Hello and welcome to the X-Men Starter set review. This set is half Uncanny X-Men and half Brotherhood of Mutants. If you're new to MCP: hi I'm Sören from Germany and SG Protocol is your number 1 address for written content about the game.
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)
19 Team Tactics Cards (which will also get their own section)
12 Crisis Cards
10 dice
Range and Movement Tools
2. Miniatures
X-Men are definitely AMGs favorite child in terms of Minis. No other Affiliation has so many building options like the Mutants. Beast, Wolverine and Cyclops all come with different head options in this set for example. Storm is a pretty difficult build but the rest of the included characters are very easy to assemble.
3. The Rules
(You can find all included cards on Jarvis Protocol here)
3.a) Characters
(You can click on the images to enlarge them)
Beast is a competitive staple in all of his many Affiliations and Uncanny X-Men is absolutely no exception. He is fast, way more durable than you'd initially think and his cheap character throw is fantastic.
A.
Cyclops is your first available X-Men leader in the set. He is a decently good 4 threat shooter with a fantastic superpower in Field Leader but sadly a very low impact leadership that can help you build a little bit of additional power over the game. Weirdly with a range restriction.
B.
Gambit is a fantastic damage dealer 3 threat that can be frustrating to put down for your opponent and importantly for this pack he is affiliated with both sides of Uncanny X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants, so expect to field him a lot (which is not a problem as he's very good).
A-.
B-.
Mystique is the other available Brotherhood leader in the pack and offers a very different play style that's very scoring oriented. She's also a decent 3 threat in her own right.
B.
Rouge is a great overall 4 threat that really likes power leaderships like Cyclops' and Magnetos. Luckily she's your other character in this pack besides her husband Gambit that is affiliated with both sides so it's very easy to put her on the table.
A-.
Sabretooth isn't exactly a competetive staple for the Brotherhood but he's a decent enough option at the start of your collection. He has very good damage output and is really fast with a Long movement and being size 3 (which means he isn't as hindered by terrain as a smaller sized model would be). His problem is his low defensive profile and relatively low health pool.
B-.
Storm brings your other option for an Uncanny X-Men leadership and it is by far the most complicated to use well but in turn also has the highest upside if you're willing to spend the time practicing with it. As a character Storm is fine. She has a long range throw and can shoot out of "super" Stealth range which is pretty good.
B.
Weirdly enough Toad is probably the strongest model of the entire box. He is hands down the best 2 threat for scoring VPs and is simpl amazing at his job (which is to get an extract and keep it). An absolute competitive staple in every affiliation that has scoring out quickly as their main game plan.
A+.
Wolverine is a bit of a feast or famine character. Some games he will just murder entire enemy teams on his own and other times he'll do basically nothing at all and his backside which denies him from interacting with and holding objective tokens will cost you the game. Always fun and thematic to play at the very least.
B.
3.b) Team Tactics Cards
Astroid M (Brotherhood affiliated)
A card that is basically essential to bring when you play Magneto as it gets him where he needs to be and still a great tool to use under Mystique.
A.
Brace for Impact (unaffiliated, restricted)
With the November 25 changes to collision damage the card isn't an every Affiliation, every roster, every game card anymore but still very good.
A.
Charming Thief (unaffiliated)
Gambit always needs a bit of power for his kit to work but the card is probably overkill in that regard and you can spend a valuable slot in your 5 better.
C.
Children of the Atom (Uncanny X-Men)
Removing all special conditions and even getting power for it is pretty good.
B+.
Dark Past (unaffiliated, specifically not useable in Uncanny X-Men)
If you play Gambit outside of X-Men you should consider the card.
B+.
First Class (Uncanny X-Men)
A card you'll play in almost every X-Men game. Helps you to score more points early in the game and is especially worthwhile on Pay to Flip Secures.
A.
Heavy Firepower (unaffiliated)
The juice is just not worth the squeeze here sadly.
C-.
Instant Recovery (unaffiliated)
A good card when you have multiple characters with Healing Factor in your roster and ideally in your squad. From this set you'll have Wolverine and Sabretooth who can use the card and there are multiple additional characters in X-Men and Brotherhood with it so it's a good card to have in your collection.
B+.
Joint Effort (unaffiliated)
It's not super easy to line up for the most impact as many crisis cards aren't especially clumped up but on Wedding Party and Meteors it can definitely be worth a try.
B.
Magnetic Crush (unaffiliated)
A pretty expensive one off attack for Magneto. Not worth it in my opinion.
C-
Magnetic Refraction (unaffiliated, can be played every round in Brotherhood of Mutants)
A card that is absolutely stapled to Magneto in Brotherhood and probably worth to bring even when you would splash Mags.
A.
Mind if I Cut In?
A card that can be used to drain your opponents power or have Rogue take a bunch of hits originally directed at someone else. It's a decent effect but your opponent having the agency over it isn't great.
B-.
Pardon Me, Sugah (unaffiliated)
It's a great card when you happen to face an enemy Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Deadpool or Magneto as the card no where says that you have to be within range 2 of an allied [one of the former mentioned characters], so you can use it for pure upside of dealing a damage and getting the effect. By far the best effect here is getting cover from tapping Magneto but if you have Rogue and him on the board you're more than likely running it as Brotherhood and have Magnetic Refraction available to you anyway. The other effects are mostly just fine. Getting Healing Factor 2 from Wolverine is probably the best of the rest here.
B-.
Patch Up (unaffiliated, restricted)
While healing damage is always a good effect my usual preferred restricted cards here would be Indomitable and Fall Back. Patch Up is fine though and can help keep your Mutants standing upright.
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-.
Stolen Identity (unaffiliated)
A card that Mystique can use to kidnap an enemy model before it has activated. Importantly this is an active card but doesn't require being played in Mystiques own activation. So it's better used during the activation of one of your killier models where you pull someone into attack range with the card and then try to murder them before they can activate themselves and run away.
B.
The Books Of Truth (Brotherhood of Mutants)
Very similar to Recalibration Matrix but this version only lets your Brotherhood affiliated character reroll it's own dice including Skull results. Which is probably best used to turn an offensive whiff into an attack that deals some damage.
B.
To Me My X-Men (Uncanny X-Men)
More complicated to use than the pretty similar Avengers Assemble but just as much an every game card for the X-Men as Assemble is for the Avengers. Games are won by positioning and this card creates actionless additional movement actions.
A+
Weapon X Program (unaffiliated)
Playable by Wolverine and Sabretooth, who both count as size 3 when being thrown, the card saw a bit of a nerf with the November 25 changes to collision damage as their size doesn't matter for the damage any more. It is still actionless movement and automatic damage though.
B+.
3.c) Crisis cards
Extracts:
Alien Ship Crashes Downtown
Maybe a decent crisis for Magneto led Brotherhood or Cyclops led X-Men who want the scoring to be slow and the fight to be in the middle of the table as much as possible but the potential damage for having too much power is pretty contradictory to their leaderships.
Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry
It's a pretty fair crisis with all four Extracts laying on the midline. Decent for all four leaders in the pack.
Scientific Samples Found in Discovered Universe
Probably not Magnetos favorite shape, but fine for the other three.
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership
A classically good Extract for both parts of the roster.
Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan
Magneto will absolutely hate this, while Storm X-Men will like it.
Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding
Another simply fair crisis that all possible versions of squads you can field out of this box should be fine with.
The decision here for me would be picking between Alien Ship and Spider-Infected as those are the extremes.
Secures:
Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians
The brawly Pay to Flip. Cyclops and Magneto can shine here.
Guardians Save Shi'ar Empress in Style
A two lanes Pay to Flip. Great for X-Men and Beast will shine especially bright here.
Infinity Formula Goes Missing
An old school classic. Should be fine for all possible squads out of the pack.
Mutant Madman Turns City Center into Lethal Amusement Park
Another two lanes Pay to Flip, so great for X-Men.
Superpowered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate
Lots of VPs on the board but fairly close together. Traditionally not a good crisis for the teams in this pack but maybe worth a try for Magneto or Cyclops.
Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack
The fightiest crisis in the box. This is where Magneto should really be able to shine.
Depending on whether you like lots or fewer points on the board I'd decide between Wedding Party and Scoundrels in your roster.
4. What to get next?
It depends on where you want to go. If you want to expand the actual Uncanny X-Men side of your roster I would look out for the upcoming repacks of: "Students of Xavier" containing Bishop, Nightcrawler, Magik and Colossus, "X-Force Affiliation Pack" containing Cable, Domino, X-23 and Honey Badger and the so far unnamed Pack containing Professor Xavier, Jean Grey, Emma Frost and Psylocke. Sadly all of these packs aren't released yet so you'll have to show some patience. They will be far better deals than getting any of the involved characters in their two packs.
If you want to expand the Brotherhood side of the box you can immediately grab the Exodus, Avalanche and Lady Mastermind pack as that is often available for a very good price and comes with a bunch of newer affiliated TTCs. Besides that it's once again going to be the most cost effective idea to wait for the repacks called: "X-Fiends and Foes" containing Juggernaut, Shadow King, Omega Red and Mister Sinister (the latter two aren't Brotherhood affiliated) and "Members of the Brotherhood" containing Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Pyro and The Blob.
A sensible pick up aside from these is Apocalypse as you already got a lot of his possible horsemen in the starter pack.
And if you were to collect all the suggested repacks and Apoc you could field no less than 5 affiliations 8 leaderships:
Uncanny X-Men led by Storm, Cyclops or Professor X
Brotherhood of Mutants led by Magneto or Mystique
X-Force led by Cable
Hellfire Club led by Emma Frost
Servants of the Apocalypse led by Apocalypse
5. Final Verdict
X-Men and Brotherhood are many peoples favorite factions and a huge draw to the game. I myself planned on them being my first two Affiliations when I started but since their Affiliation packs were heavily delayed in Germany back then it didn't really come to fruition immediately. Having both available for new players and at a frankly insane price point is great. Compared to the Spider-Foes Starter set, which is a full roster of 10 affiliated characters for only one faction this is less of an "Uncanny X-Men" and more of a Mutants starter set but splashing is an absolute core mechanic of the game (and much much more thematic than having to stick to an Affiliation list) so it's good that you'll learn to do it immediately. While the savings of the Spider-Foes Starter Set are even higher this pack is still an absolute no Brainer purchase if you're interested in playing Mutants.
A+.
Cheers from Germany 🍻
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