Welcome back! Today I wanted to share how I came about to creating my settlement for FWW settlement mode. You can use my guide as am example for other settings like Fallout, Warhammer, ESV: Skyrim. But you can always go your own instead! 🙂
The following is based on my experience playing Fallout Wasteland Warfare set in New Vegas.
The ghost town
When I first wanted to start settlement mode in Fallout Wasteland Warfare I needed to decide on the setting. Having played Fallout New Vegas for over 6 years now I have the knowledge and understanding of the setting. One location was on my mind as a clean slate to start my story, Bonnie Springs.
In game Bonnie Springs is but a ghost town inhabited by chem crazed raiders or the feared Cazadors. Lore wise there isn’t much to the town that is established in game. A perfect opportunity to make this location a settlement for my faction to build and defend.
Now that I have a location set I now need to decide which faction I’ll be playing as. I went for the NCR due to the fact that I wanted to play a faction that has a mixed reputation, although is mostly governed as a democratic power. The NCR Patrol boxset provided a good mix of miniatures for a small scale skirmish list.
The big book
Now I needed a source of official information with everything in Fallout New Vegas. Whilst Wikis are a good source of information, they aren’t always 100% accurate. I tend to source what I can from official books unless the only place for such information is wikis.
Just to note I don’t view wikis as completely untrustworthy as I found out a lore inaccuracy in the official gaming guide. I think it was the date for the Battle at Helios One or some event linked to the BoS? When I double checked this on the wiki, the site had the correct date.
The official gaming guide to Fallout New Vegas is a must have book for anyone who plays FWW. It’s packed with useful content like:
- Maps
- Interior maps
- Location descriptions
- General faction goals
- Price list on items
- Quest guides
- Faction encounters
- Location loot
Unfortunately you won’t get any information on the DLC content as this was published pre DLC. I couldn’t find a Game of the year edition gaming guide, so your best bet would be lore Youtubers or wiki.
From the book I was able to gather useful information on the area surrounding Bonnie Springs. As well as having a visual guide to how big my map should be. At the start of my game I just use a simple map of Bonnie Springs area. It was only after the first arc was done that I made a map that included locations mentioned in the story.
Now would be a good time to recap on what’s been said so far:
- The settlement mode will be set in New Vegas, Mojave
- The location will be Bonnie Springs for the entire story
- My chosen faction will be the NCR as a faction of both good and ill reputation.
- The story will be mapped around Bonnie Springs (roughly mid west area only) with a wide space to expand the settlement
The two headed bear
Now I needed to write up a reason for why the NCR would want to occupy Bonnie Springs. I’ve already created a indepth lore post in my settlement mode Series which explains it all. I based it on how the NCR after the First Battle of Hoover Dam the need to grow influence in the Mojave in New recruits, supplies, territory and capitalism to expand.
This was the driving force behind the efforts of the NCR to build new settlements, to dig in and establish the means of becoming a force strong enough to take on the Legion and Mr House in future conflicts.
Such motivations will be the backbone of your story, and doesn’t have to be a complicated narrative.
When setting the driving force behind your settlement:
- Consider how your faction acts in setting, are they a military force, raiders, outcasts, adventurers? Are they ordered, neutral or chaotic?
- Did they establish the settlement by finding an abandoned location, by force to occupy, by bloodshed of disorder?
- You can spice up the story by flipping the narrative: a settlement of slaves under Super Mutant control were ‘saved’ by Caesar’s Legion. Owing their alliance to the Bull despite how the Legion treats those they deem weak
Establishing a settlement
Settlement mode was made by Modiphius Entertainment for Fallout Wasteland Warfare as an add on expansion to the game. It works as a hub for buying buildings and other structures that produce items, boosts and other useful things you’ll need in a quest. At the end of a quest you earn caps for you to spend on your settlement.
The narrative story continues for every five games a new arc begins, as for each set of five quests completed earns you land to expand on. So based on that it made sense that a set of quests will represent the time passed as the settlement grows.
When it came to drawing the settlement I used mathematics paper to draw the location in scale. It needed to be within the size of my gaming board (2ft by 3ft) so theoretically it could fit scenery. The towns established buildings are drawn in as empty blocks, with some scenery blocks to represent trees and fences.
Once scaled and drawn, I then mark down my essential settlement structures that the game starts off with. Any multiples of structures will be marked like ie: #1. As the game goes on I can pay caps to add additional structures to my scale map.
To recap the best way to keep track of your settlement is:
- Use mathematical paper to measure your ideal settlement starting point. Keep it in scale of your gaming board so you can recreate this in a quest, and it helps to show each land you aquire for consistency
- Always refer to a reference when making your settlement in FWW, if its an existing area like Novac or Goodsprings, then make sure the drawing is the same as the location
- Make space for new structures so your settlement, at least 15 structures for your first land scale drawing then 10 for each land unlocked
Map of an era long gone
Finally there’s the world map to consider as a reference for quests that’ll take place on the narrative. You could simply use the official Fallout New Vegas map as your reference, but if your like me you may want to make some changes for more exploration. Since my settlement mode story is set months after the First Battle of Hoover Dam, it will not go the canon route.
Instead the story will loosely follow events in the game, whilst expanding on the setting, characters, events and lore. I aim to faithfully respect the established setting by not altering existing characters and motivations. There maybe some differences which I will explain in my next settlement mode project post.
The map you see above is much bigger with more locations, and or course a much bigger New Vegas on the map. Based on the location of the settlement and date in the timeline I can work out what my faction will be facing in battle with raiders as most likely to Caesar’s Legion at least unlikely to engage in combat.
I have some plans for New Vegas but that will be explained in the future.
I think that covers most of my process into getting my settlement mode ready for the narrative gaming campaign. I’m in no way experienced or done anything on this level before, so it may not be new for experienced wargamers. But hopefully you’ve enjoyed this post and learnt something new.
If this post does well and you want to see more like this, I may do a Warhamner AoS post sharing my process of building a narrative campaign. It’s different in the way I had to create the world space and structuring the campaign.
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Until next time,
-34th Tribe
34th Tribe of the Vault Wargaming 