Since picking up Dust at Adepticon in 2018, I’ve only played a few games. Part of the reason has been the lack of unit options for my chosen faction, the Mythos. Now that there are a few more available, I’m in a bit of a catch-22. If I don’t play much, how can I justify buying and painting more? But if I don’t have more options, I’m disinclined to play.
Let’s change that at least a bit with one squad of Mi-Go Raiders. These are much like the Mi-Go Assault Squad, except with guns instead of claws. I went with red metallics on the guns to help highlight them against the mostly green bodies.
Big monsters are nice and all, but you need some little guys, too. Fortunately, the Lilith’s Coven starter box is all that. Dust’s starter boxes are a nice value. For $65 you get three units, a neoprene mat (2’x3′, so half a standard Dust game), dice, and some terrain (cardboard and plastic). The only problem with it is if you want a second copy of one of the units, it’s harder to find the value.
Lilith
Possessed Lilith
Lilith is the hero in the box. She comes in two models, because she switches to a different profile once she’s been wounded.
Cultist leader
The cultists are next. I first tried to paint them with a different scheme than the studio models, with deep green robes. Partway through I decided I hated it and started again. I’m quite pleased now with how the robes came out, with just a hint of red in with the black, giving it some depth.
Mi-Go
The Mi-Go are the last unit in the box. Like everything else it comes pre-assembled, which makes it difficult to paint the inside of the one with closed wings.
Tank Trap
Ammo Crate
Finally, the plastic terrain. It’s simple, but a nice bonus. The crate came pre-colored, so I just weathered it up a bit.
The rest of the first Mythos box for Dust is this giant Avatar of Nyralathotep. Once again, I followed the studio paint job pretty closely.
Avatar of Nyralathotep
The extra large base really calls for some diorama action. When we were picking out models, my friend Sean mentioned that he didn’t like jeeps, but ended up with Allies anyway. Since he won’t have any, I got my own.
Avatar of Nyralathotep (base detail)
I picked up a 1:72 scale WWII light vehicle set from Hasegawa. 1/72 is undersized for a 28ish mm game, but it just makes the monster look even bigger. I gave it flat tires out of green stuff, cut in a few bullet holes, and called it day.
Dust has been catching my eye for a long time. WWII with mechs, gorillas, and jetpacks. What’s not to like? At Adepticon this year they had Lovecraft monsters. Even better! I went to the con with Sean, my regular gaming partner, and we coaxed each other into buying in.
One of two boxed sets currently available for the Mythos bloc, these Spawn of Cthulhu models make up 2/3 of the First Summoning. Each one represents about a quarter of a standard size 100 point game.
Spawn of Cthulhu (pouncing)
One of the selling points of Dust is that the models are available as “premium” painted models, for about twice the price of the unpainted ones. They look pretty good (and I was super impressed that the display case at Adepticon featured them out of the box), but painting is a big part of what I get out of the hobby. The ‘regular’ boxes are preassembled and primed, which is handy, although the purple on the Mythos models is less playable than the green of the Allied kits.
I didn’t stray too far from the studio paint job, however. I stretched my airbrush skills a bit with the pinks to purple to green on the tentacles and head. I tried to do a bit of beige on the belly, but that mostly got lost in other layers.
Spawn of Cthulhu (chilling)
The pounding Cthulhu model came with a pretty cool scenic base, but not this chilling one. And it’s too big a base to just do dirt and grass. As luck would have it I had some ruined concrete wall pieces lying around which were a pretty good match. Add in some Vallejo Brown Earth texture and grass tufts and you’ve got yourself a believable desert base.
