Dust Warfare: Revisited

Howdy there, OldHat from Dust-War here once again to talk Dust Warfare.

While there have been some trying times in the realm of Dust, it seems things are starting to get going one more time. Battlefront is at the helm and steering the ship in a new, hopefully positive, direction. As of this writing, there is an Open Beta for the next Warfare expansion, as well as speculation about the next one, Operation Babylon, which had models featured at GenCon this year.

Though the shift from Fantasy Flight Games to Battlefront hasn’t been easy for the small, dedicated, and growing community that play Dust Warfare, we are finally seeing again an increase in interest and in no small part thanks to the new World of Dust website and forum. It always helps to have an official website for a game, after all.

So, now we come to the core of the article, which will be a revisit of an article I wrote what feels like ages ago, on how to get started with Dust Warfare. While before, there wasn’t much in both product and resources, now there is quite a bit of ground to cover.

The Rundown – What you need to play!

Dust Warfare Rulebooks

For one, you need the Core Rulebook. That is the base rules for the game, plus a whole lot of the Axis and Allied factions. Then we have the Campaign Books – Zverograd, Hades, and Icarus. The next one due out, Achilles, is under Open Beta right now on the World of Dust’s forums, so that one is easy to get. Otherwise, you can order them easily enough and they are rather affordable, too.

Each Campaign Book brings with it an expansion of units and rules for each faction, some getting more than others. Zverograd introduces the Sino-Soviet Union (SSU), for those looking to play them. I recommend getting at least one of each for yourself and your group, if others don’t want to grab them right away.

This is obvious, because you need little army men to shove around the table! You have options here, such as the Revised Core Set, which produces two small armies that work well for demo games. Or, you can just pick up whatever looks good or sounds good, depending on if you care about aesthetics or mechanics. You will soon be able to pick up “Starter Sets” for each faction in the near future from Battlefront. While not really intended for Warfare and featuring some stuff that isn’t entirely compatible, they are at least still a solid value.

Models come assembled and primed – green for Allies, grey for Axis, and baby poop for SSU. You can literally open a box and put it on the table, which is just a great feeling. You can paint directly on top of them, too, so it is very easy to get them painted up for beginners and a challenge still for those who like to put more into the paintjobs. If you don’t like to paint, there are “Premiums” available for various sources, which are pre-painted versions of the standard models. Not bad for the less hobby savvy folks.

Dice

Another option here are the Ironheart Artisan dice, which are faction specific, set up like the classic Dust dice, and cheap! They are certainly a great choice.

Measuring Implement(s)
You need a tape measure. Duh. I bring two, so I can don’t have to share just one.

Tokens/Markers/Reference Materials
For beginners, it isn’t too hard to copy the tokens from the rulebook and print, cut, and paste onto a suitable surface (poker chips seems popular). If you are all-in for Warfare, though, then it isn’t a bad idea to opt for the LITKO token set, which is rather comprehensive and what I use myself (though a bit spendy). Plus, they are now offering up some Allied, Axis, SSU, and Generic Unit Upgrade tokens, too! Those are very handy.

Also, it doesn’t hurt to get your hands on the FAQ/Errata sheet, the Tournament Battle Builder 2.0, and what are known as KevinBakon’sWarfare Cards. While Battlefront is officially giving Warfare some cards to use, the free fan-made variety have worked very well to keep page-flipping down and speed up games. All of these are hosted on Dust-War, too!

Here, you will need to be comprehensive. Dust has a requirement of 25% on a 4×6 table, so a 2×3 area must be filled for use by the players in the Terrain Placement phase. This adds a nice layer to gameplay, letting plays dictate their battlefield together. I recommend a mix of Dust buildings (Tenements, Quonset Huts), as well as Dust terrain pieces (Crates, Tank Traps). They are both available through various means – the former sold as sets, the latter in many of the Tactics box sets.

Furthermore, you can use a lot of generic building ruins and rubble to flesh out the world. Sandbags, wire entanglements, and craters are at home here, too. If you can only muster grim, dark scenery, that works too, provided it’s scaled for 28mm.

That is really the bulk of what you need right there. A lot of it is rather obvious to wargamers, but it never hurts to know just what you need to get into a new game.

Now, let me jump into the other stuff, notably the community-driven materials and resources.

One of the most vital is the Force Builder, maintained by Maine and an invaluable resources for players. It makes building platoons easier and you can print them out, instead of having to draw them up every time to get ready to play.

Next, we have three parts of the Dust fan-run community at large – Dust-War, Dust Chronicles, and Unit Forward. These three, along with a few other sites, round out the Dust Warfare fan-run community.

The first of those is my own personal site Dust-War, which is the largest Dust Warfare site on the web, which is also has a link up to the Force Builder and various resources, as well as a forum. Added to that are hundreds of articles on the main site, a Facebook page, and a currently meager YouTube page and you get a pretty good place for all things Warfare.

Next up is Dust Chronicles, which is an eZine for all things Dust, including not only Warfare, but Tactics too, as well as loads of hobby content. They are fueled entirely by fan submitted content, which is rather amazing. They are up to eight issues and they are worth reading for those who want some excellent Dust content.

Last, but not least, is Unit Forward. This is a Dust-oriented news site, compiling all the smaller sites together and featuring big announcements from the official Dust sites, as well as the singular Dust podcast, Zero Station. It is a good site to keep an eye on to get all your Dust news in one place.

If you haven’t yet dabbled in Dust Warfare and are big on wargames, you need to get on board. I have spent the better part of decade as a gamer, playing everything from Magic to Warmahordes, from 40k to Fantasy and many others besides. Dust Warfare is a good system with a lot of potential. For a first edition, it has precious few issues and has an intuitive, enjoyable system that takes player interaction beyond the “you go, I go” and flat out demands players play in each other’s turns. The models are some of the most affordable on the market, so it’s easy to collect, and the quality of them keeps improving as Dust Studio moves towards harder plastics and higher detail.

It is obvious I have a high opinion of Warfare and I really hope more people give it a go. With Battlefront at the helm, we can shake off any residual AT-43 stigma as the game is now in the hands of those who have the power to make it succeed (not that FFG wasn’t doing well with it!). To underscore its positive future, Paolo has said that next year, Warfare gets its fourth faction – the Japanese. Word through the grapevine is that the next faction will be out the year after, the mysterious aliens known as the Vril. So, Warfare has a bright future with so many good things on the way!

Flames of War may not be my cup of tea, but it is arguably one of the top wargames in the world right now and Dust Warfare really has the legs, if the players can get behind it. The rules are tight and are tailored for tournament play, while still offering a wide variety of fun options for casual/narrative games as well. The setting is equally open, with Dust Studio offering “Dustified” WWII units for the game to appease the war buffs, alongside the weird wars stuff like zombie soldiers, walking tanks, and lasers.