Ever seen Nuclear Fallout? It's Rad

Imagine if you will it is the year 2277, 200 years have passed since the Great War that ended life as we knew it back then. But like the proverbial Phoenix, mankind arose from the ashes to a new world. The world as we knew it was gone and in its place was a irradiated landscape where Danger was king and death lurked around every corner.

Imagine if you will you are one of the many who survived to see this new world, grab your Pipboy and your homemade Pipe Rifle as we prepare to get rad and chuck dice across the apocalypse

Welcome to Fallout

Story

Well where do I begin? How far back do you want me to go? Shall I start with the end of WW2 and the golden age of nuclear fusion? Or the Resource Wars?

No matter where I start with we'll end up where we are now. The world has been FUBARed, well at least the US and China have. It's never explicitly said that the rest of the world has been affected, it is however implied

Game Mechanics

Action Point Allowance System

Area Movement, Dice Rolling

Hand Management

Modular Board

Role Playing

Storytelling

Variable Player Powers

Number of Players

1-4

Play Time

Between 2 & 3 Hours. When we first cracked the box open on Saturday night we were playing nearly 4 hours as we're double checking the rule book on every move

Down Time

Deciding how to spend your Action Points or planning your route in order to avoid the nasties on the board. There is also a lot of reading in the game

How Does It Play

It's plays like a Fallout game should. You explore the wasteland whilst solving quests, encountering the wasteland, and killing anything that stands in your way of victory.

Like every Fallout game you start with character creation. You select from one of the five characters(listed below), and take their unique attribute from the big pile of S.P.E.CI.A.L. tokens as well as their unique item.

Between the players in the group you agree what scenario you are playing and set up the board and quests according to the scenario.

Then you agree who is the first player and go from there.

Each player can perform two actions per turn, these are:-

Move - (Up to 2 moves per Action, unless you are the Brotherhood Outcast who only gets 1 move per action due to Power Armour)

Explore - Flip over any unexplored tile the player is currently next to

Encounter - The player can draw from the relevant encounter deck when in a space with a Settlement or Wasteland symbol

Fight - The player can fight any enemy they are within range of, either by melee by being in the same space or in the adjacent space if you have a ranged weapon. Combat is carried out by rolling the 3 VATS dice. Each enemy has an area where they are weak and only hits in these areas count as damage. You roll the dice and any dice that matches that area counts as a hit, the number of hits is equal to the level of the enemy (just be sure not to fight anything that requires 3 headshots), however on the dice are little dots next to the results. These dots represent the hits you take from the enemy. You subtract any armour points you have and record the damage on your board. Should your HP and Rads pegs meet or pass each other, you dead. But if you die it is not game over, you just return to Crossroads Camp minus any extra loot you were carrying (assigned armour, weapons, and companion stay with you)

Camp - If you are in a settlement you can camp down and regain some HP as well as unexhaust any exhausted items

Quest - The player can carry out any quest that within the staged area of the board. Beware, there are multiple ways to complete a quest and the results of the quest may advance the influence of either faction on the board

After each player has taken their turn, the enemies get to move, this is done by drawing a card from the agenda deck, each enemy moves towards the closest player (not so good on a solo game). When the last agenda card is drawn both factions advance one space on the board and the deck is shuffled and given to the player to the left of the First Player, who then becomes the new First Player. If an enemy in your space has to move this turn they will attack instead.

Each player will try to steer the game towards their active agendas to gain the best amount of influence they can in order to win

Game Components

Board - The board is a modular board made up of hexagonal tiles. There are generic wasteland tiles and double sided scenario specific tiles.

Character Components - There are 5 little models in the box, one of each character. They include the Vault Dweller, the Wastelander, the Brotherhood Outcast, the Ghoul, and the Super Mutant. Each character has their own unique S.P.E.C.I.A.L. token and unique item. Each player also gets a board that tracks their HP, Rads, XP, as well as their a

Card Library - There are over 160 cards that will help to make up the quests and encounters that you will experience during the game. During a quest you will be asked to Stage or Add certain card, these are taken form the card library and added to the relevant deck.

Shop Cards - Similar to the loot cards, but these make up the shop in any settlement where you can buy and sell goods

Loot Cards - These cards represent the rewards for completing certain quests/encounters as well as killing certain enemies

Companion Deck - A deck full of companions

Perks Deck - This is filled with perks. When you level up and you draw an attribute you already have you can swap it for a Perk relating to that attribute

Agenda Deck - This deck has two functions. It provides the players with agenda cards do that they can try and earn influence points to win the game. It also tells you what enemies move at the end of each turn.

Scenario Cards - The scenario cards are what set the story and the way the board is laid out. The Scenarios are The Capitol Wasteland (FO3), The Pitt (FO3), The Commonwealth (FO4), Far Harbor (FO4). If the could include maybe Big MT, The Divide, or Nuka World that would be great

Theme

The theme of this game is a Post Apocalyptic RPG where the goal is to gain as much influence is needed to win.

Replay Value

Tons. Aside from the 4 scenarios in the game, you are not guaranteed to win the game as most quests will advance the influence of one of the factions in the scenario. Once a faction gets max influence, they win and everyone else loses, unless a player has revealed an Agenda Card that partners them with a specific Faction, the player still requires their own influence points to count towards victory

Favourite Part

I'm playing Fallout, what's not to love

Least Favourite Part

There is some ambiguity in the rules, not everything is crystal clear. With a lot of components the set up and tidy up time can be quite lengthy.

The cardboard components don't have a very long life as they get worn quickly when the game is played a lot.

The weapons are not always useful nor do they make lot of sense. The pipe rifle requires you to spend money in order to use it, as if you were firing the caps at the enemy. There is no +1 to damage stats or anything like that, and like the companions, can often come with bizarre prerequisites to unexhaust the weapon after use

Expansions

New California and Atomic Bonds. New California adds new board layouts, characters, and missions as well as the first true Coop mission in the game. Atomic Bonds changes up the current missions in the game and allows you to flip the script such as allowing the Master to win. No doubt many more to come (a New Vegas one would be nice).

The Bottom Line

I love this game, despite the component quality. It plays the way a Fallout game should play, and as a fan of the series I can honestly say that I won't be getting bored of it anytime soon (1000+ hours in New Vegas)

+10 Rads

Game Designers: Andrew Fischer, Nathan Hajek

Game Artists: Andrew Fischer, Nathan I. Hajek, Brian Schomburg, Evan Simonet, Ben Zweifel

Publishers: Fantasy Flight Games

All images courtesy of BoardGameGeek