Sunday, January 7, 2018

Fallout Board Game


Vault-tech, for all your survival needs!
All New Corvega, only $199,999!  Fusion Powered!
Iguana on a Stick, Nuka Cola, Radscorpions...
War.  War never changes.

The Fallout board game from FFG, not zombie gaming, but a fairly obvious post-apocalypse game.  Fallout has a pretty well known alternate history world with a post-apocalyptic series of adventures set some 200 years after a massive nuclear war has destroyed civilization. Fantasy Flight Games has published a board game based on the various iterations of the game.
Just out of the box, open rules

In typical FFG fashion, the components are top-notch.  The cards are well finished, the card stock components are nice and heavy and everything has a finish that feels like it will stand up to plenty of playing.  The miniatures that come in the game to represent the players are well detailed and represent several iconic characters from the video games.
Initial Setup

The game board is made up of randomly placed hexagons to create the 'wasteland' which allows for some variation from game to game.  Each game has different factions vying for control of the wasteland, slowly gaining influence as the players each try to increase their own influence by helping or hindering the factions.
Solo game underway with a vault dweller character

oh yeah, enemies will come after you!

On the surface, it works much like the video game and does capture that feel, at least early in the game.  Running around the wastes killing bloatflies, raiders and mutants, gathering loot and caps, trading and interacting at the settlements  and exploring ruins all give a nice immersive feel.
The railroad wins...

The end game is not as climatic, with one of the factions reaching a milestone on a tracking chart of influence, or one player having finished enough quests to achieve a required level of influence.  It doesn't trigger some sort of final quest, the game just ends.  Probably the only part of the game I feel actually fails.

It can be played by 1-4 players, so if you have a hankering for a board game and Fallout, this is a good game for you.  I enjoyed it, I am curious to see how it compares to the Fallout Miniatures game that is coming out.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for writing this repot, I had seen that this was cominbg out, but I'mnot completely enamoured by it even though I'm a big fan of the Fallout series.

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    1. It feels like a good attempt, but I have doubts about long term replay. I think if they had made some 'theme' decks for various factions and then had the players randomize their opponents and further randomize the wasteland layout they would have a real winner. Good, but not a must-have game unless you are a hard core Fallout fan.

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  2. I think the game will do well. If only for people to pick up the figures and re purpose them. Perhaps this could be incorporated into a skirmish game.

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    1. The game has done well, I think the first run has sold out. I do think they missed an opportunity to make more of an adventure game, maybe take some elements from Talisman, plenty of minis and add-on potential. If I can find another copy for real cheap, I would go for the miniatures, but it's around $50, I can get quite a few nice minis for that price...

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  3. Interesting, I’ve been playing a lot of board games recently so it could be one to add to the library especially with a solo play option. Does that work well?

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    1. The solo play works well enough. It could be a bit better, but that is to be expected in any game. It feels like fallout, but after a few play throughs, you tend to remember some of the cards. I still have yet to get to a vault...

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