Dust Tactics Legal action from Dust studios against Battlefront?

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**UNCLEBADTOUCH**

Did they just post bank details on the internet or am I reading that wrong?

**timetowaste85**

Oh. Oh God. Yes, they did. Wow.

**Compel**

That was Battlefront posting that, right?

I kinda expected that's the sort of thing from watching from the peanut gallery, certain other companies would end up doing.

Battlefront Miniatures, from as far as I can tell, is incorporated in the United Kingdom.

Which means, actually having to abide by various laws... Including Data Protection.

Oh dear, oh dear...

**Krinsath**

Given that earlier Dust posted the payment details from the previous two transactions, it's pretty much par for the course here.

Also, while Battlefront UK exists it's just the EU distribution arm; the HQ and company that would have been paying that is Battlefront Miniatures Ltd. based out of New Zealand. Whether that violates NZ DP laws I obviously don't know being a dirty Yank, but given that DS's information hasn't changed from what they released 4 months ago and there's been no major legal kerfuffles over that I'm not entirely sure there's been any thing to be concerned over.

**katfude**

So some news here.

Not sure if dustwarfare is dead for good now, or just down yet again, but this seems to suggest it is dead:

http://dustgame.com/news_d.php?id=235

Pre-order for the NEW starter sets with updated basic rules and a playmat instead of a sheet of paper.

New mercenary starter box:
http://www.dustgame.com/products_d.php?sid=28&id=568

New Axis zombie starter box:
http://www.dustgame.com/products_d.php?sid=28&id=566

Anyone daring enough to give another "pre-order" a go?

Sure seems like the Battlefront ship has sailed, not with a bang, but a whimper.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and then this:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/duststudio/dust-operation-babylon/posts/1280568

A Further Wave 2 Shipping Update from Battlefront

We are pleased to confirm that after several weeks at sea that the ‘Wave 2’ shipment is due to dock in Baltimore on the 29th July. As soon as this stock gets to our warehouse we will begin packing and sending it out immediately. Many Kickstarter orders will then, finally, be complete.

As we said back in Update #108, the Wave 2 shipment will leave minor shortfalls for some products, left over from problems with the pledge manager process for some orders. Those final shortages are covered in a third ‘resupply’ order - the full list of which we have supplied recently to William Yau at Dust Studios. Upon receipt of the order confirmation, which we expect any day now, we will pay this last amount to Dust Studios straight away. This last payment will mean that all paid-for Kickstarter stock has been accounted for in full.

We have already shipped out the majority of Battlefront-supplied free items, and the remainder will be shipped either with Wave 2 or with the resupply ‘Wave 3’ order.

For the portion of the free product which Paolo Parente agreed that Dust Studios would contribute, we still do not have a final resolution. Mr Yau promised this would be resolved legally after we paid for the Wave 2 shipment, but we are still waiting for this next stage. We are open to dealing with it through whatever channels Mr Yau prefers - either mediation, arbitration or litigation. But as yet nothing has been forthcoming from Mr Yau or any legal representative.

It is important to us that every backer receives everything they were promised, and we will continue to try to make that happen. When we paid for Wave 2, we gave up the ‘leverage’ that we had when we still held those funds. And the reality of geographical jurisdiction means that we cannot practically sue a China-based company.

What we do have is a right to restrict trade of stock with our intellectual property arriving in the USA and Europe. We intend to exercise this right to protect our legal position and our investment in DUST.

Given the latest news from Paolo Parente about their new range of products they intend to release at Gen Con, it strongly implies that they intend to ignore the dispute with us and move ahead with their new plans. We want to get this all resolved once and for all so that both companies can go about their business without further interference. But this dispute must be resolved first.

This message is directed primarily at those who may be intending to purchase new DUST products from Gen Con or elsewhere. We would like to urge you to be cautious, and not to pay for product until you can actually hold it in your hands. It would be terrible if this dispute resulted in more customers pre-paying for DUST products that could not be supplied to them.

**455_PWR**

I loved dust tactics and bought some...

Then they revamped the cards for better balance... bj ought those.

Then they redid the rules with new baseball card sized cards and smoother rules... kickstarted those and didn't get all the card sets yet...

Now it appears they made their own rules and newer cards yet... nope not buying it all again. Give me my kickstarter stuff firat and maybe I'll consider buying more units... but not buying a 4th edition... no way. Dust studios cares not for supporters of their game from what I've seen. Its all about $$$$.

I thought those mercs were kickstarter exclusives (I'd have to check again), Please just give us backers our stuff!!!!

Did anyone interpret the last update as we will be getting everything in wave 2 and they are out the coat of the exclusives or we will be getting everything except for all the freebies and exclusives we pledged for?

**YouKnowsIt**

455_PWR wrote:

Now it appears they made their own rules and newer cards yet... nope not buying it all again. Give me my kickstarter stuff firat and maybe I'll consider buying more units... but not buying a 4th edition... no way. Dust studios cares not for supporters of their game from what I've seen. Its all about $$$$.

The new cards are just a visual redesign to improve legibility and create a look more in tune with Paulo's vision, there are no rule changes on them.

And they are going to upload all the cards to their website soonish for download

.

**plastictrees**

This is still painfully awful. So BF will now be trying to prevent anyone from gettin Dust products until...what exactly? Dust supplies the freebies? Refunds the costs to BF?

And now Dust are releasing a 'soft' 4th edition?

What a stupid mess.

**f2k**

Just as Fantasy Flight Game protected their assets when they broke with Dust Studios, so Battlefront is probably looking to protect theirs.

Paolo seems to be trying to circumvent that by quickly releasing a new version of Dust Tactics while handing Dust Warfare (which rumours claim he never really liked) over to a fan.

Yeah... It's a clusterfeth...

**Alpharius**

Battlefront wrote:It would be terrible if this dispute resulted in more customers pre-paying for DUST products that could not be supplied to them.

Yes, that would be...terrible.

And here I thought that his whole mess had already been resolved!

**endtransmission**

It also looks like they are selling some of the new infantry and walkers as "kits", rather than prebuilt/undercoated. Probably to get around the kickstarter exclusive/Battlefront licensed products as they are technically different.

**Moopy**

There's no way I would send money to DS at this point, even though those pre-orders look nice. IF I were to buy something it would be through a retailer.

Can't trust them at this point, sad to say. Love the look of the figures but my good will has been spent.

**mikhaila**

plastictrees wrote:
This is still painfully awful. So BF will now be trying to prevent anyone from gettin Dust products until...what exactly? Dust supplies the freebies? Refunds the costs to BF?

And now Dust are releasing a 'soft' 4th edition?

What a stupid mess.

Restricting what Yau can do with new Dust products is now about the last bit of pressure BF can use to get them to supply the items in the kickstarter that they promised to provide. Yau's attitude is that just because Paolo promised doesn't matter to him, he wants money for them.

I don't see it as restricting product. BF is warning people not to buy product they know dust probably won't supply.

**str00dles1**

This new stuff, is it all on a grid still? Or can you use a measureing tap? Is the AP on the cards their cost to deploy? So confused on all of this.

Recently I played a version of Dust where measurements on the cards were x4 in inches and played with no grid. so a move value of 3 would be 12 inches of moveing. what version is that?

**Necros**

Maybe since they’ll both be at GenCon they can sit down over a pint or 3 and talk to each other like normal people and settle everything?

**Shotgun**

str00dles1 wrote:
This new stuff, is it all on a grid still? Or can you use a measureing tap? Is the AP on the cards their cost to deploy? So confused on all of this.

Recently I played a version of Dust where measurements on the cards were x4 in inches and played with no grid. so a move value of 3 would be 12 inches of moveing. what version is that?

I am not sure I have ever seen Dust so succinctly described in such few words. "What version is that?" indeed.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Necros wrote:
Maybe since they’ll both be at GenCon they can sit down over a pint or 3 and talk to each other like normal people and settle everything?

Yep. And at the close, Paolo will say that he will pick up the check, turn to Yau and blamo, we are back at square one.

**Fenrir Kitsune**

Paolo writing cheques his ass can't cash.

**plastictrees**

mikhaila wrote:
plastictrees wrote:
This is still painfully awful. So BF will now be trying to prevent anyone from gettin Dust products until...what exactly? Dust supplies the freebies? Refunds the costs to BF?

And now Dust are releasing a 'soft' 4th edition?

What a stupid mess.

Restricting what Yau can do with new Dust products is now about the last bit of pressure BF can use to get them to supply the items in the kickstarter that they promised to provide. Yau's attitude is that just because Paolo promised doesn't matter to him, he wants money for them.

I don't see it as restricting product. BF is warning people not to buy product they know dust probably won't supply.

I thought it was clear that they were warning people not to buy product that BF would be legally preventing Dust from selling/ delivering on.

As long as some customers, somewhere are being screwed out of something they paid for.

**Crimson Devil**

Alpharius wrote:
Battlefront wrote:It would be terrible if this dispute resulted in more customers pre-paying for DUST products that could not be supplied to them.

Yes, that would be...terrible.

And here I thought that his whole mess had already been resolved!

Apparently who pays for the "freebies" DS was to supply is still in dispute. I imagine the compulsory lawsuit to sort out this mess will be very illuminating on who is responsible.

**warboss**

I don't think there will be any "compulsory" lawsuit as the freebies aren't worth it for anyone involved if they have to pay international legal fees. It's not worth it for backers who will apparently have "all paid-for Kickstarter stock" quoted from their post references above. It's not worth it to file a suit just for the "free" items for either company involved either. There will likely be a series of one sided snarky press releases and the two will part ways leaving Dust trampled between them.

**Crimson Devil**

That is the logical course, but I could also see both sides waging a worthless legal battle for a chance at vindication.

**warboss**

In a divorce, sure.. and I can see the parallels to this breakup with that type of case where the morale victory is sought frequently at the cost of sanity and actual financial sense... but both companies put money first and backers wwaaaaaaay down last for almost a year so I don't think they'll spend tens of thousands of dollars for a moral victory over who should pay for items that will bring in no money. I think it is more likely that Dust Studios will just make the items themselves and sell it rather than spend much more on the lawyers to make BF pay for the production to give them away for free.

**Piston Honda**

So now it is Palo's fault?

I'm lost. I stopped paying attention as the whole thing was a cluster

Don't want to tumble through the discussion again can anyone pm a summary what has happened?

is Dust and Battle Front still partners?

**Shotgun**

Piston Honda wrote:

is Dust and Battle Front still partners?

No.

Is it Paolo's fault? That is one possible interpretation. It appears that Dust and BF have come to can agreement on everything except the freebies that BF says that Paolo promised Dust would provide. I believe "BF" believes that it was going to be a 50/50 split on cost, and "Dust" wants BF to pay the entire cost.

**YouKnowsIt**

Shotgun wrote:

No.

Is it Paolo's fault? That is one possible interpretation. It appears that Dust and BF have come to can agreement on everything except the freebies that BF says that Paolo promised Dust would provide. I believe "BF" believes that it was going to be a 50/50 split on cost, and "Dust" wants BF to pay the entire cost.

Dust Studios apparantly were the ones who offered the 50/50 split to BF to make this all go away, but BF have been dragging their heels.

**Theophony**

Paolo made the deal, not dust studios, I know it's splitting hairs but here's the rub. Paolo is the creative guy behind the studio, but I don't think he has any say in the business end, that's all Mr. Yau. Battlefront should have been dealing with Yau, but instead of that he takes to Paolo and he said something to the extent of "that sounds great", but he has no say in their contract. I liken it to asking Donald trumps driver if I could use the beach house for a week. While he might be aware of who is staying there and when it's not his decision to make.

**Piston Honda**

So who is the distributor for dust now since BF is out of the loop?

Was there any any indication of this conundrum happened at FFG?

**plastictrees**

Nothing this messy with FFG as far as I'm aware.
Star Wars Tactics with equivalent quality miniatures to Dust would have been incredible though.

I'm assuming that BF had the option to buy out FFGs stock (which would have needed repackaging) and declined, which really shot them in the foot and added to the sea of discounted DUST product.

**draugadan**

Piston Honda wrote:
So who is the distributor for dust now since BF is out of the loop?

Was there any any indication of this conundrum happened at FFG?

Dust Studios have decided to distribute it themselves. You can go to their web page and pre-order stuff now. I wont be giving them another penny myself, but ymmv.

**mikhaila**

YouKnowsIt wrote:
Shotgun wrote:

No.

Is it Paolo's fault? That is one possible interpretation. It appears that Dust and BF have come to can agreement on everything except the freebies that BF says that Paolo promised Dust would provide. I believe "BF" believes that it was going to be a 50/50 split on cost, and "Dust" wants BF to pay the entire cost.

Dust Studios apparantly were the ones who offered the 50/50 split to BF to make this all go away, but BF have been dragging their heels.

No, the 50/50 split on the free items was what paolo agreed to from the beginning. Who paid for each set of freebies alternated back and forth, and each party decided what they would 'give' at each level. Battlefront used additional product, since they don't make dust models.

The problem is two fold:
1) Mr. Yau now says that any talks with his Partner, Paolo, don't count. He wants BF to pay all of the cost of the freebies.
2) Not content to get paid for the cost of providing the goods BF would then give away, he wants his normal profit margin on the goods he wants BF to give away.