Category Archives: LCG

X-Men vs The Snap!

We all know that eventually I will have all the expansions for Marvel Champions.

The plan is to pick up a couple of heroes a month and a campaign/scenario.

That plan started this month with the arrival of Nebula, Phoenix, and Wolverine, along with The Mad Titans Shadow campaign.

Obviously this is a first look/impressions of these new arrivals so they haven’t been to the table yet.

I think you should also bare in mind that I only play Marvel Champions multiplayer, and currently only use the prebuilt decks. So no solo play, and currently no deckbuilding.

It should also be noted that I don’t have everything. Hence the opening couple of sentences to this post.

Also that I’ve picked these heroes and the campaign not based on any rankings, that these are the best to get, etc. But because these are heroes that I think are cool, and enjoy in the comics. The campaign was chosen because I thought it would be cool to go toe to toe with the main villain.

That should be enough ammunition to dismiss anything I write in the rest of the post. So let’s get on with it…

Wolverine

If this Wolverine deck wasn’t an aggression deck then I think myself and others would be complaining it’s not thematic and true to the character.

Wolverine is all about dealing damage and lots of it in one go by the looks of it. But in doing so Wolverine also takes a bit of damage. Luckily he is able to heal not only in his alter ego form but also in his hero form. This is very on the nose theme wise.

Phoenix

Phoenix as it comes out of the box is a justice deck. Justice decks are usually about dealing with the villians scheme by removing the threat tokens.

I’m not sure why they took Phoenix in the justice direction. The fifteen Phoenix cards don’t scream justice, unlike the Wolverine cards that scream clobberin’ time (I know its a Thing thing!)

If I was into the deckbuilding side of the game (which I’ll get into further down the line in my journey with Marvel Champions) then I’d definitely be trying Phoenix as an aggression deck.

Nebula

Nebula like Phoenix is a justice deck.

The Nebula deck does feel more justice than the Phoenix deck.

I like the look of the technique upgrade cards, and how they boost Nebula. Very thematic. It does look like cycling through the deck and discard pile to get to and play these cards is key.

The Mad Titans Shadow

This campaign expansion pitches you against Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight (with Corvus Glaive), Thanos, Hela, and Loki.

The villain and scheme really decide which hero or type of deck you should be playing.

For instance the Ultron game I played with Diego was super tuff for us as we had no way to combat the minion spamming that happened. We needed a hero that could take out the minions. Which neither of us were playing.

I’m avoiding reading anything about the schemes so that when I play them I get the twists and turns.

But as villians selected for this expansion we have the ones you’d expect plus two you wouldn’t.

I can’t wait to see how Loki and Hela are worked into the campaign story. Obviously Thanos and his minions are telling the Infinity Gauntlet story to some degree.

We also get two new heroes to add to the roster to choose from.

Spectrum

Spectrum comes as a leadership deck. I’m not sure why looking at her fifteen cards. I don’t see anything here that supports helping other heroes in the team.

Spectrum is all about swapping between the three energy forms that boost one of the three hero stats when face up.

That alone interests me enough to try the character out, because Spectrum isn’t a hero I’d naturally choose to play.

I see Spectrum as one of those characters that could be any of the four aspects.

Adam Warlock

Adam Warlock although not a hero I’d go for when choosing a hero to play. I have to admit the fact he has all four aspects in his deck and uses this to power his ability does look like an interesting mechanic I’d like to try at least once.

So two very interesting heroes mechanics wise.

I can’t wait to play the following team-up with Nathan when I visit him next week.

Hopefully going up against Thanos will not be another Ultron experience!

Gloomy outlook for Rhino

Usually a mid week day off means no gaming. It’s rare others are free. Luckily the planets align from time to time that I’m able to do some gaming with Diego.

This morning was one such cosmic event.

Our mornings gaming started off with the latest addition to the collection, Marvel Champions.

Having learnt my lesson from that ass whooping from Ultron on Sunday.

It was time to take on an “easier” villain from the core set.

It was time to face Rhino.

Iron Man was benched, and replaced by She Hulk as a playable character. Mainly because Iron Man (although popular) is a slow build character. He starts off weak and builds up.

Swapping between the two is quick and easy (both decks have the same basic and aggression cards). So if Diego had really wanted to play Iron Man then he could have.

So after Diego had chosen who he wanted to play, I chose a hero that had one of the other aspects. It was hard not to play Doctor Strange (I love the comic book). But I resisted and chose another favourite.

We were using the default, out of the box decks for our heroes, and also the suggested setup for the villain.

I think Thor would be a good match up against Ultron because of his once per phase ability that triggers against minions.

Yes there were a couple of misplays by Diego and myself. But that didn’t get in the way of enjoying ourselves.

I enjoyed playing Cap. He certainly is able to mitigate a fair bit of damage either with his shield boosting his defence or with one or two other cards. Plus he can hit hard, and I like the allies he has in the deck. But you need cards in hand to power his hero ability or for Wonder Man to swing in.

Rhino was much, much easier than Ultron.

I think that our victory was made easier by having characters that matched up well against Rhino. Not sure it would have been as easy with say a character that is slow to build up.

I’m definitely going to go this route of starting off with Rhino when I visit Nathan. Then if he likes the game see if he wants to do either of the campaigns that I have.

Next to the table was Gloomier: A Night At Hemlock Hall. This is the latest addition to the Gloom family.

There is only one family (the Hemlocks) in this version of Gloom. So you are choosing four family members per player from a common pool. The remaining cards (if not a five player game) are then flipped and used to add unwelcome guests and/or stories to the game.

Otherwise this plays just like Gloom.

I’m not entirely sure I should have been the first player. Had I really had the worst day so far out of the two of us?

Sadly my day did get worse because Diego won.

Our final game of the morning was a quick game of Smitten

And what a final game.

We won!

At my fifth attempt and Diego’s first we built both pictures.

I had a great morning playing games with Diego. And a big thanks to him for being an amazing host.

Marvel Champions Coverage

In the last week since getting my grubby mitts on Marvel Champions I’ve started consuming media about the game.

Which got me thinking how best should I cover the game on this here ol’ blog of mine.

A lot of the YouTube stuff is reviews (especially from a solo players pov) with some game play. We all know I don’t review.

I like continuing the trend of other games I play of visually showing factions/characters for each player.

So I came up with the following as an example based on Sundays game I played with Jeff. I think I upped my game on this one visually and got a little comic book vibe to it.

It’s going to be a while before I even think of doing any deck building for the game.

I definitely don’t play solo. All my game play will be casual multiplayer with others.

So what can I add to this space that isn’t being done better elsewhere?

Do I stick to just a general game overview as when I play it?

What do folks want to see?

Marvel Champions Assemble!

Last night Gavin dropped off his Marvel Champions stuff that he has decided to part with.

Obviously I’m not going to play this game solo.

However I will hopefully get to play it at club nights. But more importantly on my visits to Nathan.

I know he will love the theme. Plus I think there are at least three or four of the heroes (see the list below) that he would love to play.

The Heroes Assembled

Mind you I think Nathan would also love the LoTR Card Game as well. Which was the lcg I had been close to getting before Gavin presented this opportunity to me.

And so begins the “gotta get ‘em all” madness to the various expansions.