This year at Gen Con, Cephalofair let a few people try out their latest game in the Gloomhaven universe (Gloomiverse?), and I was lucky enough to be one of them. Unlike Founders of Gloomhaven, which is an odd network-building game, Mercenaries Wanted is a bit closer to the theme of the massive campaign game. Here, you’ll be assembling a team of mercenaries to compete in three major challenges, completing small quests along the way.
I’ve played a few similar games before. Card drafting games where you collect characters with different abilities and/or stats to send on missions for points. But Mercenaries Wanted is far and away my favorite of the lot. It’s simple enough to teach easily and play in about 45 minutes, but crunchy enough to be satisfying. And it seems to have a healthy amount of replayability, though I’ll have to wait until it releases to be sure.
Each game, there will be three randomly drawn challenges for players to build a party towards over the course of the game (I’ll explain that later), while during the game, players have to focus on the quests drawn in each of the three rounds. But the biggest draw is how the hero drafting works and what the heroes offer.
See, the initial draft is pretty simple; pass cards around until everyone has a set of four recruits. But due to limited space, you only get to keep three of them. These three will do an adventure, earning you a bit of points. Then, one gets promoted to your end-game squad for the tournament, one retires early, and the last one gets to stick around in your party for the next round. Meaning your active party will grow from three to four, and then five drafted mercs. And these mercs each have a unique special ability, so when someone takes the one that limits the rest of the table’s loot, they can keep them around all game.
Oh yeah, there are also reusable loot cards that you can use to further buff the stats of your party.
While the abilities and items can be cool and game-changing, the stats are what really matter. Made up of their combat numbers, elemental affinities, and keywords like “Control” or “Summoner”, these are what’s checked by both the mid-game quests and the end-game tournaments. The end-game quests are revealed during setup, so when you’re drafting and promoting, you should make sure that you’ll end up with a party that aligns with those goals.
I really enjoyed all the combo-building you get to do during the draft, as well as the extra decision space of balancing the immediate needs of the quests with your eventual end-game goals. One merc might be perfect for the quest in front of you, but offers nothing for that final competition. Every choice felt like it mattered.
The full Mercenaries Wanted can play one to six players, and will be available for order and at Pax Unplugged (December 4th) for $24.99. Pre-orders will also open at some point in September, but I don’t have an exact date yet.
