Lately it seems like Marvel is everywhere. Stand in your local game store and you’re likely to see that distinctive red and white logo in every direction, from Crisis Protocol’s high end miniatures to re-skins of modern classics like Splendor and Fluxx. Until recently, the majority of Marvel’s gaming presence has revolved around the characters who appear in the MCU films, such as Thor, Captain America and Iron Man. There wasn’t much for X-Men fans to get excited about.
That has changed over the past few years, with Fantasy Flight releasing several X-Men expansions for their popular Marvel Champions card game, as well as Mutant Insurrection, a stand-alone X-Men board game. The X-Men have made it into Crisis Protocol and Marvel United, and now they’ve come to Dice Throne.
Dice of Future Past
Dice Throne is a lavish dueling game that combines the best elements of Yahtzee (without the math) and Magic: the Gathering (without the random booster packs or deck construction).
Players begin the game with a player board, a set of five dice, and a deck of 30 cards, all unique to the character they’ve chosen. Game play revolves around rolling the dice in an effort to match different combinations of symbols or numbers shown on their player board, in order to inflict damage (or other game effects) on their opponent. Cards can be played to modify the dice rolls, recover damage, or improve the actions on their player board. It’s a fun, engaging game that works equally well as a head-to-head duel, 2v2 team game, or even a multiplayer free-for-all.
The initial releases for Dice Throne have featured a variety of archetypal characters, beginning with fairly typical fantasy tropes like elves, barbarians and paladins, but later adding more esoteric characters such as a western gunfighter and a cursed pirate. They even did a special Christmas-themed 2-player set featuring Santa Claus vs. Krampus. The game’s focus on individual characters seems ripe for adding licensed properties, and in 2022 they added 8 Marvel characters to the mix, but played it relatively safe with recognizable MCU heroes like Doctor Strange and Black Panther.
Welcome to Dice Throne, X-Men…
For their second Marvel release, the Dice Throne creators decided to bring in the X-Men. This set of 8 new heroes is clearly inspired specifically by the X-Men of the 1990s – alongside long-running stalwarts like Wolverine, Iceman and Phoenix, there are uniquely ‘90s characters like Gambit and Psylocke. Rogue and Storm have impossibly flowing hair, and Cyclops has pouches. Lots and lots of pouches…
One of the strengths of Dice Throne is that each character brings something new and unique to the game, and the X-Men are no exception. The game’s creators clearly have a huge amount of affection for the characters, which comes through in the game design. Jean Grey changes into Dark Phoenix every other turn, exchanging routine game elements like start-of-turn card draws for more aggressive attacks and higher damage. Storm generates lightning tokens, which charge up her attacks to make them more effective. Iceman’s available actions are connected in a linear path, a thematic ice slide that he can glide through to get extra attacks during his turn.
The most amusing X-Man in the set is, without a doubt, Cyclops. He’s not always been the most interesting character in the X-Men comic books, but in the game he leans heavily into his frequent role as team leader, making him a great pick for team games or the cooperative Marvel Dice Throne Missions expansion (more on that in a moment). Many of his cards are grouped under a “leadership” keyword, which interacts with the hilariously titled “Pouch Power!” card for a number of in-game advantages. Now we finally know what all those pouches were for…
Marvel Team-Up
As dueling games go, Dice Throne is as good as they come. My only gripe about the X-Men set is that there aren’t any villains, so most games will involve having members of the team fight each other. I suppose could be justified as training in the Danger Room, but where are the bad guys? Or, what if head-to-head dueling isn’t your thing?
If co-op (or solo) games are more your speed, Dice Throne has you covered with Marvel Dice Throne Missions. This expansion works with any Dice Throne characters (Marvel or not) and turns the game into a cooperative struggle against one of 20 different Marvel villains, ranging from Doctor Octopus to Thanos.
Each villain in Missions consists of a double-sided board. On the first side, players fight their way across a hexagonal grid, fighting low-level minions and collecting boost tiles that convey bonuses such as healing damage or extra card draws. Once the first side’s objective is met (usually by clobbering some or all of the minions, although one of them requires you to scare off a rampaging stegosaurus), the board is flipped over for the boss battle with the villain.
Battles are played out using the existing Dice Throne rules, with the villains and their henchmen given their own set of dice and combination of symbols to aim for. Additionally, as they explore the boards players earn momentum points, which they can spend on game effects like ranged attacks or Ally cards. The Ally deck is particularly fun, as it adds 25 more Marvel heroes that might not warrant a full character release, like Hawkeye, Cloak and Dagger, and Squirrel Girl.
Another nice feature of Dice Throne Missions is the Player Perks sheet. At the end of each game, players earn perk points based on how well they did. These are recorded on a sheet and used to unlock bonuses for future games like starting with more momentum or hit points. These perks stay with the player rather than the character, so players aren’t locked into playing the same hero over and over like they would be in a standard campaign-style game.
All New, All Different
Even though they’re packaged differently to previous Dice Throne sets (without individual plastic trays for each character), the components in the two retail X-Men boxes maintain the publisher’s usual high production standards. The player boards are printed on heavy cardboard, there is a nice linen finish on all the cards and counters, and the boxes come with a solid plastic tray insert to keep everything in place. All the graphics look great, with all new artwork that depicts the Marvel characters in a style matching the earlier Dice Throne releases – something that keeps the game looking consistent even when mixing and matching characters across the Marvel and non-Marvel releases.
Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men is an excellent addition to the Dice Throne line, but it also stands on its own merits. Either X-Men box will provide a full and satisfying game experience for anyone who feels nostalgia for the 1990s X-Men or just wants to play a good dueling game.
Marvel Dice Throne Missions expands the scope of the game to provide an engaging solo or cooperative challenge with a ton of replay value, although it is a little pricey at $70, and only available directly from the publisher.
There’s a separate Deadpool character box, too, and it’s just as silly as you might imagine…
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