The Field Maneuvers segment covers my thoughts on how to best use the rules of Dust Warfare to get the most out of your army and play the best game you can. Much of what I cover reveals my play style and my general ideas about how Dust Warfare works. Like anyone, I make mistakes, and I still pretty new to both Dust Warfare and war gaming in general. Additionally, most of the games I have played have been against players that I myself have taught the game. These players largely have not read any of the rules so, if I am doing something wrong they are not likely to catch it.
The Phases of Combat in Dust Warfare:
The phases in Dust Warfare are as follows:
- The Initiative Phase: This is when each player determines who is the initing player and who is the responding player as well as the number of order each player has for the Command Phase.
- The Command Phase: The is sort of turn before the actual turn where each player can issue a number of orders, as determined in the Initiative Phase, to their units.
- The Unit Phase: This is the bulk of game play where each player activates their units having either one, two, or sometimes, three actions (going first and being able to react).
- The End Phase: Remove a single suppression from each unit and all reactions.
This article will talk only about the Command Phase are more specially focus on issuing orders during it. I’m writing this, because during one of the games of Dust Warfare, I noticed that my opponent kept using all of his orders many times at his detriment. He used them to take care of things that wouldn’t make a difference until his own Unit Phase like moving to nowhere in particular and reloading weapons. Many actions that placed a reaction token next to that unit that signaled to me, “charge in and attack!”
The three things you can issue orders on:
During the Command Phase there are only three things you can spend your limited number of orders on:
- Take Action
- Regroup
- Platoon Special Order
Take Action:
If you are going to make a mistake during the Command Phase it is by issuing Take Action orders to your units. When you issue an order this way, you aren’t getting an extra action, your just going earlier and giving up an action as well as that unit’s ability to react.
Issuing a Take Action to Reload or Move: Consider carefully what you need to get done in the Command Phase, that cannot wait until your Unit Phase. Reloading weapons can almost always wait until your Unit Phase where if your are the initiating player you could reload, act, and still possibly react. As the responding player, you can still react if you need to. A loaded weapon without a reaction does the same damage as an unloaded weapon with one, but with the reaction you can move away if the enemy gets too close. Speaking of moving, don’t issue orders for a unit to move unless their is a reason for them to move. Say, if your initially deployed Red Rain is located right in the fighting lane of a Wotan that is in range to hit it, then sure; move it with an order before your opponent can issue an attack action to take a shot at it. But if just want to move your squad of Ohotviki up a little bit, don’t. One, they won’t be able to react, and two, you show your hand a little by moving them. However, there is one time you may want to issue a move order: with vehicles you can actually turn them up to 180 degrees by issuing an Take Action: move order to move/turn and then again during the Unit Phase to do the same thing.
Issuing a Take Action to attack: Unlike issuing an order to move/reload, I think you should almost always issue an order to attack if you can. I look at it this way: if you issue a Take Action: Attack, then during your Unit Phase you still can attack, you just got two attacks in a single round which I consider better than a single Sustained Attack. I would rather have two actions with bad odds rather than one action with good odds. The kind of order works great for sniper teams who already have a good chance to hit their target and can cover a lot or distance. The only time I hesitate to issue a Take Action: Attack is if I may need that reaction for something coming in close that I might need to react to. Example: a Crack Shots sniper team that has a squad of Axis Gorillias close to their position. With their Agile special ability, they just might be able to run closer some friendly units that can deal with the apes, or at very least, postpone their destruction and wasting more of the apes actions to get them.
Regroup:
This order always seems like a good idea. If fact, before you decide to forfeit your remaining orders, take a good look around the table and make sure none of your army units could benefit from a regroup. Consider first the squads that have suppression or in the rare case, such as the loss of a transport and the surviving unit, ones with reactions. If they are in command range or you still haven’t used up all your Radioman (or Vertushka Field Telephones) special ability spend that order to get them in fighting shape again. Even consider using regroup as an effective way to move most of a soldier squad. You can’t move the unit leader but you can march the rest of the squad as long as they stay within 6″ of the leader.
Special Order:
Know your platoon(s) special order, and think about how you can get use out of it for your army. However, remember that not all special orders are created equally. Some are much better than others, while some work best with particular units. Your special order is yet another tool in your arsenal to snatch victory away from your opponent. I will briefly go over all of the current platoon’s special orders:
Fire for Effect! (Allies Combat Platoon): This is one of my favorite special orders. I like it so much I occasionally take the platoon upgrade versions of the other blocs (Der Swarm for Axis and Ride of the Valkyries for SSU). All it requires is a unit with the Artillery Strike special ability and a little luck. Any given game, you can expect to cause enough damage to at very least cripple an opponent’s unit if not out right destroy it.
An Army of One (Allies Elite Platoon): I haven’t ever had a chance to issue this platoon’s special order. While I can see some uses with it, I doubt it gets much use by most players. In a 300 Army Point game you can only have two heroes and since you are rolling with the Elite you would be better off with the Allies Soldier 2 heroes (Action Jackson, Rhino or Ozz177) each work pretty well only a coupe of Soldier 3 units.
Smoke Screen (Allies Assault Platoon): I have mixed feelings about this one. I do like the ability to decide to force Limited Visibility over the table, however; Smoke Screen is too unreliable to bank on for your operations. Perhaps is it occurred on blanks, I could use it form good tactics around.
Covering Fire (Allies Armored Walker Platoon): If I read this right, this special order could be useful with artillery vehicles that already require a sustained attack to fire indirectly and require a Out of Ammo marker when doing so such as the Steel Rain’s 4.2 Rocket System and Petard Mortar. Even without weapons that function like that it might usefull to get that early, fast shot on an enemy target.
Blitzkrieg! (Axis Sturmgrenadiere and Panzer Walker Platoon): I find this special order pretty handy in getting your forces into key positions to react or to cross the battlefield in a hurry. It can be pretty frightening to use on a Transport full of zombies or even on a Scout Vehicle such as the Hans to move then much further than an opponent would expect.
Take Charge (Axis Schwer Platoon): I already like the regroup order and tend to keep my Soldier 3 Command Sections closer to the fight than I do with Soldier 2 sections so what’s there not to like. It often saves me a bunch of order dice and can be used as sort of mini Blitzkrieg! with the exception of each of the unit leaders who can’t move.
Weiderbelebungsserum Failsafe (Axis Blutkreuz Platoon): This special order only has two problems aside from pronouncing its name. One, I tend to have a heavy undead Blutkruetz platoon making it worthless. Two, it is fairly unreliable which is fixed taking the super cheap platoon upgrade Second-Generation Serum. Otherwise, it is great to bring back even tougher models (unless you resurrect Soldier 3s) for your opponent to have deal with all over again.
Coordinated Fire (SSU Defense Platoon): This is the platoon I have fielded more than any other in Dust Warfare, and yet I have never actually issued this special order. It simply requires too many things I try to not have happen. First off, an enemy unit has to be within 16″ of my Command Section which unless I using a Yakstar (Yakov, two squads of Fakyeli, and a Commissar to blob them) I don’t really want enemy units that close. Second, if an enemy unit has to already have suppression on it to double. Third, it this special order only really works in you are the Responding player as all it takes is a Radioman special ability and a regroup order to get rid of all your work.
For the Motherland! (SSU Political Platoon): Similar to the Axis special order Take Charge with the exception that it only removes reactions. The limitation for this is it can only be used once a game. Which isn’t too bad as there are only five turns in a game and a couple of them won’t really require such a massive reaction purge.
Unleash Hell (SSU Red Guards Platoon): The best of the otherwise lackluster special orders that the other SSU platoons have. It works great for Artillery and squads armed with sniper rifles. I also believe the two suppression effect is ignored if the unit has the Grizzled Veteran unit upgrade.
Armored Turtles (SSU Steel Guards Platoon): The could be the worst special order that exists in Dust Warfare. It is just so hard to come across the situation that would allow it to be issued. It only works on Steel Guard units which already have the compulsory Grizzled Veterans unit upgrade, and the Steel Guard squads are of low model count. It’s better than nothing I guess, and it’s not like the Steel Guard platoon needs it that much anyway.
Considerations during the Command Phase as either the Initiating or Responding player:
The way you use your orders can also be effected by the turn order. I tend to use my orders very differently when I’m the initiating player as opposed to when I’m the responding. As the initiating player, I am more likely to use my orders for moving my units (especially on turn one when I have made deployment blunders). I also try to use them on units that can damage enemy units as opposed to suppressing them as my opponent can spend his/hers to regroup away that suppress. However, they did have to spend that order and have one less for something they might have wanted to do with it. I also try not to spend orders as much on Take Action to allow my units to have their reaction avaible to try and get that initiating player ‘third’ action of reaction.
As a responding player, I find myself using more orders to cause suppression and less on movement. If the initiating player couldn’t do much to that exposed unit during their Command Phase, I doubt they will change that in the Unit phase. Depending on the platoon, I find myself using special orders more often as the responding player. I also am less worried about having reactions tokens on my units when responding as well. I don’t it that is a good thing though.
I hope this article gave you a little more insight on how to best issue orders during the Command Phase. In my experience, the Command Phase might not win you the battle, but poor use of orders can lose it for you.
Clash at Zverograd 