Dust Tactics Starter Pack (2)

Thanks for the feedback.
Seems as if there's a lot of interest in Dust, but little experience yet.
So I decided to take a deeper look together with you :)

As Atriedes already stated, the rules seem simple, easy and fun. The "fluff" is very unique, and despite WWII and the Nazis, it is far-fetched enough that noone needs to feel uneasy about them.

So let's take a look at the miniatures.
This is the German Hero Sigrid von Thaler. The pose is really cool, the amount of detail just right. The gun may be a bit "over-the-top", but compared to WH40K it's modest.

This here is a standard German trooper.
The pose looks awkward and the rifle is bent. According to the forum it is rather easy to re-shape it, by using a hair dryer and then dip it in cold water. The Arms itself can also use some re-arrangement, so it will look a bit more realistic.

This German Grenadier with the Panzerschreck and he seems to love his weapon much :)
It will be easy to cut off the head and re-attach it porperly, looking forward. And it looks as if the Schreck needs a bit of re-shaping too.

A German Panzerfaust gunner.
Together with the legs, the pose looks very wrong.
For him I will try to use another set of legs and then see how I can re-arrange the arms and the head to make a plausable pose.

Here is one of the German Laser Grenadiers, with the heavy laser.
The sculpt is really good, and the pose captures the heavy weapon properly.

This is the Feldwebel of the Battle Grenadiers, carrying a Panzerfaust.
I really like the pose even though the sculpt is a little rough on the right hand and the pointing arm shows some mold lines. But nothing major.

The same pose is also used on the Feldwebel of the Recon Grenadiers. Here the mold line is stronger and the finger crooked, but the sculpt of the right hand is better.

All in all, I'd say the German minis are very good and can easily be modified.

So how are the Allied minis?
First off, I'm disappointed at the three Sergeants. Same pose, same glove, and the way he's holding his weapon...

Also some of the poses really strike me odd.

But I'm sure with some cutting and maybe Greenstuff one can make good poses out of them.

They just require some extra work to look really good, or on par with the Germans.

But what really ticks me off is the Allied Hero.
CPT Joseph Brown.

The pose is simply stupid and his waist looks like he has some serious weight issues.
American Love Handles for the win!

I'm really not sure how to fix him, especially as I'm not quite sure how to get a good pose with the arms provided...

Oh well.

Again, nothing serious, nothing that can't be fixed with a knife, glue and some Greenstuff. They just need some extra work to look on par with the Germans.

So for new players or less handycrafty players it may be more trouble.

But lets take a look at the really sexy stuff.

The Walkers!

What strikes me odd, is that they already have some decals on them. I don't think anyone will use these models unpainted, will you?
This is the German walker (sans weapons) and can be used for the Ludwig or the Luther configuration. Nice crisp details and tough, industrial looking.

The body is rotatable at the waist,

as well as the elveation can be altered. But the legs are fixed in position. On the base as well as at the joints.

But I already looked at the connections and the joints itself can be "freed", just the pistons need to be removed and replaced by new plasticard ones to get different poses. With some experience you can get some nice poses out of those two babies! Maybe altering the close combat claw of the one configuration to look more like a Dreadnought claw...but other than that, really nice.
I really look forward to work on them.

The Allied walkers are a different story.

As you can see they have a completely different leg layout, and then simply a tanks chassis and turret (M4 Sherman) is slapped onto it.

But OK, that's a matter of taste :)

However, the hull of the walker can only be elevated downwards...?!?

and only the turret is rotatable.

So the Allied walkers aren't even half as sexy looking and are very less modifyable. It will be really hard to get any cool poses - especially as those legs don't make any sense to me. I simply can't figure (yet) how they should work :)

I think the minis of this Starter Pack are really good. Less flexible than multi-part plastic kits, but still easy to modify, or good enough to be used out of the box. I would (so far) rate the German minis better than the Allied ones, especially the walkers.