Mercs Review

Hello my friends. I thought I would pop in and write up a review for my new favorite Skirmish Game, MERCS.

I will start with the Rulebook. It is first class and very pretty. All color, heavy stock pages, with a hardcover. It contains a large amount of background. Basically the premise is a world economic crash leads to all government being privatized by MegaConglomerates (MegaCons). These megacons have their own military divisions, of which the MERCs squads are one part.

Which leads me to the miniatures. They are first rate. I really like them. The detail is excellent, and they are on a par (cost-wise) to other character models from other companies.

The game play is different, due mostly to the unique movement system. Movement is handled with a Card. No other measuring device is required. It takes some getting used to, especially if you play other miniature games.

Each Merc has a set of personal abilities, think skills, that they alone have access to. Each Faction has their own corporate abilities they have access to. Right now, there are four factions available with two more planned for the near future and several more to be developed and released in the next year or so.

Combat is pretty straight forward. Most weapons have a range of the tabletop on which you are playing. It uses a simple system of target numbers to meet or beat.

In order to know if you cause a wound, a simple comparison is required. Regardless of whether you cause a wound or not, it is possible for your opponent's armor to fail, making it easier to wound him/her.

The best part of this game is the community that has sprung up around the game. There are people all over the world currently playing and sharing ideas, pictures and battle reports on the games forums.

I have played a lot of games in my twenty plus years as a gamer and this is easily the game i play the most right now.

For more information please visit www.mercsminis.com.

The New Soldier

Keith Allen Raposa
Born: 4:53pm January 25, 2011
Weight: 3 lbs 8 oz.
Length: 16"

He's the cutest thing!

Once Again, Into The Breach

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the next long year of Deployment for me and the family. As some of you may know, my son Michael volunteered for a deployment with one of the units at his base to avoid a later deployment.

This past week has been full of official ceremonies and other events for the departure of the unit. It's been busy, with me dealing with the issue in the only way I know how, helping those around me come to grips with their sense of dread and loss.

My son Josh returned from Iraq a completely different person. Some of the changes were a direct result of the things he'd seen and done while over there. Some were a direct result of him not having his mother around to coddle him every time something went wrong.

I am concerned for the changes that this deployment will have on Michael. He has always been a quiet person, with no experience dealing with the traumatic things he may be witness to while in a faraway land. With luck, his training will have helped prepare him for the worst.

I am afraid, quite frankly, that I will never see my son again. This thought bothers me, but I can't vent to anyone in my immediate family, since the ones that are experienced in dealing with this issue are the ones that I help get through their emotions.

Being the parent of a deployed soldier is like being the parent of police officer. You never know if the next ring of the phone will bring the words that no parent wants to hear, "I'm sorry for your loss".

Hopefully that call will never come. It's difficult to think about, and I just hope that he manages to accomplish his mission with no loss of life for anyone in the unit...

For the second time in three years an Almeida marches to war, leaving behind his Mom and Dad, brothers and sisters, his girl. We will miss him and start counting the days until his safe return.

God bless and god's speed Michael. You make me proud...