Dust Warfare News

The mini that will never be?

Well, I've almost finished the Dust minis I have, and more are in the mail (hopefully they'll be here soon) and I've hit a roadblock. I need the SSU ground attack helicopter pictured above, but it's been "at the manufacturer" for months now. I've followed the minis for a while before Demitra proposed getting into the game, simply because Andy Chambers wrote the system. What's even more irksome is that the Red Guard miniatures as well as the heavy tanks are coming out before the chopper. This annoys me because these minis have no Dust Warfare rules, and won't until December. The company, in my opinion, really ought to finish releasing the stuff with rules before they release models without them. Now, I understand that the nuances of fabricating these things is well beyond my ken, but were I to be running Dust Studio or FFG I'd be applying some boot leather to some rumps right about now.

In other news, I messed up my transport helicopter yesterday. I thought the "glass" on the canopy was permanently attached to the "metal" part of the cockpit. Imagine my surprise when I turned over the part only to realize the clear plastic popped out and in. Of course, this was after I had varnished the entire assembly, and now I'm left with a cloudy canopy. Rats. The clear plastic is sitting in a Simple Green bath right now in the hopes the varnish will get eaten off, but I don't hold out too much hope.

I also found that Dust Studio does in fact put out decals. I'll be ordering some of the SSU sheets to slap on before I put on the layer of Dullcote that finishes the models up. I'm really looking forward to having everything for the game wrapped up, and then heading out to get some games in. I may even use (*gasp*) unpainted minis and proxy my transport helicopter as a ground attack helicopter (heresy!). That, of course, is dependant upon how long it takes the ol' USPS takes to get my last two units to me.

Finally, I'm trying to decide how to differentiate my two Close Combat Squads and my two Battle Squads from one another. I was thinking of perhaps marking their bases or giving them some sort of distinguishing mark on them, which would be easy on the Close Combat Squads (different colored Molotov cocktail bottles) but on the Battle Squad I'm just not sure. Hopefully something will come to me soon.