Dust Review or "How I Stopped Worrying and loved Nexus Ops"

Dust is a one of the new offerings from Fantasy Flight Games, based on the comic book of the same name by 12 Gauge Comics. It depicts an alternate, "what if?", world with World War II as the backdrop. The catalysts to this alternate world are the discovery of "Vrill Kultur", a massively powerful energy source and the capture of an extraterrestrial by the Axis powers. These two discoveries spark a clandestine information war between the super powers; and alliances, technology, and politics are steered into uncharted territory.

Object of the game: To be the first to achieve a set number of Victory Points by capturing (and holding) capitals, power sources, and majorities (holding the most land, sea, and production areas). If a player reaches the VP threshold, and holds at least one capital, they win.

Components: Well produced, which is to be expected from a Fantasy Flight game. I especially loved the tanks looking like German Sturmtiger assault guns from WWII. However, the rest of the pieces look absolutely boring and uninspired from the comic book that spawned it. The puzzle piece board looks great, though.

Gameplay:

The rules aren't terribly complex, and the game comes with two sets: Premium (aka "Basic" ) and Epic (aka "Advanced" ). Both rulebooks are formatted exactly the same way, so if you're familiar with one, you'll know where to go to when you have a rules question in the other. The only real differences between the two are calculations for Production Points, Victory Points, and Initial Setup. Premium games go faster than Epic, because all spaces on the map are taken at the beginning of the game, whereas Epic starts the players with smaller areas of the world in their control, and they must eke out a bigger piece of the global pie.

1. Initiative Step: The players select cards and reveal them simultaneously. The person playing a card with the highest combat value will go first, followed by the second highest, and so on. Ties for highest are handled by the highest movement. If there is still a tie, then tie breaker stars on the card break ties.

2. Player Turns: Starting with the player who won initiative, each player goes through several sub-phases, such as building new units, moving their units, and attacking enemy held positions.

3. Victory Point Step: After everyone takes their turn, all players calculate VP and move their marker along the track. In the Epic game, players score 2VP per capital, 2VP per majority, and 1VP for every three power sources they hold. In the Premium game, it's 1VP per capital, majority, and power source.

After the above three steps are completed, a new Initiative round begins until a victor is declared, in case of ties the player with the most capitals wins. If there is a tie after that, then the player who controls the most land and sea areas wins. If there is still a tie, a shared victory is delcared.


Things I liked:

"Jack of all Trades" Cards: To break away from the procedure of one player going first, then left around the table; the game uses the cards to determine turn order, as well as movement, production and combat. So, if you want to go first, you'll play the highest combat card you have. But, you will suffer in another category like moving your forces or building new ones. The cards also allow a special ability for the turn, ranging from making a ballistic missile attack against an enemy area to denying a particular player from attacking you that turn.

Building neutral forces: I liked that you could build up neutral forces in order to build a buffer zone between you and an another player. Or, you could bolster a ragged set of neutral defenders that have just been savaged by a player who went earlier in the turn, making it more difficult for them to take their prize.

Tactical Superiority factor and screening units: Determining who goes first goes to the person who has tactical superiority. Attacking a capital always grants the defender superiority (as well as an additional five dice to roll for their attack), so they will roll to attack first. In all other cases, the players add up the tactical points to see who will go first. Fighters, Bombers, and Mechs give 1 point per unit. In case of ties, defenders get tactical superiority and roll first. Another thing to take into consideration is the fact that certain units screen attacks for the more dangerous units. When an opponent scores hits on the enemy, they can choose whoever they like to take out first. The more dangerous units, like Mechs and Bombers, will be obvious targets. However, in order to get to them, you must ablate any screening units (all tanks have to be destroyed before Mechs are targeted and all Fighters have to be shot down before Bombers can be hit)

Things I didn't like:

SQUANDERED LICENSE: Looking past the eyecandy artwork, the use of the theme that the game is based upon is sorely lacking. I love Parente's artwork and his alternate WWII history, but the game never comes close to capturing it at all. It feels lifeless and bland, devoid of any real gripping sense of narrative. Just "move your Sturmtiger further along the VP track. Oh, look, I win."

BUILT IN EQUALIZERS: There are quite a few rules to make the game equal. A list of what boils down to "No, you can't do this on your first turn." No attacking capitals, power areas, or production centers. So, for the most part, you're just building up your army on the first turn. Just like everyone else, but the only real difference is you have everyone on the same level, with more units. You also can't win the game without a capital, so that ends up being the most heavily defended space on the board. Short of using Secret Weapon or Mech Dropper cards, attacking an enemy's capital is normally a waste of resources. Also, you can't even BEGIN to think about assaulting a player's capital until a certain victory threshold is reached (20 points for an Epic game, ½ of the necessary VP to win for a Premium game). This restriction further pushes back the need or desire to attack an opponent's capital.

Final Result:

Try as I might, I tried to like it, but it just felt like an alternate version of Risk and a pretty boring one at that. I hate to say this, but I would rather play Nexus Ops or Risk: Star Wars over this game. Nexus Ops has a much better flow of tense combat and Risk: Star Wars does a much better job in the licensed theme category. Sad, really.

Final rating: 5/10

Nice review, it seems to follow the style of video game reviews Kotaku is doing. Albeit you're giving the game a final score in the end.

Never followed Kotaku, (hell, didn't even know about the place until that editor from GS got fired). I just use this format since it seemed to work the first time I used it on the other site.