Into the Wasteland: The Brotherhood of Steel

I'm back with one of the fan favorite forces from Fallout, the Brotherhood of Steel. As with most of my warbands for This Is Not A Test, these are 3D print proxies designed by Vermilion Miniatures.  The knights follow the designs from the early games in the series, while the soldiers seem to be inspired by later games. This made planning a paint scheme a bit harder, as the armor colors and such changed over time. Since most people will know the later bare metal armor rather than the earlier olive green, I opted to go that route across the board. Not all the figures are appropriate for my Fallout New Vegas setting, but I'm not one to let universe canon get in the way of a good time.

The commander of the unit appears to be wearing underarmor from the Fallout 4 game with some added torso armor.  The underarmor appears in a few color combinations, with officers usually in black, but I've gone with the grey/olive version.  The armor on the soldiers most closely resembles that used by knights in Fallout 4. I wasn't 100% sure from the game screen captures if the brown coloring seen on the armor was intended to be worn paint or corrosion, but I chose the later to match the rest of the BoS force and help keep the color palate different from my NCR warband (It's also how Modiphius paints the offical figures). Weapons seem to be laser pistols and a laser rifle from Fallout 1 and 2.

The next two solders have armor that appears to be inspired by the Fallout 76 recon armor.  The armor has a bluish tint in-game, so I mixed gunmetal and dark sea blue for the base and used bare steel for the worn areas. They also have the Fallout 1 and 2 laser rifles.

Three knights in power armor. While BoS knights are usually shown wearing T-60 armor in the later games and the TV series, These knights are depicted in the earlier armor that came to be known as T-51b armor. As mentioned above, these were painted olive green in Fallout 1, but I've gone with the more modern bare metal.  Weapons are a minigun, plasma pistol and super sledge from Fallout 1.

The last knights are wearing Midwestern Advanced inspired power armor from the Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel game. This armor is no longer considered canon in Fallout, but was supposed to have been designed by BoS remnants who survived an airship crash in Chicago. It looks similar to Enclave X-01 power armor, and fans have debated on if and how they are related. I've again gone with bare metal over olive green for the paint scheme. The commander originally came with the minigun seen above, but I swapped it out with the more advanced plasma rifle. 

 The amount of heavy armor and weapons the Brotherhood of Steel has compared to my other warbands is on another level, so I am worried about game balance at this stage.  I'll just have to see how it plays out in my first games.

Into the Wasteland: Caravanners and Freelancers

 

Everyone needs to find supplies in the wasteland, and if you're away from the settlements, caravanner merchants are who you need to find.  This warband was created with figures from a mix of Vermillion Miniatures 3D prints. I'm not sure how viable they will be compared to the other warband types, but I'm hoping the two brahmin will prove useful in close combat.   

I also have several figures that don't really work with any of my current warbands, so I'll be using them as the Wasteland Weirdos Freelancers and Guns for Hire that can be recruited by other warbands.

First up are a few ghoul gunslingers, a mechanic for gun and relic repairs, and a doctor.

Bringing justice to the far flung regions of the wasteland are Ranger Moore, his partner Silverheels, and their cyberdog Scout. 

A couple of surface-adapted Vault Dwellers with a Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.) to help kickstart civilization.

Goris, the albino Deathclaw from Fallout 2. Intelligent and able to communicate, he left Vault 13 and spends his time studying human culture.

Into the Wasteland: Aliens and the ‘Burbs

Happy 2026!  I luckily had a short break during the holidays, and was able to knock out a few more items for my Fallout/This Is Not A Test Project.  

First up are some Zetan alien survivors that have wandered down from Area 51 (a frozen Zetan was seen in the most recent episode of the Fallout TV series).  These are 3D print proxies made from Vermilion Miniatures' Space Invaders warband. I've painted mine using the Fallout 76 uniforms for reference.

The standard aliens come with three types of separate heads, so you can mix and match figures as you desire.  The miniatures are thin, so care will be needed when handling them.

The set also incudes two sets of power armor and an attack drone.  Stylistically they look different that what was seen in the game, but I think they look alright when using a similar paint scheme.   

Here's a size comparison to a human figure. While the aliens are  appropriately smaller, the power armor is similar in size to human power armor.

In addition to another warband, I also finished up a new set of buildings for the table.  These are the Derelict Suburbia and Ramshackle Cul-de-Sac MDF sets from TT Combat's City Streets line, which give you two houses and accessories per set.  For paint colors, I used 1950's housepaint advertisements as inspiration. This was then dirtied up using pewter grey drybrushing and watered down brown craft paint.

In terms of detailing levels for MDF kits, particularly the destroyed elements, I would rate these as mid tier out when compared to other manufactures. I considered adding extensive scratch built details to the kits, but in the end I got lazy and just added some grass tufts and a few minor items.

One thing I really do like about this kits is that all the houses break apart to some level. This not only makes it easier to get figures and item inside, but allows you to more widely disperse the building elements over your table.  

The interior of the houses are also spacious for the most part, so there is room for figures and scatter terrain. 

The kits are advertised as being appropriate for 28-35mm miniatures. I previously built the gas station and burger restaurant from this line, and they came out at approximately 1:43 scale based on the doors.  That looked oversized even for 32mm miniatures,  so I was a bit nervous here.  Luckily the door sizes are approximately 1:48 on the houses, so 32mm miniatures look fine and even 28mm aren't too bad.

 I still have three more warbands to paint along with a last bit of scatter terrain, but I think I now how enough ready to run some pilot This Is Not A Test games. 

Into the Wasteland: Mutant Animals, Vehicles and Scatter Terrain

 Work continues on my Fallout New Vegas project for the This Is Not A Test rules. Rather than another warband, I've recently been working on more dangerous creatures and terrain for my tabletop.

Cadazor mutant wasps. These genetically engineered monstrosities are some of the most poisonous creature in the New Vegas area. The Vermilion Miniatures 3D prints are rather delicate and I needed to pin the flying cadazor to its base to keep it from breaking off.  The Esty seller printed the wings in a semi-transparent plastic, so I was able to merely stain them with some colored inks and allow light to still pass through them, giving a nice effect.

Nightstalkers. Another genetic experiment that combined DNA from coyotes and rattlesnakes to produce a venomous predator.  For the snake scales, I tried to mimic coloration seen in the Speckled Rattlesnakes of the Southwest.

 

Geckos. Fallout New Vegas has several strains of geckos in the game with various attributes. I decided to paint mine as Golden Geckos, which live in irradiated areas and inflict radiation damage with their attacks.

Radroaches. Not a significant threat in Fallout, but how can you resist having these disgusting pests on the table.

And here is how they all sized up against a human.

Working vehicles don't play a significant role in both Fallout and This Is Not A Test, but you will find them scattered along the highways around New Vegas. Unfortunately there aren't many 32mm vehicles that are stylistically appropriate for Fallout (most follow a Mad Mex aesthetic), but I did manage to find two.

First up was a retro pickup truck from Kraken Studios. This was a nicely sized vehicle, and you can get it with or without cargo. The print included 2 side mirrors, but they were fragile and kept breaking off, so I finally gave up on trying to reglue them on.

Vermilion Miniatures car with added roof rack from the Kraken truck.  The roof was printed separately, so I was able to paint the interior prior to assembly.  

A fuel/water tank from EC3D Designs and a cart from Vermilion.

Airstream camper trailer from EC3D.  I purchased the 32mm size, but it came much smaller than expected, seemingly more appropriate for 28mm miniatures. To help hide how short it was compared to my figures, I made the decision to put it on a fairly thick base.

A bunker entrance also from EC3D. While this didn't look anything like a Vault-Tec entrance, I thought it could work as a military storage bunker and be a good objective on the table.

That's it for now, but there are still a few more warbands to paint and some buildings to finish.

Into the Wasteland: Robots

With the release of Fallout season 2 just around the corner, I figured it was time to get back to wasteland.  Though the current edition of the "This Is Not A Test" rules is lacking a robot expansion, I couldn't resist adding these mechanical menaces to my roster of creatures.  As with much of collection, these 32mm miniatures are 3D prints designed by Vermilion Miniatures; they run the same size as my offical Fallout miniatures and have similar design aesthetics.

Leading my robot forces is the Mechanist supervillain, with a Robobrain cyborg as his lieutenant.  The dome that came with the Robobrain wasn't transparent, so I made one from scratch. This was done by heating some clear plastic while a metal mixing ball was resting atop of it and allowing gravity to create the dome.  The results wasn't entirely perfect, but I liked being able to see the figure's brain.

Though not a close design match for Fallout, I have proxies for a Mister Handy series utility robot and an Eyebot. While I prefer the offical designs for these robots, these will get the job done. 

Military Assaultron-style combat robots. 

Protectron inspired utility robots. Vermilion designed these as multi-part kits featuring a variety of subclasses, so you can mix and match the bits for variety.  

Sentrybots. These robots are fairly large and very heavily armed; Each caries a minigun, energy weapon and grenade launcher. I expect they will be quite deadly during games. 

Hopefully 2nd edition offical robot stats will come out soon, but in the meantime I'll cobble something together to get them on the table.