Marvel Crisis Protocol: Adam Warlock, Moondragon, and Quasar Review

Hello, true believers! It’s Cap’n Wake, Goonhammer’s own #1 Guardians of the Galaxy fanboy, back with another cosmically powered box review. This box includes Adam Warlock, Moondragon, and Quasar (Phyla Vell), and is really going to shake things up for the affiliation. Buckle up- this is an exciting (and long) one!

Let’s start with our new leader:

Adam Warlock

Adam Warlock has had a heck of a comic history, dating back to the late 1960s. He was created by a group of scientists on Earth who were trying (as they do) to create the perfect human. He eventually made his way into space where he- deep breath- met up with the High Evolutionary and helped save Counter-Earth from a thing called the “Man-Beast,” fought an evil religious organization called the Universal Church of Truth led by an evil future version of himself called the Magus (put a pin in that for later), helped defeat Thanos when he successfully assembled the Infinity Gauntlet, formed and led the Infinity Watch to protect the gems following that campaign, died at least three times, helped save the Kree from a Phalanx invasion, joined Star-Lord’s Guardians of the Galaxy, fought the Universal Church again, turned evil and led the Universal Church again, joined up with the forces of the Cancerverse, was killed again, was resurrected again, turned back to good and teamed up with Thanos to save reality from Annihilus, got stuck in a time-loop, met up with Kang, and eventually returned to his Infinity Gem-guarding ways. It’s…a lot. Adam Warlock has been both cosmically significant in the Marvel Universe and a pet project of various authors throughout his existence, so his storyline is convoluted to say the least! If you’re interested in learning more, the best places to start are probably the 1990s series The Infinity Gauntlet leading into Warlock and the Infinity Watch or the 2000s-era Annihilation: Conquest leading into the fabulous Abnett/Lanning run on Guardians of the Galaxy (which also heavily feature Moondragon and Phyla-Vell).

Okay then- what does this savior/destroyer of the universe bring to Marvel Crisis Protocol?

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

Adam Warlock comes in at an eye-watering 7 threat, tied for the second most expensive character in the game to date. His stats are…not what you’d expect at that value, to be honest. He’s of very average speed (medium move on a small base) and middling defensive stats (3/4/3 with 7 health on the front and 8 on the back). Hardly a standout, but there’s more going on here under the hood.

Adam’s attacks are pretty potent. Karmic Blast is a solid energy attack (considered by many the “best” attack type) and wild Sap Power is always good. Range 3 is decent, but while this attack is solid, it does feel a bit under the curve for 7 threat. There are comparable attacks on cheaper models. His Quantum Bolt spender is pretty spicy, though. Range 4, 9 dice, Mystic (another good type) with an automatic MEDIUM throw away and a chance to project out a big heal/remove conditions bubble effect to his teammates, all for five power (which is a lot, but Adam generates power well). Even without the healing, which is rare in MCP and great, the ability to throw a model from range 4 is very, very potent for battlefield control. Do note that unlike some other similar attacks, the throw here happens after the attack is resolved, so if you daze/KO your target with those 9 dice, you won’t be able to throw them. They still won’t be scoring (on account of being unconscious/dead), but if you were counting on chucking them into a buddy to do some additional damage or you care more about moving them to a specific spot than killing them, it’s something to keep in mind.

On to Superpowers…and our boy has a bunch of them. Starting with Universal Translation, who doesn’t love a pay-to-place power for some action compression? It’s comparatively short ranged, especially given his small base size, but it’s still nice to have, and he won’t struggle to pay for it at only 2 power. Cosmic Energy Construct is a perfectly respectable defensive superpower if you want to pay to add dice. I don’t always love these kinds of effects in MCP, because dice are fickle and defense dice doubly so, but in an affiliation with some access to rerolls and/or models like Rocket who can fix one of those dice with his innate cover, it’s not bad. While we’re talking about defenses, Being of Immeasurable Power gives Adam the best damage reduction in the game: -1, for free, all the time, to no minimum. Only Thanos, whom he is deliberately designed to mirror, has something comparable. Outstanding, and helps make up for his poor (for his threat) defensive stats. (BoIP has a second extremely relevant element we'll discuss in a minute, too.)

Let’s talk about Chronokinesis. What if you had Recalibration Matrix, universally regarded as a staple Team Tactics Card, but printed on a model and usable an unlimited number of times at out to range 4 from Adam? Pretty good, right? If you can fund this consistently, this is a big deal for Guardians of the Galaxy, who are generally reliant on throwing dice but whose affiliated characters sometimes struggle to have 3 power sitting around for Recal.

Adam is Peerless, so you can't sneakily combine him with Thanos for Infinity Gem-a-palooza, but he can take any of the Infinity Gems except the Soul Gem- he has his Bonded Soul Gem instead. This leads us to the second half of Being of Immeasurable Power- Adam can have two Infinity Gems instead of one (and, as we’ll see, if he’s your leader, he can also use their abilities for free). There are a lot of possibilities that this opens up, but we need to first talk about his own bespoke gem, because he has the…

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

The Bonded Soul Gem ranges from pretty decent to potentially game-saving, depending on situation. Adam won’t say no to extra power, healing, or condition removal, and while protecting your team’s precious power is something that won’t matter a lot of the time, it will matter a lot when it does. It deserves a special mention as a piece of anti-Dormammu tech; Big D gains a fair amount of power from Sapping power using his Shadow Bolt attack, and this shuts that down completely. It also protects Cosmic Ghost Rider (who is affiliated with Guardians, naturally) from one of the best ways to mitigate him, namely draining his power with Rogue, Quasar, or a character with Sap. Like I said, these are somewhat niche cases, but when they come up, the Bonded Soul Gem just completely negates the problem within Range 4 of Adam.

The Bonded Soul Gem also has one other big thing going for it: it’s free. Now honestly, I’d much rather AMG have made it cost 1 threat and made Adam a 6 rather than a 7; I think taking a second Gem is something you’ll often consider with him, but I don’t think there’s much the (repeatedly nerfed) Gems can do to make it worth spending nine threat to get two of them other than this one. I think Adam will be just fine as a model who takes the BSG and one other Gem 95% of the time (I'd guess Reality, Space, and Mind if Moondragon isn't using it will be the top picks), but it would be nice from a space to explore perspective to give players the option of running him Gem-less as a 6 or with various combinations at 7 or 8 threat. Ah well.

We can’t evaluate Adam without considering the other, incredibly important thing he brings to the table:

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

Adam is our long-awaited second leadership option for the Guardians of the Galaxy!

OK, before we dig in, AMG, could we please, PLEASE stop printing leaderships on TTCs that consume a slot? This is such a dumb tax to make some affiliations pay and not others. With the exception of the “play anybody you want and it’ll be affiliated” heyday of My Hellfire Club, absolutely none of the TTC leaderships printed to date are on the level of things like Steve1, Black Bolt, Kingpin, etc. They're certainly not so much better than other leaderships that they should “tax” the player a TTC slot for the right to play their leadership when other affiliations get them for free- especially because one of the best ones- The Bar With No Doors- explicitly doesn’t consume a TTC slot. I can only assume AMG are sticking to their guns on this one at this point “because we say so,” which is silly. You will never convince me (or anyone else with an ounce of sense) that Corvus Glaive’s First of the Black Order leadership needs to tax the player a TTC slot for balance or any other legitimate reason beside “we decided to do it this way, and players have complained about it a lot, but we have chosen this hill to die on just because.”

Ahem.

So what does this one do, then? Fortunately, if you have to burn a tactics card to access your leadership, this is one of the few that doesn’t feel outright awful to do it, because this thing rips. It is absolutely cool, thematic, and effective, with its greatest drawback being its opportunity cost.

Essentially, Cosmic Awareness lets you bank dice faces. Once per turn, when one of your characters attacks or defends, you can swap a dice face in your roll for one matching the token on the card (it starts with a shield) and put a token of the original face on the card for later. So while defending, for example, you could swap a hit in the roll for the shield that starts on the card, putting a hit in reserve for a later turn and changing that die face to a shield to block an incoming damage. It’s important to clarify that this is per TURN, not per round, so you can use it once on each of your turns and each of your opponent’s. To sweeten the pot even further, you can modify skull (failure) results with this, too- though it means putting a skull into reserve for the next time you use it, and not many Guardians have a way to count skulls in their rolls (Cosmic Ghost Rider while psychotic is the only one that immediately comes to mind).

There are a lot of implications to Cosmic Awareness, and it’s going to have a high skill ceiling to get the most out of. It helps hit triggers (if you can predict successfully what you’re going to need next activation), can help mitigate bad rolls, and can “save” a result for later when you overkill your needed hits/blocks. There are a few things you can’t do, as well:

It’s once per turn, so you can’t bank part of a bad roll for the follow-up attack.
It’s during the modify dice step, so you can’t roll out critical hits you get from Cosmic Awareness. You can, however, use other modify effects before/after using it.

Cosmic Awareness also lets Adam use the superpowers on Infinity Gems without paying power, just like Thanos can as leader of the Black Order. Nothing to sneeze at!

This is a good (potentially very good) leadership and one that looks like a lot of fun to play, with the biggest drawbacks being that it's tied to a (minimum) 7 threat character and costs a TTC slot. These are big opportunity costs, especially as the "tall teams dominate" meta is currently somewhat a thing of the past. It remains to be seen how this will shake up roster/leader selection for Guardians.

Finally, Adam has one very weird, very wild Team Tactics Card: The Magus.

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

As one of the fine friends in my local discord said, “That certainly is one of the most MCP cards of all time!”

So to play this card, you have to be playing Adam, he has to have the Bonded Soul Gem, and you can’t be using his leadership (no, as near as I can tell, you cannot use Versatile Strategy to start with Adam’s leadership, then swap to Star-Lord’s play this card- Cosmic Awareness gives Adam a leadership, regardless if it is active or not, so if you’ve played Cosmic Awareness, he’s too…aware…to become the Magus). Then, if he would be Dazed, he must play The Magus. He loses the Bonded Soul Gem and gains the Occult Magicks superpower instead. Occult Magicks, essentially, makes any enemy model attacked by Adam lose a power and Adam simultaneously either gains a power, heals a damage, or removes a condition (these are an AND trigger, not a then, so you if the enemy doesn’t have power to lose, you still get the second half of the effect). Additionally, any time an enemy loses 1 or more power from an effect caused by Adam (either from The Magus or from his Karmic Blast attack’s wild Sap Power trigger), they take a damage which does not gain them a power. Note that a character who loses power from Karmic Blast’s trigger will lose that power and take a damage at the “before damage” step from the trigger and then will lose another power from Occult Magicks after the attack is resolved, potentially taking another damage if they have power to lose.

The magical Christmasland of this card is crazy, with Adam in a perfect world firing a pair of sapping Karmic Blasts that each deal an extra 2 damage and yield him any combination of 2 power, health, or conditions removed on top of whatever power gain he got from the attacks. In practice, I wonder if it’s a bit overkill? It certainly doesn’t hurt- extra healing is awesome, and so is free unresistable damage- but the opportunity cost (playing Adam, not playing Cosmic Awareness, and paying a TTC slot for The Magus, and getting your 7 threat model dazed) is high. Then again, if you're concerned about Adam having enough personal impact for a 7 (or 8 or 9) threat model, maybe this could help him get there…but only for half the game, after your opponent dazes him, and that’s no mean feat. One of the pieces of feedback coming in from Guardians players who've tried him is that he often just doesn’t die. If that’s the case, you may be packing The Magus for nothing, especially if your opponent decides the better option is to just beat up the rest of the Guardians, an affiliation not particularly renowned for their durability.

Where does all this leave Adam Warlock, then? He’s certainly cool- a pretty thematic model who fits the character and has a lot of interesting stuff going on that looks fun to play. Getting access to another leadership is obviously awesome for Guardians as well, and it’s at least very interesting and at best very good. The question is, is that enough? Adam comes at a huge opportunity cost. 7 points is a lot in Guardians of the Galaxy- are Adam and Cosmic Awareness- which eats a TTC slot- really going to do as much for a player as Star-Lord (with Winging It) plus Yondu? Even in Guardians, you’re almost certainly committing to a 4-model shell at 17 points with Adam (you could do Rocket, Nebula, and two 3 threats of choice alongside him, but that’s a bit dicey and Nebula doesn’t score anyway, so you’re still at 4 scoring bodies). Adam can do some big things, but he's pretty slow and easily displaced, and while he generates a lot of power, he also spends it like it's going out of style. Players who want to be successful with him are going to need to practice protecting his activations and knowing when to draw on which effects from his (large) bag of tricks- a journey I'm really looking forward to!

However, there is one thing I need to call out that I have tried and I am prepared to say it might be a problem: Adam (at 8 threat), plus Cosmic Ghost Rider (at 6) and a third character at 16, 17, or 18 threat. Now, this only works when there are a low number of available points on the table- ideally six, but no more than 7 or you get scored out- but it can be utterly backbreaking for an unprepared opponent. The amount of heat this list can spray downrange brings back bad memories of the kaiju meta of yore. CGR hits like a truck; Adam protects his power, fixes his dice, and provides healing while ALSO hitting hard; the third character either plays support, runs scenario, or pitches in with their own damage output.

I played this into a very practiced Dormammu player last week, and he was forced to fall back on trying to play scenario against me- I was able to fairly handily remove 8 threat of models from the game by turn 3 and mitigate Dormammu's power economy so he couldn't bring any back with Dark Restoration. In the end, the Dormammu player won, but: 1) it was my first time ever playing Adam and/or his leadership, 2) I haven't played CGR in over a year, and 3) the loss only happened because Dormammu managed to unexpectedly one-shot Adam from full health with a pair of double Worthy-hammer Shadow Bolt attacks, and only because I forgot that I still had access to Fall Back. If I'd played the card, Adam would have survived and not dropped his two hammers, and then he and CGR would have likely taken care of Dormammu at the top of the next round. My point is, if I, comparatively inexperienced with this particular squad, almost out-attritioned a skilled and practiced Dormammu player (who admittedly was also playing against Adam/CGR for the first time), we might have a problem. Further testing is needed! It doesn't seem so overwhelming that good and practiced players won't be able to work out a way around it, but I can see it becoming an absolute buzzsaw at mid-to-lower skill level tables, and something that is really not a lot of fun to play against.

All in all, Adam is fascinating and a character that is going to take some time for us all to figure out how to play with and against over the next few months. Is the Adam/CGR/X list a meta menace? Does Adam have a viable place in a more all-rounder Guardians build? Can he carve out a consistent roster spot for himself, or will his box-mates (who I’m confident will see play) end up overshadowing him? Your intrepid Guardians columnist can't wait to find out!

Speaking of, let’s move on to…

Moondragon

Moondragon is the daughter of Drax the Destroyer (really!), but neither of them are the people they were back on Earth. When Heather Douglas was a little girl, she and her parents happened to be driving across the desert (as one does) when Thanos landed his spaceship in the area (again, as one does). In a classic villain “no witnesses!” move, Thanos destroyed the car, killing Heather’s parents, though unbeknownst to her, her father’s soul was reborn in a new body as the vengeance-obsessed Drax. Heather herself was left orphaned, until she was found by Thanos’s father Mentor and taken to be raised by the Eternals of Titan. During this time, she was contacted by the Dragon of the Moon, a malevolent primeval entity that sought to corrupt her. She banished it (for a time), but it remained lurking in her soul. Eventually, she ventured out into the universe and joined the Avengers, but the continuing influence of the Dragon of the Moon made her reckless and arrogant, leading to her being shackled by Odin with a headband to limit her powers until she learned humility. (This is apparently one of Odin’s favorite moves.) She then sought a chance to redeem herself, joining Dr. Strange’s Defenders alongside Valkyrie. In time, she was chosen by Adam Warlock to protect the Mind Stone as part of the Infinity Watch, met and fell in love with Phyla-Vell, and fought alongside her as a valuable member of Star-Lord’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

My hot take when I first saw Moondragon’s card was, “Wow,” and that hasn’t changed with repeated viewing! I have been after AMG for a looooong time to give us a 3 threat we wanted to play in Guardians of the Galaxy, and now here we are. Of course, they couldn't keep it simple- they also made her a Gem Bearer with access to consistent and effective displacement, something else the Guardians have really been asking for, but at the cost of going up to 4 threat and out of that coveted 3 threat slot. Decisions, decisions!

Let’s start with the stats. 3/3/4 with 6 health on each side is pretty solid defense for a 3 threat, especially paired with her superpowers. A medium base with a medium move and Flight makes her one of the faster Guardians, right up there with her partner Phyla and longtime staple Beta Ray Bill.

Moving on to the…mystic attacks? In Guardians of the Galaxy? Be still my heart!

Moondragon’s gainer Psionic Barrage is a range 3, 4 dice mystic attack. This is unimpressive- it’s the same stats as Mysterio’s, and my buddy who plays Spider-Foes has long bemoaned his lackluster builder. The difference here? It’s a gainer. Moondragon gets one power, guaranteed, every time she attacks. And it might be two- she has a wild Rapid Fire trigger on the attack. With only four dice, that’s only a 45.7% chance to hit it (thanks to Jarvis Protocol for the odds help!), but that’s not terrible, especially with potential help from either Guardians leadership. When it does trigger, she’s going to get a second power, again guaranteed. And let me tell you- this is a lady who knows how to spend power. Psionic Barrage is unlikely to do a ton of damage, but it’s not bad; there are characters out there with criminally poor mystic defenses, and as anybody who has played a bunch of a rapid-fire character like Mystique can tell you, roll enough attacks and sometimes you just spike. Treat the damage from this as a nice bonus- the real key to this attack is its ability to generate power for Moondragon’s excellent suite of superpowers.

Moondragon’s spender, Dragon of the Moon, lets her dark side out for a pretty decent attack- 3 power for 7 mystic dice that count the opponent’s skulls and have a wild Hex trigger isn’t bad, and it enables her to punch harder on a clap-back turn. In practice, though, I’m not sure how many of these you’re going to get off in a game- it’s only range 2, and Moondragon has so many great things to spend her power on that it’s hard to imagine much getting budgeted for this.

Speaking of those superpowers, let’s get to them!

Charge- you know it, you fear it, we love to see it- action compression is key in MCP, especially on the kinds of scenarios that Guardians are currently playing. The ability to rotate points on the board while still attacking (for guaranteed power) is really, really nice to see on a 3 threat and something the affiliation can really use- Guardians’ prior 3 threat options outside of Star-Lord were Groot and Drax, both of whom are slow and lack any kind of action efficiency. It’s also great that unlike, say, Imperius Rex! on Namor, this superpower just specifies move action followed by attack action, so if you want to Charge in and use Dragon of the Moon, you absolutely can.

Distracting Illusions is cute- it’s basically the same as Amazing Spider-Man’s Witty Banter and the guidelines for using it are probably pretty much the same here. If you might deny your opponent a key trigger, or it’s the only thing standing between you and being dazed/KOed, time to use the superpower. If you’re just preventing a random point of damage, it’s probably better in many cases to take the hit and gain the power rather than spending some for a chance to avoid it.

Shield Mind is a great superpower, though a little less critical than it once was because of the fall of Thanos. Stopping these kinds of movements won’t be relevant in a lot of games, but when it is, it can absolutely save your bacon, especially if the person is trying to force you to walk into a “booby traps” character like Rocket, Silk, Mysterio, Electro, etc. It is also, ironically, great at protecting you from opposing Moondragons with the Mind Stone! (Keep in mind that you can’t Shield Mind against Emma Frost, one of the primary users of these kinds of effects.) All in all, a fabulous superpower that is worth its weight in gold when you need it.

If all that wasn’t enough to excite you, Moondragon is also a Shao-Lom Martial Artist, counting blanks in her defense rolls when the attacker is within range 2, regardless of the attack type(!). This is strictly better than a regular, boring old Martial Artist and pairs nicely with her 4 mystic defense to make her very hard to hurt with mystic attacks up close, as it should be. Taken with her 12 total health and 3/3/4 defenses, this makes her almost as tough as Groot or Drax- she has 2 less health than Groot and lacks Drax’s damage reduction, but she is more likely to be consistently blocking attacks from up close. Just watch out for blasters- unlike a lot of Martial Artists, Moondragon doesn’t have Stealth, so hitting her from outside range 2 is a lot easier than it is against those characters.

Finally, Moondragon is a Gem Bearer (Mind). The Mind Gem is in the running for best Infinity Gem at the time of this writing, and being able to take it on a character who can Charge and has a flat gainer attack is very appealing. With the Mind Gem, Moondragon can easily deploy opposite an objective and use the extra power from the Gem to charge on turn 1, putting (at least) two range 3 Psionic Barrage attacks into whomever goes to pick it up. Even if she doesn’t get any damage through, the two power generated is enough to use the Mind Gem’s superpower to advance the enemy model S towards the rest of your team’s waiting blasters/arrows/etc. Just don’t get greedy- if you hit the rapid fire trigger on the first attack and get the two power you need, consider carefully whether you should attack again and potentially give the target the ability to escape/cancel your careful placement with Fall Back or a similar effect if you have given them the power to do so. It might be best to just advance them S into range of say, Yondu, and then finish your activation by moving to a more strategic point. Either way, the flexibility is fantastic and lack of displacement is something that the Guardians have struggled with- I've played Moondragon several times with the Gem now, and she's performed admirably each time.

Moondragon also has two Team Tactics Cards linked to her. Power Couple requires Moondragon and Quasar, so we’ll talk about that in a moment. Let’s get into The Douglas Family first.

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

Okay, so let’s get the bad out of the way- a lot of what this card is doing requires Drax. I love Drax as a character, but as a Guardians model, he just isn’t cutting it these days. Trust me, I was one of the last holdouts to give up on the guy. Make him a vampire in Thralls of Dracula and he’s got some legs, but as-is, he’s just too slow and too short ranged to be viable in what Guardians are trying to do, especially with the affiliation’s limited access to the Bleed condition, which he needs to really shine. It’s a real shame he and some of the other gen one Guardians appear to have just missed the cutoff for AMG updates in their reboxings.

So let’s focus on Heather for a second, because here’s the thing: this card doesn’t actually require Drax. Moondragon can pay the four power herself to take a Psionic Barrage attack that doesn’t count as an action, counting skulls in the defender’s roll as successes. This is actually a little better than counting her own skulls, because she could potentially get 4+ hits herself plus whatever her opponent rolls. She then gets to count the opponent’s skulls against that target on all attacks for the rest of the turn- this is most useful if you’re trying to machine gun Psionic Barrage attacks, though, as Dragon of the Moon already counts those skulls. You can use this card in a couple of ways- at the beginning of a turn to try to amp up her damage, or perhaps to finish off another target who’s not quite down at the end of her activation. All that seems fine. Maybe not four power and a TTC slot fine, but it’s at least interesting.

But what if you were determined to play Drax- what could you do with this card and a little help from his daughter? This actually is a pretty nice little boost to Drax’s turn- it gives you the ability to apply a Vengeance token where and when you want it, it gives Drax a Medium move (this is really good for him- one of his biggest problems is range 2 attacks and a lack of action compression), and it lets Moondragon make a Psionic Barrage attack out of activation to help pile on the pain. In theory, you could play this card, put a Vengeance token on a target, move to them, whack them with +3 dice, and hopefully hit the bleed trigger so your follow up can get some rerolls, plus with a little luck you’ll get the power to throw or use his spender later on as well, and then Moondragon gets to zap somebody (either the same target or another). That’s a pretty decent little turn right there. The problem, of course, is that you have to play 2-4 other turns with Drax without those effects, so I don’t think this is going to move the needle on getting him back into Guardians lineups- though tough models like him are even more so alongside Adam Warlock.

Overall, I think Moondragon is a fantastic addition to the Guardians lineup! (She’s also an Avenger and a Defender, and I expect to see her there some- though I think she’s less critically needed there with all the good 3-threats those affiliations have). The biggest decision is going to be do you use her to solve the Guardians’ 3 threat roster hole or give her the Mind Gem take advantage of the extra power and displacement that gives you- at only 4 threat, it’s a real steal.

Quasar

The daughter of the original Captain Mar-Vell, Phyla-Vell met and fell in love with Moondragon during the events of one of Adam Warlock's first villain turns as the Magus. Her real superhero arrival, however, didn't come until the death of the original Quasar (Wendell Vaughn) during the Annihilation storyline. Vaughn’s quantum bands found their way to her, and by the time of Ultron’s attempted conquest of the Kree Empire (see Annihilation: Conquest and the AC: Quasar mini-series), she took up the mantle, determined to try to live up to her father’s legacy as a defender of the cosmos. Empowered as the new Quasar, Phyla would fight in the final battle against Ultron and the Phalanx and join Star-Lord’s Guardians of the Galaxy during Abnett and Lanning’s outstanding run on the title.

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

This is another character I think is going to be pretty popular! We’ll start with the stats. 3/4/4 is pretty decent for a 4 threat, though not really remarkable- though her Kree-Titan Hybrid Physiology improves this quite a bit. 7 health on the front and 6 on the back makes her respectably durable, especially when combined with her superpowers. Like Moondragon, she’s a medium base model with a medium move- a combination we love to see.

Her basic builder attack is her Quantum Sword. Range 2 is a bit disappointing, but energy is a good type, and 5 dice with a wild Pierce trigger is nothing to sneer at. Solid stuff.

Her Nega-Quantum Blast Wave spender (say that three times fast) is quite good, though a bit pricey. 5 power for a Beam 3, 8 die energy attack with wild Incinerate AND Pierce triggers. I think if you can hit two people with it, this attack is totally worth it, but feels expensive against a single target unless you really need it.

There are no fewer than four active or reactive superpowers on this character! Let’s dig in.

Like Moondragon, Quasar has Charge. This is great, and even better with Nega-Quantum Blast Wave than it is with Dragon of the Moon, as if you can get to 7 power (perhaps on the turn after dazing?), Quasar can charge to exactly the right spot to let that beam rip.

Quantum Bands is essentially the same as Rogue’s Mutant Absorption, but Quasar rolls 4 dice instead of 5. This is actually a bit of a deep cut narratively, but a great theme call by AMG and not something I was expecting- in the comics, the Quantum Bands allow Phyla on at least one pretty critical occasion to absorb and redirect cosmic energies to defeat her foes. This is a great superpower in the right situations. It’s amazing against characters who've picked up an extract on the first turn or on pay-to-flip scenarios when they may be tapped out for power; you’re essentially making a 4 dice attack (without extra dice for crits) where the other player doesn’t get to roll defense dice and doesn't gain any power for the damage you do! It’s also wonderful at messing up the economy of certain models, especially power-starved teams like Web Warriors. On something like Infinity Formula, Quasar will be able to run the extremely annoying tried-and-true Rogue play of starting your turn on the secure for an extra power, walking across to the opposite point, draining an opponent’s power off before they can act, and retreating. Better yet, if there’s another easy target over there, you can use the two power to Charge, attack one model and build two power off the builder, then drain the power from the other one and walk back. Now when your opponent gets around to that side of the board, they have to activate a wounded model and potentially bring them into the danger zone for the rest of your team, or they have to activate the other model and have a sub-par, power-free activation. Nice!

Force Field is OK. Phyla’s Physical Defense is her worst, so having a way to boost it in a pinch is handy, but given her next superpower, I’d be very choosy about when you use this one. She’s got so many better things to be spending power on!

Kree-Titan Hybrid Physiology is a heck of a name, and a heck of an effect! For the low price of 1 power after an enemy effect (not just attack) that damaged her is resolved, Quasar can heal herself 1 damage or remove 1 special condition. That means any effect that damages her is guaranteed not to put a single condition on her (if you get Full Auto-ed by the other team’s Star-Lord, so sorry, you can only stop one!). But if Namor damages her for a Stagger? Gone. Someone deals damage to give her Bleed or Slow? Nope. Absolutely great. This is going to make her stick around (and at close to full efficiency) way longer than it looks. Just note: this power is once per turn, not every time she takes damage (unlike Apocalypse, who has a similar ability but gets it on each instance of damage). Quasar is reasonably durable, but she will go down to a dedicated attacker, especially one that hits her multiple times in a turn.

Lastly, some great innate powers: Flight and Immune (Poison, Stun). The immunity to Stun is particularly nice given Kree-Titan Hybrid Physiology, so you’ll never have to choose when you take a bigger hit between healing a little or getting a single power.

This is a cool model. Her biggest problem in the games I've played with her is that she's really, really power-hungry, especially if she's using power reactively to remove conditions or heal. If you can mitigate that weakness (either through scenarios like Struggle for the Cube or Infinity Formula, leaderships like Captain America, or just getting a good attack off to get the train going), she performs really well. I expect to see her played quite a bit!

This has been a long review! Let's close out with Quasar and Moondragon's "team up" Team Tactics Card: Power Couple.

Credit: Atomic Mass Games

Unlike The Douglas Family, this one (appropriately) DOES require both Moondragon and Quasar. It’s also quite a bit better, in my opinion. This is just a good, solid effect- stopping displacement and discounting quite a few superpowers- two on Moondragon and three on Phyla. You will need to be careful, as it’ll be really easy to Charge out of the Range 2 requirement for the card’s effects, but if you can set up a little ladder move where the first model charges up and then the second comes up to join them on the subsequent activation, there’s solid value to be had here. I’m always a little leery of cards you’ll only be able to play when you’ve got two specific models on the table, but Guardians of the Galaxy historically haven’t had a ton of strain on their TTC slots, so this might see some play there, especially thematically or if the Guardians player is trying to lean on bunched up secures like Wedding Party or Mayor Fisk.

Whew. All in all, for theme, effectiveness, and what it brings to its main affiliation, this is a great box, one of my favorites from AMG in a long time. It’s a brave new universe out there, troops- let’s get Guarding that Galaxy!

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