Fallout: Power Play
- Board's Eye View
- 6 minutes ago
- 2 min read
The videogame Fallout (Bethesda/Interplay Entertainment), in its various iterations and settings, is one of our favourites. It's a sandbox game where you're exploring a post-apocalyptic world and interacting with the mutants, ghouls, robots, raiders and crazed groupings that you encounter in a radioactive wasteland. The recent TV series on Amazon Prime has brought Fallout to an even wider audience but the franchise has also spawned several board and card games from Fantasy Flight and Modiphius. Fallout: Power Play is the most recent. It's a 'take that' area control card game for 2-4 players, designed by Resurrectionist Games and published by Modiphius.
Players each control one of the factions from the Fallout universe: Raiders, Super Mutants, Enclave or Brotherhood of Steel. Each faction has their own unique deck. In addition, there are location cards and there's a deck of Wasteland cards that generate an Event at the end of each round. Players earn victory points by having the most influence at a location, usually by having the most powerful 'agents' there (character cards) or by completing 'quests'. Players can also attack each other's agents.
Gameplay is reasonably straightforward, so you can be up and running without having to pre-digest a lot of rules, but the downside is that you're likely to encounter queries along the way that aren't adequately dealt with in the rulesheet. Resurrectionist Games have confirmed that the rules could do with a revamp and an FAQ and we gather that they are working on these and will be posting them on BoardGameGeek (BGG).
If, like us, you're a fan of the Fallout franchise, then you're bound to get a kick (or should that be a stimpak) out of Power Play. It succeeds in capturing the feel and flavour of Fallout but it plays in less than 30 minutes. Do look out tho' for the reworked rules and FAQ when these appear on BGG.
