First AI Game Experience

Fallout Wasteland Warfare
1

Played my first AI game yesterday. The first AI Scenario, it’s called Surrounded, or something.

I played Brotherhood of Steel (710 points) against Super Mutants (715 points).

The AI Super Mutants won, but it was very close.

A big part of it was the learning experience. There were several moments in the game that I realized I was playing rules incorrectly, and then fixed that going forward. A few of these I didn’t notice until near the end of the game.

The main rules I got wrong were:

  1. Charge - The main miniatures game I play is Guild Ball, which features a Charge rule that includes a longer movement + attack. For some reason the familiarity of this lead me to play Fallout WW charges the same way, rather than broken into two actions (1. Long move w/ bonus token 2. Attack and spend bonus token). I discovered this about half way through the game. This mistake mainly benefited the Super Mutants, as they were the more charg-y of the teams.

  2. Armour - For some reason for a large portion of the game I was subtracting a model’s entire Armour value from the damage after a successful armour roll, rather than the amount on the Armour die. I discovered this about 70% of the way through the game. Of course, this by far benefited the tanky Brotherhood of Steel.

  3. Crits - I made the mistake of adding Critical Meter tokens to every unit, rather than just Heroic units. I would say that this mistake benefited both teams, but with the Brotherhood’s weapons getting the better deal overall. I played the entire game like this.

General Thoughts:

I enjoyed the game. The ai card matrices felt intuitive and the actions the models made seemed natural. As with other games with a solo component, the “break” that exists when another player is playing is absent, so you are almost constantly rolling dice, moving tokens, or reading cards. This can make the experience a bit exhausting, but it’s fun. And you can change the pace or break it up to belay that.

I am going to replay the scenario tonight with those three rules fixed and see how my BoS fares. I’ve also assembled more of the models since then, so there will be a few more choices for each team.

Love the game so far and the models especially. Looking forward to the announced waves, and hoping for a model of Megaton’s own Sheriff Lucas Simm’s sometime down the road.

2 Likes
2

Interesting, what are the lists you used, also have you used any weapons with fire effects. I am interested in hearing how powerful fire based weapons, they seems very strong, especially against high armor models.

3

To remove a layer of learning for that first game I used the AI Card loadouts for both teams, with a few substitutions here and there.

Haven’t used any weapons with fire effects yet but am going to for the next game.

I think overall that first AI Game helped me start internalizing the rules and made me excited to play again with some added layers and more bespoke lists.

4

Great report. Love the AI and when I play solo let it control everything but the sole survivor…and Dogmeat if he is within animal handler aura distance.

The rules take some getting used to and diving into the whole thing from the start is a process.

Had some of the same mistakes in my first game.

Still fun though and that is the point after all.

5

Played a second AI game. Same scenario, very similar loadouts – trying to recreate the first game but with a deeper understanding of the rules and the mistakes I made the first time. ~750 Brotherhood of Steel vs. ~750 Super Mutants. Because of the more expensive loadouts of the Brotherhood, it was 4 models to 8.

The AI Super Mutants won, but it was as close as it could be – two engaged models both with 1 point of damage remaining. It came down to which team had Advantage, and that was the Super Mutants, so the Brute blew away the Lancer.

With a better understanding of the rules the game went a lot faster. I played Crits, Charges and Armour right this time. The only rule I haven’t fully brought into play yet so far is the Luck tokens.

The feeling of the different teams is very apparent. In the first two rounds, it felt like it was wildly unbalanced, as my Brotherhood of Steel had such range superiority and had removed 2-3 of their models before they even reached me. But once they reached my models, things evened out considerably. My models would get surrounded by 2 or more Super Mutants and would have difficulty doing anything significant in Close Combat or lining up shots to outside models without severe disadvantages (cover / shooting into engagements).

A few general notes:

My MVP: Lancer. I love the long weapon ranges in Fallout WW. My Lancer was able to use his Laser Rifle from relative safety the entire game, chipping away at Super Mutants and spending Nuka Cola symbols to add unblock able damage. Paladin Danse and my Heroic Paladin models made much flashier plays, but that Lancer was my favourite.

AI MVP: Brute. I had the Brute upgraded with the Super Sledge and it had a huge impact. I think the Brute took out 3 of the 4 models.

Mutant Hounds were also impactful for the Super Mutant team. They are cheap and expendable, but they are fast enough to get into the faces of my ranged models and ruin their game plan while the bigger, slower Mutant models caught up.

The thematic feeling of Power Armour in Fallout WW is pitch perfect in my opinion. It’s expensive, adds very strong effects, and has a meaningful impact on the game once it degrades.

A few questions:

As far as I can tell, there is no penalty for shooting outside of engagement while engaged, beyond possible Cover bonuses granted by the model you’re engaged with. Is that correct?

2 Likes
6

First paragraph on page 24: words to the effect that once engaged the only attacks a figure may make are close combat attacks. Close combat attacks also include shooting at the model that is engaging you…do not recall what if any restrictions are on that and did not look this time.

7

Shooting while in CC gives -2 to shooter’s skill if I recall correctly. Believe the Super Mutants have some faction ability to bypass this

8

Super Mutants may use S to shoot in melee but don’t ignore the -2

1 Like
9

Ah, that’s what it is, thanks for the clarification. Really jonesing to get my order shipped :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

10

Amazing thanks so much. I hunted for this back and front and missed it.

11

The rule ramiand referenced is:

When a model is in base to base contact with an opposing model (i.e. with bases touching), they are said to be engaged. Once engaged, that model’s attacks can only be Close Combat attacks. These can only be directed at opposing models with which they are engaged.