Fallout: Factions is the latest entry into the crowded miniature skirmish game market, and there’s some serious design muscle behind it. Modiphius’ latest expansion to its popular line of Fallout tabletop games was designed by none other than James Hewitt, whose whirlwind of productivity with Games Workshop helped bring modern incarnations of the Warhammer 40,000 classic to life. Necromunde and the mech fighter on an epic scale Adeptus Titanicus. The game’s two-player starter set, Fallout: Factions – Welcome to Nuka World, goes to pre-order on Monday. Polygon spoke to the designer to find out more.
Factions is designed in part to appeal to non-tabletop gamers, players who might be curious about miniatures skirmish games, love the Fallout universe, and want to give miniatures assembly and painting a try. That’s why the quick start guide (available today as a free download) is easy to read and understand, even for newcomers.
Photo: Modiphius
But Factions is also intended to meet the needs of enthusiasts Fallout: Wasteland War, a more collaborative Fallout-inspired ruleset announced in 2017. Players have been working for years to make it a more competitive game, so the British company decided to give players a system built with head-to-head combat in mind. Hewitt told Polygon that he removed virtually all the old rules and replaced them with mechanics he designed in his studio. Needy cat gamesfor more than two years. That’s far from it the three months he said he got to make a modern version of it Necromunde.
“(Necromunde) was a really fun experience working on it,” Hewitt said with a laugh. “It was a little bit more stressful than I would have liked, and that was one of the things that led to me leaving (Games Workshop). Basically, I wanted the opportunity to work on things with a reasonable time frame. .” Those follow-up projects included contract work with Steamforged games, with Hewitt working on the Devil May Cry and Sea of Thieves licenses, among others.
“I think a lot about how to adapt a licensed product from one medium to another,” says Hewitt. “I think the biggest mistake you can make is trying to recreate the same experience in the same way. (…) When I play a board game based on a video game, when I watch a movie based on a book, when I listen to a musical based on a movie, wherever that may be, I want to kind of feel the spirit of that thing. I don’t want to worry about the exact details. For me it doesn’t necessarily matter, as long as that feeling comes across.”
Photo: Modiphius
The feeling he was going for here has to do with Fallout’s Luck stat, part of the SPECIAL system, which has stood for the Strength, Perception, Stamina, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck stats since the original video game was released . in 1997. Luck in Fallout often means that seemingly impossible things can happen at any time, and luck in this game is expressed with special “exploding” dice.
In practice, this means players create a pool of dice based on the weapons and terrain involved in a given battle. They then add additional dice based on their character’s luck score. When rolled, only the lucky dice have a chance to explode, meaning that when they hit a certain number, even more dice being thrown into the pool and also being rolled. That means even the lowest trooper on the battlefield should have a chance, no matter how slim, of going up against the game’s biggest baddies.
“We wanted to make a game that is more suitable for (small communities of friends),” Hewitt said. “I worked in games retail for ten years and worked with a lot of gaming clubs, and the idea of just picking up and playing games. You come by, bring a box of miniatures and see who is around. You don’t do that so easily Wasteland War. We wanted to make sure you can do that Factions.”
Fallout: Factions – Welcome to Nuka World will be available for pre-order on February 5 for $100. It comes with two sets of multi-part plastic miniatures depicting The Pack and The Operators – two of the factions featured in the Nuka World DLC for Fallout 4. It also includes a 24 by 36 inch playmat, 86 tokens, a Real measuring tape (not a “whippy stick” in sight), punch-out terrain and some nice dice. But don’t worry about needing custom dice later, as the game uses standard d10s to make the action work. Additional factions will cost you around $41.