Catch Up on Videos

Spider-Man Scene Box

Two Spider-Man Collectors Packs

Thanks for Listening

I hope that you are enjoying the podcast. If you are, there are a few ways that I always talk about that you can support 10 Minute Marvel. Firstly, please consider sharing it with your friends as word of mouth really is a great way to help more people find the podcast, and personal recommendations are always great. As well as then subscribing or leaving a rating and review. Both of those make the podcast easier to find for people looking for a fun Marvel podcast. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Google Podcast, and Spotify or wherever you get your friendly neighborhood podcasts.

We also run a Patreon and that is another way you can help support. The Patreon, found here, goes to help improve the quality of the 10 Minute Marvel Podcast, pay for advertising and more. It also helps improve the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel and Nerdologists.com website. Thank you, again, for listening and for considering supporting us financially.

Comments or Questions: What Storylines Should Marvel Reset?

Did we miss any big things that Marvel really should reset? I can think of one that we didn’t touch on with the passing of Chadwick Boseman and the death of T’Challa in universe, should that be undone with a new actor playing T’Challa in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

You can let us know all of those things down in the comment section below, or tweet them to me @TheScando or by using #10MinMarvel. And there is now the Facebook page, as well, where you can join in the conversation here. And follow us on YouTube for more content here.

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Plus #10MinMarvel has news as well. In the news we have Deadpool 3 teases. Plus what is coming to Disney+ in 2024 and early impressions of Echo. Is Echo lookin like a positive show? And there is more to the news as well this week.

Thanks for Listening to 10 Minute Marvel

I hope that you are enjoying the podcast. If you are, there are a few ways that I always talk about that you can support 10 Minute Marvel. Firstly, please consider sharing it with your friends. Word of mouth really is a great way to help more people find the podcast and personal recommendations are always great. As well as then subscribing or leaving a rating and review. Both of those make the podcast easier to find on the podcast services. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Google Podcast, and Spotify.

We also run a Patreon and that is another way you can help support. The Patreon, found here, goes to help improve the quality of the 10 Minute Marvel Podcast, pay for advertising and more. It also helps improve the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel and Nerdologists.com website. Thank you, again, for listening and for considering supporting us financially.

Comments or Questions: What Disney+ Marvel Show should get Multiple Seasons?

Is there a Marvel comic run or character that you’d like to see get multiple seasons on Disney+? And what do you think of the news, do you like the Deadpool 3 teases and spoilers? Or do you want to see less of them out there in the wild?

You can let us know all of those things down in the comment section below. Or tweet them to me @TheScando or by using #10MinMarvel. And there is now the 10 Minute Marvel Facebook page as well where you can join in the conversation here. And follow us on YouTube for more content here.

Thank you again for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

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Multiple Magic the Gathering Sets

So let’s start if this is something that they are doing to do through 2025. If it is, kind of like Lord of the Rings, how many sets might there be? I think that it could be only Marvel throughout 2025 whereas Lord of the Rings had Doctor Who in the Universe Beyond part of the game as well. But Marvel has enough that Magic the Gathering doesn’t really need to look outside of them for a while. So what sets might they be?

Avengers

I think for the most part that this is pretty straight forward. We’ve gotten the Avengers in the movies and generally with other games, Marvel United and Marvel Champions, that has been the starting point. So creating a set around the Avengers and probably around New York City, for some locations, makes a lot of sense.

Magic the Gathering would have enough right there with the heroes to make a complete set. But it is common to have villains as well. When we look at the Doctor Who commander sets, we have Missy a villainous character. And then in Lord of the Rings we have Mordor. So for the Avengers, I’m thinking you go with the biggest threat thus far in the movies, Thanos. People like Thanos as a bad guy and it is something familiar.

X-Men

Then at the end of the year have an X-Men set come out. Again, it’s a nice set of heroes that mainly don’t overlap with the Avengers. There is of course Wolverine who spends his time floating between. But let’s face it, people would be fine with Wolverine showing up more than once.

And again you have an easy villain or anti-hero with Magneto that can be a bad guy. Put him together with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in a set deck, or just with synergies and I think that’d be a lot of fun. They provide a good bad deck or potential meta to play around with for heroes versus villains.

Villains

Finally, let’s lean into the villains. While I think it’s likely only two sets come out, this would be a late summer commander drop. Kind of like the Doctor Who sandwiched between Lord of the Rings that Magic the Gathering did this year. A more limited run of products with basically commander decks and a collectors box.

And with villains, I think it’s easy enough to see a series of solid villains that would make commander decks. If we are using Thanos as the villain for the Avengers set and Magento, who would the rest be?

Commander Decks

Avengers Commander Decks

Tony Stark/Iron Man: This one I like because you could play around with equipment, building up the best armor for Iron Man. And keep it limited with characters. This is one about building up strong characters that can deal damage without attacking and can avoid defenders with the tap of the right card. You’d probably have Pepper Potts (Rescue), James Rhodes (War Machine) or Riri Williams (Ironheart) to be the other commanders.

Captain America: Another fairly obvious choice, though, I think his deck, like the movies, would be a bit of a catch all. It’d be more of an Avengers deck with lots of characters like Black Widow, Hawkeye, Hulk, Ant-Man, and others showing up. He would be about getting the battlefield full and then casting buffs on the team as “Avengers Assemble”.

Thanos: Already mentioned the need for a villain deck. Thanos is the choice for that with the Black Order supporting him. Ebony Maw and Proxima Midnight likely being your other options to use as a commander. Thanos should be a five colored deck which is hard to pull off. And he should have an infinity gauntlet. If he gets everything it’s game over or if you’re playing multiplayer, he’s the focus of everyone.

Young Avengers: I think it is smart not to just stick to the movie teams, but build up some that are more unique as well. And yes, I know the Young Avengers members have been introduced in the MCU. But this is going to be more of a straight forward deck of heroes that has a bit more of a street level. I think I would want them to play around with synergies in this one, tap Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) get a boost to another character and chain them together.

Villain Commander Decks

Hydra: This one would be a whole group with two possible commanders, probably three. But I can think of two easily with Red Skull or Arnim Zola as the likely two commanders you’d use. Probably a Baron Stucker as a third one. And with Hydra it’s all about getting foot soldiers out, so I’m thinking a token heavy deck. And it’s about when the tokens die, good things happen for them and probably more tokens are made.

Kang: Another one that seems pretty likely and I think could be a complex but fun deck. And you might ask, who are the other possible commanders. More Kang. Kang the Conqueror, Immortus, He Who Reamins, Victor Timely, Scarlet Centurian, Rama-Tut and that’s most of them introduced in the comics. But I like the idea of just pulling random characters from the Council of Kangs. And then it’s about finding cards and manipulating decks.

Apocalypse: Now, all the villains won’t be just Avengers villains but X-Men as well. Apocalypse seems like a good option with Mister Sinister and Nimrod as the other commanders. He’s going to be a the destruction character. With his deck it’s just about wiping everyone else out and good luck standing against him that way.

Galactus: Finally we have Galactus. Galactus is a huge villains and I expect the Fantastic Four to get in there somewhere. I could also pick Victor von Doom (Doctor Doom as well). But I like my idea for Galactus. He, once he’s on the battlefield can’t be removed. So you need to take down your opponent fast. Because, if you don’t, he just swings through with trample and is doing a lot of damage. So you can block, but it’ll be only so effective and eventually he’ll eat up your life.

Showcase Cards

Finally, I want to bring up showcase cards. If you’re not up on Magic the Gathering, you might be wondering what these cards are. Well, they are the same cards as in the main set, just with alternate artwork, often with a border, done in a unique style. For Lord of the Rings it was very abstract. For Doctor Who, it is very cartoon like.

I realize I have an opinion on this for Marvel. I want it to be comic book cover style showcase cards. Everything else can be done in a more classic style of Magic the Gathering. But it’d be nice to really have a comic book nod, and doing covers I think would be a great option. Because I think one of the questions people rightfully have is how do you combine Magic the Gathering and Marvel.

Final Thoughts on Marvel Magic the Gathering

I’m very excited for this set. I like what Magic the Gathering has been doing with the Universe Beyond sets. The regular sets are fine, if I find a good deal on a box, I pick it up, but the Universe Beyond has been drawing me in. And while I’m less interested in the upcoming ones in 2024, that’s probably a good thing.

Is there something that you’d like to see from the set or sets? Is there a hero that you think needs to make it who is a deeper cut, or a villain that you’d like to see get a commander deck?

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Top 10 Campaign Games

10 – Marvel Champions: The Mad Titan’s Shadow

I had to put one of the campaign boxes onto this list for Marvel Champions. There are a number of them, a Spider-Man one, a Red Skull one, Guardians of the Galaxy, soon to be Mutants as well. But I went with The Mad Titan’s Shadow just because that box feels the most epic. And I can take anyone into that one and it makes sense thematically.

I’ve heard that these are lighter campaigns which is not a bad thing. It means that I could and maybe will, set it up sometime and just play it over a few evenings. And you know I’m going to be running Thor up against them, or maybe Doctor Strange. There are enough characters know that it might actually be a tricky decision.

9 – Massive Darkness 2

I picked this one up because it did have a campaign. And I want to get it to the table, at least for scenarios fairly soon. I like that you level up a lot in this game, and the minis are cool, the classes are cool, the weapons are cool.

Plus, this is also a lighter game. You don’t need to know nearly as much how to play it as some of the other games on the list. That means that even if I don’t play it as a campaign soon, it’s probably one I can sit down and knock out a scenario with some friends easily in an evening.

8 – Reichbusters: Projekt Vril

One that I also need to sort some more, which is why I haven’t played it yet. Reichbusters came out with an errata pack for improved card wording and rules. But because that was coming, I waited on playing it. Now I own it and, well, I need to sort the cards in.

This is going to be a game of sneaking into enemy base and trying to stop their experiments. Think kind of Howling Commandos vs Hydra, if I were to take it over to Marvel. There are crazy experiments going on, and monsters you need to fight. But every mission has an objective and if you’re too noisy, well, things are going to go sideways for you fast and you’ll get swarmed. So it’s not a guns blazing game, which I think sounds interesting.

7 – Betrayal Legacy

I did put a few legacy games on the list. Legacy games are campaign games too, and it surprised me a little bit, but the one at the bottom of that is Betrayal Legacy. I love Betrayal at House on the Hill, even with it’s wonky scenarios and problems with sometimes the traitor being too strong, sometimes the other characters. And I want to see what the legacy one has to offer.

I am really curious about the legacy aspect of it. You play as a family versus a character coming back generation after generation. I want to know how that plays out in the game. I think it could offer some cool game options and ways to progress and tell a bit story.

6 – Descent: Legends of the Dark

Moving back to just a campaign game, we have Descent: Legends of the Dark from Fantasy Flight Games. This is going to be their Descent, but not third edition, game, of exploring tiles, fighting monsters, and interacting on the map.

Like a lot of bigger Fantasy Flight games in recent history, Mansions of Madness, Journeys in Middle-Earth, and Star Wars: Imperial Assault, there is an app piece. I like it for this game, it was a bit much in Journeys in Middle-Earth, but in Descent it offers some fog of war. It is in that category of games like Massive Darkness 2 for me. It looks like a blast to play as a fun dice chucking game.

5 – Folklore: The Affliction

Now moving into another bigger game, and I think the top 5, with the exception of the legacy ones, are the heaviest of the campaign games that I own, at least right now. Of course there are more coming in. But Folklore: The Affliction is going to be a game that borrows a lot from pen and paper RPG’s. You roll more than a standard six sided die. And that is intriguing to me.

Plus, I like that it’s a darker setting. I don’t need all my fantasy to be grim and dark, but sometimes that is what I want. And since I always am the Dungeon Master for D&D, I believe that it’ll give me that RPG feel without me needing to be in charge of everything. Though, if I paly it solo, I will be, but I’ll be doing the same thing as the players.

4 – Aeon’s End: Legacy of Gravehold

Another Legacy game and this one just came in from Indie Boards & Cards. I played through the first Aeon’s End Legacy on stream. And I had a blast with that game. Plus, just in general I really like Aeon’s End, so much so that I keep on backing and tracking down everything for it.

Legacy of Gravehold is going to be another legacy campaign. Where I knew a little bit of the campaign for the original Aeon’s End Legacy, I know nothing about the story this time. I just know that the box is bigger and heavier. That probably means more cards, but I’m hoping for more story as well.

3 – Clank! Legacy

And the other legacy game is Clank! Legacy. This one is higher for me just because I want to play it with some friends. I love the Acquisitions Inc theme on it as their game play is hilarious. And I suspect that the humor in the game will be great as well. Plus, I like the system that it is built upon. I prefer Clank! In! Space! to Clank I think, but the legacy version with the fantasy theme, I’m still there for it.

This is a deck building push your luck game. You are going into it trying to complete missions and get treasures. And it’s competitive in that you are trying to be the best so that you can end up with the franchise within Acquisitions Inc. I have to imagine that the whole of the story is going to be goofy, and it sounds like there is a lot to unlock so that is exciting as well.

2 -Middara: Unintentional Malum

A huge box with two more huge boxes on the way. I give that as my excuse for not getting it to the table sooner, I want Acts II and III to show up as well. But really, it’s just such a table hog and such a big game, I am not sure that I want to play it solo, but I really do want to play it.

Middara has more of an anime style to it’s game look. The artwork, and from what I can tell, the world building and story look fairly anime. It is going to be a leveling up, dice chunking, monster fighting, dungeon crawling game. And I think it’s going to be one that I find to be a lot of fun to get to the table and play. But like I said, I suspect the game would work best with four players, or two players controlling two characters each.

1 – Stars of Akarios

Call me cult of the new if you want, and it’d be fair in this case. But I am excited to plays Stars of Akarios. This is a big space exploration and adventure game. What really intrigues me is how it is split into two parts. There is that space exploration and then you can be down on an planet as well. That is intriguing.

It also looks like it uses a combination of cards for modifying your attacks and things but also uses dice. And just the production quality on the game is great. While it is a big game, compared to some of the others, it looks like it should be easier to play solo. And I want to get it to the table and play it on Malts and Meeples.

Final Thoughts

I say this almost any time I talk about a campaign game. And I feel like I can redo this list in different ways pretty often. But I have a lot of them coming in. 15 more campaign games in fact, which is a lot. Now some can be played as more of a one off situation such as Primal: The Awakening. Otherwise might be smaller sit down and play a campaign of it in a sitting, Spire’s End: Hildegard. But most of them are going to be much much bigger than that.

Just to show everything that is coming, and there is a lot, in alphabetical order, we have:

1. The 7th Citadel
2. Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread
3. Chronicles of Drunagor
4. Divinus
5. Ehterfields
6. Frosthaven
7. HEL: The Last Saga
8. ISS Vanguard
9. Mythwind
10. Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood
11. Primal: The Awakening
12. Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies
13. Spire’s End: Hildegard
14. Valor & Villainy: Lludwik’s Labyrinth
15. Vampire: The Masquerade – Chapters

What campaign games do you own, if any, that you want to get played?

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The Pledge Levels

Marvel Zombies has three pledge levels. I expect to see a fourth show up probably tomorrow. An all in sort of level, maybe even two or three more show up. They’d likely be, all in game play, all in everything, and maybe an all in game play without Galactus. And I’d kind of be cool with that.

But as it stands, right now there are three pledge levels. You have the Undead Pledge at $130, the Resistance Pledge at $240 and the Galactus Pledge at $410. So none of the levels are all that cheap, plus there are a number of additional add-ons including Sentinels, Fantastic Four, Alternate Sculpts, and plastic tokens.

What Comes With Each Pledge

At the Undead Pledge level, you get the basic Marvel Zombies game where you can play as the zombies. You also get all applicable stretch goals, and good news, all of them are applicable to that level right now. Generally, CMON will add in a couple of stretch goals for specific levels in order to get people to increase their pledges late in the campaign. They haven’t done that yet.

At the Resistance Pledge level, you get basically another base box. This allows you to play more of a normal Zombicide experience as the heroes. It also is the box that focuses more on the X-Men. So adds in some value, but the X-Men Resistance box is supposed to be coming to retail. What that means is that you can get everything there, possibly cheaper, if you want, at least cheaper shipping wise.

Finally at the Galactus Pledge you get a 25″ or so tall Galactus, a big guy anyways. And that’s the big addition to that pledge level. It’s also the only way that you can get Silver Surfer. Galactus is a playable piece, though, basically an entity that is going to eat up the board and spaces as he goes along.

The Marvel Zombies Add-Ons

So, like i said there are a number of add-ons as well that we should talk about. Because a lot of favorite characters or interesting characters are available in the add-ons, which of course is going to increase your price.

Extra Dice – $10

This just makes it easier on you as a player or group of players. If you think you are going to play it solo, I don’t think that you need extra dice. But if you’re planning on play with four or six players, you may want more dice. I don’t believe that one set of dice per person is needed, but one for each side of the table, that’d be good.

Plastic Tokens – $30

This just comes down to taste and how much you think you’ll be playing it. Extra tokens and plastic tokens are nice. It means that you don’t have to worry about the tokens wearing out. And some tokens that are more common, having more of them, for each end of the table isn’t bad. But for me, this is a luxury add-on that I don’t care that much about.

Artist’s Special Editions – $25

Now we have some special sculpts for some of the characters. These are just different sculpts that you can play with for different heroes. Like an Old Man Logan sculpt. Those things are cool, but they don’t add new characters, it’s just different sculpts of existing characters. For me, if I was a painter and I wanted some really cool things to paint, I’d consider it, but I’m not so it’s a pass for me.

Sentinel Strike – $40

Now we get into game play ones. If you want to get the Sentinels from the X-Men comics, this is where you can do that. But more so, if you want to play as Charles Xavier in human or zombie form, this is where you need to get him.

Guardians of the Galaxy Set – $40

Then the Guardians of the Galaxy, and if you were to get any of the add-ons, I think this is best bang for your buck. It comes with a lot of fan favorite characters with the Guardians. It comes with Skrulls, those will matter more in the future of the MCU. And it’s heavier on the heroes than some of the other ones. Plus it’s at the $40 price point.

Hydra Resurrection – $50

Now, if you want to get a whole lot more, Hydra Resurrection is good as well. It comes Hydra troops that you can spawn. Now, this one does have more than the Guardians of the Galaxy set, but less kind of favorite heroes, I think, in some ways. And some of the minis you’re going to get are going to be those Hydra troops.

Fantastic 4: Under Siege – $50

Finally, the Fantastic Four, and I’m not sure if we’ll get any more add-ons. This seems like about the right amount, but if there is, it’ll be at 1 PM today. But this is going to add in even more heroes to play around with, the Fantastic Four, and some interesting bystanders with Agatha Harkness, more comic accurate. Again, like Skrulls, Fantastic Four are going to be more important coming up here in the MCU.

Where is the Value?

So, if you add up everything, $410 + another $245 in add-ons. And if there is another add-on it’ll be happening today. But before shipping you’re looking at $655 and shipping in two waves is going to be $100 in the US, more elsewhere.

Marvel Zombies is an extremely steep Kickstarter, but, there are some options to make it cheaper on yourself. Firstly, just getting the Undead Pledge is going to be a whole lot cheaper. $140 and the expansions isn’t that bad. Assuming X-Men Resurgence comes to retail, which they say it will, then the value is better. That shipping is much cheaper. Plus, you can add-on the different expansions and get stuff that way. It’d still be about a $450 all in pledge.

What’s My Marvel Zombies Pledge

Let’s face it, for a lot of us, we want the game because it is Marvel. And that’s why I’m willing to shell out some money for it. But the question is, how much?

For myself, I am not going to be getting the plastic pieces, extra dice, or alternate sculpts. That saves about $65 overall on the price. I expect I’m going to want to play it a bunch, but not enough that I’m going to be too concerned about the tokens wearing out. I have other games by CMON and it hasn’t been an issue.

Plus, right now I am not in for the giant Galactus. I might end up backing that later, but I am not sure on it. The whole price is still pretty high, $180 for add-ons and $240 for the two boxes, that’s $420 right now and $65 on shipping. So $500 for what I’m likely to get. Or near that and that’s going to be a lot of stuff. I think it’ll be about 200 minis, plus the game play.

Would You Back Marvel Zombies?

Now, there are plenty of reasons not to back. Not even looking at price there are a lot of reasons. You might not like Marvel, this makes little sense for you. There are other Zombicide versions out there for you. You don’t like Zombies, well, Marvel United which has been to Kickstarter already from CMON might be for you.

But everything I’ve researched on game play says that this is a very good game. And the minis, if you are a painter, are going to be amazing. So is it the right game for you to back? Let me know in the comments?

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If you want to do the rankings that I did, you can enter in the information on Pub Meeple. You need to enter in the movies and shows but there are good lists of all of the MCU properties out there. Let me know what yours looks like compared to mine.

Thanks For Listening

I hope that you are enjoying the podcast. If you are please consider subscribing, sharing it with your friends, or leave a rating and review. All of those help more people find the podcast and the podcast grow. You can find the podcast over on iTunes, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

I also have a patreon, Patreon.com/nerdologists. All the money goes back into improving the quality of the podcast, of Malts and Meeples YouTube channel, and Nerdologists.com. Thank you for considering supporting me with your funds.

Comments or Questions?

Let me know how things get ranked out for you with the Marvel properties. Where do you overlap with me, where might you be pretty different? I’m guessing I’ve already had some pretty different opinions on the four properties that I’ve talked about.

You can let me know over on Twitter. You can find me there @TheScando or with #10MinMarvel. Also down below you can leave your rankings in the comments. Keep up with more of these next week as I plan on doing my 23 through 20. And let me know more things to be reading on Marvel Unlimited.

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Game Play

In this game, you are trying to defeat some villain, in our case it was Red Skull. They have their plan, Red Skull is trying to create havoc and get Hydra to take over, and they have placed threats all around the city. As the heroes you are going around, fighting his minions and thugs, doing heroic actions to thwart his plans and rescue bystanders all so you can get to the point where you can punch Red Skull and take him out.

To do this, you are playing cards out on your turn that do one to two actions. These cards either have you moving, punching, a heroic action, or maybe a combination of some of those. There are also cards with wilds on them. Now that doesn’t seem like much, but you also get to use the symbols on the cards of the person before you. So in our game, if Ant-Man did two heroic actions, and the Wasp played a wild, she’d get to do two heroic actions and then an action of her choice.

Every third player turn, the villain goes. The villain actually starts off the game as well, they will move, possibly, around the board and then do several different things. There are bam effects that they do, this might be doing damage, or advancing their threat. If they ever complete their goal, they win, if they don’t have any more scheme cards to draw, they win, if a hero has no cards in their hand or to draw, they win.

Initial Thoughts

This is a very light weight cooperative game, and that’s not really a negative, it’s just a fact. Marvel United is meant to be a game that’s played by families or with people who aren’t as much gamers, but the Marvel theme appeals to them. This is what I was expecting from the base game, and I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed. I already can tell that I’d definitely recommend this game to families with younger children as well, because most of the cards don’t have text on them, and the board even has a limited amount of text that kids will probably learn after a few plays of it.

There is also a good amount in the box. You get 3 villains and 7 heroes in the base box, so you have a lot of different combinations that you can play. We picked Ant-Man and Wasp because they are a team-up group, obviously, and also because their minis are great with Wasp taking off from or alighting upon a die, and Ant-Man getting ready to leap off of a quarter. But all of the minis are great in the game, Red Skull is a little boring, but in all fairness, he isn’t the most dynamic looking character. And in the base box, you have a lot of great heroes, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Captain Marvel, and Black Widow round out the rest of them, so you have a great variety to play from.

I also like that each hero has a normal selection of cards ranging from heroic actions to punches, to maybe a move and a punch, but they also have three unique cards to them. These cards do have a bit of text on them, but are really the cards that give them flavor. Ant-Man, for example had a card that is called Quantum Realm that has no symbols on it, but it allows him to go back through the cards that he’s played and swap that card with any of them. Or he has a card where he shrinks which means that he can’t take damage for a turn, or grows so he can punch one villain really really hard.

As a negative, I think base box only, it has enough game play for a family game, but for hobby gamers, you’ll miss not having at least an expansion for the game. This is meant to really be that retail version that you can pull off of the shelf at Wal-Mart or Target because you see it there, and it won’t be too much to play. The expansions, according to what I’ve heard, are supposed to add in more interesting game play and challenges that might be a bit tougher and more gamer.

Final Thoughts

This is a fun game that for me is going to need more. However, I have more of this game coming. And even without more, I had a fun time playing it, and I think it’ll be a game that’s good for a ton of people. If you have kids who are interested in Marvel movies, cartoons, comics, whatever it might be, this is a great option of a game to get them, I should have said that pre-Christmas. If you know someone who isn’t a gamer who likes Marvel, they might like this game as well. It really should be an evergreen recommendation for a family weight game, and then the expansions, when they come to retail, people can pick and choose if they want more. Overall, though, a good experience playing Marvel United and a game that I want to play again and play with more.

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Marvel Champions is a cooperative superhero game where you play as a superhero who is trying to thwart the plans of a villain and defeat them. On the heroes turn, you can play cards that might be an ally or give you an additional ability or allow you to thwart the villains scheme or attack the villain. But these cards cost resources, and to get the resources to play these cards, you need to discard cards, so while you might want to play all the cards in your hand because they do something good, you are limited in number to how many you can play because they are going to cost, and the better cards cost more. Then the villain goes, and depending on if you are in the alter-ego side of the superhero side of the character card, they will either work on their scheme or they’ll attack you. Plus, then you need to encounter a card, it might be a henchmen that you need to take care of, otherwise they’ll be pinging you for damage, or it could be treachery card where it causes some other action to happen, like scheming or attacking again. This goes on until either the villain has completed their plan or the hero has taken out the villain. If the superhero takes out the villain, the heroes win, but each villain has two versions that you have to face off against, so taking them down once isn’t enough.

This game does some really interesting things. First, let me say that one of the big things about the game is that it’s a living card game. That means that there are expansions coming out. In the base game, you have plenty to play with Ultron and Rhino as villains and the likes of Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, She-Hulk, and Spider-Man as villains. But the expansions give you new characters or villains to face off against. You can get Green Goblin so that you have to worry about him and his glider in a fight, and you can get Captain America to face off against him. There are other heroes like Ms Marvel, Black Widow, Thor, Doctor Strange, and Hulk that have been announced or are out. All these expansions, and a Red Skull campaign expansion coming sometime this summer, can make the game more expensive, but also you don’t need them all, if you don’t care about Hulk and Ms Marvel, don’t pick them up, and you can still have a great game with lots of fun things in it. And while the expansions are pretty consistently coming out, they aren’t that expensive, which is nice.

But let’s talk about some of the other cool things, first there is the alter-ego and superhero piece. It’s really clever and gives it a great comic book feel, in my opinion. In the comics (I’m going to mainly be using Spider-Man as an example), it’s common for Spider-Man to get knocked around, Peter Parker then needs to rest and recover, which he can, because people don’t know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but the villain, thinking that they’ve defeated Spider-Man will scheme and plot and get closer to their goal, when Spider-Man then shows up again to stop them. The flipping between sides, alter-ego and superhero, is very much that feeling. Each hero has things that they can do when they are on their alter-ego side and their superhero side that are different as well. For example, Captain America, when he’s in alter-ego form, he can recruit allies easier, but when he’s on the Captain America side, he can un-exhaust so that he can do more actions. So it make sense, Steve Rogers/Captain America is the leader of the Avengers often, so he can go out and recruit a hero, and he also never gets knocked down and out of a fight, so he’s always ready to attack and then un-exhaust and do it again, as he says…

And each hero has their own things like that, which fits their character and makes them unique from the rest of the heroes.

Another cool thing is that the heroes have different aspects to them, and you can change this up. So maybe you want Spider-Man to be more protection cards, you can give him more defensive cards in his deck. That way he’ll be able to stay in Spider-Man form longer and not have to flip back and forth between the two as much. Or maybe you want him to be aggressive you can change out his aspect to that, or Justice or Leadership. That’s going to give you another way to change up things. I played Captain America with a protection cards, and I was able to stay in the superhero side of things for all but one turn because I was taking damage so slowly. But if you wanted to, you could make Cap very aggressive and he’d deal out a lot of damage fast, or leadership makes thematic sense because he often leads the avengers. So you can mess around with deck building that way to create what type of team you want to play with.

Are there any downsides to the game? It takes a few minutes to set-up and if you aren’t familiar with deck building you might just be stuck with the decks that they recommend or you might have some weird deck builds that happen. But you can learn how to do better deck building. I think that the one downside right now is that it is hard to find the expansions, they aren’t printing enough and it takes some time to get a reprint done, and with COVID-19 as well, that could delay the reprints as well. Right now I have the Wrecking Crew villain expansion and Thor character expansion, but those are basically sold out as well. But, with that said, those packs will show up again, and there is enough in the base box that it’s worth it to just grab that and play and learn with those characters.

Now, I’ve done some comparisons already, and that’s in the Board Game Battle with Marvel Legendary, so is there room for both on your shelf, I think if you like Legendary, you will probably will find that this is different enough, and vice-a-versa. But I also want to bring up the other living card games that Fantasy Flight has put out, there is Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Arkham Horror. So how does this compare to the one that I’ve played, Arkham Horror? I think that it’s close between the two, if you go back to my deck building/construction article yesterday for Top 10 in that genre, you can see that Marvel Champions is the spot above, however, it’s close. I like the story driven nature of Arkham Horror: The Card Game, and that’s something that I do miss with Marvel Champions, but that is also coming. I think that I just like the superhero theme a little bit better and being able to pull it out for one game. But because one, right now, is a single game and the other is a campaign, I think that there’s room for both on shelves.

Overall, clearly I like this game. I think that it plays well at both 1 and 2 players and offers unique challenges both ways. There is a lot of really interesting things going on in the game, and it feels like a comic book. If you’re at all interested, I’d definitely recommend checking it out. But, with that said, know that the cost could add up over time if you’re a Marvel fanboy/fangirl, like I am. Because I’ll want to get most of it over time. I also think that this can work for a more casual player to pick up and learn. Fantasy Flight does a good job with their rule book, and the game is pretty simple, but still offers good challenges, so this a game that people interested in it will probably be able to understand easily.

Overall Grade: A
Gamer Grade: A
Casual Grade: A-

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It’s been a while since I’ve seen a lot of these films, and Captain America: First Avenger has been quite a while as well. So how did it stack up against what I had remembered and where it was in my MCU Movie Rankings that I did after Endgame came out. Obviously, I need to rewatch everything again to see if anything else is going to shift around, but the quick summary is that I enjoyed watching Captain America: First Avenger again. I don’t think it’s without it’s flaws and compared to the origins of Iron Man and Thor, I think that it’s weaker. There will be spoilers, but this movie has been out for a long time.

I think that this movie starts off strong. I like the story of Steve Rogers and how he becomes Captain America. The whole time he’s applying for army, you feel for him, and you get a good idea of how loyal he is and how strong his convictions are. And then getting stuck encouraging people to buy bonds feels like something that would legitimately happen. I think the only part of the story to that point that feels a bit odd is the Hydra Agent blowing up everything, mainly I feel like that part of the opening of the movie was a bit rushed. Beyond that though, up through rescuing Bucky and the others is great. Unfortunately the movie starts to fall apart for me there.

What really makes it feel off is the montage sequence. If you don’t remember, it’s a sequence where Captain America and the Howling Commandos, that’s what the group run by Dum Dum Dugan is called, are just running around and punching Hydra Agents again and again. For a montage sequence to work well, you need to feel like the character is progressing towards a goal or learning something, and in this case, the montage doesn’t really provide that. You’re supposed to be getting the idea that they are cornering the Red Skull, but it doesn’t feel that way. It’s just punching some anonymous bad guys and cheering because Captain America is a hero who is beating up the bad guys. This could be a bit of nod to the fact that he punched an anonymous Hitler over and over again with the War Bond shows he was putting on, but it didn’t feel that way, it just felt like rah rah hero fighting without any purpose to it.

That’s where it starts to come apart for me, and then it continues with the actual getting to the Red Skull. Again too much punching of anonymous bad guys. Then getting captured and then getting rescued. I think the issue I have is less about that, but instead because you don’t feel like by the end of the montage that the Red Skull is much of a threat at all. I mean, we all knew that Captain America was going to win anyways, but they had done a decent job building Red Skull early in the movie, but at the end, you feel almost like he’s just another anonymous bad guy for Captain America to beat up.

Now, all of this seems like a lot of a knock on the movie. And I do think it makes it one of the weaker movies, but it’s easy to pick out what you don’t like in the film. I do want to go back and talk some things that I really want to point out how good they are. Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter works so well, and you feel like she has feelings for Steve Rogers, more so after he’s Captain America and not tiny and scrawny, but she clearly respected him and liked his attitude better than any of the other large guys who they were training, and she liked the fact that his personality didn’t change. Stanley Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones were also good in their roles. I wish we could have had more time with Tucci on the screen, but when he was on the screen he was great. It makes sense why his character died and it was needed. Finally, Howard Stark, played by Dominic Cooper is really enjoyable. You feel like the confidence that he exudes and his cockiness and you can see why Tony Stark would end up the way he did based off of Howard’s portrayal.

And I realize that I forgot one, Toby Jones as Dr. Arnim Zola, I don’t think I had realized how well he played his character. I wonder if they were planning that he’d infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. from the beginning or not, but if they did, he played that out well on screen and you can see some of his quirks that I hadn’t paid that much attention to before. In particular, I like how you can see into his mind with how he has no qualms about building weapons for people to kill people with, but he doesn’t want to see them used. His character feels like he’s, in some ways, as much in control as Red Skull is, which in some ways plays out in a future movie, but I’ll save that for that review. Toby Jones just does a great job of playing that brilliant and almost scared character.

Finally, I think that the CGI and special effects hold up well in this film. I was a little bit surprised considering how much they’ve advanced or seemed to advance in the past few years. But Captain America still looks good, and putting Chris Evans head on the scrawny body works. It didn’t feel uncanny and it didn’t look like it was poor CGI. I had thought that it might not hold up with the Red Skull or something like that, but I feel like, and this was obviously when Marvel was still ramping up, it did a good job for what had to have been a pretty small budget.

So, like I said, I don’t know that this movie is going to move up. As much as I remembered how well I liked the first half of the film, the second half falls apart some for me. And I think, like we’ll see with Thor soon, Chris Evans has to grow into the role of Captain America. I also wish, with the future films, they had done a call back to something that Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci’s character) had said, about how the super soldier serum doesn’t just make you bigger and stronger, but it makes you more of who you were before. And I think that’s something that they could have leaned into a whole lot more, especially with Captain America: Civil War. I also think that if we were to get this film now, the film would be stronger, because they know what they are doing better, but also because they wouldn’t be as worried about leaning into a 1940’s aesthetic and tropes, which I feel like they did once in a while, but generally felt a bit out of place when they did.

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So let’s talk about this list. Starting at the top and going down.

1. Avengers: Endgame – It’s hard to say that this movie isn’t the best one. it wraps everything up nicely and it’s just amazing action throughout. Clearly I’ve been thinking about it and l am going to see it again. Rarely does a movie feel like it hits all the right notes like Endgame does.
2. Avengers: Infinity War – I like this movie for it’s shock value, I like it for Thanos as a villain, I like it for everything that it does. It also hits it out of the park, and we get to see the first of the team-up of Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy which should be fun, hopefully, in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol III.
3. Thor: Ragnorak – I can watch this movie whenever. It has a blend of humor and action and is the only Thor movie to use Immigrant Song from Led Zepplin. Chris Hemsworth just plays comedy so well.
4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol I – I think this one is so high because it showed that Marvel could do something that was primarily comedy. Yes, there is action in Guardians of the Galaxy, but really it’s more about the humor. They also were able to get heart into this one.
5. Spider-Man: Homecoming – Peter Parker is one of my favorite, if not my favorite superhero. I grew up watching the early 90’s Spider-Man cartoon, so there’s nostalgia, and the original Spider-Man movies I liked, even kind of liked the mess that the third one was. But this is by far the best Spider-Man movie, and they really nail the feeling of Peter Parker in the MCU.
6. The Avengers – Hard not to put the original team-up movie up high. The battle of New York is just great, and Loki makes such a good villain. We also get to see the good Hulk really show off in this movie. We also get to meet so many characters that are important as well, like Maria Hill, Hawkeye, and really get to know Black Widow for the first time.
7. Iron Man – The original MCU movie. This movie just hit perfectly with Robert Downey Jr. playing a great Tony Stark. It was an origin story that started Marvel’s trend of creating really human and relatable characters as you see Tony from the start, at his weakest. The main villain might be underwhelming, but Robert Downey Jr. makes that not matter.
8. Thor – Way higher than most people will have it, but I love Thor. I think that it actually does a good job being a Thor movie that feels like the comics as well. You get some team-up of Asgardians, and you get to see Thor out of place. Plus Loki is always a good thing. I don’t think Hemsworth had hit his stride with the character yet though.
9. Ant-Man – Probably a lot higher than a lot of people have it. Again, I thought the villain was underwhelming, but the family comedy feel for this movie just works. Scott Lang, played by Paul Rudd, is just great, and you get good sight gags, and action that is done in an interesting way.
10. Doctor Strange – This one is an interesting story, probably where we see the first drop off of movies that I really like to just like quite well. Benedict Cumberbatch does a good job as Strange and you get some interesting action throughout. It also didn’t have a big fight at the end against the final boss which was fun and interesting.
11. Avengers: Age of Ultron – James Spader as Ultron works great. Getting to see Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver is amazing, I love adding them in. This also really doubles down on the infinity stones. I also like it, because this movie is key to Tony Stark’s character arc and sets up Thor: Ragnorak by giving us some great Hulk and Black Widow scenes.
12. Ant-Man and the Wasp – I really like Ghost, but I thought that overall this movie wasn’t quite as fun as the first Ant-Man. Michael Pena is amazing in this movie, as well as the first Ant-Man movie. I suspect I’ll like this movie more on a second viewing, only watched it once thus far.
13. Iron Man 3 – Do they do the Mandarin wrong? Yes, in some ways. Mainly I say yes, because it could have been some other random bad guy, not someone as big as Mandarin, in terms of the comics. However, I think it works for the movie, and the end fight is great and exciting.
14. Captain America: Winter Soldier – First Captain America movie on the list, and definitely the best one in my opinion. I really like the twist the SHIELD is Hydra, and I think it would be fun to see some sort of Secret War angle for Nick Fury to lead a covert SHIELD and be battle Hydra still behind the scenes. Also, we get to see Cap conflicted about Bucky and deal with that.
15. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol II. – Probably another one that I need to see again, but it feel a bit flat for me. The biggest thing was Ego that part of the story just felt weird and off to me. I don’t know how they’d have been able to pull it off differently, but it felt like there should have been a better way.
16. Black Panther – Probably a lot higher for a lot of people, but I have a major issue with this film. The writing for Black Panther, himself, was bad. It wasn’t acted very well and it just didn’t work. Then you have Michael B. Jordan stealing the show. The look and tone were great for a Black Panther movie, but when the main character and his love interest are both the most boring characters in the movie, it’s going to fall very flat.
17. Captain America: The First Avengers – I’m not a huge fan of this movie. I think out of all of the origin story movies, it feels most like an origin story. However, Red Skull is a villain that I like, and I like that they’ve been able to kind of bring him back. Captain America just doesn’t have much character development as compared to say Iron Man.
18. Captain Marvel – Probably another one that surprised a lot of people. I got one issue, and I talked about it in my spoiler review of Endgame, but Captain Marvel is too powerful for the MCU. She isn’t a character that you can use often because you have to have an Infinity Stone to slow her down I guess? Maybe they can save her character by nerfing her powers now that the infinity stones are destroyed and it would make sense? Also, Brie Larson, I like you as an actress, but you didn’t feel like a super hero in this movie.
19. Captain America: Civil War – Aka. Captain America and Iron Man fight over Bucky. Sokovia Accords, what are those? This is about Bucky, with a side of Bucky, and a little bit more Bucky after that. That is why this movie falls so flat for me, while others like it. Sure there is a bit about the Accords in there, but when you really get down to it, Captain America spends more of his time fighting Iron Man because of Bucky than the Accords.
20. Iron Man 2 – I don’t think this is a horrible movie, but it just falls flat. Whiplash as a villain isn’t all that compelling, but like the rest of the Iron Man movies, it is often more about Tony fighting himself than it is about Iron Man fighting a bad guy. Just wish the bad guy had been a bit more compelling.
21. Thor: The Dark World – Chris Hemsworth did fine in this movie that really didn’t know where it wanted to go. However, Natalie Portman who had been okay in the first movie clearly is phoning it in on this one. I also don’t think they did a great job with the Dark Elves. Loki was entertaining, but not in it enough.
22. The Incredible Hulk – Haven’t seen it. That will change this summer, but sorry Edward Norton, you don’t interest me as the Hulk. There are only two hulks, Lou Ferrigno and Mark Ruffalo.

Now, what do you think of this list? I’m sure that there are some, mainly Civil War that people will have much higher on there lists, but you’re wrong. Wait, this is a list of what I like, so you can put them where ever you want in your list and enjoy them. Let me know what your rankings are in the comments below.

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