Just a candid question; not like I'm hoping this will generate enough buzz to convince the company that it's a good idea or anything : How many here would be interested in a role-playing game set in the Dust background. And for the record, I would I would I would. Take my money, FFG!!

By and large, I am of two minds about this issue, because I believe there to be two groups at FFG with fingers in this pie. The first group is the 'corporate thought' people. They would want to delay Zverograd for GenCon because it's traditional to have a totally unseen new release there. This sort of group-think, by the way, is dedicated to low-risk inside-the-box 'cuz-everyone-does-it behavior. The second group is the people on the ground: developers, editors, those who actually have some contact with the customer base and know that a base does exist outside the distributors. These are the people more likely to realize that we're 'hammering on the door, yelling at the to take our money' (or some such). Sympathy for the second group, largely because, for reasons that will doom humanity unless we can break the cycle, the first group is usually the gits in charge. Distain for the second group.

I'll simply paraphrase an earlier thread: "Writing rules is a game designer's job." Do the French Dust Tactics designers want to do their job to fit the story line, art work, and modellling or not? Apparently not. Given the opportunity, I'd write those rules. Take me all of an afternoon; maybe a couple of weeks for playtesting (only testing one element, not an entire game, you see), and another hour for the end edit, and viola!

I want rules for mix-and-matching the arms of German walkers, like they are pictured in the source material. Also, I want a Mk II with a dual 5cm gun on one arm, a long 88 on the other, and a triple-MG cupola, like the one on the cover of the Dust boardgame. This 'you can only have what we give you' is GW-level balls. Also, I want the 'ontos' mod for the American medium walker; saw it on Parente's Dust site. Neat!!

Unfortuately, what I've heard from the local store, where some of the employees are working with FFG on the Game of Thrones playtests and tournaments, FFG is run like a Dilbert corporation: Wringing maximum productivity out of the fewest possible employees, planning all releases that they can for marketing schedules (and logic, if that's the word for it), which means they absolutely 'MUST' have major GenCon releases for all their big lines…I don't know exactly why. But, yes, 40K will steal a march on them if they delay until GenCon, and interest in the SSU line will wane, without Warfare rules for it. Blame the corporate mentality.

Re: the longbow argument (a good 'un). Check out Japanese history, specifically, the Onin War. There's a reason that the Tokugawa Shogunate banned muskets (teppo): Teppo allowed a warlord to drag peasents off fields, give 'em a few hours of firearms care and training, and fling them into battle en masse, where they could mow down the elite samurai with pure overwhelming numbers. The crossbow is easier to use than the self-bow. The musket is easier to use than the crossbow. The easier a weapon is to use, the more people you can have using them. QED.

3 1/2"/80mm tall, 4"/100mm wide (arms akimbo).

I'll simply repeat what an Iraqi war vet friend of mine said on the subject of non-standard issue kit: It depends on what you can acquire, and what your command will let you keep. For instance, back in '03, his squad, on a nightly weapons search, found an honest-to-God MG-freaking-42, straight out of WWII, with SS stamps!! And ammo!!! His XO - the other over-educated gun nut in the unit - put the kybosh on my buddy mounting the weapon on the company command Humvee; it went back to the Baumholder base museum instead. Same with the PPSH-43 that was found on a different night (with several full drum magazines!!). Now, the pistols, the AKs, and other stuff? Sure, there were lots of troops in his unit that had 'back-up' guns that they'd found (the Middle East is, apparantly, where old war guns go to continue soldiering) or bought. By and large, combat command don't give a ****; they've got other things to worry about. Buuuuut, ya stow those non-reg things when higher command comes poking about… ("Alles klar, eh Kommissar?")

There's an ancient aphorism, the most quoted version of which is attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: "Amateurs talk tactics, veterans talk logistics." Guard units are set up for not the best stuff, but the easiest to maintain (particularly in a society which is generally mechanically uneducated) and supply. If you need to supply a company of Marines with bolter ammo (more-or-less 150 bolters, pistols, and heavy bolters), with a general daily fire unit of, say 200 rounds per weapon, that comes out to about 30000 shells a day. That's several crates dropped in; doable. Now, scale that up to a smallish Guard unit of say, 5000 line troops. Now you're talking a million shells a day; even if they mass and bulk half that of Marine bolter shells, that's still almost 17 times the supply transport required, every day. And put in the fact that often this equipment has to be hauled from star to star, and isn't easy to replace…Now you see why valuable supply bottomage is used for such niftier stuff like cannon rounds. 'Nuff said.

Yer, da big pinkies is surposed ter be too fick ter use a bolta, see? So day got dese big shotty-guns called 'rippas.' Easy ter use, 'n fun! (And the stats already exist in the game: Introduced in Rogue Trader as the deck sweeper heavy weapon.)

I still use the prices of the game as a selling point for it, shilling at warp speed. I like this game; sure, it has flaws, but no more than 40K, and 40K's been around for over 25 years, as opposed to not a lot more than 25 days. The individual soldier minis are about the same cost between the two (particularly after the GW price hike that just went into action), but DW rules on the vehicles. I just showed off the medium walker sets to several 40K gamers today, while we were setting up our DW game (Assault scenario; nasty nasty nasty), pointing out with pride that they were only $25 USD MSRP, and gloating about the upcoming KV47 set that gives you 3 dreadnaught-sized models for under $30 USD MSRP.

Yeah, this question really really needs a clarification ASAP. I wouldn't have thought it necessary, but today I lost a command squad, and the question came up (not completely; I had a different command squad as well. 400-point game).

Ogryns will have distinct limits on their skills - remember, a 'bonehead' is one that has been cybernetically enhanced to bring him up to an intellect level where he can understand intellectual concepts (dimly) more complex than "eat," "hit," "um, pull trigga?" and, of course, "fart." In the old ork books, ogryns were considered inferior to the boys in 'finky bitz," which is saying something! Face it, Ogryns are thick. They're not gonna have many skills beyond basic Speak Low Gothic (Literacy will literally be beyond them), Awareness, and maybe Trade: Cook. And their Int score will probably be 2D10+5, at the most. As for ratlings, c'mon, who doesn't see the potential for playing the 'little guy' from war stories? There's plenty of room for the Tough Scrapper, the Sneaky Git, the Deadly Nutbar (I keep thinking the knife-wielding guy from Stripes), and, of course, the Wheeler-Dealer.

I believe that arcraft crew, including those in Valkyries, are actually Fleet, as in the Imperial Fleet! Mind you, they'd actually be closer to the old Army Air Force than true Fleet (like Navy corpsmen attached to Marine units), but they'd still technically be Fleet.

Backing up your infantry? The Mickey is your baby. It's a dedicated anti-troop fighter, dropping 7 dice on an Armor 3 squad and 11 dice on an Armor 2 squad. It and the light walker with qaud 50s are the only anti-infantry walkers the Allies have, and since this game is all about infantry, the Mickey is the all-purpose tank (and no, before you fire-bugs out there start shrieking like chimps about the flame-walkers, said units have to endure reactions - including the target moving out of flamethrower range! - before they get to shoot. The Mickey does not),

My problem is not just with FFG, but with those companies which try to follow the GW modal (since it's successful). And then they actually fail, since they don't take advantage of the mistakes and lessons GW has learned over the years: Package deals, starter sets, bundling. Knocking $10 off a package deal (they could call it a platoon!) for Allies and Germans would generate a lot more sales, and encourage people to collect the game (say, a command squad, two normal 17-point squads, a walker of some sort, and a hero. Huh, I just described the base load for the original Dust Tactics set. Charge $65-70; we could sell a lot where I play - and help sell - games). And yes, I'm copying GW's battalion set-up. Yes, the Revised Basic DT set is a wonderful deal (conservatively, at least $120 worth of product), but there are people who only want one army, and think they're being ripped off because they get stuff for a second army as well (they think the idea of having a second army is being foisted on them).

Sourclams has stated my main objection to the upcoming German MK III walker: Lasers. Sorry, all, laser really suck in this game. All the reasons have been mentioned in the game already, but I'll add one: Given that regular cannon-based anti-tank weapons do multiple dice to hit with a single damage point per hit, and those simulate perhaps a couple rounds at best (particularly with the Pounder and the 88L56s), why couldn't the lasers get the same treatment - I would cheefully roll 3/1 for a vehicle-mounted laser, with additional rolls for hits. That would make them worth it. Particularly since the reason we're getting stuck with dual lasers on the MkIII is because the original model had them, not because of any idea of effectiveness. (On those same lines, why weren't we given the ability to vary armament on the German walkers? The source material shows the MkII with arms mixed and matched. Changing armament was a matter of changing arms. Bad show, FFG editors and developers.)

400 point or more we usually play on a 4'x8' table; that's a lot of stuff on the table.

"Y'know, a real killer would've asked what that red button was for."

In an infantry-based universe, a light walker with a quad-mount of machineguns (or 20mms) is a giant. Particularly since they outrange all foot (except snipers).

Yes, without a doubt. With th added business blandishment that it would make another product (and not near as difficult as miniatures, production-wise) to sell us. And I would buy it.

While looking over the threads discussing composing army lists, I was struck by the limitation of chosing purely combined arms as the only option. Well, I suppose a player could build a list consisting of nothing but infantry - too easy to do with the zombie list - but that strikes me as a rarity. My point being that it's currently impossible to build an armored list, particularly since armor lacks command vehicles to serve as command squads. But the Russians, with an upcoming box of KV-47 suits, may well be different. Could it be that we might see a battlefield list consisting of mostly, or completely, armored vehicles?

Well, it's already been said that the cost situation is different between the US and Europe. That being said, I'm going to put in my $0.02 anyway. A 300-point tournament leve army will probably consist of a couple of platoons with 3 and 4 squads apiece, three walkers, an artillery observation team, and a sniper team. This will cost about $275 US retail, and include the cost of the revised core set. Now, to buy a 1500-point tournament army for 40K (consisting of normal Marines), the cost runs to about $350 US, or more. Bit of a difference there.

I've been playing World of Tanks lately. It occurred to me that a similar game using the Dust universe - walkers AND tanks and perhaps infantry squads! - might be fun. Anyone else think so too?

Well said, Peacekeeper_B. Better line of sight (maybe more realistic?), more options, weapon team (HMG, recoilles rifle, and mortar), and a dedicated Overwatch rule complete my wish list for the revised edition…perhaps in 2013?