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http://www.dustgame.com/news_d.php?id=147


Honestly, Dust is a woefully under-appreciated game, and I have high hopes that a company who knows how to build/support a miniatures game community will be a great shot in the arm for this ailing gem.

Hell, maybe they'll actually encourage demo teams and the like instead of just shipping product and ignoring their community.

I've probably invested $1000 in this game over the last couple years, and really, really hope this is a new beginning and not an ending.



Edit: Changed title for correctness.

Wow, wasn't expecting that. I guess with everything plastic being made in China that it's not as big of a deal as it might have been 15-20 years ago. I guess now the Chinese based manufacturer will simply just ship the products over to and coordinate with New Zealand instead of the US. I'm glad to hear that its not simply being dropped cold like with AT-43 and that fans will still be getting support and probably new expansions/products from a well recognized company.

Hmmm interesting... This would make Battlefront the third distributor to have handled Dust Tactics now.

They are certainly an interesting choice for partnership; I wonder if this means we'll start to see coverage in Wargames Illustrated and a Dust expansion to FoW?

Well... here's the thing... for good, or ill... the game, and its three factions are left in a roughly complete state.

As it stands, IF, the game dies, it dies with three diverse, fully playable factions, with many, many, MANY, cool units, especially considering how early into its life it is as a table-top-miniatures war-game.

That said, Battlefront has a history of some fairly good community support, and a willingness to support product with small profit margins. They also stumble upon the game at just the right time to launch another faction or two...

Rumor mill suggests that Vril were already deep into pre-production.... so I expect we may see them as some of the first Battlefront branded, Dust offerings.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 endtransmission wrote:
Hmmm interesting... This would make Battlefront the third distributor to have handled Dust Tactics now.

They are certainly an interesting choice for partnership; I wonder if this means we'll start to see coverage in Wargames Illustrated and a Dust expansion to FoW?

Oh man... a 15mm scale version of Dust.... MMMMMMMMMMMMMM..... No... I won't let myself dream. First i'll just wait and see if they crap on the investment i've already made. :-p

Interesting, I guess this means FFG is moving away from minis again.

and I was just thinking of selling of my dust stuff, as much as I love the models I'll probably never get to play with em.. just too busy and the few times I do make it out to a club day, everyone is playing GW stuff or Warmahordes.

why is FFG dumping it? Not enough sales? or they just want to stick to board games?

Looks like it.
Weren't the rumours that there was another faction for release before we get to the Vrill? I vaguely remember a discussion a few weeks back about a new starter at Christmas too.

The new starter makes sense if they were planning on switching to a new distributor and allowing them to start with some new stuff.

I'm having flashbacks. Wonder if they're gonna put two more armies out then go under before the second is finished.

I'm hoping not.

The Japanese are still mostly missing, as are the most of the other Western Allies.

 Necros wrote:


why is FFG dumping it? Not enough sales? or they just want to stick to board games?

I don't know know why they're dumping it, but don't forget that FFG have a pretty big RPG group. The 40k RPG line seems to be doing well, and my group is playing their Star Wars RPG.

Didn't they drop a load of other miniature games as well?

I suspect they just don't quite know how to advertise and sell the two Dust games. They seem to be living off RPGs and LCGs at the moment

 BrookM wrote:
Didn't they drop a load of other miniature games as well?

I have no idea.

 BrookM wrote:
The Japanese are still mostly missing, as are the most of the other Western Allies.

Problem with this, iirc, is that FFG already reappropriated Paolo's Japanese walkers, etc.... like the Ryu, and used the models as Axis Walkers, etc...

If I had to guess, i'd think Battlefront would want to play up the "weird" side of this Weird War 2 game, even further, to help really differentiate it from Flames of War, etc...

Vrill are a perfect fit to that end.

That said, with people like Mack Martin now working for Wyrd, on Malifaux 2.0, who knows if Dust is in good hands....?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
Didn't they drop a load of other miniature games as well?

I have no idea.

Well, they obviously aren't totally against mini games. X-wing is currently making a fortune for them, and they can't remotely keep up with demand.

Not mini related, but they just spun off the tide of iron series I the past few days as well.

 BrookM wrote:
Didn't they drop a load of other miniature games as well?

Recently or in the past? I bought a bunch of AT-43 stuff around 5 years ago when they (at least to me) suddenly dropped distributing them and announced remaining product was being sold off without warning at 75% off MSRP.

FFG hasn't dumped Dust.

Dust Studio wanted a better contract than what they had up to now and FFG was not willing to go for it. So as the current contract ended in May Dust Studio have gone and found a partner who is more willing to let Dust Studio produce what and when they want.

Both Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare are healthy games created by a healthy studio.

Battlefront themselves will not be involved with the creation of rules or models for either Dust Tactics or Dust Warfare.


Yes it will require hard work by a bunch of people behind the scenes but believe me these have been put in place and the ball has started rolling well before this announcement was made.

From my understanding the rules will still be made by Dust studios. Battle front is just going to distribute the product.

I hope this is the case anyways. I played FOW for awhile, but they changed their rules more then GW does.

I am hoping this is not the start of the end of Dust. That will make me sad for sure. I am interested to see what this will bring though. I am also scared of a price increase. Again time will tell.

BATTLEFRONT MINIATURES TO TAKE OVER DISTRIBUTION OF DUST TACTICS AND DUST WARFARE

Dust Studio today announced that Battlefront Miniatures will become its publishing and distribution partner for the Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare miniatures game lines. Fantasy Flight Games, Dust Studio’s current publishing partner for those games, will transition sales and marketing activity to Battlefront Miniatures on 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.

About Dust Studio:
Dust Studio Limited is a Hong Kong–based company that creates and manufactures the Dust Tactics miniatures line, as well as model kits and scenery together with various books and comic books about the Dust universe. For more information, visit www.dust-models.com

About Battlefront Miniatures:
Battlefront Miniatures Limited is a New Zealand–based company that created Flames of War, the WWII miniature game. Battlefront publishes the world’s premier tabletop gaming magazine Wargames Illustrated, and owns Gale Force Nine, the leading manufacturer of game accessories. For more information, visit Battlefront’s website at www.flamesofwar.com.

About Fantasy Flight Games:
Roseville, Minnesota’s Fantasy Flight Games is a publisher of board, card, miniatures, and roleplaying games. Founded in 1995 by Christian T. Petersen, Fantasy Flight Games has published hundreds of successful titles, including licensed products based on A Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars, as well as many original board games such as Twilight Imperium, Arkham Horror, and Descent: Journeys in the Dark. For more information, contact FFG’s Anton Torres at atorres@fantasyflightgames.com

Well, this definitely makes me want to sell my Dust stuff more.

Anyone interested in a fairly large Allies army?

 cincydooley wrote:
Well, this definitely makes me want to sell my Dust stuff more.

Anyone interested in a fairly large Allies army?

If a good development for a game is reason to sell your models then no wonder GW are still around

Good, now all they have to do is start making dust universe sci-fi WW2 in 15mm scale to be in line with FOW... and all my wallet belongs to them. As for Dust warfare, the scale just puts me off.

Floris wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Well, this definitely makes me want to sell my Dust stuff more.

Anyone interested in a fairly large Allies army?

If a good development for a game is reason to sell your models then no wonder GW are still around

One of the primary appeals for me was the ability to get the models from tons of locations and with a solid discount. Battlefront is notoriously stingy in how they allow discounts (more so than GW even) so it kills one of the primary reasons I'd purchase it.

Plus, now that its dist through battlefront, my local stores will carry it even less.

 BrookM wrote:
Interesting, I guess this means FFG is moving away from minis again.

FFG dumping miniature games.

GW dumping Specialist Games.

FFG produces games GW has abandoned.

I think the SG dump just took an interesting turn.

If you guys have any questions about what the change means, check out the Dust page on Facebook. Paolo and the rest of the Dust team post on there actively. > https://www.facebook.com/groups/303941853917/10151430709083918/?notif_t=group_comment_reply

~Tim?

Rodney Smith (respected poster and Youtube game demo'er) over at boardgamegeek.com apparently dug up a comment from Paolo Parente essentially claiming 10/15mm Dust is a dream project of his, and he was in talks to make it happen with "the right people".... Apparently he said this a month or so ago....

On that front.... YAY!!!!!!! I would lose my gak, and just start throwing money at Dust: Flames of War . That said, it would TAKE buckets of money as the beloved FFG pricing is obviously dead and gone, and Battlefront would happily charge two arms and three legs for something like that (especially something without wide-spread proxy options).

I do hope, however, this doesn't mean an "unofficial" death to Dust Warfare, with only a few hobbyist priced models coming out at the pace Dust Studios does their high-end stuff.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quote:
ABOUT 15MM MINIS
[i]Dear friends, allow me to clarify this for good.

Olivier and l just LOVE the 1/100 scale and we dream about a game of larger battles for DUST, yes.

No, DT and DW scales are not going to change. We stick to our scale and we are already creating the models that will be released in 2015. No worries.

But of course we would love to make a new game in the future for use with 1/100 models, this would add a new dimension to our gaming universe but would not be intended to replace the existing one.

Plus the walkers in a smaller scale just look sooooo cool

We are talking to the RIGHT PEOPLE at the moment, but this does not mean this is happening soon.

No changing, no/no.

Thanks to all for liking and enjoying our work!

Interesting thought about FFG's relationship with GW.

Some games like Blood Bowl woul dmesh nicely with FFG's existing line.BFG with its multiple races would fit into FFg's add a box every month selling philosophy.

Again though you have to feel it us us the more dupes who again are let down by these bifg companies. WE invest a large amount of cash on the product only to be told the next day - nah we do not want to support you now

wilycoyote wrote:
Interesting thought about FFG's relationship with GW.

Some games like Blood Bowl woul dmesh nicely with FFG's existing line.BFG with its multiple races would fit into FFg's add a box every month selling philosophy.

Again though you have to feel it us us the more dupes who again are let down by these bifg companies. WE invest a large amount of cash on the product only to be told the next day - nah we do not want to support you now

Please. You don't "invest" a dime. You purchase consumer products. And FFG has supported Dust VERY well over the course of their stewardship.

 cincydooley wrote:

wilycoyote wrote:
Interesting thought about FFG's relationship with GW.

Some games like Blood Bowl woul dmesh nicely with FFG's existing line.BFG with its multiple races would fit into FFg's add a box every month selling philosophy.

Again though you have to feel it us us the more dupes who again are let down by these bifg companies. WE invest a large amount of cash on the product only to be told the next day - nah we do not want to support you now

Please. You don't "invest" a dime. You purchase consumer products. And FFG has supported Dust VERY well over the course of their stewardship.

Respectfully, they've "supported it well" in terms of product releases, quality control, etc.... absolutely true.

They've been abysmal stewards of it as a game, did nothing to support/foster a community.

In essense they treated it the way they would one of their games, but not so much the specific way a miniatures game needs to be treated/supported.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

wilycoyote wrote:
Interesting thought about FFG's relationship with GW.

Some games like Blood Bowl woul dmesh nicely with FFG's existing line.BFG with its multiple races would fit into FFg's add a box every month selling philosophy.

Again though you have to feel it us us the more dupes who again are let down by these bifg companies. WE invest a large amount of cash on the product only to be told the next day - nah we do not want to support you now

Please. You don't "invest" a dime. You purchase consumer products. And FFG has supported Dust VERY well over the course of their stewardship.

Respectfully, they've "supported it well" in terms of product releases, quality control, etc.... absolutely true.

They've been abysmal stewards of it as a game, did nothing to support/foster a community.

In essense they treated it the way they would one of their games, but not so much the specific way a miniatures game needs to be treated/supported.

They've provided organized play packs. They hosted tournaments and events. What else should they be doing?