIL Mi-45 transport helicopter (with its accompanying Chinese Volunteers) as well as the Zverograd Campaign Box for Dust Tactics that has Koshka and her Babushka walker as well. Yepp, pretty much went all in after our recent battle. Haha!

In this review I'll give an overview of the models and as well as a short section for each of them including some more detail. The chopper and Zverograd review should be up by the end of the week or so.

Overview

The models come in the same boxes as all the other infantry which is overly large for what they contain. Bit of a waste, but understandable to make for a good shelf presence in brick and mortar stores. I don't think the boxes are anything to keep around and I've already discarded mine.

The SSU models are primed in a kind of mustardy beige colour that I guess would work well as a base colour if you decide to paint yours like the official studio models. To be honest I had actually expected them to be stereotypically reddish brown, but this colour is actually a lot better as a basecoat. I recall Mack Martin mentioning in the D6 Genaration interview that the bottle making up the Fakyeli molotov cocktail would actually be a separate piece made from clear plastic, but from what I can see this is not the case. Either that idea fell by the wayside or it's exclusive to the Deluxe version of the squad. Would have been a nice touch though.

There are some mold lines here and there, mainly along the arms and sometimes on the extra equipment hanging on the belt. It's nothing major but will require some cleaning up. I will likely give my minis a once-over but won't be too anal-retentive about it - this is not Infinity minis that I will spend hours painting (I'll save that for the walkers!). In a couple of places (mainly around the helmets) the basecoat has formed rubbery strings that will need removing. There were only a few and they're about the size of a human hair, but they're there.

Then we have the bendy weapon barrels! Of my three squads only one of the Frontoviki machineguns suffered from this but it was easily fixed by hot+cold water treatment. There has been some talk about the semi-soft plastic used for the infantry but I think the issue has been overblown. The only bent things you're going to see are thin rifle barrels and antennas, anything thicker and the plastic is actually quite hard. Not brittle hard, but still hard enough to resist bending, even by force. And the few pieces that are bent can be fixed in 10 minutes in the kitchen.

The detailing on the figures are on par with the Axis and the Allies, although their simpler uniforms (military onesies?) are less detailed by their very nature. Something that is different however is that the SSU infantry are not jointed at the waist, the legs and the body is cast as one piece. It doesn't bother me personally but if you enjoy the added variation torso twisting might provide it might be good to know. This is likely because of the bulky cuirass they're wearing and the addition of grenades and tools haning from the belt.

Now let's have a look at the individual squads. Sorry for the bar pictures by the way... only had my cellphone and a single lamp.

Frontoviki - SSU Battle Squad

The core of the SSU infantry comes with five men armed with three short range submachine guns and two DPM machine guns. This is interesting as it's very different from the infantry squads we've seen before - foregoing anti-armour capability completely to gain more anti-infantry firepower. While we don't know their Warfare stats yet I'm guessing 16" range for the machineguns and 12" for the rest. Made for city fights, eh?

The miniatures look nice although they're definitely the least exciting of the three squads. They come with the regular onesie and helmets but with extra tools and equipment on their belts. I was surprised to see that one of the two DPMs was sporting a watercooled barrel as we haven't seen that on any pictures released so far. I think it looks cool tough and variation is always nice, even though it's only cosmetic. The submachineguns do have something resembling underslung grenade launchers, but so far there is nothing in the rules to support this. Too bad as they're quite nifty! Even so a solid backbone to your army and I may pick up one more later on as I think they could become very nasty with the addition of a Commissar!

Fakyeli - SSU Close Combat Squad

So far in our Dust Warfare gaming I've had great success using the Allied BBQ Squad so seeing the SSU has pretty much an identical unit made me jump with joy! They carry only short ranged weaponry in the form of shotguns, a sulfur (flame) thrower and molotov cocktails. The molotov seem to be similar to the democharge, only it can affect infantry as well, which is nice. Instead of Fast they get Assault which I think is a bad trade as I don't see it being as useful (although avoiding reactions can be huge in the right circumstances).

These guys have a lot more character than the Frontoviki, with their gasmasks and nice real looking shotguns. The Allied shotguns look ludicrously oversized in comparison. The guy throwing the molotov really shows what the squad is all about! I also like the big bulky looking "sulfur thrower" with its many caples running back to the tank. Finally, the sergeant sporting a classic fur hat seals the deal. I love the look of this squad and will most likely get one more later on! None of the Fakyeli comes with the belt tools attached, however they are provided in the box in a small ziploc back so you can attach them as you see fit. Nice touch, although I would have preferred squad specific equipment with extra molotovs etc . The gasmasks has a great design but the detail is very soft so I think you will need to be careful when painting them.

Medvedi - SSU Command Squad

The Medvedi is similar to the other "regular" command squads out so far, with a radio operator, a mechanic and a medic, plus the officer and DPM machine gunner. The differences seem to be a shorter range because of the submachine guns and the addition of the power tool to the mechanic. It's basically a large pneumatic cutter and gives the squad some serious anti-armour hardware! It does feel like it would be tricky to use though as vehicles can't be supressed and can simply move out of melee range when approached. Still, a nice addition.

There's a lote more going on with the SSU specialists! Love the bundle of wires. 

Now, here's what a command squad should look like, lots of extra detail and character! The command squads for both the Axis and the Allies are functional enough, however the different specialist miniatures only feature minimal cosmetic detailing setting them apart from regular grunts. Most of the time the only difference is an added backpack or a transfer on the helmet or shoulder. Not in the Medvedi though! All three specialists have a lot of character, from the radio operator with his large tangle of wires and retro-looking mic to the mechanic with his neat leather cap and goggles. My favourite is probably the medic as I really like his facemask and doctors bag, although the very Russian looking officer is really cool as well - the binoculars are a great addition! Just like the Fakyeli the detail on the masked miniatures is quite soft, so keep that in mind when painting. Apart from that there's only the occasional mold line to complain about, but it's very minor.


Conclusion

So am I satisfied with my purchase? Yes, I am. I think the Russians have a lot of character in their miniatures and the different squads look a lot more unique than their Axis and Allied counterparts, which makes it easier to tell them apart. The Medvedi are the star of the group, but the Fakyeli are what I'm most looking forward to painting at the moment (hopefully in time for the next #MiniatureMonday). Yes, the plastic is somewhat soft and the detailing is not as sharp as some other minatures, but this doesn't bother me very much. It's an army scale game and the miniatures look great on the field, especially accompanied by towering walkers! And that's just the thing, use your full painting potential on the walkers and dial it down a bit on the infantry, they still look good.

I'm eager to get started on these, but I'm not quite sure what to do about camo. The Soviet camo during WW2 was very limited so I thought I'd take inspiration from what came later during the cold war. Any input regarding this would be most welcome!

By the way, according to Dakkaite CT Gamer his order of the Zverograd Campaign Book for Dust Warfare  was shipped last week so the book might not be as far off as I presumed earlier (even though it's still listed as "in development" at FFG's upcoming page. If this is the case that's certainly happy news.

Next up is the review of the first couple of SSU vehicles and the Chinese Volunteers. Until then!

Read More

7 comments

May Releases for Infinity!

Surprisingly Corvus Belli has revealed their May releases for Infinity on a Monday! Traditionally it's been on Fridays and lately Wednesdays I believe, but hey... I'm not complaining. As is normal these days they were first shown at CB's Facebook page which hopefully will allow their main page to stay up when they're revaled there tomorrow.

So let's have a look shall we?

First of we finally have the Dozer Field Engineer with Traktor Mul control Device (can you stop nagging now, Ariadna players?). The sculpt is fairly modest with a just-standing-around kind of pose, but I really like it. I'm a big fan of most things Ariadna so that shouldn't come as a surprise I guess. I like all the extra gear he's carrying and also that the control device is big and bulky, which fits Ariadna! The balaclava is a nice touch as well. In game you need him to field Traktor Mul Remotes since Ariadna don't have any Hackers (well, besides this one of course), besides that he's a pretty regular Engineer, although with the Courage skill as well which could be helpful at times.

Then we have a resculpt of the Nomad Daktari and the Nomad Support Pack including a Clockmaker and two Zondbots as well. I think the old Daktari is one of the worst models of the Infinity range so the resculpt is certainly welcome! This Daktari looks a lot more like a doc in hurry rather than a weird pose for furries. So thumbs up! If I ever get her some experimentation with leaning her forwards a bit might be in order as she's posed rather upright as is. She looks good like this, but that might give more of a running at full tilt kind of feel to her.

The Support Pack is to be expected and I'm guessing we'll see one each month from now on. Just like last month's Yu Jing pack it might not be the most exciting release, but a welcome one nonetheless. Some people don't like the Clockmaker and his baggy pants, but I think it's a nice sculpt with character. Rules wise there's nothing special about these troops, they're simply Engineers and Doctors (and Servants) but are always good to have around.

With this release of the Pan Oceania Mulebots all the Baggage remotes are available. I'm really looking forward to seeing how they (and doctors and engineers) will feature in the upcoming scenario book! I quite like the PanO remotes and these are no exception. Very beetle like! Good to have in game to hold out longer before your troops retreat and EVO Repeater and Minesweeper have obious utility value while the Total Reaction version works well as a cheap watchdog.


The Malignos Hacker was not something I had expected but is of course a welcome sight even so. The very alien looking Shasvaasti has a lot of great sculpts I think and this is definitely one of them. The visor and tech glove marks him as a hacker and the neat disco pose marks him as a fiend at the dance floor! When I get my Shasvaasti sectorial rolling I'll name mine Tony. Shasvaasti often have a kind of lo-tech look so it's nice being able to break it up with some cool gadgets like this! In game the Malignos can be quite a nasty pain in the ass for your opponent: TO: Camo, Infiltration and AutoMedkit?! Yes please! Add some Antipersonnel Mines and you have a unit that can be very hard to dislodge once it's positioned right. An extra 12 points to also make it into a Hacker actually seems like a decent investment to me, even though I'm usually wary of infiltrating hackers (for some reason). Definitely a model that will find its way into my collection sooner or later.


Finally, the release that I think most people have been clamouring for, the Deva Funtionaries and their Devabots for ALEPH! The two functionaries are both good sculpts although I'm not a big fan of the transforming arm thing. It's a cool concept, but it just doesn't look as good on a model. Perhaps if it was less of a stump and it was the hand only that transformed, I don't know. I do like that all the humanesque shells the ALEPH is using look like they're heading out clubbing at some fancy new livehouse. Perhaps they could join up with the Malignos Hacker! The Devabots look cool as well, variations of the Dakini Tactbot but nicer. The added bulk and the square heads do it for me.

They are an interesting Light Infantry choice in game, similar to the PanO Auxilia but with a lot more utility options. The Sensor option in particular seems nasty combined with ther Willpower of 15! Just send it downfield and spoil your opponents carefully orchestrated camo infiltration plan. With No Wound Incapacitation they're quite tough for light infantry as well, and a Ghost: Synchronised Devabot toting a Heavy Flamethrower following you around is certainly not something to sneeze at. I understand why the ALEPH players are so happy!


Good solid releases this month, and I'm certainly satisfied (even though there was nothing for Yu Jing). My favourite is probably the female Deva Functionary followed by the Dozer, although the Malignos is probably what I'm most excited to actually get to play with. It's nice seeing all the Baggage remotes being done and out of the way now. The few holes left in the Infinity range are slowly but systematically being plugged so I'm looking forward to more sculpts with alternative weapons and more resculpts in the coming months. I think I've mentioned it before but for Yu Jing the Shaolin Monks and Tiger Soldiers are definitely hot canditates for a makeover!

Now there's just the long wait for next month's releases...

Read More

No comments

New Project: Judge Dredd

I am the law!

I mentioned earlier that a post by that sneaky Hendy Badger got me interested in the Judge Dredd Miniature Game by Mongoose Publishing again. The game is the spiritual successor of Gangs of Mega-City One but is in itself an entirely different game. It was released last year as a free PDF by Mongoose and they have since then expanded their miniature range so there's now a fair amount of Judge Dredd miniatures available. The rulebook is also being continually updated as new miniatures appear and rule tweaks are added.

I downloaded it back in 2011 but only skimmed through it, kind of dismissing it as a Necromunda copy. But when I came across that article about it at Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher I decided to give it another look as it sounded like a lot of fun. Now, me and my group of gamer friends played loads ands loads of Necromunda back in the day. Of all the GW games that is the one we played the most (perhaps rivalled by Epic). In a skirmish environment the somewhat clunky 40k rules work a lot better (as that is how it was meant to be played of course!) and even though it could be a bit fiddly at times we had lots of fun with it. The campaign aspect especially was often the major motivator, both from a gameplay standpoint (more xp!) and from a campaign standpoint (cool stories!). We grew attached to our gangs and our gangers and generally had a good time. Things started to get out of hand as the gangs became too powerful, since the game wasn't really able to handle that level, so now and then we simply started over from scratch.

Necromunda having a special place in our hearts we have often talked about reviving it in some way, simply running it vanilla or using some different rules system (like AE Bounty). Having played some more modern miniature games like Infinity going back to the old 40k rules has been the largest hurdle for me. They just feel so slow and... uninspired in comparison. However, neither would I like to play Necromunda with Infinity rules, it simply wouldn't feel right as Necromunda needs to be more "pulpy" in the rules department. 

So what does this have to do with Judge Dredd? Well, leafing through the book it felt like a great middle ground between the two; more modern and quick playing than Necromunda, but not as lethal and punishing as Infinity. My initial thoughts of using the system to play Necromunda slowly made a 180° turn as I kept reading. You see, Mega-City One is really the original Hive and whatever you can find in Necromunda you can find something ten times weirder, ten times more deadly or ten times as funny in Mega-City One! So instead of thinking about how to adapt it to Necromunda I started thinking how the different Necromunda gangs we have lying around would fit into Judge Dredd. Most of the regular gangs would simply become street gangs, whereas scavvies and ratskins would become Cursed Earth denizens (or a Zombie Horde!) etc. Back during my early teens I used to read Judge Dredd in 2000AD so it all felt familiar in a nostalgic kind of way.

The Angel Gang.

Using the minis we have at hand is certainly attractive as we can get away with not painting all that much, but both me and Anders felt like it wouldn't feel right not adding some iconic Mega-City One inhabitants to our rooster of available minis. Some Judges, fatties as well as perhaps some apes and sky surfers are on the shopping list. I also have my Kolony Ferals that would make excellent Cursed Earth mutants or similar.

The rules are fairly straightforward (roll a D10 with stat modifiers vs a threshold of six or your opponents roll) but has a number of small details that takes it to the next level. My favourite rule is probably that Judge's must use an action to try and arrest a perp before opening fire, making an opposed Will roll the perp will simply be removed (ie arrested) from the board if the Judge wins! Awesome! Or the Vid-reporter (see right) you can take as a mercenary for your gang and if he can get enough action on film you'll get a lot more money after the game from interviews and royalties. Haha!

There are a number of nifty scenarios and they all seem fun. Of course, I'm already thinking of how to adapt the old Necromunda scenarios to this new setting, should be pretty straightforward. When creating your gang you're given much more freedom than in Necromunda (or the strict AE Bounty system) which I think will make it easier for us to really get going. The only area the game falls a little flat is when it comes to playing a campaign. The rules for receiving XP and resolving injuries are fine, it's just that the rest of the campaign structure is fairly minimalistic and abstract; there are no territories and the scenarios have no impact on how much money you receive. It's a simple 20% of the value of the larger gang if you won or 10% if you lost.

Basically it's just a simple framework and you would have to flesh it out yourself if you want the feel of a more living campaign. My thoughts was to either adapts some rules from Necromunda, or the predecessor Gangs of Mega-City One. Although, this is something for the future as a simple, no-frills campaign system might be just what we need to get going (and keep going).

I've been talking to a few of my gaming friends and I think we could get a small campaign with maybe four or five players in it. Me and Anders have offered to lend models to anyone who want to join in to remove that obstacle and with games being quick I think we could have some game nights dedicated to Judge Dredd where we could possibly all meet up and play a couple of games each. I hope so anyway.

To go with this project I started looking at different kinds of urban terrain and what we might be missing in our collections. I know some people disagree but I think the Necromunda terrain is pretty great and overall it would work well for Judge Dredd as well. We have three sets in total so there's that. We've never really had a good table to play on though as having a nice grassy green table doesn't feel right and just a black cloth is a bit boring, so I started looking around for alternatives. I had seen Mr. Harolds excellent looking Shadowrun table over at Clear Horizon (here and here) and was impressed by how much difference the street layout made! 

So I started investigating Worldworks Games a bit more. I've been there many times before but never actually bought anything. At fist I thought I'd use the same as Mr. Harold, ie the Mayhem Streets of Legedn set, but then I came across Streets of Titan and I wasn't so sure anymore. It seemed like Titan might go a lot better together with the Necromunda terrain and perhaps more fitting to Infinity as well. Problem is the pictures on their site doesn't give a good view of what the Titan set really looks like but after some googling I came across the Incunabulog where the author is using cardboard to make raised sidewalks etc.

The holes will be filled in of course, I just haven't had the time to cut those parts out yet.

It looked really good so I decided to get Streets of Titan and pretty much do the same thing. Having a friend with access to an industrial printer made my choice easier as I could get away with it for cheap. He even supplied me with enough foamboard to do the entire 120x120cm board! I've printed out what I need to to make it although, I'm not sure what to do about the layout. Right now I've created the one you can see above and thought I'd simply build it the same every time, my reasoning being that trying to construct an actual modular board was too tricky. But then again, it would be a lot of fun to be able to change it up according to the scenario. I'd be more than happy for any advice on how to make a modular board layout that really works well. At the moment I'm wondering if I have put too many streets and not enough "sidewalk" in there. But then again, streets are cool and there's nothing saying you cant plonk down some scatter terrain on them. Besides the good old Necromunda terrain I'm thinking about getting one of the Downtown sets as well to make more traditional housing blocks. 

Oh, and it bears mentioning that I'm planning to assemble them with four sections to one foamboard 30x30cm squar, not the way Worldworks originally intended it. I feel this would make for easier storage and  alot quicker construction. Of course, it makes creating a good modular layout more tricky. Hmm.

Anyway, that's a little bit about Judge Dredd and this new terrain project! I'll update it as I go along and I'll write more about Judge Dredd as well. So far we've only tried the first intro scenario but a full on gang fight is in the cards in the near future! If you like skirmish games and perhaps wouldn't mind something a bit more layed back than Infinity or Tomorrow's War have a look at Judge Dredd. You really don't have anything to loose as it's free!

Until next time, citizen!

Read More

15 comments

Dust Warfare After Action Report

Parts of the American deployment zone.

This Monday Anders and I had scheduled a game night and were plannig for two games of Dust Warfare and a test of the Judge Dredd miniature game (it's free!!). We met up around five and after a quick game of Judge Dredd (more on that later, but great fun!) we started putting together our Dust Warfare armies. As Anders recently bought the revised core set as well as some zombies and gorillas for the Axis there was more to play with this time around and we ended up with about 220 points each.

Having the Ranger Attack Squad (aka Hell Boys) as command squad meant that I didn't have access to any medium walkers, only light and heavy. However, Anders only have one light walker so we decided to proxy his Pounder and Hotdog as a Honey and Wildfire respectively (together with the Blackhawk of course). Besides the three walkers I got pretty much all the infantry available, including the Hammers and Rhino to lead them.

Anders had two heavy infantry units, Heavy Flak Grenadiers and Heavy Laser Grenadiers as well as a unit of zombies, some apes lead by Marcus and his Sturmpionieren command squad of course. For support he had a Ludvig and a Hans.

Seeing I had more walkers than my opponent made me happy as I thought I would fairly easily be able to take out the Hans with one of my own anti-tank walkers while the Wildfire would pepper the zombies. The Ludvig was more of a problem but I envisioned charging towards it with the Blackhawk and use its All in one ability to put it out of action. No part of this plan survived contact with the enemy.

After putting points into the Battle Builder we ended up with Take and Hold and Off Target Shelling. I probably shouldn't have put any points into Conditions as I would probably have benefited from low visibility. But the apes and zombies looked scary and I instinctively wanted to be able to fire at then from long range, forgetting that my army was completely lacking in the long range department! Instead we ended up with the shelling which definitely benefited Anders more than me as his apes and zombies are immune to suppression.

I nominated a ruin in the middle of the table and a shipping container close to my deployment zone as my two take and hold objectives. I planned to advance to the ruin quickly and hold it while staying close to the container to be able to return to it towards the end of the game. Anders chose another ruin and container near the middle of the table (unbeknowst to me of course).

Deployment. X are my objectives, Y are Anders objectives.

As I had more units than the Axis I could hold off and wait to see where he put some of his key units. He had his Ludvig on my left flank with a commanding field of fire. I had my light Wildfire walker opposing it which didn't really match up, but then Anders deployed his zombies on the same flank and the Wildfire had founds its target. On my right flank was the Hans and in the middle his heavy infantry, command squad and apes. I had my Honey facing the Hans as I thought it would be able to take it out while the Blackhawk lurked in the middle, ready to head in either direction as needed. Most of my squads were located in the middle of the table with only my BBQ Squad flanking on the right side where they had lots of cover to advance behind. I put the Hammers, lead by Rhino, behind a container to be used to counter-charge against any apes or zombies that closed on my lines.

Turn 1

The Axis line (actually before deployment was complete).

During the first turn I moved the Recon Rangers and Combat Rangers near and into ruined objective building while my other squads moved slowly forwards. My command squad and Hammers hanged back while the BBQ and light walkers raced forward (if the Honey failed I thought the BBQ might be able to torch the Axis walker) while the Ranger Weapon squad covered them. Anders moved his troops forward as well with his apes coming scaringly close to my lines! The zombies raced out into the open, making a pretty target for my Wildfire's quad .50 cals I thought. There were a couple of fire exchanges, the Ludvig shot the Wildfire and the Honey shot the Hans, but no damage was done.

Turn 2

Heavyweight face-off!

During the first turn neither of us had given any orders during the command phase but things were looking a lot more critical in the second turn, with four angry gorillas barreling down towards the American lines! I managed to win the initative but felt that I wouldn't benefit from issuing orders during the command phase so only moved one of my squads a little. Anders on the other hand used his phase to advance his Sturmpionieren and Heavy Flak Grenadiers. Going first in the unit phase meant I had the chance to take the fight to the apes! Rhino lead his Hammers as they used their rocket packs to jump over the container (I think Anders had forgot they were there!) and straight on top of the apes! I decided to use Rhino's berserk ability here, allowing me to reroll misses, but still just ended up with four hits. Well, enough to either kill Marcus or decimate the squad I thought only to have Anders tell me that Marcus has six hits! Argh! In return the apes inflicted three hits on Rhino. This didn't look good...

On my left flank the Wildfire opened up on the zombies but failed to inflict a single hit! The Recon Rangers in the ruins climbed up to the second floor and opened up on the Heavy Laser Grenadiers that were huddling behind an old tank trap and they managed to bring one of the lumbering men down. My Honey again fired on the Hans but missed (of course) and as the driver frantically tried to recharge his phasers the Hans returned fire and blew the American light walker to bits! This was worrying as I didn't have much anti-armour capability nearby - the BBQ squad sure, but they only have a range of six inches! The zombies stormed towards the Wildfire! I knew that if they caught it it would be turned into so much scrap metal so used my reaction to simply run away. However, this just made it into a large target for the Ludvig who proceeded to blow it away. Only one walker left now and it was hiding behind some ruins! My command squad took their first hits as Anders advanced his Heavy Flak Grenadiers (nasty unit that!).

Turn 3

The right flank.

On turn three the initative went to the Axis and Anders used an order to keep the Hans away from the closing BBQ squad as well as positioning his Sturmpionieren better. I used my orders to regroup most of my troops as well as send a rocket towards the Hans... that missed.  The apes put the beat down on the Hammers killing all of them. The Hans zeroed in on the Ranger Weapon squad and managed to kill a couple of them. The Ludvig fired on the Blackhawk and my last walker was no more.  Things were looking dire as it was my turn to take action; I had both the apes and zombies knocking on my door, all my walkers were destroyed and the heavy infantry squad wiped out. And all I had managed was a single casualty! Drastic measures were needed!

It seemed like the only way I would be able to stop the apes were by utilising my command squad with their abundance of shotguns and flamethrowers. If I did that however I would leave them open to the Heavy Flak Grenadiers (not the Sturmpionieren luckily as they were suppressed). After some consideration (and looking up in the rules what happened if you lost your command section...) I decided that it was the only course of action left for me. The Hell Boys suddenly vaulted over their cover running full speed right in front of the lumbering gorillas and opened up with everything they got! The result was four huge smoking corpses... the smell of burned hair was overpowering. That was one threat down, but behind the ruins on the left flank the zombies were lurking. I realised that the Combat Ranger squad had line of fire to them and were in range to use their underslung grenade launchers. After a sustained fire action they had cleared the zombie threat as well! Phew! What had looked like a total steamrolling was suddenly turning into something more even.

Turn 4

Heavy Flak Grenadiers are nasty I tell you. Nasty!

Turn four consisted mostly of maneuvering. Anders won the initative and my command squad took some severe damage from the Heavy Flak Grenadiers, only leaving the two flamethrower operators. Ouch! His Sturmpionieren fired as well but failed to do any damage. The Ludvig started firing on the ruins where the Recon Rangers were hiding but they were too well protected. The Hans moved forward and killed two members of the BBQ squad. The Recon Rangers continued pouring fire onto the Heavy Laser Grenadiers, failing to do any damage but now with enough suppression to force them to retreat. The Ranger Weapon squad again fired on the Hans but missed. The BBQ squad moved back a little bit as they tried to lure the Hans back out. My Command Squad would be wiped out if they stayed where they were so I moved them far away from the Heavy Flak Grenadiers, out on the right flank.

Turn 5

Finally the Hans meets its doom!

Anders again got the initative on the fifth and final turn. The retreating Heavy Laser Grenadiers rallied and moved back towards the tanktrap they had occupied before. The Ludvig again fired on the Recon Rangers, not touching them. As my command squad has displaced the Heavy Flak Grenadiers searched for a new target and found it in the Combat Ranger Squad who lost two men to their fire. The Sturmpionieren fired at the BBQ squad but missed. Finally the Hans advanced on the decimated Command Squad but it came a bit too close and the two remaining troopers opened up with their flamethrowers, finally destroying the damn light walker! As Anders handed the dice over to me I considered my options; by now I knew which two building he had designated as objectives and his Heavy Flak Grenadiers and Sturmpionieren were in base contact with them. 

I wouldn't be able to take out the heavy infantry but a lucky attack from the BBQ Squad might be able to get rid of the Command Squad. They charged forward and fired but the dice weren't with me and only one German perished. The Recon Rangers again fired on the Heavy Laser Grenadiers and in an astonishing stroke of luck I rolled hits on every single die! Anders rolled his armour rolls, but didn't roll well enough and the unit was completely wiped out! As the final act of the game my Ranger Weapon squad moved back into base contact with the objective container. 

Aftermath

As the smoke cleared it was apparent to both sides that there was no clear winner here. Both forces had been severely decimated and they had both managed to reach their objectives. For all intents and purposes this was a draw, and a very close on at that. Counting up our respective casualties I ended up with 127 against Anders 116 meaning I had technically won the battle. Didn't feel like it though. Haha!

This game felt very different from our first foray into Dust Warfare. We have started to get the hang of the command phase and the limits of reactions and how to use them effectively. It was really cool to see the game swing as drastically as it did on turn three when I was more or less ready to pack it up. The short small arms ranges in Dust Warfare makes it easy to feel that your grunts aren't doing any damage but when close enough they can pour it on really well! It also goes to show that you often have to risk your squads to achieve success, in my case the command squad and to a certain extent the Hammers. 

The Ludvig dominated the left flank as I didn't have anything to match its range.

The battle had it's fair share of cinematic moments which is something games with a reaction mechanic tend to have. Some highligts were the heroic American heavy infantry charging into the apes, only to get torn to pieces! The zombies flushing out the Wildfire so the Ludvig could get a clear shot of it. The Hans walking to close to the Hell Boys and getting torched (quite a surprise as it rounded the corner!). The Recon Rangers killing the Heavy Laser Grenadiers on the last turn. Lots of great moments! While the rules are simple we're still figuring out the flow of the game and how best to take advantage of the command phase and reactions. In this game I think Anders used his command phase more effectively while I rarely found use for it beyond regrouping. Should have popped some smoke though.

While our first game was fun this time it was an entirely different level and we both had a great time! I'm sure there are different ways to bend and exploit the system, but playing as it's "meant to be played" is a lot of fun. If I want a more cerebral game I'll go for Infinity but this has a very nice balance of larger army scale game, quick play time and decent tactical depth. In fact as soon as I got home I ordered a whole bunch of SSU stuff. So I guess the answer to To Dust or Not to Dust is a wholehearted Yes!

Read More

8 comments

Dust Warfare - Some Additional Thoughts

Nicked pictures again... looking good though!

So I wrote down my first impressions of Dust Warfare a few weeks ago and since we're playing again tomorrow I thought I'd put down some of my additional thoughts as I've been reading and digesting the rulebook a bit more. I was fairly impressed after our first game as it flowed nicely, had nods to realism (like suppressions and reactions) and most of all was quick to play. However there were a few thoughts rattling around in my skull that didn't sit quite right and before I had the time to develop them properly Jody over at Frontline Gamer did it all for me! In his recent article about Dust Warfare he pretty much summed up those nagging little worries that I felt myself (thanks mate!). Namely that getting the initaitive and going first is a massive advantage and that this might lead to certain a certain kind of list building, ie small elite armies. It's been a couple of weeks now though and I'm hoping that these apparent flaws actually have built in counters in the system. It kind of seems like it after reading the book, but then again this is all conjecture and theory at this point. Tomorrow's games (#TwoBattlesAndASkirmish!) should help confirm or "debunk" these ideas of mine.

Let's look at getting the initiative and going first and the advangateges and disadvantages that brings. By winning the initative you get to first in both the Command Phase and the Unit Phase. This will allow you to get all your shots off first and basically hit your opponent before he has a chance to react (no pun intended). In close range firefights where your opponent is able to react this might not be such a large advantage but when attacking from afar (which is easy to do with pre-measuring) it can be a serious blow to a squad or walker. In addition to casualties inflicted you will be able to suppress your enemies. Winning the initiative will also enable you to take three actions with your units. Basically units that aren't activated in the Command Phase (and getting a Reaction Marker for it) will be able to take their two actions in the unit phase, say a Sustained Attack, and unless they get suppressed from somewhere during their own Unit Phase will be able to react in the opponents Unit Phase, effectively giving them three actions across the entire turn.

This looks like quite an edge, but I've been thinking if perhaps it isn't as big as it looks. There are a couple of things that might help balance it out. First of all you won't be able to remove any of the suppression your opponent might put on your units during his Command Phase. This might be a big factor as your opponent can completely lock down any of your units that acted in the Command Phase by suppressing them. I also think this might be the counter to the tripple actions. Going second also allow your opponent to use the Regroup Order in his Command Phase to remove suppression you applied during your Command Phase. Perhaps not a big thing as you go first in the Unit Phase anyway and can just re-apply it, but it does allow him to react properly.

Going first is certainly an advantage (as it's supposed to be) but perhaps it's not as bad as it looks at first glance. I'm hoping it's simply the flow of the game as you play more some of the meta-gaming that might not be apparent at first will start to shine through.

The SSU choppers. I'm starting to warm up to them...

As for the second matter about low model count, elite armies consisting of heavy infantry and walkers basically. When rolling for Initative the player rolling lowest get it. You roll as many dice as you have units hence the smaller army is more likely to get the initative. It's a way of giving the outnumbered, ie badly mauled, army a bit of an edge to level the playing field. However you could presumably use this to your advantage by creating an army with a few expensive elite units, making it easier for you to get the initiative while still retaining the firepower to smash your opponent. This is certainly what it looks like on paper; sure a horde army might be able to give more order during the Command Phase, but if my elite Schwer Platoon gets to go first in every turn and blow your weak Armor 2 troops away before you can react that won't help you. This would lead to cookie cutter armies that forced you to take as small forces as possible.

First off, going first might not be such a great advantage as we've talked about above, but the real counter to this I think is the Battle Builder. It's a way for the two players to create the parameters of the game before setup (but after having seen eachothers army lists). There are three different categories, Obectives, Deployment and Conditions, with four options in each category. The players take turns placing (or not placing) points in these different categories, changing the game as they do. Naturally you want Obectives/Deployment/Conditions that works to your advantage. If you have a close combat heavy army you'll want to use the Close Engagement Deployment option, preferably combined with the Limited Visibility Condition!

I think this can be a great leveller against cookie cutter army like the one mentioned above. The Battle Builder changes things around and as it's not just about killing everything you see you might be able to make it harder for your opponent by spending your points at the right places. For example, against a small elite army you might try and push for the Assassination Objective as your opponent is unlikely to have more than one command squad, whereas your horde army might have two! Or perhaps Off Target Shelling which would it make it difficult for a small elite army to remove Suppression Markers, while it's easy for you as you have several orders in the Command Phase. Or the Unprepared Deployment option might be the way to go, where both armies arrive piecemeal, only your pieces will be a lot larger than his!

In fact the Battle Builder might be the most innovative thing about Dust Warfare. Reactions and suppression we've seen before (and better handled) but the Battle Builder feels fresh to me at least. I think it will help make sure that most armies will be reasonably balanced. As Motoko Kusanagi put it "It's simple: overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It's slow death." - except it might very well be a quick fiery death in Dust Warfare! That doesn't mean that you can't try out all kinds different armies, but I think balanced, tactically stable armies will dominate in tournaments etc.

Dust Warfare is certainly not the second coming of Jeezy Creezy, there are many other games out there who are more innovative and well... better. However (and this is a big however), it could definitely be a big shakeup in the 'mainstream' gaming community I think. There simply aren't that many large(ish) scale army wargames on the market today so a new one popping is big news. All the people who've only ever played 40k who might be swayed by the positively awesome looking walkers and hence might discover a much more fluid and simply more modern game. FFG is certainly one of the big players in the gaming market and they rarely do something half-assed. This is their third attempt at a miniature wargame after AT-43 and Mutant Chronicles, and I think they've learnt from their mistakes. Sure, they bungled the release of the new Sino-Soviet units (the Dust Warfare rules for them is still probably a couple of months away) but it seems like they're fully behind the game and we'll see the fourth faction at GenCon. My guess is we'll see the alien Vrill first and then perhaps the Japanese later this year.

Speaking of the Vrill, we're not quite sure what they'll look like or... well, anything, but in 2008 Paolo Parente commissioned Kallamity to make a Vrill robot walker garage model and it looks spectacular! Just look at it!

This was five years ago but I really hope that Parente has kept this vision for the Vrill as I think it's awesome in a creepy, whirring kind of way! There aren't many of these weird almost bio-mechanical robot armies in 28mm so it would certainly be a unique look. We'll likely see Armor 1 and 4 infantry in the Vrill forces as well as there aren't any yet. And it makes sense in a way, small scuttling things and large lumbering things with thick armor. Mmmm... will be interesting to see how they turn out...

Oh well, thanks for reading my ramblings. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Dust Warfare whether you've played it or not. Tomorrow me and Anders are meeting up for at least two more Dust Warfare battles and hopefully a test of the Judge Dredd skirmish game. I read Hendy Badger's first impressions of it over at Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher and got inspired! The rules are actually pretty cool and I think it could be a great step up from Necromunda. Check it out, it's free!

AAR tomorrow or the day after...

Read More

8 comments

Review of Age of Conan the Board Game

I've been lazy in this review and just nicked pictures from BGG. Sorry.

Age of Conan was one of the Nexus Games/Fantasy Flight Games joint releases that had all kinds of cool things going for it: the designers of War of the Ring, beautiful components, artwork from the comics and, of course, the Conan license itself, yet it kind of puttered out and dissappeared from the radar fairly quickly. It received generally favourable reviews but still failed to make an impact and it often shows up in FFG's holiday sales (together with Android).

I think there are a couple of reasons for this. Number one seems to have been that you don't actually get to play as Conan. The game is a strategic wargame where Conan acts as an unpredictable force of nature that you have to take into account as you plan your moves, it's not an intimate dungeon crawler or skirmish game that some people seem to have expected. They wanted to decapitate enemies and claim scantily clad princesses as their prize! Number two, it was overshadowed by two other games released by FFG just a couple of months later: Chaos in the Old World and Middle-Earth Quest. Both these games used a setting with a larger fanbase than Conan and in a way they're probably more accessible. They were also announced just as Age of Conan was hitting the streets and I imagine a lot of potential buyers decided to hold onto their money and wait for one of those instead of splurging on Conan.

The release schedule was unfortunate. As for the game format, well... it's just that playing as Conan wouldn't be much fun... except for the Conan player. Perhaps it could be made into a two player adversarial game a'la Descent with one player controlling Conan and the other a bunch evil Stygians or something, but still, I think setting the game during the Hyborian age and have Conan as an imporant component but not actually a controllable game piece (well... more on that later) was a genious move by the designers.

Speaking of the designers - Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello - they together created War of the Ring, currently ranked 2nd/4th best thematic game and 16th best game overall at board game geek. A big part of that game's popularity was it's strict adherence to the setting. Nothing felt tacked on as every mechanic was well integrated with the Tolkien theme. It was apparent that the designers knew what they were doing when it came to handling Tolkien. Naturally Nexus and FFG hoped they could do the same for the Conan setting.

With that little introduction out of the lets have a look at the actual game!

How it Looks and Feels

Age of Conan comes in one of FFG's medium+ size boxes, just like War of the Ring. It's not as huge as Runewars, Twilight Imperium or (the first edition of) Descent, but slightly larger than Arkham Horror and Fury of Dracula. It has a pretty decent insert that I've actually kept, which is rare for me, and is filled with plastic goodies! The gameboard is a map of Hyboria with extra spaces for cards, dice and the Empire (victory) point track. I think the board is beautiful! The colours are sort of muted and there are lots of small details that really brings the theme to the forefront. I'd say it's comparable in many ways to the board in Chaos in the Old World which also brings out the theme.

There are some different cards as well; Strategy cards which allow you to influcnce both military and intrigue contests, Kingdom cards which are unique to each faction and consist of dirty tricks and special events, Adventure cards which shows what Conan is up to and Objective cards that are well... objectives in the game. The cards have the same kind of muted colour scheme as the game board and use artwork from some of the classic Conan comics which is pretty cool!

Of course, what you've been waiting for is the plastic minis! You get quite a few of them: 24 per faction plus nine each of forts and towers. Each faction have unique miniatures so the Stygian soldiers and emissaries are different from Turan's or Aquilonia's. They are all great sculpts though and provide a huge amount of character to the game! In fact I liked them so much that I started painting mine. So far only the Aquilonians are done but I think I might have found the inspiration to continue with the rest. The towers and forts are the same across factions, which is a bit of a pity, but in the end they're not as important as the other miniatures. The buildings are of a nice blocky design and has a slight Egyptian or Sumerian feel to them which I think fits the theme well. They snap together to make a city which is a nice touch.

The dice come in two varieties: the purple Fate Dice that you use for determining your action during your turn and the red Contest dice that you use in military and intrigue contests. They are dice so not much to say there, however the icons again help to bring the theme to the forefront (lots of blood splatter and axes on the Contest dice!) which is nice.

Finally we have an assortment of tokens, although not as many as some other FFG games. They do their job and share the same colour palette as the rest of the game.

I was very impressed by the visual design of the game and it's still one of my favourites when it comes a strong theme. For example, Runewars look great on the table with nice looking miniatures and board, but it doesn't have the same "weight" as Age of Conan. It looks like a colourful board game whereas Age of Conan looks like something you might actually find in the sands around Zamora! I'm using hyperbole here, but I hope you understand what I mean.


Basic Gameplay

There are four factions in the game: Aquilonia, Turan, Hyberboria and Stygia. You start the game with a few soldiers and emissaries in your home kingdom as well as a couple of cards and, if you're playing Hyperboria or Stygia, some Sorcery tokens than can be used for re-rolls. The game is played in three "Ages" and in each Age there are four objectives open for grabs. They give you victory points, which you also get from conquering other provinces.

At the start of the game the first player rolls the seven Fate dice to see which actions are available. The different actions you can take in a turn are printed on the dice and when it's your turn you take one of the available Fate dice and perform its designated action. This provides an element of uncertainty to the game as you can rarely be sure if the action you want to perform will be available to you. Figuring out which of your opponents want which Fate die is also an imporant part of the meta-game as it can allow you to block or delay certain strategies. The system works the same as The War of the Ring only there are four players instead of two.

There are three actions you can take and there are several different options on how to perform each action. The Military Action allows you to move armies around, attack or (as a last resort) recruit two army units. The Intrigue Action allows you to move your emissaries around the board or use one to take over a neighbouring province using diplomatic means. Finally the Court + Conan Action allows you to draw cards, play certain of your own Kingdom Cards as well as influence Conan in some way or another (more on that later).

The main gameplay revolves around the Military and Intrigue actions. You only get victory points for conquering other provinces but it can be a relatively long and costly affair; each province has a number of terrain icons on it and each of these represents a battle. You can either try to attack one of these icons per turn, or do a 'forced march' - sacrificing one of your units to attack again immediately. This means that a military attack is quite a commitment and might very well run for two or three turns. You can mitigate this with your special Kingdom cards that might allow you to force march for free, or give you an extra military unit, but it's still a large undertaking. That you can have a maximum of five units in an army makes losses hurt badly and even though the resolution mechanic favours the attacker you really want all the insurances you can get when you go into battle. The actual battle system is a jazzed up Risk but with the ability to modify the rolls with strategy cards played from your hand, as long as the terrain icon on the card matches the one you're actually fighting on. If you win the entire campaign you remove one of your soldier units and replace it with a fort, which gives you victory points.

The obelisk is used to show Conan's current destination.

Intrigue on the other hand is a lot quicker and easier. You roll against the province's resistance and you get more dice for every neighbouring province you control or that has one of your emissaries in it. If you win the roll you immediately take control of the province by placing a tower there. You also get gold equal to the province's resistance. However, this does not give you any victory points and the tower prevents you from building a fort there (since that can only be done after a successfull conquest). It does provide you with instant gold as well as more gold in the Age change phase. So a common strategy is to take over several provinces with intrigue actions during the first Age so you get enough gold to buy a large army for use in the second and third Age.

During each Age change phase (of which there are two) you first resolve Raider tokens (see below), then check to see who claims which objective and adjust the Empire points track accordingly. Then you receive gold for each of your towers and cities and you get a troop unit at each fort or city. If you want you can forego this unit to upgrade a fort into a city, which is usually a good idea. You get to spend your gold as you wish on soldiers, emissaries and cards and then the next age begins. At the end of the third Age the game is over and you calculate your final Empire point score by adding up all your current provinces as well as getting bonus points for various things like having most gold, having won most player versus player battles etc.

The Role of Conan

"So what about Conan?!" I hear you say. He plays a pivotal role in the game and several things hinge upon his doings. I've talked about the three Ages in the game, so how long is each age? As long as it takes Conan to complete four adventures. Each Age Conan will have four adventures and before each adventure the players vye for "control" of him. This is a simple bidding mechanic and is actually one of the few elements of the game I don't like; while it works from a game perspective it doesn't have a connection to the theme. I don't get to control Conan because I offered the most money or the prettiest princess, I get to control Conan because I bid the token with the highest number. You could try to rationalise this by calling the tokens political influence or something, but in the end it comes down as gamey in an otherwise very thematic product.

Anyway, the winner of the bid gets to control Conan's movement across Hyboria. The Adventure cards tell you what adventure he's currently undertaking, ie where he wants to go and what kind of rewards are available in the form of Adventure tokens. Each adventure has three to five Adventure tokens drawn randomly and they can be monsters, treasure or women. The player controlling Conan choose where to move him at the beginning of his turn and is free to move him to any adjacent province. However if Conan moves closer to his adventure destination the controlling player get to collect one Adventure token. These tokens are then used at certain points in the game, most importantly in the third Age when you can use them to try and crown Conan as king of your realm. If you succeed in this you get some advantages during victory point calculations and if you don't Conan simply cuts your head off and you are out of the game!

So most of the time the player controlling Conan wants to move him closer to the adventure destination. Of course Conan is a cunning warrior and a brilliant general so if he's on your side in a battle there are all kinds of bonuses, so sometimes it might be worth foregoing an Adventure token to use Conan in a nearby battle or siege. The Conan player can also use the Court + Conan action to move Conan an additional step as well as placing a Raider token in a nearby province. These tokens represent Conan's presence stirring up trouble and will cost you either Empire points or soldiers to get rid of. If another player picks the Court + Conan action he simply takes the next Adventure token in line, basically allowing you to snipe high value token beore the Conan player gets them.

Conan with a few Raider tokens nearby.

At the end of the game the players with most monster, treasure and women tokens get bonus points, unless Conan has been crowned king in which case only the crowning player can get any of these points. You also use them during the Age change phase to bid for three powerful artifacts that can help you in different ways.

My Thoughts

Age of Conan is a different beast from most other warfare board games (that I've played). It plays kind of slowly and it's important to have at least the outlines of a plan for the coming Age. I like how you have to fight through an entire campaign to conquer another province and the different terrain again is a nod to the theme. The balance between military conquest to build forts, and later cities, and the easy money of erecting towers through intrigue is great as it really forces you to think ahead.

As a rule of thumb it's a good idea to try and roughly plan out how to act during the coming age to allow you to claim objectives and maximize your income during the Age change phase. However you will have to modify your plan according to the Fate dice and, of course, the actions of the other players. There is a slow buildup as you start to expand outwards and it's usually not until the second or third Age where battles between players will become common.

Then there's Conan himself to consider. He acts as a force of nature, constantly moving through Hyboria with his own goals in mind. He is not an I win-button but rather an opportunity to take advantage of, he can certainly turn the tide if used correctly. And if you're having trouble expanding your Kingdom you can instead try to gain control of Conan often and hopefully amass lots of Adventure tokens which would set you up for possible Conan coronation. There's an excellent example of this in this session report.

I haven't talked much about the Kingdom cards that are unique to each faction, but they also bring a lot of the theme into the game and serve to differentiate how the factions work. Just last week Mats as Hyperboria managed to get a whole bunch of his powerful Kingdom cards in play and they helped convey the Hyperborians as a sinister, sorcerous faction who don't even shy from necromancy!

As for the flaws of the game, there are a couple. I've already mentioned the gamey feel of simply bidding for Conan with some un-thematic tokens, and this extends, to a lesser degree, to the actual adventures. While they serve their function well I wouldn't have minded some more detailing. They are, undoubtably, the greatest source of theme for the game and I think they could have been more thematic than simply being a destination and four or five tokens drawn at random. Having Conan as a kind of wandering NPC is a great mechanic, but I do think the game would have benefited from fleshing out his role more. However this is a flaw from a thematic standpoint only, not from a gameplay standpoint.

Something else that is not necessarily a flaw, but something to keep in mind is that the game can be fairly low in player interaction in the beginning. Or rather, the player interaction comes from indirect things, like blocking a particular action or bidding higher for Conan rather than direct military conflict. I have no problem with this but it's worth mentioning.

There was an expansion waiting to get produced by Nexus Games (ie the design was done) but unfortunately they went under before it saw the light of day. Apparently it addressed the issues I mentioned above by making Conan and his adventures more detailed, even having him in his different "life phases" - thief, warrior, general, king - as well as systems rewarding earlier player versus player aggression. Although I'm sad it never got published I also think that Age of Conan is an excellent game just the way it is.

EDIT: And here we are, two years later and through deal with FFG Ares Games have acquired all the leftover stock as well as the rights to Age of Conan. Of course, the guys at Ares are the original designers so it's back in its rightfull hands one might say. And finally we have the expansion! It's called Adventures in Hyboria and features new rules for Conan as well as a bunch of other stuff. Kickstarter (already funded) currently happening right here! Oh, and it's an excellent way of getting the base game as well if you already don't own it.

Conclusion

It all boils down to this: Age of Conan is a solid wargame set in the world of Hyboria with Conan playing an important part. I love to see different games exploring the same setting, and to me this is the large scale political view of Hyboria during the age of Conan. You could play the RPG from Mongoose if you want to experience the visceral "first person" perspective which I don't think a board game could capture properly anyway. I'm a great fan of the setting and Howard's short stories and I really hope this is not the last we've seen of Conan in board game form.

If you are looking for a wargame at the lighter end of the spectrum (as in, not ASL) which rewards planning ahead and strategic thinking Age of Conan might be for you. If you also happen to be a fan of the setting then it's definitely a game for you. If you also consider the fact that you can often find it for a good price thanks to FFG's holiday sales then it's simply a no brainer, by Crom!

Read More

2 comments