Hans

Dust Tactics is a great mix of boardgame and wargame. The miniatures are fabulous, especially the mechs. That said, I’ve played it 4 times or so and don’t necessarily care to play it much more. I think for wargamers looking for a faster experience, it’s fantastic: I’m primarily a boardgamer who dabbles in wargames, and I realized too late that it does require quite the investment in time. It’s best to play all of the missions out of the box and then, if you still are into it, get the expansions and go from there. It can be hard as a beginner to find the right group who hasn’t already played through all of those missions. This is the spot I was in and I felt sort of like a 5th wheel–I didn’t want to have to make the group come down to my level to get me up to speed.

If you have someone who wants to begin the game with you, and you’re excited about Weird World War II, and you love minis but don’t want to sink millions of hours and dollars into a game, Dust Tactics is for you. It’s not a bad game. It’s just not what I was looking for.

This game is bursting with replayability (6 missions, any of which are deep enough to play multiple times), and full of high-level strategy with a good bit of tactics. It’s got handfuls of great minis–bits & pieces galore. If you’re like me, and you like the fiction & fluff of Warhammer 40K but think the tabletop game is sorely lacking in the game design department, this may very well scratch your itch. I could play it again and again, and it’s always a good battle that makes you think both in broad strokes and action-to-action. Fantasy Flight and Jeff Tidball knocked this one out of the park.

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER, AND THE UNIVERSE HANGS IN THE BALANCE. That about sums it up.