Marvel Champions: The Organizingening

 

Bookstooge McLeod, better known as the Immortal Lowlander, realized that he'd been sitting on his bonnie backside far too long and that it was time to Enter The Games once again. When he opened his shed to get his gear, he realized what a flipping mess it was and decided his time would be better spent organizing things. THEN he could go to The Games.

All of THAT was simply not going to fit into the standard plastic shell the game came with.

There were a plethora of options. Several companies made inserts specifically for Marvel Champions. Sadly, most of them were of the balsa wood or foam variety that needed to be glued together following a manual. Bookstooge MacLeod was a WARRIOR, not some lowly manual laborer. It was below his honor to do such work. Plus, he wasn't very good at it anyway. BUT HONOR! Remember, that's the important part. Thankfully, Feldherr & Associates didn't hold HONOR! as important as MacLeod did and thus they provided him with a nice premade plastic organizer. Well done, peasants.

With many life counters, little status cards and tokens galore, the Lowlander knew it was imperative to get the little things taken care of first.

 

Now that all the piddling stuff was out of the way, it was time to GET SERIOUS! Let the Sleevening Part II Begin!
*insert lightning strikes!!!!

Each Hero Pack came with a 40card premade deck built around the hero on the cover. There were also 10-20 additional cards that allowed you to grow your general collection or to modify the premade deck. That's over 300 cards just for the Hero Packs right there. There are 53 cards in the Green Goblin scenario pack and 60 in the Wrecking Crew scenario pack. Therefore, if you do the math correctly, I ended up sleeving between 400-500 cards. Thankfully, Mrs Lowlander was willing to help, even with her broken arm. What a trooper!

 

By the end, I was able to fit everything except the Wrecking Crew scenario pack into the box. That was easily remedied by taking out a hero deck and a villain deck. I put them into a deck box (pictured on the right) and everything now fits into the marvel champions coreset box. Everything is grouped by Hero, Villain, Aspect and Scenario, so creating a deck is simply a matter of taking out which hero I want, which aspect cards I want (along with any basics), which villain and which villain scenario. Very modular.  My only issue was that getting the sleeved cards into the trays was a tight fit. They still fit, but they would have fit easier unsleeved. If I hadn't trained myself over the years to sleeve every game card I use, I'd probably say "phooie" and let them be. They aren't valuable after all. 

There Can Be…..
…..Only None!

Marvel Champions: The Playening II

Bookstooge MacLeod, also known as the Immortal Lowlander, once again assembled his Hero’s deck to face the villainous Rhino!

Knowing that being all schemey/weemey wasn’t his thing, The Lowlander chose She-Hulk to do some serious face bashing!

With the help of Aggression cards like Relentless Assault, which took out a minion AND damaged the Rhino enough to kill his first iteration, things were looking pretty good.

Finally, with the help of 2 Tac Teams, I simply sniped Rhino down to 3 health and beat him to death with one final attack by She-Hulk. It was a brutal slugfest with almost no worrying about scheming. She-Hulk pretty much stayed in hero form so the Rhino had no time to scheme.

The downside was that she was down to 1 health by the end and I gambled everything on the final draw of the villain deck being a flop. To be honest, I got lucky.

This took me a while but mainly because a lot of the cards were new to me and I had to read them and figure out how they worked together. I plan on using the same deck next month and hoping to have a slightly different game with less immediate face bashing. I’d like to experiment using some scheme thwarting. But until then, remember:

There Can Be…..
…..Only None!

Marvel Champions: The Deckening II

Today we will be talking about how to construct the Villain Deck. Last month I showed how to create your Hero Deck using the cards from the coreset box. While it was a simple process for someone used to constructing decks in various other card games, it might have been a little overwhelming for people who have never had to do that before. Thankfully, constructing the Villain Deck is MUCH easier. There are a lot less individual choices to make. While this might sound like a bad thing, it really makes everything much simpler, especially as the focus of the game is on the Hero.

Today, I will be walking you through constructing the Villain Deck using the villain Klaw.

As you can see highlighted in yellow with the big yellow arrow pointing to it, Klaw comes with a set of 21 cards that form the basis of the villain deck (called the Encounter Deck in the rule book).

Along with these cards, you will also add to the Villain deck the Hero “Nemesis” cards that come along with the hero. If you had chosen Spiderman, you would have a set of “Spiderman Nemesis” cards, once again highlighted in yellow. Each set of cards is named and numbered, making it very easy to keep them together.

Next, you would choose two Module sets to complete your Villain deck. Once again, each is numbered and labeled, making it very easy to assemble a Villain deck when you open the box. I chose the “Standard” and “Legions of Hydra” modules.

So to recap, you will add all the following together to create your Villain deck.

• Villain card set
• Hero Nemesis set
• Module set x2

And that is that. Shuffle up, set your Villain aside, and set the Villain’s Main Scheme (included in the villain set of cards) aside and you’re ready to start playing. I hope that was easy to follow and made sense. If not, well, I guess there’s no hope for you, hehehehe 😉

Next month I am hoping to do another Playening post and to do a walk through of the high lights. But until then, remember:

There Can Be…..
…..Only None!

Marvel Champions: The Deckening I

The last couple of posts explained, in simplified terms, the rules of Marvel Champions and the various steps each Hero and Villain went through for each round of the game.

Today, and then next month as well, I’d like to look at how the decks are constructed. This is a necessary bit of knowledge because while the Spiderman and Captain Marvel decks as well as the Rhino Villain Deck, are preconstructed, should you desire to play with any of the other heroes from the box, you will need to construct a deck yourself. This might seem complicated if you’ve never done any sort of deck construction before, but thankfully, the rules walk you through exactly what to do and I’ll be showing the various parts with pictures.

Today, we will just deal with constructing your Hero Deck. In the base set (the big box), there are 5 Heroes to choose from.

• Spiderman
• Captain Marvel
• Iron Man
• She-Hulk
• Black Panther

I will be choosing Spiderman today and using him and his cards as an example.

Once you choose your Hero Identity, there are a set of cards automatically associated with that Hero. You will see this on cards down in the lower right of the card. On the card below I have boxed in “Spiderman” in yellow with a big yellow arrow pointing to it. The number next to it means there are 15 cards in total associated directly with Spiderman.

Also associated with each Hero are a set of “Nemesis” cards. You will not be using these to construct your Hero deck, but need to keep track of them for when we construct our Villain Deck next time. I have once again boxed it in yellow with a big yellow arrow, hopefully making it easy to see. The numbers once again indicate how many of these cards there are, making it easy to group them together should you ever spill the box or have your cat knock it off the table, or even have your children play along with you.

The next part of the deck is your Aspect. In Marvel Champions, there are four Aspects to choose from:

• Justice
• Leadership
• Aggression
• Protection

Once again, there are specific cards associated with each Aspect, making it easy to choose the correct cards. These are found on the lower right of the card, just like the Hero Cards. While a bit blurry, the card below is a “Justice” card.

The Next part of a Hero Deck are the pool of Basic cards. This is group of cards that you can mix and match and add to your deck to bring it up to the requirements of deck building.

Some cards are generic and some are unique. If a card is generic, you can have up to 3 copies of it in your deck. If it is unique, you can only have 1 copy of it. You can tell a card is unique because of the Diamond symbol next to the Title/Name, as pictured below.

The above are all the parts you’ll need to create your personal deck. A Hero deck must have a minimum of 40 cards and a maximum of 50.

• One Hero Identity Card (doesn’t count towards the limit)
• All of the associated Hero Cards
• One of each card from a particular Aspect
• Additional cards from the Aspect you have chosen
• Additional cards from the Basic card pool

By the time you are done, you will have created a deck of 40 to 50 cards with which to play. Next time we will look at constructing the Villain Deck. And remember folks….

There Can Be…..
…..Only None!

Marvel Champions: The Explainening II

Today class, I, Sensei Bookstooge, will attempt to beat some facts into your head in the vain hope that maybe one, just one, will remain there. I am not hopeful. But a player of the game, one who is seeking The Championening, must ever strive against nigh impossible odds.

We will be focusing on the Villain Play Area today. Last week, we looked at the Hero Play Area and I hope some of that has stuck in your head. If not, simply nod and pretend. The most important parts of the VPA are the Villain, the Main Scheme and the Encounter Deck.

The Villain!

Main Scheme!

There are two ways to lose the game and one way to win. The one way to win is to defeat the Villain. But you have to do that twice. The first time you defeat him, you replace him with his next iteration, which is usually slightly better than the previous iteration. The two ways to lose are by having the villain and his minions kill you (the hero) OR for the Main Scheme to acquire the number of tokens shown in the upper left corner of the card. A threat token is placed there each turn, so it is something you have to deal with at some point. During the villain’s phase, you go through the following steps in order.

• Place threat token on Main Scheme and any Side Schemes
• The Villain and Minions attack the Hero or add a threat token to the Main Scheme if the Hero is in Alter-Ego mode
• Deal and Reveal an Encounter Card (the top card of the Encounter Deck, ie, the villain’s deck)

When a villain or minion attacks the hero, you reveal the top card from the Encounter Deck and add the value of the boost icons to the villains attack value. The boost icons are the red triangles in the lower right of the card. The following card is a Minion card and has 2 boost icons. So if Rhino attacked me, and I flipped Titania, I’d add 2 to the Rhino’s base attack of 2 for a total of 4.

If you are in alter-ego form, you follow the same procedure but for adding threat tokens to the scheme. So once again, if I flipped Titania, I’d add 1 threat token from Rhino himself (1 SCH) and then 2 more from the boost icons on Titania.

Not Gru’s Minion, that’s for sure!

Once the attack/scheme is done, then you would flip the top card of the Event Deck and follow directions. For instance, if I flipped Titania as my Encounter Card, she’d immediately attack my hero. Along with Minion cards, the Event Deck also has Treachery cards (that is something bad that happens to the hero), Attachment cards (attaching to the villain and increasing their attack/thwart capabilities or even giving them a whole new ability) and Side Schemes (one more headache for the hero to deal with). So while the Villain Phase might seem to have less steps, it’s just as complicated and tricksy as the Hero Phase.

Well, I think that’s enough Explainening for you all. I hope to get back to more Playening posts next month.

There Can Be…..
…..Only None!

Marvel Champions: The Explainening I

The Eternal Lowlander, Bookstooge MacLeod, realized that most of the “sheep” of his flock were dumb as stumps and wouldn’t understand a word he uttered. Which could be a problem as he had vast swathes of wisdom to impart. Thus the Lowlander, in his pursuit of the Championing, decided that some “splainin to do” was necessary. You all might not be named Lucy, but take these drops of wisdoms and cherish them.

Today, we shall be going over the Player Play Area, it’s various parts, phases and phrases used and some general “This is what it all means” kind o’splainin. That way, when I talk about things in future posts, there is at least a 10% chance you’ll know what I’m saying 😉

The most important part of the PPA (player play area) is your Hero and their Alter-ego. Both of these are on one card and you can flip between them once per turn. The next most important part of the ppa is the deck. From it you draw your hand, draw cards in general and use in a variety of ways.

The game is played in a series of Rounds, which consists of a Hero Phase and a Villain Phase. Today’s post will just be about the Hero Phase. During the Hero Phase, you can perform the following

• Change Form – flip your hero to alter-ego, or your alter-ego to hero. You can only do this once per round.
• Play an “Ally”, “Upgrade” or “Support” card. You can do this as many times as you have resources in your hand to pay for them.
• Use your alter-ego’s Recovery Ability, or your hero’s Attack or Thwart ability. You must exhaust your hero/alterego to do this (turn it sidewise. it can no longer “do stuff” until it becomes un-exhausted)
• Use an “Ally” to attack the Villain or thwart their Scheme. The same “exhaust” action occurs for allies as for your hero.
• Trigger an “Action” ability on a card in the ppa.

Once you have finished all of these steps, you declare you are done and complete the following steps

• Discard any number of cards in your hand (or discard down to your hand size if you drew a bunch of cards during the turn)
• Draw up to your hand size (as stated on the bottom left of the Hero/Alter-ego card)
• Un-exhaust all your cards

It is now the villain’s turn and we’ll be going over that next week, in this same format. I realize this is pretty much just an explanation of some of the rules, but the terms used are ones I’ll be using whenever I do more Playening posts. Hopefully it will enhance your understanding of the posts, if not your enjoyment. If it doesn’t, don’t worry. I’ll just send War Machine after you to put you out of your misery.

There Can Be…..
…..Only None!

Marvel Champions: The Playening I

The Day Has Arrived. Bookstooge MacLeod, better known as The Lowlander, was the only warrior left in the whole world who could take on, gasp, The Game! He had spent months preparing for this moment. History, nay, possibly the very existence of the human race would be decided in this clash of the Titan(anic ego)s. Did he triumph, did good overcome evil and smash its face in?

Well, let’s just say it’s a REALLY good thing the fate of the world was NOT hanging in the balance.

I actually played two games. Both with the premade hero and villain decks that the set came with. First I played Spiderman and fought against the Rhino trying to break into SHIELD. That was an utter disaster. Rhino literally stomped all over me and completed his scheme of breaking in, which won him the game.

The second game I chose Captain Marvel and went up against the Rhino again. Spiderman’s deck was a tricksy “Justice” deck that relied on cards combo’ing off of each other to get things done. Cpt Marvel was an “Aggression” deck and relied on powerful attacks, just my style of play. I beat the snot out of Rhino for the first couple of rounds. I destroyed his Version 1 form and had his Version II (not pictured) on the ropes. I had Hulk out and between him and Cpt Marvel, they did a world of damage. Of course, Hulk disappeared after one turn, but he got his licks in. I thought that was going to be good enough. Then in one turn Rhino attacked me for double his usual amount and the Encounters were both Minions that attacked me. There was literally nothing I could do but sit there and get punched in the face, time after time after time. The last minion was a puny little 1 Attack guy but since I was only at 1 health, that’s all it took. It “felt” like I had been pummeled and it really gave me the vibe of getting stomped by a super villain.

In one sense, it was incredibly frustrating. I was still dealing with looking at cards and figuring out all the various symbology’s of everything (anywhere from 3-6 on the cards shown above). I also had a quite a few questions as I played. Thankfully, Spalanz was available on WhatsApp and was able to answer them all, but without him I’d probably have just made up my own rules about the situation without ever knowing if it was actually correct or not. I hate playing games that way. I want to know the rules and know how to apply them, correctly. That’s just how I’m wired 😀 Another thing is that a lot of the text and symbols are hard for me to see because of my eyes and I was doing a lot of squinting, which gave me a head ache. So from a purely enjoyment standpoint, the games were complete and utter failures. I did NOT enjoy myself. BUT!

I almost never enjoy things the first time around. I don’t do well with new situations or new rules, etc. I know this about myself. I like familiar things, things I am comfortable with, things I already know. Like pizza. Faced with the choice between a frozen Red Baron cheese pizza or homemade Kzaxistonian kreetled spinoralash, I’ll choose the pizza every single time.

I did not hate the game mechanics of Marvel Champions. That means that I need repeated playing to become familiar with it and THEN I’ll start enjoying it, thoroughly I suspect. It is just going to take time. So expect some more Playening posts as I learn the game and figure out what in the world I’m doing. In many ways, I feel like Spiderman just after he got his powers. Everything is new and weird and I just don’t know what is going to happen next.

Which is really good for me. I need to be shaken up every couple of years. I don’t want to stagnate on any level.

As I end this post, I’d like to leave you with that famous phrase from The Lowlander, the one everyone knows and repeats, even if they don’t know what it means. Think about it and apply it to your own life. You won’t regret it.

There Can Be.....
..... Only None!

Marvel Champions: The Acquisitioning

So, somebody had a birthday this month. And somebody requested the First Cycle of Marvel Champions. And what is more, somebody got the cycle too. Somebody is a lucky rat barstard. And he’s obviously devilishly handsome to boot!

I made out like a bandit this year. At this time in my life, gifts are becoming harder and harder as I have most of what I already want. But introducing a new hobby has introduced new things to acquisition (hence the title) and this make it easier to send out lists for the family. I got the Base Game for Christmas and finally got it Sleeved Up earlier this month.

• The Green Goblin scenario pack
• Wrecking Crew scenario pack
• Thor hero pack
• Captain America hero pack
• Ms Marvel hero pack
• Hulk hero pack
• Dr Strange hero pack
• Black Widow hero pack

Now that I am the proud owner of the first cycle, Let the Playening Begin! Well, maybe next month. Wouldn’t want to rush into anything now, you know? 😉