NEW MERCS 2.0 DETAILS
We would like to thank to Brian Shotton again for giving us time to ask questions about MERCS 2.0 at the Michigan State Championship earlier this month!
MERCS will be going to go through a huge amount of changes before its release which Brian says we should expect as a GenCon release (End of July, 2015). For those of you worried that the upcoming changes will rewrite the game you love, no worries. These changes are for the better and none of the fundamentals are too drastically disrupted. Here are just some of the changes you should expect with 2.0: 1. All FNs in the game will be going down by 1. That will make your standard semi-auto fire at a base FN of 6, your rifles will fire at a base FN of 4, and pistols will fire at a Base FN of 2 (remember, pistols are must be in short range to fire!). Heavies are the exception to this rule, but we'll talk about that later.
Why this change? This makes MERCS a much faster game. Many players play very fast games as it is with the average game taking less than 45 minutes and being less than 7 turns, so this change will certainly be welcomed.
2. Heavies are going through big changes. Firstly, heavies have 2 firing options; set and unset. When heavies are firing unset, they will fire at FN8 and use a smaller template (If they had an extended T, they'll get a small T instead. We're not sure what happens if the heavy starts with a small T.) Heavies can spend an action to set, as they normally do in the current edition, but once set, they get a huge boost to their firepower. Set heavies fire at -1FN (so FN7 in most cases) and fire their normal template.
Why this change? Heavies are pretty poor models in this edition. Heavies are typically the model that's left behind when picking your 5 man force with the Behemoth, Heavy Gunner, KemVar Heavy, and the EU Inc Heavy being the typical exceptions. Heavies simply take way too long to enter the action; two truns of getting to your position and a round of setting means you wont be doing anything until turn 4 at the earliest. Clearly, MCG wants to see this changed, making the game much faster and heavies worth taking in more situations.
3. There's a new action and it's called "Aim." We don't know if this is an action for everyone, it may be an action just for models in the Sniper class or models who have LRK weapons. Either way, aim will give you -1FN on your next attack.
Why this change? Brian hates it when models with rifles and LRKs miss. He's said it a few times when I've been and even mentioned it in the recent Beasts of War google hang-out. Brian wants to give models with LRKs and Rifles a much better hit chance. Again, contributing to a faster game. This also makes snipers a little more reliable on the field, which they desperately need. Like heavies, snipers with LRKS are usually not worth bringing and MCG is looking to change that. Right now, we're not sure its enough, but only time will tell.
4. Initiative is getting a make-over. For those of you who really enjoy the random initiative, don't worry, it's a make-over, not a full blown restructuring. For those of you looking for alternate activation, sorry, but it's not so. Initiative is still getting an arguably necessary change for the better in the form of initiative modifiers. Next to their reaction, some models will have a number, one through three, this value can either be added or subtracted from the model's rolled initiative. Example, a model with an initiative modifier of 2 rolls a 7 on his initiative die. The initiative can be modified to either a 5 or a 9, or it may simply stay a 7. We don't know if you can choose to modify your initiative by a number that is less than your initiative value yet, meaning that if you have an initiative modifier of 3 you can choose to only modify your initiative by 2. To accommodation this change to initiative, the initiative phase will now be much longer and have a clear order of operations to allow for fair initiative modification. Brian wasn't explicit on how exactly it will function.
Why this change? There are a lot of people out there who despise the random initiative system and have lost games becasue of it. Initaitve in its current state can completely disrupt games by allowing one player to activate his entire team before his opponent has a chance to respond. Brian, having watched and played hundreds of MERCS games, seems to have finally buckled and made the change.
5. Flank and rear arc bonuses are changing. According to Brian, the bonuses from attacking in these arcs wont be as good as they are now, but he wasn't very clear on how they would change. Running around your opponent and attacking from behind is pretty much the bee's knees at higher level play in the current edition. The fact that simply running behind an enemy with a fire and move negates the fire and move penalty and then gives you +2 strength (making armor irrelevant) is insanely good. Get into short range and it's even better. Additionally, the flank bonus will no longer require a friendly within melee range to be applied for shooting and melee.
Why this change? You got me, it could be for myriad reasons. Maybe Brian wanted to get rid of the strategy of running behind an opponent to minimize your FN while also removing yourself from an opponent's LOS? Perhaps the modifiers for the arcs are simply too good and need to be diminished? Either way, this will serve as a significant nerf to fast models as it makes this tactic less appealing.
6. Move and Melee is a thing and everyone can do it. We still aren't 100% on how this will work, but Brian mentioned that it will work like a CCM. We pointed out that allowing everyone to move and melee will encourage a very silly tactic: players will just start running MERCS past their opponent's MERCS, turn 90 degrees, snap into their opponent MERCS' rear arc, and perform rear attacks, getting a very good modifier and making the game play rather unexciting. Brian assured us that models who moved and used melee would have such a devastating negative modifier the this behavior wouldn't be a really viable one except on a few models. Further, the changes to the arc modifiers would also make players reconsider pursuing this tactic. So what happens to models like the Texico Jaguar, KemVar Assassin, and Keizai Waza Spy? These models will effectively never miss an attack with a move and melee. Brian mentioned this point in the Beasts of War Google hang out interview as well.
Why this chance? Currently, melee isn't an exciting or reliable part of MERCS. We expect this was done to make the aspect of the game more appealing to players and speed the game up more.
7. Grenades and other "special weapons" cannot be used on over-watch. Several weapons, including grenades, will become "special weapons" which cannot be used on over-watch, sorry house 4. We should expect Siren Snog to be a "special weapon" as well.
Why this change? Our resident U.S. veteran and MERC player, Jon, kindly informed us that only an idiot would use a grenade on over-watch. I suppose that this was done to bring some more realistic expectations to the game. Let's also keep in mind taht grenades on over-watch are stupid good, especially with sefadu's incindiaries and house 4's flashbangs.
8. MCG will be making more global events. While this isn't necessarily a change to the rules, it is a welcome change to how much content MCG is going to be putting out for the community. MERCS has not received much attention since the recon kickstarter as their small but dedicated staff has been focused on so many other projects. Still, it's hit the community hard and many groups have moved on to other games waiting for 2.0 to release. New MERCS support from MegaCon is a very exciting idea and will really assist with player detainment and recruitment.
9. More factions will be coming out. A lot of the hard core MERCS players were concerned that MCG was throwing all their cards on the table with Recon. We had only ever heard about the 10 big MegaCon plus the 12 houses (only House 4 and House 9 are on the tabletop though). Brian has told us that players should expect more factions to come and that we should expect them to come from splits in other factions. We should also expect more FCC house factions to release also
These account for all of the major changes. Overall, we at Michigan MERCS feel pleased with them. For those of you wondering whether or not there will be a beta, your guess is as good as ours. It's been hinted at several times by MCG, but with the release slated for the end of July '15, if MCG doesn't have a beta out by the beginning of April, we probably shouldn't expect one. Here are some additional minor changes to the game, usually model-by-model
10. Spotters now benefit models within short range when using their range finder rather then just melee range. That's a nasty sphere of influence.
11. The Texico dog will be weapon strength 1 in 2.0 and will have more realistic restrictions. Currently, the Texico dog can jump ER 3 (12 feet) vertically to attack opponents, rules as written. Clearing this up will really help make the dog more reasonable, but make Texico players rather disappointed.
12. The House 4 Sapper will have an Auto-Shotgun. Hold on to your hats.
If you would like to share your thoughts on the new info you have just read, head over to the forums (Ours and MCG's) and let us know what you think! http://michiganmercs.forumotion.com http://megacongames.vanillaforums.com
