Fallout Factions Battle For Nuka-World Starter Set Review - Rolling Dice For The Wasteland

While no stranger to the wargaming space, Bethesda and Modiphius have teamed up to create a smaller scale Fallout skirmish game; Fallout Factions. The Fallout Factions: Nuka-World starter kit contains everything you need to get together with a friend and take to the wasteland in a Fallout-skinned wargame.

Fallout Factions is a skirmish game where two players will sit down across a battle map, place terrain, and battle it out with their custom armies. If you're someone familiar with wargaming and free movement skirmish games chances are you'll settle right in with Fallout Factions, but for someone who is new to the space this Starter Kit might be just what you need to get a foothold in the world.

If you're a fan of legacy games there's also something here for you with chances to upgrade your parties between battles, perfect if you have someone who wants to take you on in a rematch!

Press X To Collect Everything In The Box

To start off let's cover what's in the box.

Inside the Fallout Factions: Nuka-World Starter Set you'll find:

• A 70+ page rulebook (don't let that scare you)
• A large battle map (double-sided with a Nuka Cola pinup on the other side)
• Twelve d10 – eight in the standard red color and four in Nuka Cola Quantum blue – for stat and attack rolls
• Crew Roster cards
• A small measuring tape
• Tokens for tracking character statuses and game features
• Buildable terrain elements
• Enough mini pieces to build two custom armies; one for the Pack faction and another for the Operators.

I'll admit, when I saw just how many mini pieces there were, and understood how modular they could al be I was a little bit taken aback, but working my way through the rulebook it came to be much simpler than expected.

The rulebook starts by introducing players to the gameplay elements, starting with the basics like movement and combat, before introducing you to elements like teambuilding and gameplay scenarios, before providing you with a massive appendix of the factions of Fallout Factions, their ploys (perks), and weapons.

As a more visual learner I did have a bit of issues understanding how each of the games elements interacted with one another, often having to flip back and forth to make sure I understood how different elements interacted with one another. Finding a quick gameplay demo video ended up helping me understand the different elements far easier.

Building Your Team

With enough pieces to create a team of The Pack minis and a team of The Operators you'll be able to start playing with a friend, but there is some assembly required. Each of the teams can be made up of a variety of permutations – how many captains and grunts make up the team, as well as what loadouts they have contributing towards a max team score of 250.

Instead of providing you with a ready to play team and team roster you're able to create the team yourself, and assemble the minis so they even have the correct weapons on display. For those who are already established in the game, and understand how to balance a team this is a great option, but for a new player that's a lot to put on them, especially when glueing the minis together is relatively permanent.

I was almost hesitant to put together the miniatures provided, instead opting to use proxies in case the team I built was horrible and I didn't want to be stuck with them. Alternatively, for someone with more confidence in their teambuilding abilities I'm sure they'd happily welcome the ability to literally build their own personalized army.

Needing to build your own army also means there's a higher barrier to entry for starting the two player game as your friend also needs to pick their roster and assemble their fighters.

Once you've gone through the process of creating your teams you'll be able to pick a scenario, place your minis, and get started.

Take Your Initiative Token

With that setup behind you it's ready to start the game. Each Scenario is played out over a number of Rounds (normally three to five), these rounds consist of each player taking turns picking one of their models, and making actions until that fighter can't take any more, this is called being Exhausted. 

Alternatively, a player might opt to end their turns before all of their fighters are Exhausted, this has the added benefit of letting you start first next round.

The actions that a character can make are fairly simple, if they're not within a melee distance of an enemy (unengaged) they can move, fire with a ranged weapon, or take an action to heal themselves. If they are within melee distance to another they can back off, becoming unengaged, or choose to Brawl with their Melee Attack.

For the most part the early game will have players picking a model, moving them to a good vantage point (making the model weary) and then having them attack an opponent (exhausting them).

There's a lot of strategy that comes from what each of your fighters can do, what order in the turn you choose to move them, and what their stats are. Do you want to put a heavy hitter in your opponents sights hoping you'll get them before they get you, or do you want to protect your own and bring them out as a trump card?

The game only lasts three rounds so it's important to get out there, do some damage, and work your objective.

Combat In The Wastelands

Each instance of combat is a roll off. For the fighter it's a bit complicated at first, you'll be comparing the Test stat of each weapon, that comprises of a number and the letter P for Perception or A for Agility. Then you roll the number of dice to your characters P or A stat, trying to get a number higher than the test.

A weapon might say 4A for it's test, and with an Agility stat of 3 you'll roll three of the D10 trying to get a 4 or above. For each that you roll above the test value it counts as a hit.

You then compare your hits against the Endurance of who you're trying to hit, for every point above their Endurance they'll take a point of damage.

While it might sound complicated it really just boils down to: "How much bigger is my number than yours"

There's good depth to the level of combat, but also by only relying on one person to be making rolls and calling out a number it keeps the pace up, especially once you've really got the hang of what you're looking for.

Scenarios

The Scenarios that you pick to play will tell you not only where you'll be starting each faction, but also what objective you'll be competing over. Because of its shorter format, you won't have time to wipe out your entire opponent's faction, but you will need to hold an objective or complete some other kind of 'goal' that will give you a clear goal while you also try to stay alive.

On top of Scenarios where you'll need to claim an objective there's also Scenarios where one team will be defending the location of an objective, that one side will need to transport something across enemy lines, that they need to push into and claim enemy territory, and 

Completing Scenarios will also grant the bonus of allowing you to level up your faction and grow their stories. This might be the chance to get new items that will influence the gameplay or to upgrade your fighters with perks.

A character with good Charisma might pick Inspirational, which increases their Control area by 2 inches, or a Strength character could add range to their Grenade weapons. Even in the scope of this starter set the faction that you begin playing with can evolve over the course of a few battles.

Fallout Factions Nuka-World Review | Final Thoughts

Once I got to playing Fallout Factions, I was having a great time. Easy to understand turn orders and action economy, the most difficult thing to learn was the setup and rules.There's a nice level of customizability in the factions as you build them, but that can be a bit daunting if you're totally new.

For your first game, possibly before even putting together your minis I'd recommend checking out the Fallout: Factions - 'Welcome to Nuka-World' Quickstart Guide from Modiphius. It does a really good job of introducing you to a small round of gameplay, smaller faction, and teaches you through doing as opposed to teaching you the rules as they build upon themselves.

If you're a fan of Fallout and Skirmish games I can see this being a great entry point to a new world. If you've never picked up a Skirmish game before though the box as is might be a bit tough.

The copy of Fallout Factions Nuka-World Starter Kit used for the creation of this review was provided by the publisher.