Today I’d like to give a few thoughts on the new Fallout board game designed by Andrew Fischer and Nathan I Hajek, and published by Fantasy Flight games
First, let me say one thing, I’m a huge fan of the theme as I’ve played and finished most of the Fallout video games. This game was pretty much an instant buy for me from the beginning. Saw and demoed an early version at GenCon 2017 and was quite impressed by that alone. Now that I have my own copy, I was excited the stomp around the wastelands of the Commonwealth and other famed locations from the series.
Fallout $59.95
The price point, which is about common for modern board games and since this one has miniatures and quite a bit of cardboard, is right on target for what you’re getting. Each character Class has their own unique miniatures, with classes ranging from Vault dweller to Brotherhood Outcast or even Super Mutant. The detail on the sculpts are phenomenal, and the punch board is very sturdy. Each player gets a cool player board, which is based on the PIP-Boy device that Vault-Dwellers wear on their wrists and has slots for status effects, talent points, health, radiation, and experience.
The game has you exploring the Wasteland searching for equipment, killing baddies, and finishing quests all the while competing with two factions, based on whichever of the four scenarios you are playing. This can be done solo or with friends. The game gives you the feeling of the video games, yet offers something new and fun. It has many great things going for it. The game plays 1-4 players and takes roughly 120-180 minutes. However, due to everyone learning as we went, our first four player game took nearly five hours. We were so into the game that we did not notice the time until we finished playing.
The only real negatives I can say are possibly the lengthy time investments. That could put new players off a bit. As well, the other negative would be the awesome but unforgiving V.A.T.S. dice. Combat is plentiful, and it is difficult at times due to needing a specific side of the dice to score a hit on certain enemies. Much like the video game you will most likely die quite a bit…but as long as your radiation level isn’t higher than your health, you will re-spawn and be on your way once more
The game offers four different scenarios to play, covering parts of Fallout 3 as well as Fallout 4. The quests and encounters play out as a choose your own adventure book. There are also bottle cap chits that act as the games famed currency of choice. Having played with a variety of player counts, from solo to two and four players respectively, it seems to scale very well no matter how many people you have playing.
I thoroughly enjoyed this game and would recommend it to any fan of the franchise as well as those who’ve never even heard of the game.
Overall impressions are of medium weight game-play and longer than average game-time, I’d give this one 8 out 10 Spikeys!
