Amongst the many, many miniatures games that I have learned about through Twitter and from fellow members of the Shell Case Alliance is MERCS. This is a skirmish game focusing on combat between mercenary forces in the pay of mega-corporations in the not-too-distant future (2183 in fact).
This game passes the first test that any gamer requires of any game, the miniatures are extremely nice. My personal favourites are the CCC and UCSR factions.
CCC Heavy Assault.
UCSR Commissar
Everything I’ve read about MERCS suggests it’s a cool little skirmish game with fairly easy to follow rules and a few interesting mechanics that set it apart from other games. MERCS uses the unit stat cards that are becoming increasingly fashionable, being used in other games such as Warmachine and Dust Tactics. Plus it has a background that works in terms of creating a believable setting for a skirmish game, like for example Necromunda or Mordheim.
MegaCon Insignia
The background is intriguing and written with just enough humour and with a refreshing lack of excessive grim darkness.
KenVar Sniper
My only big reservation is that at present each faction has only five models available. This is not a problem in the short term as you can only take five models in a game. But in the long term things could get a bit samey unless more options are released from which to choose your five brave souls from. That said, as you can see from the photos the factions are quite varied in look and style so there is certainly going to be some replay value in trying out different side, maybe even swapping with friends to try out their stuff.
FCC Housemember
So in conclusion, this is a promising looking skirmish game. It’s might be a little pricey to start out with, but given the scale and the number of models required and available means that unless you want to buy multiple factions the subsequent outlay shouldn’t be too high.
More posts on MERCS written by @CaitoGalenus and @docbungle are listed below.
The Promise of Things to Come.
paintandbiscuits 