MERCS: Recon Review

Megacon Games is kind of like the Shia Lebeouf of the cardboard jungle. Publisher of Myth and the upcoming Banner Saga, this company is always drawing fire and ruffling feathers. Their games tend to have a difficult time covering their flaws and their Kickstarter backers have no qualms about raising a torch or pitchfork. Yet I keep coming back to their designs and can’t deny their creativity and imagination. I definitely feel as though there’s a diamond here, although one bristling with inclusions.

MERCS: Recon is a co-operative miniatures-style board game featuring near future special ops teams infiltrating corporate offices to steal data and generally run amok. You capture and slaughter employees, trade massive amounts of fire with security force units, and maim the environment like a demolitions team with a purpose. The immediate setting feels alive and dynamic and enemies show up unexpectedly; a common thread of unpredictability lends to a surprisingly large amount of replayability.

The rulebook here is certainly better than the one for its predecessor, Myth. The game is very playable and things make sense. Some of the mechanisms are pretty unique and the game has a very strong tabletop miniatures feel which could prove a learning curve for those used to well-oiled machines like Descent. Still, these guys mostly got it right.

With that being said, there is a slightly large amount of inconsistencies and ‘gotchas that you will need to rule on together or dive onto the scary world wide web to resolve. Things like not listing a basic employee’s movement can be reasonably inferred but is never quite spelled out. You’ll also wonder if a faction’s ability applies in the Breach and Clear mechanism. What about when the faction cheat sheet ability list conflicts with a printed character card? These aren’t showstoppers and they don’t take away from some of the brilliant high points of the design but the large amount of dings do add up and weigh upon the title.

Overlooking the copious minor flaws is a challenge easily overcome once you begin to assimilate the gameplay. A turn consists of players activating their five man team using a slick action point system to move about areas of the map, interact with objects, and fire their guns until Sammy the desk jockey next door is bleeding out his ears. The more actions you take the higher your priority becomes which means you act earlier but you also draw more enemy attention. Managing this priority system is similar to Myth’s threat track and provides for a nuanced aspect to decision making that dovetails nicely with the Breach and Clear mechanism.

The Breach and Clear mini-game triggers when players attempt to enter a room occupied by an objective or the opposing force. It feels like we’re zooming into this slow motion Peckinpah-style action scene as the Mercs figures are transported to an off-map B&C tile that’s suddenly populated with a large enemy force. Mechanically this is a back and forth war of attrition with opposing dice rolls as each side chips away at the other and tries to amount greater success. The added touch of inflicting too much collateral damage from your loose firing weaponry could result in that Robotic Arm you’re trying to capture being outright destroyed and your group losing the mission. You also immediately lose if the enemy force has a greater strength on the track at the end of the round.

Drama and fanfare. Also, possibly much aggravation. This game will toss you around if you let it as the outcomes and chaotic structure can lead to mission failing craziness like the team blowing up the hallway so bad it results in the terrain becoming impassable and no way to reach your objective or Evac. You just lose.

When your dice go badly in a Breach and Clear it can be equally as frustrating. That’s the life of a MegaCorp precision hit man team. Still, the game offers you a few options to help deal with this conundrum. First you need to realize that each core set comes with two Merc teams and each may be better suited for different missions. The CCC are able to throw down massive amounts of collateral and are perfect for missions where you are trying to destroy the objective in the B&C. The EU Inc. is great at combinations and supporting each other and function best as a tight knit group. Each has a purpose and quirks that you will need to become familiar with to succeed.

You can also gain Breach and Clear bonuses by interrogating higher level employees such as the Administrator and Technician. Missions typically have additional objective tokens mixed in to provide a fog of war - items such as the Weapon Rack can provide a huge boost to actually succeeding at your target location. The game constantly includes a number of these variables in the background and doesn’t make it obvious or intuitive that there’s actually quite a bit of depth beyond blowing holes in a cube farm and taking out your 9-5 corporate frustrations with a bunch of miniatures.

Recon can be vicious and it can be random. Enemies take the form of agent discs in the beginning of the game, tokens similar to Space Hulk blips that are converted into employees if you’re lucky and SecForce if you aren’t. A deck of cards controls the reveals and interacts with the security alert level, another resource the group must manage in order to prevent a massive swarm of highly armed warriors assaulting them.

There’s a lot of flavor in this design and interesting mechanical touches that go hand in hand with the flaws. At times it can feel gamey and take you out of the narrative as you come across a loophole like every Merc in your team expending all of their actions to max out their priority so that you can just determine their order of activation. Players also build the map out of the large number of included tiles and have massive freedom to determine the hallway shape and how many starting agent discs there are. You even get to choose where the objective tokens are placed and where the Mercs starting location begins.

This design philosophy of leaving much in the player’s hands is one of the huge strong points of Myth and what continually draws me to Megacon’s work. There’s definitely a subtle feel of both miniature and roleplaying game lax that urges players to simply deal with it. I find this to actually work relatively well in these games due to the fact they are co-operative and not pitting your group against each other. It’s easy to make a ruling and come to an agreement when you’re all fighting for the same common goal.

There’s also some relatively heavy subject matter menacing in the foreground that may surprise you. The design can throw a curveball your way such as maxing out a tile with employees allowing you no room to pass through. Picture a hallway full of horrified civilians, IT employees separated from their Mountain Dew and Cheetos by a Special Forces team in power armor.

Because of the limited paths of travel through the cubicle farm you are often presented with the difficult proposition of either collapsing out of sight so that employees lose their cowering status and can start booking it for the stairs – OR you can swallow that lump in your throat and simply gun them down. You see time is a concrete resource in Recon while morality is an ephemeral wisp outside the mechanics. These difficult emotional problems you are confronted with can wholly be ignored, but those pangs of guilt may not go away.

Beyond the tests of righteousness and rules-lawyering, really this is just the second chapter of the same book. For those hoping Megacon would espouse a very tight-knit, well-oiled design process, you’re out of luck. For those who would embrace the creativity and freedom of Myth, you’ll find a little more of the same here in Recon. Overall this is a more tested and refined design but it’s still not quite up to snuff in comparison to the heavyweights of the industry. All that aside, I still can’t turn my head on these guys. I’ve had a hell of a time playing Recon and am continually being surprised and astonished at how many different ways poo can hit the fan. This firearm is creative and novel but occasionally it’s just gonna jam, leaving you to clear the breach.