War… War never changes. Wargames on the other hand do tend to get a fresh new Starter Box every once in a while, and today we are looking at the latest starter set for Fallout Factions, The Battle for Boston. In this full review we’ll be taking a look at the set, seeing what is inside and sharing what we think of this box both as an introduction to the Fallout Factions game for new players, but also if it’s worth picking up for returning players.

Massive thanks to Modiphius for sending us this over to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not pick up your copy of Battle for Boston through our affiliate Element Games.

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing and review which you can see just below or over on YouTube.

If you’d rather tackle the Wasteland either in solo or coop play then check out our interview with the designer at the UK Games Expo below too!

So without further ado let’s head into the ruins of Boston and see what is new for Fallout Factions.

Fallout Factions: Battle For Boston Review

It’s been a couple of years since we reviewed Nuka-World, the previous Fallout starter set – and we loved the system at the time, but there were a couple of things that we were not keen on back then. Firstly, there was the ability to build the plastic miniatures in ways that were not supported by the rules, due to the fact that they were designed for Factions and Wasteland Warfare. Secondly, I felt the setting of Nuka World was a little too niche and was lacking some of the nostalgia and “feel” of Fallout, especially off the back of the Amazon TV show.

Well, I’m happy to say that Modiphius have fixed both of these things in what might be the best starter set of the year (in a year filled with some excellent starter sets such as Carcass Front and the new 40k Starter Set) containing everything you need to start playing at a decent £100 price point.

So what’s in the box?

Well first up we have two entire crews, The Brotherhood of Steel and The Institute! While the crews in the Nuka-World box felt a little more niche, these are both mainstays of the Fallout universe and have been given some love with amazing new plastic kits too! The Brotherhood box has been out for a little while now, but the Institute is a new release that is jam packed with 12 models and lots and lots of build options.

Speaking of build options, we get a full instruction manual (something that wasn’t in the original Fallout Factions starter) and all build options are fully usable within Factions too. The best thing in the manual however is the fact that they have created some pre-written lists and marked the build options needed in order to use them in the game. This is excellent and makes it really quick and easy for someone to just build those options in order to have a crew ready to hit the table!

What’s more, the box contains some laminate crew rosters with these gangs pre filled – just grab a dry wipe marker and you’re able to open the box and get these on the table in no time at all! You do get blank ones too if you want to create your own crews.

The models are amazing representations of things we have seen in the Fallout games, and each individual model has about 2-3 different build options meaning that with 2 boxes you could have every single model looking unique, which is a really nice touch – especially once you get into a campaign and want to add some more units!

The Institute are probably my favourite of the two factions in the box, and there’s a nice range of models here – from the terminator aesthetic of the easy mark Synths through to the later infiltrators who could pass as human. This gives Institute players a lot of different textures to paint too, which makes for a nice little project to work on.

Both of the two crews look amazing once painted up, and it doesn’t really take long at all to have them looking good for the battlefield! It’s worth noting that the RRP for each of these two crews is £50 each – so you’re getting some decent value in the Fallout Factions box considering everything else that is in there.

Everyone needs a battlefield to play over – and in the Battle for Boston box you actually get a full board’s worth of terrain and a double sided mat too. The mat is a glossy thick poster kind of material, and I’d probably want to upgrade to a proper neoprene mat – but for someone looking to pick up the game it’s actually pretty good and well detailed too! It’s a little glossy and the folds are pretty visible, but it does the job and gives you a nice surface to fight over until you upgrade to a more premium one if you decide to get into the game.

You also get 4 punch cards of terrain (2 duplicate pairs), and I was actually really impressed with this. Now its worth pointing out that you don’t actually get instructions for these in the box, and I couldn’t actually find the PDF on the Modiphius website either, but by looking at the images on the back of the box it was pretty easy to build these blind, and the finished effect is great for card terrain! These just slot together, meaning you can take them apart for storage – but if you take the plastic tray out of the box you can actually fit all the paper materials, tokens, dice and terrain all the in the box and still have it close – so I’m tempted to glue mine together and use some paint to help try and disguise the joins.

It looks great all set up, though again if you get into the game I’d probably add some more scatter terrain to make the battlefield a little more interesting and help block and line of sight.

We’re not done yet though, as the box really does contain everything you need with dice, tokens, cheat sheets, unit sheets and even a Fallout Factions tape measure included in the set! The fact they have managed to squeeze all this stuff in a £100 box (and its only £90 from Element Games!) including the core rulebook is pretty amazing and I’m excited to see how the upcoming Wasteland Warfare starter sets compare to this too.

The Battle for Boston also contains a paperback Fallout Factions rulebook with the full rules on how to play the game, 4 Faction Lists and Commonwealth themed scenarios and campaign content.

If you’ve previously picked up the Nuka-World or hardback core rulebook then you’ll know what to expect here, but the book does a really good job at explaining how the game works and how to play it.

If you’re new to Fallout Factions then essentially this is a fast paced skirmish game that uses a unique SPECIAL system in order to determine if actions trigger. Each model has their own SPECIAL statline, taking inspiration from the Fallout video games with the same stats – S is for Strength for example and is used for physical weapons, while P is for Perception and this is used for majority of ranged weapons. These Special stats will be numbered 1-10 and you need to try and roll under them in order to get a success.

A test for example might be 4P for example – this means you roll 4 dice and test against P (Perception). What adds an extra element to this however is that this pool of dice is first made up of luck dice equal to your luck stat (usually 1 or 2, but can be higher for some models) and then topped up with standard dice – for every luck dice that is a success you get to roll an additional dice (as well as triggering some critical effects too) meaning that even with a weaker weapon you always have the chance of getting really lucky and doing way more damage that you would expect to – perfectly capturing how luck works in the Fallout games too!

This system is a little different to the way a lot of other games work, but essentially folds hitting and wounding into a single dice roll, with successes then being compared against the targets stats to see if they take harm (a mechanic that tracks light wounds that can do damage once you accrue enough of them), injuries or even outright killing a target if you get an exceptionally lucky roll. This is really quick to pick up and makes combats very fast paced with little downtime.

Our first game took around an hour, and once you have the basics down you can fly through turns really quickly.

There’s lots of nice stuff stacked on top of this too – warbands can obtain chems that can be used for beneficial effects and bonuses. These are abstracted as a pool that can be used across the entire crew, without having to worry about which model is carrying which. There’s also ploys – these are tied to the tier of your crew and essentially allow you to do some cool out of sequence things such as being able to take 2 turns in a row, or even reroll all dice in your dice pool! Each crew also gets access to unique ones giving each faction their own feel.

Crew construction is pretty simple – rather than buying each fighter and then paying for the weapons, they instead have a number of different loadouts that are all costed inclusive of weapons – so for example a Courser with grenades and a pistol costs 57, while a Courser with a Scattered Institute Rifle costs 64. You have 250 Caps in order to build your starting Crew, and the lists give you quite a bit of flexibility on which models you can take, though there are limits on your champions.

Progression is a big element of Fallout Factions too, with crews being able to not only gain experience and acquire new skills and perks, but also upgrade their weapons and even venture out to new areas of the Wasteland on quests to try and advance themselves further. This all takes place after the battle, with crew progression being self contained. This means that I could use the same Crew against 3 different players without having to stick to a campaign with the single group. There’s mechanics within the game to make a fight between two crews with wildly different ratings a little more fair, but essentially all your narrative and crew advancement sits within your own list without needing another player to oversee matters as the Games Master. This is a nice touch and means that your crew can face whoever, without having to get bogged down in tracking everyone elses progress too.

All these story elements in this book are themed around the Commonwealth, which again feels more “Fallout” to me than what was in Nuka-World and are reenforced with new quest lines for all the factions in the book too.

Speaking of the factions, we get 4 in the rulebook. Both the Brotherhood of Steel and The Institute are here, but there’s also rules for the recently released Minutemen and the Railroad both of which feel different both mechanically and aesthetically to the crews in the box, giving you a nice mixture of factions. The separately available Crew Folio and Hardback Core Book give you the rules for most other factions who currently have miniatures such as the Super Mutants and Children of the Atom – it’s a shame they are not all included in the core book in the box, but both of these hardback books can easily be picked up if you did want to dive further into the game.

Summary

So what do I think of the Fallout Factions Battle For Boston? This is an excellent starter set. Very often boxes claim to have “everything you need to start playing” but that is actually case here. You get two full Crew kits that have more models than you need to get started, and a full map and terrain setup that doesn’t need anything added to it to get starting. Even down to little things such as including a tape measure and enough dice and tokens to have a full game. It feels like Modiphius have wanted to make sure that anyone picking up this box can get the contents built and start exploring the new game without having to buy a single thing outside this box. Yes, there are of course things you can buy to expand your options such as the books I mentioned earlier and the rest of the Fallout range, but it’s rare that a starter set is as complete as this, and at an excellent price point too.

The miniatures are excellent and are both quick and fun to paint up. The terrain is surprisingly good for card and all stores away in the box when not in use. Most importantly though the game is great fun. It captures the feeling of the source material without doing what do many games do and getting bogged down in too much complexity. It’s quick to pick up, fast to play, and still has me thinking the game and getting excited to play again while I’m writing this review.

If you’re a fan of skirmish games then I’d highly recommend giving this a go, even if you’ve never played the Fallout video games or watched the TV show. If you have however, then not only do you get an excellent game, but you also get the change to build and paint up miniatures based on that universe, and for some that’s just as exciting as playing the game!

Fallout Factions is out now with the single and co-op focused Wasteland Warfare releasing early next year.

Modiphius provided Sprues & Brews a free copy for review purposes.