MERCS 2.5 rules released!

[blipvertus 12386xp 3]

Ok, I’ve had a quick look at the new rules and I’m pretty excited. Here’s just a few highlights.

Everyone now has a melee weapon, it’s just some people are a lot better at it. Melee is now an opposed die roll.

Everyone can move and shoot, it’s just some people are better at it than others.

More missions and missions are objective/goal based. But you can also score secondary points with random mission cards that each Megacon has.

A few new keywords and personal abilities but seemed to be mostly clearing things up.

Several Megacons and team members have different abilities. Many have had stats updated.

I haven’t looked at all of them but a few that I’ve found:

Keiza Waza- nuclear power armor. When you’re down to 1 blood you can detonate yourself. Your tactical nuke is less powerful but is a lot easier to use (no longer need 3 dudes, just the one guy with the Rocket)

East India Corporation no longer fields 6 team members, just the same as the other Megacons but now every team member can assimilate enemy tech.

House 9 can no longer hire other Megacon team members but the first two guys you lose in a game can respawn.

Texico’s traps got better.

Oh, and everyone with a grenade can use it to improvise a trap.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Link thingy:  https://mercsminiatures.com/files?fbclid=IwAR3XXbFHB4OkdhapQidHomgGWfRurKtsmq4o_4BZq_VnmrVQHUr5TzlhOpc

[templar007 52378xp 1]

Thanks for the update! ??

[innes 11111xp 1]

Yeah. It looks pretty good so far. Giving it a try online tomorrow.

[recon63 5075xp 0]

Appreciate the link. any major changes from 2.0 rules??

[donimator 6109xp 1]

Great to see development ongoing. I hadn’t been following news on their Facebook and just saw the Recon announcement some months ago now. Mercs has continued to be my maybe third-ish game of choice. Gets pulled out every other month or so, though my minis are pulling double duty in Zone Raiders  more often.

Will give this draft a good playtest. Initially seeing some of the things I liked that were tweaked in 2.0 changed or removed causes some concern. Rolling by mini for initiative instead of the new way of rolling a pool and assigning is different. Had to be a little more careful in 2.0 knowing a mini may get trapped in the open, with no recourse. Removal of Bounding will be something I’ll want to test out. Finally, looks like Snap2Cover is gone (??) – was a very thematic mechanic that worked well with the card movement.

I like the 3v3 on smaller board as a standard setup along with 5v5. Also like the tweaks to characters and archetypes to bring it up to date a little. Worry is the changes are making it a little too similar to other near future offerings and taking away some quirks that made it unique. Proof is in the pudding, though, and I will bump it up in my limited play opportunities to check it out.

[blipvertus 12386xp 0]

@recon63 there are some changes but not huge ones.
Rolling for initiative is different. You now roll all your dice and then assign them to who you want. Then use the initiative modifiers.

Over watch and suppression seem to be the same. Bounding and snap to cover seem to be gone.

But that’s just a quick look. I haven’t tried them in a game yet. My general impression is it mostly tightened up the rules.

Edit: Melee is different. Everyone now has a melee weapon, it’s just that some people are better than others. Melee is also more streamlined and uses an opposed dice roll off.

[recon63 5075xp 0]

@blipvertus thanks for that mate. I’m currently trying to have a read of the 2.5 update changes.

I’ll post my thoughts after I have had a good look at it all.

 

One question that I do have, the mini’s on the web store…… are they metal, plastic, or resin ?? very curious about this!

[donimator 6109xp 0]

Store minis are those produced for Recon boardgame. It’s mentioned in their store under the item descriptions.

[recon63 5075xp 0]

Bugger!! I suspected that they were pvc, but I was hoping that they still had some of the old metal mini’s available….

[blipvertus 12386xp 0]

@recon63 they do plan to eventually produce the metal minis again but not immediately.

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