MERCS Demo/Game Night Recap!

Hey Readers,

This is somewhat of a cross-post from this thread on the MERCS forums (      ), which documents a recent MERCS demo/game night I organized at the local store.  It's hopefully the first of a series of posts I'm envisioning on MERCS.  This game is currently worming its way through my brain quite a bit.  I really like the art, the fluff and the system and it really makes me think about both my strategy and in-game tactics.  In-short, the things I tend to not think about when playing casually.  Stay tuned for more:

Just wanted to document the action that took place last night at Dream Wizards in MD.  We had a good turn out for a combination of games and demos.  The Forum's Hunter776 drove down and was a great help in providing an extra brain and set of hands to work with the new players.  Everyone that got a demo was interested in playing what was in effect a full game.  Matchups included ISS-Texico, USCR-CCC and Texico-USCR.  

There were a number of people who wanted to get a demo but already had other plans; I'll get a bit more forward-advertising done ahead to time to make sure they're locked in.  Hopefully we can get a couple more events in before the tournament Dr. Andy is running on 10/7 nearby.

Here are some photos of the games (I'll make sure to have a legitimate camera next time, as this one didn't quite do the job):

Gencon 2012!

Well, Gencon 2012 came and went.  It was pretty relaxed as far as Gencons go; I spent 4 hours on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, each, working in the Cool Mini or Not booth, which generated a ton of swag, but didn't leave too much time for events.  Conveniently, there weren't too many events that enticed me.

The 4 of us left very late Tuesday night, and 10 hours later, arrived in Indy.  After wandering around most of the day and trying out Zombiecide (more on that in a second), we hit St. Elmo's steakhouse, a super-classy restaurant.  But more about the gaming:

During free time, we played a lot of Zombiecide, Eclipse and Evil Baby Orphanage.

Zombiecide is CMoN's new Zombie game.  We played the first scenario ~ 7 times and couldn't beat it; it's excruciatingly difficult.  That said, the game itself has some excellent mechanics and is full of character.  I'd recommend it if you like zombie games.

Eclipse is basically Twilight Imperium light: way less political mechanics, with a far more elegant activation/resource system.  It's like they took TI and euro-gamed it.  Like TI, it takes more planning and continued attention than I like to give board games, so I suck at it, but it's quite entertaining.

Evil Baby Orphanage is Wyrd's new card game.  In it, you play a time-travelling nanny (Mary Poppins meets Dr. Who) who is trying to kidnap various evil babies to keep them from perpetrating crimes against humanity in the future.  Basically, there are baby cards worth various amounts of points that you collect (portraying people like Baby Hitler, Baby Stalin, Baby Napoleon, etc.).  The babies also have good and bad abilities that you have to manage via toys and and action cards.  It's a fun, light screw-your-neighbor game.

In terms of actual events, I played in the MERCS tournament.  I matched up against Waza with my FCC in the first round on the Missile Silo map (single-elimination).  My opponent was a cool guy who was able to take maximum advantage of some really idiotic errors I made throughout the game.  I was in it until the end despite all that, but couldn't  seem to think clearly.  Very much a missed opportunity; I'd wanted to practice that exact match-up on that map, but never got around to it.  It probably would've helped :D

Anyways, the rest of the con was great.  I ran demos of the new version of Confrontation, Wrath of Kings and Relic Knights for CMoN.  All 3 are excellent, especially Wrath of Kings.  I eagerly await the inevitable Kickstarter.

A friend and I did run a 6-player Gruntz event both Thursday and Friday morning.  These were super successful and I'll post about them separately once he sends me the photos.

Here are a couple of photos (more to come as I find them):

Wrath of Kings: Teknes Ironward

Chill-causing Collodi Cosplay

Delicious Cincinnati-style Chili Dogs from Skyline.