Affiliation Overview: Asgard (updated rewrite)

 

Why should you play the affiliation?

Some would say because winning is fun but that's really not the reason here. Asgard has a lot of cool usually high threat models with high damage potential and, most importantly, a tonne of throws which is the best thing in this game. For both fun and winning games. 

Thor is also just a fan favourite character (for good reason) and you can play: Thor, Lady Thor, Horse Robot Thor, Thor's Step Brother, Thor's former lover(s), Thor's Sister and so on. A lot of them fan favourites themselves. 

How to start the affiliation?

While there is an affiliation pack I would probably not start with that but with the newer four character pack that includes Jane Foster, Thor, Hero of Midgard, Lady Sif and Loki, Prince of Lies. It includes two leaders in Jane and Loki 2, a very good affiliated 4 threat and your very own (possibly slightly overtuned) Kaiju in Thor 2. Next you'll probably want to get Beta Ray Bill and Ulik (unaffiliated). Ulik will probably not make your Asgard roster as it's already loaded with affiliated 5s but he's a great character to own anyway. And Bill will be one of your most played models in the affiliation. 

After that I'd grab the original affiliation pack. It comes with Thor, Prince of Asgard (leader), Valkyrie, Loki, God of Mischief and Hela. Be sure to get Thors and Helas updated stat cards from Jarvis or the AMG website. Both got a nice glow up on 2023. 

Heimdall and Skurge should be next on your shopping list even though Heimdall sadly doesn't really function under any of the available leaders here. 

And lastly you can consider my absolute favourite Asgardian in Enchantress (updated stat card) and another affiliated 5 in Angela. 

What leaderships are available and what is the typical game plan? 

The original Asgard leadership, Prince of Asgard, is a more durability, "anti-attrition" leadership. It keeps your models on their feet longer and makes them less vulnerable to Stagger and Stun which are Asgard's biggest enemy. 

I come bearing gifts is a very good leadership you could use for every attack, defense and dodge roll. You also don't really loose the power spent and instead "pay" it to Loki. The biggest issue with the leadership is, that the Asgardians typically want to spent all their power for their abilities. Be also aware that Loki can't use the rerolls himself. 

Renegade Thor of Asgardia is maybe the leadership with the lowest ceiling but has by far the highest floor as it is the only one without any power cost and not draining your power economy. You'll get the offensive reroll much more often than the defensive one typically because most of your models want to be in the thick of it but you won't ever be sorry to have a free reroll if you meet the conditions. 

Who could be added to the affiliation in the future, especially as leaders? 

With three leaderships out already I doubt we'll see a new one in the near future. Odin himself would be the most likely candidate if he'd ever make it into the game as a playable model. For other characters I think the Warriors Three are by far the most likely to get released and it would surely be on a 50 to maybe 65mm base with one combined profile like the Howling Commandos or the Wrecking Crew. 

Rating every affiliated TTC and Character 

Team Tactics (7)

Doomed Prophecy

B+. This is a card that can both win and loose you the game if used at the right or wrong time and model. It takes some practice to figure it out. 

For a Limited Time Only

C. Spending 3 power on Thor 2 is already a high price considering what he can do with it otherwise and it having to be played during his activation absolutely kills the card for me personally. 

Freyja‘s Blessing

B-. It could help keep a key piece alive but defense dice can and will always betray you and you have nothing to unlock skulls. 

Heart of the Worthy

B-. You'd only ever use the card if you can guarantee another Jane activation wins you the game as you won't usually throw away your 5 threat and most likely leader for a maybe.

Odin‘s Blessing

A+++. Arguably the best card in the game. Only play it when it saves an activation though. 

Rainbow Bridge

A. Incredible movement tech. Don't try to be too smart with it though. If you have one good target for it use it.

Trickster‘s Boon

A-.  Depends on what Splashes you bring of course but for example Bullseye can make a guaranteed VP from it when there's a target in his range that has 3 wounds remaining. 

Characters (13)

Angela (5)

B-. Angela, like in basically all her affiliated places, is struggling to make it into lists because of the other in faction 5 threat choices. Here all three other options are also leaders leaving her very much dead last on that list. She does bring an affiliated safe grab which is at least something but in the end that usually isn't what you really need here. 

Beta Ray Bill (4)

A+. Some might say he is too good and while I wouldn't agree with that as his average damage output is far below 4 threat average but his defenses are also pretty far above the standard. He's a point scoring machine with some added control. Loosing Eyes on the Prize is also a big blessing in disguise for Bill as using the card with him was almost always the wrong play. He is usually just fine on the midline and has his Throw online while being somewhere relevant without it. 

Enchantress (4)

A. Unironcally Amora is fantastic. People that have known her pre her nerf might not see much in her anymore but are plain and simply wrong for it. She has a decent beam, always on Bow, a good terrain throw and a steal. She won't typically live through a lot but she'll have scored and or denied a tonne of points before that. 

Heimdall, The All-Seeing (3)

C. Heimdall's kit simply doesn't work outside a power building (or discounting) leadership. Since he even has to pay for two of the three on offer here he sadly doesn't really fit in the affiliation as is. 

Hela, Queen of Hel (4)

B-. In stark contrast to Bill, Hela absolutely hates the rotation of Eyes. She was by far the best user of the card, especially here in affiliation. Nowadays she kind of struggles for a role. She's a fine 4 threat with decent long range fire support and some added mobility. But seeing what Mummy does with his Souls makes Helas mechanic with them just sad. 

Lady Sif (4)

A. Fast, reliable, durable. She'd be a staple here and should be played more even as a splash if Baron Zero and Shang-Chi wouldn't do her job either cheaper or more efficient. Personally I frequently run her over Bill and have basically never regretted the decision but your milage may vary heavily here. 

Loki, God of Mischief (4)

A-. Classic Loki is such a pain in your opponents butt and he's got a fantastic team up card with classic Thor in Sibling Rivalry (which should have been called get Help). The roster is kind of cramped and he does fight against a leader version of himself so in reality he'll seldomly find his way into an Asgard list but you should at least consider it. I absolutely wouldn't bother sticking a stone on him though even if that makes him a safe grab. He's already weak defensively for a 4, as a 5 this gets completely out of hand. 

Loki, Prince of Lies (5)

A-. Loki 2 is a good model with a good leadership. But just like Klaw he is absolutely based around having his leadership available to him. He'll be a disappointment under the other leaders but he's very good under his own. 

Skurge, The Executioner (3)

B. You can look at Skurge in two ways: He's a bodyguard that is not tanky or he's a good damage dealer that is able to take an important punch unto him even if it kills him. He's not as much a staple of the list for me as he was before the new box but he still has his uses. 

The Mighty Thor (5)

A-. Jane is a very good character overall being tanks, relatively fast with her charge and she adds a good leadership. Her spender is a bit dangerous for your own models and she lacks guaranteed control. 

Thor, Hero of Midgard (6)

A++. Thor 2 is the single highest damage output model in the game. It's not unlikely that he will be touched soon. I think making his Builder a Gainer to avoid having him easy access to the Pounce and the Throw each round could be one way of touching him without overcorrection. He is Thor so he should be good. Just maybe not that good. 

Thor, Prince of Asgard (5)

A+. Thor 1 is awesome. He kind of does everything and is the single best model on Major Fisk, a crisis often claimed to be an Asgard counter. Erich from Austria and I always loved him and he never left our Asgard rosters and it seems that he becomes more popular again with the wider community as well as he has answers to some situations Thor 2 just doesn't. Thor 1s biggest issue was and is his dice consistency. Thankfully you have two leaderships that help with that now. He is the factions second strongest model behind his own 6 threat version and maybe the reason we haven't seen something of a multiverse TTC or something that allows you to take multiple characters with the same alter ego in the squad. Spoilers!!!: Even though that is exactly what Thor did to defeat Malekith in War of the Realms.

Valkyrie (3)

B+. Valk is fast, has decent attacks and some control. In return she has no defenses outside a 6/5 health pool. She's still the affiliated 3 threat of choice most of the time. 

Popular Splash Characters for the affiliation 

Being as they already very tall and covered for 4+ threats splashes in Asgard will usually be of lower threat. Evergreen always good characters wherever you put them like Baron Zemo and Shang-Chi work well here because of course they do. 

Wong (2)

A. While I personally simply can't play Wong well even in his affiliated places there's an undeniable synergy between him and many of the Asgardians needing exactly one extra power to have access to their best abilities. 

Rocket (2) 

B+. Rocket is super cheap long range firepower and back point sitting. He's also harder to bring kill than you'd think. 

Luke Cage (3) 

A. Luke isn't exactly a spicy pick here either of course as he's simply the best 3 threat bodyguard and can protect an important activation of your Thor (which ever flavour you like, Prince, Hero or Lady). 

Example Roster 

Characters (10)

Beta Ray Bill (4)

Enchantress (4)

Lady Sif (4)

* Loki, Prince of Lies (5)

* The Mighty Thor (5)

Thor, Hero of Midgard (6)

* Thor, Prince of Asgard (5)

Valkyrie (3)

Luke Cage (3)

Wong (2)

Team Tactics (10)

Doomed Prophecy

Heart of the Worthy

Odin‘s Blessing

Rainbow Bridge 

Giant‘s Blood

Heroes for Hire

Brace for Impact (R)

Patch Up (R)

Recalibration Matrix

Warpath

Secure Crisis

Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest (E, 15)

Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians (I, 17)

Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse (C, 19)

Extract Crisis

Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown! (C, 17)

The Montesi Formula Found (E, 18)

Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (C, 19)

Comic Recommendations: 

I enjoyed the War of the Realms event quite a bit and the current Immortal Thor run is also very good. 

That's it for today. Next Up: Avengers

If you want to support me in what I do here and get something out of these articles you could consider becoming a Patron at www.patreon.com/sgprotocol 

Thank you for reading and Cheers from Germany 🍻

Affiliation Overview: A-Force (updated rewrite)

Why should you play the affiliation?

Despite her rather bad D+ show She-Hulk is a cool character and the original (and much funnier) 4th wall breaker. And here she is the main star supported by a bunch of awesome strong women that will punch out anyone who dares stand in their way (in theory). 

On the table A-Force are often focused around a bodyguard puzzle you create for your opponent. 

 How to start the affiliation 

Owning either core set is a good thing here. The first purchase specifically for A-Force has to be She-Hulk herself as she's your only available leader. Next up I'd recommend the Wakanda affiliation pack. It comes with Okoye who is basically an every game model here, Shuri as an interesting affiliated 3 threat and useful splashes Killmonger and Black Panther. The dual with Wakanda is also easily done. From here on out you have a lot of choices: 

Gwenpool and Squirrel Girl is a pack with two affiliated models. Every pack after those will come with one unaffiliated model. I would prioritise Black Cat (+ Amazing Spider-Man), Domino (+ Cable), Medusa (+Black Bolt) and Wasp (+Ant-Man) here personally. You'd end up with three universally good 5 threats (all updated in 2023, you find the updated stat cards on AMGs website or Jarvis Protocol) and a super fun to play characters in Ant-Man along with your affiliated models. 

To get an affiliated 5 threat my pick would be the Mighty Thor (Jane Foster) who does come with Lady Sif (unaffiliated but fitting the theme and play style here), Loki, Prince of Lies and Thor, Hero of Midgard. It's a great start to Asgard, too if you want to branch out that way. 

What leaderships are available and what is the typical game plan?

Defenders of Arcadia might very well be my favourite leadership in the game. As long as you can force your opponent to interact with you (which can be hard to do against type 1 teams) you'll gain a massive amount of extra power over the course of a game and that simply makes every character better at what they do, which in turn makes them more fun to play. 

As for game plan A-Force are probably a type 2 most of the time but can, and sometimes have to, pivot to type 1 and play a super wide game without even bringing She-Hulk to the table. 

If they bring her your typical style will be: go grab extracts early and then bunker up and force your opponent to come into your death zone. 

The affiliated models do allow for a type 3 plan in focusing on murder first but you'll have to be prepared to loose your leadership rather quickly that way. 

Who could be added to the affiliation in the future, especially as leaders?

Nico Minuro is the most likely character to be a second A-Force leader. Maybe Singularity herself, too.

Otherwise there isn't a clear pattern of who gets in or not here. Every new releasing female character has a chance to end up here. But A-Force doesn't struggle for good affiliated models. It does for tactical flexibility. 

Rating every affiliated TTC and Character 

Team Tactics (3)

A-Force Assemble!

A. A great card that you'll use in almost all of your A-Force games. Essential for playing a super wide squad that forgoes She-Hulk (and thus a leadership), which can sometimes be the best route to take. 

Special Delivery

A. Out of action and even activation movement and an attack for She-Hulk is always worth it. Just be sure not to drop her into her certain doom. Despite it's super good effect not an every game card. Be sure to have an affiliated flyer when you pick it for your 5! 

Stalwart Determination

A. This turns off a tonne of control for an entire round. Maybe my personal favourite TTC in the game. 

Characters (22)

Angela (5)

B-. Angela is super fast and has decent damage output against smaller targets. Her biggest issue is being rather trivial to take off the board. She is a natural safe grab though, which can sometimes be good to have and she's a Special Delivery target (one of several at 5 threat). Angela isn't bad per sé but she struggles to make a list against the in and out of affiliation competition. 

Black Cat (3)

A+. She's straight up too good. 

Black Widow (2)

A. She's a fast affiliated 2 threat with Stealth and Martial Artist. 

Black Widow, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (3)

B. Maybe the best model you'll absolutely never play. Widow 2 is honestly pretty good with automatic rapid fire, stealth, a sizeless push on her spender, Interrogate and Parting Shot. Her biggest issue is being a Natasha Romanov of which you have two more in affiliation, who are both better at their jobs than Widow 2 is at hers. 

Captain Marvel (4)

B. Classic Carol has a bit of a bad reputation but she's very good here where you can funnel her the power to use her great abilities. The biggest knack I hav against her is that she feels nothing like the Carol you know from the comics and movies. Luckily there's a solution for that: 

Captain Marvel, Cosmic Avenger (5)

B. Cosmic Carol might not be the defacto better Carol but she feels very much like the one you know and love and she works never better than here where you can all but guarantee she'll transform round 2. And using Special Delivery with her Charge is a tonne of fun.

Crystal (3)

B. Crystal is a fast affiliated flyer, so good for Special Delivery, she has decent attacks but falls over dead pretty quickly. 

Domino (3)

A. A fantastic single target damage dealer who is deceptively tanky herself. She struggle to keep up with the rest of the team but that isn't a super big issue. 

Gamora (4)

B. Gamora is fast and deadly. She will not be able to handle any kind of clap back though. 

Gwenpool (4)

A. A terrible character in the comics but an incredible ball of stats in the game. She also comes with an amazing TTC in They Say Keep Your Enemies Close (also useable by Squirrel Girl). 

Medusa (4)

A. Strong offensively, offers control, is tankier than you'd think herself and has a way of moving allies which is especially nice for She-Hulk. 

Okoye (2)

A. Is basically stapled to She-Hulk. You'll never play Jen without her if you have any way to make it work. 

Scarlet Witch (5)

B-. I love Wanda but she struggles to fill a role here. She's showing her age a bit. She has big damage potential but so little action economy that it can be hard to reach that potential. 

She-Hulk (6)

B-. Sadly your main focus here is more often than not a liability rather than a strength. While her offensive output is great she will be withered down much faster than you'd like. Having 3 physical defense and no defensive abilities whatsoever with the added downside of having no injured side where dazing would stop the enemy from focusing you down and you loosing status conditions (incinerate on Jen is a nightmare), is very rough for a 6 threat leader. 

Shuri (3)

A-. A great back point sitter that offers secure control and a reroll bubble. She won't contribute to any attrition herself though. 

Spider-Woman (4)

A. Jess is fast, strong, durable and brings an objective steal on her spender. 

Squirrel Girl (4)

B. Squirrel Girl is an interesting and very unique character. She is fighting with a lot of good 4s here but I'd not fault anyone for including her. She has good attacks with her rerolls and has a built in "I don't die" mechanic which can be clutch late in the game. Her spender is great too. 

Storm (3)

B+. Often overlooked when she's not leading the X-Men, Storm is a good 3 threat in her own right. And here you can funnel her the power to more often throw and Eye of the Storm. 

The Black Widow (4)

A. One of the best characters in the game to run onto the midline and grab an extract and simply not die or at least not having the opponent take it. 

The Mighty Thor (5)

A. Jane and Jen are a new dream team. No other affiliated Flyer will be able to charge earlier in the game. A top of round 2 For Midgard Charge that has a She-Hulk Special Delivery'ed into the enemy face sounds rather nice. 

Valkyrie (3)

B+. Valkyrie is fast and has a high damage potential and some control. She will die rather quickly though. 

Wasp (3)

B+. A super fast, cheap flyer with more damage output than you'd think between her awesome spender that doesn't give power and the size 3 terrain throw. 

Popular splash characters for the affiliation

Basically every character that is designed around not having enough power to use it's full kit loves this leadership. Some of my favourite here are: 

Sabretooth, Apex Predator (4) 

A+. Apex has a fantastic kit including a pounce, a throw and great attacks. And here is able to use it constantly. 

Frankenstein's Monster (4)

B+. I love Frank but he really struggles to pay for his abilities. This leadership turns him on a lot more. 

Abomination (5) 

A+. ABomb is fantastic on his stat card alone. He's based around having Gainers so once again the leadership increases his ability to use his full kit. 

Spectacular Spider-Man (3)

A+. Notice a trend here? Spectacular is based around having awesome superpowers and Gainers making him super reliable but usually unable to use everything on his card. 

Example Roster 

Characters (10)

She-Hulk (6)

The Mighty Thor (5)

Spider-Woman (4)

Gwenpool (4)

Medusa (4)

Wasp (3)

Black Cat (3)

Domino (3)

Shuri (3)

Okoye (2)

Team Tactics (10)

A-Force Assemble!

Special Delivery

Stalwart Determination

Double Agent

Pym Particles

They Say Keep Your Enemies Close...

Brace for Impact (R)

Patch Up (R)

Recalibration Matrix

Survival

Secure Crisis

Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest (E, 15)

Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians (I, 17)

Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse (C, 19)

Extract Crisis

Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown! (C, 17)

Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (C, 19)

Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)

The roster is based around central fighting mostly and simply try and kill them before they kill you. Which quite frankly, can be hard to do with A-Force. 

That's it for today. Next Up: Asgard

If you want to support me in what I do here and get something out of these articles you could consider becoming a Patron at www.patreon.com/sgprotocol 

Thank you for reading and Cheers from Germany 🍻

Characters appearing on TTCs that aren't in the game yet December 24 edition

 

Since the original AtB post is lost forever it seems I'm redoing the list. If you can spot one I missed, or can fill in blanks for me please comment and I'll update. I have not included characters that we know are coming soon like Avalanche even though he isn't in the game yet. 

A-Force Assemble!: America Chavez

All Webbed Up alt art: Scorpion, Silk

All Webbed up (Rivals Panel alt art): Spider-Ham

Brand New Day: Mary Jane Watson

Brace for Impact alt art: Monica Rambeau

Call the Pack: Lady Deathstrike

Children of the Atom alt art: Marrow

Children of the Atom (Alt art): Banshee

Chi-Mastery: Is that Danny Rand or someone else? Update: Steel Serpent

Clean Up: Shocker (confirmed for May 2024) + Scorpion

Clone Saga: Kaine 

Comrade's Keeper: Red Widow

Custom Upgrades: Stilt Man! The Tinkerer (I think)

Dark Aura Manifestation: Wonder Man

Dark Past: Fishhook Guy ??? Update: Harpoon

Devil's Reckoning: Wonder Man

Execute: Red Hulk

Fall Back: Iron Heart  

Fan Club: Whirlwind.

Freyja's Blessing: Freyja

15. Gamma Burst: Hercules

16. Gamma Drain: Red She-Hulk, Leader

17. Galaxy's Greatest: Phyla-Vell, Moondragon

18. Giants Blood: Sutur?

19. Go get 'em Tiger: Mary Jane Watson

20. Hold Still: Nimrod

21. Hood's Gang: the Owl, Madame Masque, Grizzly, Deathlok

22. Immortal Servants: Ozimandayus

23. Iron-Bound Books of Shuma-Gorath: Shuma-Gorath

24. Makin' a Ruckus: Black Tom Cassidy

25. Masked Menace: Jonah J. Jameson

26. Midnight Phantasmagoria: Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes)

27. Mystic Ward: Blackheart 

28. New Mutants: Mirage/Danny Moonstone, Cannonball, Wolvesbane, Magma, Cypher?

29. No Escape alt art (rotated): Scream and various other Symbiotes

30. Odin's Blessing: Odin

31. Odin's Blessing alt art: Throg

32. Patch Up alt art: Rescue

33. Practice Round: Wolfsbane? Magma, Cannonball 

34. Preserve the Dream: Forge, Shard

35. Red Widow's Reckoning: Wonder Man

36. Sibling Rivalry alt art: The Warriors Three

37. Scorpion Clean Up: Scorpion

38. Sitrep: Quake? 

39. Strategic Retreat: Hydro Man

40. Strength and Cunning: Vampire guy? Update: Morlun? 

41. The Black Bifrost: Frost Giant

42. The Invaders: Wizzer, Black Marvel

43. Tomorrow's Soldiers: Warpath, Cannonball, Danny Moonstone, Boom-Boom, Siryn

44. Trickster's Boon: Absorbing Man

45. Well-Laid Plans alt art: Spider-Ham, Spider-Punk

46. Winter Rush: Vostok

47. Xavier's Dream: Artie Maddox and Leech

48. Surprise Webhead: Scorpion, Hobgoblin 

These are the ones I have found but I'm sure I'll have missed a couple. 

Thanks to BastiT, Disorder1991, CaptHolmes42 Feuer, Tarnium, kw3553, Independent-End5844 and Bloondie for their help. 

That's it for today. 

If you want to support me in what I do here and get something out of these articles you could consider becoming a Patron at www.patreon.com/sgprotocol 

Thank you for reading and Cheers from Germany 🍻

how to build a roster part 5, Accounting for the meta (Salvaged AtB repost)

Across the Bifrost Nexus

A collection of content for Marvel Cri

Welcome back to SG Protocol, where we continue our roster building series with the topic of according for the meta today.

What even is the “meta”. Luckily it doesn’t have anything to do with Mark Zuckerberg 😉

What we call the meta is basically the sum of players and rosters you encounter. Be that at your local store / club, a particular event or TTS. So metas can differ based on where you play. Thanos might be very popular and often played in your area while you don’t encounter him once in a TTS event for example. Predicting the meta is especially difficult because basically all events only lock the lists a couple of hours before they start or not at all like in the main TTS league.

That said there are three things you can always try to include in your roster unless your game plan would be actively hindered by them.

1. Safe grabs

What is meant by safe grab is having a character that can move to the center line of the table, pick up an extract and retreat back to relative safety. Core argument here is, that you can’t just stand on the center line and expect to live. This will often but not always be true. Here are some ways you can include a safe grab in your roster with varying levels of safety and commitment.

The cheapest and easiest safe grab is Toad:

Toad can interact from range 2 so he can stay further from the midline than other characters after spending two movement actions. His slippery power also let’s him retreat further to safety if he gets damaged. So while being the cheapest it’s also the least safe.

Only costing a character slot as well but this time coming at a hefty 5 threat cost are Amazing Spider-Man (ASM) and Angela.

These two are the only characters so far with L movement on medium bases (50mm) which means if they deploy directly opposite a midline objective they can move, pick up the extract, and move again.

Next we have a play you can use with a couple of characters which uses the tactics card Eyes on the Prize:

It makes one of your characters Toad for an activation basically. New Baron Helmut Zemos leadership lets you use it on any character (the leadership refunds 1 power after paying for a tactics card) or you can use it with someone who generates 2 or more power natively like any Asgardian (or Asgard adjacent character), Iron Fist, Ancient One or Supreme Strange.

The best users of the card however are characters with multiple power per power phase on a medium (or large) base with M movement. Those are for example Beta Ray Bill and Supreme Strange, who are the two most popular users for this strategy as they can also fly. That’s because those characters can play Eyes, move once, pick up the extract and move again if deployed right opposite of the objective. (There are some more characters to do that with like Ulik, She-Hulk, Hela and Red Skull Master of Hydra though he has to damage himself to do it. Malekith and Hulkbuster could also do this but that’s quite the investment).

These are the common ones but there are some team specific ones:

Both Hulks under Steve 1 can Gamma leap for 2 and have a power left to pick up the extract to get it and retreat.

Also Wakanda can help Ancient One and Viper to get safe grabs with a very special turn 1 play. It needs the Tactics Cards Advanced RnD as well as Spirit of Wakanda.

Ancient One activates first and as she has 2 power natively she plays Advanced RnD and gives a power to any Wakandan character (my favourite targets here are M’Baku and Okoye). That character then plays Spirit of Wakanda. Assuming you deployed your models within 2 of the Spirit playing character Ancient One spent 1 but gained 2 power having her on a sum total of 3. Now she can walk, spent 2 for her placement superpower, pick up the extract and retreat to safety again. Viper can potentially do almost the same as she has she same place as AO but she doesn’t build two power natively so she can’t be the character playing Advanced RnD for it to work. Meaning she can’t be your first activation giving your opponent the option of grabbing the extract you want to get with her before you.

There might be more faction specific ways to do it but those are the ones I know of.

So let’s move on to

2. Extract steals

Once again it has something to do with extract objective tokens. Steals have been in the game since Miles Morales was first released but the number and importance of them has increased heavily in recent times.

With steals we have different versions which can broadly be placed in three different categories:

Spender attacks, superpowers and Team Tactics cards.

Miles falls in category a):

Miles’ Venom blast has the target drop all objective tokens it is holding. Spider-Woman has a similar spender that does the same thing.

Superpowers we have to further categorise into b1)

Superpowers that make opponents drop objective tokens like the spenders. An example of that can be found on the Original Human Torch:

Be careful though as it is Assets only so no dropping of Skrulls or Senators.

b2) are superpowers that not only make the enemy drop the token(s) but also automatically pick them up for themselves. Most infamously Black Cat:

Enchantress can do the same thing but is neither as fast nor can she do it without spending an action for it:

For Enchantress being able to steal is a nice to have feature that will honestly very seldom ever come up. For Black Cat it may be good enough a reason to include her in your roster.

Having a steal that also prevents the model that lost the extract to contest or interact with secure tokens? Sounds pretty good right? It’s the main reason why Doctor Voodoo is considered one of the best characters of his threat level:

c) is with a tactics card. The two most commonly used at the moment are the fantastic This is a Robbery:

And Pyrotechnics

Now why do you want to include an extract steal in your roster? It helps you swing VP parity in your favour often by not only denying your opponent VPs but in the best case score them for yourself instead.

Are steals only good for scenario focussed teams? No. Having a steal in an attrition focused roster can be really valuable too, as a way to stop your opponent to outscore you before you’ve taken their models off the board. Of course there you have to way up if having the steal outweighs giving up a bit of attrition opportunity cost. Which will be a case by case decision and just needs practice.

Now we come to our last point for today:

3. Dealing with high threat models

From Malekith over Hulk, Immortal Hulk to new hotness Cosmic Ghost Rider. Many list will include some big nasty high threat model. Dealing with those without having a plan can feel really overwhelming. And while we can’t cover how to play against each high threat model in every situation the one thing you should always try to do in some way or another is to have them bad activations. Playing a high threat model means it is an investment that has to pay off. Here we want to find ways to hinder that. A fantastic way is to Stagger them:

So characters with Stagger triggers or even automatic Stagger (like Black Cat ☝️) are great here. Even better (and much less common) is giving them an activated token which characters like Ulik and Doctor Strange can with a bunch of dice results on their spender attacks or Iron Fist whose is automatic (but costs a whole lot of power accordingly):

Danny’s The Iron Fist also hints at a great combination: Stagger plus displacement. Having the big guy (or gal) spend one action to shake the Stagger and then having to walk back hurts a whole lot. It also shows where we go if we can’t get a reliable source of Stagger into our roster:

Displacement. Having size 4 (or unrestricted) character throws or pushes is extremely helpful. Throws you can even use to use your opponents big center piece model as a bowling ball to throw it into their other models. And both pushes and throws help you get a “pseudo- Stagger” as they will have to reposition.

Beta Ray Bill is a fantastic value model with a size 4 character throw:

Another way to make a high threat models turn worse is to tax their superpowers. There are two ways to do this. First the root special condition:

Some characters can hand that out but most prominently Pyro:

Firewall not only hands out Root but also Slow continuing our theme of making the opponents turn less efficient.

Similar to Root is the innate Superpower to Loki “God of Mischief”:

Loki’s biggest weakness is his very average defensive stat line and his below average health pool for a 4 threat character. What helps is that you can use “I am a God” on defense rolls and that “God of Mischief” gets even worse for your opponent on Loki’s flipside. So maybe that means they will avoid dazing him, or spent more resources than they should in taking Loki fully of the board. Either way is a win for you. If you feel the disruption is worth the 4 threat cost of Loki will once again be a case by case decision.

The best counter to Loki are characters that deny the use of any enemy reactive superpowers or tactics cards during their activation like Emma Frost and most popular Mystique:

Though it still can’t deny the “Aura” of God of Mischief.

Shapeshifter and similar abilities can also help deal with a big target. Hydra can basically give it to an unaffiliated character with the Sleeper Agent tactics card:

A popular user for the card is Beta Ray Bill for his size 4 throw that the opponent now can’t do anything against.

Another popular user of Sleeper Agent and the lead in to our last point for today is Hulk:

The idea here is a classic fight fire with fire, or if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, tactic in that to deal with opponents “big bads” you just bring in your own one. Not everyone will like this plan (I’m not too big a fan of it myself) but it’s always worth to try different things. Being the high threat models controller also helps you to understand what can be best done against them.

And that’s it for today.

Thanks to Darkhaine, the creator behind Jarvis Protocol where all the cards here are from.

Next time we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of dual leaders and dual affiliations in your roster.

See you then and cheers from Germany 🍻

How to build a roster part 4, the Morlocks approach (Salvaged AtB repost)

Hello and welcome back to SG Protocol where today we continue our how to build a roster series with the Morlocks approach.

As a reminder the Morlocks approach is named after Lexa Whites Podcast of this name (give it a listen if you haven’t already) where the premise is to take an older, maybe underplayed character and build a roster specifically to help that character shine. Lexa has a rule against putting the model in one of its home affiliations which we will exclude here. For our purposes it also wouldn’t have to be an older oder underplayed model. But I wanted to take one that would somewhat fit the description:

Mr Sinister

Nathaniel Essex is one of my favourite Marvel villains, has a great mini and I would love to play him more. His biggest problem is how many good 4 threats there are in the game now but today we will build a roster that helps him shine.

That is a very wordy card. But we see that almost all of his kit requires genetic sample tokens. You get them in two ways: first His 1 Power beam, which is also the best of his three attacks (his builder is decent; is 6 power cost spender is far to expensive, especially as he has better ways to spent his power).

The second way is with a tactics card:

So we want a team that either as some affiliated characters with healing factor to lessen the blow of the forced extraction, or one that can power him up reliably.

The most affiliated healing factor characters are probably in Weapon X but that is a leadership that Sinister can’t use ever (as it only works for affiliated models).

Lets look at the power up leaderships next. M.S. doesn’t gain much from Steve 1, as he actively needs the power rather than a reduction of his superpowers.

Our other power up teams would be A-Force, Inhumans, Red Skull 2 Hydra, Doc Ock Spider-Foes, Dark Dimension, Brotherhood of Mutants and Hellfire Club. You could argue that Red Skull 1 Cabal is a power up team as well but it is a reward power up and doesn’t help us in getting power to attack with the Beam as soon as possible.

We had Hydra for our Leadership approach so we will exclude that. Hellfire Club is a pretty good home for him as you can just fill the roster with strong healing factor characters like Lizard, X-23 and Apex Predator and the leadership has double synergy with Essex. Being an affiliation that only exists as a tactics card and not having any affiliated characters makes it a bit awkward for the premise of this article though so we go another way here. Dark Dimension falls in a similar vain.

A-Force and Inhumans both don’t offer quite the right affiliated characters for me here.

Doc Ock Spider-Foes is interesting. Firstly because Mr Sinister and the Sinister Six sounds like a 60s band name and secondly because he fits their style in being very mobile (Medium Base, Medium Move plus Fly) and being pretty tanky. Despite the roster getting pretty crowded at the 4 threat spot I think this is a good home for Mr Sinister. It is a clear cut scenario team which we did in our leadership approach so I want to look at one other option for today’s article.

Brotherhood of Mutants.

Brotherhood comes with two leaders with very different leaderships that both have something to do with power.

First we have Magneto:

Magneto is the attrition leader for the Brotherhood. And while his leadership can’t be triggered by Sinister he is a very good benefactor of the power it generates. Nathaniel can use “such little play things” to move enemy characters into Magnetos range which is a real danger zone for most models in the game. He also brings decent attacks that are Energy and Mystic to grind down models with either weakness.

Mystique is the other leader and come with a very different leadership and game plan. Where Magneto is really focused on attrition Mystique is the Brotherhood’s option to play a scenario focused game. The leadership enhances Sinisters play in round 2 more than helping him get going right away. Being as fast as he is he should be able to grab an extract easily enough and since the power he needs to pick it up is immediately refunded on some maps he might be able to use his beam right away but more likely is that he could be able to use it twice in round 2. Sinister is generally really good in defending a flank by himself, although he isn’t likely to win it. But he can keep enemy models occupied while the rest of your squad gets as many VPs as quickly as possible.

So we do take both leaders for a dual leader roster. We will talk more in depth about the pros and cons of going multi leader or even multi affiliation in your roster.

With Magneto and Mystique is pretty clear cut. Central fights you think you can out damage your opponent, Mags it is. Wide spread Crisis with loads of VP on the board, Mystique is your girl.

And Sinister helps in both teams here.

So we’ve picked an affiliation and the leaders. Next up we look at affiliated characters. Brotherhood has quite a lot:

As we want a good mix of characters that can play either of the leadership or preferably both ones well I chose these girls and boys:

One of the best overall 2 threats in the game. Works especially well under Mystique but with our 10 threat locked up in two models when we go with Magneto he is also great there for math reasons.

The prime example of being great at both scenario and attrition here. He is incredibly fast, tanky and 8 dice builders are no joke either. He gives us a very scary attrition 15 with Mags and Sinister, too. He could even reduce the damage he would take from a theoretical forced extraction. Since he gains power for a movement action he would still be able to grab an extract (or try and flip a point on a pay to flip secure).

He is also a character that can trigger Mags leadership a lot with his Nothing stops the Juggernaut superpower.

Apex Predator is one of my favourite characters to play in this game. He sometimes is a bit slow to get rolling but once he has a bit of power he will tear the world apart. And, in a pinch, be a decent scenario piece, too. He is probably better under Magneto but I would always consider him under Mystique, too.

Another fantastic all around character (and one of my favourite mutants) that works great under both leaders.

An absolute nuisance on the board and a great character to reign in enemy big guys with his Firewall. He can also bring an extract steal with his tactics card. And once again a character that can work well with both leaders. Under Mystique he is going to be more of a scoring control piece. If you get a center of the board brawl for Mags he adds another Beam to the one we bring with Mr Sinister making it quite the death zone.

Probably the most controversial pick here. Blob is often considered to not be very good but I like him as a flexible low cost objective sitter here. Him not getting pushed or thrown by attacks means he is often really good at safe guarding the rear secure and he brings control with Hahaha that tickles and, importantly he has a terrain throw to make him participate in Mags leadership. It’s his flexibility that lets me choose him over someone like Wong for this roster.

You could make a good argument for Quicksilver in that spot if you want to lean more to Mystique as your main leader. I love Gambit but I don’t think he really shines with either leadership sadly.

Emma, OG Sabertooth and Colossus are all OK characters but don’t work too well in the roster we’ve build here. Neither does Wanda who sadly has a hard time ever making rosters for me even when she is affiliated. She has a great kit aside from action economy and this roster has no real means to fix that.

So that leaves us with one character slot for a splash character. We could basically go to every threat level having 1x 6, 1x 5, 3x 4, 3x 3 and 1x 2 so far. As Mystique likes to go wide more often than not I think another 3 threat could be a good choice. And frankly theres a lot of them.

There would be a lot of decent options here and it basically comes down to whether you want the chosen character to be better at attrition or scenario. Valkyrie would probably be a good fit for the latter as she is a good attrition character that also brings a throw for triggering the Mags leadership. Beast would be a thematic choice that’s very fast, brings a throw and decent attacks. And finally Lizard is a character you can put in basically every roster you build and always expect him to do something useful. He also has healing factor which has double synergy in this roster due to Forced extraction and being a second potential target for X-Ceptional healing making that card even more appealing (which we’ll come to in a bit).

So as much as I would’ve liked to stay pure mutants here, I have to give the edge to my favourite miniature in this game (with Hulkbuster being a very close second), Lizard.

Let’s move on to crisis cards.

My idea for this roster is that if we get priority we play our secures which we will be focusing on the middle of board fights to make the most of Magneto and Sinisters beam. And if we loose prio or play a team we think we can better outscore than outkill we go with our Extracts which we will focus on Mystique wide team.

That had me come up with this combination;

And last but not least we look at tactics cards starting with the character specific cards this time. I feel that we have enough characters in here we would be willing to damage so we keep Forced Extraction in the roster. Cloning banks which is Sinisters other card we leave at home.

Deception (R)

By many people argued to be the single strongest tactics card in the game and rightfully restricted nowadays. There has been the argument that it should have been Brotherhood affiliated; be during Mystiques activation; cost her power or any combination of that. And while I agree with it I don’t think it’s going to come. And for purely marketing reasons. The Brotherhood affiliation pack isn’t out too long (less than a year at time of writing) and AMG is really serious about not invalidating physical cards people bought unless they really need to. And just restricting the card did accomplish just that.

Sorry for the side track 🙂

Magnetic Refraction

Probably as stapled to Mags as Deception to Mystique. Cover is a real big help for your survivability as any X-Men Gold player will be able to confirm. And here it is unconditional cover for everyone in range 3 around Magneto. Combine that with the narrow setups we want to play him on and the list of already tanky characters and it should be rather hard to remove our squad from the board once we have this online.

Do You Know Who I Am?

You would always pay 3 power for a size 4 terrain or character throw. Throwing it L is amazing but what can really catch people off guard is, you don’t have to use the card in Juggs activation. Being an active card means it has to be your turn but you can use it during any of your characters activation. It’s probably strongest when you can manage to use it during Mystiques turn as that turns off any defensive superpowers and tactics cards your opponent could have used to save his model.

Pyrotechnics

Not as much of an auto take with Pyro as people thought when it was first revealed but not at all because it’s bad. Pyro is just already really good without it. To our roster it brings the important extract steal which is very useful in both game plans.

Next we look at affiliated cards:

It is similar to the often taken global card “Recalibration Matrix”. It is 1 power cheaper and allows your character to reroll Failures (Skulls) but it doesn’t reroll the opponents dice. Recal is often used to try and negate an opponents spike into you which Books here can’t do. As we are already relatively tanky we go with Books here to help our own output. (Choosing Recal instead would also be totally viable though)

A rather expensive card but teleporting a model to where it needs to be can win the game. Also important: it doesn’t need to be either of the two models activation.

Now we can look at which second restricted card we want to use. And while boring I think Brace wins out once again. You could make the arguement for Sacrifice too I think.

And finally unaffiliated non character specific cards.

We’ve mentioned it before and since we bring Apex and Lizard it’s absolutely making the 10:

That leaves one slot which we can kind of fill to our liking. Fall back, Recal, Escort to Safety or Mission Objective are all generally useful cards that never hurt to have in your 10. We go with Mission Objective here for our Mystique plan.

And that is a full roster:

Characters (10)
Mister Sinister (4)

• Magneto (6)
• Mystique (3)
  Juggernaut (5)
  Pyro (3)
  Rogue (4)
  The Blob (3)
  Toad (2)
  Sabretooth, Apex Predator (4)
  Lizard (3)

Team Tactics (10)
Asteroid M
Brace for Impact (R)
Deception (R)
Do You Know Who I Am?
Magnetic Refraction
Pyrotechnics
The Books of Truth
Mission Objective
X-Ceptional Healing
Forced Extraction

Secure Crisis
Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest (E, 15)
Mayor Fisk Vows To Find Missing Witnesses (H, 16)
Demons Downtown! Has Our Comeuppance Come Due? (E, 19)

Extract Crisis
Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators! (L, 19)
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)
Struggle For The Cube Continues (F, 17)

Next time we’ll cover the topic of “according for the meta” with deeper thoughts on extract steal, midline grabs and dealing with the big boys. And go deeper into the pros and cons of dual leaders and dual affiliations after that. (Maybe with a little insert in between, we’ll see)

See you then and cheers from Germany �?�

All cards here came from the great Jarvis Protocol app.