Tabletop Minions has posted a new video in which Atom Smasher talks about game advocacy, or the idea of spreading a game by teaching it to people.
A lot of good points are made in the video, and they all apply to Dust Warfare (which is mentioned). If you really like a game, but no-one plays it locally, why not be the person who starts the local community?
What would happen if Angela and Sigrid from the Axis, Koshka from the SSU and Rosie from the Allies got together to play Tactics? Dust World Coalition seems to have the answer and has posted a time-lapse video of the four ladies cosplaying these heroes playing Dust Tactics, filmed at Dust Day Southwest earlier this year.
The cosplayers did an amazing job of portraying the heroes, and seemed to have fun playing their miniature selves on the tabletop!
Svyatoslav from Spellscape Miniatures has posted another showcase, this time of the Allied hero OZZ 117.
OZZ doesn’t usually get a lot of media time, so it’s nice to see him in this showcase. Head over to the blog post to see 360 degrees’ worth of photos of the paintjob. Svyatoslav also posted a video showcase too, if you’d like to see the model sort-of in motion.
Battlefront Miniatures has posted a job opening for a “DUST Hero”, someone who will manage all things Dust at the company’s HQ in Auckland, New Zealand.
Tasks include:
• Updating and managing a new DUST website (including the creation of new content).
• Supporting the wider DUST community.
• Responding to customer queries.
• Providing support to Clubs and Event Organisers.
Think you’re up to it? Check out the full post on the FoW site for more information. The application deadline is 5PM local time on Friday, May 31.
Wizard Games will host a Dust Warfare Regionals tournament in Gothenburg, Sweden on June 15. The page doesn’t have much info about the event right now, but as it’s Regionals it’ll probably be a 300 AP event.
If you’re in the area and plan to go, get in touch with Wizard Games for more information (and ask them to update the page!).
Dust War has announced the next tournament in their 2013 series, called “The Good, the Bad, and the Dusty”. It’ll take place at Hit Point Hobbies in Aberdeen, NC on July 20, 2013, and will be a 300 AP event.
For more information, have a look at the announcement on Dust War’s Facebook page, and if you’re logged into Facebook be sure to ask any questions you have about the event.
The alpha 1.0 version of the Wargamers Consortium website recently launched, and brought with it some new forums including some for Dust Warfare. As they’re so new, the forums are currently quite empty, but maybe with some support they’ll become another good place to talk about Dust, along with places like Dust War and Panzerpunk.
The significant thing about the WGC Dust Warfare forums is that the WGC site doesn’t exclusively focus on Dust Warfare, so this might be a good place to meet folks who play other games and would also like to talk about Dust.
At long last, Dust War has opened a YouTube channel! The first video is an unboxing of the Allies P-48 Pelican, in which OldHat takes a look at the new jet due in stores any day now in the US and in the next couple of weeks around the world.
The more Dust content, and support for that content, on YouTube, the better! Be sure to subscribe to the Dust War channel as it looks like more videos are on their way.
At BolS, Frost has written an op-ed in which he says that the switch from FFG to Battlefront will be good for Dust.
Battlefront, however, knows a great deal about tabletop wargaming, with its Flames of War flagship game more or less occupying the undisputed 3rd place among wargames in the United States. Also, while DUST Studio can provide the sci-fi element, Battlefront really knows how to get WWII enthusiasts excited in a way that FFG simply lacked. While one need not be a WWII enthusiast to appreciate DUST, bringing in the WWII aficionados will build the player base and the game as a whole.
There are a couple of inaccuracies in the article, such as the usual error people make in thinking that FFG designed and manufactured Dust models when in fact they only marketed and distributed them. Also, a few people in the comments seem to think that Battlefront will be the death of Dust. What do you think?
Last night, Dust War’s Levi Hill broke the sad news that Cameron Akers, co-founder of Dust War and known in the community as Iron Joe Galka, has passed away.
Akers was a pillar of the Dust community and helped to make Dust War one of the biggest, if not the biggest Dust resources on the planet. He was also instrumental in helping the Dust Warfare scene take off in the south-east of the US, including the organisation of two large tournaments, and was an enthusiastic SSU player, writing many articles about the Red Machine for Dust War.
He will be missed by many. Rest in peace, Iron Joe.
Over at Dust Universe, Lars has posted some clarifications about the DWC, announced last week as the new governing body of Dust organised play, from Floris Hussaarts, DWC UK Front Leader.
The short article covers a couple of the concerns people had about the timing of the announcement, and the membership fee.
Operation Buttercup is a Dust Warfare tournament which will take place in Dandenong, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday, August 10. Hosted by the D.O.G club, it’ll be a 350 AP event, starting at 09:00 and ending at 18:00. Entry fees cost AUD$15 for D.O.G members, AUD$20 for non-members.
For more information and to claim your spot, email fattdex AT hotmail.com.
Anime Central (ACEN) is an annual anime convention held in Rosemont, IL, 30 minutes from downtown Chicago. The convention provides open gaming tables for miniature gaming, and this year the Chicago Area Dust Warfare group plans to invade and play some Dust!
The Dust Up will take place on the Sunday, May 19th, starting at noon. Check out the group’s Meetup page for more information and discussion of the day, and if you live nearby why not go along?
Over at Anything But Ones, enrgie has posted more 400 AP action from a recent Axis vs Allies game, in which his Axis faced an Allies jump list (every unit had jetpacks).
The Axis list is included in the article, and lots of photos are included as always.
From July 1st, Dust World Coalition will become the new organised play organisation for Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare.
Managed by the Dust Devils International (DDI), the DWC is the Official Social and Competitive Play organization for all of Paolo Parente’s Dust Games: Dust Tactics, Dust Warfare, and Dust: The Boardgame. The Dust Devils pride themselves on fair play, fun events, and a passion for drawing new players and hobbyists to Paolo Parente’s World of Dust. We proudly sponsor Recon (Recruitment and Demos), Campaigns (Competitive League Play), and Offensives (Hierarchical Tournaments), culminating each year in our World-Class Event — Dust World Expo.
In short, this initiative puts Dust organised play into the hands of players. Check out the press release for more information on how DWC will be structured. Thanks to TTGN for the heads-up.
Yesterday, in the Flames of War forums, John-Paul Brisigotti, CEO of Battlefront Group, posted more information (login required) on how Dust releases will be handled by Battlefront.
Having agreed to let the information flow from FFG and Paolo over the weekend we have not put up anything further until now.
All our retailers have been contacted with some starting information so here it is for all of you.
The BF Group is distributing the DUST range from 1st June onwards. There are no planned changes to supply agreements or pricing for the range so you should see nothing different happening as a buyer of the range.
Wave 8 will become public very soon and we will start solicitation through the exsiting FFG stockists as well as the retail stores we service directly. All existing FFG stockists are able to conitinue getting stock from us for future releases so there is no reason that supply will be effected at all.
FFG will continue to sell the current range until stocks are delpleted, probably towards the end of this year.
BF will sell the core game and new waves starting to ship in July and add to the range as FFG stock runs out.
BF will take over the website in June so expect to see some new things there.
FFG has events planned in the US over the summer that will continue and we will then take them over from Gencon.
Basically we are working closely with Paolo and FFG so that this transition works on every level as we both want DUST to continue to flourish.
Nothing being made by BF is impacted by this deal as the manufacturing of the range is being handled by Paolo’s factory exactly as it has been from the start so the DUST range does not stop us making any tanks or terrain for FOW or any other brand we have.
More information will come out directly on the DUST site but we will keep the community informed through all of our channels.
John-Paul
It seems that the handover from FFG to BF will be pretty smooth. Of particular note is that new models are headed our way in July, and that pricing will stay the same in the short term (although Dust Studio has already said that there will be a price increase at some point this year). You might also start to see Dust in stores that hadn’t stocked it before, especially those that already stock Flames of War.
FFG has updated the Dust items on the the Upcoming Releases page. The P-48 Pelican aircraft and Heavy Support Walker for the Allies, and the BR 47 Self-Propelled Weapon Platform and Heavy Weapons Team for the SSU are all “Shipping Now” and have an expected release date of May 16.
These are the last of the Icarus models to be released and, indeed, the final batch of new Dust models to be released through FFG.
Iron Joe Galka has posted an article on Dust War about the recent announcement of Battlefront taking on Dust duties from FFG.
There are some conflicting reports whether Battlefront is taking over the ruleset for D:W, but information that I have received from trustworthy sources state that they will. The other option seems to be that Paolo Parente’s Dust-Studios will be taking over the ruleset – Olivier Zamfirescu posted in the official Dust Tactics group on Facebook, but didn’t really address either point.
The agreement with Battlefront kicks in on June 1st, and it seems Dust players are in for interesting times ahead!
After yesterday’s news that Battlefront Miniatures will be the new distributor and marketer of Dust Warfare and Dust Tactics, Paolo Parente and Olivier Zamifirescu of Dust Studio have both contributed more information on the move.
First up, Olivier posted some reassurance on the official Dust Facebook group, which I reposted to Google+ (for people not on Facebook):
Onto details now:
Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare miniatures are not going to change scale. Period. We have a TON of things planned, and as Paolo mentioned a few weeks ago we are already working on the miniatures that will be released in 2015… And I still have a pretty good idea of what’s happening after that. So no worries here. You’re stuck with us FOR YEARS.Also as Paolo said recently, 15 mm (1/100 scale) is something we both love. Do we want to do something in this scale? Yes. When? I don’t know. What shape / form / etc? No idea yet.
Well, I have a few ideas actually, but they are just that: ideas. In my twisted mind only. Yet.
Will this one day mean the end of the 30 mm (1/48 scale)? NO. We have so many things we want to share with you. We are always trying to increase the quality of our miniatures and are not done trying. Believe me the last thing we want to do is to stop.
Meanwhile, over at Front Toward Enemy, Jeremiah got in touch with Paolo to ask a couple of questions about the move.
FTE: Could you please clarify Dust Studios relationship with FFG and will your relationship with Battlefront be any different? I.e. Did you make everything and FFG just handled Marketing and Distribution, or did they have a hand in the manufacturing of Dust T/W?
Paolo:The relationship should be very clear, Dust Studio owns the IP, designs and manufactures.
Battlefront now and FFG before market/distribute the products.
Warfare is a licensed product entirely made by FFG (the only ones capable of shooting pictures of Snow Camouflaged Walkers on a field of GREEN GRASS). Battlefront will take over it, and maybe they will just use Vincent Fontaine`s Wonderful Pictures…
Thanks to Olivier and Paolo for being so accessible at what must be an incredibly busy time for them.
Dust Studio announced today that publishing and distribution of Dust Warfare and Dust Tactics will transfer from Fantasy Flight Games to Battlefront Miniatures, producers of Flames of War, as of June 1st, 2013.
“Dust has had a wonderful few years, during which we have seen the game’s community grow exponentially,” said Dust creator Paolo Parente. “Both Dust Studio and Fantasy Flight Games have evolved significantly during our relationship, and we now mutually feel that we are both better served by moving in new directions. Christian (CEO of Fantasy Flight Games) and I have known each other for many years, and I can say that this decision is a truly amicable one.”
Added John-Paul Brisigotti, CEO of Battlefront Group, “we are very excited by the Dust universe, and although it is a first for us to be distributing a product other than our own, the fit with our business model made this partnership something we could not resist. During the last few years, we have been moving into new avenues to expand the breadth of products the group offers, and we see DUST as another one of these ranges.”
“We’ve been fortunate to distribute Dust Tactics since its debut at GEN CON 2010, and we’re very proud of our development work on Dust Warfare,” said Christian T. Petersen, CEO of Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). “The last year, however, as FFG experienced phenomenal growth across many of our publishing categories, it became clear that Paolo and the Dust games would be better served by a partner who specializes in the unique business of miniature games. We’re confident that Paolo’s partner choice in Battlefront Miniatures is a
strong one, and we wish nothing but the best to them, to Paolo, and to the fantastic Dust fan community.”Starting June 1st, Battlefront Miniatures will begin soliciting and distributing all new products for Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare. FFG will ship all of its previously solicited new products prior to that date, and FFG will continue to exclusively sell all current Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare items while its inventories last. While FFG will support the Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare regionals events in May and June 2013, all future marketing and organized play for the games will be handled by Battlefront Miniatures, including the scheduled GEN CON 2013 tournaments.
This is a move that, apparently, has been in the works for some time, and it’ll be interesting to see how things pan out over the next few months. Naturally, some people will be a bit jumpy about the move, but I’m optimistic about Dust’s future.
What do you think about the move? Post in the comments and let us know!
