#uscr

I know I've said this many times but a friend of mine was willing to get into tabletop wargaming and I offered him a Mercs demo game. This is basically the reason why I was holding back my Warhammer painting these days: I was preparing my USCR faction to be able to field two complete forces and trying to crank out as many terrain pieces I could. As it turns out I went a little short on the second goal but I was able to walk into my friend's house with two usable squads. It was USCR vs Kemvar.

USCR

Commissar

Heavy

Engineer

Behemoth

Gunner

KEMVAR

Leader

Heavy

Demo

Sniper

Shock

Assassin

Even though we didn't dive straight into the game (I'll explain why at the end of the post) we were both really excited to try Mercs because it's one of the best skirmish games to teach wargaming to newcomers: models look great, rules are easy to digest and the game plays super fast.

As you can see from the USCR heavy in the pictures above, the models are dynamic and full of detail. They're slightly hard to tackle if you are a beginner but the game provides some solid fun which is a good motivation.

Batrep. Sort of.

We decided to randomly assign the factions: I ended up with the USCR and my friend took Kemvar so I finally got a chance to see why a lot of people hate them. We also decided to place all the terrain I brought alternating back and forth but we ended up with a first game table setup which was not super optimal. The scenario: Kemvar attacking a USCR fueling station located in the middle of the table. Here you can see a couple of poor pictures.

We had containers, ammo boxes, and some road barricades but we felt the field was a little bit too open. I should have worked harder! Unfortunately, we didn’t have a nice gaming mat so, let’s say we were in the middle of the desert.

Anyways, the game started as usual with the Kemvar moving super fast forward and the USCR spraying them with relentless fire. God, that mimetic armors are good... the first turns USCR were just cycling through ammo clips with no tangible result while the Kemvars were totally controlling the field. Lucky dice rolls were helping but that sheer supremacy was fun to watch. Even from the USCR side. The Kemvar sniper was systematically breaking USCR armors but the bullets were too weak to actually do any good.

Then the wind changed: you know? When they're in active camo, those chameleons are hard to hit but when you do damage their armor they start falling like autumn leaves. It happened when the USCR heavy climbed on a shipping container and started to unleash a storm from elevated ground on the enemies with his lightning cannons. A couple of missed dice rolls for the Kemvars and the battle was over in two turns. The Kemvar leader, last of his men still standing, decided to flee leaving the USCR with a couple of dead bodies and some pretty badly wounded soldiers but still holding control of the fuel station. USCR wins.

Second Wave

As the first game was more of a learning session we decided to go on with another battle in the same setting, this time playing with the following rules/background:

The Kemvar leader went back and gathered a new squad to try again to destroy the fueling station. This time is a suicide mission: conquer the station or blow it up.

Kemvar must reverse the fueling station pump direction and blow it up.

USCR must stop them at all costs.

Maximum of 5 turns. At the end of the 5th turn, the winner will be determined depending on the current pump flow direction.

The Kemvar jumped into action, immediately trying to leverage their superior movement skills. With the USCR slowly advancing from the distance in their clumsy power armors, the Kemvar raiders managed to reverse the pump flow on the second turn. Only three turns to hold before the mission completion. The USCR group decided to split: a back support team with the Behemoth, the Commissar, and the heavy with some massive suppression fire actively limiting enemy’s movement and a fast moving front assault team consisting of the Engineer and the Gunner. With the Engineer engaged in a sustained fight with the Assassin first and the Shock later, the Gunner was free to get to the pump control console and reestablish the proper settings. Unfortunately, the USCR heavy miscalculated his line of sight when attacking an already badly wounded Shock and the Gunner fell under friendly fire that left him surrounded by enemies in a broken armor. It was the last turn when the Kemvar leader finally made his run to the console claiming his revenge for all the fallen Kemvar comrades. The Gunner was there, alone, under friendly and enemy fire, only a few centimeters away from that damn button, swearing while desperately trying to crawl to the console when a giant fireball erupted from the fuel tank, blowing away all that was left of the two groups. Kemvar wins.

Wrap up

We played two games and we had some real fun. There was strategy, last-second game-changing moves and all the good tactical aspects Mercs is known for. Even during the learning first game, it was fun to see how easy this game is to pick up. I have to admit that my friend is a hardcore boardgamer with an eye for miniature-rich ones but still, after two or three turns we had all rules nailed down. We did not use any advanced rule though. No, check that: I used some bounding because those Russians are super-slow movers but that’s it.

Being the first time I played with the USCR I can say that they look really cool but as far as strategy goes, they’re only good at spraying the enemy with bullets. They are slow movers and even though their armor is pretty thick (they almost don’t get any wound) it breaks up really easily. The Behemoth and the Heavy have surprisingly high TN so they’re not super good at killing foes in cover. I was hitting on 9s and 10s for the whole game even from elevated position. They do grant you some good zone control because of their scary weapons though. The Gunner and the Engineer were surprisingly good at moving and shooting with the Engineer also able to get double activation once. The two of them almost won the second encounter.

The Kemvar, on the other hand, showcased all the faction strengths: they move really fast, they hit easily (even though with low strength) and they are super hard to hit when the armor is working. The Sniper always hit because of her Aim keyword but with a strength 1 bullet, she is just good at breaking armors. In the first game, she managed to pin down three of the USCR but they were in good positions for shooting anyway and the final result showed how useless the Sniper was. I don’t even need to comment on the notorious lethal power of the Assassin and the Shock: they were tearing apart USCR power armors barehanded. The shock destroyed the Commissar in two rounds by making him flying around and bouncing him on a shipping container.

Final thoughts

If you can get your hands on some Mercs factions, do it. The game is cheap, fun and easy to learn/teach and I think it’s every wargaming lover duty to spread this as much as possible. Of course, because of the factions limitations, it may not offer the same tactical depth other games show but with proper terrain selection and deployment together with balanced faction choices, you are pretty much set up for endless fun.

Last point: why didn’t we jump immediately into the game? Cause we bought Warhammer 40k Dark Imperium starter set and we were unboxing. We split the contents. I got some Nurgle love... Of course, you’re all gonna hear more on this....

.... game on!