Let's begin where I left off, shall we? I've shelved my SSU army for a bit, seeing as my infantry horde idea was, shall we say, ill advised. Lots of Vehicle 5, 6, and even 7 units have been showing up, and despite the horror on my opponents' faces when I plunk down eight snipers, they just don't cut it against heavier machines. This means I'm waiting to pick up a Red Guard platoon so I can take some vehicles to deal with these threats without dropping my sniper count too drastically. In particular the "Matrioshka" tank hunter. Since I can take it as part of a regular Red Guard platoon without eating up a support slot, it's one of the ideal walkers for dealing with heavy armored threats. I'll go into my army plans in a later army list post. For now, Allies!
First up, every army needs a good commander. With this in mind I began with a "Hell Boys" squad. They're monsters up close with two flamethrowers and three shotguns. Unfortunately they don't have a radio or a medic, so it's up to "The Boss" command squad to take up the slack. Combined with their "Long Tom" strike, these bad boys can happily lead from the rear without feeling bad at all.
Having placed a Headquarters in my army, it's time for the grunts. I traded my Axis units from the Dust Tactics starter to Demitra for his Allied units. Thus I have two units of "Death Dealers". What happens when I need to dislodge enemy units from an entrenched position though? Who ya' gonna call? Well, a "BBQ Squad", obviously. I still feel I would like to have some "Gunners" as well as some "Recon Boys" for my force, but these three squads have thus far been a good start.
While these squads are large, they can be a touch squishy. Sometimes you need a more elite unit to deal with a threat. That's where the Infantry 3 elite units come in. Hardcore firepower is provided by a squad of "Tank Busters" and "Grim Reapers". When the Grim Reapers need a touch more... "fire" power, that's when Ozz 117 shows up to play. With his flamethrower denying enemy units cover, and the Grim Reapers' twin .30 caliber machineguns cranking out loads of shots, enemy units shouldn't last too long in the face of their withering hail of fire.
What about when the fighting gets up close and personal though? Time to call in those most hardcore of hardcore close combat units. "Red Devils" may be slow, and they may have a short range, but they sure do pack a wallop with their 3/1 or 1/3 phasers. Provided they get to do their thing, stuff goes *poof* when they unleash hell. Another tricky to use unit that also packs a punch is "The Hammers". Combined with Rhino they pretty much rule any close combat engagement. Axis Gorillas? No problem. Heavy walker got you down? Just go Berserk and pound its hull in. These dudes tend to draw a TON of fire, and for good reason, so you have to be extremely careful with them. Keep their heads down until the right moment, then go stomp some heads in!
You've got to get those Axis and SSU scumbags to keep their heads down. That's when you call on the "Crack Shots" snipers. Hitting on blanks as well as ignoring both armor and cover, you're sure to whittle down even the most elite of infantry units. They don't have the tank killing power of the SSU's snipers however, so get them into a position away from enemy armor and rain terror down on the enemy.
Now we move on to the real draw for Dust, the walkers. Since I got a "Blackhawk" in the starter box, I painted it up. I really don't have anything nice to say about this machine, so we'll move on. The "Wildfire" on the other hand just plain performs. Its quad .50 caliber machineguns rain terror down on infantry and up at flyers alike. The fact that they're Fast and have a 24" range lets them get just where they're needed and lay in suppressing (or even killing) fire without the enemy getting to react. Very important against those slippery fliers!
The only medium walker I have in my army at the moment is a "Cobra", but I'm pretty sure that's going to change soon. A 24" 5/1 or 3/2 gun that ignores armor? Yes sir.
It's kind of hard to take in the work I've done on my army in the weeks I've been away from a blog entry alone, but here's my current painted horde.
It's gotten to the point where I'm having a rough time getting them into the pistol case I use to carry them around. I'm looking for a non-GW (preferably less expensive than Battlefoam) figure case to get all these minis (plus more, including a "Fireball") into. I guess I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled.
Having an... interesting travel arrangement for my Dust dudes hasn't stopped me from getting a few games in. In fact, I'm tied with Demitra for the championship of our FNSLGS escalation league. This can only mean one thing; showdown! We've not played each other in the store yet, seeing as how we game every Tuesday, but this butting of heads was bound to happen eventually.
One of us (or maybe both) should do a battle report on the game. One thing's for sure, we're going to kick up a lot of "Dust" when Khadoran Machine Never Breaks and Wargaming Chaos go head-to-head!
The forthcoming epic throwdown of epicness would be the perfect time for the double battle report we discussed. On the other hand, do you want to have the NFL level constant interruptions of taking notes and/or pictures while playing a game that has actual stakes? I'm game either way.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your actual content, did you paint your bases black before sanding or after? With no consistent edge or lip to the base I'm concerned about varying amounts of ballast from model to model and, as mentioned at Huzzah, spending more time on the base than on the model itself. I can see myself taking many pains to ensure I don't get the black parts brown or the brown parts black.
Well, it's not like this is a real tournament game. There's really only a $20 box on the line as well as bragging rights. I don't mean to downplay it, but this has just enough at stake and just little enough pressure to make a good bat-rep. I figured we'd both bring a camera, a notebook and a pen and only take notes here and there. We can expound on our thoughts when we actually write up the final product.
DeleteAs far as bases go, I went out and bought some brown ballast, glued it to the unpainted base, thinned down some darker brown paint to the consistency of milk, and doused the ballast in the resulting wash-is stuff I created. From there I left it to dry, Played some DOA5, and came back to the minis after an hour or two. I gave the bases a gentle wetbrush with the side of a flat chisel brush I had picked up at Wal-Mart (you can imagine the quality). Once you're done with this stage you can examine the bases and find the spots where ballast either failed to cover, didn't pick up the wash, or just plain fell off. I superglued some static grass to the bare patches and again let the bases dry. A quick pass around the edge of the base with some thinned down Vallejo Model Color black (this stuff coats great) and again time to dry. I then picked out the bolts around the edge of the bases with Citadel "Leadbelcher" since it's pretty close to the old Boltgun Metal, and voila!
All in all this process did in fact take a couple of hours, but when done in batches and when washing the ballast, say, just before bed, this process isn't as time consuming as the mini itself. At least not my minis. (^_~)*
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that you wash the bases right after gluing! That stuff needs to dry for a while (probably pretty obvious, but just in case).
DeleteI'll (try to remember to) bring my camera when the day comes. With all the reactions Dust looks to be on par with Uncharted Seas in terms of picture taking, but at least all the markers will make it easy(er) to reconstruct what happened after the fact.
DeleteAs for bases, I realized on Wednesday where I'd seen the steel plate approach. Looking at the two side by side, I'll be going the ballast route. The steel could certainly work, but I think it'd take enough TLC to make it presentable that there wouldn't be any time savings compared to the ballast approach. I'm more or less settled on schemes and approaches, now I just have to sit down and do it.