Who will you side with?
Fallout The Board Game published by Fantasy Flight, the game places the players in a post-apocalyptic world base on Fallout 4 the video game. With Season 2 of the Prime TV show over and while I wait for season 3. I decided to go back to the board game and see if I could survive.
Content
This game is loaded with playable components. Let me break it down for you. 2 booklets, Learn to Play and Rules Reference. 21 Map Tiles, 4 Scenario Sheets, 5 plastic figures with Character Cards and Character S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Tokens, 4 Player Boards with 12 Pegs. 75 Encounters cards divided as 34 Wasteland, 21 Settlement and 20 Vaults. 100 Quest Cards, 14 Perk Cards, 2 Power Token, 3 V.A.T.S. Dice, 27 Enemy Token, 35 S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Tokens, 54 Caps Tokens, 12 Trait Tokens, 34 Loot Cards, 25 Asset Cards, 11 Unique Asset Cards, 23 Agenda Cards, 10 Faction Tokens and 8 Quest Markers.
Setup
To prepare for your game session, the players need to agree on a Scenario Sheet and setup as described on the sheet. Specific locations will be placed according to the scenario, the hidden location the green and the red will be shuffled separately and placed to complete the map for the selected scenario. Take your Player board, select your character and take the figure, card and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. token that goes with it. Place the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. token in the matching letter on your player board, set your life counter to 16 (Red Peg) and your radiation level to 0 (Green Peg) and the White Peg at the start of experience tracker right before the S., place you figure in and empty space in the Crossroads Camp tile. Picked a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. tokens from the pile and place it on your player board, if you already have it select another one. Take 3 Caps and pick 1 Agenda Card and keep it secret from other players. Separate the tokens, stack the monster tokens per type. remove the Encounter Cards with a Star, and placed at the bottom of the play area as the starting encounters. Take the rest of the cards and put them in numerical order to create de card library. Place the Agenda Cards deck on the right side of the starting player board. Resolve any effects on the back of the scenario card and place the power token at the top. For each place that has an enemy icon place a token that matches face up. You are now ready to start your adventure.
Play session
The box states that the game is for 1 to 4 players, I have tried solo and it can be fun (even better if you don’t cheat). The goal is to survive as well as gaining influence with a specific faction, remember that each scenario will have 2 factions working to obtain control of the wasteland. You can always declare loyalty to a faction at the start of your turn, but loyalty is not set in stone and you can always change it according to how the game progresses.
Protecting your game
One of the thing that I appreciate of games published by Fantasy Flight, is they always provide you with which sleeves and the amount of packs of each, are required to protect your cards. No, you don’t need to get the Fantasy Flight brand, other companies works as well. One of the disappointment from this game is the Player board, as you play the game you will need to move the peg from locations and after a while it does get used and quickly shows signs of wear, and the peg. Should you be able to find and 3D print your own player board, your game will last longer.
Final note
Fallout The Board Game, is an exploration game that can be replayed several times, even the same scenarios can have different outcomes, based on the terrain that will be set at the beginning, the character that are in play and even which enemies are activated. Because of all the elements that needs to happen in a single turn, I would recommend this game for an intermediate level player. There are also expansions that does change how the game is played, but these will be covered in a future review.