Hi.  It’s been some time since I last posted on this blog with work and study taking up my time.  Whilst I still won’t be able to review games for now, I’m excited to share my development blog for a great game I am working on.

As some of you already know, I am Game Designer of the forthcoming Fallout: Wasteland Warfare game from Modiphius.   Each week, I am writing a development blog on the game as we reveal the features of the game, and there is a lot to reveal!  The first four blogs have been released already on the Modiphius site so I shall post these all here now.  If you’re interested in receiving news on the game, sign-up for the official updates from Modiphius.

Development Blog #1: Movement & Range

Measurement of movement and ranges is one of the mechanics that we have taken a contemporary approach to in the same way that other tabletop games use manoeuvre templates and other devices.  Each Fallout unit card includes the S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats for its unit giving us loads of great options for gameplay; however, we wanted to reduce the amount of numbers on the cards to simplify the information, so James hit on the concept of coloured ranges. The coloured ranges are used for all distances in Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, and the two-player starter set comes with a number of coloured range sticks of specific sizes.

Measuring movement distances is simple as each unit card shows two colours – one for standard movement, and one for charging.  For example, your Super Mutant unit card shows yellow for their standard movement which can be used for any movement; however, the unit card shows green for their charge which is longer than yellow.  Each model gets two actions so you could move a Super Mutant in this unit yellow and then yellow again, or you could move them yellow, and if it’s now within green distance of an enemy, charge with your second action. The sticks show the maximum distance so you can move up to any point along that range stick, and it’s easy to use them to move around objects using marked increments on the sticks.

Measuring weapon ranges is equally simple too.  Attacks are all shown on small cards such as the combat shotgun or plasma rifle.  Each weapon has a short range and a long range, and a coloured bar for each shows which stick is used.  To measure a shot, you just grab the sticks shown, place them end-to-end, and you can immediately see the ranges.  For example, your combat shotgun shows red for short range and blue for long – place the two end-to-end (red then blue) and you can see what falls within your combat shotgun’s blast.  The effect dice rolled for each range are shown underneath the coloured range bands.  So, for the combat shotgun, if your target is within the red stick (short range), you roll the effect dice shown under the red bar; if your target is within the blue stick (long range) then you roll the effect dice shown under the blue bar.

The game will come with super-chunky, die-cut range sticks and we’ll also be producing Vault-Tec approved coloured acrylic upgrade sets.  Symbols on the cards and sticks assist those with colour blindness identify the correct sticks.

As well as movement and weapon ranges, colours are used for all other measurements in the game too such as awareness, presence, blast damage, set-up, determining falling damage, etc. This simple system speeds up gameplay and keeps the most important numbers on the unit cards clear and easy to read.

Remember, if you’re interested in receiving news on the game, sign-up for the official updates from Modiphius.  Plus, you can visit the Modiphius site to check out all the great-looking models and their status.

More news to come and I’m looking forwards to sharing more details,

James.

Please note that due to the amount of spam comments bots try and post, all comments have to be manually approved so there can be a time delay to your post becoming visible. It’s often quicker to post on the Modiphius Fallout Forum or Fallout: Wasteland Warfare page on BoardGameGeek.com where I or someone else can answer your questions.