Dust, Dust Tactics, Dust Warfare and Paolo Parente

I was reading the Forum about Dust Warfare and there were some fellows asking about the relationships in the Dust universe. I mean who is who and what is what.
I though that maybe a short overview from what it was explained there could be useful for every one with interest in the game.
The whole idea of Dust and the Dust Universe is responsibility or creation of a guy called Paolo Parente.
Parente not only created the Universe but also designs everything (as far as I known) related to the universe, from comics to story line and of course the line of miniatures (soldiers and walkers) which run amok in the world of Dust.
This takes place in the hands of Dust Studios at Dus-models.com, which are the designers of the models set in Paulo Parente's Dust universe.
Dust-models.com is Dust Studios web site, and a great place to scout upcoming models, buy Premium pre-painted versions, and get extra odds & ends like decals and dice.

The main confusion point arrives from the fact that there are more games than one based on the Dust Universe. like also happens to other Universes, such as Star Wars, where more than one game is based on them (also books, comics, etc.)

There is borad game called Dust, a kind of Risk game, which takes place in the Dust Universe. Obviously is thematically related to Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare but it is a different game and a game on its own. You buy the box, you play it, you do not need anything else.

The relationship between Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare is a bit stronger than mere thema or Universe.

We said that Dust Studios produces the miniatures.
Well, those miniatures are sold in boxes for a BOARD game called Dust Tactics, you have also a started set which contains the boards for the board game, the rules, the cards with the stats of the units for the board game, some terrain elements (antitanks and craters) and the miniatures for the board game (some soldiers and some walkers).
Dust Tactics is a Boardgame using the Dust miniatures.

FFG took over the Dust Tactics game from AEG, iirc, and is the official supplier of Dust and Dust Tactics.

Then, a wise guy called Andy Chambers and his sidekick Mack Martin of FFG wrote a miniature WARGAME set of rules in the same Universe which uses the same miniatures from Dust Tactics.

So, one guy (Parente) designs the miniatures and the universe, together with some other guys take care of board game which uses the miniatures of Parente and another group of guys create a wargame using the same miniatures (think about it a a form of game-recycling :D )

The main difference between then is the set of rules which even if somehow similar have a totally different principle in mind, the board game uses a square grid, you have boards with maps to play the mission and so on; the other one is a wargame, so no board, only a table, a lot of terrain elements, people measuring inches here and there, some arguments about which miniature "sees" which miniature, etc.

But, remember everything in the same Universe :)

One universe, One set of miniatures, but Two games using them.