At this year’s Spiel Essen I had a lot of plans, but one of the real surprises of the fair was a game I had not even listed in my anticipated titles. On Friday, at the PHALANX booth, I sat down to Dust in the Wind, designed by Srdjan Jovanovski, and together with fellow Essen visitors we played the full first Scenario of the campaign. It was a prototype copy, so some components are not final – still, there was more than enough to see what this game wants to be. In short: an engrossing western-style adventure with great tactical combat.
As always we will follow the proven track. So first game overview, then a bit of historical background, the session report and finally my impressions. Enjoy the read!
Game Overview
Dust in the Wind – to be published by PHALANX and designed by Srdjan Jovanovski (who also wrote the script) – is a cooperative, narrative-driven campaign game set in the American West of the 1870s, for 1 to 4 players. The Group of drifters is built from six unique Characters, each with their own Traits, Characteristics and Abilities; in solo play you control 3 or 4 of them.
The game happens on two levels. On the Map, built from Terrain tiles revealed as you travel, the Group moves together, choosing between Move, Search for Water, Explore and Camp, all the while tracking Time, Water and Threat. Entering an Area can trigger Events (the main story), Encounters (shorter side stories) or Incidents (usually bad news). When things go wrong – and in the West they often do – play moves to the Combat Books: spiral-bound modular boards where Characters and Enemies fight square by square, with the order of activation driven by rotating Action Cylinder and Action Points. Duels are resolved separately, with a special 21-card deck.
Between Scenarios your Characters gain Experience and buy Ability tiles, while decisions are recorded in the Logbook and shape the story later on. The campaign runs from the opening No Questions Asked Scenario to the final Showdown, with the Group following four possible Motivations – Honor, Fame, the reputation of a Gunfighter, or simply Dollars – each leading to its own epilogue.
Historical Background
The 1870s were the years when the American frontier was at its wildest. After the Civil War many people headed West looking for land, gold, cattle money or simply a new start. Railroads pushed across the continent, boomtowns grew almost overnight and disappeared just as fast, and in many places the law was thin – a reputation earned with a revolver could matter more than any badge.
Dust in the Wind captures exactly that mix: drifters with their own motivations, dusty towns with saloon, general store and gunsmith, and a harsh land where Water is a resource you cannot ignore. I also liked a note in the rulebook: most real Wild West gunfights did not end in deaths, but with one side injured, demoralized and running away – and that is how the game treats eliminating Enemies too.
Session Report
As usual in my First Impressions, I will share both what happened on the board and what I took away from the session. This time it is just one game, but a full one – the complete first Scenario, played on prototype components at the PHALANX booth.
Enjoy the report! PS. Remember you can expand each picture on click.
Session 1. Spiel Essen, Scenario 1 – full game
I joined a table of fellow Spiel Essen visitors I had never met before – which is the best test for any cooperative game, as you quickly see whether it brings strangers together. I took Jane “Wildcat” Duncan, while my companions picked other drifters from the Group. We started with a handful of Dollars, our starting Equipment and a lot of curiosity about what the frontier would throw at us.
My Character – Jane “Wildcat” Duncan, Easygoing and Carefree, with Damage Threshold of 8. Equipped with Colt M1877 revolver and Rope, plus the Duck! tile – very handy when you are in Cover and the Enemy is aiming at you.
The Map built from double-layered Terrain tiles – they look great on the table. Every Move costs Time, many Areas cost Water, and entering a new tile means rolling the Threat die.
Enemies come! Play moves to the Combat Books and the town streets become a battlefield. Walls, doors and windows all matter for Line of Sight and Cover.
We fight! Four Combat boards with both books placed together – one of the largest Combat Zones in the game. Positioning is everything here: a figure out of Cover is the one which gets shot first.
We defeat them! By now we knew how to use Cover and the Action Cylinder much better and the Enemies were pushed back street by street. Scenario Objectives completed, with the Group still standing.
Jane at the end of the Scenario – some Damage taken, but also a decent amount of Experience earned to spend on new Abilities.
The whole table at the end of our game – Map, Combat Books, cards, Characters and a lot of tokens. It does take some space!
Summary: We won the Scenario! And most of us finished with a decent amount of Experience, which promises some nice Ability upgrades for the next part of the campaign. For a first game, on a prototype and with a table of strangers, it ran surprisingly smoothly: the rules teach well during play and the narrative flow of Events and Encounters kept everybody engaged. What impressed me most was how naturally the game switches between exploring the Map and tense tactical Combat on the Combat Books – it feels like one story, not two separate games glued together.
First Impressions
One full Scenario is of course not a full campaign, but it gave me a solid feeling for what Dust in the Wind does well. Let me share my impressions:
- Great tactical combat. This was the biggest surprise for me. Action Cylinder, Action Points, Cover, elevation and Line of Sight make every gunfight a small tactical puzzle, while Enemy behavior driven by Combat cards linked to Threat means you never know exactly what is coming.
- Cooperative game. Everyone at the table works together, Group Actions on the Map are taken collectively and decisions are discussed openly. Even with players I had just met, the table quickly turned into one team – exactly what I like in a campaign game.
- Character progression. The possibility to develop and upgrade your Characters with Experience and Ability tiles gives a real sense of growth. Your drifters start modest and you can already feel how they will evolve over the campaign.
- Nice components, especially the double-layered board. Even on a prototype the production looked very good, and the art sets the mood perfectly.
- Wild West theme and reasonable campaign length. The theme is not just a paint – Water, Time, Threat, Duels and Saloon Stories all feel like the West. And the campaign looks reasonably long, without becoming an endless commitment.
As for things I would still like to see:
- How interesting will the campaign story be? One Scenario showed a promising start, but the real test of a narrative game is whether the story holds across the whole campaign. I am really curious to see that.
- Difficulty levels. So far I did not see anything to tweak the difficulty up or down. Some groups will want a harsher frontier, others a more relaxed story experience – options here would be very welcome.
To sum up, Dust in the Wind was one of the most pleasant surprises of my Spiel Essen 2026. It combines narrative campaign, character development and genuinely good tactical combat in a Wild West setting we do not see often enough on our tables. The crowdfunding campaign is planned to start on November 17 – I will definitely follow it, and you may want to check the Gamefound page too. More details are also available on BoardGameGeek.
See you in another review!