One Crisis After Another

 I went forth in search of new converts!

I recently attended a casual gaming weekend, promptly disregarded the 'casual' part and stacked up as many games of Marvel Crisis Protocol as time allowed.

(with only a few pauses to try out Trench Crusade - more on that later, but it's one hell of a game)

As my opponents had only played a few MCP games, or none at all, my job was introducing and coaching as much as playing. I was aiming to bring out the fun side of the game, which wasn't difficult at all.

What follows are summaries as best I can recollect. It's more of a flavour of each game than a full battle report - trying to write up eight different games from one weekend would be madder than trying to play them.

Game 1: Avengers vs Criminal Syndicate

Avengers: Captain America, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Luke Cage, Wolverine

Criminal Syndicate: Kingpin, Rhino, Bullseye, Taskmaster, Venom
Crisis: Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan, Infinity Formula Goes Missing! 

The first game was against Stranger-Come-Knocking, and with a hard-hitting Criminal Syndicate squad, a brawl was always on the cards. I remember Venom and Rhino being particularly hard to deal with, and Captain Marvel having a tough time of it - always getting taken down before she could activate her binary form.

On the flipside, Wolverine had a fantastic debut, Black Widow was able to run around on the objectives and Captain America was his usual robust self. The dust settled with a fraction of a win to the Avengers: 16-15.

Game 2: Defenders vs Spider-Foes 

Defenders: Doctor Strange, Hawkeye, Iron Fist, Moon Knight, Spider-Man Noir

Spider-Foes: Green Goblin, Rhino, Sandman, Venom, Toad

Crisis: Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan, Infinity Formula Goes Missing!

After facing Doctor Strange in recent battles, I brought his Defenders against Rapid's Spider-Foes. The villains began aggressively, racking up an early lead in victory points. Venom went hunting Doctor Strange. who would normally be well-equipped to deal with him, but a lucky So Many Snacks counterstrike dazed him. Elsewhere, Iron Fist went down like a chump, and I quickly stepped on Toad.

The real drama came at the close of the third round as we realised the Spider-Foes were about to hit 16 and immediately win. It was then I regretted splashing Spider-Man Noir - one of the few spider-people with no additional movement, as he swung across to take an objective and fell just short. It ended 16-9 (so it would have been something of a mountain to climb in the fourth round anyway).

Game 3: Cabal vs Avengers

Cabal: Red Skull, Baron Zemo, M.O.D.O.K., Loki God of Mischief, Taskmaster

Avengers: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Immortal Hulk
Crisis: Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership, Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians

Speaking of mountains, the next game was against Vertica's Avengers and The Immortal Hulk. Realistically, I had no way of dealing with the green meanie, so my best hope was to displace or ignore Hulk and win by scoring.

Sure enough, Hulk was kept at bay for the first couple of rounds, but the other three Avengers played so well, he was barely needed. Thor in particular managed to use his area effect to daze most of the Cabal in a single activation. By the time Immortal Hulk did arrive into the fray, he was throwing out 15-dice attacks that just splatted whatever he was aiming at. The Avengers took this one 19-11.

Game 4: Spider-Foes vs Criminal Syndicate

Spider-Foes: Green Goblin, Sandman, Rhino, Electro, Carnage

Avengers: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow
Crisis: Ship Security Breached in Royal Rescue, Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack!

As the next day rolled around, I decided to stick to one affiliation for a couple of games, to see if familiarity would improve my performance. I took Spider-Foes (who may well be my favourite) and once again played Vertica. Due to the change in Crisis Threat, Immortal Hulk was demoted to Regular Hulk (phew) and Black Widow was added to the squad.

I decided to go for an early KO on Hulk - I had the muscle for it and Rhino made a great start by removing half his wounds in a single turn. Electro took off most of the remaining wounds after he zapped his way across the board and Carnage was well-placed for the coup de grace.

Hulk wasn't going quietly - he dazed Rhino and Electro but, crucially, Carnage survived the big punch with a single wound left. Carnage then KO Hulk and began his showstopping performance. Using Paint the Town Red, he healed all wounds, dashed across the board to daze Iron Man. He then used Carnage Rules tactics card to yoink Black Widow towards him and KO her too.

Naturally, this marked out Carnage as a danger. Iron Man and Thor laid into him, but couldn't remove his last wound. So Carnage dazed Thor and KO Iron Man, using Paint the Town Red to remove all his damage. When he woke up, Thor had one more try into Carnage, but he survived on a wound, KO Thor and used Paint the Town Red to remove all his damage. Absolutely ridiculous.

The game was comfortably in the hands of the Spider-Foes, the one remaining Avenger was Captain America, who stood with his back to the wall, tanking every attack with just one wound left.

Everything fell into place with that one, but even without Carnage's mad turn, I had a lot of fun with the Spider-Foes. 19-7.

Game 5: Spider-Foes vs Web Warriors

Spider-Foes: Green Goblin, Sandman, Rhino, Electro, Carnage

Web Warriors: Spider-Man (Miles Morales), Ghost-Spider, Venom, Daredevil, Moon Knight, Ant-Man
Crisis: Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership, Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack! 

The Spider-Foes then took on their nemesis - the Web Warriors, commanded by Jammin, who I had not played before. We picked the Crisis at random, and I think it favoured the Spider-Foes more, as my robust fighters could occupy the valuable 2VP 'Wedding Party' objectives better than the mobile, fragile Web Warriors.

By the end of the first turn, I was 7-0 up and starting to remove models. Even worse, Miles failed his Skrull test and got dragged right into the middle of the Spider-Foes ranks, so their leader was removed pretty quickly. Before Miles left the battle, however, he did managed to vaporise Carnage (who, compared to his previous performance, had a terrible time of it).

The game soon degenerated into a midline brawl, and by the end of round 3, there was very few Web Warriors left. Even the Sand Constructs were starting to KO models. An unlucky combination of dice and scenario for the Web Warriors, but it was a very enjoyable game. 18-7.

Game 6: Spider-Foes vs Guardians of the Galaxy

Spider-Foes: Green Goblin, Lizard, Rhino, M.O.D.O.K.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket Racoon, Groot, Drax the Destroyer, Nebula
Crisis: Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown!, Infinity Formula Goes Missing!

Final battle of the day, and the Spider-Foes were riding high. So naturally they took on my bogey team: Pootle's Guardians of the Galaxy. We were playing a 17 Threat crisis, so I had to tweak my winning team. I also brought in M.O.D.O.K., just because I'd recently painted him.

The game began brightly for me - both Gamora and Nebula stepped a little too far into my lines and both got deleted, mostly by M.O.D.O.K. On the flanks, Star-Lord and Green Goblin fought over one objective; Drax and Lizard contested the other.

M.O.D.O.K. continued to make himself a nuisance, dragging Groot away from Rocket, which allowed Rhino to plough through and daze him. Rocket then jumped back up and gunned Rhino down, but finally fell to Goblin's pumpkin bombs. Things were fairly evenly set until Drax left his flanking objective and managed to KO Rhino in a single hit. That put the pressure back on me, and we had been scoring very slowly in this game, which meant we were getting close to Round 6 and pretty much neck-and-neck on scores.

Star-Lord took out Green Goblin, and elected to stay on his flank and score two objectives. That left the central rush of Drax and Groot against an injured M.O.D.O.K. and a Lizard who had barely got involved. I managed to take out Groot, but couldn't quite muster the firepower to bring down Drax, who chased M.O.D.O.K. and Lizard off the home objective and the final round ended 16-15.

It was the closest game of the weekend, and enormously fun.

Game 7: Uncanny X-Men vs Criminal Syndicate

Uncanny X-Men: Professor X, Wolverine, Iceman, Beast, Nightcrawler, Gambit

Guardians of the Galaxy: Kingpin, Rhino, Electro, Venom, Carnage
Crisis: The Montesi Formula Found, Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack!

A brand new day, and I resolved to give Uncanny X-Men their first run-out, once more against Stranger-Come-Knocking's Criminal Syndicate. Looking at Professor X's leadership ability, I wanted to run a lot of low-cost models with cheap superpowers that could be used to share power among them.

The first round didn't quite go to plan, as Gambit's tentative attack on Venom provoked a full So Many Snacks response that dazed him. On the other side of the board, Nightcrawler was able to land a Brimstone Blitz attack from every angle on Electro and daze him. Professor X's Mental Suggestion sent Carnage back the way he came and with greater numbers in their favour, the X-Men were able to grab an early lead on secures.

The symbiote boys clapped back in the next turn: Carnage returned to his previous position and dazed Beast off the objective. Venom absorbed the mental attacks from Professor X to charge down both him and Gambit. Unfortunately, his attack failed at a critical time, and he wasn't able to drop either of them.

Riding his luck, Gambit hit Kingpin and Rhino with a 52-Card Pickup, dropping both of them with help from Iceman. Wolverine nominated himself to deal with Carnage, but realising that his claws weren't having much effect, instead hit Carnage with one of the mystic spellbook objectives, which did the trick.

The opening turns were brutal, and having so many of their team dazed early robbed The Criminal Syndicate of their natural advantage on Wedding Guests (that their healthy models count double). After that, they were struggling to match the X-Men's numbers - even after Gambit had been removed. By the end of the fourth round, a lot of bodies had dropped from attrition, but the X-Men had secured a strong lead in victory points to win 16-7.

Game 8: Uncanny X-Men vs Spider-Foes

Uncanny X-Men: Professor X, Wolverine, Iceman, Beast, Nightcrawler

Spider-Foes: Green Goblin, Lizard, Rhino, Bullseye, Venom
Crisis: Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding, Infinity Formula Goes Missing!

My final match of the weekend was introducing AlexSEO to Criss Protocol. Fortunately, he wanted to play Spider-Foes, so I had a good understanding of their abilities. I went with the same Uncanny X-Men lest, minus Gambit to accommodate the lower Crisis level (he's a bit too good for an intro game).

I found myself immediately surprised in deployment when Alex loaded up one flank with all the heavy hitters and only left Bullseye to watch the other (and he quickly grabbed the objective and ran away when threatened). 

Rhino barrelled down the centre line to collide with Iceman. Wolverine charged past them to KO Green Goblin in a couple of turns, and Bullseye was hunted down by Nightcrawler. Venom once again zeroed in on Professor X, healing up all the damage he sustained and removed my leader in short order. Beast found himself scoring two VPs on the quiet flank, so wisely kept out of the fight.

As the dust settled, we were close to each other on points, but the X-Men had taken much more of a beating - only Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Beast were left on their feet, against Venom, Lizard and Rhino.

With Venom and Rhino scoring flanking objectives, it was Lizard that saved the day, using his displacement abilities to fling Wolverine and Nightcrawler off a critical objective. In a final Hail Mary to stop the Spider-Foes clinching victory, Beast bounded over to throw Lizard off the objective - only to discover he was too big to throw. The game ended 16-15. Oh, my stars and garters.

Final thoughts

Other than my brain is completely fried from cramming in so many games in such a short space of time, I would absolutely do it again. I got to play with a huge variety of my models, play Crisis Protocol against six different opponents, and I even got to win a few games. Excelsior!