MERCS: Recon - First Impressions

It finally happened, a large box was delivered and it contained the two core MERCS: Recon boxes - Counter Threat, containing EU and CCC, and Assassination Protocol, containing KemVar and Keizai Waza. There are of course a lots of stuff still missing as MegaCon elected to send out the core games as soon as they were ready to get people playing. The second wave, containing everything else, is on its way from China as we speak and if the European distributor is not as slow delivering it as it was with the first wave and the MYTH 2.0 stuff (more than a month in their warehouse!!) then it should be with backers during April at least.

This is how it starts, nice and quiet with just a couple of SecFor I and some scared workers cowering in the corner. It's deceivingly calm.

While I have yet to play a complete game with other actual humans I have played it a few times solo, something it is exceedingly suitable for. It's not that it simply works solo, but it is actually loads of fun solo! I played my first couple of games as KemVar and actually managed to win the very first one as my team went in, secured the objective through a breach and clear and proceeded to exit to a waiting hovercraft. The Shock Trooper bit the dust in the final to last turn (although I had forgotten all about the KemVar active camo) but I guess that's simply the price of success.

Then you find yourself being chased down a corridor by EVERY GUY WITH A GUN!!

The second mission ended horribly in an ill planned B&C where I needed to destroy the objective. I could probably have done it if I had managed my resources better, by trying to interrogate more special workers and interacting with some of the useful non-objective items. Instead I went in way too early and got my butt kicked.

Here's that catastrophic B&C I mentioned above. 

Game number three we actually had to abort early due to time constraints, but both Nicke and Jacob enjoyed it and would like to play a full game. Even though they both had a bad experience with MYTH and Jacob thinks it's basically the spawn of the devil (yes, he's obviously both mistaken and delusional, but there's a kernel of truth there as they tried playing MYTH 1.0 and I wasn't there to help with the rules). The game itself went quite well for us by the time we packed it in though.

Burke's Law is very much in effect. When you have three guys covering a corner to nail that nasty SecFor IV don't be surprised if two mooks with shotguns just walks up behind you and unload all they've got! Should have had my heavy covering the other direciton.

In the fourth game I switched to Keizai Waza for another objective destruction mission. This game was more tense generally as the Waza simply aren't as sneaky as KemVar and not as good at handling civilians, so the security level kept moving up and I had uncontrolled workers running about. At one point I simply had to make a cold blooded decision and simply executed a bunch of civilians to free up my movement. The future is a bleak and horrible place. In the end the B&C was a failure as one point was missing to destroy the objective, but I decided to keep playing anyway since it would be my last game until I'm back in Sweden in May (currently in Japan by the way). The retreat to the extraction point was a really close affair with SecFor crashing in through the windows to get at my, at this point in time, rather battered MERCS. All of them did make it, but this was of course purely a tangent as I had actually already lost in the B&C.

So the game is lots of fun, make no mistake. It might perhaps become a bit samey if you play it often enough, even with all the built in modularity. But I'm not really worried about that as I have lots of expansions incoming which not only expands on the core game but adds another game on top of it, called Lockdown, where you switch side and try to pour your security forces at some invading MERCS! And even if these two core boxes were all I had it would be a great addition to the collection as I really don't have anything quite like it. You might compare it to Space Hulk or Level 7 or some other sci fi game with dudes on a board, but as far as I'm concerned the experience of trying to keep a low profile during a slowly growing tornado is unique enough to have it sit comfortably next to any of those games.

This is what my first office complex looked like. Different every time.

As for the quality of the physical game - I've read a lot of comments on the KS page and the MegaCon forums to know that there have been many issues with the printing of the tiles and MegaCon are taking measures to correct this. It seems like I've been one of the lucky ones as I really haven't had any trouble besides some small scuff marks, that I can live with. I am a little worried about how durable the tiles are and if they might split further down the line, as you can clearly see the different cardboard layers making up the tile, but so far so good. It's something to keep an eye on though.

I have also seen people complain about the minis and this I actually have a hard time understanding. Yes, they are not as good as "proper" wargame miniatures from the likes of GW or Corvus Belli but they certainly hold up if you compare them to many other wargame miniatures. If I recall correctly MegaCon said that the minis would be of MYTH quality or better and that is pretty much what we have - same quality level as MYTH. They look good put together and some paint will make them look even better. What I think might be a problem for many who buy this game in retail is the fact that the minis come unassembled and in need of some (quick) cleanup. For a modeler it's a breeze but pure boardgamers are in for a surprise as theres nothing on the back of the box saying it requires assembly! Slap on the fingers there for sure. Oh, and sorry for no pictures of the minis, I simply forgot to take any good ones before leaving so use your google powers!

The rulebook in the box is also in dire need of tightening up with many things poorly explained, explained wrongly or simply not explained at all. It's certainly not as bad as the first MYTH rulebook and the game is playable but will leave you with some questions. However, MegaCon Games have been on the ball with this issue and have answered questions on their forum and made tutorial videos. Just the other day they released an extensive updated FAQ and an improved rulebook in PDF form which takes care of all the questions I've run across so far. So my advice is simply to print the new rulebook and FAQ and you'll be all set.

Bottom line: this is a very neat game with lots of different ways approach the mission and lots of freedom on how you set it up. The minis and board look great and the gameplay usually goes from tense to straight out stressful! Oh, and it's bloody hard as well! You might have noticed that I lost two of my three completed games, and this is just how I like my co-ops - if you manage to win more then 50% of the time the game is probably too easy and simply not as fun. So far so good on MERCS: Recon.

Now I'm eagerly looking forward to all the extra stuff! Like new MERCS teams, special OpFor characters, new missions, Lockdown mode, zombies(!), drones and piles and piles of figures!

What I have to look forward to. Plus the MERCS 2.0 tabletop game and some other stuff!

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MERCS: Recon

I wasn't going to fall for any more Kickstarters - or at least, I'd only go for cheap ones - but MERCS: Recon simply looks waaaay too cool to pass up on!

It's a cooperative board game by Megacon Games who created the original Mercs skirmish game and ran the very successfull kickstarter for Myth last year (which is hitting the streets next month). I did give Myth a skip, partly because the uninspiring gameplay videos but also because I felt that I had three dungeon crawlers already (Descent 2.0, Gears of War and Claustrophobia). Of course Myth is entirely coop which might have been interesting since I sold my copy of Gears of War but still... ce'st la vie. Myth does look like a very cool game though!

Anyway, I'm definitely a much bigger sci-fi than fantasy fan anyway so the MERCS: Recon kickstarter immediately drew my interest. I had of course seen the Mercs skirmish game before and had even considered investing in it, but never really felt the need for it since Infinity fills that particular niche so well. However, the miniatures are generally good (going from decent to excellent) and the hard sci-fi setting Megacon has created seems pretty neat!

As I started reading about it I realized that it's basically Syndicate the board game! I'll let that sink in for a bit before moving on. And let's have a look at that nice reboot trailer as well:



I used to play loads of the original Syndicate back in the day, and I spent quite some time with the severely underrated reboot by Starbreeze as well. Also having grown up reading William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy and exploring the world of Cyberpunk 2020 I'm certainly not a stranger to corporate warfare.

In MERCS: Recon you play as a team of up to five mercs (or always five, I'm not sure) whose mission is to infiltrate the office complex of a rival Megacorp in search for the very important Mcguffin! It might be that you need to hack and wipe some servers, assassinate a particular scientist or perhaps a good old fashioned locate and extract. Each merc in the team has different abilities and armament with a leader, demolitions, breacher, incinerator and gunner (these roles probably vary between different merc factions).

This is the player board with the all the stats for your particular merc.

As you move into the office there will be a number of different coloured "agents" in the area (essentially three different kinds of blips, a la Space Hulk). These move around the board according to card draws and if one or more enters line of sight to a merc you draw a card to see what kind of opposing force (OPFOR) it actually is and how it reacts to the mercs. Of course, you will run into tougher resistance as the Security Level goes up. Regular employees will generally cower or try to run to the nearest elevator or stairwell while security forces will try to fight back. Security forces come in four different varieties, becoming gradually better armed and equipped as you go.

OPFOR!

When it's your turn to act with your merc you do so by way of command points, similar to Space Hulk, but with a lot more detail. You start the game with six points available, but you only get four back at the end of the turn, unless you take a special Initiative action which can't be combined with running or attacking. Connected to your command points is the Priority Track which works both as initiative, showing which merc acts first, but also as attack priority for the OPFOR models! So the more command points you spend during your turn the higher you will go on the priority track, meaning that the enemy will target you over the other mercs. Things like killing employees or using "excessive force" (attacking more than once in a round) raise your Priority further. Depending on your actions the Security Level is affected as well and even though you might be able to sneak around a little at first, it won't be long until OPFOR reinforcements start to arrive. This is a pretty clever little system that I haven't seen in board games before.

The movement and event cards used for agent movement and OPFOR reveal.

It also allows you neat combined actions where two mercs get to act simultaneously, one shooting and one moving for example or Duck & Cover where one merc can raise his Priority one step to allow another to lower hers. It gives a sense of a well oiled strike team working together, kind of like the move together card from Gears of War but more varied. There is also a combined action called Breach & Clear that the merc will have to use when they get to their objective (primary or secondary). This is basically a little mini-game within the game and a separate small board is used where OPFOR models are positioned behind overturned desks etc and the mercs storm through the door, guns blazing! It sounds really cool but I'm not yet convinced about the gameplay aspects of it. You mainly seem to do dice manipulation via the different abilities of the mercs to try and outdamage the opponents while attempting not to destroy the objective in the process. Need some gameplay vids of this in action to see how it really plays out.

The terrain tiles look ok, but could do with a bit detailing.

Oh, which reminds me of the collateral damage you are likely to inflict as you move through the area. There are three different attack dice: heavy, light and collateral damage dice. The CD dice have the lowest damage potential but hits every model in the target area as well as the area itself! If enough damage is done you place a special collateral damage disc on the area that changes the layout of the game and provides different modifiers. Oh, and you can ziptie and interrogate employees who might give you information as to the whereabouts of your objective. Oh, and now and then you will actually have to reload your weapon. Oh, and you can of course use overwatch, but be carful as you might fire at an employee by mistake (raising your priority and maybe security!). Oh, and as you get injured you loose command points and when incapacitated you need help to get up by your team mates. Oh, and OPFOR models act in different ways depending on if they are wounded or not. Oh, and there are more things, but it's late and I need to go to bed! :D

The factions in the two base game boxes.

All in all this seems like a pretty cool game! First and foremost I'm a sucker for the theme, but reading through the rules I get all kinds of good vibes as it really feels like something between the minimalistic tactical exercise of Space Hulk and the complex, rpg-esque sprawl of Earth Reborn. Two games that I love dearly, but that I can also feel are very far toward their respective ends of the spectrum. To have something in the middle would make for a nice trinity. Plus, full coop is a nice change!

I'm currently at the $120 Agent level, which gives you two different versions of the base game (featuring different mercs, OPFOR models, terrain tiles and missions) as well as every stretch goal. But I might find myself raising it to the $200 OPFOR level as that also includes the new second edition rulebook for the Mercs skirmish game plus all the cards needed to play it (as well as a totally separate dice game set in the same world). We're currently at 58 miniatures, but that seems to be rising to about 75 by the end of the week as another merc faction is added to the mix. Of course, it's not all about the number of miniatures. In fact, I think I would be happy with just one version of the base game, but at that level no stretch goals are included. Aww...

So... yeah... just thought I'd let you know. Because it seems pretty cool. :)

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