For the last couple of weeks I sung the praises of Star Wars Legion. I’ve been getting into the game lately, and I love how accessible the game is to new players.
If you are also looking to start a new tabletop game, but Legion isn’t for you, there is another game that may be exactly what you are looking for. In Marvel Crisis Protocol you select a group of 3-6 heroes or villians from the Marvel universe to put on the tabletop to accomplish the mission. These missions come in to form of Crisis Cards that are made up to look like the front page of the Daily Bugle. If smashing your opponent with buildings, and mutant superpowers, is more your style than look no further than MCP. I sung the praises of Star Wars Legion last week for being accessible, but MCP is on a different level when it comes to how easy it is to get started with this game.
The Core Set is going to give you a solid jump into MCP, and is a completely self contained game. Once you purchase the Core Set you could continue to play with just the Characters and Crisis that are provided (but you are going to want some of those other cool Characters that have been released). There are many different Affiliations that you can choose from when starting MCP, but the two that come in the Core Set are the Avengers and the Cabal. Each side gets 5 characters, but any Characters can be mixed and matched in your 10 model rosters. In order to gain the Affiliation bonus from your Leader (which you want) over 50% of your heroes on the table must belong to the same Affiliation.
The leaders that come in the Core Set are Captain America (Steve Rodgers version) and Red Skull. Cap’s leadership allows the first Superpower used by his teammates to cost one power less than normal. This is an extremely powerful bonus for your team that can ensure you are using your characters big spender Superpowers more regularly throughout the game. Red Skull’s leadership also deals with the Power economy of the game. Each time a hero (villian I guess if they are with Red Skull) deals damage to an opponent’s hero they gain an additional Power. The only two leaders found in the Core Set really set the tone for the other models that are provided.
For the hero side of the Core Set you will get Spider Man, Captain Marvel, Iron Man and Black Widow. Each of these characters brings something unique to the table top, like Black Widow’s ability to not be targeted at range because she is so stealthy, or Iron Man’s ability to subtract damage he receives by 1. The more evil side of the Core Set comes with Baron Zemo, Ultron, Dr. Octopus and Crossbones. While there is no stealthy character here, Crossbones comes with the ability to move closer to his enemies after taking damage while Ultron has a Tactics Card to come back to life after being killed if he has enough Power.
Speaking of Tactics Cards, the Core Set comes with a lot more than just the 10 Characters. It is also filled with the game specific measuring tools, Crisis Cards, Tactics Cards to provide your team with some extra powerups during a game and even terrain! The Core Set comes with 2 cars, a Daily Bugle newsstand, traffic lights, dumpsters and street lights. It is always amazing when a game company throws in literally everything you need to play their game right out of the box. Now for full games slightly more terrain than comes in the Core Set is recommended, but the amount in the Core Set is perfectly useable for your first few games.
After your first few games using the Core Set characters you may find you want to expand your collection and explore the other affiliations that are in the game. All of the Core Set character can still be used as you build your collection of models. Some of the Core Set characters are even staples in the game, and in their affiliations. Red Skull is the best Leader for the Cabal faction currently, and Steve Rogers received a nice glow up during the last balance update. Baron Zemo started out as one of the best 3 Threat characters in the game, and he is still arguably at the top. Don’t worry about leaving the Characters from the Core Set behind as you expand. They have been designed to remain useful no matter if you are playing your 5th game of MCP or your 500th.
If you are looking for an extremely engaging game that is super simple to pick up and get playing look no further than the MCP Core Set. After building the models and terrain, and a quick read through of the rules, you can be throwing newsstands with Captain Marvel in no time. The depth included in the Core Set means that you can treat it as a stand alone game and never purchase another model for MCP. Playing some combination of the 6 Crisis Cards included and switching up your teams will give you endless hours of gaming fun for just the purchase of the MCP Core Set. Of course its going to be tough not to start grabbing the boxes of you other favorite Characters…
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
