Today Funko dropped what the next set will be in this light character driven team skirmish game. Like many who have seen this news I am pretty excited about it. Marvel is coming to Funkoverse!

After a couple of releases that didn’t excite me (Disney Alice in Wonderland, Space Jam 2 and A Nightmare Before Christmas) Funko are once more back on track for me.

In the 4 character pack we are getting Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther and Black Widow. With Thanos getting his own single character expansion.

New game modes Scrimmage and Siege are being introduced in the 4 character pack. Whilst the Thanos character pack introduces Ultimate Mode that lets you play Thanos against three other characters! The Thanos pack also adds a new Infinity War scenario where you race to gather all six Infinity Stones. It also every other map in the Funkoverse!

Some pretty interesting and exciting additions to the Funkoverse game. However until the rulebooks are put online details on these new game modes and map changing scenario are none existent.

However I do like that Funko are expanding the game and how it’s played with certain new expansions. If I remember correctly the AGoT expansion bought four player matches to the game.

I’m particularly excited to have games of DC vs Marvel, or DC and Marvel team ups. But that’s the ol’ comic book geek in me coming out.

The Marvel Funkoverse according to the US Amazon pages hits 1st July, and they are taking preorders now. It’s currently not listed on the UK Amazon store.

Yeah I know the posts title is pretty shitty. But it’s the best I could come up with as I was putting this post together. Naturally a better title will come to mind once this post has gone live.

One thing I think Funko have got right so far in the last year is the release rate of new figures for the Funkoverse game. This sort of game lives or dies by the frequency of the expansions.

As I have said in the past this game for me is a light skirmish type game, where I can just throw together teams on the fly based on the which characters I think will be cool to play together. It’s never going to be that mega competitive scene like X-Wing (although I am pretty sure there are some out there that will treat it as such).

Even having never played a game so far (due to the more than obvious reason) buying the expansions is addictive. They have the same collectability of the full grown versions, with the added bonus you can play with them!

In the last couple of weeks we have seen the release of the DC Wonder Woman two character expansion. Which naturally contains Wonder Woman and also the villain from the Wonder Woman 1984 movie The Cheetah. Which I guess Funko had hoped that the movie would be out by now and help sales.

The other set to have been released is the A Game of Thrones four character set. Which has Daenerys Targaryen, Night King, Jon Snow, and Arya Stark.

The Wonder Woman expansion doesn’t really add anything new to the game rules wise. Wonder Woman gets a special die called the Champion Die. As far as I know this is the second time that a character has been given a unique die. The other was Dr Ian Malcolm with his Chaos Die in the two character Jurassic Park expansion.

Otherwise this Wonder Woman is a pretty standard release and the only decision is do you like the characters? For whether you buy it or not.

For me the A Game of Thrones set is the more interesting of the two just released.

For starters the First Game setup is for a four player game! Each team has one of the Funkoverse figures and one of the four included basic characters. So not the usual three character team. But I feel this is huge allowing four players to play at the same time.

The set also has two new Free-For-All scenarios designed for three or four players, and adds the rule that the first player token rotates clockwise to the next player at the end of each round.

There is one draw back though. Funko only provide one each of four different base colours. I would have liked to have seen at three of each colour. It would have made playing a four player game with two or three Funkoverse characters possible.

But even more impactful is the introduction of companions. As the rule book describes them, they “may be used by a player instead of an item1 Companions are always paired with a character and provide a player with an ally that can do a limited number of actions.”

In this set and the very first companion in the game is the Dire wolf Ghost. Which I am looking forward to adding to my Stomp,Slash,Splash team.

As you can see from the above photo of the components for Ghost I have a mini Ghost Funko figure to use instead of the token that comes with the game.

This Ghost figure is actually the Funko Ghost keychain with the chain part removed. I plan to do the same to the Drogon and Wight tokens that come with the game as well. Luckily there are keychain versions of them as well. Well the Wights will be White Walkers but hey who cares? Now I know that will annoy some hard core fans out there.

I also plan to stick Ghost and the other figures to a clear plastic disc base.

Now I wish I could take credit for this idea. But I can’t. The idea came from some-one on the Funkoverse Facebook page.

So as you can tell I’m excited to what this set brings to the table for Funkoverse. And I’m hoping that we will see more Companions plus more Free-For-All scenarios.

I just need to get all this to the table now. But that part is out of my hands.

The new Funkoverse sets are hitting stores (mainly US ones it would appear) and some crackers they are.

The movies Jaws and Back to the Future provide the characters for the two 2 pack sets, and the tv series A Game of Thrones provides the characters for the 4 pack set.

I was particularly after the Jaws set because it was going to provide the final part of the first team I wanted to play. But we know the AGoT one will join the collection at some point soon (particularly after you read below).
Next month also sees the release of the Wonder Woman 2 pack set. Which although not a big Wonder Woman fan I am looking forward to.

I think I’ve said previously the attraction to me with Funkoverse is not that it has a competitive scene like similar style games. But that it’s all about having fun, throwing your favourite characters together and playing.
And that’s the inspiration for the team I’m calling Boom,Slash, Splash!

I just thought it would be cool to play Jaws, along side the raptor and t-rex.
There had been some indecision about what item to use and which character would hold it. In an ideal world you’d use an item that synergises well with the abilities of one of the team.

But after reading the pdf rules of the A Game of Thrones set I may skip picking an item to use and use the new thing they introduced in that set companions.

Companions are similar to items, and you can’t have both on a team. You either have a companion or you have an item. In the actual set the companions are represented by tokens and not an actual figure. But this being funko and a popular IP the Ghost companion can be replaced with a figure (using the ghost model from the keychain funko do).

So just for fun this team will use the ghost companion instead of an item.  Which would technically add a woof/howl to the name of the team. But I’m not going to because ghost isn’t a main character.
I have no idea how this team will play. But it sure as hell will look cool on the table.

On the third attempt I managed to get the English version of the Catwoman and Robin Funkoverse stand alone expansion. Ok the German version was on me, I should have read the description properly. But the French version was on Amazon and the seller.

That expansion was joined by the four character Jurassic Park set. Which I needed to get the second member of the team I want to play.

The team idea I have is to play the raptor, t. rex, and jaws. I’m calling it boom, slash, splash!

I’ve no idea if the team is any good, synergises or even has any combos.

I’ve not even looked at the character abilities. I just think it will be fun to play. I’ve not even looked at which two items the team will be using.

Despite not having played the game yet. For me this game is all about throwing your favourite characters together and playing. In other words having fun.

It’s not about having everything, and building the strongest most competitive team. That’s a rabbit hole I don’t want to jump down. I’m not saying that can’t be fun. But that’s a side that at the moment I don’t see in the game. It might come with an official organised play scene.

I want to avoid the whole having to buy a set just for an item that works well with a different character. That was the sort of thing you were having to do in X-Wing or Imperial Assault to be competitive in tournaments. I hope Funkoverse avoids that.

There are sets I’m not interested in buying. I’m not a big Harry Potter fan, nor am I that nostalgic to play The Golden Girls. I’m just getting sets that are based on stuff I’m a big fan of. Hence why I have the Jaws set on pre-order (it is the final piece in this team after all). Plus I will get the Back to the Future stand alone expansion. And the newly announced/leaked A Game of Thrones set appeals to me (despite the last two seasons being a train wreck).

So when I play this game with friends who don’t have the game, I will just put the figures out that I have and we will draft the characters we want to play with. With friends into the game we can do the same, or use the official beta organised play rules.

Hopefully this will keep the game casual and fun for me and my friends.

In the meantime I’m looking forward to getting the third and final member of this team next month.

At the moment it’s possible to get the DC Funkoverse base set for a penny short of £20. It’s a big saving at that price. Big enough to tempt me into adding it to my collection.

I admit I like skirmish style games, such as Krosmaster, skirmish mode of Imperial Assault, X-Wing etc. The problem is a very small subset of my friends are into this genre, and an even smaller subset prepared to invest in a system.

Luckily I have one friend who already had a base set for Funkoverse (the Harry Potter one) so some-one to play against once the real world gets a safer place.

My problem with games like this is I like to get everything so I have options. Which in this type of game is team building options. Team building hits that deck building itch that I get with games like MtG, Dicemasters and Star Wars: Destiny. The team/deck building is a form of expression. It reflects the person you are. And something I enjoy a lot.

I’m not a big Harry Potter fan, the movies were ok at best, the books were fine. So unless there is an item or character that becomes a must have when building a competitive team to play with. The likely hood of me buying the base set and stand alone expansion for Harry Potter is slim.

As you can see there is a gold Batman figure (above) that was only given away in give aways and going for stupid money on eBay if you can find one. I hate this sort of thing. I wish companies didn’t do this.

But with Jurassic Park sets, Rick and Morty, further DC characters, Golden Girls (another one I’m not likely to get), KOOL-AID and Aggretsuko, on top of the others already mentioned, there are a few team building options already. Plus there are three further standalone expansions due out soon (Wonder Woman, Jaws, and Back to the Future). So Pop! are doing something right and making sure that expansions are getting released to give options.

The Pop! folks have released a beta version of rules for organised play (OP) for Funkoverse. And they look fine. But for this to take off within stores as a regular thing there needs to be prize support. Which needs to be free, and easily available to an FLGS. In a dream world supporting game groups as well would be nice. But I’m a realist. I have seen with other games, and particularly FFG the prize support in OP kits isn’t amazing, and isn’t free to stores. I know for my FLGS to get a kit in that they have to pay for they need to guarantee a minimum turn out to make it worth them getting a kit. Which isn’t going to happen unless they are getting a lot of demand from regular customers. And I’m not seeing that push from the Pop! folks to generate the buzz and players.

Funkoverse should have a wide appeal. The product they are putting out is outstanding. I’ll look at game play once I get it to the table. Which I’m really looking forward to.