Marvel Champions

When I get a new Marvel Champions campaign, I like run the two new heroes through some familiar scenarios and do a little deck-tuning before taking on the campaign. And when I play the campaign the first time, I like to play four-handed so I really get the full experience of each scenario. I understand that many players prefer true solo, but those game tend to be swingy and relatively short, sometimes giving only a fleeting impression of the scenario.

My team for this campaign is Nick Fury/justice, Maria Hill/leadership, Black Widow/justice, and War Machine/leadership. Normally I prefer to play four-handed solo with three or four different aspects, but these four heroes all share the SHIELD trait, so I wanted them for the SHIELD campaign. Besides, the War Machine deck is functionally an Aggression deck in terms of damage output. His leadership cards are designed to temporarily bring out expensive allies with useful abilities that trigger as soon as they enter play. Then he ideally gets at least one extra activation out of an ally, then sacrifices it for a big thwart, attack, or chump block. My Black Widow deck is probably similar to most Black Widow decks because her design is so focused on preparation cards, and most preparation cards are either justice or basic aspect. None of these four decks is significantly different from the default starter version.

The first scenario is Black Widow. No, not my Black Widow, a different and villainous version with the same training. She doesn't have high hit points or a big attack value, but she is a schemer and her deck includes several cards with an acceleration symbol. The Black Widow hero likes to put preparation cards in play for various contingencies. Prep cards are cheap one-shot cards that can be discarded to counter a specific thing that the villain or a minion is attempting. The Black Widow villain also uses preparation, but it functions differently. Any time the Black Widow villain is attacked, she discards an encounter card, and that triggers any preparation abilities on the discarded encounter card. Maybe her prep cancels the attack damage, or puts a minion into play, or deals damage to the attacking player. She also has a bunch of A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics) minions, and they are a secret organization of evil scientists and goons that wear yellow beekeeper outfits.

It was a tough game. Fury functions better in his stealth suit, which makes the villain scheme instead of attack him. Hill is better off in alter ego form because it is easier to draw and play her helicarriers with a full hand-size. War Machine flips often, to reload weapons and regain toughness. As a result, Black Widow was scheming a lot. But with two justice decks plus helicarriers, my heroes could do a lot of thwarting. At one point, the threat level got up to 35 (out of 40 for the loss) and my heroes thwarted 28 in one turn. All of my decks functioned as intended, except that War Machine never got his Munitions Bunker in play, which mean a lot more flipping into alter-ego to reload.

One neat gimmick with this SHIELD campaign is the mystery involving a traitor in SHIELD. There are three cards in play that represent members of SHIELD's board of directors, and one of them is a traitor. They start with two tokens on each, and if one of them ever gets a fourth token, it flips over and becomes a permanent bonus to villain attacks or scheming for the rest of the campaign. Getting rid of tokens requires paying 2 matching resources of a specific color (different for each director) and getting a small positive effect like dealing or healing damage, or doing some thwarting. This functions like an ongoing tax on player resources. If you finish a scenario with zero tokens on a director, you can draw an evidence card. If you eventually collect all six evidence cards, you will determine the traitor via process of elimination, which will probably offer an advantage during the mysterious final scenario.

I finally finished the SHIELD campaign. Four-handed solo makes for long games, but I currently have the luxury of leaving a game in progress set up on my game table. It took me a week to play each scenario, because I have so busy with other things, including a short vacation, cat drama (getting my cat to like my kitten), spending a lot of time with a close female friend, and even attending a couple of protests.

The SHIELD campaign is very good. My only complaint is that every scenario featured three potential traitors from the SHIELD executive board, and their gameplay impact felt more burdensome than fun. The theory was great, that there is a mystery to solve by process of elimination. Each time you complete a scenario with at least one board member who doesn't have any tokens on it, you draw a clue card. You have additonal chances to get clues during the final scenario, but need to identify the traitor in order to defeat the villain in the final scenario. The tedious part is that certain encounter cards put tokens on board members, and it costs specific types of resources to prevent those tokens, or double the cost to remove those tokens and gain a small boon. This constant resource drain feels like a tax, but can't be ignored.

I don't want to spoil the surprise identity of the final villain, but I definitely want to mention the penultimate scenario featuring the Thunderbolts. In comics, the Thunderbolts are a team of reformed supervillains. In this campaign, they are duped by the SHIELD traitor into battling the player heroes. The design of this scenario is the latest and definitely greatest version of the multiple villain concept. I personally liked the Wrecking Crew scenario, but it is generally considered too easy. Tower Defense from the Infinity Gauntlet campaign was okayish, but both the Sinister Six and Mansion Attack scenarios from later campaigns were better. As was the two-part Marauders scenario.

Each member of the Thunderbolts is representing by a really tough ( 12 to 18 hit points!) villainous minion card supported by a side scheme and four other cards. Each player starts with one of those Thunderbolts engaged, and those Thunderbolts activate in place of the main villain. There is one more Thunderbolt in play than the number of players, and the most damaged Thunderbolt in play retreats to rest (recover 4 hit points) at the end of each villain phase. Players cannot defeat the main villain until they defeated most of the Thunderbolts. The scenario is really fun to play, and the design team leaned in by adding another Thunderbolt modular set to each of the four upcoming hero packs for this cycle. That means a total of 10 possible modular set, which offers a great deal of replay value.

Thanks for the review. I am thinking I'll pick this one up. It sounds pretty good.

I've completed the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. campaign twice, Standard I difficulty, two-handed with very lightly modified pre-cons for Nick and Maria. I found Black Widow to be very swing-y; she provided me with the most losses of the bunch. If you can't get on top of her threat generation early, it can be tough to claw your way back.

I'm currently working through the campaign on Expert. I'm keeping the boxed aspects for Nick and Maria, as I feel like they are good and thematic. For Maria, I am building a more "Logistical Nightmare" type of deck, with 17 possible Shield Supports and a handful of SHIELD allies to take advantage. In one pass through her hero deck, at least two of the Helicarriers (prioritize Periclese and Iliad) and 5-6 other Support cards should be out. I've had turns where my allies pull 20+ Thwart or Damage, by utilizing multiple Command Team (ready an ally), Field Agent (prevents one consequential damage), and R&D Facility (+1 ATK/THW). It feels kinda like Voltron. I often run out of All-Purpose Tokens and end up having to use Threat Tokens to keep track of all my supports.

I only flip Maria to hero to play Super Spies, All-Points Bulletin, and Make the Call, or if I need to use Government Liason to pay for a card. Speaking of All-Points Bulletin, 3 ER for 10+ Damage and/or Thwart is INSANE! Especially because it is dealt out one at a time, allowing you to punch through Tough cards with ease. I'll also flip to Hero if I am going to do a big ally activation turn to take advantage of R&D Facility and Field Agent. Otherwise, I keep her in Alter-Ego for the whole hand of 6 cards and the ability to tutor a support card (either to play or use as an extra resource).

It's a lot of work to manage your tokens and activations, and your board can get very messy. However, it is a ton of fun, and quite puzzling to ensure you're using it as efficiently as possible. Maria Hill is the Master of Logistics.

Maria Hill: Logistical Nightmare (Leadership)

For Nick, I'm leaning into his ability to think and plan three steps ahead—he is the man with answers to everything. Here, I included several Preparation cards and other cards that allow him to scry and manipulate the Encounter deck. Nick is the opposite of Maria, spending the majority of his time in Hero, in Stealth Suit form. You want to mulligan HARD for Heroic Intuition, Leo Fitz, or the Flying Car, because you have to establish control on Threat removal ASAP. I left Leo Fitz in the deck specifically to tutor Flying Car and Fury's Watch. Still, he can also be useful after those two cards are in play, as he serves as a target for Global Logistics and Homeland Intervention. Triggering Nick's Preparation Cards removes additional threat once you have his Secret Agent title in play, and Practiced Plan will put that Prep card back in your hand, either to be played again or used as a resource. Once up and running, Nick is a threat-mitigating machine, and I thought that he could use some help dealing damage. Sure, he can Assault Suit his two Hero Events, Concentrated Fire and Spray Fire, but I went ahead and tossed in a set of Pulse Grenades because he can stack the encounter deck with Global Logistics and Intelligence, AND boost the grenade with his Assault Suit. With enough stored treat on his suit, Nick can easily deal 20+ damage in a turn (with a combination of two basic attacks (Flying Car), Attack Events, and Pulse Grenades).

Nick Fury: Three Steps Ahead (Justice)

As for the Campaign itself, I found it very enjoyable. I enjoyed the Clue/Sleuth aspect of collecting evidence and using the process of elimination to suss out who the mole was. I also appreciated that the campaign upkeep is fairly streamlined - they did an outstanding job of minimizing the bloat this time around (some of the other campaigns can be overwhelming). I think that all the encounters are challenging, fun, and thematically relevant.

Black Widow is so cool. As I mentioned, I've lost to her more than any other Encounter in the set, but she's got some fascinating concepts. She's punishing in all the right ways - do you try to control her threat and then attack? Or do you go straight to the face and roll the dice with her Preparation abilities?

Baltroc was the "weak link" of the bunch, but his Encounter set was SO COOL. With him, it wasn't so much of a boss fight, but the way the Main Schemes work (in conjunction with the Alert Level environment), it felt like you were breaking into a facility, finding and rescuing captives, and then making your grand escape. It was a truly thematic encounter, an excellent experience.

M.O.D.O.K. was similar in that it wasn't a boss fight. Very easy, but evocative of the theme. It just barely edged out Baltroc.

Thunderbolts is easily the winning Encounter of the set. They finally figured out how to do multi-villain battles, and this one is so much fun. I can't wait for the new hero packs that will include additional Thunderbolt villains in the mix.

[REDACTED] is probably my second favorite boss fight. Magneto is still my absolute favorite. But I think where they went right with [REDACTED], is how well you progressed in the missions before having such a huge impact on how the final battle plays out. It is a lot of fun, and is pretty damned challenging, especially if you lose support of the SHIELD Councel. Oof.

My run through the SHIELD campaign was almost immaculate, except that Citizen V completed his main scheme the first time I played the Thunderbolts scenario. It is extra challenging to keep his main scheme under control when the Thunderbolts are all hitting hard with the villainous trait. I had at least one board member at zero tokens by the end of each scenario, so I went into the final scenario with four clues. The final scenario was easier than I expected, but that was a reward for the extra effort I put into battling the first four scenarios.

Although Maria Hill is quite effective staying in alter ego, I tend to put her in hero form any time she has full hit points, just to slow down the villain's scheming. Her nemesis the Controller showed up twice during the campaign, but his card set seems slightly underbaked and not as big a threat as he should be. Nick is fine, no notes, but something about his gameplay loop is a little less fun in comparison to most heroes in this game. He definitely needs his flying car and wristwatch ASAP.

Inspired by the April picture from the reprinted 1975 Marvel calendar (it works perfectly as a 2025 calendar) in my game room, I am replaying the Thunderbolts scenario with another four-handed solo game: Thor/aggression, Iron Man/justice, Captain America/leadership, and Vision/protection. My Cap and Iron Man decks are very effective, but Thor and Vision tend to underperform in most games. However, it turns out that the Thunderbolt scenario is very good for Thor, because the Thunderbolt minions frequently switch opponents and that effectively increases Thor's hand by 2 half the time.

Calendar picture: static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-conte.../marvel-1975-3-1.jpg

I lost my first play of Avengers vs Thunderbolts. I spent too much time beating on Thunderbolts and not enough time thwarting. Then Shadow of the Past brought out Cap's nemesis Baron Zemo (I know, I know) and Radioactive Man's crisis side scheme showed up at a really bad moment, so Citizen V completed his main scheme. The second game is going better so far, except that Iron Man's nemesis Whiplash showed up on turn one, and three of the four hero obligations showed up on turn two (all except Vision's).

Have you tried Thor in Protection yet? I don't know if I'll ever play him Aggression again.

Face the Past + Pinned Down on Loki is hilarious and effective. Warpath let's you play a "Come Get Me Bub" or a Defender of the Nine Realms during the Villain phase, netting you ANOTHER two cards to hedge your bets against drawing a minion.

There are a lot of hero readies in Protection too. Its insane.

And with the Citizen V encounter, the "can't attack the Villain" restriction is really a non-issue.

I'll edit this with my decklist when I get to my computer.

Protection was the worst aspect in the early days of this game, so it has taken a long time for me to recognize that it has greatly improved. Last year, I downloaded and printed a custom Luke Cage hero set that somebody made, and built a really good protection deck around it. I don't remember the scenario, but one time Luke closed out a two-player game by hitting the villain with 3 Powerful Punches in one turn.

It never crossed my mind that Thor would be viable in Protection, but now I will give it some thought. I am on the verge of making my first Spider-man/protection deck, and probably try out Iron Man/protection as well. Hulk/protection also offers some interesting possibilities.

Here is the Thor Protection Deck

Thor | Protector of the Nine Realms

It is A LOT OF FUN.

Defender of the Nine Realms & "Come Get Me, Bub", pulling 6 minions from the Encounter Deck.

Face the Past pulls out Loki, who luckily only has 2 attack. Throw a Pinned Down on him and he becomes a non-issue. He actually becomes a RESOURCE; you can Block the Pinned Down Loki with Warpath, who allows you to play a Hero Action card (Defender of the Nine Realms or "Come Get Me, Bub") during the VILLAN phase, allowing you draw cards TWICE in a turn.

Taunt is more cards, plus the Villain will most likely damage you sufficiently to be able to pay for What Doesn't Kill Me. Limitless Stamina will also ready your hero for attacks.

Indomitable pairs with Unflappable for another card.

Deft Focus will discount 9 cards in this deck, most importantly making Limitless Stamina free.

If everything goes right, you have the ability to go into a Player Phase with 7 cards in hand. You could play "CGM,B"/DotNR, Taunt, and Face the Past and have 11 total cards to go absolute HAM on the board. That's enough to play Hammer throw TWICE (Overkill still goes to boss, even if you can't attack him from Face the Past). Or you can use your myriad of ready cards to go pounding.

7 cards Ready Thor during the Hero Phase, and Indomitable will ready him during the Villain Phase.

Dang. Now I want to go play Thor again.

In my current game in progress, Vision slapped a Pinned Down on Moonstone early on, so she has been generally disregarded in favor of attacks on other Thunderbolts. Thor likes to see her, for the card draw, and Cap can knock the toughness off her with his retaliate. Or can he? Does Cap deal his retaliation damage before or after Moonstone gains a toughness card from her activation?

My reading of the rules reference indicates she gets the Tough after Retaliate resolves.

• The order of resolution for abilities surrounding the
retaliate keyword is as follows:
1. Abilities that trigger “after [character] takes any
amount of damage...”
2. Retaliate X
3. Abilities that trigger “after [character] is
attacked...” or “after [character] attacks [and
damages/defeats]...”

Here is a link to my custom Speed Demon scenario and the related Squadron Sinister modular set:

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1x7yJ223v...RABhlzimqUP5tVYijuwc

I might still have a couple of adjustments to card text, plus the font on the Nighthawk ally looks a bit large, and I want to photoshop off the text in the picture for Quick Hands. Once I do those things, I will set it all up in a nice pdf file for printing and post that in the google drive.

I have made all the corrections and posted an updated print file in that Google folder. It contains both the Speed Demon scenario and the related Squadron Sinister modular set, because the combined files nicely fill three pages for printing.

Last Friday, I picked up the new Black Panther (Shuri) and Silk decks, and tested the untuned starters individually against my Speed Demon scenario. Shuri got ragdolled in the first game, but was doing okay in the second game until her nemesis Klaw showed up at a critical moment. Silk did better, but also lost two games.

Shuri's justice cards seemed like a bunch of clever junk that might work in a tuned deck but mainly served as resources in her untuned deck. Silk had some good protection cards, but I sometimes struggle to enjoy the protection aspect because it is such a passive style of play. Will need to rework both decks.