More Dust!

So Rob and I rocked out a couple more games of Dust today on a particularly fine Sunday afternoon here in Auckland. I even wore shorts…… thankfully no-one commented on the whiteness of my legs :)

I’d discovered during the week that we kinda had the initiative roll wrong. We’d been playing that the player with the most successes goes first, but in actual fact it’s the other way round! So we decided to play the game correctly today.

We also tried out a scenario to make the game a little more interesting. My force for the day was:

Dust Warfare - Force Builder
Faction: Axis ( 198 / 200 )

---  Blutkreuz Platoon (198)
Upgrade: Improved Command (5)
Command Section: Sturmpioniere (25)
1st Section: Laser-Jagdgrenadiere (25)
2nd Section: "Braineaters" Übertoten Assault Squad (24)
3rd Section: Heavy Recon Grenadiers (30)
4th Section: Battle Grenadiers (17)
Support: LPW I-A "Heinrich" (20)
Support: MPW II-B "Ludwig" (40)
Support: Sniper Grenadier Team (12)

In the first game Rob tried out his air dropped walker, a heavier walker with nasty gatling guns and a range of infantry (I’ll try and get his list next time!). Now I think we got his list wrong, Seemed a bit excessive to pay 40pts each for both the transport chopper and walker, so we decided it must only be 40pts for both. Made sense at the time. A review afterwards showed that this looked wrong. I still think 40pts each for them is wrong compared to the cost of other units.

For game 1… the scenario ended up as an “unprepared” engagement with no conditions. We kinda forgot about “break the line”…. Here’s the table set-up:


The first couple of turns were just moving units on with not much happening.

 

Then Rob went ball’s out and dropped his walker right next to my Ludwig looking to blow it to pieces!  Then he read the rules for the armament he’d given it. 120mm mortars weren’t the best option being more of a long ranged artillery weapon…… It’d been a long week for Rob, so we switched out the 120mm for his RPG option….. I would soon regret this decision!



His heavy walker starts lining up my poor little Heinrich…
 

The SSU Commissar orders the SSU platoon his is with forward to deal with my Zombies since they’d wouldn’t be able to react to his move, but the SSU shooting doesn't work so well…..

Zombie return fire decimates the SSU platoon (I love zombies :) )

 

There is some revenge next turn though as a single RPG blows my Ludwig to smithereens :(

 

SSU forces continue to push forward, but struggle against the firepower of the Axis forces, although Heinrich is quickly dealt with….

 

But a lucky supercharged shot from the Laser-Jadgrenadiere knocks off the heavy SSU walker effectively ending the game with Rob conceding.

 

I think we got most things right in this game. Getting cover correct certainly made a difference and ensured infantry units were a little more survivable.

As there was time, we decided to rock out a second game. This time the scenario would be a “force collision” with the “key position” objective and no conditions.

I used the same force. Rob dropped the transport chopper and walker for one of his regular walkers. Table set-up:



I’d chosen the forested hill and a small forest near my long table edge as my key points. Both sides effectively head for the hill since it’s pretty much centre of the table

My zombies move up to have a crack at SSU infantry in the forest, but karma is a bitch…… My dice rolling turns against me…

 

Both my tank killer units target the heavier SSU walker, but fire is ineffectual (as is the return fire). Not helped by Ludwig being blinded early on in the game.

 

It takes a brave Axis solider with a flamethrower to finish off the SSU walker.



3 Axis platoons finally clear out most of the SSU infantry around the central hill. Rob makes one last ditch effort with his smaller walker, but runs into the 5 panzerfausts and a flamethrower…. the result is as is expected…. one smoking walker. That brings turn 5 (and the game) to the end.

 

Now Rob, the cheeky bugger, had picked the sets of tank traps as his key points. This meant we were both holding our key objectives and ending the game in a draw.

All in all, good fun. Changing to scenarios rather than kill ‘em all was a good change.

The one thing neither of us were sure on was the person rolling the least successes gaining initiative. Not really sure that worked and kinda made things difficult. An example of this is nearing the end of game 2, Rob only had 3 units left vs. my 6 or 7. He still won initiative meaning I got to go first which made things really tough for him and gave me a chance to finish off some units before he could do anything. Maybe we have something wrong here rules or tactics wise?

As for the other guys…. they played some Zombiecide. I think the zombies won… :)

Photography was harder today. The gaming garage was quite dark/shadowy even though it was bright outside. I ended up using flash, but I think it’s left photos too bright. I also think I was getting a little tooooo close with the close-ups which hasn’t helped. Tried playing around with focal length, but without a tripod, the results aren’t good (compounded with getting too close I think).

Anyway all good fun.