Giving Fallout Skirmish Rules a Try

    My Super Mutants investigate a damaged auto repair station, where it looks like a blast went off

One of our friends, Mike S, has been a devotee of the computer game Fallout for years. Once the miniatures game came out, it was a no-brainer he'd buy into it and collect miniatures, terrain, and more, eventually running it for us. The confusing thing was why it took him so long! I expected him to beat my post-Apocalyptic games to the punch easily. I guess he was waiting till he felt comfortable running the rules for his son Jason and his nephews before springing it on us.

    Mike and Jason S ran the game for us, which flowed fairly quickly as we searched the various ruins

Well, our first taste of the rules came last Sunday when Mike and Jason showed up to teach us the rules and run an introductory game. The seven us were each given a four-figure squad. Our game included two Super Mutant factions (Keith and I), two Raiders (Jenny and Joel), and two Minute Men (Andy and Bruce). The mission of the mutants was to find food and investigate the area. Food, incidentally, included Humans! Each other faction had a similar mission, though the human factions weren't as keen to cannibalize as the mutants might be...

    My super mutants and pet 'dog' break camp - I have to say the Fallout Miniatures didn't impress

It took a bit longer for us to wrap our head around the rules, and even longer to get a handle on the weird dice faces on the proprietary dice that Fallout uses. Well, to be honest, I never really got a handle on the symbols. I would have to say it is my chief beef with the rules. Do you really need five or six different colored dice each with an array of cryptic symbols on them, in addition to ordinary numbers? You can't work with percentages and the various sized dice to attain the results you're looking for? Or is it perhaps to simply sell dice along with the oddly-scaled plastic figures they make for the game?

My mutant checks out the intersection, finding nothing interesting (Keith snapped up the goodies!)

Speaking of the figures, I honestly was not impressed with them. My friend Mike is a talented painter, but the proportions of the miniatures screamed Clix figures to me. I know a lot of folk use the various clix figures that have fallen out of favor as an inexpensive source for miniatures. I just don't like either the scale or the shiny plastic look to them. My three super mutants and "dog" looked like the Incredible Hulk, which is fine if you're playing Marvel superhero clix, but...

    Our cohorts, Keith's Super Mutants, chase Bruce's Minute Men out of the shanty town

Anyway, enough complaining! How did the game go? Well, we mostly moved towards the center, which was bad news for the factions in the center of the table. Poor Jenny and her Raiders got squeezed on one side by Andy's Minuate Men and the other side by my Super Hulks. Andy's sharpshooters killed two of her figures sheltering on a concrete roof, while my dog and one of my Hulks got another one who was trying to flee. Andy was also shooting Joel's Raiders, as was Bruce. Bad day to be a raider. I think both Joel and Jenny ended up with only one figure left on the table.

    Keith's mutants are hot on the trail of humans - "Them's good eatin'!!"

Bruce, like Jenny, skedaddled when he saw Super Hulks coming their way. Keith pressed him closely, the dog scampering ahead to engage one of the Minute Men. Although his buddies came to his aid and eventually shot the mutated, wild boar sized pooch dead, Bruce had lost one of his figures to its massive maw.  Andy undoubtedly killed the most enemy, taking cover in ruins and blasting away all game long. He even took a long range shot at one of my hulks, claiming it couldn't hide behind a puny, human-sized door. My green-skinned menace took offense at the derogatory comment about his bulk, but decided to scoop up the dead Raider and drag his dead pooch along back to camp. My other mutants grabbed Jenny's dead Raiders, and similarly headed home.

    Mike's Fallout terrain looked nice - a good mix of 3D printed, resin, and MDF terrain

The game flowed fairly quickly with the spiraling activation system (players going around the table to activate or hold a figure at the ready).  I had no problem with that, though I do like the randomness and strategy of the Wiley Games system I am using for my post-Apocalyptic rules better. Keith said he preferred the Wiley Games system over Fallout. I'd be willing to give it another chance now that we have a better idea what we're doing, though.

With Jenny, Joel, and Bruce's figures falling back, and my mutants carrying more than they could eat for a few days back with them, we called the game. The jury is out for me on this one. I didn't hate it, and am sure I will get used to the annoying dice. So, we shall see what the, ahem, Fallout is on the first playtest and see if we do it again!