Koshing the Kushans

 

...with all respect to Shawn, who played a very tough game.  The Kushan empire was contemporary with Rome, but the two never met in battle. This hypothetical confrontation matched a cavalry based army buffed up with elephants and Auxilia against the legions of Rome.


ROME (Justin)

First command
1 x C-in-C (cavalry), 6 x foot skirmishers, 1 x German cavalry, 14 x legionaries, 6 x Spanish auxiliaSecond command
1 x subcommander (cavalry), 12 x legionaries, 4 x auxiliaThird command
1 x subcommander (cavalry), 5 x German cavalry, 7 x light cavalry, 8 x skirmisher foot

KUSHAN EMPIRE (Shawn and Peter)

First command
1 x C-in-C (cataphract), 2 x elephants, 6 x auxilia, 3 x light horse
Second command
1 x subcommander (elephant), 5 x cataphracts, 5 x light horse, 1 x elephant, 2 x auxilia, 3 x psiloi (infantry skirmisher)
Third command
1 x subcommander (cataphract), 15 x light horse


DEPLOYMENT

Since I was unable to take photos, this deployment is reconstituted from memory. The Romans, knowing they were in big trouble in the open, chose steep hills for their terrain and prayed to every god they could think of before throwing the terrain positioning dice. The gods were propitious and they were able to put a steep hill on their back edge at the centre of the board, and two other steep hills halfway up on the right, effectively anchoring their two flanks. The Kushans placed a couple of gentle hills (perhaps something else, but I forget), and the mandatory road running down the middle.

The Kushans deployed across the board whilst the Romans deployed between the steep hills. Light foot were to guard the hills whilst the infantry and cavalry filled the space between and let the Kushans come and get them.




THE THUMPERY

After casting aspersions on each other's ancestry and parentage the two armies moved off. Seeing the vast mass of light horse approaching his left flank, the Roman general detached additional light foot to move across and reinforce the light foot already on the leftmost steep hill. A third group of Gallic light foot moved up will all speed to seize control of the two steep hills on the right - and ran straight into an ambush of Kushan light foot and auxilia. For the remainder of the game, the veteran Gauls contested the hills, only gradually been driven off them. They at least performed their job of right flank guard.

Meanwhile the legions wheeled left and filled the gap between the two hills, the German cavalry and light Roman cavalry holding back as their right flank guard, adverse to closing with the formidable cataphracts and elephants approaching them.

The Kushan cataphracts approached the Roman centre, but the Kushan light horse were reluctant to contest the steep hill, knowing they would be at a severe disadvantage against the light foot if they did so (-2 for difficult terrain and -1 for being downhill). However, realising they had nothing to lose from attacking the Roman heavy infantry (they could not be destroyed by them), they went in on the centre-left - and promptly destroyed 4 legionary bases. The Roman general, muttering something about Phil Barker's Roman blades making a geriatric ward look robust, sent in Auxilia reserves to fill the holes in his line.

The battle looked like a stalemate. The elephants hesitated to advance into the sack prepared for them by the Roman cavalry and German light foot (now driven off the hill but quite happy to teach the pachyderms a thing or two), and the light horse on the Roman centre-left, after their initial success, were driven off in confusion by the battered legionaries.

The moment had come for great things, and sounding their trumpets, the cataphracts thundered into the attack. Men went down on both sides but without any decisive result. Then, rallying on the centre-left, the legionaries managed to catch one light horse after another from the front and flank (their greater numbers finally telling), preventing them from recoiling and thus destroying them. The light horse command finally broke and ran, but Rome's central command, after heavy losses, was now itself only one base from breaking, which would have left a huge hole in the Roman centre.

It was time for desperate measures. Seeing the Kushan C-in-C exposed, two legionary bases attacked him from the front and flank. The odds were against them: factors of 4 vs 3, and whoever lost the contest would be destroyed. However the gods smiled yet again, and Rome won, killing the C-in-C. Things were now critical for the Kushans. The C-in-C's command had lost 3 bases. They had to throw 4 or more with their pip die to keep his command from routing. Alea iacta est....and a 1! The command broke, and with it the Kushan army. Game over.

Thanks for a close and exciting game, Shawn and Peter. Looking forward to the next one!

--
Durban War Games Club - rolling dice since 1969

Burning Hammer Tournament Report

 from Darryn, our roving reporter



So this weekend I went over to a one horse town minus the horse called Orivesi (which means water horse haha) and took part in a tournament of about 16 people. The entrance fee was 10 euros (R110) which is about the price of a largish meal at a Turkish kebab place or MacDonalds, so very very reasonably considering the prize support, but more on that later. I was referred to by all as "The Englishman" which was rather funny, and although technically correct, I didn't want to correct them for fear of having to explain my white Africaness AGAIN. Anywhoo...

Game 1 versus Empire. 

I took my dwarfs out on thursday so see if I could get them going since I have the whole army here, and found far too many things in need of repair. I settled with a skaven list that limped along due to a lack of billions of models that are sitting in Musgrave right now. Must get them back in December! But basically my first game was against an army I will forever call, "The Mother-in-law". 2 steam tanks, and 17 knights in one unit, the front row made up of a captain, grandmaster, warrior priest and level 4 light wizard. About as subtle as Will Ferrell. HAD I brought the right amount of slaves, I could have parked any number of unfortunate ratmen in front of this ball breaker and let them kill chaff while I got his weak points, but my list was designed to fight straight up. It didn't go well. The combo resulted in troops only hitting them on a 6 (pha's protection -1, and white wolf banner or somemat -1, to hit) and then getting hit back at str 6. Yuck. Despite this, I managed to get my grey seer in a good position and use jaws of the world wolf...ooops....I mean cracks call on both steam tanks at the same time, destroying them with one spell. Huzzar! This brought it back from a massacre to a draw and there was much squeeking and gnawing of teeth. As I said before, the dwarf army I intended to bring would have minced this list in 2 turns =P 

Game 2 versus Chaos Dwarfs

Now in all my long years as a gamer, I have never fought against the Dawi Zharr, and although I have read older books and know how they work in theory, the new Forge World Tamurkhan Chaos Dwarf list is a beast. He brought two war machines, a wizard, some hobgoblin chaff and a unit of chaos dwarfs in shard armour (full plate, 5+ ward versus fire). The center piece was a k'Daai Destroyer, a demon possessed golem with flaming attacks, half immunity to non magical weapons, extra frenzy and movement 9. Holy Hashut that thing is mean! The scenario was dawn attack which is practically random deployment, and the horned rat smiled on me and put most of my stuff on the opposite flank to his, hehehe. Randomly deployed load flank for the win. it didn't help at all. it kept me safe from the horrible warmachines (the earthshaker is a horrible thing, daemon possessed guided shells in a fantasy game, for shame!) but luckily he kept missing or damaging clanrats which I didn't really care for. The big highlight of the game was turn 1 his sorceror tried to explode my grey seer with a big spell, got irresistable force and scattered away, and in the subsequent miscast, lost all his magic levels. tee hee hee lucky me again. I managed to out move his much smaller army, but when you have a K'daai on your ass, there is not much you can do except send in the mutant poisoned rat ogres and hope for the best. It worked, but just. Combat starts with the K'Daai getting a str 4 flaming hit on each model in base to base. Ouch. Then it has init 5, so goes first mostly. It has 5 attacks plus d3 frenzy at str 7. When you wound it (toughness 6) with mundane weapons, so have to reroll the wound. And finally it has a 4+ ward save. Its downside, each turn it takes a toughness save (so on a 6 it fails) or loses d3 wounds since it burns itself out. Yeah didn't happen once. Still managed to kill it with poison which was mightily fun, and got to face a new army. Result, minor loss to me. 

Game 3 versus Skaven. 

A 10 year old kid in a hoodie who looked unimpressed with getting to play The Englishman, and had less skaven models in his army than I due to him being new to the game. I wont go much into this game since it was kind of boring and over quickly. but I got a minor win against him. It ended up being a civil war between two rival grey seers and there much much magical dueling. 

End result of the tournament, 39 of 65 potential points and full for painting. I probably came second in the army painting competition, but there is no way a horde of brown rats will compete with a dark elf army with custom lava bases for each man =( 

I mentioned the prize support earlier. These guys dont mess around. Even though it was a really small event, there were trophies for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and best painted. 1st place got a 65 pound bull taurus model from Forge World, 2nd place got a whole unit of Forge World Fimir, 3rd got a blister of chaos dwarf heros, and best got a pro painting kit. Really impressive considering the low entry fee. 

Overall was fun and a poor mans substitute for my usual ICON adventure, but most welcome. 

Regards, The Englishman! =P

Dust Warfare Part Deux . The Models .

Greetings , and welcome to part 2 of my ramblings , musings and other such thoughts on Dust Warfare .
Today my Revised Core Set and Medium Allied Walker landed in my mailbox , much to my glee . It's like being a 10 year old at crimbo all over again ! I'm mighty impressed with what you get , so time to give a review !

Whats in the box ? 

The Revised Core Set contains the following items :

1. Dust Tactics rules , the Victory Bridge scenario , unit cards , 2 grid posters and some cardboard tiles . 
2. 2 Tank Traps , 2 Ammo Crates and 6 Dust Warfare dice (will be covered in the rules blog at a later date) .
3. Allies - 3 Infantry squads (The Hammers , Hell Boys and Death Dealers) , William "Rhino" Springfield and a Light Walker , the Blackhawk . 
4. Axis - 3 Infantry squads (Heavy Laser Grenadiers , Heavy Flak Grenadiers and the Sturmpioniere) , Feldwebel Lara Walter and a Light Walker , the Hans .

Not bad , not bad at all . These models are currently only available in the Core Set , but should hit the shelves as a purchasable separate squad at a later date , if the Original Core Set is anything to go by .

The Models ! 

Walkers . 

The 2 Walkers in the Starter come in exactly 3 pieces , the main body and legs and 2 weapon "arms" . The detail is pretty good , equal to a Imperial Guard Sentinal . It's larger than one though , about roughly the size of a Space Marine Drednaught . There are some mould lines that need to be removed , and one or two gaps in the body work that could be filled if you so desire . But their ready for the table straight out the box . Both factions come pre primed in separate colours , the Axis in a grey and the Allies in green . How this reacts to paint , will be my next blog . Hopefully . Work is a killer sometimes ...

I managed to get an Allies Medium Walker separately , and it's as detailed as the Lights . It comes with all the parts needed to field the 4 options available in the army list supplied in the rule book ( Mickey , Hot Dog , Pounder and STEHL REHN ! Ok , the Steel Rain if you prefer ...) . There is a fiddly series of gaps to fill on the SR missiles , but well within most peoples abilities to remedy .

Infantry 

Here are the two Hero's included . They come pre assembled and primed . Not seen any mould lines on any of the other infantry , but expecting a few . The quality is not as good as GW's offerings , but at half the price , I'm not complaining ! 

However there is one item that needs some attention . 

The Sturmpioniere models need some work around the hip joint , the halves not fitting flush . Doesn't look like too much of problem , but would of been nice to not have it ! 

Overall , I'm as happy as a pig in poo ! 

So ends another blog entry . Stay tuned for my next entry , hopefully involving a game or two to see if the game delivers what I think it will !

Simon

Battle report: 2000 points daemons versus Dark Angels

this nice battle report from our roving reporter darryn soaking up the sun in that tropical nordic climate :)

So I had my usual list plus the goodies I recently got. I dropped skulltaker in lieu of some more bodies on field. 20 plaguebearers, 6 flamers and 6 screamers and some change after shuffling around stuff. I lost seekers and flesh hounds though. I got my finecast riddled bloodthirster out and about for action (going to replace the darn thing on thursday! curses) and a nasty tzeentch daemon prince. My opponent, one Aartu, fielded 25 terminators in 5 man squads, led by belial, with 2 ven dreads and a land raider to back it all up. We got the mission with one objective in either deployment zone with the diagonal version. We couldn't work out the proper names for these, and i'm too lazy to get my book out. I won the dice roll and chose the side with the most amount of impassable terrain, clearing my intended DZ. 

Turn 1: 

I chose my deployment (gribbly fliers first to ping tanks) and the chaos gods disagreed with my choice, sending in my much weaker (to shooting) assault troops and soul grinder. I had hoped to knock out a few tanks before coming in, but oh well. Most of my stuff ended up hiding this turn, except the suicide bomber flamers, who were supposed to gimp termie squads marching up field. They instead decided to surround a land raider and melt it into all sorts of psychodelic colours. After 3 templates, it looked much more like the beatles tour bus than a fearsome war engine of the machine cult. 3 hull points in 1 turn, boom! 

For my sins, I had all the terminator squads turn on the flamers, which was not so bad in retrospect. The 69 point squads died horribly (and managed to pull down 2 more terminators from overwatch) while my soulgrinder laughed at the pitiful attempts to scratch his paint. 

Turn 2:

Well half my gribbly stuff arrived despite me needing it. Some plaguebearers oozed onto the far objective and the thirster gloriously arrived from deepstrike. Note that if you chose to glide in, you ignore all terrain, meaning you can pretty much deep strike whereever you like. My screamers and daemon prince were still busy playing backgammon in the warp, and were delayed. The soul grinder and horrors opened up some whoop ass on the terminators, but coloured lights and daemonic phlegm do nothing to tactical dreadnaught armour. The thirster ran (how does one run whilst flying?) and set himself up for some vector strike goodness next turn. 

The plaguebearers obviously insulted Belials fashion sense since most of the terminators turned around and opened fire on the poor dudes. They didn't last long but between them and the bloodthirster buzzing around, all the fire for this turn was pretty much ineffective. One squad of terminators tried to charge the soul grinder and failed, leaving them helplessly in the open for next turn. 

Turn 3: 

So now my gribbly stuff is all in. Great. The prince arrived near the landraider whilst the screamers deployed in the biggest open space I could find. The rest of my dudes howevering around the far end of the field now began their long slog to get to the other side. The shooting phase was topsy turvy. Vomitting and shooting his harvester gun at the terminators in front of him did nothing for the soul grinder, whilst the fresh prince (see what I did there) melted the fun bus and made the 2 termies inside walk. The thirster flew over a dreadnaught and hacked off one of its arms. The assault did not go well. Soul grinder charged in with 5 attacks which all bounced off the termies storm shield, and got immobilised for his efforts, ouch. I must say, screamers turbo boosting 24 inches on the turn they deep strike is the absolute bee's knees, long live 6th ed!!!!

The terminators milled around some more. Assault cannons tried in vain to bring down either the thirster or prince, but it was simply not enough fire power to do anything to them. The soul grinder died in his turn, and the consolidating terminators set themselves up in the midst of tons of daemonettes and bloodletters. Some terminators learnt the hard way that if you punch a glob of tentacles, its hard to get a vital organ, go tarpit horrors go! 

Turn 4: 

Now it gets juicy. The thirster and prince descended from on high to tag team belials squad whilst the screamers wheeled around to go rip some dreadnaughts a new exhaust vent. The daemonic horde that was my left flank descended on the hapless terminators (12 in total) and began the process of dismantling them over the next turns. The prince popped a few termies before jumping at Belials squad but between him and a raging god of war, they did zero wounds! Also took zero in return. biggest flop epic fight in history. Suprisingly 40 something rending and 45 str 5 attacks failed to take down 5 terminators, wtf. Screamers with the new update (str 5 armourbane ap2) made absolute mincemeat of the one venerable dreads. 

Starting looking very bad for the marines at this point as everything was stuck in assault, my field of expertise. I finally pulled down the one terminator squad and got started on the next, whilst the thirster decided he was going to get skulls for the skull throne and started to lay into belials squad. A neat trick was when the prince got charged in the rear by a ven dread, he used smash, not much you can do against str 10 hits coming your way. 2 penetrating hits but it still lived on. 

Turn 5: 

Mopping up. Belial's head was added to the throne of skulls along with the rest of his cronies. The prince died but took the dread with him, and the swarm of daemons finally clipped off the skulls of the last few terminators on the left flank. All but 2 of 25 terminators were remaining. 

End result: Objective + killed walord, 4 points versus first blood 1 point. Win to me! 

It was agood game but I really felt the pain of not having the right weapons to go through terminator armour. Man they are tough. Stormshields are even tougher! I like how things work in the new edition, if you are not using funny wound allocation stuff, the combats go much more swiftly, and there are many new rules to use. Its nice when they are named (smash etc) as it helps you remember you can do it. 6th edition is looking to be very friendly to daemons so far, so really loving the change!

battle report, sunday 12/08/2012

hello all. your favorite roving reporter here, hmmm, some might say raving, but i don't listen to the voices in my head all that much anymore, so without further ado, news from the front lines

my second 750 points 6ed game of 40k

my opponent today was travC, and his blood angels took on my dark eldar

capture the flag mission, sorry relic mission

both of us rolled and got zippo for warlord traits, and travis decided i should deploy first. 2 ravagers behind a building and my 2 big troop squads, each one with an attached hemmie, one mostly in some area terrain and another on a hill. he deployed some scouts in a ruin with the jump pack squad next to the ruin with the termie squad in front of them. his speeder hid behind a building also. initiative was not stolen and turn 1 nightfight began. yes nightfight, the thing all dark eldar and tau armies pray for. and it's not that hard to get. you have a 1 in 6 chance on the warlords table combined with a 3 in 6 chance of getting it from the night fight rules also. someone who can actually remember his school maths can work out that combined percentage for me please :)

turn1

dark eldar shot and killed 2 scouts, they fell back behind the ruins they were in.

blood angels termies and jumpers advanced, speeder popped out and tried to pot shot a ravager but was just over 36" away so couldnt see it so unleashed some frag doom on the one troop squad. only 2 died thanks to a 3+ cover save and 5+ fnp save. not enough to run away til the librarian fear of fluffy bunnied them and they ran like little girls. all of the 3 inches back from where they advanced from initially. sigh. at least it wasnt off the table.

turn2

even with premeasuring and sufficient movement one ravager stil was short on 2 of the 3 dark lances, so only 1 hullpoint taken off the speeder. second ravager didn't do squat, with 3 guns in range.

termies came around the pumphouse and was joined by the sanguinary priest, ready to charge the dark eldar on the hill. charge was declared, 48 poisoned splinter snap shots and 3 str 5 ap 2 liquifer shots later and the lead termie and the priest was red paste. charge failed.

turn3

took both ravagers to finally bring down the speeder. both dark eldar troop sqauds hozed the remaining 3 termies with splinter fire, something like 60 or 70 shots worth and termies are left unscathed. grrrr 2+ armor save grrrr.

termies advanced making ready to charge, jumpers with libby jumped onto the flag, blood lance was aimed at the one ravager but alas the witch, she was denied. so the ravager was assaulted. interesting point, it looks like you might actually have to declare that you are multicharging before you charge. ah of course, for overwarch purposes. now i remember. anyhoo, so only 1 ravager was charged and got the snot krak grenaded out of it. it went boom but nothing else died. termies charged hill dark eldar squad, lots of snap firing left no termies dead but i think the dark eldar managed to kill one termie in close combat. dark eldar lost combat and ran away a few inches. think it was like 3" again.

turn 4

jumpers received some poison lovin, killing all but the libby who got dark lanced to death.

hill dark eldar regrouped, snap fired lots at remaining 2 termies but nothing happened.

termies charged dark eldar again, more snap fire, more nothing, another 2 or 3 dark eldar dead and thems running again. a few inches.

turn 5

we called it a day here, i was ahead in killpoints so game to the dark eldar. game took us about 2 and half hours for 750 points. eesh, need to practice. but that was with lots of talking, setting up terrain and neal popping by to say hello and show us his awesome skyscraper and necron breakfast snack

Guidelines on Becoming a Successful 40k Player

 i literally just ripped this post from another site, was a great read and hope you all like it also, all praise should go to the author

This was a great post I spied over on No Turtles Allowed about improving your game.
This is written by  "The Hod", and hope you enjoy it.

From The Hod

I am writing this guide on how to improve your gaming when it comes to 40k. Now this can be applied to other wargames and some other games but the methodology I use is something that is part experience, part game theory, and part observation.

This is not a tactics article and I do not believe in writting tactics articles are any help due to numerous factors such as terrain, army, opponent.

This guide may lay out things in simple steps but achieving success is much harder than explained in this blog post. I do not want to go into list building since 6th edition might change the dynamics of the game and invalidate the article. But if you follow the steps listed and put foward some effort both in and out of the game, you will be successful and your gaming will improve.

Selection and Playstyle

Finding an army and a playstyle is extremely important. Picking an army also means you are investing hundreds of dollars on models and it would be a waste only to find out it has all been for nothing and you hate playing the army.

When people ask me about what they want in lists, I always ask this question first: "What is your playstyle?"

I could give them a gunline list but it would be a waste if they favor hand to hand. If you are having trouble determining a playstyle, take a look at some of the video games you play. FPS wise, if you favor run and gun; that means a mobile mech army would be good with hard hitting troops inside. If you love to snipe, generally your a ranged type of player and go for gunlines. Finally if you enjoy supporting your team with abilities and items, have fun with wargeared out lists that let you become batman on the tabletop.

Find an army that you like for both the style and substance. I always tell new players to do a marine army and from there you have access to army books that offer different spectrums of styles for marine players. There is a style for nearly everyone in 40k, its a matter of you finding the army to support it.

Knowledge

Knowing who and what you are playing is a benchmark on how successful you will be as a player. The majority of my games that I have lost were due to mistakes I have made fighting unfamiliar armies, missions, or rules and then getting blindsided by them. What you need to do is buy every army book or have access to one.

Read the armylists and familiarize yourself with the wargear and troops. Marc Parker taught me a lesson with "Know your enemy" as he beat me early on and I took it to heart by reading every book. This saved my ass last year when I realized an opponent used a power that he couldn't normally do in hth and my game went from a loss to a win when I realized the error. Also read the rule book and keep up on the FAQs as some strategies may be viable or unviable depending on how they rule a particular issue.

If you can watch games people play and learn the combos people are using. If a tournament has their missions available before the event, read up on the missions and plan your army accordingly. Also know your strengths and weaknesses, I know what my weaknesses are and I try to compensate for them while gaming. Knowing what you can do and what your opponent's army can do is essential in gaming successfully.

To Netlist or not

 Netlists are generally unsuccessful as the players just copy it and rarely mold it to their liking or playstyle and then wonder when they get crushed.

But a netlist I consider a valuable tool when it comes to army building. If you find a particular netlist to your style, go ahead and copy it. Now play with it a few times and start tweaking the army. If you feel you need more anti-tank, get rid of a few things to include it. This theoy of gaming was David's as his theory of becoming a great 40k player involved mastery of an army and playing it enough to cover any situation.

I agree with this theory and adopted it with my Dark Eldar from 3rd to 4th and had one of the best win percentages than with any other army.  But it involved both playing my army to know what it can and cannot do and knowledge of other armies to assess what to do in order to beat them. It was one of the earliest netlists for Dark Eldar (2002) but I took that list and made it my own by tweaking and adapting over the course of 6 years playing with it. Do not ever look down on a netlist, instead think of it as a starting point.

 Conclusion

This guide is only a small portion but it lays the ground work of things you want to work on away from the tabletop. You can go on DakkaDakka to find plenty of articles on tactics of what to do in a game.

To me, 40k is less about tactics and more about playing the game. Some people take 40k way too seriously and consider themselves the 2nd coming of Patton but the way I see the game is much like how I see playing Monopoly: achive the object of the game and win.

Most of the objectives are not complex and its a matter of keeping your head in the game and minding the objectives and you will do fine. Find and army that you like how it plays and run with it. Learn about other armies and rules to maximize damage and minimize yours. Finally, build upon other people's ideas and make your own with experience and adaption.

Enjoy the game

Dave along with "TheHod" have their own blog where they muse about modeling and the competitive scene. You can check it out here No Turtles Allowed

Dust Warfare Part 1 - Overview

Lately I've been suffering from GW/40K burnout , and without wanting to go into details , have been looking around for something else . A few months back I stumbled upon the Dust models , but being only a Boardgame , it quickly evaporated . Last month , I read a thread on DakkaDakka about the Table Top Wargame based on the Dust universe , and now I'm hooked !

This week I managed to get my paws on a starter set ( no small feat may I add , since Warfare dropped looks like the models have sold like hot cakes ! The Revised Core Set was out of stock pretty much everywhere , and to have Digital Sushi get me a copy , well , stunned would be my reaction .) so time to put some thoughts on paper . And use the clubs shiney new blog whilst I'm at it , thanks Ettiene , brilliant idea !

Universe

Dust is set in an alternate timeline , 1947 to be precise . So whats changed you ask ? In a nutshell , WW2 is still going strong . German scientists discovered an extra terrestrial power source called VK in Antarctica and have used it to power new weapons of war . Hitler has been assassinated , and the Nazi's removed from power . Karl Donitz is the leader of the Axis , Erwin Rommel the head of the Wehrmacht . War has spread across the globe . 90% of all nations now fall under 3 power blocks , the Axis (centered around Germany with Italy and Japan being the other main nations) , the Allies (centered around the U.S.A with Great Britain and the French forming the other nations) and the SSU (Sino Soviet Union) making up the third block , the U.S.S.R and China being the bulk of this faction . 

Rules

Not played a game yet , so this section will be covered in depth at a later date . 

Basics . Written by Andy Chambers(ex GW writer) and Mack Martin backed by Fantasy Flight Games . The core rules clocks in at 146 pages , and covers fluff , crunch and army lists for both Axis and Allies . It looks well presented , full colour and very easy to understand rules . 

Most online reviews I've read have given Dust Warfare glowing reviews . Sadly there seems to be an undercurrent of anti-GW feelings in most . No , don't think this game is the death of GW . 

Currently there are 3 supported factions , with the SSU only recently getting rules in the Operation Zverograd expansion . Next year there is strong indications of a 4th faction being released , and possibly a 2nd Edition of the rules . 

Models

This section will also be getting a more in depth look once I receive my starter set and an Allies Medium Walker , hopefully next week .

What I can say , the models come primed (and can be painted easily to apparently , watch this space !) with all the options in the box . Think about that . I buy an Axis Medium Walker , and all 3 variants are in the box ! Ditto for the Infantry . From what I've read , the Walkers are bloody amazing , but the Infantry could be a little rubbery . Will confirm or deny this at a later date .

Now the next thing about them . Their not "Model Kits" , but Game Pieces . Confused ? Let me explain . There is little to no assembly required . You open the box , put them on the table and away you go . If you like building kits , this could be a problem for you . Myself , if the urge to build hits me , GW can supply all I need . They do look good from what I've seen online , one or two duff ones but not something to vent over considering what they cost . Which brings me too .....

Cost ! 

Yes , the issue that's on every GW players lips . 

Answer , even using local suppliers , it's cheap . Way cheaper than GW . A quick example . Prices taken from Extreme Wargaming . Click here to see for yourself !

Starter set : R880 , gets you 2 armies (Axis and Allies) , one hero apiece , 3 Infantry Squads apiece and a Light Walker each . Individually the box set would cost about R875 per faction ! Pretty damn good don't you think ? And that excludes some scenery , Dust Tactics tiles and 6 Dice . The army total comes up to about 140AP , and to get it to 300AP(similar to your standard 1750pt 40K army size) will put you back about R1200 . Holy cow ! Try build a 40K army for that much brand new ! 

Then consider you and a mate club together for the starter , and the cost is even less . All in all this part has made me and more importantly , my bank balance very happy indeed . 

The rules can be downloaded from Wargames Vault for $20 may I add . Sadly this is the one downside to the story . Brand new the rules are a tad pricey in hard copy , but considering the savings above , not too big an issue for me . 

Conclusion

So much for my first blog post , and in time I will be adding articles focused on the rules and models when I get them , play with them and paint them . Until then , keep them dice rolling !

Continued in Part 2 ! The Models have arrived ....
Simon