By James Hewitt
Photography by Fatima Martin
Hey there, wastelanders! It’s James again, back to tie up this series of gameplay blogs with a look at how scenarios work. If you aren’t up to date with the series, head to the Fallout: Factions hub page and get yourself caught up. This will make a lot more sense if you do.
This time, we’re talking about Scenarios!
Fallout: Factions contains six Scenarios, each of which provides a set of rules and objectives themed around a particular type of battle. Each one also offers specific rewards, so choosing a scenario becomes part of your crew’s overarching strategy.
- The Skirmish scenario is a straight-up fight between two crews, with no special rules. Winning a Skirmish scenario gains you Control in the game’s Location - more on that below.
- The Stockpile Raid scenario sees one crew guarding some valuable goods, and the other crew attempting to steal them! If the attacking crew wins, they’ll gain access to some rare Chems.
- The Retrieval Run scenario lets a crew infiltrate a rival’s turf to steal valuable information from guarded computer terminals. The attacking crew stands to gain plenty of Caps and Parts if they win.
- The Land Grab scenario is an aggressive move into another crew’s turf. If they win, the attacking crew can steal Control from their opponents.
- The Rumble scenario sees one crew calling out another to send out their best fighters for a (more or less) civilized punch-up… which definitely won’t devolve into an all-out brawl. Winning this scenario without resorting to foul play lets you take a free Recruit Story Action after the game.
- The Ambush scenario is a chance for a gang to even the odds against a tougher rival, launching an attack from the shadows when they least suspect it. The winning crew gets to make an extra Story Action after the game.
Choosing a Scenario
When two players come together to play a game of Factions, one of the first things they’ll do is choose a Location. Each player makes a three-dice Intelligence test for their Leader, and whoever scores the highest picks one of the five Locations [1], or states that this battle will be happening out in the Wasteland.
This matters, because each crew is keeping a tally of their Control in each of the five areas, and will have chosen a single Location as their Home Turf. One player, determined by a dice roll (which favors the less-powerful crew) gets to make the choice, and will be the Attacker.
- If the battle is happening out in the Wasteland, Control is irrelevant - you can pick the Skirmish or Ambush scenario.
- If the other crew’s Control in this Location is higher than yours, you can choose a Skirmish, Stockpile Raid, Retrieval Run or Land Grab.
- If you’re fighting in the other crew’s Home Turf, you can choose any scenario other than Ambush.
- If none of these apply, you can choose from Ambush or Rumble.
So as you can see, Location and Scenario choice is really important to your crew’s overarching strategy. You might choose a Location where you have plenty of Scouting Points, so you have more chance of being able to choose which Scenario you play, or one where your Opponent has more Control, so you can raid their Stockpiles and get some Rare Chems.
There we go - that’s the last of my blogs on the gameplay of Fallout: Factions. I hope it’s been an interesting read! Of course, I’ve not covered everything. If you want to learn more, you can always head to the hub page where you can see me performing brilliantly [2] during an actual game. Also, just because my blogs are done, that doesn’t mean the series is over - sign up to the newsletter if you want to see more about the three Raider Factions and how they work in the game!