One of the more common talked about games and sought after games in some circles has been Comic Hunters. This game about collecting comics with a Marvel theme and artwork on it hasn’t been available in the US. In fact, it is only a game that you could buy from Brazil because of how rights work. After a long time, Arcane Wonders and Spin Master, as well as work from the Dice Tower, now have the game coming to your hands. Let’s look at Comic Hunters.

How To Play Comic Hunters

You want to own the best comic collection. And that’s your goal in the game, get the best one available. The more different groups of comics you have, or the larger collection of a character, all provide different scoring opportunities. As well as you get more points for collecting key issues or firsts or first appearances, and more. All of that to at the end of three rounds of building your collection, the most points wins.

The Drafting

This is done over four different types of drafting or auctions. Each one has it’s own twist to it. And you do three of them each of the three rounds.

Standard Draft is the first one that you do. This one is going to be your typical take one card and pass it along.

Slide Puzzle Draft is a new one for me, and this is going to be in a five by five grid of comics. The middle one is open and players take turns sliding a card, like a slide puzzle, and then picking a row or column and taking all of a single character from it. It comes back again but in reverse turn order for players to make a second selection.

Winston Draft is the next one that happens. I use this term because it’s related to Magic the Gathering drafting. But outside of that it might not mean much. A player number of rows are put out. Players then can either take a row or add to a row. Rows can never have more than four cards in them, so you need to think about what you add or when a row becomes tempting enough to take.

Auction is the final one and it’s not really a draft. Again player number of rows are put out. And players put one row up for auction each time. Eventually every player will get a row. And the final player has to pay one per card in that row. But the rows vary from five long to three long. And what you bid with are points.

Building Your Collection

After three of those drafts, which I generally would teach when the draft comes up, is building your collection. As you build your collection you need to create groups of at least two of a character. And you need to think about the costs. Each card has a cost and each card can be used to pay for a cost. These are actually the same numbers. So you put together your collection, but you also need to spend cards to pay for them as well, so it’s optimizing what is your best collection to cost. And you can only keep two cards in your hand at the end of each round.

What Doesn’t Work

I like this game, and there is a reason that The Dice Tower and companies have been looking to bring it over. But I think there is one main concern with the game. I even call it out when I talk about building the collection. If you teach all four auctions at once, it’s not going to be fun. There is so much information that it’s an overload for players. Instead, I think it’s key when playing and getting into the game to teach each auction as it comes up.

The other thing is less about the game play, but more beware of the components. They are inconsistent, or that’s the best way to put it. Some of the cardboard pieces are too thin. And the marker as to what action is coming up next, that is too large. But the cards are a great thickness which is good because they’ll be handled and shuffled a lot.

What Works

Drafts and Auctions

I think the each auction or draft is fun. Yes, the first draft is basic. But I think that works well to get people into the game. And the subsequent drafts should get people excited to play the game. That combination is impressive to me because it could have easily gotten bloated or complicated. But because there is space to teach it after each round, I think it works well.

Cost and Value of Comics

I also appreciate the dual uses of the cards. I either use it for a collection or I use it to pay for it. That is a puzzle in and of itself. And I think it makes some of the drafts more interesting. I want to get as many high value comics as I can because I can pay for more. But also, high value comics provide more points at the end of the game. So I want them for two reasons and that is a good and simple tension in the game.

Game Length

The game length is also a positive for me with the game. I find that Comic Hunters is a game that isn’t too long or too short. And it is likely to play even faster as you play it more often. If everyone knows the game, it should play very quickly, almost a filler, but it feels like more. Even with teaching the game, which I expect I’ll do often, it is a fast game.

Marvel

And, finally, I think the theme is important. People like Marvel, even with less consistent movies and shows recently, people still like it a lot. And that is some of what took it forever to get to the United States. To get the theme and artwork truly done right it required a lot of licensing of images. It could have worked with generic comics, but it feels better with the Marvel IP.

Who Is It For

I think this is a great game for a number of different people. The Marvel theme might make it seem like the target is Marvel fans. This is not a money grab for that, though. Players still need to engage with the game on different levels each draft or auction.

For me, I think this is more of a gamers filler game, or for a very casual person, a game like Catan or Ticket to Ride where, because of the theme, it’s one of five games in their collection. It will get played, and when they want to play a game, it’s going to be the one they always pick. But I don’t think it’s a great game for putting into a rotation without the expectation of repeated plays for very casual gamers. It needs to become the game that they play.

Final Thoughts and Rating of Comic Hunters

I definitely enjoy Comic Hunters. I knew I would after my first play. For me, the combination of drafts and auctions works really well. And each of them has the same goal, which I think is important. It doesn’t make the game feel too large or bloated because it is always about building the best comic book collection.

Obviously for me, the theme of Comic Hunters is going to help. I love Marvel, so a game about Marvel Comics, that’s great. But there is more than just that theme in the game. It’s about how you want to build the collection. I didn’t dive deep into scoring, but there are a lot of ways to get points. And whether you want to collect all of one character or collect a little of a lot can really change up your strategy. So I think that offers even more variability and replay value to the game.

My Grade: A
Casual Grade: B-
Gamer Grade: B+

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here