Marvel Champions

He's got interesting AE stuff, and his kit looks like it has really fun combo potential with aggression and protection especially. Haven't tried him yet, but he seems like a really fun design.

I made a sheet of tokens for this game. I made a Goblin Glider token, because it's important to keep track of the villain's location in the Venom Goblin scenario. I made some When Defeated tokens, as I sometimes forget to check a side-scheme for When Defeated effects. I made a bunch of energy tokens, for use with Captain Marvel and also Enhanced Reflexes. A dozen web tokens for Spider-man's webshooters (both Peter and Miles have two web-shooter cards in their decks. I made a second set of generic tokens (like the green and white ones in the game) with a different color set, in order to track more than one type of miscellaneous thing on the same card. Also made some extra 5-point scheme tokens, as I sometimes run very short when playing a 3- or 4-hero game that runs long. And I made a bunch of Grawlix (the term for comic book swearing, like "@#$%&!") tokens for Spider-Ham. I still need to hole-punch the tokens and then glue them to some wooden discs, which should take me an hour or so.

After I pick up Rogue and play her a few times, I am going to have some fun with her with my own variant rule. To simulate that early X-Men era when she had permanently stolen Ms. Marvel's powers, I am going to borrow the Captain Marvel (same Carol Danvers character) hero cards and put them in the Rogue deck in place of 15 basic and aspect cards. It will probably be over-powered, and that's fine, because I can run it against each of the over-powered final bosses from the campaigns, like Loki and Magneto.

Pasted up my new homemade MC tokens this evening:

www.flickr.com/photos/152016303@N05/5271...n/dateposted-public/

I'm happy with the grawlix token, but the Venom Goblin glider token came out somewhat grainy. The Cyclops token is to remind that the Field Commander card is in play, which means that Cyclops always goes first each turn. It also serves to remind me that his upgrades on minions are no longer temporary,

I picked up Rogue and Gambit and pitted their untuned starters against the Wrecking Crew. Players at BGG have succumbed to groupthink and all agree that the Wrecking Crew is easy. They claim that you can easily manipulate who is the current villain by selectively thwarting the individual side schemes. This ignores the fact that more than 25% of the encounter cards change the identity of the active villain. What the players can do is decide who to take out first, and I highly recommend Wrecker and Thunderball. But Piledriver has an attachment card that forces you to take him out before you can attack anyone else.

The first game, I got careless. Rogue and Gambit don't have a superhuman amount of hit points, but they are both good at defending. Rogue is running protection aspect and Gambit has a DEF of 3 plus a couple of very powerful defense cards. Plus, Gambit is unusually effective in alter ego, so he can spend more time there than most heroes and avoid attacks. So both of them were down to 5 or 6 hit points, though Thunderball was defeated and Wrecker was battered. Then both Rogue and Gambit exhausted their decks at the same time, earning them each an extra encounter card. But they both had a good defense card for the next round, so I left them in hero form. Bulldozer attacked both of them, and they defended successfully. But two encounter cards gave Bulldozer an attack (Bullrush and Headbutt), and another gave Wrecker an attack, which was for an extra +2 ATK because it was undefended. Wham Bam, and both Gambit and Rogue were defeated.

Second game went better. Gambit's thwarting ability was generally enough to keep all the schemes under control, though Piledriver's went off once and took out a couple of good upgrades in play. Mutant Education helped Gambit cycle his best cards, and Rogue learned that the best card for her to borrow from him is often Natural Agility, which still gives Gambit a free charge token. Implacable is a nice protection card for any protection hero, and a couple of them in a play can nicely offset the usual cardflow challenges of playing defense cards. They took down the crew one at a time. Both Gambit and Rogue have very solid, playable starting decks, but I think I will swap out a couple of their justice and protection cards with other decks that could use a boost.

I've also seen Wrecking Crew getting dismissed a lot but I've always enjoyed it. Had a really fun couple of games using Hulk and She-Hulk against them. Lost the first one and won the rematch. Was memorable.

I've been listening to this series : www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGWx-4Fum...mIRmw__cptDzAC0IWivj

from get up and game - I listen to it while I'm driving/deck-building - really good content.

A friend came over to play today. A blizzard was rolling in, so he only had time for one game. I talked him into trying the Thor/Jane deck, and I played Rogue. We went up against the standard Zola scenario. My friend hasn't played in a while, so I coached him a little, especially when he let his hit points get down to 6 when there was still a lot of game left. I still haven't tuned my Rogue deck, but it played well. Heavy defense, a few big attacks, some healing, and some thwarting. At one point, I borrowed one of Thor's cards to do a big thwart. At another point, I borrowed Thor's big attack card. Zola's minions were a manageable hassle, and at one point, I even had Karma take one and make it an ally. Fun game.

Thematically who would be a good Marvel villain for giving out a lot of Stun/Confuse statuses?

Ah_Pook wrote: Thematically who would be a good Marvel villain for giving out a lot of Stun/Confuse statuses?

Angar the Screamer? Angar does a sonic scream that makes targets hallucinate. But that would probably just be a Confused status card.

Ruby Thursday can shapeshift her head to an extreme degree, which could maybe deal a Confused state. She can also blow her own head up (and reform it) to Stun opponents. Her teammates in The Headmen would make for some weird minions.

Doctor Bong might be the best answer, if you can tolerate a Howard the Duck villain, which I can't. He wears a helmet shaped like a bell and has one hand that has been replaced with a metal ball. He strikes his helmet for a variety of effects, including concussive force (Confused), temporary paralysis (Stunned), creation of energy barriers (Tough), and teleportation. He has a castle hideout where he experiments with clones and animal/human hybrids, which could serve as minions.

Doctor Bong is significantly sillier than I was thinking but he fits, and there was even a spiderman story from the early 2000s where he hires the Headmen to help him break into a shield facility with an anechoic chamber so he can create a Cosmic Bong inside it and become god of the multiverse... So that's a fun setup too.

Despite my intention to stick to 2-hero games for a while, I decided to set up a 4-hero game so I could enjoy more X-men action. So I pitted Rogue, Wolverine, Colossus, and Phoenix against the Hood. Sound like overkill? I went heavy on the x-villains for the Hood's seven potential modular sets: Lady Deathstrike, Shadow King, Reavers, Exodus, the Brotherhood, and... just to fill out two more slots, Armadillo and the Sinister Six.

At the beginning of the game, the Hood added the Brotherhood. Rogue and Colossus got set up very nicely at the start, and we had things under control for a while. Shadow of the Past brought in Juggernaut, and he immediately got worse when Hood completed his first stage and brought in Armadillo, who has a side scheme that gives tough characters +3 ATK!

Then we had a nasty wave turn where my heroes performed just great and managed to wipe out several minions, do some thwarting, and have Karma take control of a very buffed Toad. Wolverine annihilated a tough Armadillo with a piercing Lunging Strike, and took out Pyro and a reaver with Slice and Dice and a Precision Shot. It was glorious, especially since Armadillo had buffs that were going to make his next attack 9 points of piercing overkill!

Then the Hood recruited another modular set (Exodus) and Dark Phoenix entered the game. All of my heroes are close to full hit points at the moment, but the bad guys currently have a total of six Tough cards, including two on Armadillo. The Blob isn't tough, but he stuns anybody that he attacks for at least one point of damage. The Hood is only halfway through his second stage, but there are six other side schemes in play, each with a nasty effect. When I sit down to finish this game, I will almost certainly get stomped and start over.

Sometime down the road, I plan to do a similar setup with the Avengers. Four heroes against the Hood, with every modular set that includes at least one member of the Masters of Evil. Who would you recommend for that Avengers team? I'm thinking Thor for big hits and minion whacking, Iron Man and Cap for versatility, and Scarlet Witch for big thwarts.

I survived that second nasty wave of villains, and have played a few more turns this week, and the game is slowly sliding towards doom. The Hood has his side scheme out that inflicts Foul Play every turn, so the minions are all coming in waves now. At one point, a Brotherhood card made me discard almost the entire remaining encounter deck before I found a Brother to bring out, and that same effect nearly cleared a full deck two turns later. So we're at 6 acceleration tokens in play right now, with 5 directly on the main scheme. There are 6 side schemes out, and I get new ones as quickly as I clear existing ones, which is not quick. The Hood is about halfway through his second of three main scheme stages, and we have his first villain stage down to 5 hit points.

The hero decks are performing well, but only Phoenix is running Justice. Two Protection decks is one Protection deck too many, though both Rogue and Colossus are capable of big attacks. I have only slightly adjusted the Wolverine deck, but it does an admirable job of dealing damage. The second time Dark Phoenix came out, a tapped Wolverine took her down in a single turn, with a piercing Lunging Strike (via his claws) for 8, and Outta My Way for 3. Then he finished her with Precision Strike for 2, which allowed him to heal for 2 points. Nearly every time Juggernaut or Armadillo has shown up, Wolverine has quickly dismissed them with a piercing Lunging Strike or Fastball Special.

This scenario has been a stark reminder that Marvel Champions scales nicely, but is a very different game if you are playing four heroes instead of one. It's nice to have other to help when your hero is getting attacked for the third time in a turn, or coping with a couple of obligations or similar hassles. But the high hit point total of the villain requires a dedicated assault, and the side schemes can become a heavy burden if you are only running one Justice deck with your four heroes.

That last game ended very badly. Usually when I lose, I lose because the villain completes the final stage of his scheme. The Hood was well on his way to completing his final stage, as the game reached a point where my heroes were typically getting 3 or 4 encounter cards every single turn. But it got to a point where so many minions were on the loose that I couldn't cope at all. First they got Rogue. The following turn, Phoenix and Wolverine were defeated. That left Colossus facing 9(!) minions and getting eliminated.

So I went back to two-hero mode, with Storm and Gambit against Venom and the Shadow King. And Storm's nemesis Callisto came out quickly. Once again, Storm got defeated early on, before I get her cloak out or her extra hit points. With a Defense of 1 and just 10 hit points, Storm is very fragile, which is probably why her starter is a leadership build. But I kept playing with Gambit, who was surprisingly effective. The symbiotes are small enough that he can easily deal with several in one turn, and his ability to seriously thwart while healing in alter ego is great. He also has a Defense of 3. He made a very respectable showing against Venom and could have easily won if this had been a true solo game. Sadly, Venom eventually schemed for the win.