Marvel Crisis Protocol – Earth’s Mightiest Core Set

We talked about Super Heroes on the tabletop last year, and now it is time to take a closer look on one of the largest Super Hero miniature games there is - Marvel Crisis Protocol. Asmodee picked up the Marvel license, and within their group Atomic Mass Games is in charge of the super hero skirmish.

While there were several attempts to bring fighting super heroes to the tabletop, this is one is probably the most professional approach and the one most speaking to classic tabletop wargamers, who at least enjoy multiple pillars of the hobby, as it is not some kind blind bags with pre-painted miniatures.

What is it about?

Marvel Crisis Protocol received recently a new core set, Earth's Mightiest, which we will cover today. This one is an update to the older Core Set (shown below), bringing the same heroes and villains to the game, but with updated sculpts, rules and terrain.

In this game, each player has a small group of characters from the Marvel universe and depending on their affiliation to eachother, this makes them stronger or more effective, using synergies. This groups fight eachother in the matches and do this in quite a true-to-the-origin Comic book style, throwing eachother into buildings and destroying half the map while fighting, as the characters can interact with almost everything they can lift or are strong enough to use in one way or the other. And to really capture is, isn't that easy, as the skirmish market within the tabletop wargames system is quite crowded and "fast pacing skirmish" not just over-used but very overstimulated towards the gamers.

What does this mean for the player? If the miniatures are available, or at least have stats, you can recreate almost every narrative from the comic books or cinematic universe. Want to have the Avenger Civil War? No problem, the starter set already provides you with quite a few models just for that scenario. Want to do the Defenders from the Netflix series? No problem either, and if you want to have the Avengers vs. X-Men from the 2012 cross-over event (And maybe upcoming MCU storyline) not a problem either. And that is just talking about the good guys, the same goes for the villains, as you could play Hydra or the Brotherhood of Mutants.

First Impression

The game is very colourful and vibrant, especially compared to the many grimdark settings out there. Yet, Crisis Protocol uses a lot of the popular MCU design choice and less those of the comic books. For comparison below you see the new designs of the line up, compared to the 1st edition above.

The Earth's Mightiest Core Set is quite a banger, almost 2,5 kilograms of content, covering 13 different plastic miniatures for heroes and villains, a lot of terrain, lots of cards and tokens, along with dice and a rule set. And from the first impression it makes a very complete and beginner friendly impression. In detail these are:

• 13 Plastic Character Miniatures
• 13 Bases
• 26 Terrain Miniatures
• 13 Character Stat Card
• 20 Team Tactic Cards
• 6 Crisis Cards
• 2 Punch Sheets
• 1 Mission Tracker
• 3 Tracking Cubes
• 1 Rulebook

If you're looking for the assembly instruction, these are available for download, as with most Atomic Mass Games products. If you have already some Star Wars Legions / Shatterpoint items at home, you will know the drill.

And when I mean beginner friendly, I really mean it. For example, Asmodee puts the size of card sleeves on the boxed set, so you don't have to guess but can get the fitting ones right away. Beneath the rules we have two large sprues for the characters (more on them further below).

The templates are cast in grey-plastic and divide into two types, the range tools (2 to 5) and the movement tools (S to L, and can be angled). These just clip together.

You get a lot of card board tokens. They are thick and quite sturdy. And I like that a lot of manufacturers now give you zip lock bags to store them with their boxes. Makes it easier.

And once we removed the dividers / protection layers from the boxed set, we get even more plastic. All of this is terrain.

Quite the stack, isn't it? We will cover the detail build and models in the second part of this review. This section is more focused on providing you with an overview.

There are two main sprues for the characters, which can be divided into Heroes (Captain America, Captain Marvel (Normal + Binary), Invincible Iron Man, The Black Widow, Spectacular Spider-Man and Winter Soldier) and Villains (Baron Helmut Zemo, Ultron with Ultron Bots, Cross Bones, Red Skull and Doc Ock). And of course, a pack of bases for these characters.

The 26 Terrain Miniatures are spread across a variety of mid-sized elements and lots of scatter terrain.

For example, you can build  6 barricades, 6 drums and 2 cars from this box.

Along with a small building, that is a gas station, including a totalled car and some gas pumps.

To provide you with even more material, there are two dumpster, four street lights / signals, and two loaders in there as well.

You get not only the miniatures, but fitting terrain as well from the same manufacturer. Which means it fits in scale and purpose for the game. With other settings you're depending on a third company for terrain, and especially with a modern setup where you need more than just trees and hills, this is welcoming. In addition, the terrain range by Asmodee/Atomic Mass Games picks up the immersion into the Marvel universe by using company names like Fisk or Roxxon or having Ultronbots and Sentinel-remains spread across the ruins.

How does Marvel Crisis Protocol play?

It is a very well-made super hero games and certainly captures, what the Too Fat Lardies describe as play the period, not the rules. This means a lot of the mechanics deliver towards having a cinematic gaming experience, bringing what you would expect from super heroes going toe-to-toe with each other, involving their surroundings. And to not slow the game down with various things to book keep, this game is basically a 2D game, played on 36 by 36-inch boards. This is used for example with line-of-sight, cover etc. as you are working with size classes of the models (most characters are either 2s or 3s, with exceptions for characters like an Ant-Man shrunken down, who counts as class 1 or the huge Sentinels with class 5). It doesn't matter if you have a true-line-of-sight (if you could see the character behind an obstacle), if its size class is large enough to provide cover, it does, regardless if you have a very extravagant Deadpool pose or crouching character behind a smashed dumpster. These size classes are used for other actions as well, for example if one character can throw another one or use a certain piece of terrain as a weapon (or destroy it).

Combat is straight forward, as your attack is used against your opponent's defence value. Each attack comes from one of three different kinds of "power", physical, energy or mystical and can be blocked against using the same type by the defendant. And any hits that are not blocked, cause a wound. With the exception of wild effects, as they don't need to cause damage to unlock their special effect. The I-Go-You-Go alternation for activation along with 5-6 wounds for most mid-tier characters adds to the speed of the game. Most characters have a healthy and wounded profile, with two different types of stats. A bit similar to what you might know from Warhammer Underworlds, just with the difference that a wounded soldier usually is less effective, with some few exceptions that get more dangerous, like a wild animal trapped in a corner.

An interesting aspect of the game is, that in your roster of up to 10 characters, you can mix villains with heroes, and vice versa. But there are a few things to consider. First of all, the difference between character name and alter ego. You can have multiple Captain Americas, but only one Steve Rogers. So, the only way to have two of them, is if you have Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson. Similar with Spider-Man, you can have multiples of them, but only if you use Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Ben Reilly and so on. Yet, you can't use the Cosmic Ghost Rider and Punisher at the same time, as they both are Frank Castle. Another one is, using multiple characters from an affiliation grants a bonus, if more than half of your roster is taken from that affiliation. And while some characters are divided into timelines, this is more of a thematic thing for events, than actually enforced by the game.
Another thing about the roster is, that not only your tactic but also your mission cards are part of your army building. The scenario you're playing is always a mix of your own and your opponent's mission deck, combining Secure and Extraction objectives. Fulfilling these grants you victory points, the first player to gain 16 of these wins the match. It is not all about destruction or taking out the enemy team.

And finally, you don't need to fight each other, you can play an encounter as well. This is a scenario, driven by a superior enemy, that needs combined forces to be taken down. For this game mode you can play for example against Thanos, Dormammu or even directly from the starter set using Ultron.

What's next?

While the Starter box is quite mixed, you have various options to expand your collection. Beside the individual boxes with single heroes, the range of the game provides you with pre-sorted themed kits, which makes it easier as well. For example you could grab the Core set, which would provide you with rules, a good set of miniatures and terrain right from the start, and add Captain America (Sam Wilson) and War Machine for more Avengers and Baron Strucker and Arnim Zola to add to your Hydra faction. The rules along with lots of information on the characters, for example the profiles and the affiliations are available for free by Asmodee, which lowers the entry level even further and makes it more accessible, as you don't have to buy the models to see how they play, but can do your research easily beforehand and then decide. A hot contestant for myself would be the X-Men.

But of course, there is more. As shown above, you have multiple terrain sets. From generic urban encounters, to (a lot previewed) themed sets bringing you to research facilities or scenes from MCU movies. Partially some of the heroes /villains come with fitting terrain pieces. This can range from Deadpool with a food truck to Thanos with his throne. Some of these boxed sets are Ultimate Encounters, multiplayer (coop) fighting scenarios against an AI deck. Imagine a raid like you might know it from an MMORPG, but as a tabletop.

And as you might want to add further missions (crisis) to your games, I recommend the 2023 Crisis pack. This is a multilanguage product, providing you the 10 Extraction and 12 Secure Crisis cards multiple times, among others in English and German, along with a token sheet.

As the game is quite popular, you have further third-party resources for the game. For example, Jarvis Protocol (for Android and iOS) as a mobile app, with a very extensive database on profiles, cards and so on.

Conclusion

We started the coverage on Marvel Crisis Protocol with this unboxing and first impression. Two further articles, covering the miniatures and the terrain will follow.

Earth Mightiest feels complete and proper. Yes, at above 100 EURs for a starter set, it might not be pocket money, but you get 2,5 kg of gaming material. Over a dozen characters, a lot of terrain and the rules along with gaming aids. That is a proper starting point. And I see a market for this. There are people who don't fancy neither fantasy nor historical wargaming, but love comic books and miniatures. And this is just the game for it. A much more solid product line that for example Knight Models could ever provide, even while they have a license for some parts.

Beyond that, at 149 EUR retail, you get 13 heroes who would usually cost around 35 EUR per pack of two - that alone would bring the worth of the content to more than 200 EUR. On top of that terrain worth about two of the terrain packs at around 50 EUR each, adding another 100 EUR worth of retail to this boxed set. This ends up to saving of roughly 50%, with further saving possible if you find the right FLGS.

And the depth of the rules is accessibly for casual gaming, but with the list building and lots of combination possibilities, creates a complexity that will speak to the more serious gamers. But as you don't need to do a regular 1-on-1 tournament, but could to timelines, narrative events, matches that lead up to Ultimate Encounters etc. it gives the opportunity for quite a deep gaming experience. Especially with the endless stories that more than 80 years of Marvel lore provide.

The only thing that puts me off a bit, is the rather true-scale of the miniatures, as with comic book battles I personally would prefer a more overdrawn, heroic scale design, which would make it easier to paint the miniatures in my opinion. But more on that in the second part, where we take a closer look on the miniatures themself.

If you want to take a closer look into rules or gaming materials yourself, Asmodee / Atomic Mass Games provides the rules and such as free downloads on their website. Further gaming materials and information can be found on BoardGameGeek.

Marvel Crisis Protocol is a game by Atomic Mass Games and distributed by Asmodee.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.