Dust Warfare Painting: KV-47 Walker!

Woo! Just finished my first model for Dust Warfare, a Sino-Soviet Union KV-47 walker. I haven't painted any large tanks like this since way back when I still played 40k and I wasn't sure if my techniques were up to scratch. Actually, I was sure they weren't. So I started researching historical model painting.

However, as I was doing this the new (first) number of Dust Chronicles net fanzine was released and lo and behold, a guide to painting the Russian walkers! The guide is similar to a lot of the stuff that I had researched so I simply decided to go with it as I liked the look of the end result. While I used different colours for the most part (Vallejo) I used the techniques in the article and I'm very happy with the result. So thanks to whoever wrote that guide, unfortunately it's not signed.

As you can see I've repositioned the right leg to create a bit more movement in the miniature as it's very static in its original build. While that looks kind of cool as well I don't want all of my KVs to look like that. I also broke the left arm at the elbow and reattached it pointing up a bit more. Otherwise it's basically dragging along the floor. Easy adjustments with nice results.

Drybrushing was kind of scary as I basically haven't done it since the nineties! I rarely like how it looks on a human miniature, but on a big hunk of metal like this it's the right way to go, you just need to be carefull with the amount of paint loaded in your brush.

It was fun using pigments as well. I've used them dry before to create a dust effect (see my 15mm stuff) but this time I mixed them up with water and painted them on which is a great way to create rust effects. I can very well see myself going overboard with pigments as they're fun to use and really gives an authentic end result.

The walker in the painting article had his shoulder armour painted red, but I had actually decided on doing that earlier as an homage to the Red Shoulders in Armored Troopers: VOTOMS. I do think I need some ID numbers on there or something.

I want my Dust models to be quick to paint and I'm not too concerned if they don't look top-notch. Of course the walkers are the stars and I wanted to spend some extra time on them, but even so using the techniques in Dust Chronicles I finished this guy quickly. I was listening to the Minions of the Master Monster's first Mass Effect session and made it most of the way through it so about three hours from start to finish. It's basically just a couple of layers of drybrushing and then wheathering. Very happy with it!

Now I have two more and a whole lot of arms to paint... :)

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GenCon Dust Warfare News!

So Gencon is behind us and as always it brought with it all kinds of awesome news. This is me posting about the stuff I found exciting of course, so it's by no means a summary of all the stuff at the con. In fact I haven't followed Gencon as closely as I would have wanted so this is mostly about new stuff for games I already like. Hehe!

So, lets start with Dust Warfare (or Tactics for those of that persuasion). FFG showed a bunch of new stuff coming for the SSU and the Axis. There were also a one new unit for the Allies as well, so I can understand people playing the allies felt a bit dissapointed. By now most of this stuff has been announced on the FFG homepage, but I'll have a look at it anyway.

First off we have two new tanks for the SSU and they are big and juicy! The SSU is the least advanced faction technologically so they are the only ones that still use tanks. While I would love to see some big stompy Soviet walker akin to the Dotch Yaga of AT-43 tanks are pretty cool to. I especially like the visual impact of having a tank as it ties the game further into WWII roots. The tanks look kind of like a mix between the the venerable T-34 and its later cousin the T-55.

The Lavrentiy Beria seems to be pretty traditional tank with a regular huge old gun! 

I'm guessing it'll be similar to the Königsluther in performance.

The Karl Marx features a Tesla cannon which is something only the SSU have. No idea about how it will perform but according to the FFG blurb it'll kill infantry and armoured vehicles equally well. Woo!

Then we have the first heavy walkers for the SSU. Now, as I mentioned the SSU are lagging behind when it comes to technology (focusing on creating super-humans instead) so these heavy walkers are retro-fitted and/or retro-engineered German walkers. The first one, Babushka, has two gatling guns and two machine guns and I'm guessing it'll mowe through infantry and perhaps aircraft as well. It does bother me a bit that they call it Babusha... that's Koshka's walker! 

Then we have the Matrioshka which basically seems like a production line variant of the Fury of Ivan that we've seen at Dust Models. Both of these are great looking models, but I can't help be a little dissapointed to just see mods of the Axis walker. Oh well...  I'll get some for sure.

Then we have the Axis models!

Now, these are interesting! I've been wondering if we would see some kind of infantry heavy weapons for Dust and here they are: the PaK 7.5 cm! These are three man units but since they are all on the same race with three hit-points there is no degradation of the unit's attack value as it gets damaged. Good stuff. 

 Here's the laser-grenadier version which seem to be carrying a heavy laser cannon of some kind. Looking forward to seeing SSU and allied version of these guys. Wouldn't mind some more traditional looking field cannons.

Then we have the two Axis heavy (super-heavy?) transport walkers. I really like these guys! Again, they pull more of the real WWII technology into the Dust universe. Both seem to be open to the back so I wonder if there will be rules for the passengers firing out of the vehicle. This one looks the lighter armed version with a small caliber cannon or something similar. 

This version has some heavier armament but still nothing too impressive. 

Something to decimate infantry and perhaps aircraft I guess. 

 Here we have this prototype for the first Axis jetfighter. It's a neat looking model but not what I had expected. I thought we would see something like the Messerschmitt ME 262, but then again it's similar to the  E 555 series that never got built.

However, what it really reminded me of was the Hummel from Maschinen Krieger line of models. Similar in overall shape and both have rocket nozzles underneath as well as landing skids instead of wheels (optional on the Hummel). Have a look:

It's obvious that Maschinen Krieger has been an inspiration for Paolo Parente and there's nothing wrong with it. Sometimes I'm just surprised at how very similar they are. Just take a look at the Ma.K Gans walker and you can see how similar it is to the medium Allied walker, the legs/feet are practically identical. Oh well, as long as we get more cool looking mechs!

Finally we get a little bit of news for the Allies! It's a squad of Armor 3 soldiers that can be built either as French Foreign Legion or British Commandos. They look pretty cool with their little phaser submachine guns and bare arms. Definitely some Gears of War COGs going on here. Hehe!

I was actually going to put all the neat stuff I saw at Gencon in this post but it's starting to get long so I'll simply let it be about Dust Warfare. The next part will likely be more space themed...

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Descent 2nd Ed. - First Impressions

After spending a week in Berlin (lovely city!) I got stuck back into gaming this past Saturday, getting to try out the new edition of Descent: Journeys in the Dark. Woo! While our group of gamers played the first edition a bit a few years ago we never really got that into it. While we enjoyed ourselves and generally had a good time, the game didn't engage us as much as we had hoped it would. Mostly I think the slow pace didn't fit us. Even when playing with Road to Legend and its shorter quest structure it would usually take an entire session just to get through one quest.

So when second edition was announced I was intrigued to see what FFG would make of it, but initally not all that interested. However as more and more previews was published my interest grew! It seemed like they had basically taken all the stuff that I didn't like about the first edition and either streamlined them or simply got rid of them altogether. Add to this more structured heroes with specific purposes, a built in campaign and a much more story driven gameplay and I was drooling over my keyboard. Not to mention that the miniatures looked better!

I won't go into the details of the rules as they're available for download anyway, but generally they've been revised and the game plays a lot smoother now. A lot of the small, nitty-gritty stuff has given way to ease of play. While some might be sad to hear this I think it's a great boon as it means the game will actually hit the table in my parts. You still have your basic stats and there are still power dice, monsters and Overlord cards but with the tighter ruleset (or looser, from a certain point of view).

My favourite part is the emphasis on the narrative though. Included in the box is a campaign called The Shadow Rune which is played in two acts with an interlude and a finale. You play three quests in each act and each quest consists of two encounters. Depending on which side won the quests in the first act different quests are available in the second. There's also a map showing the location of the quests with small travel icons where you have to draw special Travel Cards when you pass. While it is not as elaborate as the old Road to Legend expansion it's a lot more maneagable and the entire campaign shouldn't take more than 20 hours according to FFG. So lets have a look and see how our bold heroes fared...

I played with Anders, Micke and Claes - the same people who I played first edition with. They chose one character each, all from different archetypes. In this new edition there are four archetypes - Warrior, Scout, Mage and Healer - as well as two classes for each archetype. Anders picked the mage Widow Tarha and made her a Necromancer, Micke picked the scout Jain Fairwood and made her a Wildlander and Claes finally picked the healer Avric Albright and made him a Disciple. While this seemed like a good mix of characters (damage+damage+tank/healer) they didn't spend any time looking at their attributes which would come back and haunt them later.

While all the quest information in Descent is open to all the players and there are no secrets being kept by the Overlord I'm still going to warn readers about SPOILERS below.

Introduction Quest - First Blood

Unfortunately the Overlord goes last...

In this single encounter quest the heroes have to stop a gang of goblins from rushing into the tunnels beneath Arhynn by slaying their Ettin leader. I don't think we played for more than three or four turns before the Ettin had been killed! I had only managed to get two goblins of the map as Jain easily could pick them off at range while Tarha and Avbric finished off the Ettin. They managed to find some gold and a crossbow as well so generally a good quest for the heroes!

Naturally this is slanted in the heroes favour to give them a sporting chance to learn the system against the Overlord who most likely already does. It's a good scenario that introduces the race theme that is quite common in the second edition quests. Basically what you need to focus on are the objectives, the monsters are simply speed bumps. The Overlord also learns the importance of blocking the path and playing tactically but with an overall strategy in mind.

After the quest you play a Campaign Step where the heroes and Overlord get xp to buy abilities and you can spend gold for new stuff. Avric bought a sword and the other two bought a new ability each. I as the Overlord bought a new card allowing me to heal monsters.


First Quest - The Masquerade Ball

After some deliberating the heroes decided on The Masquerade Ball as their next quest. After an uneventful journey they discovered that a vampire and her evil minions had barged in on the ball and they had to escort all the guests out (well, particularly the lord but they didn't know what he looked like so... everyone) while the vampire wanted to do the same basically. The guests were represented by objective markers that the heroes could spend an action to unmask and then start escorting back to the entrance. The twist was that half of the guests were cultists that would stab the hero in the back!

This encounter only lasted for two turns I think as some lucky guest/cultist placement and some bad dice rolling from the heroes side allowed me to run off with all three guests. I think this encounter is fairly difficult for the heroes but it also depends a lot on where the real guests end up and the mobility of the party. They almost managed to block the exit where I needed to go, and had they succeeded it could have gone differently.

Eek! Spiders!

The second encounter in the quest took place in the catacombs beneath the castle where the heroes had to chase the vampire through a series of magically locked doors. To get through the doors you had to roll against either your Knowledge to simply teleport to the other side or your Awareness or Might to simply pick the lock or break the door down. If the heroes had won the first encounter the Vampire would be in the same boat, but since she had the kidnapped lord with her she could automatically teleport through. The heroes were in for a race!

At first they thought it seemed impossible from the get-go and Micke in particular talked about simply grabbing the loot and not even try to catch the vampire. However, nothing's ever impossible so they powered through! In the first little corridor were a bunch of cave spiders. They are small and not very powerful, but they can poison their victims. When poisoned you have to roll against your Might to get rid of it and since all of the heroes only had a score of 2 this proved a difficult task and the poison from the spiders would linger long after they were all squashed themselves!

And Barghest!

The vampire made her way through the doors and the heroes slowly followed. With low Might scores they didn't have much chance of breaking the doors. Their Knowledge scores were a little bit better but only allows for the hero rolling to teleport through. The best option seemed to be to have Jain pick the lock with her Awareness of 4 so that's what they did. Some Barghest in the second room slowed them down but after that they rolled well on the next couple of doors and it looked like they perhaps could catch up with the vampire! Unfortunately they ran straight into a Shadow Dragon. Tarha managed to sneak past him and towards the last door before the dragon blocked the corridor for the other heroes.

And a dragon! Raawr!

The vampire was in the last room where she had to roll to open the last magical door. I rolled badly and she simply stood there for several turns while the dragon kept Avric and Jain busy (knocking Jain out twice). Anders managed to go through the last door by way of teleportation and started attacking the vampire. She proved to be a tough cookie though who could suck life from her targets. She knocked out Tarha and kept trying to open the door. In the final couple of turns the heroes killed the dragon and rushed into the last room. They managed to shave a couple of life points off the vampire but then she finally opened the door and escaped! Victory to the Overlord!

I quite like this entire quest and although the second encounter looked like a walk-over for the Overlord it was actually tense all the way to the last turn! The heroes bought some more abilities and Avric got himself some chainmail. I bought another card.



Second Quest - Death on the Wing

We forgot that the winner is supposed to choose the next quest so the heroes went for Death on the Wing as their next target. They have to go to a nearby mine to see why the ore shipments are slow. This time there were some events during travel which netted me an extra Overlord card an put some fatigue on the heroes.

The Merriod simply provided speed bumparage. I would have liked a second one...

In the first encounter the heroes have to race through a tight ravine before it's being filled by boulders pushed down by the Overlord's minions. Just like the last encounter this looked really difficult and Micke almost lost hope! They first ran into a Merriod which I had been eager to try out. Basically it's some kind of fish-troll with long reach and the ability to immobilise its targets. There were also some cave spiders (poison!) in the ravine.

The heroes played well and quickly made their way past the Merriod and towards the ravine. The spiders poisoned the heroes but were then dispatched quickly. I had managed to block the ravine with two boulders but Anders rolled lucky against his Might and managed to smash one of them. This really put a spanner in the works for me and before I could do much they had all managed to run out the exit. Well, they deserved a win I suppose. Besides it's the second encounter that counts. :)

The Elemental guards the bridge while the Barghest are ready to rush in on the guards.

In the second encounter the heroes come upon the mining guard tower and have to kill the dragon hybrid lieutenant before he and his minions kill the remaining four guards. I had actually read about this quest on the forum and that it was hard for the Overlord. I brought some Barghest to kill the guards and an Elemental to deal with the heroes. The guards are pretty tough cookies though and after they had dispatched two of my three Barghest I realized that I would have to concentrate all my efforts on killing the guards to succeed.

Belthir the dragon hybrid and the Elemental both raced back towards the guard tower and together they managed to dispatch the guards before the heroes could kill Belthir. Contrary to what it said on the forums I think this encounter might be easier for the Overlord - as long as you keep your objectives in sight!

We decided to pack it in after this quest, but there's only one more to go until the Interlude and act II! :D


Final Thoughts

We all had a good time with the game and were all surprised that the managed to get through three quests (five encounters) in about as many hours, including setup rules explanation and pizza break. I don't think any of us ever felt bogged down or that things moved slowly, instead it was pretty much non-stop action from the start. I much prefer the smaller encounter format and having two making up a quest allows for some nice narrative twists and pros/cons depending on who won. Not to mention a change of scenery.

I'm eager to play again and I'm really looking forward to seeing what kind of expansions FFG will put out for this new Descent. Having smaller card/tile based expansions with a quest in it as well as larger boxed expansions with more monsters is the way to go I think. We'll see.

Anyway, that's my first impressions and first session of Descent 2nd Ed. Just let me know in the comments if you have any questions! :)

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Dust Warfare Double AAR!

Start of battle 1.

Hello dear readers! I haven't been all that active on the blog in the last few months. Sorry about that. I'll blame the summer weather and going outsideness. Hehe!

I have been able to get some gaming done though! I've tried Eclipse and Elder Sign (enjoyed both!) and we've seen somewhat of a resurrection of Arkham Horror which we've played a couple of times. I even got to play Lords of Waterdeep with my six year old niece and she actually took to it surprisingly well, I only had to help her with the English. What I'll be writing about today though is none of those games, but rather Dust Warfare and my latest two battles.

I met up with my old friend Anders and my new friend Kosta, who I know from twitter and his own gaming blog, Irrfärder Utan Slut (Swedish. Mostly). Kosta have been collecting a whole bunch of Allied and Axis models just because of how they looked and he hadn't actually played Dust Tactics or Warfare but was happy to get together and finally try it out.

Battle 1

This time I took control of the Germans and Kosta took Anders Yanks, with the additional models from his own collection, while Anders acted as arbitrator and rules guru. It was interesting being on the other side of the battle line and be in control of the Axis troops this time around. The force I put together was similar to what Anders threw at me the last time we played: Heavy Flak Grenadiers, Apes led by Markus, a Sniper Team, some Recon Grenadiers, a Ludwig medium walker and a Hans light walker. Basically the stuff that I found scariest when I played as the Allies.

Kosta fielded some Combat Rangers, Grim Reapers led by Ozz 117, Tank Busters, an Observer Team, a Sniper Team and a Steel Rain medium walker. Generally stuff he liked the looks of, but I think it makes for a decent force. Perhaps a bit light on generalists but perfectly workable. I was especially worried about the artillery walker as I hadn't really faced that before and it seemed scary!

The Steel Rain opening up on the Ludwig!

Using the battle builder we ended up with Force Collision, Destroy the Enemy and Off-Target Shelling meaning we started in opposite corners, needed to simply kill as much as possible and didn't get to remove an automatic blast marker at the end of the turn. Generally good stuff for me I think.

Kosta got the initative during the first couple of turns and concentrated his fire on my Ludwig and apes. Some poor dice rolling only resulted in one hit on the walker and a three or four on Markus. I followed that up by assaulting his Grim Reapers with my apes and killed all but the hero. I sent my light walker forward but it didn't manage to do all that much before his Tank Busters blew it to bits. They in turn came under fire from my Heavy Flak Grenadiers, using the burst fire mode of their weapons.

The Yanks trying hard to gun down the gorillas before they hit theire lines.

The two medium walkers exchanged some more fire and I had to call in my mechanic to help. In the end the Ludwig won out though and blew up the Steel Rain. Around that time the apes had killed Ozz and the Combat Rangers. However only Markus was left and with only on hit. He charged the lone remaining Tank Buster but actually failed to kill him and was knocked out in return!

The Tank Busters did short work of the Hans light walker.

I started advancing with my Command Squad and Recon Grenadiers while my Sniper provided covering fire (killing the opposite sniper team). I think this was turn three or four and we decided to call it quits as Kosta didn't have much left. Although he ended up loosing he really enjoyed Dust Warfare and was eager to play again. Good man!

End of the game. The Americans are hard pressed indeed.

Battle 2

A few days later we managed to get together again. Only this time I had got my hands on the new Zverograd book and I was able to finally get to try my Russians! Woo! Kosta decided to try the Germans and planned to include a Sturmkönig to deal with my inevitable helicopter. We were aiming for a larger 300 point game this time around as I had ordered some additional stuff, but since it didn't arrive in time we had to settle for 200 points (and a smaller table) again. At this level I adviced against using an expensive heavy walker and instead get AA weapons through other means.

My force consisted of two defense platoons: Two Medvedi, a Frontoviki squad, a Fakyeli squad, a squad of Chinese Volunteers, a transport chopper and Koshka in her special Babushka medium walker. Basically all the stuff I could pull together. I would have liked another walker and some commissars but still, it felt like this force could do some damage if it got in close enough. I really didn't have high hopes for the helicopter with all the flak in the air, but knew the Fakyeli could do a LOT of damage if they made it to the enemy lines.

Kosta brought some Heavy Flak Grenadiers, apes (without Markus), Laser Grenadiers, Battle Grenadiers with an extra Panzerschreck, a sniper team, an observer team, a Heinrich light walker and a Lothar medium walker. Again a little bit of everything but a decent for overall. I know Laser Grenadiers are generally considered weak/too expensive but it's the best looking Axis unit I think. The Lothar worried me and the Battle Grenadiers posed a serious threat to Koshka and her walker.

The scenario we came up with was Close Engagement, Destroy the Enemy and Nothing. Meaning we started really close to each other and simply needed to kill as much as possible. I would have preferred assassination as I had two command squads, but there weren't enough points. The close engagement generally favoured the SSU as they lack long range firepower.

Start of the battle. Notice the large concentration of forces at the far side of the table.

The Axis deployed in a refused flank and the SSU followed suit. I would have prefered to keep my chopper away from his flak units, but he had more units than me so I didn't have much choice in the matter. Overall I felt my units covered each other well though, and Babushka looked awesome in the middle!

Kosta won the initiative for the first turn and tried to bring down my helicopter. He came very close, with it only having two hits left and a wonky weapon system. His apes advanced a bit and his sniper took out a Frontoviki soldier. The Lothar fired at my walker but actually failed to do any damage. In my turn Babushka killed two Laser Grenadiers and one of my Medvedi opened up on the Battle Grenadiers. The russians can roll a LOT of dice when they get in close! Still, I didn't manage to kill any of them. The chinese advanced to try and grenade the gorillas to death, but they retreated out of range.

The Battle Grenadiers and the Medvedi exchanged fire throughout the game. 

The Medvedi came out on top though.

Now was the question of what to do with my helicopter. Should I try to fly away and perhaps survive another turn, or should I charge full steam ahead and hope it holds together long enough to drop the Fakyeli where they needed to be? In the end I opted for the latter as it seemed more cinematic! It simply flew straight ahead and managed to get in behind Kostas two walkers. The Flak Grenadiers could fire in reaction to this and I held my breath as the dice came up with... one hit! My helicopter was still alive... barely! This allowed my Fakyeli to jump out and wreak all kinds of havoc; with shotguns, a sulfur thrower and a rain of Molotovs they damaged both walkers and killed a heavy Flak Grenadier. Extremely destructive up close!

The sturdy Russian helicopter managed to get through the heavy Axis flak (barely as you can see by the markers) and dropped the Fakyeli in a perfect position behind their targets.

Unfortunately for the Axis the SSU won the initiative roll the second turn and I ordered the Fakyeli to attack again before the Germans could react. This resulted in two destroyed walkers and a dead sniper team. Whoa! The rest of my turn resulted in Babushka and the Medvedi wiping out the Laser Grenadiers and the other Medvedi killing two Battle Grenadiers. As Kosta't turn rolled around he tried a desperate attack with his apes but they were gunned down by the Chinese Volunteers and the Frontoviki. He tried bringing the helicopter down with the MG-48 in his command squad but failed. With this we shook hands and called it as it was fairly clear what would happen in the coming turns.

The final gorilla doing a last desperate charge into the guns of the SSU.

Just as the devastating charge of the gorillas in our last battle proved a game winner then, the devastasting air drop of the Fakyeli proved a game winner this time. I think this time around it was mostly down to bad luck on Kosta's part in failing to destroy the helicopter on the first turn. The odds were in his favour, but not the dice. It would have been a very different game if the Fakyeli had suddenly been left in the open right in front of the Axis guns.

As for the SSU I have to say I really enjoyed playing with them! They are overall shorter ranged and don't have as many neat toys, but if they do manage to get up close they're absolutely brutal. Even the lowly Chinese can roll 15 dice and deny cover against any infantry 2 troops, and have decent chances against walkers and tanks thanks to their grenades. The helicopter is very powerful if used correctly but also quite fragile so you need to protect and support it. The KV-47 walker is just plain awesome. I love the looks of them and have actually ordered two.

I'm looking forward to our next battle which I think will either be Kosta's Yankees against Anders' Axis at 300 points or a three way battle using the new rules in Zverograd. I'm still worried about the importance of the initiative roll, but since we're enjoying ourselves I suppose it's not really a problem. For us at least. :)

Now, I do need to start painting these guys and I have some plans on how to do it quickly. I'm especially eager to get started on the walkers, although I'd like to change the poses of one or two of them first. Watch this space...

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