Dust Warfare: First Impressions

All this talk of Dust: Warfare has got me interested.  So,  I decided to start it up.  I began by ordering an Axis medium Panzer Walker.  So,  I talked a couple friends into starting it with me and one of them started by ordering the rule book.  First impressions on the background, models, and the rules all seem rather positive on our end. I did decide to modify the base models somewhat considering the time saved on construction and priming.

So, once we read a little bit from the book I started getting a list together.  To start we chose to make 150 point armies.  Below you will see my first platoon which is of the Sturmgrenadiere variety, the jack of all trades for axis platoons.  All this was purchased for under $100 through amazon.  Nice!

First up we have the command section, the Kommandotrupp squad.  There's the officer, a radioman, machine-gunner, rifleman, and an engineer.  You can see the universal modification that I made, adding stocks to all of the StG 47 rifles.  I also lowered the angle at which the officer is holding his rifle.

Next up is the first of two Battle Grenadier squads.  They are the basic troops of the German forces.  Not much to modify on this first one.  Just the stocks and lowering the Panzershreck  on the guy second from the right so that he is looking over it.  I also made some leg swaps for better posing.

Here we have the second Battle Grenadier squad.  Made some more leg swaps and switched the Panzerfaust in the sergeant's hand for his StG 47.  On all of the troops who are shooting their rifles, I cut off the  fronts of their necks and glued them so that they appear to be looking down their rifle sights.  I then had to fill in the back of their necks with some greenstuff.

This squad is a Laser Grenadier squad, there was not much to do here so to break it up I changed up one of the guys.  The leader, in the center, used to have his left arm positioned on the laser rifle, similarly to the troops on either side.  So  I cut this arm and hand loose and made it so he, like all the other squad leaders, is pointing forward.

The last of the troops are Heavy Recon Grenadiers.  Pretty intimidating in their heavy armor.  This squad did not take too much either.  I had to strengthen the combat knives with super glue since the plastic is sorta soft.  I also re-positioned the guy on the right so he is not leaning so far forward.  He looked like he was slipping onto his face before if you ask me.

Lastly we have the Medium Panzer Walker.  First we have the Ludwig, which is armed with 2 8.8cm guns.  You can see the front piece of spaced armor, the gun-shield I added, and the antenna.

Here's a view of the side, where you can see some of the stowage, and the spaced armor covering the engine compartment.

Here is the rear, again showing the spaced armor as well as a rack of Jerry cans.

On this side I added some steps for climbing  into the vehicle.

Second we have the Lothar, which has a pair of rocket launchers.

Lastly there is the Luthor, armed with a claw and a Flak Cannon.  All three of them look pretty cool in my opinion, and I cannot wait to check them out in game.  The model had minimal flash and did not take too long to clean up.  Some of the parts did not have adequate glue and broke, so I had to re-glue them.

This picture shows a test of the camouflage pattern I was trying out for the infantry.  It's based on late war German camo patterns.  I decided I liked the way it looked, but I switched the base color from German Fieldgrey to Catachan Green.  I was originally going to paint them as Afrika Korps, but the models are wearing heavier clothes and gloves not really suited to North Africa.

Having decided to use this type of camo I decided to do a full test model using the officer.  His hat and trousers are German Fieldgrey from Vallejo, his armor is a dark green from Tamiya, and his camo smock is as shown above.

On his chest and left shoulder is the Balkenkreuz, a stylized version of the Iron Cross and symbol of the Wehrmacht.

His right shoulderpad displays his rank of Oberleutnant, or 1st Lieutenant.

I am very happy with my decision to start this game so far.  I like the models, they had little flash and very little cleaning.  The only dislike I had was the softness of the plastic.  It means that thin things like rifles and knives are easy to bend and most of them came warped.  You should go through and add thin bands of super glue to harden them and position them as they should be.  Other than that all that I really had to do was glue the torsos and the heads.  I chose to do more because of the time saved due to pre-assembly and in all it still took less time than if you would have had to clip sprues, clean flash, and glue everything together.      They're in 1/48 scale meaning there's a load of historical kits out there waiting to be used and converted or whatever.  I like the WW2 setting and I think that they did a good job in how they got rid of the Nazis.  Stuff has to be PC these days...

  Sunday night, I will be facing my friends Allies, or my other friend's Axis.  My brother is still undecided but we're trying to swing him to play the SSU.

Look for another table post Sunday or Monday if I get enough done, then a review of how I felt about finally playing Dust.