Cut Off The Head – Fallout Wasteland Warfare Battle Report

Since I managed to get some new terrain done and finish the Core Set of Raiders a while back, it seemed like as good of time as any to play Fallout. This report will be a little more in-depth and touch upon various rules since I’m using a new faction and some new item types and I thought some readers might be curious how they work.

Narrative – If you’re a lore hound and want to read my background for Ms. Smiley, the Raider leader, you can see it near the top of this article I wrote in 2025. Just look for the italicized text!

At first, the rumors were too ridiculous to be true. Ms. Smiley heard some woman dressed as Nuka-Girl was going around acting like a do-gooder in the Wasteland. Preventing Raiders from raiding, standing up to the Super Mutants, and the like. It was annoying but not enough to take seriously. And then she heard about Cait. The most dangerous woman at the Combat Zone was teaming up with Nuka-Girl. Cait would go into that arena and laugh after breaking bones or even cracking somebody’s skull. She was an inspiration to everyone. People just trying to get by or learn how to stand up from themselves in this dog-eat-dog world. Nuka-Girl had to be stopped before these do-gooders caused anymore trouble. Ms. Smiley wasn’t giving up any of her turf to these idiots and Cait, well, Cait was going to have to be reminded how Raiders treat people who try to change careers…

Scenario Setup – Cut Off The Head comes from the Campaign Handbook and is another AI scenario though I’ll just be playing against myself without using AI. Its a fairly straightforward scenario in that one side is in the middle and has a leader they need to keep alive and the other side needs to kill them before the end of the sixth round.

Survivors – I use the Survivors in the battle reports quite a bit (because I like them, mostly) and I wanted to try and use at least one new unit to mix things up. My initial thought was to use Nuka-Girl because she’s never appeared in a game and she would be a great leader in a narrative sense. That didn’t turn out to be true in a tactical sense as you’ll see shortly. As a result, I pivoted to the Sole Survivor Jeff, being the leader because he has much better armor. My thinking for the rest of the group was to balance long range and short range shooting with a little melee combat courtesy of Sturgis and Cait. Cait is also making her battle report debut and she looks pretty well-rounded overall. Survivors are pretty decent at shooting and I figured a well-rounded force would do well. Its also worth noting that I used fewer units overall thinking that might be a nice contrast from the Raiders’ numbers. Lastly, I want to note that I totally forgot about Sturgis’s ability to give you free weapon mods so the Survivors had a slight handicap in that regard in this game, sadly.

“Jeff” the Sole Survivor w/ Laser Musket and Lifegiver

Cait w/ Combat Shotgun, Baseball bat, and Mentats

Nuka Girl w/ Thirst Zapper Cola

Sturges w/ .44 Revolver and Pipe Wrench

Total Points 397

Raiders – Raiders have two special rules. They get an extra round of full bonuses with chems, which is very nice because it makes them stronger for longer but also delays any potential negative effects should they become addicted once the chems wear off. They also can “see” into cover if another member is fighting and charge into close combat. I presume this is because they’re loud and reckless! Since I only have the Raider Core Set painted, I made most of the minis equipped in the way their equipment looks. Raiders have a good amount of cheap and disposable units which is good because they don’t excel at shooting, overall. The leader is unsurprisingly, Ms. Smiley in her Raider Power Armor and Minigun. The minigun looks pretty darn strong and power armor can only help her stand up to the Survivors so I was expecting her to be dangerous and demonstrate why she leads this pack of Raiders!

“Whiskey Bob” the Raider w/ Bolt-Action Rifle and Whiskey

“Whiskey Don” the Raider w/ Bolt-Action Rifle and Whiskey

“Ms. Smiley” the Veteran Raider in Raider Power Armor w/ Minigun and Bufftats

“Blue” the Psycho w/ Tire Iron

“Elvis” the Scavver w/ Combat Shotgun

Raider Outlaw w/ Machete and Bolt action Pistol

Total Points 394

Battle Report –

*Editor’s Note* This is a report for my second attempt at this scenario. The first time I made Nuka-Girl the leader and the Raider’s mostly physical damage tore through her meager armor in the first turn. She had one wound left and was more or less trapped so I decided to reset the game and make Jeff, the Sole Survivor leader instead. This is the first time in ten plus games of Fallout where a side got tabled early on, though my bad tactics were the main culprit.

Round One

While she had a choice of several targets, Ms. Smiley kicks things off by lumbering forward and unleashing her minigun into Cait. Clearly mad about Cait teaming up with Nuka Girl, she causes six wounds as Cait is riddled with bullets and has a single wound left.

Cait moves into short range with her shotgun but with her labored breathing, she misses Smiley altogether. Sturgis charges Ms. Smiley to try and slow her down.

The Psycho charges Cait lining up a couple bouts of close combat carnage next round. The Raider Outlaw moves up to the barricade to try and shield himself from Survivor shots before charging.

Nuka Girl fires two shots with her zapper causing three damage and nearly killing the Raider Outlaw. Jeff goes next and while he needed two shots to do it, a bolt of energy nails the Outlaw in the chest and the Raider crumples over dead.

The Whiskey Bob moves up and manages to hit Nuka Girl for two damage. Elvis, the Scavver, also advances but fires at Jeff for his final action. Jeff is hit but takes no wounds thanks to cover and the Survivors’ armor bonus. Whiskey Don aims for Jeff and misses to close out the round.

Round Two

Event – Damp Air – This event makes all green die rolls automatically give -1 (which makes skill checks easier) instead of other potential bonuses.

Sensing Cait, would be lucky to survive much longer, she readies first for the Survivors. Cait swings as hard as she can muster and hits Blue, the Psycho, for two points of damage. Cait winds up one more time and pummels Blue in the head for the final two damage! Another raider is down.

Sensing an opportunity on the other side of the table, Whiskey Bob fired his rifle and hit Nuka Girl once for three damage which she could not dodge with her special rule Acrobatic (which lets you prevent all incoming damage once per game, if you can pass an agility test) or her armor.

Sturges attacks Smiley with his trusty wrench and manages to inflict one wound to her power armor. If her armor takes another wound, the armor is degraded and Smiley takes direct wounds from all future attacks.

Whiskey Don moves past the barricade to try and shoot Nuka Girl unimpeded. Even with the Damp Air bonus, he barely misses her.

Jeff goes next and causes two damage to the Raider on the right but missed on the second shot. Nuka Girl tries to finish Whiskey Don but only manages to cause a single wound, leaving him alive but with a single wound left… Nuka Girl then moves into the shotgun house’s porch for a bit of cover.

Elvis, the Scavver, moves around the barricade and somehow manages to hit Jeff with his shotgun at long range for one damage.

Smiley broke away from close combat with Sturges, who failed to hit her in response. She then had a choice of shooting Jeff in the back which would help the Raiders win or killing Cait. It took two shots but the Combat Zone veteran could take no more! Smiley then took three wounds off Jeff. The Survivors were struggling to deal with Smiley’s power armor and minigun combo.

Round Three

Event – Synths – No effect. Just a thematic moment where Synths are seen off in the distance.

With Jeff and Nuka Girl looking pretty vulnerable, things did not look good for the Survivors… Jeff decided to take out the Whiskey Don and easily dispatches him before moving away from Smiley.

Ms. Smiley turns her attention towards Sturgis and pours bullets into him. He receives five wounds and has three left. In return, Sturges points his revolver back at her and does just enough damage to degrade Smiley’s armor. She is now slightly less protected and receives wounds as normal.

Elvis, the Scavver, advances and hits Jeff for four initial damage which was halved by his armor save. Jeff has two wounds remaining and once those are gone, the Raiders win.

Nuka Girl tried to put a dent in Elvis with her sole shot per turn but missed. She would have caused four wounds without an armor save on Elvis which was terrible luck for it to miss.

Whiskey Bob hustled over to Elvis’s and fires at Jeff. He hits and… only causes a single wound. Jeff is hanging on by one wound as the round ends and the game is only half over according to the round limit…

Round Four

Event – A Hidden Observer – No effect. Another thematic moment where someone is watching you for reasons unknown.

With the Raiders and Survivors tied on model count for the first time all game, the Raiders finally get to go first which is more bad news for their opponents. The only good news is that both Smiley and the Raider both became addicted to their respective vices and would have penalties instead of stat bonuses to their shooting.

The addiction didn’t matter though because Elvis, shoots and kills Jeff with his first of two shotgun shots.

Closing Thoughts – Ouch! The second attempt ended up being a very solid Raiders win which is perhaps only fair since they’re making their debut. There was no stopping Ms. Smiley’s minigun which is pretty deadly. It has the chance to do one damage plus potentially one or two more damage a total of five times a turn. Its hard to do more than 3-4 wounds at a time in Fallout Wasteland Warfare so you can see how powerful it is. The Raiders outnumbering the Survivors made a big difference in this game. Tactically speaking, I think I misjudged the importance of that when creating the Survivors list.

Sadly, Nuka-Girl just doesn’t seem to be all that good to me. She is agile and can bounce around the battlefield. She has Luck and Critical Points which can be very helpful and I neglected her Luck far too much in this game, but Nuka-Girl only comes with a pistol with limited range and it can cause an unremarkable 2 wounds on a regular shot. I’m not a tactical genius but for me, that doesn’t justify her 100 point cost. It seems like the only way to improve her is have her dual-wielding pistols so she can potentially cause more damage. Sadly, every other unit on the Survivors’ side did as much or more for less points. Maybe I didn’t get enough out of Nuka-Girl but for me, she was by far the biggest dud in this game. I have a feeling that if I subbed out Nuka girl for some cheap settlers with rifles, this game would have been a lot closer. If nothing else, I could have tested my new theory that Power Armor is not easy to crack but throwing a lot of shots will eventually ruin the owner’s day.

While there are a few minor rules I’m not crazy about in Fallout, the more I play, I’m reminded of how much I love the rules in First Edition. Second Edition is coming out later this year and I think I’ll try and get everything rules and cards-wise for First Edition that I can because I wouldn’t be upset if I only played First Edition rules for quite some time to come.

Playing this game was also clarifying for the types of things I need to purchase and paint. Getting the Survivors a Power Armor miniature or two would be great, for example. Any Survivors models with “big guns” would be good too.

Perhaps best of all, this is the first battle report where I thought, my terrain looks pretty darn good. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. There’s plenty more to add but I feel like the pictures I took all were nice and the setting was brought to life nicely in this game. That is what I’ve been working hard to achieve and now its just a matter of pushing things even further in the future.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the report!