Review: Fallen Land Board Game: A Post-Apocalyptic Board Game

Adam “Ox” Wilson’s Rating: 7.5

Just yesterday you were working your boring nine-to-five job in a cubicle for an honest paycheck. Today you find yourself fighting for your life in a naked Amish rake fight with an audience dressed in 1800s style black wool suits. That’s life in Fallen Land board game. 

Overview

Fallen Land: A Post-Apocalyptic Board Game is set in the United States after a war has decimated life as we know it. You are now the leader of one of the ten most prominent towns vying for supremacy in the Fallen Land. You achieve victory by making your town the most prosperous via the town health track or becoming the most reputable leader on the prestige track. How you go about achieving either of these win conditions is up to you.

Fallen Land fits into a very exclusive category of my board game collection. Does it have fancy components? No, not really. Creative mechanics or interesting spins on traditional mechanics? Nope, it’s pretty straightforward. Well then, what makes Fallen Land special? It is special because this game will create lots of memories. 

You and your friends will sit down to a game of Fallen Land, get dragged through the radioactive dirt and have the time of your lives. You will recall a game that happened two or three years ago, or your actions might even reflect strategies of trying to avoid that one situation you got yourself into a year ago. The encounters in this game can at times feel almost impossible and when you fail an encounter the consequences are rough. The game really makes you try and prepare the best you can but sometimes you get totally blindsided – just as in life.

The variability in the cards is fun and thematic. No one is ever going to have the same loadout or run into the same obstacles to overcome. This also creates a fun PVP experience as you may really want that item someone has, so you hunt them down for a chance to loot it. Also the non-player character mercenaries are fun, thematic and one of my favorite things in the game, as long as I am the one doing the hiring! 

This is where I feel some of the game imbalance comes from. Some of the cards feel way more powerful than others and if you can’t get your hands on one, or if one player seems to be drawing the majority of them the game might feel skewed. 

As frustrating as this can be, I feel it actually provides one of the most immersive aspects of the game. When the world goes to shit there isn’t going to be an ample amount of items and equal opportunities for everyone. You have to work with what you can find and figure out a way to take what you want, even if it is from someone else. When you play this game you truly feel like you are navigating your way through the wasteland.

Components

The Fallen Land game box is smaller than the standard board game box but it is packed full of components. You receive a game board with a hex grid map of the United States that has two legends explaining all parts of the map. There is also the prestige and town health tracks around the edge of the board. You get a ton of cardboard tokens to help track different aspects of the game and ten plastic faction markers to note your party’s location on the map. Last, but certainly not least, you get a ton of cards split out into seven different decks: 

• three types of encounter decks
• mission deck
• character cards
• item cards action card deck. 

There is also a very useful first player sheet that gets passed around to help keep track of the first player. It includes a breakdown of all the phases that happen during a turn.

Gameplay

Fallen Land has four different phases each turn and there is no set amount of turns. The game ends once a player reaches either 20 prestige or 80 town health. Victory conditions are assessed at the end of each phase rather than the end of the turn.  

Effects Phase

During the effects phase you address any world encounters that might be out and then any other card effects. You also address any health maintenance needed with your characters, first applying any infected wounds damage they have. If this damage would reach or exceed their maximum damage you discard the character. You will also check to see if any of your characters have three or more psychological damage, discarding any that do. 

Town Business Phase

This phase covers all your city maintenance items. You receive any benefits that your town produces through controlling resources on the map or town technologies you’ve obtained. You will also have opportunities to buy and sell items, action cards, town technology and town defense along with hiring non-player character mercenaries (NPCM) to do your dirty work. The final piece of the business phase is rolling a d10 for your town event. There is a chart that everyone follows that can have no effect, good effects or bad effects.

Party Exploits Phase

This is where most of the action happens. Thematically, this phase is a month long. First, any hired NPCM move according to their orders and resolve their assignments if possible. Then in turn order each person will use their four weeks of time to pay for actions. 

Weeks are basically action points and each action will cost you between one and three weeks. You can move  an exploration group from your city and interact with the world. You move around the map, stumble upon encounters, take part in PVP, claim resource locations and complete missions. Also if your party needs any healing you can spend time doing so because you never know when you will have to participate in that naked amish rake fight!

Most of the interactions in the party exploits phase come from the different types of cards. Every character, item and encounter is unique. Each character card has seven different skill stats: 

• Combat
• Survival
• Diplomacy
• Mechanical
• Technical
• Medical
• Carrying capacity. 

Characters also have a special ability and item synergy sections which typically tie together. Some examples of these would be Juan Upton the construction foreman. His special ability allows for building cheaper town defenses and if he finds the sledgehammer he gains an extra boost to his mechanical and combat skills. You could also recruit Monty Reese the gamer for your town. His extensive knowledge in saving throws allows him to re-roll a skill check once per turn. Monty’s item synergy is any melee weapon he equips grants a bonus to his combat skill, presumably from many years of larping. 

Items come in all shapes, sizes and varieties. A general item increases a character’s skills and comes with a weight which counts against their carrying capacity. Items include weapons, med kits, generators, vehicles, alcohol and clothing. You can also find pieces of metal to attach to your vehicles for even more benefits. Some items also have special abilities. The rocket launcher, for example, allows you once per game in a PVP combat to destroy your opponent’s vehicle. 

Now that your party is outfitted, they will be going on missions and encounters throughout the fallen land. The main structure of encounters and missions are the same. You have a good portion of flavor text, which helps build a story around each game, and some sort of challenge at the bottom of the card. 

These challenges range from party checks to individual challenges. In some cases it will be simple, you might just have a mechanical check where you are fixing your vehicle. Or maybe your party gets in a fight and you do a group combat check. In other cases it will be more complicated and you will have to do a series of skill checks. The encounter cards lay this out for you but you first might have to check diplomacy. If you fail, you then have a combat check. After combat then you will have to pass a medical skill check. The options are endless.

End Turn Phase

During this phase you move the turn track one space and pass the first player sheet to the left. That person is now the new first player and will start going through the phases again in order.

Future of Fallen Land

You can currently purchase the Fallen Land board game from Fallen Dominion Studios website or their Amazon listing. Fallen Dominion Studios will also be launching a Kickstarter sometime in November, the official date to be released. This Kickstarter will include their third expansion: Descendants and also a second edition to the game. During the Kickstarter they will have an upgrade pack for first edition copies that will most likely be a Kickstarter exclusive. You are going to want to get in on that if you already have a copy of the game.

The Good

• High replayability as no two games of Fallen Land are the same.
• Every item and encounter is unique.
• Freedom in how you want to manage your city and your road to victory
• It’s an immersive experience that ties in well to the theme.
• Great turn summary card.

The Bad

• Fallen Land has a huge pool of cards and thus is more susceptible to balance issues and has a decent amount of randomness.
• Keeping track of all the special rules that characters or items provide can be hard to track.
• There can be periods of downtime during the party exploits phase. 

The Verdict

If randomness and a possible imbalance of game wealth don’t bother you and you’re looking for a great time trying to survive in the wasteland; creating fun and often hilarious memories, then I cannot recommend the Fallen Land board game enough. This game holds a special place on my game shelf. The creators put countless hours into creating a game that is fun, thematic and challenging, now it is up to you to grab a couple of your friends and start making memories in the Fallen Land! Check out more reviews on Outside is Overrated.