It's quite clear to me that I do have a huge passion for MERCS, but without a local community or others to share my enthusiasm with, the fervour I have for the system eventually dwindles.
So it's been over a year since my last post here, but a few things have changed in my life that have brought me back to MERCS yet again.
Fatherhood
I am now the father of a beautiful 8 week old girl, and my role as a father has taken priority in my life - which has seriously minimised the amount of free time I have to pursue hobbies and wargames. Well, MERCS being a very accessible, low-cost table top game certainly fits the bill, compared to other systems that require armies and huge tables of terrain!
Experience with other systems
I've actually been blogging over here since my absence from MERCS, painting and playing other popular tabletop systems. The main systems I've tried have been Warmachine/Hordes and Infinity, with a bit of research into starting up Malifaux - but I found that these systems weren't ideal for me.
Infinity, by far, has been my favourite system outside of MERCS and I have to say is pretty awesome, but the ruleset is somewhat complicated for my taste. I prefer simple and concise rulesets, with minimal (none if possible) rules debate - I just wanna get down and play!
Warmachine/Hordes was almost like an army game, and had a pretty large learning curve. It required developing an understanding of each Warcaster, the unit and the synergies between them. And once an understanding was developed, it felt little like a "Put down your army and press Play" kind of system.
I also got a bunch of models painted up for Malifaux, however whenever I got down to try to learn the game, I found the system overly daunting - each model on the table has a small page of their own special rules, and to play a tactical game you'd have to know what each of the models on the table is capable of.
MERCS is just a good fit
Everything about MERCS is ideal to my gaming preferences, meeting all my criteria:
- Skirmish gameplay, with 5-7 models required per faction
- Small play area, 2x3 board, with minimal terrain requirements
- Simple ruleset
- Short game times
So my enthusiasm for MERCS is back with a vengeance, and I've managed to dig up my assembled Texico and ISS models, which I'll be slowly painting through in my minimal spare time. More MERCS action to come!
Sync out.
