No they aren't. They're small. They've always been small. Only the splintergroups (Midwestern Brotherhood and Lyons Brotherhood, neither of which are going to help prosecute a war on the NCR) recruit heavily from outsiders.



No they couldn't. They lack the ability to transport their troops over long distances quickly. They aren't the Enclave with their vertibirds.



This is an awful lot of unwarranted assumptions.

The BoS has fought a war against NCR... and lost. Sort of. They were breaking even for a while and had the sense to see that they couldn't win. They hit the gold reserves and call it quits. The NCR in New Vegas may still be cut off from the main body but in terms of influence and military strenght they have it overall. Mainly because BoS cares little for influence as long as they are able to operate. NCR takes anyone so their ranks are easy to replenish. BoS in general only gets new troops as they get old enough within the ranks.

In all fairness, Lyon and his little girly men have Vertibirds now (Or they at least have 1...which would be extremely pathetic) but I'm not sure if they want the West Coast Brotherhood to find out about their tomfoolery...

West Coast knew the whole time, Lyons was left in charge but not reinforced. That is why Lyons group was still official and the outcasts were still outcasts.

West Coast did send Lyons and his men to D.C to gather technology but they don't know that Lyons has made that a secondary goal and is now more interested in improving the Wastelands (Believe it is mentioned by the Outcast leader or one of the two guards outside of the Outcast fort). I do know that the Outcast leader has the plan of continuing the original goal of the preservation of technology until they can make contact with the West Coast and be reinstated (And Lyons punished, if I remember correctly the Outcast leader plans on suggesting a firing squad.)

I think it's quality versus quantity: the training and technology of the Brotherhood against the numbers and territory of the NCR. The latter will probably win out overall though, because AFAIK they are still pretty organised and reasonably hi-tech; no stupid tribals.

umm look at who won versus germany and russia durring ww2. germany had better tec but lower guys and russia had less tec but way over double there population. and yes it does mean somthing because you can just overwhelm them and there tec wont be any good if there fighting from all angles being surounded by people and tell me how the bos is capable of defeating the ncr? and i said i replyed to a message about new vegas but that doesnt mean i cant talk asbout fallout 3 does it

According the Fallout Wiki (I know a wiki is a wiki but it is pretty accurate) west coast command was aware of the shift in priority and while not removing him that is why they got no reinforcements.

yes the ncr are not poorly trained any more and have better tec than they did and far more men than the bos.

Actually as previously state, BoS tried to defeat NCR... and failed. They gave up cause they could not win, at least if the Fallout Bible is to be believed (and it is). The best they could do is hit the gold mines. NCR won by virtue of being able to replace soldiers easily.

I think the NCR are more powerful than the BoS. The BoS are a fairly elitist faction, with the exception of the Capital Wasteland detachment. Because of the goals of the true BoS, recruits are short coming, making them unable to match the size of the NCR's military.

Also, the BoS have gone soft on their military training, which is one of the reasons the Enclave were deemed more powerful, despite have so few soldiers. Because of the NCR's 'people first' goals, they see many more recruits.

Not to mention, the tech the BoS use is outdated.

Excluding the cold taste of the Russian Winter, a three front war, a manic leader whose insanity was harshly limiting the commander's abilities to command, that anology works perfectly (Sorry, had a odd lust for being a jerk right there). Also, another aspect of NCR I haven't heard anyone mention, we do not know how united it is, at any time a state could rebel. The Brotherhood generally doesn't have this problem, being so selective and fanatic.

Also, I stand corrected about the ECBoS :meh: (Even though I can't see how the West Coast, being so small, could send reinforcements)

and yes other stuff played into the east front war but i highly doubt that an army thats stronger than its aponent in that it has better tec but could still be overwhelmed by a deciently trained army that doesnt have bad tec its self

bos-better trained and better tec but very few people
ncr-decently trained with decent tec and a huge number of soldiers

the only way i see a few amount of guys beating a huge number of guys is if the larger number only has rocks and the smaller amount has plasma tec

:tops:

Throw in Liberty Prime and partial control over the purifier, an alliance with Rivet City, which might produce quite a bit of stuff eventually, once more people flock to their clean water + 3 years time, BoS could be very powerful around there, especially since they are impervious to the problems of radiation in nuked areas, whereas my guess is that the NCR troops could suffer dearly from that, but I never played the other two, so don't listen to me, lol.

no your right that bos would become stronger and they did when the dlc and broken steel came out for fallout 3 because thats exactly what they did exept bos wasint selling the water which i understand but they also wernt making profit how about a cap a bottle lol some type of exchange

Yeah but even if they didn't sell it, simply having CONTROL over it would be a huge hand up. They would have masses of people dependent on them.

They would still not be up to par with NCR's forces.
Even if they tripled their members they wouldn't stand a chance against NCR.
And Lyons BOS are stupid as hell because instead of saluaging the tech from Crawler and Raven Rock they blew the places up.
They are under-supplied and have lost a lot of member in their war with Enclave, and Liberty Prime will take alot longer than 3 years to rebuild.
And even if they do rebuild it I hardly think it would be the same quality as it was during it's attack on the Satellite Array Station.

I don't understand how it's still a debate.
Do some of you understand how big NCR is? Have you done any research on the Wikia? Played Fallout 2?
Lyons Brotherhood had one ace up their sleeve. Compared to how big the NCR is I wouldn't be surprised if they had at least half a dozen ace's up their sleeves.
The only BOS faction that NCR wouldn't stand a chance against is probably the Mid-western BOS (Tactics).

So let's think this through:
NCR
-Huge army.
-Advanced weaponry (They sold pretty awesome stuff during my fallout 2 playthrough's so I don't understand how people think their weaponry is "decent" at best)
-Unknown amount of secret weapons (One we do know of is Archimedes.)
-Elite force known as NCR Rangers
-Do not have power armors but have pretty good armors non the less.
-Outcasts may very well align themselves with the NCR in order to take Lyons down who in their eyes is a traitor.
-Seems to have a problem with communication (New Vegas)

Eastern BOS
-Power Armors (But NCR has weapons that can penetrate their armors)
-Under-supplied. (As far as I remember they don't have any huge storage filled with stuff and they don't produce any either)
-Liberty Prime is broken.
-Still very selective when picking members. (They wouldn't pick us, the PC's, until BS, if they wouldn't pick us, then why would they pick random people?)
-Outdated weapons (Enclave using plasma weaponry while BOS using small guns weapons and laser weapons)
-May very well be under threat from V87 mutants and remnants of Enclave.
-Has no allies.

So, who would be the winner?
And I am being unbiased in this.
If I'm wrong on something then feel free to correct me. I myself want an answer to who is the most powerful faction.

. . . copycat . . .

Also to add on there men are strected out all over the place and seem very disorganized and with their own way of doing things, I think in a few years the brotherhood will collapse on itself.

Don't forget that the BoS can't make Power Armors so any that get damaged beyond repair or lost to the NCR can't be replaced. Plus not every BoS member is issued a Power Armor, lower ranking members wear Combat Armor.

NCR also has much greater influence in Northern California, near Navarro, Mariposa, Vault City, and San Francisco. There's a ton of high tech salvage in Mariposa. Depending on what happened to Navarro after the Enclave Oil Rig was destroy, NCR could have access to it to. NCR may have absorbed Vault City or is at least trading with them. NCR trades with the Shi in San Francisco, the only faction other than the Enclave that can make their own Power Armor.

Did BOS trade with anyone in the Core Region?
All I could remember is that they set up a bunch of bunkers over the place.

Obviously NCR because they are more in numbers, the BOS focuses on newer technology which is a slight advantage.

Whichever one has me on their side.

Yeah but BOS don't really have any production going on as far as I remember while NCR do, food, water, ammunition, weapons, equipment, gear etc. (But it was a long time since I played fallout 1 so I guess someone else would have to explain wether they do produce stuff or not.)



This thread is about deciding which faction is more powerful.
Players are not included.