Rex is actually pretty awful

Damn this thread. I finally bought Dune, a couple of minutes ago. I saw a first edition set in "very good" condition at Amazon, missing just one black circular token. At $69.99 + $3.99, it was probably cheaper than if I tried to make my own set, and I know I don't have the skills to make a really nice homebrew copy like some of those on display at BGG.

Michael Barnes wrote: The reality of it is that Dune has NEVER been exceptionally valuable or rare. There's ALWAYS copies in circulation, and although the prices can swing anywhere north of $50 but south of $100, we're not talking about a $200, $300 game here. Never have been. It's hardly as rare as something like Up Front, Borderlands, or even Magic Realm.

It's almsot kind of a myth that Dune is "hard to find". Sure, in a world without Ebay, BGG, or F:AT it might be...or if you're holding out for a $5 thrift copy.

Ironically, it's probably about as easy to buy a copy of Dune as it is to buy a copy of Rex.

This has not been the case in my experience. Not that it counts for much, but there it is. Every time I've bid on a copy of Dune from eBay, it's ended up going for over $100. And since every BGG user thinks they are Troll & Toad, everyone wants at least $90 for their copy there.

I still might make my own copy of the original, since I think it'd be cool to have that.

i just watched a copy of dune go for twice the price of a copy of up front on ebay uk. Dune went for £77 (around $100 i guess), upfront for just over £30 ($40-50).

I'd say in the Uk atleast Dune is hard to get hold of, and you wont get it as cheap as Rex

Shellhead wrote: Damn this thread. I finally bought Dune, a couple of minutes ago. I saw a first edition set in "very good" condition at Amazon, missing just one black circular token. At $69.99 + $3.99, it was probably cheaper than if I tried to make my own set, and I know I don't have the skills to make a really nice homebrew copy like some of those on display at BGG.

Having made a PnP copy of Dune and Merchant of Venus, I have to say that Dune is pretty much a 0 level skill in PnP. Buy some wooden tokens online in the right colours for armies and spice. You order a bunch of cards from Artscow and you are 95% there. The only things requiring a modicum of skill are the board and the player shields. The board I had printed and glued to a thrift store board and the shields need to be printed and glued to thick card. It wasn't a hugely difficult task.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: Having made a PnP copy of Dune and Merchant of Venus, I have to say that Dune is pretty much a 0 level skill in PnP. Buy some wooden tokens online in the right colours for armies and spice. You order a bunch of cards from Artscow and you are 95% there. The only things requiring a modicum of skill are the board and the player shields. The board I had printed and glued to a thrift store board and the shields need to be printed and glued to thick card. It wasn't a hugely difficult task.

I've never ever considered doing a PnP copy of a game before, but you've almost got me convinced to give this a try. I'm guessing the templates are over on BGG? Are there different versions of PnP for Dune or just one largely accepted PnP version?

Death and Taxis wrote: Are there different versions of PnP for Dune or just one largely accepted PnP version?

There's two main ones.

Ilya's version :



And Scott Everts' version :

There are 2 good versions of Dune, Illya's and Scott's. I prefer Scott's so it is the one I made, but many prefer Illya's. Just search for the relevant threads which have links to the files.

EDIT: scooped by Disgustipater

Michael Barnes wrote: Motheragod y'all, can't I please use the Internet properly to overstate my case to make Matt look even more wrong than he already is?

Ah but you see I'm not. I own a copy of Dune and I've played it several times. It's one of those games where I can totally see the greatness, even if I don't entirely agree - I'd still recommend anyone to try it out if they have the chance. And I still like Dune, I just don't love it: given six people and six hours, I'd probably rather play a couple of games of Mare Nostrum, or maybe TI3.

dragonstout wrote: In both of those cases, yes, when you screw up, it's because *you* screwed up, not because you rolled poorly or anything else: but simply because you didn't have a good enough read on your opponent.

Yeah but that's just it: the decisions are all yours to make and you have little or nothing to go on, especially early in the game, and I just find the tension of trying to do that nigh-on unbearable and tremendously frustrating when you get it wrong. As I said it doesn't help that you can make one bad call and effectively knock yourself out of a long, long game just because you misread a bead of sweat or something. Rex's shorter play time is therefore very appealing to me.

Although I'm wondering if you could leverage the round limit and increased movement & resources into the original and thus keep the theme but cut down the time.

I think both of those PnP versions look plastic and soulless. Maps are nice but that's about it.

LeDune wins for me overall though I prefer the leaders from the original AH version.

We have a well made copy of the ilya version and it is awesome. When compared to even the Le' Dune version it blows them away.

I have not played Rex, but i have heard enough to keep me from buying it before it inevitably ends up in the discount bin.

Here are the questions I have about it.

1) is it true that allies win along side people like the guild, when they win with the racial or via the time limit? If yes then 8 turns is too short.

2) why no bad cards on the bid? I meant this is big in Dune and one of the things that the Bene G's need to work. (they are all Karama for them)

3) I thought we were getting a different game..... it looks like we are getting a watered down version of a good game... like the American version of Top Gear... it just isn't the same.

IMHO there really is nothing wrong with Dune, so unless Rex was way different I am not interested in it... its the same reason why I am not interested in games that say they are shorter versions of TI3.... I don't want less Ti3, I don't want less Dune.

-M

I don't get, what is it people like about Le Dune? The board looks ass, the player shield art is way worse than the AH art, the leaders look worse, etc. Is it just that the board is bigger or something?

My PnP copy of Dune I'm finishing up is basically identical to the Avalon Hill version, but more pimped out: board is way bigger, spice is glass beads, armies are wooden tokens. Cards are the ScottE version, because they keep the original AH art but have text to explain what they do; I tried printing out an exact replica of the AH cards that someone posted to Artscow, which is what I'd prefer, but they turned out to be too low-res for me. I've got Bene Gesserit prediction cards and a traitor deck.

My big problem now is that due to some poor planning, I need 4 pieces of 14" x 14" chipboard, if anyone has any connections...it's impossible to find it at that size (or larger) online without buying in bulk

dragonstout wrote: I don't get, what is it people like about Le Dune? The board looks ass, the player shield art is way worse than the AH art, the leaders look worse, etc. Is it just that the board is bigger or something?

I believe that Le Dune includes the expansion sets. I don't see that as a plus. The Spice Harvest one throws off the initial game balance, and the Duel rules unbalance the rest of the game.

Yeah, I didn't think anyone played with the expansions. But the two posts right before mine both imply that Le Dune is somehow some high bar to be measured against.

Pretty much I think Avalon Hill has the best art of all the vesions (including Ilya's), but is actually unpleasant to play with from a component quality/size point of view.

Is Le Dune Ilya's or the other one?

There's also Dirt Cheap Dune . It isn't fancy, but all you need is some paper & black ink. Took me a couple hours to build, but I don't have a group of six right now to try it with.