Dust Tactics

I've been involved in a discussion of this yet-to-be-released pre-painted tactical miniatures game. Since that discussion is buried in the comments to a post on another blog that really didn't have anything to do with Dust Tactics in the first place, I decided to go ahead and make a post here that collects both the information out there on the web, and my reactions to it.

Several of the miniatures were revealed at the recent GAMA trade show, and there are some pictures of both the mecha and a couple of the characters here and here.

The scale was reported to be 35mm by one of the sculptors on his blog, along with a few pictures of the model he's been working on.

The game system was reported by Tabletop Gaming News to be the same system that Rackham uses for AT-43. This is interesting considering that according to the information on the net about the development of AT-43, Dust is the game that AT-43 was originally meant to be.

What I mean by that is that the background for AT-43 was originally meant to be Alternate Timeline-43 where WWII took a turn for the weird. The Human and Karman factions are all holdovers from the early design work on that AT-43. Eventually, they switched gears and made it After Trauma-43 set in the far future rather than an alternate reality. Dust goes back to the original idea of an alternate history WWII.

The main concern I have about this is that the core rules for AT-43 are a bit bland. They're solid, but nothing spectacular. What really makes the whole thing shine are the the army-specific chrome rules. These differentiate the factions enough to keep things interesting, and to give each force a distinct flavor. Whether or not they are able to do the same thing with Dust Tactics is yet to be revealed.

I hope they do though, because the preview models really look sweet, especially the mecha. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.