When you think Fallout, there’s a couple of things you probably have in mind – Super Mutants? Power Armour? For me, it’s the bots. The often bizarre and usually half-mad robots of the Fallout universe provide a huge degree of weirdness and – strangely for metal automatons – character to the world. With the Fallout Factions Companion supplement (free from Modiphius), you can indulge in a shedload of robot friends in your battles.
We’ll head through the options for robots in Fallout Factions and give you top* advice on adding top of the line RobCo nonsense to your warband.
*okay maybe not top, but definitely vibes-based
Companion Perk
To take robots in your Fallout Factions list you’ll have to take the relevant companion perk – for robots you want Roboteer. Unlike standard perks, this can’t be taken when you gain a perk and must be accompanied by a new champion, either in your initial list building or in recruiting through campaign play. There’s no requirements for the perk, and you can take it multiple times if you wish to have an absolute shedload of robots so you can fully live out your RobCo Exec fantasy.
Once you have the perk, you simply point-buy a robot with it which adds to your champion’s rating and comes from your general cap limit for your gang. Nice and easy. The Robot is then a member of your crew, with the exception that it can’t take long-term campaign damage – just pick up another one! In Tournament play, all you’re doing is taking up a perk slot and paying the points for the robot. In campaign play there’s a real opportunity cost here, so make sure you’re adding serious value to your crew by picking up a robot.
The Robots
All of the robot companions presented so far have a couple of innate perks in common, representing the fact that they’re, well, robots.
Programmed is a campaign play perk – your robots can’t level up, train, or lead a warband.
Machine is for gameplay, making your robots more disposable (they don’t cause confusion tests for your living crew members), are immune to radiation, can’t be given psycho and other chems (sadly).
Two perks are shared across most robots – Hardy makes your bots immune to additional fatigue, though they still take it when activated, and Self Destruct inflicts harm on adjacent models when your robots are incapacitated. If you’re thinking that means charging in and blowing up is a viable strategy then you’re absolutely right – inflicting harm within 3 inches after an already punchy robot dies is pretty good!
Robots tend to be pretty good at shooting and punching, have strong endurance stats and chunky health. They’ll usually be reliably good at what you want them to do, but with low luck stats across the board, don’t expect to be spiking damage with critical effects all that often.
Mr. Handy
Everyone’s favourite Matt-Berry-voiced utility robot absolutely fucks in Fallout Factions, making it a pricey but incredibly flexible addition to a crew.
Three variants give you a couple of options, but all are armed with formidable weapons and a great statline – Robot Lasers with fast and Suppress (though with one luck you’re not going to get that often) allow you to lay down a lot of effective fire. The melee option, “Various appendages”, are horrific – rolling 5 strength with Maim and Tranquilise will really stack up the harm, and if you’re in combat, fast will let you swing twice before anyone can respond.
For 52 points base, that’s a pricey bot, and the fully tooled up combat version comes with a flamer for 60. I think the real win is the medical unit though – all the combat punch combined with the ability to remove 3 harm from itself or another crew member with a patch up action. For only 57 points! Here we go again indeed.
If you’re playing one of the Nuka World crews, a Mr. Handy will provide insane amounts of threat and a really tough model to distract from your squirrelly, fragile crew – for those of us running Brotherhood of Steel though it’s another big body and you’ll find caps running out quickly.
Protectron
Protectrons offer a cheaper, but still flexible, jack of most trades robot companion for your gangs.
Five variants, differing mostly in weapon sets give you a lot of options for slightly weird and wonderful weapons. With S4 and P5, they’re slightly better at shooting their various ranged weapons than punching, but all come stock with a melee weapon – either the stock robot bash, handy to have in a pinch, or the fast, suppressive shock hand.
The ranged weapons offer a few different directions – Robot lasers are good, fast and quite punchy, the Nailgun offers very cheap pierce for taking on tougher opponents, and the Cryojet has the hilarious potential ability to add a shedload of fatigue to groups of enemies. I would probably avoid the Builder variant – the increased range and damage potential of the basic variant is well worth two additional points.
The medic provides an interesting opportunity to have a tough healer wandering around your frontlines – 33 points for a Hardy, E5 healer is a good bargain, meaning you’ll not have to hide your medic behind tougher models.
While the suppress option is nice, you’re rarely going to get it off – you need to hit with your one luck, and then your opponent needs to fail their test. Instead, you’re picking up a Protectron for reliability – the basic lasers hit consistently, are fast and do good work. At the moment it’s a bit of a no brainer to take a basic Protectron in a tournament list, so try it out before they increase in caps!
Eyebot
Ah ED-E, my love. The eyebot is as the eyebot does – cheap, throwaway, slightly armed, fast and irritating. No options here, just 15 caps for a flying pistol. 15 points for a pistol that can move, add some harm and act as a force multiplier for any further shooting or melee from the rest of your crew. All fine there.
It’s a little more interesting than I make it there though – it’s a flying pistol that rolls three dice against A5, can fly about wherever it likes and acts as a bullet magnet to protect your other models. That’s the secret to using the Eyebot – forcing your opponent to shoot your disposable robot instead of your big, horrific, looming threats. With clever positioning, your eyebot is going to be an annoying pest for your enemy as it plinks away until they’re forced to deal with it – Moving an Eyebot just in front of your Super Mutant Master gives you some very ablative armour as you close for the kill.
Securitron (Mark 1)
The Securitron Mk1 is for when Protectrons just aren’t big and mean enough. They have better Endurance, better Strength and better Luck, so they are harder to take down and have more potential to spike damage with good luck dice rolls.
They pack Robot Lasers, which are as reliable as ever for putting Harm on things and Fast so you can burn through two Shoot actions in an activation, but also pack a Securitron SMG. These are Rifle 12”, 3P, Storm 3, Suppress (2) so if you can get within 6” of something you roll 6 dice and are fairly likely to suppress it. This means if you want to go fast double shooting you can burn through both actions with your robot lasers, but if you want to move and shoot, or have multiple close targets and want to split your turn, you can give them the SMG for maximum dice and suppression.
At 45 rating it’s pricier than the cheapest Protectron with lasers, but it’s tougher, better in melee and has better shooting options.
Securitron (Mark 2)
The Securitron Mk2 has everything the Mk1 has, with some improved stats, built in healing and a short ranged missile launcher. Life Giver recovers 2 Harm at the start of each round, and an Endurance of 7 makes the Mk2 an even tougher nut to crack.
Perception is bumped up to 6, meaning the dice you roll on your lasers or SMG are even more likely to end up with hits.
The Shoulder Launchers are short ranged (at Heavy 12”) but have an area of 2” and the Maim critical effect, but you are rolling two luck dice in your 4S test and are fairly likely to get a critical effect.
The Mk2 has a rating of 70. It’s pricey, but has an area effect weapon, self heals, passable melee and a lot of shooting options with Suppression.
Nukatron
The security/customer relations bots of the Nuka World park, Nukatrons give you cheap, tough robots with easy access to Suppress. At 20 points, the Damaged Nukatron is one of the cheapest options to add a tough robot to your crew. With only a fairly poor melee weapon (4S, rolling against 4s), it’s a good option to throw forward to tag as many enemies in melee as possible before hopefully exploding to pile on the harm.
The ranged variants – Nukatron and Nukatron guardian – both pack fast weaponry that should reliably stick a couple of harm on targets with each activation. You’re paying 5 points more for doubling the range on the same weapon between the Nukatron and Nukatron Guardian, with the Nukatron almost identical to the base Protectron unit but saving you two points overall. If you like the look of the Nuktraon robots, they’re worth picking up.
Mr. Frothy
Mr. Frothy is a solid upgrade on the Nukatron Guardian – it’s tougher, hits harder, can take more injuries and, critically, can fly. With Fallout Factions being a terrain heavy game, a fast moving blocker that can effectively get anywhere is very useful and the Mr. Frothy can get there, take a ton of hits and slap back.
While the Nuka dispenser, as a fast 8” weapon rolling 4S, isn’t absolutely fantastic, but it’ll do the job, particularly as you’re easily able to move around the board. Fast on it’s own is a real problem – at worst you’re likely to add two harm every round. Once you’re somewhere useful, you can sit and shoot before taking up a huge amount of space and hitting anyone who comes close. With 6 Endurance and 3 wounds, you’re going to be a problem just by refusing to leave a chokepoint, even if for 40 points you’d ideally want a bit more shooting power.
Robco Says: Pick a Robot
The Robots are largely a fantastic addition to your crew – tough, versatile, utility pieces with surprisingly cheap caps costs for their punch. You almost certainly won’t regret picking one up! While that seems suspiciously like a line from a terminal you’ve hacked somewhere in the bowels of a robot factory, it’s true – your intrepid Goonhammer Fallout Factions team will be bringing them to a tournament near you, and we’re largely sometimes right – just ignore our placement at the first Goonhammer Factions event!
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