Modiphius prices Fallout Wasteland Warfare 2e's starter at $165

ScreenRant ran the gameplay unveil this morning, and Modiphius's own words are doing the heavy lifting. Fallout: Wasteland Warfare's second edition is built solo-first. Fewer tokens. A roster you fill in as your wastelanders change, instead of a card pile that turns the table into admin. Fewer dice in the loop. AI that keeps flavor without the original's paperwork. That is the design claim. The till claim is sitting next to it: the Warbands Starter Set is in the ScreenRant copy at £120/$165, matching Modiphius's $165 store sticker, with shipping expected to start November 2026. I am not calling November a Friday street date. I am calling it a preorder clock.

Solo-first is an admission that Thursday night is a myth.

There are two doors. Into the Wasteland is the solo starter, four male Vault Dweller plastics, cardboard terrain, a battle mat, the core books plus the Into the Wasteland expansion, and a resin Dogmeat with goggles if you preorder. Modiphius has that nearer $80. Warbands is the bigger cartoon of the wasteland: preassembled PVC Survivors and Super Mutants, including a Sole Survivor in T-45, a Mr Handy, a Super Mutant Ravager, a hound in armor. ICv2 had Warbands at $160 retail when the pair was announced. The live store I am looking at says $165. I will print both and not pretend a press roundup is a receipt.

I already used this exact sticker energy on a different underhive in Necromunda's $165 Core Set is a board-game carton. Same number, different IP, different promise. Necromunda's carton is a two-player gang fight with terrain as the real SKU. Fallout's $165 is a wasteland starter that wants to be a campaign you can play when your friends flake. Flake is the adult design brief. Solo-first is how a miniatures game admits Thursday night is a myth.

First edition's reputation, said plainly. It could do everything: PvP, RPG-ish variants, a detailed AI that ate the table. Everything is a flex until the tokens need their own tackle box. Modiphius is now saying the collecting aspect had fans and was also a barrier. That sentence is the whole edition. Barriers are how you lose people who liked the license more than the logistics. Logistics are how you keep the people who liked the license and owned the tackle box. Second editions live in that argument.

Roster instead of cards is the change I want to sit with. Cards are collectible and also how your warband becomes a deck you have to remember to bring. A roster is a character sheet with miniatures. Character sheets are TTRPG furniture on a wargame table. I like that furniture when I am playing alone. I like cards when I am teaching a friend in twenty minutes. 2e is betting you will forgive the teaching tax because the solo night got shorter. That bet is the product.

Dice coming out of the loop is the other bet. Dice are drama. Dice are also time. Removing a few from the gameplay loop is how you say the fun bits were buried under procedure. I have not rolled the new set. I have read the claim. Claims are what you file on unveil day. Proof is what you file when the November box is on the table and the first AI enemy does something stupid. Stupid AI is the real review. Unveils cannot fake that.

32mm stays 32mm. That matters if your shelf is already a Fallout city of first-edition plastics. Compatibility is the quiet money question. If the old gangs still stand in the new rules, the $165 is an engine swap. If they do not, the $165 is a reboot that turned your cabinet into a museum. Modiphius has been talking core rules and faction profiles in the starters. I will not invent a full backward-compatible gospel. I will say: measure twice before you sell the old Super Mutants.

November as a ship window is a long walk from a September 11 unveil. Unveils in September for a November preorder are how hobby companies keep a license warm while a video-game-shaped hole sits in the culture. Prime Video's Fallout is the warm lamp. Remake chatter for Fallout 3 and New Vegas is the other lamp. Wasteland Warfare is the physical object you can preorder while those lamps stay lamps. I do not need a conspiracy. I need a street date that is honest about being a window.

What is in the solo box, because inventories keep me honest. Core rulebook. Core reference. Into the Wasteland rules. Quickstart. Thirteen custom dice. Hundreds of tokens still, even after the cut. Punch-out terrain. A double-sided paper mat. Vault Dweller plastics. A campaign journal and a map. That is a complete evening if you like journals. That is homework if you wanted a ten-minute skirmish. Complete evenings are the point of a campaign-in-a-box. Ten-minute skirmishes are a different SKU.

Warbands is the photo that sells the license. Power armor. A dog. A Super Mutant who looks like a boss. That is why the hero on this page is plastic in a wasteland pose, not a token sheet. Photos sell $165. Journals sell $80. I think a lot of people will buy the photo and then wish they had the journal. That is not a moral. That is a shopping pattern I have personally funded more than once.

Photos sell $165. Journals sell $80. Know which one you are actually going to play.

I keep circling the AI sentence. First edition AI had flavor and admin. Second edition wants flavor without the admin. Every wargame that says that is asking you to trust a flowchart. Flowcharts are either magic or they are a paragraph you read twice and still activate wrong. If 2e nails it, solo Fallout becomes the rare miniatures night that does not need a second brain. If it misses, we are back to tackling boxes and a YouTube tutorial. I would like the first one. I have been trained to expect the second.

Compare table presence with the other big boxes this week without stealing their desks. Legion's Separatist leaders are a $63 command restock you can actually attempt to play this weekend, which I filed as live plastic in five Separatists street today. Fallout's starters are a November story. Live plastic versus a window. Both can be the right purchase. Only one can hit a table before Halloween without time travel.

Stern already taught this site a lesson about selling a vault door before a price in they sold the Vault door before the machine. Modiphius at least printed the stickers. Printed stickers are respect. $165 is still a lot of respect. $80 is the number I would tell a curious friend first. Curious friends are how editions actually grow. Whales are how editions look successful in a launch week photo.

I am not going to pretend a Prime Video season is a ruleset. The show made the jumpsuit famous. The game still has to make a turn famous. Turns are dice, activations, a dog that either helps or eats an action. If the dog is good, the table laughs. If the dog is admin, the table checks a phone. Dogs should not be admin. That is my entire design philosophy and I will not be taking questions.

Preorder hygiene, because November windows move. Modiphius says the date can change and that mixing preorder items delays the rest of an order. That is the adult print on the store page. Do not stapled-on a random dice bag and then get angry in December. Do not assume a US $165 and a UK £120 are the same after shipping. Pay the shelf in front of you. Write the ship window on a sticky note. Sticky notes are cheaper than a second email to support.

Last board-game sentence. Fallout: Wasteland Warfare 2e is a solo-first rebuild with two starter prices, a token diet, and a November clock. ScreenRant rang the bell today. I am not ringing a review score. I am ringing a till. $80 if you want a journal and four Vault Dwellers. $165 if you want the warband photo. Either way, the wasteland is still 32 millimeters tall and still asking you to clear a table. Clearing a table is the real expansion.

I should also say the quiet part about 2e as a collecting reset. Every new edition creates a week where people ask if they should sell the old plastics. I cannot answer that from a Friday unveil. I can say that 32mm and a license this sticky usually means the old dogs still look correct even if the cards in their tray become souvenirs. Souvenirs can stay on the shelf. Souvenirs do not need a garage sale unless you need the money more than the city. Need is personal. Unveils are not.

Samantha Webb's earlier public framing, from when Modiphius announced the rebuild, talked about building on Into the Wasteland, Homestead, and the old solo rules to make the campaign less of a second job. I am not turning a 2025 quote into a 2026 review. I am noting that solo was the brief before ScreenRant rang the bell today. Briefs that survive a year are usually real. Real briefs can still miss. Missing is November's problem.

Last extra, because $165 headlines eat $80 headlines. If a friend texts you the ScreenRant number and only the ScreenRant number, send them the solo sticker too. Two stickers is the actual product line. One sticker is a scare quote. Scare quotes sell clicks. They do not set a table. I would rather set a table.