Greetings, readers! Today I am joined by Magos Sockbert, Alfred_Pharius, McBill, and Brushwizard to give our reactions to this past weekend’s Ministravaganza event held via live stream by Atomic Mass Games. We will work our way through the bigger announcements of the weekend. As always, feel free to let us know what you thought about the announcements in the comments!
Apocalypse is Arriving Soon
Beezer: This character reveal had been teased a while ago, so I was cautiously optimistic. I was not expecting this, though. Brand new affiliation, a brand new mechanic with the evolution tokens, and a really interesting mechanic with his horsemen. And he is absolutely a beatstick of a model. I don’t know that he will be showing up everywhere as soon as he is released, because I think it will take a lot of practice to really iron out his play pattern, how his horsemen affect that pattern, which horsemen to even take. From a model standpoint, I can’t wait to get my paws on him and paint him up.
Alfred_Pharius: I absolutely love the fact that you can give him a buzz saw arm. There were some iconic action figures I had as a kid where Apocalypse had interchangeable hands with saw blades and grabbing claws so I’m excited to model mine like that for all the nostalgia points. Rules wise they’ve added some mechanics we haven’t seen before like healing himself after taking damage and assigning horsemen cards as a leadership. His character card seems to synergise with placing status conditions on the opponents so taking allies that can help him with that looks like it will be key. I’m excited to see what the affiliation list for the Servants of the Apocalypse looks like so that I can start theorycrafting.
McBill: I know people have been super hype for this release. I don’t have much history with comics, especially X-Men, so I can’t say the same. But the models and terrain are extremely cool, and the rules seem well thought out. It’ll be interesting to see how much Apocalypse shakes up the wider game.
Brushwizard: Oh man, Apocalypse is going to be a big deal for me. He has always been one of my favorite big bads of the X-Men and Archangel is one of my top 5 X-Men. I feel like the Horseman mechanic is going to be interesting, and I’m very happy that they are limiting who can become a horseman… though we don’t have a full list yet. That new Apocalypse-themed terrain is really getting my juices flowing too. It will be hard to resist adding an Egypt board to my already large pile of terrain tubs.
Something New: Team Tactics Card Reveals
Beezer: As someone who has Deadpool and X-23 as staples of every X-Force squad I build ever, I am going to miss X-Ceptional Healing in a big way. I get it, though. I’m guilty of using it to make those characters nigh-invincible. HOWEVER, I think Survival is going to be everywhere once it’s released. I also thought it was pretty cool that they announced New Mutants through a TTC. I need to see his character card, but Mephisto’s TTCs have my attention…
Magos Sockbert: Deception was my baby, and RIP to her. I’d have much preferred they made it Brotherhood only, but I can see why it went; you either knew how to play a specific way to get around it and you were fine, or you weren’t and someone got Hulk’d. Stolen Identity is… fine? Maybe? Only being able to pull away unactivated models makes it pretty unattractive, since you can no longer draw someone in to hit them, and you can’t even pull them off a point since they’ll just walk back on. I’m a little worried that all it’ll do is trade a TTC for a walk action, and that’s not a trade I’m probably willing to make. Instant Recovery was the other big change (still unclear why they killed cards and replaced them with very similar ones, rather than just errata the originals), and while it’s not remotely as good as X-Ceptional, good. It’s replacement is neat, situational, and a much better card since it now probably makes your ten and you have to make the choice as to if it makes a five; nothing in Marvel Crisis Protocol should be an auto-take.
Alfred_Pharius: With the card rotation removing a lot of the most common unaffiliated team tactics cards I am glad they added one in Survival. The ability to make sure that a key piece such as your leader or a character who has yet to play a vital team tactics card, can stay alive through the first activation could be game winning. The Mephisto cards they showed were all really flavorful highlighting how you can make Faustian deals with the Dark Prince to both players’ benefit – though mainly his.
Back to the Drawing Board: Team Tactics Card Rotation
Beezer: Several of these were stapled to every roster I built. Specifically, Mission Objective, Marked for Death, Eyes on the Prize, and No Matter the Cost. I think I would’ve liked to see some of these go the restricted route first, just to see how that changes things up before they went to rotated status. I do think that this will force a radical change in how people play, though, which will be fun to see shake out.
Magos Sockbert: These had to happen. When I started writing this comment I started to pull out the issues that made these ripe for execution, but as a broad statement a lot of these enabled jank, many of these introduced negative player experience, and almost all of these were basically built in to several affiliations. There’s a couple here that surprise me (Dormammu and Sentinels are both weeping at the loss of Smash), but I’m more than willing to take the hit in exchange for some of the real offenders to go away. Crew of the Milano was designed around ragged low threat misfits, and that’s, uh. That’s not where Guardians design has been taken.
Alfred_Pharius: There were some very impactful changes made to some popular tactics cards with this errata. Advanced R&D and Eyes on the Prize being removed stops a lot of popular Turn 1 plays. Convocation players no longer getting Iron-Bound Books of Shuma-Gorath back from grunts will be big when the popular lists were splashing Ultron Metal Tyrant. However we might not see as much Ultron at all now that The Age of Ultron has been removed. It’s not all doom and gloom for the Robots as my beloved Sentinels have had Online and Operational’s cost reduced from an unplayable 8 power to a much more manageable 4. The increase in cost to This is a Robbery aka Rhinobbery will hurt him in Criminal Syndicate more than it will in his other popular affiliations of Hellfire Club and Spider Foes as under those latter affiliations the extra cost is offset by the increased power from their leaderships. Overall list building should become much more diverse with so few cards left that are both unaffiliated and not attached to a specific character. It should hopefully bring more rarely seen cards into people’s rosters.
McBill: Hard agree with Sockbert. These changes needed to happen. If the cards were showing up in every list, that’s a sign that they’re too good. List building had devolved into “who can safely grab a midpoint extract with EOTP” type discussions which really seemed boring to me. Advanced R&D should have gone awhile ago. It enabled all kinds of early jank that if you didn’t know to watch for could ruin your day. Same for No Matter The Cost, too. AMG definitely seems to be emphasizing character and affiliation specific cards over generics. That’s probably better for the long-term health of the game.
Brushwizard: Of all the cards that are rotating out, I think I’m going to miss Face Me the most. It was a staple for me whenever I ran Toad. Mission Objective and Eyes on the Prize were also big cards for my Web Warriors list. While I’m not a Competitive player, I can see that a lot of those cards were staples and maybe it was time for another shake-up. I’m interested to see what cards take their places as an outsider of the meta.
They Call it a Road Map, But It’s Really a Hype Train
Beezer: Put that Yondu, Nova, and Gladiator straight into my veins! Guardians were my first affiliation and love in the game (before I really knew how to play), and I have a very strong inclination that all three of these may be Guardians affiliated. That Yondu model is so incredibly cool! I am also fascinated by the prospect of 10 (!) new crisis cards in the Gladiator box that can not only be used in standard format, but can also be used narratively to play out the King In Black storyline. In a very close second place is Elsa Bloodstone and the Marvel Monsters. They’re a pretty big departure stylistically from most of the models in the game, and I think they will offer some gameplay changes, too. And AMG even mentioned the Moon Knight meme, which made me chuckle.
Magos Sockbert: I’ve been screaming “give me more Symbiotes!” over and above the Doom fanatics, but honestly right now I don’t even care. I prefer the more Earth-bound Marvel stories, but I’d never considered how awesome 90s Saturday morning cartoon monsters could be. Apocalypse is terrifyingly complex and probably going to be a “bad until someone gets good enough to bully you” kind of model, but the real fascinating part is that right now, from what we saw on the painting stream, Ronin is Clint Barton, and Hawkeye is Clinton Barton. So, uh. Multiple dimension Hawkeyes I guess?
Alfred_Pharius: As someone who plays semi-competitively I am most excited to see what the new missions announced will be. New missions could mean more play styles and more game variety. Not only that but they have announced 4 new affiliations in this one roundup – The New Mutants, The Servants of the Apocalypse, Vampire-Thrall’s and the Legion of the Lost. 2025 looks like it is going to be be a very exciting year for Marvel Crisis Protocol!
McBill: There are a ton of awesome looking new models on the way. The monsters and Dracula all look amazing in particular. I think the Wrecking Crew rules were designed in a very clever way also. AMG is definitely in its stride with designing cool models and rules. Not everything is great but most of what they’re doing is. That being said, I’ve put some hard limits on my collecting new stuff for the time being. Other than the new Defenders models on the way, I’m happy to work on my backlog and enjoy these new models via playing against them or seeing how others paint them.
Brushwizard: First off, I need that Dracula pack right now. Werewolf by Night and Dracula’s cards look like a lot of fun. I’m really excited to add Werewolf to my Midnight Sons roster, and the prospect of having Elsa Bloodstone as an alternate leader. It will be hard to give up the Bump in the Night with Immortal Hulk though, without seeing what she has to offer. The Tomb of Dracula terrain piece is cool, but I don’t really see building a terrain set around it and I don’t know if I’d splurge on it just for display. It does look like a lot of fun to paint up though. Another pack I’m hyped to see is the Echo, Tygra and Ronin pack, which means I’ll finally be able to play a legitimate New Avengers list without having to use Hawkeye in place of Ronin. New Avengers is the book that got me back into comics back in the day and I’ve always wanted to play a list featuring them. Everything else looks great, and I’m excited for Spider-Man 2099. I’m curious who they will package with him, too. A small part of me is hoping for Superior Spider-Man, but I’m sure it’ll be something like Spider-Man Noir or another Spiderverse movie character.
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