Let's dig into the meat of the article here as it's going to be a long one.
1. Contents:
10 characters (whom we'll discuss a bit further down)
21 Team Tactics Cards (which will also get their own section)
12 Crisis Cards
10 dice
Range and Movement Tools
2. The miniatures
Spider-Foes are commonly described as being the best looking Affiliation in the game and for good reasons. Every single sculpt here looks awesome. The only little criticism for the included character miniature wise are the comparatively big gaps on Rhino and Sandman.
3. The Rules
(You can find all the stat, team tactics and crisis cards included in the pack on Jarvis Protocol here )
3.a) The Characters
(You can click on the images to enlarge them)
Carnage has a weird defensive stat line of 5/1/1 but a giant health pool of 8/7 (unmatched in 4 threats) and can heal all damage from himself when he uses his superpower Paint the Town Red.
He is fast on his base movement of medium base, medium move with Wallcrawler but after round 1 he wants to spend both his actions on attacking if at all possible. Don't be afraid to use his superpower Sadistic Glee as his health pool is a resource you can and need to tap into to get the most out of him.
Overall Carnage is a character with a pretty low floor and high ceiling. Maybe not ideal if you're just learning the game but once you've gotten a good grip of the rules and interactions he is going to be a lot of fun to use.
B+.
Electro is another 4 threat choice in the box but a very different one from Carnage. His Ride the Wires active superpower can make him pretty quick but usually he is more of a character that "plants his feet" and shoots with his good energy Builder attack while he dares enemy characters to come into his trap range for the Live Wire reactive superpower. Electrostatic is another good reactive superpower he brings to the table.
Overall Electro is a very cool character that is very dependent on his Builder attack to generate him the power he needs to use his superpowers. And you have to decide if you want him to pick up and extract and guard a secure or if you want to use him to chase enemy extract carriers and use Ride the Wires to achieve that (where he can't hold an extract).
B-.
Green Goblin is your only available leader in the pack so be prepared to play him in every game you play with your Spider-Foes Starter set. You get an excellent long range attacker with the ability to choose between physical and energy for his Builder (which also has great conditions available on a wild trigger), a good Spender, action economy through Hit and Run on a fast model (medium base, medium move with flight) and a great reactive superpower in Trick or Treat.
Green Goblin is a character that changes heavily on his back side so be prepared for that. His power gain becomes random here, he gains a dice on his builder, his Spender becomes one power cheaper and he switches both Hit and Run and Trick or Treat out for Glider Ram.
The core rules changes in November 25 that every collision now deals a flat 3 damage was a buff to his front side as blowing up a size 1 terrain feature has become viable now, but was a nerf to his back side as he has no advantage for being size 3 on his Glider Ram anymore.
And now for his leadership: Oscorp Weaponry is a lower tier leadership in my opinion. It can help you get damage through but is pretty unreliable. You have a 5/8 chance to change a defensive success of your opponent into a non success once per turn. It's a straight buff to your potential damage output but unreliable.
Overall Green Goblin is a fun model to play.
B+.
Kraven the Hunter is your first 3 threat choice on the list and is a fast damage dealer that can support the entire team with his Expert Tracker superpower.
His biggest weakness is his durability as with only 5/5 health he has problems staying on his feet sometimes.
B.
Lizard has been a competitive staple for many years. His card looks very unexciting but that's not really a bad thing as everything on it is just very good. He is fast with the Spider-Foes specialty of medium base, medium move with Wallcrawler and his combination of 4 physical defense with Damage Reduction and Healing Factor means he's very hard to put down. His own damage output is often very low but his wild push on his Builder from range 3 can be super helpful. Just don't rely on it. The chance to get it is an average: 45%.
A.
Mysterio is a very weird and difficult to play character. I would recommend you play your first couple of games without him honestly. In the right hands he can be amazing but that takes some experience especially with estimating distances. Mysterio one of the slowest characters in the game with small base, small move. He needs two exactly straight moves to even reach the midline. Once he gets there he can be a menace though, especially in the early game where enemy characters will not have the power to pay for Master of Illusions.
The trick to get the most out of Mysterio is to use his trap Tricks and Traps to full effect. And don't forget to give him the power he gets for rolling blanks so you can found the traps.
B+.
Despite his Short movement Rhino is one of the fastest models in the game on the table with his automatic place in 1 of the enemy characters from Range 3 on his Builder and his Stampede superpower. He is also pretty tanky with his big health pool and Damage Reduction even with his super low 3/3/2 defenses (which look like 2 threats).
To function well Rhino needs his TTC This is a Robbery which we'll cover further down.
A-.
Sandman is your only affiliated character with Grunts and he can even have two of them on the board. When he has both out and they and him start in range of an enemy model the amount of damage and control he can bring is unmatched in the game but creating that ideal situation is where it becomes difficult. You are only allowed to start the game with one Sand Construct in play so you'll have to tap into Sandman's Health pool to create the second early (luckily he has Healings Factor so it isn't as bad). And because of his Short movement you'll sometimes have to use the Reabsorb Superpower to move around the board quicker. If Sandman and his Constructs can set up in a scrum and just throw out attacks he'll be amazing but that sadly isn't going to be the case very often.
Sandman's biggest downside and something we are still hoping will be changed by AMG some day is that he's the only Grunt character, whose Grunts get KOed when he dazes. That makes his comeback turn that much worse as a lot of his damage output comes from them directly and/or them being close to the enemy to boost the dice of his Punching Your Ticket spender.
That all said he is probably still the character in this pack I find is the most fun to play.
B-.
Shocker is pretty similar to Lizard on first look. He's another character with a medium move on a medium base, though importantly he isn't a Wallcrawler (or has flight) and is only size 2, which means he is significantly slower than many of his peers here on a terrain heavy board.
Shocker will seldomly be your first choice for an affiliated 3 threat but he is a solid enough annoyance for your opponent that it's worth it to throw him in their face. Don't expect him to live long or do very much himself every action a high threat character takes to get rid of him should overall be considered a success for you. And if Shocker can get a key Stagger off that's just gravy.
B-.
Vulture has a cool and unique ability in Abduct that can displace sizeless and his Spender is amazing. His big big issue however is that his Builder, that he needs to build power in somehow only range 2. And with a 3/3/3 5/5 stat line with no defensive tech at all that is absolutely not where Vulture want to be starting his turn. If he has the power flying in with his medium base, medium move with Flight and then attacking with Hit and Run and Abduct is a very strong turn. He'll probably only be able to do that once in a game though after he's been dazed.
Scientific Hubris and his quickness makes him a decent option for Pay to Flips but you'll struggle to pick him over Lizard for the objective runner battlefield role. You could of course always just bring both in your squad.
C+.
3.b) Team Tactics Cards
(You can look at the card on Jarvis Protocol )
Brace for Impact (restricted)
This card used to be an every Affiliation, every roster, every game card before the November 25 changes to collision damage. That has changed heavily nowadays and in an Affiliation with a high average physical defense like Spider-Foes, who also sport the apperantly best sorcerer in the world as Mysterio is the only model in the game whose able to use his Mystique defense to dodge, it's far less necessary. Is the cars still great, especially to deny a key daze through the undodgeable 1 damage for being thrown into something? Absolutely. Is it worth one of your two restricted slots here? I personally don't think so.
A.
Carnage Rules
This card is stapled to Carnage. While rather expensive it combines enemy Displacement with an additional attack (that doesn't cost an action) for Carnage. Pure upside.
A.
Custom Upgrades
This is a great card but it will take some experience to know when and where to use it for the most effect. It's going to be fantastic on Carnage and very good on Kraven. Try it and learn it, it's a very good part of your tool belt here.
A- .
Fearful Symmetry
Killing Spider-Man and becoming Spider-Man yourself? Awesome!
In actual practice this isn't really very achievable and also becoming 4 threat Spider-Man isn't actually all that desirable either as he's by far the worst version of Peter Parker.
A+ for theme D- for play (which AMG stated was always the intention for the card)
Founding Members
This is a cool card in terms of style and it can be decent as it's free to play and all conditions you can hand out here are good. It's biggest struggle will be finding a place in your 5 cards to bring to the actual game. Probably worth a try anyway.
B-.
Heavy Firepower
Sadly the juice is just not worth the squeeze for this card.
C-
Joint Effort
Sandman likes this card a lot. Probably worth a try in the roster.
B.
Monkey Brain is Lizard Home
Often an overlooked card but it's actually pretty good. While the attack it grants costs an action the guaranteed push for each enemy character it targets with the area attack can clean a secure for you to score which can be game winning.
B+.
Neogenetic Recombinator
Transferring damage from one character to another can be strong but could also bite you in the end. A decent enough effect but probably not worth a TTC slot.
C.
Patch Up (Restricted)
Removing damage from one of your high health pool characters is definitely worth it. My first pick for a restricted card for this box.
A.
Recalibration Matrix
A card that is mostly used to undo an offensive dice spike into you. It's always a gamble to use it and it has won and lost me games when it worked for me or my opponent but has also done nothing at all sometimes.
A-.
Rejuvenation
It's a fantastic card if you bring Vulture in your squad, which is a big if.
A-.
Rhino in a China Shop
Points for style here but suffering two damage to add some dice (6 if you were able to destroy a size 4 with his throw and a size 2 with his Stampede seems like the magical fairy land ideal situation) to an attack feels like not a good trade off for me.
C.
Sinister Traps
A faction specialty and can catch unprepared opponents off guard. Beware that your own characters will trigger it when they move in range.
B.
Static Arch
A cool, if pretty complicated, team up card for two characters who'll realistically will seldom see the table together.
C+
Strategic Retreat
This is an expensive card but it combines the effects of Fall Back (a restricted card) and Mission Objective (a banned card). It takes some practice to know when and how to play it but once you've got the hang of it you'll rarely play a Spider-Foes game without it.
A.
Surprise Webhead
A faction defining card. You'll play this one every single game with Spider-Foes. Importantly you can play this before you choose which character you activate.
A+.
The Grand Illusion
This card is stapled to Mysterio. It can be absolutely devastating for your opponent if they can't find a way to decrease it's effectiveness for example by displacing Mysterio.
A.
There will be Carnage
A good card for Carnage as Root is a strong condition but not on the level of Carnage Rules and thus hard to fit in your 5.
B.
This is a Robbery
Stapled to Rhino and an important part of his kit.
A.
Well Laid Plans
Since you don't get Doctor Octopus in the pack you can't actually play the card.
C.
3.c) Crisis cards
Extracts:
Alien Ship Crashes Downtown
I don't like this Extract a whole lot for Spider-Foes as only 3 VPs feels too slow for them for my taste.
Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry
Four Points, all on the midline is great for Foes who are a type 2 team, which means their primary game plan will be to score out as quickly as possible but they have the characters to pivot to fighting if necessary. This crisis brings the perfect amount of Extracts while also forcing type 1 teams (pick up and run away until the win) into engagement.
Scientific Samples Found in Discovered Universe
A fast and good crisis where your better than average movement will help you.
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership
Foes sport high average physical defense so the risk of getting pushed when you pick up a Skull is lower.
Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan
This crisis is fantastic for your Trap characters as none of them has a "Once Per Turn" restriction which means you can trigger them from the forced movement of the crisis. And your characters are fast on average so them being moved is annoying but not the end of the world.
Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding
I'm pretty sure even Mysterio can grab one of the guests in a single move and you want your opponent to come to you. All upside here.
For me personally Alien Ship is the one I would leave at home and have the other 5 in my roster out of the box.
Secures:
Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians
A rather brawly Pay to Flip. I think Spider-Foes are fine but not great at it. A crisis where Sandman and Electro can shine.
Guardians Save Shi'ar Empress in Style
A wider spread Pay to Flip. A good pick.
Infinity Formula Goes Missing
Foes really like the shape and the additional power here.
Mutant Madman Turns City Center into Lethal Amusement Park
A Pay to Flip that you roll on your Physical defense. Carnage, Goblin and Lizard all love this.
Superpowered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate
The highest scoring secure in the game and you have decent models to try it out.
Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack
The most brawly secure included in the box.
I would pick between Wedding Party and Meteors for the one to drop here but both can work fine so you should probably try out both and see which one you like better. If both work well for you probably drop Scoundrels as it's pretty much the total opposite of these two.
4. What to get next?
Earth Mightiest Core Set might feel like a weird choice as you've just got a single person starter set but it comes with your second leader option and some good picks for Splashes, especially (and kind of unfittingly) Spectacular Spider-Man. Also having some terrain is never a bad idea.
If you're not interested in Doc Ock 2 or any of the other models you can absolutely for go it though.
Another interesting option can be the Criminal Syndicate Affiliation Pack. Kingpin is affiliated here and Rhino, Electro, Kraven, Shocker, Sandman, Green Goblin and Vulture are all Criminal Syndicate affiliated as well so it's an easy transition into that faction. The pack also gives you a 5 and a 2 threat making squad composition easier.
Otherwise the world is pretty much your oyster as you've got a full 10 affiliated characters so replacing some of them with splashes in your roster is very easy. I would definitely recommend getting a 5 threat you like and maybe a 2 threat character.
Aside from that I would highly recommend getting a 3*3 game mat, some terrain and some additional dice (you'll rarely ever need more than 20 dice between both players though).
5. Final Verdict
This pack is kind of insane. I spent around 250€ on the included characters alone in their original release forms. Getting additional dice, movement tools and crisis cards makes this probably the best deal not only in MCP but in the tabletop hobby as a whole even at the MSRP and you'll pretty easily find it even cheaper than that!
It's also the absolute no Brainer ideal way to start Spider-Foes and also Criminal Syndicate in the game.
S+++
That's it for today.
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