I always walk through the Fantasy Flight booth at GenCon in awe of their amazing production values. Most of their games are a little larger and more complicated than my play group tends to enjoy and my fellow writer Jim covers most of their big box games, but I do have a place in my heart for miniature wargames and I jumped at the chance to pick up the Dust Tactics Revised Core Set.

Dust is set in in a very stylized World War II setting with technology and weapons well beyond even our current present technology. Think of it as an alternate sci-fi universe where WWII happens at a very advanced technical stage of human history. Dust approaches the mini wargame genre with a more accessible approach than other wargames. The board is made up of large squares with battlefields that can be set up with assorted tiles or even the poster-like boards included in the box:

The posters in the above image will unfold to be 6x9 squares and are printed on both sides. You can combine these together for larger battle fields and even customize the squares with some assorted single square tiles included in the box. There is also a scenario book with many different setups and victory conditions to get you started and familiar enough with the game to later create your own scenarios. There are also a few 3D elements to add to the board before the game starts, pictured here with the set of dice and the pack of extra tiles:

The two crates will give your squads of soldiers soft cover while they are in the same square. The tank traps will give squads hard cover and the heavy armored walkers can not enter the squares with the traps; they can crush the crates to remove them from the board, though. Any unit can shoot their weapons at these features in attempts to destroy them.

At the top of the card you see the sqaud’s movement allowance, Armor class and hit points (number of soldiers). A higher armor class will mean that hits are harder to make. Under the picture of the miniatures are the weapons lines set in a grid with the weapons of your units in the rows and the Armor class you are shooting at in the columns. You can choose a different target for each weapon line your squad has. For example if a squad has 3 shotguns and a 2 flamethrowers you can target one enemy with all your shotguns and another enemy with your 2 flamethrowers. When you fire, you will find and compare the Armor class of your target against the weapon you are using on the chart and it will tell you how many dice to roll and how many hits each successful roll will give.

The 6 sided dice are very simple, with 4 blank sides and 2 sides with a cross-hairs signifying a hit. You will also use these dice for armor or cover saves. If your squad has soft cover and your opponent gets 3 hits on you, you will roll 3 dice and each cross-hairs will save against a hit. If you have hard cover, blank sides of the dice will save.

The number of army points the squad is worth while building is on the bottom right.

Walker cards only have a few differences from squad and hero cards. They have the number of hit-points represented on the bottom left corner with crosses that you can tick off when hit with a dry erase marker. They can also target different enemies for each weapon line they have (if more than one).

On your turn you will get to activate one unit card by turning it sideways. You will get to perform 2 actions with that unit:

Move - Move the units movement allowance.
Attack - Use all the weapons in the unit.
Skill - Use a special skill listed on the unit.
Sustained Attack - Spend both your actions for a sustained attack which lets you re-roll misses. (You must declare this before you see your roll)
Nothing - Pass an action to do nothing.

You get to do any number of those in any order, except you may not take two Attack actions in one turn- that’s what a Sustained Attack is for. After you’ve completed your two actions, your opponent will get a turn to activate one of his units. This will continue until all the units on the field have been activated with all the cards turned sideways. This ends 1 whole round and all unit cards are turned back up and another round begins. Most campaigns in the book play for 8 rounds. If you destroy your enemy completely you win the game. If the last round ends with both sides on the field, points are awarded according to the scenario's victory conditions (most often, the most number of army points destroyed wins).

That’s the basics to give you an idea if this game is for you. It plays fast and it plays very cleanly lending itself to epic battles with lots of units on the field without getting too complicated or mired down in difficult rules. This is right up my alley as I’ve enjoyed other miniature skirmish games in the past, but didn’t enjoy the amount of time and energy they took to play. Next time Jim Fleckenstein is in town, I’m going to challenge him in an epic battle of Eurogamer VS. Wargamer and probably get my ass handed to me because he is proficient in both genres, but I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy it none the less.

This is a beautiful game which can be expanded and customized to your heart’s desire. Fantasy Flight Games has and will probably continue to produce many expansions. This game is also great for any players who love the hobby of crafting terrain and painting models.

Armor up and shoot straight!