As someone who just spent a truckload of money on Battletech, I'm really sensitive about easy of entry for new players.

I mean really.  I love Battletech.  Always have.  Always will.

Can't get a &*@^#^& player to save my life.  Wife plays it with me about once a blue moon just to be nice.  She never seemed to have much fun, though.

Dust?  Much easier to get into.  She found it fun, if a bit high on the setup costs (in time, not money).

After getting the battletech set, cost me about $60 for the boxed set, about average of $45 for each of the books I grabbed, and about $20 for two packs of minis for giant stompy robots.  That comes out to about… $300 after all is said and done.  

The cost of entry?  Just explaining the sheet for each robot is enough to make people cry and curl up in a fetal position.  It's not pretty.

I hear you. Got into Battletech back when it was Battledroids. Still have my stuff. Actually a neat background, but play is a bit record-intensive…

I also find the Dust system (both tactics and warfare) far superior to 40k.  I still have a fairly large Khorne CSM army, and I pretty much refuse to play it anymore, and definitely wont be buying any new models/codices.  The price cost to me is ridiculous, $50 to buy the new codex?!?!  No thanks!  GW prices are just too expensive, and evey time a new edition comes out you have to buy an $80 rulebook?  

With Dust, the product is much more streamlined and the costs are more reasonable.  I dont mind spending $40 for the core rulebook (especially considering I can get it 35% off online).  Plus, for the cost of the minis I'm getting 2 game systems (tactics and warfare).  Another selling point, I dont have to spend endless hours modeling/priming models.  This is huge for me, as I just hate putting together models.  I dont mind the painting as much, I do it here and there when I have the time, but I can play my Dust models right out of package.  

The last point I'll hit on is the game balance.  Each faction in the Dust universe is fundamentally different, yet fairly balanced.  They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but I have never felt any one faction just dominated the battlefield over the other.  I'm sure once FFG releases future factions they will keep this trend going.  That was one of the things I absolutely hated about 40k, I felt that if I didn't play a specific type of list I wasn't going to be competitive. 

Warboss Krag said:

You guys make me happy.  I have everything ever published for Battletech, and a couple thousand miniatures.  But, I digress.

Got a loooooooottttttt of Battletech stuff myself. Primo game in the 1980s. New game isn't that bad, either. The RPG is broken, though; someone should tell the writers that complexity in character design can go way too far.

I too am making the jump from 40K to Dust Warfare and Tactics. I've played 40K on and off again for the past 15+ years. My dad got me into Fantasy and 40K when I was a teen and now I'm trying to get him into Dust. Hopefully it pans out. The past couple of years I've stuck to Heroscape just for the ease of teaching new players and the vastness of the armies. With Warfare I feel I'll be able to stretch my terrain legs once again and get back to my gaming roots as well as teach new players with some ease.

I'm ecstatic that there are two ways to get your gaming fix as well as two semi-different experiences between Tactics and Warfare.

Out of the 3 Brick and Mortar stores in my area one carries Warhammer and all have Fantasy Flight Games but little to none for Dust. Here's hoping I can crank out some terrain and get some slick paint jobs on my minis to convince people in my area to play.

Wow…and to think I almost bought in Warhammer Fantasy last monday…

I'm gonna stick to Warfare for now (even though I still have yet to play my first game) for it's price point, the fact that you can play Tactics AND Warfare with the same minis and some, fan-made unit cards for Warfare that are simply awesome, quality minis and support, good flow of new and interesting stuff, low cost "official" scenery, Winter Child! (love that mini hahah)…

When I was looking and the army boxes for WHFB and realised it would cost me hundreds of dollars just to have ONE army going…I said NAY!

I just hope FFG or Dust release a similar game in a fantasy world!

I too was wondering if they would try to develop a fantasy game similar to tactics. 

There are the Anastyr models on the Dust Games main website.  Right now, Paolo says they are only a line of resin minis and no rules are expected anytime in the near future, but it still leaves the door open…

Warfare replaced easily 40K as my main wargame, and frankly I dont like GW policies towards its users a bit (not to mention their prices!). FFG, on the other hand, seems more concerned about giving a good player experience and feedback, and in the end that makes the game balanced and fun to play. I really like Warfare and I hope it grows a lot.