Painted Heimdall, The All-Seeing

This is Heimdall, the All-Seeing for Marvel Crisis Protocol. He is, of course, an Asgardian and I think that he makes a useful partner for Thor. Thor tends to live or die based on whether he rolls well on his attacks and Heimdall offers a superpower to allow limited re-rolls for nearby allies. Fittingly, he can also do a short teleport (again, only for allies) with a huge pick-up; this can be enough to park someone back atop an objective if they’ve been displaced earlier in the round. Finally, Heimdall can use Forfend to make an attack if an enemy ends a move within range; this pairs up very nicely with Enchantress moving people around with Siren’s Call. The only downside to all of this is that his power generation is quite anaemic and so he rarely has enough power to do all the cool things that you want.

I went about half-and-half between the MCU and comic versions of Heimdall when it came to painting. His armour is based on the card art with its bold red and bronze colours, but I painted his skin to look like Idris Elba’s portrayal of the character. Although the process was fun I think that the effect might have been a bit better if I’d gone with a lighter red or a different trimming on the armour to provide a better contrast against the skin. The mini comes with a load of little rainbow bits to go all around the base but I didn’t like the way that they looked so I left them all off. There was a little chunk on the end of Heimdall’s sword that I kept, partly as a cute little nod to the Bifrost and partly because it would have been annoying to cut away from the blade. Heimdall’s left foot also needed a bit of reconstruction as it’s supposed to have a little bit of Bifrost attached to it.

Next on the painting table: Ronan, the Accuser.

Painted Neophyte Hybrids

Here are another set of ten Neophyte Hybrids for my Warhammer 40,000 Genestealer cult army. This set has the Icon Bearer in it, which allows the unit to recur their casualties, representing more oppressed citizens and/or terrifying aliens joining the unit as the game proceeds. This brings me up to twenty, which is enough for a full-sized unit. Apparently, some tournament lists run over 100 of these little chaps, but that is definitely not for me despite how cool they look.

Next on the painting table: Heimdall, the All-Seeing.

Painted Malekith The Accursed

This is Malekith, the Accursed for Marvel Crisis Protocol, or more accurately: most of this is a Bog Tiger with a very small baddie standing on her back. Malekith is currently perceived as The New Hotness in MCP with many feeling that he’s too good for his admittedly hefty seven-threat cost. This might well be the case as Malekith is a very tightly refined toolbox to daze one or two characters per turn and he has the mobility to make sure that he will always have a good target. Having played Malekith, my main criticism isn’t that he’s too strong but rather that he isn’t really very interesting to play. Basically every round you activate him, probably daze a character and then hand over to your opponent. Malekith is quite vulnerable to conditions, especially Stagger and Shock, as he needs to do a lot of work to justify his place in a team and hence he seems to be quite commonly seen in Asgard and Winter Guard, both of which allow him to remove pesky conditions before he gets to work.

Painting Malekith was really enjoyable. I very rarely paint in subassemblies but I did this time – base, wings, Bog Tiger and Malekith himself. I’ve also pinned the wings so that they’re removable as otherwise transporting this ‘mini’ would be awful. I’m actually most proud of the wings. They’re painted white and then coloured with first blue and then red washes to give an otherworldly look, with the bony bits being given a Nuln Oil wash instead. Malektih himself feels almost like an afterthought in terms of the painting; he’s tiny and so completely dwarfed by his mount that I’m fairly sure I could remove him entirely from the mini and no-one would really notice on the tabletop.

Edit: here is a picture of Malekith next to Cyclops so you can see the scale of the mini.

Next on the painting table: Neophyte Hybrids.

Marvel Crisis Protocol video battle report: Asgard vs S.H.I.E.L.D

This is the fourth (of four so far) video of my good friend Allan and I playing Marvel Crisis Protocol at Common Ground Games in Stirling. All credit to Allan for doing all the actual work regarding the video – I just got to enjoy playing another fun game.

Painted Skurge

This is Skurge, the Executioner – another Asgardian for Marvel Crisis Protocol. He’s pretty straightforward by Asgardian standards, in that he hits people and occasionally throws terrain at them, and the only particularly interesting superpower he has is a form of Bodyguard. Nonetheless he fills a very useful role in the roster as a brawler and he does get to roll a lot of dice on his builder attack considering his cost. Skurge also has two Tactics Cards, one which gives him a fairly rubbish beam (but has an amusing in-joke in the name) and a more useful one that allows him to jump in front on a throw and take the hit for your other characters. Getting the latter to work isn’t always easy (and also requires Enchantress, although that is hardly a chore) but it’s always nice to be able to spread the damage around your team in a way that messes with the other player. Like most of the baddie Asgardians, Skurge is also affiliated in Cabal, where I expect that Red Skull’s leadership would mitigate his lack of power generation.

I painted Skurge according to his box art, which I assume is based on some comic run from the 70s considering the colour scheme. I did quite enjoy the bright colours but I don’t feel that the yellow, blue and pink combination works very well; if anything it makes him look more like a clown than a fearsome superhuman wielding an axe. His trademark stripy hair caused me a few issues as there is no texture at all on the mini so it just looks like it’s been painted on; obviously that is literally true but I do try to give the impression of realism up to a point.

Next on the painting table: Malekith, the Accursed.

Marvel Crisis Protocol tournament report: MCP Scotland November Event 12Nov2022

Gareth and I took the train across to Stirling for another Marvel Crisis Protocol event at Common Ground Games. This was an especially exciting event for me as my thirteen-year-old son Scott came to join us. I was a bit nervous on his behalf as he’d only played a couple of games to get the rules down, but the community here is very welcoming to new players and furthermore there were some other brand new people coming along for the first time including another two thirteen-year-olds. We spent the train ride running through Scott’s cards to try to give him a good chance to remember his rules and tactics.

Characters: (10)
—Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) Threat: 4
Black Cat (Felica Hardy) Threat: 3
Bullseye (Benjamin Poindexter) Threat: 2
Hood (Parker Robbins) Threat: 3
Modok (George Tarleton) Threat: 5
Mysterio (Quentin Beck) Threat: 3
Ant-Man (Scott Lang) Threat: 3
Lizard (Curtis Connors) Threat: 3
—Crimson Dynamo (Dimitri Bukharin) Threat: 4
Doctor Voodoo (Jericho Drumm) Threat: 4

Tactics: (10)
All According To Plan
Shadow Organization
Hood’s Gang
The Grand Illusion
Monkey Brain Is Lizard Home
Indomitable
Patch Up
Mission Objective
Marked for Death
Cruelty

Secure Crisis: (3)
Super-Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate! (Threat: 20)
Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 (Threat: 17)
Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest (Threat: 15)

Extract Crisis: (3)
Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (Threat: 19)
Research Station Attacked! (Threat: 16)
Struggle for the Cube Continues (Threat: 17)

I had decided to go back to Criminal Syndicate for this event as I’ve always had a lot of fun with them. I took Lizard this time as he’s a perfect fit for Kingpin’s leadership being mobile, hard to kill and having a nice character throw to get people off objectives. I brought Ant-Man to synergise with the Gamma Wave crisis as his mobility allows a very cheeky play to get an early lead on the scoring when played with Kingpin. I’ve also been trying out Crimson Dynamo as he loves the tight brawls that Criminal Syndicate want to play; he has a beam attack which can hand out Shock (making it harder for me to get damaged in return) and can use his Disruption Field to really stymie incoming attacks. Not only that but he’s quite tough to damage with his good defences and armour; he has been a great splash character.

Game 1: Kai playing X-Force

For the first game I got paired up with Kai. Kai is new to MCP but I’ve seen them around before playing Warmachine; I was looking forward to finally getting to play together. I knew that this was going to be a good one when I put down Crimson Dynamo and Kai shared some cool fluff about the character from his comic appearances. Kai won priority and sensibly picked his Secures but I drew Research Station which is as good as a Secure for me and so I knew that I could draw this into a central brawl.

Extraction: Research Station Attacked!
Secure: Riots Spark Over Extremis 2.0
Threat: 16
My team: Kingpin, Bullseye, Hood, Mysterio, Crimson Dynamo
My cards: All According To Plan, Hood’s Gang, Indomitable, Patch Up, The Grand Illusion
Kai’s team: Cable, Colossus, Wolverine, X-23
Kai’s cards: Dirty Work, Fastball Special, Pretty Sneaky Sis, Wolverines, X-Ceptional Healing

Round 1: I’ve got a pretty simple plan here – march down the middle escorting the Researcher to the far extraction point and not die in the process. I’m hoping that X-23 will be esnt off to deal with one of the side objectives to keep her out of my hair while I control the other three off the scoring points in the middle. We end up having the most sedate round 1 ever, in that everyone walks to various objectives and no-one attacks. I was a little surprised to see Kai put Wolverine on duty sitting on the right flank objective; 4 threat is a lot to dedicate to a single point per turn when your attacks are short ranged enough that you can’t contribute to the main business. The score is 4 – 2 to me.

Round 2: Cable opens fire on Crimson Dynamo and Incinerates him. Hood plays Hood’s Gang but fails to do even a single point of damage to Colossus; he didn’t even roll any hits to trigger Rapid Fire. X-23 also tears into Crimson Dynamo but can’t bring him down so Hood pays for Patch Up. Kingpin pushes Colossus away from the fray and throws X-23 to make sure that the Researcher is mine. Colossus tickles Crimson Dynamo before Mysterio moves him away. Wolverine and Bullseye twiddle their thumbs out on the edges and Crimson Dynamo beams some of Kai’s team to apply Shock but not a lot else. The score goes to 9 – 3 in my favour.

Round 3: Cable plays Dirty Work on Crimson Dynamo but doesn’t manage to get him. In return he beams through most of the X-Force team, dazing Cable and leaving Colossus on a single wound. X-23 claws Crimson Dynamo also down to one wound before Bullseye does what he does best, plinking Colossus’s final wound to daze him. The rest of my team push X-23 around a bit but can’t daze her, however it doesn’t actually matter as I get over the line at 16 – 4.

Kai was a lovely opponent but unfortunately this ended up being a bit of a mismatch in terms of how much experience we had in the game. Hopefully they’ve learned well and this will give some food for thought as to how to approach roster building and team building. For example, Kai could have taken Honey Badger and set the Jonathan The Unstoppable token on that objective on the right rather than paying to have Wolverine twiddle his thumbs on it. I look forward to another game when Kai has played a few more matches and has a better feel for the game.

Game 2: Liam playing Cabal

It was inevitable that I’d get matched up with Liam as we’d joked about this before the event. Liam is surely the strongest player in our country and I would have to be on top of my game to stand a chance. He won priority and picked Secures; I went for the lower threat option to limit Liam’s choices if he wanted to lead with Malekith. I think that I have decent game on these crises as Kingpin’s leadership benefits me well on both Extraction and Secure, plus having Black Cat affiliated gives me some fun options to steal the Syringes.

Extraction: Deadly Legacy Virus Cured?
Secure: Mayor Fisk Vows to Find Missing Witnesses
Threat: 16
My team: Kingpin, Black Cat, Bullseye, Hood, Crimson Dynamo
My cards: All According To Plan, Hood’s Gang, Indomitable, Mission Objective, Patch Up
Liam’s team: Malekith, Baron Zemo, Mystique, Black Cat
Liam’s cards: Brace For Impact, Dark Reign, Deception, Follow Me, The Black Bifrost

Round 1: I want to try to keep two of the Syringes and at least one of the Witness each turn to try to rack up a points lead here against Liam as I’m not well suited to out brawl him. I decide to commit Kingpin over on the right knowing that if Liam focuses on the left then I’ll be playing down four points. I think that this is probably worth it for 3 points a turn (if he can hold a Syringe too). Liam passes to start with so Bullseye collects the Syringe on the left. Mystique pulls him in with Deception and guns him down to the box, collecting the Syringe; Zemo moves from the leadership. Hood takes the central Syringe. Malekith comes in and hurts him so Hood transforms to try to stay in the game a bit longer. Zemo, having got the power from Malekith’s leadership in Mystique’s turn, is able to Charge Hood and drop him. Everyone else moves onto the Witnesses; the score is 3 – 2 to me.

Round 2: The attrition is already going very much the wrong way for me here. My plan with Kingpin is OK but I need to find a way to score over on the left which might be easier said that done, especially since two of my characters are already on their injured side. I need to control Malekith somehow and then either daze or displace enough of Liam’s team that I can score the Witness on the left. Mystique hurts Bullseye but can’t finish him this time.. Hood puts a very disappointing Empowered Dark Lightning into Zemo and then plays Hood’s Gang before Malekith KOs him. Mystique pays for Dark Reign on Crimson Dynamo. Bullseye dazes Zemo after very narrowly surviving a counterstrike before Black Cat KOs him. My Black Cat puts Stagger on Malekith with her Troublemaker attack, gets the Elusive trigger to move to Liam’s Black Cat and then improbably one-shots her. That was extraordinarily fortunate for me and allows her to collect the dropped Syringe and also means the Crimson Dynamo has uncontested control over the Witness on the left. We go to 9 – 3 in my favour.

Round 3: If I can keep Black Cat alive then she can basically win the game for me in one go. Otherwise I’ll need to work on attrition and hope to defend my lead while racking up points on the right with Kingpin. Malekith charges into Black Cat and doesn’t finish her off; she plays Indomitable to avoid taking damage from the throw. Then my hopes are dashed as he plays Follow Me into Mystique who makes no mistake, dazing Black Cat with the exact number of remaining wounds. Crimson Dynamo lets fly with a couple of beams across Black Cat and Malekith but it has depressingly little effect. Zemo does little more than scratch his red armour but Liam’s Black Cat finishes the job and dazes him. The score moves to 12 – 7 to me.

Round 4: Malekith plays Black Bifrost. I have two choices here – either set about Zemo, Black Cat and Malekith with Crimson Dynamo with decent odds to drop at least one of them as they’re all quite beaten up already; alternatively I can go with Black Cat to steal both of Mystique’s Syringes and run away. I don’t think that I can get her to safety if I do that so opt for the attrition plan. Crimson Dynamo lights up three of Liam’s team with two attacks each, needing to only do three or four damage to any of them for the daze (or KO). Needless to say, I manage a total of two damage across the six attacks, though at least all three now have the Shock condition. Malekith polishes off Black Cat. Zemo also does nothing useful back to Crimson Dynamo but Black Cat gives him Stagger, triggers Elusive and bounces through the Bifrost and steal Kingpin’s Syringe. She finishes this with one wound left so if Crimson Dynamo had managed to do just a single damage to her then this wouldn’t have been possible as using the Bifrost causes one damage. The score is now 14 – 12 in my favour.

Round 5: Kingpin KOs Black Cat and picks up her Syringe again, the Malekith comes through the Bifrost (also with a single wound on him when he arrives) and dazes Kingpin. My only hope now is for Crimson Dynamo to drop both Mystique and Zemo (the former from full health) with a single attack which, not surprisingly, he fails to do. Mystique hops through the Bifrost and collects the third Syringe, immediately ending the game. Liam wins by 20 – 14.

What. A. Game! That could perhaps have been my favourite game ever of MCP; we both had opportunities to win it. I will forever wonder if I would have been able to keep Black Cat alive had I opted to use her first in round 4 as the dice told me in no uncertain terms that Crimson Dynamo was the wrong choice. I certainly had a few moments of good fortune – notably the highly improbable one-shotting of Liam’s Black Cat in round 2 – but these were also balanced by rolling low on other occasions such as Crimson Dynamo’s torrid attempts to beam the Cabal on round 4. So overall I can’t say that luck was the decider here, and rather I’m glad to have been beaten so narrowly by a player of Liam’s skill.

Game 3: Gavin playing Brotherhood of Mutants

I got paired up here with Gavin; funnily enough he’d beaten Scott in game 1 so it was a bit of an opportunity for ‘avenge me, father!’ style banter. I did win priority this time but oddly our crisis cards were remarkably similar so I decided to take a chance on my Extraction cards as I felt that mine suited me a bit better. In the end we did manage to draw the Secure that I don’t have in my roster so at least it turned out to be a relevant decision. Gavin chose 16 threat (my third game in a row, though in fairness I chose it the last two times!) so I was going to pick the same team as in game one until I realised that most of the Brotherhood picks I expected to see here were quite resistant to Mysterio’s shenanigans and opted instead for the straightforward tankiness of Lizard.

Extraction: Research Station Attacked!
Secure: Demons Downtown! Has Our Comeuppance Come Due?
Threat: 16
My team: Kingpin, Bullseye, Hood, Crimson Dynamo, Lizard
My cards: All According To Plan, Hood’s Gang, Indomitable, Monkey Brain Is Lizard Home, Patch Up
Gavin’s team: Magneto, Juggernaut, Scarlet Witch
Gavin’s cards: Asteroid M, Do You Know Who I Am?, Magnetic Refraction, Makin’ A Ruckuss, Patch Up

Round 1: Well, that’s quite a team. Luckily for me Research Station is quite fast scoring and I don’t think that Gavin can daze my team quickly enough to stop me getting the Research onto the Evac point, so my plan here is just to control Magneto and Scarlet Witch by throwing them away from the scoring points and then just do my best to keep the damage from Juggernaut in check. This scenario is likely to end up looking like a group of five-year-olds playing football so if I’m careful I might possibly be able to simply body block Juggernaut off the points. Crimson Dynamo moves onto the Researcher and Juggernaut strolls up and slaps a beefy five damage into him. Scarlet Witch stands on the back point and dazes him easily. Magneto uses Asteroid M to get to the middle and throw some damage out there but ultimately I’m happy to just sit my characters on the Researcher and bank the points. The score is 4 – 1 to me.

Round 2: Magneto throws everything he has at Lizard and leaves him on one wound. Crimson Dynamo applies Shock to Magneto and Scarlet Witch, pays for Patch Up on Lizard and uses his Propulsion Thrusters to get onto the Researcher again. Scarlet Witch does some more damage to Lizard who survives and throws Magneto away from the action; he follows this up by gently tickling Scarlet Witch and Juggernaut. Juggernaut plays Do You Know Who I Am? to get rid of the annoying Lizard, but he plays Indomitable to stay in the same awkward position. One swing with Juggernaut’s meaty fists is not enough to drop him either; of course, this kind of toughness is exactly why I have Lizard in my roster. Kingpin dazes Scarlet Witch and Hood moves to the far point so the score moves now to 9 – 1 to me.

Round 3: If I can hold on to the Researcher this turn then the game will be over so I need to either be able to throw Gavin’s models off it or outnumber them there; the other Portals are not really important any more. Magneto goes first and makes short work of dazing Hood. Crimson Dynamo activates and puts Shock on Juggernaut and Scarlet Witch, this also lets him power up nicely to use Disruption Field. Apparently it’s not as helpful as I’d hoped as the pair of them daze Kingpin. Meanwhile Lizard moves up to score the far point including the Researcher and Bullseye comes into the middle to join in the party. The score goes to 15 – 1 to me. Since there is no way for Gavin to stop me scoring at least two points next turn and he’d need to find at least 16, we call it a day there.

Thanks to Gavin for a really fun game. I liked this one as it showcased two very different styles of team – mine was all about not dying and instead scoring the points whereas Gavin had gone for a really tall, really attrition focussed team. Ultimately this worked out the way I predicted – Gavin spent the game blending my villains (even through the defensive tech that I was using) but I spent the game racking up points. I think that if he can find a way to mix the attrition play while keeping the score in sight then Gavin will become a force to be reckoned with and I hope to play him again soon.

Game 4: Stu playing Defenders

For the final game I got another opportunity to joke about family vengeance as Stu had also beaten Scott in an earlier round. We chatted once the crises were decided and decided between us to have a gentleman’s agreement not to use Doctor Voodoo since he was very much the obvious play here; it just seemed more fun to avoid similarities in our teams. I won priority and chose my Secure this time (which is basically the default plan as Criminal Syndicate) as I didn’t really mind any of Stu’s Extract cards, however I think that Alien Ship was probably the one I wanted least of his. Since there was a single Extract it was easy to pick Black Cat, and I also like Mysterio for this Secure crisis as he only needs to get one damage on his victims to move them off the scoring points. I don’t know that Crimson Dynamo is especially good in this scenario but I’d been having a great time using him all day and just wanted to carry on.

Extraction: Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown!
Secure: Super-Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate
Threat: 20
My team: Kingpin, Black Cat, Hood, Mysterio, Crimson Dynamo, Lizard
My cards: All According To Plan, Hood’s Gang, Indomitable, Mission Objective, Patch Up
Stu’s team: Doctor Strange, Hulk, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, Lockjaw
Stu’s cards: Brace For Impact, Heroes For Hire, Last Minute Save, Patch Up, Pentagram of Farallah

Round 1: I’m not really interested in getting the Core here unless it happens to be in the centre; instead my plan is to sit on as many of the Secures as possible and score this out quickly before Hulk flattens my whole team. If (or, more likely, when) Stu finds the Core I’ll try and get it off him with Black Cat; otherwise she’ll mainly be on duty to Stagger Hulk. Mysterio starts us off in the middle but doesn’t find the Core; Valkyrie similarly fails to find it on the left. Lockjaw teleports Hulk forward (which is rather scary) and Crimson Dynamo is able to Shock Hulk before he comes in for a surprisingly anaemic attack on Mysterio which is followed by a Gamma Leap to the unoccupied back left point. Lizard strolls onto that point to make sure it’s now mine. Over on the right, Doctor Strange finds the Core on his first try. I’m not getting it off him any time soon but I will get all the Secure points as Luke Cage, Kingpin and Black Cat take up position. The score is 5 -2 in my favour.

Round 2: My priorities this turn are to relieve Doctor Strange of the Core and to keep control of as many Secure points as possible. I also need to mitigate how much damage Hulk can do. Black Cat doesn’t have enough power to steal the Core yet so I need to either hope she takes a small amount of damage from Luke Cage or somehow do a bit herself which is not something to rely upon with 4 attack dice. We start out with Valkyrie and Hood bouncing off each other on the left though the latter does put up Hood’s Gang. Luke Cage attacks Black Cat which would be good as I want some power on her but is actually really bad as he one-shots her. Today has not been kind to Black Cats! At least he doesn’t have anything useful to do with his second action. Lizard pushes Lockjaw away from Hulk and Mysterio uses Tricks and Traps for a little damage and so he can slightly reposition further from Hulk. Lockjaw throws some terrain at Mysterio before he in turn uses Hypnosis Gas to walk Hulk away twice. It doesn’t help though, as Hulk just comes steaming back in and easily dazes Mysterio. I guess he had that coming. Crimson Dynamo dazes Lockjaw in return, then Doctor Strange has the least effective turn ever, failing to damage Kingpin (and therefore move him) on either attack. Kingpin is too far away to attack anything and I’m quite happy with him scoring his point so he just moves up and throws Cage off the back right point. The score goes to 9 – 4.

Round 3: I steal Priority with All According To Plan since Mysterio has enough power to pay for it on his own after the beating the he received from Hulk. Since Black Cat is similarly powered up I can go with her to steal the Core from Doctor Strange. She starts off with a Troublemaker into him since I can hope for a cheeky wild Elusive too but Stu cleverly plays Heroes for Hire and so it’s Cage who takes the hit and then throws her away. I didn’t even get Elusive! Luckily she still has enough speed with her Long move to get close enough to steal the Core, Grappling Hook back to the Secure and then use Kingpin’s leadership to pass the Core to him. Good work Black Cat! This shows one of the cool things about MCP – once your character gets dazed they usually have enough power to get a turn of doing their Cool Stuff afterwards. On the other side of the board, Valkyrie is sick of Hood’s nonsense and dazes him easily, though she’s too far away from Lizard to attack him too (and he’s too big to throw anywhere). Crimson Dynamo beams through Lockjaw and Hulk for a rather disappointing amount of damage, though he is putting Shock out all over the place which is handy, plus he’s swimming in power for Disruption Fields later in the turn. Lockjaw puts Interdimensional Blood Hound on Mysterio and Crimson Dynamo; Mysterio moves Hulk and Lockjaw away until the former comes back in and dazes Crimson Dynamo even through all the defensive tech. Lizard throws Valkyrie off her point and Doctor Strange follows up his total failure last turn with more of the same by failing to hurt Black Cat. Kingpin just ends up passing since Cage can’t get to him, though he can get to Black Cat and KOs her in revenge. The score moves to 14 – 5, apparently it was so exciting that I forgot to take a photo.

Round 4: All I need to do here is either keep hold of the Core (easier said than done when Hulk is jumping about the place) or hold two of the objectives. I decide to try to drop Lockjaw first to limit Stu’s options so Crimson Dynamo sets about him and Hulk with the beam but again doesn’t achieve a lot apart from powering himself up. Hulk tries to throw Crimson Dynamo away and I play Indomitable to stay there; he goes for a Hulk Smash but Disruption Field gets me out of jail by making him reroll the wilds for the throw. Eventually Hulk just has to Gamma Leap to Kingpin but he doesn’t get much work done through Disruption Field and Intense Physical Conditioning. Hood dazes Valkyrie on the left which more or less guarantees me the game (in retrospect I’m not really sure why I didn’t do that first) and Doctor Strange continues to roll terribly in his attempts to down Kingpin. Mysterio KOs Lockjaw and moves Hulk further away. We end it there at 19 – 6 to me; no photo again because for some reason everyone was desperate to get the board tidied away.

I really enjoyed playing Stu again, and I also have to thank him for the loan of some crisis cards for the day. Superpowered Scoundrels is a Secure where Criminal Syndicate really excels and Stuart spread himself too thinly to hold back my scoring options. I like the way that he used Hulk to bully the centre; even with all the nonsense that Crimson Dynamo and Mysterio can apply they weren’t really doing much more than keeping him busy. Stu didn’t make much use of the very-annoying Defenders leadership ability and I think that would have been worth looking into a bit more, but I think that he’s quite new to playing the affiliation. My heart also goes out to him for the dice he got from Doctor Strange; even with rerolls from the Eye of Agamoto (except against Black Cat, of course) I don’t think that he did any damage at all this game; that said he did also spend the whole game just sitting in the middle of nowhere, not scoring and allowing me to use the crisis special rule to get cover for free.

When the dust settles I somehow come in second place, presumably because of the Strength of Schedule boost that comes from only losing to Liam who, perhaps not surprisingly, came out as the overall victor. More importantly Scott had a terrific day out and finished in a highly respectable 12th place with 2 wins and 2 losses; actually the same record as Gareth except that the latter was top of the 2-2 bracket with a ridiculous Strength of Schedule after two brutal games in the end with Grant and Adam. Thanks to Kai, Liam, Gavin and Stu for four really enjoyable games of Crisis Protocol, and of course thanks to Allan for running the event. We’ll be back!

Painted Iron Fist

This is the Iron Fist miniature for Marvel Crisis Protocol. He’s absolutely the definition of a glass cannon – not very hard to put down but about once per game he will find himself with enough power to do The Iron Fist attack. There was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth way back when this was first revealed as it has numerous riders, one of which is to hand out an Activated token. However, in practice I find that this isn’t actually that big of a deal as it generally also adds a Dazed token (or KOs the victim, depending on game state) so having any other conditions isn’t really relevant. Iron Fist also shares the Heroes For Hire card with Luke Cage which allows one of them to take an attack for a friend and then throw the attacker away afterwards. There was a time locally when Iron Fist and Heroes For Hire seemed to be everywhere but things seems to have calmed down a bit more lately.

I assume that the dragon here is intended to be Iron Fist channelling whatever mystical nonsense it is that gives him his superpowers, but it’s quite hard to look at the miniature and not think that he’s just planning to hit his foes with a giant sock puppet. I quite enjoyed painting the dragon, though I’m still in two minds about whether it would have been better to make it more fire-y so it looked more like a magical effect; in the end I split the difference by painting the trailing bits on the ground as fire. Iron Fist himself was fine to paint, though I’m not very happy with how the tattoo on his chest has turned out; when painting I felt that it swung between too dark and too light and never reached the correct middle ground.

Next on the painting table: Skurge.

Marvel Crisis Protocol video battle report: Asgard vs Winter Guard

Another of the Marvel Crisis Protocol games I’ve recorded with Allan has made it onto YouTube. Don’t do what I do if you want to win a game, I don’t think I can recall ever having played as badly as this! It was a fun game though.

Painted Drax The Destroyer

Here is Drax The Destroyer, another member of the Guardians of the Galaxy affiliation for Marvel Crisis Protocol. Drax is very tough and has a really cool attack where he hits harder the more damage is on him; when added with another mechanic where he can get a Vengeance token on someone who attacks him and spend it to do even more damage he can punch quite nicely when needed. He is also one of the very few members of the affiliation with any kind of control options other than just doing tons of damage to whatever is before them. I don’t often see Drax in tournament Guardians rosters and I theorise that it’s because he’s more about tanking and control than everyone else and so doesn’t fit particularly well into the game that they want to play. My friend is testing out a control-heavy Wakanda roster that we think suits him quite well so perhaps he’s just another one of the characters who plays better outside their home affiliations.

I’m really pleased with the way that Drax’s skin has turned out. I wanted it to be the bright green and red of the comics rather than the drab grey from the MCU and I’m delighted with the results. I took advice from Kuribo and others and did a bit of extra work with orange on the red strips to ensure that it pops nicely and I feel that the contrast between the green and red has worked just how I intended it too. I’m not so keen on the colour of Drax’s trousers – I wanted to follow the box art where he has this colour but in retrospect I think that a much darker colour might have been a better option. I’m not about to change it now so it’s just going to have to stay that way until I get used to it.

Next on the painting table: Iron Fist.

Marvel Crisis Protocol tournament report: MCP Monthly Mayhem 22Oct2022

Another day, another Marvel Crisis Protocol tournament – it might be a long time since I posted about my previous event but actually this one took place the following day. Allan kindly gave me a ride down the A1 to Protech Games in Stockton so that we could have another four games of this fantastic system.

Characters: (10)
—Thor, Prince of Asgard (Thor Odinson) Threat: 5
Enchantress (Amora) Threat: 4
Heimdall, The All-Seeing (Heimdall) Threat: 3
Loki, God of Mischief (Loki Laufeyson) Threat: 4
Skurge, the Executioner (Skurge) Threat: 3
Valkyrie (Brunhilde) Threat: 3
Bullseye (Benjamin Poindexter) Threat: 2
Hood (Parker Robbins) Threat: 3
Winter Soldier (James “Bucky” Barnes) Threat: 3
—Malekith The Accursed (Malekith) Threat: 7

Tactics: (10)
Odin’s Blessing
Rainbow Bridge
Brace for Impact
Patch Up
Hood’s Gang
Meet My Executioner
Sibling Rivalry
Mission Objective
Dark Reign
Midnight Phantasmagoria

Secure Crisis: (3)
Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians (Threat: 17)
Mutant Madman Turns City Center Into Lethal Amusement Park (Threat: 18)
Portals Overrun City With Spider-People! (Threat: 18)

Extract Crisis: (3)
Fear Grips World As “Worthy” Terrorize Cities (Threat: 18)
Struggle for the Cube Continues (Threat: 17)
Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan (Threat: 17)

My roster was the same as the day before; I didn’t see any particular reason to change it and anyway it would have been more likely that I would forget to pack any changes! So the plan is just the same really – make the most of Asgard power to use pay-to-flip Secures and bully people with Malekith.

Game 1: Graeme playing Asgard

I won priority and chose Secures but actually there wasn’t a lot to pick between our rosters here. This became obvious when Graeme and I picked almost exactly the same team. We had a quick chat and agreed that since this was a tiny tournament and not Serious Business we would rerack with a gentleman’s agreement not to pick the obvious Malekith-based roster. My revised roster was intended to spread chip damage across Graeme’s team with throws, Rapid Fire, and Forfend attacks.

Extraction: Fear Grips World As ‘Worthy’ Terrorise Cities
Secure: Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians
Threat: 17
My team: Thor, Heimdall, Skurge, Valkyrie, Hood
My cards: Brace For Impact, Hood’s Gang, Odin’s Blessing, Patch Up, Rainbow Bridge
Graeme’s team: Thor, Angela, Enchantress, Skurge
Graeme’s cards: Indomitable, Meet My Executioner, Odin’s Blessing, Patch Up, Recalibration Matrix

Round 1: Usually on Hammers we end up with two apiece at the end of round 1 so my goal was to use my extra activation to hopefully keep the majority of the Origin Bombs. My Skurge takes the Hammer and Bomb on the right and Graeme’s Thor does the same on the left. I charge Thor with Valkyrie figuring that I can hope to get a single damage on him to then allow a flip of that Secure. Predictably, this doesn’t work out and Valkyrie is left just standing in front of a Hammer-wielding demigod. The Enchantress takes the central point and Heimdall takes it back. Angela picks up the far Hammer and re-flips the central point. My Thor picks up the last Hammer and hits Angela; he also puts Shock on her but since we’re playing Asgard that won’t last long. Skurge comes into the centre and gets shot a few times by Hood for his troubles. The score goes to 5 – 2 to Graeme.

Round 2: Most of the fighting looks to be in the middle so I need to find a way to flip that point. Graeme’s Skurge starts us off by hitting Heimdall. I go with Hood first, not that I particularly need him but I want to put Hood’s Gang into play early on; he does good work and drops Skurge. Enchantress moves Thor around and gets a nice beam attack on him and Heimdall. Valkyrie rolls like a hero and drops Thor, collecting his Hammer in the process. Annoyingly though, this run of luck doesn’t extend to flipping the point over there and I’m left ruing her missing even a single success. Thor fails to drop Enchantress and Skurge finally deals with her. Meanwhile Heimdall and Angela trade ineffective blows and I continue to miss taking that central Origin Bomb. The score is 9 – 5 to Graeme.

Round 3: This is running away from me and I need to get some points off the Origin Bombs or Graeme will just score the game out regardless of my good attitrional position. Enchantress moves Thor into a neat line, steals his Hammer and beams him, Heimdall (who uses Odin’s Blessing) and Hood before using Patch Up on Angela. Not a bad activation by anyone’s standards. Hood uses Patch Up on Thor who tickles Angela rather ineffectually and flips the central point; in return she dazes Heimdall even though I take the first hit onto Skurge. My Thor uses Brace For Impact to avoid a throw from her too, and she flips that centre Origin Bomb right back. Hood pumps a few shots into Skurge who dazes my Skurge in turn. Valkyrie does some nice damage on Graeme’s Thor and throws him off the point; he steams back in and hurts her back. The score moves to 15 – 6 for Graeme.

Round 4: I’m going to need a staggeringly good round here to avoid losing the one point that Graeme needs to see out the game. Thor gets us off to a good start by finally dazing Angela and taking her Hammer. On the left, the other Thor dazes Valkyrie and picks up her Hammer. My Skurge polishes off Enchantress and takes her Hammer, but critically Graeme’s Skurge runs off with his Hammer into the distance. I don’t have enough to get both Thor and Skurge so that’s basically it for the game. I finish us off by having Heimdall play Rainbow Bridge to get over and KO Thor. We finish up at 16 – 12.

What a close game. I think that the dice overall were quite even but I was cost dearly by constantly failing to flip the central point and even more so by Valkyrie not rolling even a single success on the left in round 2 – as it turned out was the difference between victory and defeat. Graeme played smartly and made the moves he needed to make – it would have been tempting for him to get stuck in with Skurge in the last round but running off with his Hammer was absolutely the right move. I think that if I was going to play the game again I would have been quite happy to use the same roster and make broadly the same attrition choices. The big building just to the left of the centre was actually really awkward to play around (until it got thrown away) as I think that I probably wanted Heimdall to sit in that area and give Valkyrie the benefit of rerolls.

Game 2: Zoe playing Guardians of the Galaxy

There turned out to be an odd number of people in the tournament so rather than have a bye for one of us each round, one of the people working in the shop got subbed in. Not a bad way to get paid! As a result I was paired up with Zoe, using a borrowed (but beautiful) Guardians roster; I had the impression that her game in round one had just been getting her back up to speed with the game after a long break. Zoe also didn’t have a set of Crisis cards set up so we just picked two of mine in the interests of getting a game in; as with Graeme in the previous round I was happy to ‘fly casual’.

Extraction: Struggle For The Cube Continue
Secure: Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians
Threat: 17
My team: Thor, Heimdall, Skurge, Valkyrie, Hood
My cards: Brace For Impact, Hood’s Gang, Odin’s Blessing, Patch Up, Rainbow Bridge
Zoe’s team: Star Lord, Gamora, Groot, Nebula, Rocket Raccoon, Lockjaw
Zoe’s cards: Crew of the Milano, Daughters of Thanos, Deadly Duo, Medpack, We Are Groot [I know that Medpack is not in the current rotation but it wasn’t going to be a big deal]

Round 1: Zoe gives Winging It tokens to Gamora, Nebula and Rocket. I’m going to lean hard on attrition here as there are too many Guardians for me to rely on getting scenario points in the early game. Rocket takes the Cube on the right and Skurge does the same on the left and flips that Bomb. Gamora goes to the left but fails to reflip that Bomb; Heimdall somehow finds himself with a free run at the centre and takes it happily. Star Lord takes the right point and Thor gives him Shock (but no damage) for his troubles. Valkyrie charges Gamora for no damage and Lockjaw eventually throws something at her followed by Nebula zooming in to zap her. Poor Valkyrie. The score is 6 – 2 to me.

Round 2: Zoe gives Winging It tokens to Gamora, Lockjaw and Rocket. I think that Thor can stay quite safe on the right as only I have a way of throwing that massive building, so my plan is to try and clear out some of the Guardians on the left as a priority and keep the pressure on the Origin Bombs. Valkyrie needs to go first since she’s been pretty badly beaten up already and she makes a good go of it, dazing Nebula and throwing Gamora into Lockjaw. Gamora comes back into Valkyrie – I take the first attack on Skurge but it’s not enough (and Skurge doesn’t have the needed power to do it again) so Valkyrie goes down on the second swing. Skurge dazes Gamora into return and throws more terrain into Lockjaw, who I guess is feeling rather put upon by now. Star Lord zaps Thor rather ineffectively due to the Shock and Thor dazes him in return, though he fails to flip the Bomb needing a single success on four dice. Rocket rolls very poorly and does no more than tickle Thor; Heimdall returns the favour by totally failing to hurt Groot. Lockjaw puts a bit of damage onto Skurge before Hood guns him down and Groot makes short work off Heimdall. Fortunately I was able to hang on to the Origin Bombs so the score goes to 12 – 4 to me.

Round 3: I forgot to note who got Winging It tokens this time, or maybe we just forgot about them entirely. I just need to hold on at this point as I’ve got a good score and a big leg up on attrition. I go with Hood first and fail to deal with Nebula; he does at least play Hood’s Gang and uses Patch Up on Skurge. Nebula uses Daughters of Thanos and the combined attacks KO Valkyrie and force Odin’s Blessing out on Skurge. Over on the right Thor KOs Star Lord and dazes Groot by repeatedly throwing the latter into the former. Rocket uses Medpack on himself and dazes Thor but doesn’t pick up any of the fallen Cubes. I assume that Zoe didn’t want him dazing from Cube damage. Skurge KOs Gamora though there was a very worrying moment when he needed the reroll from Hood’s Gang to avoid dazing himself from Martial Prowess. Heimdall saunters around on the right and collects the fallen Cubes and we finish up at 19 – 5 to me.

Thanks to Zoe for a very fun game. We took it very casually and the score is a reflection of the gulf in experience playing the game, so I think that there isn’t a lot to be learned here. It did feel like a properly superheroic game with heroes and buildings being thrown around left and right; I hope that Zoe enjoyed it as much as I did.

Game 3: Jack playing Criminal Syndicate

By this point Allan and I were on the same record so before the round was drawn I asked the TO if we could be kept apart – neither of us was going to win the event or lose it outright, and it is rubbish to have a six hour round trip just to play someone you can meet up with any time. Needless to say the first pairings did indeed put us together and in the redraw I got Jack. I won priority and picked Secures again just in case he was planning to use Kingpin; Jack chose 20 threat so I figured it was time to bring out Malekith. For the third time in a row I draw Origin Bombs.

Extraction: Alien Ship Crashes in Downtown!
Secure: Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians
Threat: 20
My team: Thor, Heimdall, Valkyrie, Bullseye, Malekith
My cards: Brace For Impact, Midnight Phantasmagoria, Odin’s Blessing, Patch Up, Rainbow Bridge
Jack’s team: Shadowlands Daredevil, Baron Zemo, Crossbones, Iron Man, Mystique, Wolverine [now that I come to write this out, I think that the team isn’t actually affiliated so I guess I must have made a mistake in my notes]
Jack’s cards: Cruel Tutelage, Follow Me, Helios Laser Bombardment, No Mercy, Shuriken Arashi

Round 1: I’m not particularly keen to find the Alien Ship so my intention here is just to beat up Jack’s team until there isn’t enough of them left to contest anything. I put Malekith in the middle with the plan to take the central Origin Bomb and sweep to whichever side needs more support. I pass with my first action and Mystique then finds the Core in the centre… that’s going to change the game up a bit! Bullseye flips the right point and Zemo comes over to flip it right back. Malekith dazes Mystique and takes the Core while also taking the central point, not a bad activation at all. Wolverine flips the left point while Valkyrie’s time finally comes as she charges Zemo, dazes him in one hit and flips the Origin Bomb back to me. Thor fails to flip the left point and Daredevil pokes him a bit for his troubles. Iron Man goes for the central point but fails to flip it over. The score is 5 – 0 to me.

Round 2: This is feeling quite good for me – I’ve already dazed two of Jack’s characters and I’m holding the Core with one of the hardest characters in the game to get it away from, not to mention that Jack’s heaviest hitters are nowhere near him. My plan is to keep Malekith safe and continue to press on attrition; I can live with letting the Secure slip for a turn if I’m still holding the Core. Thor starts us off, he drops the Ninjas but otherwise has a fairly anaemic turn. Daredevil has a similarly useless activation, returning the Ninjas to play but otherwise bouncing off Heimdall. Valkyrie shows him how it’s done by KOing Zemo while Crossbones comes in and dazes Bullseye. Heimdall dazes Daredevil and uses his spender attack to push Wolverine away from the fight and finally flips that left Bomb. Wolverine comes back over and dazes Heimdall but can’t get the point back with Thor standing on it. Malekith leaves Mystique on a single wound; she pumps gunfire into him in return and Iron Man uses the world’s least effective Helios Laser, only getting a handful of damage through on Malekith and leaving him clutching the Core. The score goes to 10 – 0 to me in a ridiculously bloody round.

Round 3: I can’t see Jack coming back from here without extraordinary good fortune; the plan remains basically the same. Malekith finishes Mystique off, uses Midnight Phantasmagoria to push Iron Man away and heal a tiny amount and then chews a few more wounds off Iron Man. Daredevil uses his area attack and I have to play Odin’s Blessing to keep Heimdall alive. He follows this with Shuriken Arashi into Thor which improbably leaves my leader on one wound after some awful dice from Jack. Thor dazes Wolverine and leaves Daredevil clinging to life. Iron Man moves back to the centre and Valkyrie leaves Crossbones on one wound – it’s amazing how often that seems to happen. He hits Bullseye but can’t one-shot him so gets dazed by Parting Shot; Bullseye moves to the centre to Patch Up Malekith. Heimdall finishes off Daredevil and Jack has seen enough; we call it a day at 15 – 0.

That was a game that was decided right from the start when I was able to get the Core onto Malekith and daze Mystique. We both had some pretty insane attack dice, particularly in round 2 but I think that they were perhaps quite close to even across the course of the game. I felt that Jack’s team was a bit unfocused and that his cards were all in the ‘nice to have’ rather than ‘win the game’ category, though maybe I wouldn’t have said that if Shuriken Arashi had dazed Thor toward the end. Full credit to Jack though, he didn’t give up and kept pushing to keep in the game even up to the end.

Game 4: Danny playing Brotherhood of Mutants

Once again I get drawn into Allan and we get a quick reshuffle to avoid each other. I’m delighted to be paired up with Danny as I’ve met him around at a few previous events but never actually been able to play together. By this point I’m on my eighth game of the weekend so I just go with a fairly simple line up that will let me stand around and shoot people without too much worrying about fine positional play. Our Crisis cards are remarkably similar so even though Danny wins Priority it doesn’t actually matter too much in terms of what game we’re playing.

Extraction: Fear Grips World As ‘Worthy’ Terrorise Cities
Secure: Mutant Madman Turns City Centre Into Lethal Amusement Park
Threat: 18
My team: Thor, Heimdall, Loki, Hood, Winter Soldier
My cards: Brace For Impact, Hood’s Gang, Odin’s Blessing, Patch Up, Sibling Rivalry
Danny’s team: Mystique, Juggernaut, Rogue, Iron Man, Lizard
Danny’s cards: Deception, Do You Know Who I Am?, Helios Laser Bombardment, Mission Objective, Patch Up

Round 1: This has the air of a game where the default position will be for us to score equally as we move through, so I need to find a way of breaking this. Overwhelm the left by repeatedly throwing Juggernaut into Rogue using Thor while just trying not to give up too much on the left. Rogue and Hood start us out by taking the right and left Hammers. Mystique uses Deception on Hood and shoots him so he transforms to move backwards and keep away from Iron Man. Winter Soldier and Iron Man collect the remaining Hammers and head to my left. Meanwhile the rest of our teams flip the various Traps and Thor throws a Shock onto Juggernaut. The score is 4 – 4.

Round 2: I’m still looking to keep it a bit cagey on the left and put my efforts into fighting on the right so I can hopefully take Rogue’s Hammer or the far right Trap. Mystique starts us out by hurting Heimdall. Thor puts Stagger onto Juggernaut (he can shake it easily but it affects order of operations a little) and applies Shock to Rogue. Juggernaut uses Do You Know Who I Am? to throw Loki away and flips the near right point. Winter Soldier dazes Iron Man before Rogue charges into Thor, drawing both Brace For Impact and Odin’s Blessing out of me. At the time, I thought that this was a mistake as it allowed Hood to charge into Lizard, hit him with one Hammer, pick up the second and hit him again with both. But the dice side with Danny as this onslaught does no damage to Lizard and he one-shots Hood in return to collect both of them. Heimdall also fails to scratch Lizard’s thick hide but Loki decides to turn up the heat by dropping Juggernaut to one wound remaining then reflipping that Trap. The score goes to 9 – 7 to Danny.

Round 3: We make a rules error here and play it that the damage from the Trap is in the power phase meaning that Juggernaut is dazed this turn, but actually he should have dazed at the end of round 2 and flipped ready to go again here. That should give me enough room to recover on the right and try to match up the scores again after Hood’s disaster on the left. Iron Man hits Hood with a 14 dice Helios Laser which somehow fails to finish him off, but a follow-up Repulsor Blast does the job. Thor puts everything he’s got into Rogue but, as is traditional, leaves her on one wound. He does take that far Trap but he takes it back. Heimdall continues to tickle Lizard before Mystique dazes him and plays Patch Up on Lizard. Loki dazes Rogue and Lizard throws Winter Soldier off the back left Trap but unluckily fails to flip that Trap. The score is now 13 – 11 in Danny’s favour.

Round 4: I need to take back control on the left otherwise Lizard will pretty much just win the game on his own by holding those two Hammers. Danny also realises this so Dr Connors flips the Trap and double moves away from any chance I have to stop him. That’s essentially game but we play it out anyway. Thor hurts Juggernaut and Rogue badly but can’t drop either. Iron Man KOs Heimdall with a single attack but Winter Soldier can’t do anything to Lizard. Juggernaut dazes Thor before Loki KOs Rogue; both flip nearby points. Danny sees the game out by 17 – 15.

That was a fun game but it felt a bit frustrating. I actually commented to Danny in round 2 that Hood failing to hurt Lizard before being dazed and hence giving up two Hammers was going to be the deciding moment of the game and I think that it turned out to be so. Danny played a good game to beat me here, and even us getting the rules wrong for Juggernaut and the Mutant Madman card in round 3 didn’t actually end up helping me… though to be honest I would have felt bad if I’d won because of that. I wonder if I might have been better to keep Hood in his normal form when Mystique attacked him in round one as he might then have been able to play Hood’s Gang which could have been huge. On the other hand, he might have just been dazed straight out by Iron Man so it’s hard to be sure.

When the dust settles I’m in midtable security/obscurity with 6th place out of ten players. It was a fun way to spend a day and I’d like to thank Graeme, Zoe, Jack and Danny for four fun games of MCP, Anth for running the whole event and of course Allan for driving us all the way there and back. I shall return… probably using a different affiliation again.