By Evie Moriarty, Lead Game Designer
Photo by Fatima Martín Pérez

We’ll dive into the full details about how you explore your Campaign Map to find Combat Encounters and so on soon, but for now, let’s quickly go over the basics of combat.

A Combat Encounter in the new edition of Fallout: Wasteland Warfare is what used to be called a ‘scenario’ or even just ‘game’. It’s a single session of play taking place on a board with miniatures and scenery, where you’re fighting against an opponent to complete a task. So far, so familiar, but there have been some pretty big changes.

First of all, what your objective is in a combat encounter doesn’t depend on what scenario you’ve chosen to play, but what type of encounter you have in the wasteland, and whether you have any quests that you can pursue while you’re there.

There are seven encounter types in the Core Rulebook for the new edition, ranging from simple Confrontations through to Scavenger Hunts to taking on a Stronghold. These encounter types give basic setup information, tell you what kind of opposition you’ll be facing, and get any search markers placed on the board, but they don’t give you an objective as such. Sometimes there’s an implied objective, such as in a Scavenger Hunt, where you’ve happened upon an area rich with potential loot. Having a rummage around is a focus, but that’s all. You can arrive at a Scavenger Hunt encounter, not search once, and still come out with what you want.

Instead, these encounter types are more like specific situations you come across. A Scavenger Hunt is a place with lots of good opportunities for salvage. A Stronghold is a place your opposition has fortified and made their own. An Escort encounter has you run into a group of enemies who are escorting something valuable through the Wasteland. What you do in that encounter is up to you.

What might give you a specific objective is your quests. These can be acquired from friendly settlements and can place objective markers on the board when you arrive in certain locations or have particular kinds of encounters. The rules for how to play out these objectives will all be contained in those quests and can vary a lot. Perhaps you’ll be trying to fix damaged infrastructure, find someone’s lost hat, or seek revenge on a specific enemy. Not every combat encounter will have an objective in it, and that’s part of the charm of the new edition — you’re searching the Wasteland for your objectives, travelling to places of interest, and finding new things along the way.

In terms of combat itself, the base rhythm will be familiar to you if you’ve played first edition (or indeed most other skirmish miniatures games). You’ll take turns with your AI opponent, activating models for them to take actions, and once all of your models have had their turn, the round will end, and a new one starts. You’ll have actions like attacking, moving, and using items to keep you busy, and your opponents will generally do their best to stop you! You’ll injure enemy models, have your own models suffer damage, as well as find new items and valuable loot in the Wasteland to improve your warband. We’ll go into detail about how all these things work in future blog entries.

Next up, we’ll be taking a look at exploring the Wasteland. See you then!