It’s time for another Marvel Crisis Protocol tournament hosted by Allan at Common Ground Games in Stirling. Scott and newcomer Akos travelled with me to Stirling for a tournament with a slight difference. This event required that the rosters all be single affiliation with an allowance of one Rogue Agent (or Punisher, who at the time of the event being organised wasn’t affiliated anywhere); smaller affiliations like Sentinels or Winter Guard were allowed to take both Rogue Agents and Punisher, while oddities like Dark Dimension and Hellfire Club weren’t allowed.
For a variety of reasons in my real life I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to get games in ahead of this event so I fell back on my ‘comfortable pair of slippers’ affiliation: Criminal Syndicate. I had been considering Avengers simply because they have so many affiliated characters that there is a lot of scope in how to play, but Scott suggested a Kingpin-centric roster and I agreed that it would be a good solution. In addition, I did think about a very late switch to X-Force following the recent balance pass but decided that playing them with zero practice games would be a poor idea. The roster here is pretty simple – I take Kingpin as leader and then use mobile elements like Ulik and Rhino to sit on Secure points and hope that I score enough points to win before I run out of characters. The Crisis Cards are intended to be fast scoring widely spread maps to avoid getting into too much of a brawl as I’m not really set up to go head to head vs full attrition teams. Having a fully affiliated team should increase the relative value of Shadow Organisation as now my entire team is eligible to pay for it, so I’m planning to try it out – in my experience it’s a cool trick but I don’t have the power to spare for it.
Characters: (10)
—Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) Threat: 4
—Shadowland Daredevil (Matt Murdock) Threat: 4
Black Cat (Felica Hardy) Threat: 3
Bullseye (Benjamin Poindexter) Threat: 2
Hood (Parker Robbins) Threat: 3
Mysterio (Quentin Beck) Threat: 3
Rhino (Aleksei Sytsevich) Threat: 4
Ulik (Ulik) Threat: 5
—Klaw (Ulysses Klaw) Threat: 5
Omega Red (Arkady Gregorivich Rossovich) Threat: 4
Tactics: (10)
Advanced R&D
Brace for Impact
All According To Plan
Cruelty
Shadow Organization
Hood’s Gang
The Grand Illusion
This Is A Robbery
Eyes on the Prize
Mission Objective
Secure Crisis: (3)
Cosmic Invasion! Black Order Descends on Earth (Threat: 16)
Infinity Formula Goes Missing! (Threat: 17)
Super-Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate! (Threat: 20)
Extract Crisis: (3)
Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (Threat: 19)
Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan (Threat: 17)
Struggle for the Cube Continues (Threat: 17)
Game 1: Gordon playing Defenders
The first game is into a fairly new player who is packing the recently-improved Defenders. I win the Priority roll and, while I could have happily played into any of his Secures, I do pick my Secures just for a sense of Criminal Syndicate form; Gordon goes for the lower threat value which will make scoring both the Researcher and the Ambush points quite tricky as I’m not really set up to go very wide. On the plus side, if he takes Hulk then he won’t be too wide either. I suppose that I’m expecting to see the new Daredevil leadership as he’s the new hotness. I would normally use Rhino here but decide that Shadowland Daredevil will be a better pick as the Ninjas can contest the Researcher, plus using Rhino feels like a bit of a waste without getting the use of This Is A Robbery.
Extraction: Research Station Attacked!
Secure: Superpowered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate
Threat: 15
My team: Kingpin, Bullseye, Shadowland Daredevil, Ulik
My cards: Advanced R&D, All According To Plan, Brace For Impact, Cruelty, Shadow Organisation
Gordon’s team: Doctor Strange, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage
Gordon’s cards: Brace For Impact, Heroes For Hire, Pentagrams of Farallah, Recalibration Matrix, Trip Up
Round 1: I nominate Kingpin as my leader, and slightly to my surprise Gordon picks Strange as his. I’m not expecting to do any attacking other than with Ulik here, I just want to sit on my side of the board and the centre point, then send Ulik bouncing off to inconvenience someone. Bullseye plays Advanced R&D to pass a power to Ulik and then strolls onto the back left point; Iron Fist takes a spot opposite him. My Daredevil sits on the back right point and sends the Ninjas into the middle where Gordon’s Daredevil makes short work of them. Kingpin goes into the centre; I figure that Gordon can either push him off with Strange or contest it but probably not both. Luke Cage takes the back right point and Ulik does a Crushing Leap to push him off. He also throws some terrain at Daredevil who pays for Brace For Impact. Strange moves up but rolls quite poorly (which will be a recurring theme in this game) into Kingpin who reduces to zero to avoid both the Hex and the push. The score is 6 – 1 to me.
Round 2: Well that went rather nicely. I need to control Iron Fist so that he can’t get two goes of his spender out across the whole game. Otherwise I can settle into attrition here and see if Strange’s control is enough to keep me off the points. Bullseye plinks Iron Fist a couple of times. Cage uses Sweet Christmas on Ulik, throwing him into my Daredevil (I pay for Brace For Impact on both) and giving him a suite of annoying status conditions. My Daredevil attacks his and totally fails to hurt him, then Iron Fist bounces ineffectively off Kingpin who swing back and also can’t do damage, though he does at least push him away. Daredevil moves to contest the centre and goes for Bullseye but the terrible attack rolls continue so he achieves nothing apart from taking a Parting Shot for his troubles. Ulik comes for Daredevil but the first swing bounces off him and Gordon plays Heroes For Hire on the second which throws Ulik off the point; nice play Gordon! Finally Doctor Strange pushes Kingpin clear of the centre. The score swings back a bit and it’s now 8 – 6 to me.
Round 3: Now that Heroes For Hire is out of the way I can start to pressure Gordon’s lack of control (other than Doctor Strange) and focus on sitting on the objectives. I need to deal with Iron Fist since he’s fully revved up now but even if I lose Priority from this I can get it back with All According To Plan. Bullseye spots that Iron Fist has just two wounds left so that’s an easy choice to daze him. Strange pushes Ulik further away (a mistake in my opinion as Ulik is so mobile; he should have pushed Kingpin further) and moves across to heal Luke Cage. Kingpin just double moves and throws Daredevil into Strange as Gordon is out of realistic ways to move him. His Daredevil moves to score after another fairly ineffective swing into Bullseye and mine gently pokes Luke Cage; the Ninjas appear and fail to hurt Strange. It’s been a weird game for attack rolls. Cage ends the Ninjas again but rolls terribly on a Sweet Christmas attack into my Daredevil, failing to get any damage or the throw. Ulik rather boringly just moves to score the back right point and (briefly) clears Hex. The score swings right back in my favour; 14 – 7.
Round 4: I just need to hang on to two points here and I don’t think that there is enough on the board to stop that unless the dice go crazy. The safest are probably the back two which currently have Bullseye and Ulik on them but Ulik is quite mobile so I have options. Iron Fist pays for his big attack into Kingpin and, as usual, it doesn’t apply Activated but instead applies Dazed! Bullseye dazes Daredevil in return. Strange moves to push Bullseye and gets surely the worst dice I’ve ever seen – he blanks out his attack, rerolls with Eye of Agamotto into more failures, then pays for Recalibration Matrix and still can’t get a success. My Daredevil leaves Cage on one wound and the fight back is also not enough to daze. Ulik comes over to daze Doctor Strange, though I could have just left him where he was as the game was clearly up by then. We finish at 18 – 9.
Many thanks to Gordon for a fun game, and full credit to him for staying chirpy even when the dice were truly awful. I flatter myself that I would have held on to win even if the luck had been a bit more even, since my plan didn’t really require me to do much fighting, but you never know how much the dice can swing things. I was satisfied that my basic plan was working; Gordon frequently had to spend actions walking back to the objectives which blunted his damage output a little and my mobility was generally good enough to be where I needed. That said, Kingpin really hats getting pushed around by Doctor Strange (or anyone else) and I spend a lot more time walking with him than I’d like.
Game 2: Derek playing Defenders
You wait ages for a Defenders game, then two come along at once! Actually it was no surprise to see Derek playing Defenders as they’ve long been his main affiliation so I’m keen to see if he sticks with what he knows or tries out the new Daredevil option. Derek wins Priority and chooses his Secures; I choose the lower threat value as I think that my core is tighter than his and I don’t want him to have too many toys to work with. Rhino and Black Cat are slightly less good in Skrulls as they can only hold a single one each, but I’m keen to see how Black Cat gets on after her rules change. Plus I figure that having a long mover on a D map is always helpful.
Extraction: Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership
Secure: Cosmic Invasion! Black Order Descends On Earth
Threat: 16
My team: Kingpin, Black Cat, Rhino, Ulik
My cards: Advanced R&D, All According To Plan, Brace For Impact, Shadow Organisation, This Is A Robbery
Derek’s team: Doctor Strange (Soul stone), Iron Fist, Valkyrie, Wolverine
Derek’s cards: Brace For Impact, Heroes For Hire, No Matter The Cost, Patch Up, X-Ceptional Healing
Round 1: I start with Rhino in range of the nearest Cosmic Vault but it doesn’t give him any power. My plan for round 1 is to stay even on the Skrulls and sit on three Vaults to score them. There might also be a possibility to drop an extra Skrull if I can get This Is A Robbery off. Iron Fist moves up and takes the left Skrull and Kingpin takes the right. Valkyrie just double walks over to Kingpin; I did ask afterwards why she didn’t Charge him and Derek explained that he wanted to keep the power for next turn. I send Ulik in to get the nearer of the central Skrulls but my positioning has been very poor and he can’t get to it in one move which rather leaves him stranded. Wolverine comes in and collects the last Skrull. Black Cat gives Rhino a power with Advanced R&D before moving to score the left Vault. Strange just moves onto the back Vault where I hope he’ll stay for the rest of the game. Finally Rhino has to walk twice to get in range of Wolverine then pays for This Is A Robbery. I don’t have enough power to pick up the Skrull but it stops Derek scoring and also crucially punts Wolverine away and hopefully keeps him out of my hair for another turn. The score is 4 – 2 to me.
Round 2: Iron Fist gets moved by the Cosmic Vaults. I’m assuming that Derek will send someone in to collect the Skrull that Wolverine dropped, although that will leave them isolated in the centre. I need to get some help for Black Cat before Iron Fist wrecks her on the left. I’m quite happy with Valkyrie and Kingpin tackling each other on the right so I can either move back to safety with Ulik or send him to mess with the Defenders depending on how the rest of the turn goes. Derek actually starts with Valkyrie who helpfully bounces off Kingpin without much effect. This gives me the opportunity to pick up the fallen Skrull in the centre with Rhino. He gets moves and Derek chooses to bring him forward so I use the big chap to give Iron Fist a beating, both dazing him and getting onto the left Vault thanks to Rhino’s extraordinary mobility. Wolverine just double walks into the middle to set up for next turn. Black Cat collects Iron Fist’s Skrull, gets pulled forward and then moves as quickly as possible toward my back point; however she can’t quite make it to the Vault. Strange zaps Ulik a couple of times, pulling him forward so Ulik obliges by jumping the rest of the way and dazing the pesky wizard. Finally Kingpin returns the favour with Valkyrie by failing to make any big impact on her. The score goes to 11 – 2 to me.
Round 3: No-one gets moved by the Vaults this turn, and I play All According To Plan. Number one priority is to deal with Iron Fist, which I think Rhino can manage. Otherwise I just want to play keep-away as much as possible and ride out the score to the end. Rhino does his work, KOing Iron Fist by throwing the portacabin at him – that’s a huge relief as it also takes Heroes For Hire out of the equation never mind not having to worry about him nuking someone. Doctor Strange finishes Ulik and collects his Skrull and Kingpin dazes Valkyrie over on the right. Wolverine rolls rather disappointingly against Black Cat to leave her alive; she wants no part of that so she gratefully walks onto my home Vault to see out the game. We finish up at 17 – 4.
Derek is always a fun chap to play and this was certainly no exception. I felt that I had a rather disappointing start; first I’d mispositioned Ulik so he couldn’t get the nearer Skrull in one move and then I’d compounded that by leaving him in the exact spot that I wanted Rhino to stand; this stopped him from being able to make an attack into Wolverine which might have gained me the power to collect the Skrull in round one after playing This Is a Robbery. Otherwise the game went in my favour; Derek was a bit too cagey and he really needed to be trying to apply as much damage as possible with Iron Fist, Valkyrie and Wolverine to counteract Kingpin’s leadership.
Game 3: Dave playing Defenders
Now this is getting ridiculous! I’m genuinely facing the possibility to get four games in a row against Defenders. I win Priority and pick my Secures, though I could have lived with any of Dave’s Crisis cards so it didn’t matter too much. Dave chooses 20 threat, so at least the game will be rather different from the first one against Gordon despite having the same Crises. I decide to bring in Omega Red for a change; he used to be a staple of my Criminal Syndicate rosters but lately I’ve been trying to use more mobile characters since I’m already tied to one slow potato in Kingpin. Mysterio is superficially rather slow too, but he’s actually very mobile once he gets revved up and I think that he works really nicely on a map with a central point like Superpowered Scoundrels.
Extraction: Research Station Attacked!
Secure: Superpowered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate
Threat: 20
My team: Kingpin, Mysterio, Omega Red, Shadowland Daredevil, Ulik
My cards: Advanced R&D, All According To Plan, Brace For Impact, The Grand Illusion, Shadow Organisation
Dave’s team: Daredevil, Hulk, Luke Cage, Taskmaster, Wolverine
Dave’s cards: Brace For Impact, Heroes For Hire, Patch Up, Smash, Brace For Impact
Round 1: I nominate Kingpin as my leader. With no Doctor Strange facing me here I can afford to be a bit less cautious in my movement as I’m unlikely to get pulled across the board and murdered. As with the first game I want to try to hold the centre and two nearer objectives which controlling the Researcher. Omega Red plays Advanced R&D to give Ulik a power, then moves the near right objective. Both of our Daredevils move onto our respective near left points; his also tickles Omega Red while mine sends his Ninjas to the centre. Taskmaster goes to my left and throws a shield at my Ninjas. Mysterio commits to the middle and Hulk comes over to push him away. Ulik joins the scrum in the centre and pushes Hulk back. Wolverine then comes into the middle while Kingpin and Luke Cage both go left. The score is 5 – 2 to me.
Round 2: I feel confident on the back and central points to ideally I want to try to pin Dave’s team back a bit here; I also move the Researcher toward my own back left point. I send Daredevil and the Ninjas over to attack Taskmaster; Cage takes one swing and anyway I don’t really do anything substantial. Cage then drops Daredevil in two swings despite all his cool defensive tech and I’m feeling a bit more fragile. Omega Red pulls in his Daredevil, swings twice for no damage and gets countered twice for two damage each through his armour. Good work Arkady. Hulk slaps Ulik around a bit and I Brace the throw into Mysterio; I’m glad that Hulk has gone so early as I have a bit less displacement to worry about for the rest of my turn. Ulik lays into Wolverine and draws out X-Ceptional Healing and Mysterio moves to the Researcher and uses Hypnosis Gas to move Wolverine away. Daredevil doesn’t even bother to deal with Omega Red, and instead comes in for Mysterio but he’s able to move away with Tricks and Traps; instead he dazes Ulik. Kingpin fails to hurt Daredevil and I take yet more damage from Man Without Fear, eventually I settle for just throwing the irritating lawyer away. Taskmaster comes into the fray. The score goes up to 9 – 3.
Round 3: Attrition is starting to get away from me a bit here but I think that I still have enough in the tank to score this out before I run out of wounds if I’m a bit careful about how to attack. I mainly want to be focussing on displacement over raw damage. Mysterio starts by paying for The Grand Illusion which should make my life a bit easier this turn. Sadly it doesn’t help Ulik who totally whiffs on Hulk, although he does at least push him away. Hulk hurts both Ulik and Kingpin before throwing Mysterio away. My Daredevil attacks Luke Cage to bring in his Ninjas then pays for his area spender which dazes the Cage after he taunted one attack away from Taskmaster. His Daredevil dazes Omega Red and moves toward the centre; annoyingly Mysterio rolls zero successes on Tricks and Traps when Daredevil has only one wound remaining. Mysterio leaves Wolverine on one wound (on brand as usual!) but does move both him and Hulk away. Wolverine charges back across and hurts my Daredevil. Kingpin unleashes Hail To The King on Taskmaster for disappointingly little damage and then insult is added to injury and Kingpin is dazed by a random shield throw. The score goes to 10 – 4 to me.
Round 4: I need to get more scoring done than that! My focus now needs to be on the Researcher as it’s the one that might actually score me enough to get over the line. Daredevil and the Ninjas hurt Luke Cage (who takes a hit for Wolverine in the process) and daze Taskmaster with Demon’s Devastation. Wolverine puts some tasty damage into Kingpin; Mysterio moves the mutant away but can’t do anything to Hulk this time. Daredevil misses Mysterio and heads back to contest the back right point. Ulik goes for Hulk but only gets a single push to lead Hulk still in danger range. Luke Cage uses Sweet Christmas on Ulik, gets the wild throw and I then roll zero blocks from 5 dice on Mysterio to take exactly the right amount of damage to daze him too. Omega Red uses Ensnare to move Luke Cage into range and Daredevil off the point; his awful dice continue and he fails to do the single remaining wound to Luke Cage on either attack. Hulk then KOs both Ulik and Daredevil and Kingpin throws Luke Cage to finally KO him. The score goes to 14 – 4, but it looks like I forgot the photo in all the excitement.
Round 5: I think that I can get over the line here as only Daredevil is on the right side of the board. It seems unlikely that Dave can catch my points here so I need to keep everyone clear of Omega Red in case he needs to spend round 6 running away. I play All According To Plan and Omega Red uses Death Factor to finally daze Daredevil without having to roll any dice. Hulk leaps to the middle and Mysterio uses Tricks and Traps to move away; Kingpin survives the Hulk attack and runs away. Taskmaster comes to the middle and Mysterio finishes him off, then Wolverine makes short work of Mysterio. We finish up at 16 – 7.
Wow, that was a tight game despite the score line. Dave played well and I think that he had the right idea with prioritising attrition. The contrast between our two Daredevils was stark – mine hardly rolled a single block all game while it took me 5 turns to apply 5 damage to his. Omega Red was a bit unfortunate with his dice in round 2, effectively committing suicide-by-Daredevil without doing even a single point of damage in return. I probably would have had better value from Rhino but at least Ensnare and Death Factor did have an impact in the score. Overall I was very glad to stagger over the line by the end of that one. Well played Dave! It had looked possible that I’d end up with a fourth Defenders player in game 4 but sadly Stu lost his round 3 game so I was definitely going to get a bit of a difference for the last match.
Game 4: Franky playing Avengers
The final game is, finally, not into a Defenders roster – although Franky does have a few Defenders in there just to keep us on theme. I’m really looking forward to playing Franky again as he’s got so much better lately than when I first met him; in fact he hadn’t lost a tournament game for three events in a row so it would be up to me to end his reign of terror! He wins Priority and chooses his Extractions and I again go for the lower threat value as I’m quite comfortable at 16. I’m a bit concerned about this one as Franky definitely has a safe central grab and he can then just turtle up in a corner and force me to do all the running – I lost a similar game to Sam in the summer team event (here). Still, I’m happy with team for Cosmic Invasion so I go for it. I’m expecting Kingpin to get isolated so I’ll have to get a lot of pushing work done from Ulik.
Extraction: The Montesi Formula Found
Secure: Cosmic Invasion! Black Order Descends On Earth
Threat: 16
My team: Kingpin, Black Cat, Rhino, Ulik
My cards: Advanced R&D, All According To Plan, Brace For Impact, Mission Objective, This Is A Robbery
Franky’s team: Captain America (Steve Rogers), Captain America (Sam Wilson), Hulk, Iron Man
Franky’s cards: Avengers Assemble, Brace For Impact, Helios Laser Bombardment, Patch Up, Recalibration Matrix
Round 1: Franky confirms Steve Rogers as his leader; I’ll refer to the two captains as Captain Sam and Captain Steve for ease of reading. Rhino gets power from the Cosmic Vault so there is now a bit of extra jank available. I’m assuming that Hulk will take the central extract with Hulk but I have some extra options now. I will try to steal that middle Book back with This Is A Robbery and get a lead on the Secures, then spend the rest of the game running away from Hulk. Hulk does indeed take the central Book and then retreat to his home Secure. Kingpin gives Ulik a power with Advanced R&D before waddling to the left Vault where I suspect he’ll remain for the rest of the game. Captain Sam uses Charge and throws a couple of shields into Kingpin and Black Cat just picks up my home book and sits on my Vault. Captain Steve picks up the last book and sits on his home objective too. Rhino advances, Stampedes (he might have been in range to attack Hulk if I’d used Stampede first, I must remember that) then attacks Captain Steve. He does manage to get 2 power which is good (but not as good as 3) so he plays This Is A Robbery and throws Hulk away. Iron Man then has to come over to pick up the fallen Book so Ulik decides not to bother with the right Secure and instead slaps Iron Man around a bit. The score is 4 – 2 to me.
Round 2: Black Cat gets moved by the Vault. I want to deal with Captain Steve as he’s somewhat vulnerable now, and otherwise keep looking after my Secures. Hulk leaves Rhino on one wound which is quite fortunate, however the luck goes the other way when Rhino gives Captain Steve all he’s got – which turns out to be almost nothing. Iron Man puts some damage into Black Cat as the Vault has pushed her into range; she runs away before Same can get her. Captain Steve finishes Rhino and gets Hulk to use Patch Up on him. Ulik totally bounces off Captain Steve and fails to move him; looking back I’m not sure why I didn’t just attack Iron Man. Captain Sam moves to the middle. We move to 7 – 4 to me, but it seems that I forgot the picture.
Round 3: No one gets moved by the Vaults this time. I play All According to Plan and I need to make this a good one. I’m going to get stuck into Iron Man with Rhino which is quite likely to do enough to finish him off and give me that Book. That does indeed work exactly as I had hoped. Captain Sam comes over to contest Black Cat’s Secure but can’t finish her off. Captain Steve hurts Ulik who hits him back to push him out of Bodyguard range then lets rip with Shatter Mountains Shatter Bones on Hulk. Franky plays a timely Recalibration Matrix to make me re-roll a successful Activated trigger – good play Franky! I think that might have been the game if I could have Activated Hulk there. Instead Hulk fights back and Staggers Ulik. The score moves to a more comfortable 11 – 5 to me.
Round 4: The Vaults do nothing again (actually I think that we might have just plain forgotten them this round until part way though an activation). I’m in full ‘run away!’ mode now. Captain Sam dazes Black Cat and collects her Book; Rhino comes over to daze him but of course can’t pick up a second one. Iron Man hurts Rhino and moves to score the left point which will effectively keep him out of the game like Kingpin. Ulik bounces off Captain Steve again and gets dazed in return. Hulk crosses the board and throws Rhino off the Secure and we go to 13 – 9 to me.
Round 5. Iron Man gets moved rather pointlessly by the Vault. I need to score this out this round as I’m going to be so far behind on attrition that I’ll never last round 6. If I can drop Sam I might be in with a chance, otherwise it’ll come down to whether Ulik can make amends for his rather anaemic performance with Captain Steve over on the far side of the board. Rhino frustratingly leaves Captain Sam on one wound so Sam picks up that fallen book and runs away. Ulik dazes Captain Steve finally, collecting his book in the process Hulk swithers between attacking Black Cat or Rhino first and eventually decides to start out with a throw. Black Cat rather unhelpfully rolls zero blocks on her dodge and is KOed by a flying Rhino. Needless to say the follow-up attacks make short work of Rhino. Iron Man would need to push Ulik off that far point to keep us going into another round and fortunately he doesn’t have the range to make the attack. We finish up at 16 – 13 in my favour.
It’s always a pleasure to play with Franky and this was no exception. I found this game (and the previous one) quite stressful as these Kingpin games always seem to end with me getting crushed on attrition and hoping to eke out the remaining couple of points to win before I run out of pieces. Franky played quite well and I made quite a few unforced errors – especially sending Ulik after Captain Steve in round 2 instead of Iron Man, who would have been a much more manageable target.
So in the end I’m the only undefeated player (though I should note that Alasdair could have been undefeated too but had to leave during the last round to go to work) so I get to be top of the table. It was fun event, and I enjoyed the slight difference in format with every roster having to be single-affiliation. Scott and Akos both picked up a nice win each so we were all pleased on the journey home. Thanks to Gordon, Derek, Dave and Franky for four fun games of Marvel Crisis Protocol, and of course thanks to Allan for running the whole event.
The Bovine Overlord 
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