Fallout Wasteland Warfare miniature wargame gets ‘solo-first’ second edition

UK based miniature wargame and tabletop RPG publisher Modiphius has revealed a new edition of Fallout: Wasteland Warfare will release in the summer of 2026. We spoke to Samantha Webb, Modiphius’ brand manager for fallout games to learn what existing players and Fallout fans should expect from the updated edition of the story-driven miniature game.

Fallout: Wasteland Warfare was Modiphius’ first game set in the Fallout wasteland, with a huge range of detailed resin miniatures recreating iconic characters and adversaries from the Bethesda videogames and even the recent TV series. As Webb describes it, “Wasteland Warfare lets you build a warband of models from your favourite factions and pit them against the others in new and emerging stories of their survival in the Wasteland.

It’s an extremely granular experience that in some ways hews closer to the Fallout roleplaying game than a regular miniature wargame – and according to Webb, that’s going to be pushed even further for second edition. “With our adventure wargames your models and their stories are the most important thing so the gameplay is focused on what happens to your warband leading up to the combat scenario, as well as after – not just whether you won or lost”.

Modiphius’ other ‘adventure wargames’, Five Leagues from the Borderlands and sci-fi Five Parsecs from Home, are designed primarily for solo play, a format that rose enormously in popularity during Covid lockdowns. Solo play was always a popular mode for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, and Webb says the game is now being referred to as a “Solo First” wargame.

“It’s been designed from the get-go for single players to head out into the wasteland, explore, fight, and scavenge for their hero and warband’s survival”, she says. If you played during first edition, you’ll find that the “solo mechanics have been streamlined too, so it’s even easier to play and resolve the AI enemy’s actions”.

If you want to play with chums, “you can also play co-operatively, where one player can temporarily join another’s warband, or two or more players can play in the same warband across a campaign map together”. It seems that head to head conflict is no longer part of the game. But if you’re looking for warband on warband violence, battle mode is still there.

Whenever a new edition of a wargame drops, existing players have a natural worry that their existing model collection may not be supported with rules, or may have a long wait before support arrives.

Webb says that the “emphasis on development has been about supporting as wide a range of minis as possible”, and that on launch, “the following factions will be supported fully, before being expanded upon in other rules products: Survivors, Raiders, Creatures, Brotherhood of Steel, Super Mutants, NCR, Caesar’s Legion, Enclave, Minutemen, Railroad, Institute, Children of Atom, and Cult of the Mothman”. Some named characters will be coming in later expansions as unique companions.

One thing that existing players won’t be porting over from first edition to second is the mountain of cards that that first edition relied on. “Everything we’re profiling will be in the rulebooks, and much simpler to follow, so players can now rely on a single roster sheet”, Webb says. It’s part of a general approach to simplify the game experience: “The complexity of the first edition really came with the cards—the unit profiles, weapon stats, and all the symbology that came along with those”.

It’s news I’m very glad to hear. Wasteland Warfare first edition is a more granular wargame than most – on par with the current version of Necromunda, roughly – but not anywhere near as complicated as its information presentation made it seem. The easiest example of this is the game’s measuring sticks, each of which is referred to in rules with a color, a graphic design choice that provides less information than simply listing the distance in inches as a number.

Second edition keeps the distances but ditches the colored sticks. Webb says this and other changes make second edition “much more understandable” and “similar in complexity to Fallout: Factions” – which is quite a lot more accessible.

The biggest new feature for returning players may well be the campaign, “where you explore and map out the Wasteland you’re exploring”. Webb says it’s “inspired by elements of the expansions Into the Wasteland, Homestead, and solo rules from the first edition”, but it’s more “refined and streamlined”.

For newcomers to tabletop, Webb says that the experience is more like the Fallout they recognise from videogames or the TV series than ever. “The game really nails the feeling of Fallout: exploring the wasteland around you, being jumped by irradiated creatures, coming across other camps of survivors, raiders, or super mutants, and scavenging what you need for your warband to survive”. And with the changes to the AI system, you’ll be “able to play in any style you want, depending on your warband” – so that ‘stealth archer’ build is a viable way to play.

Something that will appeal to new players, old players, and non-players, is the expanding range of Fallout miniatures. The game will use both existing resin kits and upcoming plastic kits, but Webb says we should expect some changes for future releases. “We’ve been listening to the wider community and so the style of our miniatures will become bolder, allowing their details to really pop on the table and make them easier to assemble and paint”, Webb says.

It’s another point I’m very happy to hear. For new hobbyists, the very fine detail on Modiphius’ Fallout models puts them on the more challenging eld to build and paint. For my part, I don’t love all of Bethesda’s original designs, which were optimised for the Creation Engine, not what looks good on the tabletop. Hearing that Modiphius is now interpreting them more freely me hopes that my least favorite parts of the range (anything that’s strictly human) can match up to my favorite parts (the incredible wasteland monsters and Brotherhood of Steel power armor).

I’ll be frank – between the tidal wave of cards and my opinion that both fairly complicated and badly presented, Wasteland Warfare was relegated to the ‘cool models, not gonna play’ category of my mental backlog. If second edition can fix my biggest issues with the game, it may get promoted to ‘fantastic excuse to buy monster models and build wasteland terrain’, a dangerous proposition for my wallet.

Do you have great anecdotes from the first edition of Wasteland Warfare? Are you excited for second edition? What do you think of solo wargames? The Wargamer Discord community is a genuinely very chill place to chat, and we’re always keen to welcome players from the widest range of games.

An increasing number of Wasteland Warfare models can also be used in Modiphius’ other Fallout wargame, Fallout: Factions. It’s just as packed with Fallout flavor (tastes like iguana on a stick), but it puts the focus on warband on warband skirmishes. If that piques your interest, check out my Fallout: Factions review and this rundown on how the game has developed since it launched.