Geeking Out – Marvel-ous Guardians of the Galaxy Giveaway

Long, long ago in a Galaxy… No, wait, wrong fandom – even if it is the start of May (well, ish, I had plague).

This month, we’re doing a mighty Marvel gaming round-up as we get generally over-excited for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – and, yes, of course there’s a giveaway: we’re giving you the chance to win a copy of the Wakanda Faction pack for Marvel Crisis Protocol AND your choice of a set of deluxe, full art Guardians of the Galaxy themed Card sleeves (designed for Marvel Champions, but standard size).

With the sheer volume of games that have been around for a few years, it can be intimidating to know where to begin and how to navigate all the content. Luckily, we’ve put together a handy guide for you, whether you’re wanting to go Marvel Miniature, Card, Dice or Board Game. Read on, true believers!

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Marvel United

The Marvel United Board Game is probably the most family-friendly option as a way into “proper” gaming. I don’t mean that in a snobbish or disparaging way, but if you’re wanting to dip into gaming as a novice, involve the kids or non-gamers – whilst still keeping the veterans happy – Marvel United is a great starting point.

You can check out our full review HERE.

But here’s an overview:

It’s a co-op game that will appeal to all ages, with enough depth here to play with more experienced gamers but even wee kids can really join in with. There are two core sets, one Avengers themed and one X-Men, both really well priced (so why not both?).

You place 6 random iconic location boards (filled with a mix of civilians and thugs as indicated on the location) around a central hub, which contains the Villain dashboard: who you are against, and what their Master Plan is. If they complete their stated objective, or run through their deck, you lose! As each card plays from the deck, this gradually builds the Storyline that you’re “reading”. Then, Heroes take turns playing their cards (Move, Attack, Heroic or Wild) into the Storyline, in order to solve missions such as rescuing civilians or battling foes (you can only attack the Villain after defeating 2 missions – i.e., you figure out what they’re up to).

Although you play individually, you are always discussing and working collectively. After every 3 Hero cards are placed, the Master Plan advances; once you’ve solved one mission, it becomes after every 2 Hero cards (as the Villain comes Under Pressure). It’s fairly straightforward, and rather a lot of fun! However, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy, necessarily, and has a simple scalable difficulty mechanic of removing increasing numbers of Wild cards from your deck.

With very high production values, a fun chibi aesthetic, vibrant cards and tokens, it’s a real winner. There’s loads of expansions, so if you want to take down the Goblin swinging as the Spider-fam, a mad meta taco time with Deadpool, fight for Wakanda against the wrath of Killmonger, there really is something for everyone!

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Marvel Champions

For us, Champions is often our go-to for a superhero fix. Grab a couple of decks of your favourite supers, and team up with friends (or hey, go solo) against iconic villains from the comics. Again, the villain is AI controlled, but you’re having to navigate tough teamwork decisions – at every step of the way, you work together to thwart their ever-evolving schemes. The core engine for Champions doesn’t really change from set to set – rather, cards set up different combos and offer new mechanics internally.

Because the game is heavily modular, you can mix and match components across not only player decks but the challenges you face: for example, you could quite reasonably add the Infinity Stones to Ultron whilst dealing with a surge in Street Level Crime… whilst playing as Spider-Ham and Dr Strange. Yes, that totally works. Whilst heroes from the same “family” tend to complement one another, allowing you to play your favourite team, there’s a huge amount of crossover and variety. It makes for a really exciting experience, with a step up in challenge from United (but, hey, still popular with the 12 year old as much as the 15 year old).

You can read our full review of the core set HERE, along with many, many reviews of the various hero, scenario and campaign expansions in the archive.

Right now we’ve been playing through Mojomania, the most recent standalone mini-campaign, which is masses of fun and really stands up to multiple play-throughs. You can actually get away without buying a core set if you get The Hood scenario pack, as it comes with the alternate Standard II villain deck as well as an array of Modulars, plus whatever Hero packs you fancy, so that can make for a cheaper initial buy-in – though having tokens, dials, and a wider choice of heroes and villains is obviously better.

We recommend you grab a core set, pick a campaign or scenario that you like the look of, and go save the galaxy! Our recommended campaign boxes are Rise of the Red Skull, Mad Titan’s Shadow and Sinister Motives, the Mojomania mini campaign, or for a single scenario (in multiplayer) it HAS to be Kang the Conqueror. Hero-wise, it really is about just who you fancy, but generally heroes from the same “family” (Avengers, Champions, SHIELD, Guardians, Web-Warriors or X-Men) complement one another, though you really can mix and match (and characters like Spectrum, from Mad Titan, are DESIGNED for exactly this).

And whilst you’re at it, why not get a set of the gorgeous new full art sleeves from Gamegenic? And hey – why not win a set of your choice?! Details at the end, as ever.

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Marvel Dice Throne

I’m a big fan of this push your luck dice game – Think Yahtzee with super powers.

Full review of the game and its standalone expansions can be found HERE.

The core box comes Thor, Loki, Miles and Wanda, whilst the expansions are Captain Marvel/Black Panther and Dr Strange/Black Widow. It’s a very simple, but no less fiendish, game, with your individual deck of cards modifying dice results and generally messing with your opponents.

Each character feels very thematic – I love playing Loki, as you’re actively encouraged to make irritating comments, which is always fun when playing with teenagers – Captain Marvel/ Black Panther being generally more straightforward than the others, so making a good intro set, and conversely Dr Strange/Black Widow being generally more complex than the others.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that any one character is more or less powerful, particularly in multiplayer, but allows you to tailor your game to your players’ level of experience easily.

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Marvel Crisis Protocol

MCP is seen by many as pinnacle of supers gaming, with its exquisite (albeit expensive) sculpts, fast gameplay and huge array of characters to choose from.

You can read our full overview HERE.

You get an awful lot for your money in the MCP core box: lots of terrain, and 10 outstanding hard plastic 40mm miniatures with detailed street bases and litter.

You get : Captain America, Black Widow, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel and Iron Man on the one side and Ultron, Baron Zemo, Doc Ock, Crossbones and Red Skull on the other. However, you can easily mix and match – though to use your Team abilities to best advantage, at least half to be in-faction. There are masses of expansions to choose from, but the faction boxes are an affordable way to get 4 core characters (including a leader) at a hefty discount – typically, a faction box saves you about a third of the price of buying the models in their two-packs.

Ultimately, you will want to have a diverse roster as the points value of each game changes based on the mission cards, so a mix of ten characters will be your end point – but that just translates as the core set, a faction box and any other given character that you fancy, so actually the buy in really isn’t that much, especially for such a wealth of content and replayability. There’s a lot to love in MCP, though I’ll be up front with my gripe: I don’t like the lack of falling rules – I want to be able to throw folk off buildings and make it hurt extra, but maybe that’s just because I’m all about the bad guys. At least you can throw objects and opponents around. Hail Hydra!

With a great fast-play guide, and all the tokens, dice and tools you’ll ever need, this a cracking bundle and an accessible supers tabletop gaming experience for all ages and levels.

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GIVEAWAY TIME!

So as ever, we have the results of our April Star Wars Giveaway (thanks again to the fine folk of Asmodee UK) but OF COURSE you want to how to win this month’s goodies? Well not only do we have the Marvel Crisis Protocol Wakanda Forever set for MCP, but also your choice of a set of Guardian Card Sleeves from the assortment below:

Look at the pretty! These low sheen, high quality sleeves are designed for Marvel Champions (so you get 50, plus a single clear) but obvious work for any game. At £9.99 a pack, they’re a steal! Or maybe that’s just Rocket. Just let us know the comments below which Guardian set of sleeves you’d like, and you can win your choice alongside the Wakandans!

And remember to Like, Comment and Share across your socials (FB, Insta, Twitter and/or Mastodon) tagging us @bigcomicpage & @games_with_graven to bag yourself a bonus entry! UK only unless you’re willing to fork out the postage, alas.

And finally, the winner of our Star Wars giveaway is … Michael Jerome!

Congratulations! Remember to get in touch with admin@bigcomicpage.com within 30 days to claim your prize!

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The Writer of this piece was: Sam Graven
Article Archive: Geeking Out
You can follow Sam on Twitter and Instagram

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