Right, well, we’ve got a lot to get through this month, a bumper crop of board games for you, and a cracking giveaway as well. We are ticking a whole lot of comic boxes with Marvel just now, plus later this month a bonus edition of Dark Horse and a slice of manga-infused madness for you this month, plus as ever, your chance to get even more Bonus Entries in our monthly giveaway.

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TO ME, MY X-MEN!

Dice Throne is a fast-paced, dice-flinging, luck-pushing battler. It channels Yahtzee vibes alongside a deck of semi-unique cards (half the deck is character specific, half the same for all) to build the best combination of dice faces to deal damage, trigger abilities and aim to 6 it to unleash your Ultimate attack to destroy your opponents. There’s numerous fantasy versions available as well as a range of Marvel superheroes – and now you can pick from two classic X-Men teams, which is particularly exciting with the co-op mission pack coming later this year!

The box contains 4 decks of cards, 4 character standees (although no bases, as these are for the coop version), 4 unique sets of dice, tokens and character boards. I’m going to be up front, I don’t like the fact that the new boards don’t fold: the box itself is more Kallax friendly, which I get, but I like being able to lift a single character box. It does also, however, mean that there’s no issue with creasing and not lying flat on the table in front of you.

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Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men Set 1

(RRP: £49.99)

X-MEN…GOLDYBLUE?

In this set we have Storm and Iceman, along with Psylocke and Wolverine. So classic characters, albeit not in their classic teams – but hey, given the twisty nature of comics continuity, anything is possible, and it’s not that unlikely a combination. We’re going to look at the characters in order of complexity; of the two X-Men boxsets available, this is the less complex.

WOLVERINE

On many levels, Wolverine is one of the most straightforward characters not just in Marvel Dice Throne, but in Dice Throne as a whole. That’s not to say he’s basic, or underpowered – he just does what he does. He is designed to be played very aggressively, with lots of healing built into his successful attacks – which feels very appropriate for Logan. His Alpha token is unique status effect that he can inflict, making the target skip their income phase, which is really potent. However, most of the time you’ll be stacking up his Rage, which can be discarded (along with a card from hand) for damage or to draw cards. What’s unusual about Wolverine is he also gets additional main-deck cards that have no CP cost but, when discarded as part of using his Rage generate additional effects, such as FRENZY recovering Rage or healing with ASTONISHING RECOVERY. He’s tough, fast and lethal – not flashy, just does exactly what you’d expect from Weapon X.

PSYLOCKE

I am a huge fan of Psylocke as a character, and I had high hopes for her in this; no only does she not disappoint, she might just be my out-and-out favourite Dice Throne character. The reason for this is, unlike every other character, she has 6 dice, not 5. This Manifest die can be used to modify damage by ½ its value OR replace one of your dice in a roll phase; that is incredibly good, by any measure. She also has a range of status effects, including the excellent Paralyse, which prevents opponents from gaining their own positive status effects (shutting down so many strategies), Agility, which halves damage taken on a 1-3, and Infiltration, which gives additional defensive rerolls. Plus, she just has a really good range of damage output. For those of us that don’t like playing the odds too much, she is pretty much perfect.

STORM

If you like flinging lightning around and massive dice pools – and who doesn’t – Storm is the X-Man for you. I really like that the fact that Lightning is a Companion rather than a token, the same was Mjolnir is for Thor – very appropriate. Lightning can use to add 2 undefendable damage or be charged up by multiple abilities to do increased damage or attack multiple foes. This means she is INCREDIBLY good in multi-player, team and co-op modes; I really love the thought that’s gone into the design of her as a Team Leader (much like Scott, to be fair, although very different). Her Tornado dice are very powerful, allowing you to use an opponent’s dice per token spent. Now, I like this ability, I get the mechanics of the fluff – but I can’t help but think it would’ve been better as a way of doing Rogue’s power stealing (yes, I’m still steamed about that). She is also really good in defence, rocking a 5 dice pool from the outset and being able to use her Wind Shear tokens to defend herself or a teammate. She’s pretty straightforward to play and very powerful: a true goddess of the storm.

ICEMAN

So, Iceman is good. Really, really good. Possibly even too good. He is a bit of a slow builder, so you need to play very aggressively against him: once he gets moving, he’s pretty much unstoppable. The reason for this is his a combination of his unique Freezer and the Glide token. The Freezer allows him to store Ice Shard tokens in a way that means that they cannot be modified or removed by any means; once he has 5, he can Glide, which allows him to pull off a second attack after the opponent’s defensive roll phase. As a result, he is often chucking out twice as much damage as any other character. This, combined with his Dice Cubes, which force your opponent to use their lowest rolled dice from their first Roll attempt, means he is an absolute powerhouse in game. He is probably the trickiest to master out of the set – he’s rated as difficulty 4, same as Storm, though I would say he feels more like a 5. Nevertheless, he’s excellent, thematic and a lot of fun… just be aware that your opponent might not agree.

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Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men Set 2

(RRP: £49.99)

This set features Cyclops, Rogue, Gambit and Jean Grey / Phoenix. Not quite the classic Blue team line up (Psylocke and Wolverine are in set 2, along with Gold classics Storm and Iceman) but you can see straight away why Jean is there, as we have 2 of the iconic X-Men power couples facing off in this set. We’re going to look at the characters in order of complexity; of the two X-Men boxsets available, this is the more complex.

CYCLOPS

Cyclops has a play style that is unashamedly aggro, comfortably laying down high damage optical blasts as you might expect. However, his big gimmick comes around his Leadership cards, which are clearly marked as such: these increase his card draw, which is a valuable resource at all times in game. Not only that, but his Battle Plan tokens (which he gains off most attacks) allow him to check and reorder cards at the top of his deck, so you can plan accordingly. This feels VERY Cyclops, leading from the front and really helps you quickly get a feel for how to play him. He’s not fantastic in defence, but still has a 4 dice defender with the ability to choose whether to return undefendable damage or prevent. He’s great in pvp, multi and Team play, and I suspect going to be a real asset in coop play. His basic Focus Fire token is a simple persistent which adds damage, but it’s his Support and token which is really potent there, giving allies extra CP, dice rerolls or cards. A very strong start!

ROGUE

Oh, Rogue. I really want to love Rogue, but I don’t. Now, to be clear, she is great. She can muster some seriously big attacks, particularly when boosted by her Ionic Energy tokens, and she has a really good defence mechanism in the form of her Skyward tokens, which allow her to fly away from and negate lots of damage.

But.

But.

She … just doesn’t feel like Rogue.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair, because she does have a life-stealing attack. This is certainly thematic and life draining off your opponent is a rare and valuable ability in Dice Throne. But it’s tricky to pull off consistently and you’re not really draining enough to create a meaningful differential, usually. But there’s a lack of POWER stealing which annoys me. She could steal status effect tokens, or even dice, but no. As I say, she is GOOD, it just irks me that she doesn’t feel enough like my favourite Southern Belle. She’s seductive: her Influence tokens are a Negative Status that deprive your opponent of an Offensive roll attempt, which is massively scary… but is that Rogue? Would I object if they were called Drain or something? Maybe not. Guess you have to make up your own mind, Sugah.

JEAN GREY / DARK PHOENIX

Jean is a really interesting and thematic character to play, albeit quite challenging. She alternates between her two forms (though you can manipulate this with card effects) and comes with a very neat Phoenix board overlay – indeed, her Ultimate attack is form-dependent. She is quite defensive, as you’d expect, despite only rolling 2 Defence dice: she throws up a Force Field that blocks half attack damage off a lot her Offensive rolls. She’s rated as Difficulty 6 in Dice Throne terms, but plays more like a 5 at most, especially if you’re familiar with the game and the likes of the Cursed Pirate – certainly not as intricate as the Artificer, or indeed Gambit (who absolutely is Difficulty 6), though there are a lot of tokens to keep track of. Her Acuity is a stack limit 4 that you’ll be consistently trying to generate (and comes from most of her attacks), as it gives you a reroll, cp, or inflict Phoenix Burn (persistent 2 undefendable damage) on your opponent; I also really like that she has a similar ability to Cyclops in that regard. When Dark Phoenix, she has additional offensive abilities, most particularly using her Flame Burn tokens to boost damage (though these can charge up when Jean), however, she skips her income phase – so the challenge is often a lack of CP/Cards. She isn’t easy to play, but she is a lot of fun.

GAMBIT

Hoo-we, Gambit is fun, but he is a tough one to master. Gambit has a side deck of Ace cards, which can be Accelerated and then exploded (flipped) to activate additional damage or other effects. Choosing when to trigger these is key: the hard part about Gambit is that you really have to bide your time, which is quite unusual in such a fast-paced game. Luckily, his Dissolution tokens allow him to heal or remove Negative status effects, so he has unusually high durability. He demands a lot of attention when you play him, but he’s extremely powerful with good damage output across the board and, for all that he’s only rolling 3 defence dice, remarkable durability.

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Marvel Dice throne: Deadpool Deluxe

(RRP: £29.99)

Hey, I’m stuck in a box! I’m special that way, I get to still have a box. Maybe it’s because I’m extra special in my doubly deluxe way. You get a whole lot of shiny me in this and honestly why wouldn’t you want that? I even play nicely with others – love a team-up, cue the montage – hey, I’m a busy man, I’ll let my glamorous assistant handle this.

💯MAXIMUM EFFORT

The Deadpool set for Dice Throne is, joking aside, really special. It contains all the tokens in acrylic, a 3D plastic Deadpool standee, card sleeves, a Promo foil (which is crazy good, as we’ve come to expect from the DT promos) and a solid metal Deadpool coin. It feels like a properly Deluxe product and is well worth it simply as a bit of DP merch.

MERC WITH A MOUTH

Deadpool is great in all iterations of the game. He is remarkably good in team play, with his donut tokens healing himself or others (the promo foil makes it himself AND others). He also, in very DP fashion, can play Rock-Paper-Scissors to affect results, which leads to enormous amounts of silliness. It could be annoying (ME? ANNOYING? Noooo) but it actually helps defuse the fact that sometimes Dice Throne can be a bit too cutthroat, especially with “serious” players.

YOU BRING THE TACOS, I’LL BRING THE SAUCE

You’re always encouraged to be silly when playing ‘Pool. His basic Finger Guns attack gives you a CP if you say Pew! Pew! – and in fact onomatopoeia features heavily, with sound effect tokens being a way of changing dice results (if you make the noise, that is). He’s balanced out by the fact that his straights occupy two different attack slots on his board, and whilst he’s dropping 4 defence dice with 1 auto heal, the roll is only ever dealing (undefendable) damage and/or gaining more Onomatopoeia tokens. Gaining Donuts 🍩 is key, and you gain them on most abilities running off 5/6 – though they are Stack Limit 2, you’ll be burning through them constantly. He’s rated as difficulty 3, but he really is very straightforward to play.

Deadpool isn’t necessarily the best hero in the game (Lies, I’m amazing!), though he’s certainly competitive (better), but he is probably the most fun (Wheee). If you enjoy playing Loki and actively antagonising you opponent (spoiler alert – I LOVE Loki me too) or straightforward characters with access to dice modification, then you’re in for a treat. A good test is always how my middle spawn, who can get frustrated by losing, enjoys a game – he likes Dice Throne, but he ADORED playing DP. And as a product, this really does live up to the Deluxe badge, at a great price.

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GIVEAWAY TIME

So, the giveaway this month is for Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men 2 AND Deadpool Deluxe edition. Head over to @big_geekingout on Instagram to enter, but to bag 5 bonus entries, simply tell us your favourite mutant (and why) in the comments below.

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The Writer of this piece was: Sam Graven
Article Archive: Geeking Out
You can follow Sam on Instagram at @big_geekingout

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