What were Saturday mornings like for you? For me, they involved a mixing bowl, sugary cereal, and Marvel superheros. My brother and I would park ourselves in front of the tv and watch Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends or X-Men. We’d have debates over who was cooler, Spidey or Wolverine. We’d wonder what it would be like if the heroes faced off against other villains like Red Skull. We’d talk about how cool it would be if the Fantastic Four or Captain America could join the group. Marvel Champions by Fantasy Flight Games allows us to start to answer some of those questions.
Marvel Champions is a co-op Living Card Game for 1-4 in which you choose a hero, give them a heroic aspect, and take on a supervillain who is trying to perpetrate a vile scheme. At the same time, you have to fight off supervillain minions, side schemes, and personal obligations. Additionally, heroes must manage not only their superhero life but also their alter ego life. The base game comes with five super heroes. You get to choose between Spider-Man, Ironman, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and She-Hulk. Additionally, you get to choose between three supervillains; Rhino, Klaw, and Ultron.
Gameplay
Marvel Champions’ set up is fairly simple while giving each player options to customize their character the way they want. Each hero comes with a set of cards unique to their character. For instance, Spider-Man comes with cards such as Swinging Web Kick, Enhanced Spider-Sense, and Backflip. You add to these some basic cards that give you additional powers such as Avengers Mansion, Helicarrier, and First-Aid. Lastly, you add a deck of cards that are based around a heroic aspect such as Justice, Aggression, Leadership, and Protection. These cards give you abilities that fit their theme. Heroic decks should be between 40-50 cards.
After setting up your hero’s dec, you set up the villain’s encounter deck. Each of these has a deck of cards that relate to the chosen villain. For instance, Rhino has Armored Rhino Suit, Enhanced Ivory Horn, and Hard to Keep Down. Like the heroes, these cards give the villain powers related to that particular villain. The villain’s encounter deck includes a secondary encounter deck. The game comes with five different encounters that you can choose from. These vary from a Bomb Scare scenario to one involving M.O.D.A.K and his Doomsday Chair. Lastly, the encounter deck has a standard set of encounter cards that is also included in your villain’s encounter deck. The villain comes with a main scheme that they are trying to complete. This is not a part of the villain’s encounter deck.
Each hero starts on their alter-ego character card side. This gives you their starting hand size and hit points. Each side of the hero card comes with a special ability that can only be done when it is on that particular side. Each turn you can flip your hero card once. On the alter-ego side, you can avoid being attacked by the vilain and you can recover any lost hit points. On the hero side, you again have a special ability. You also can attack the villain, thwart one of his schemes, or defend against an attack. After all of the heroes have taken their turn, they ready any cards that they have used during their turn and draw cards up to the hand size printed on the side of the hero card that is face up. We then go to the villain’s turn. They begin by advancing their main scheme by adding threat to it based on the number of players in the game. They then either attack or scheme against each individual hero based on the side that the hero is on. If they are on their alter ego side, the villain adds threat to the main scheme. If they are on their hero side, the villain attacks the hero. The villains card gives their scheme and attack values. These are accentuated by a boost from a drawn encounter card. After the villain has attacked/schemed, each hero draws an encounter card from the villain’s encounter deck. These will typically add an evil minion, side scheme, or more treachery to the situation.
This continues until either the villain has completed their main scheme, killed all the heroes, or the heroes have killed off the villain. Each villain has a number of hit points based on the number of heroes in the game.
Impressions
HOLY COW TRUE BELIEVERS!!! This game is overflowing with superhero themes! The incorporation of alter-egos and hero personas is awesome. They allow you to avoid taking damage and to recover lost hit points. At the same time, it allows the villain to advance their mains scheme. Alternatively, the hero side keeps the villain from advancing the main scheme, but it allows them to attack the heroes. The encounter deck is where things really sing for me. This is where the heroes have to deal with villainous treachery, evil minions (such as Scorpion, Whirlwind, Tiger Shark, and Hydra Soldiers), and side schemes of the bad guys. Additionally, each hero has a nemesis that could be drawn in. This attaches a minion buddy to a hero (Vulture, Whiplash, Killmonger, etc). This also puts additional character-specific side schemes and treachery cards into the encounter deck. MORE THEMES! (insert mind blown meme here).
The cards and counters are high quality. They hold strong to the comic book theming and artwork, right down to the first player marker which is a speech bubble. The counters are made of thick cardboard punch outs. The cards are high quality glossy cards with comic book images. The game comes with a rule book and a rules reference. The rule book is decent. There are a few spots that aren’t as clear as they could be, but that is where the rules reference is helpful. The rules reference offers a load of rules clarification and term definitions.
Marvel Champions is a living card game (LCG). Therefore, FFG has and will continue to release additional content for the game. They have released Captain America, Thor, Ms. Marvel, and Black Widow hero decks along with Green Goblin and the Wrecking Crew scenario packs. Additionally, they have announced Doctor Strange and Hulk hero packs along with The Rise of Red Skull Campaign Expansion.
The only real negative thing I can say about Marvel Champions is that the rules can be a little difficult. I found myself going back to look up how different terms interacted with each other. This is where the rules reference really comes in handy. Anything that I couldn’t find in the rules reference I found online in game chats and postings.
This review was written by our friend Hank Wetzel. Hank is an avid board gamer and contributor to the site with his insights on games he loves. Hank likes long walks off of short piers and has been known to dance when no one is watching.
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