Can’t get hold of the first Marvel Crisis Protocol Core Box? Want to come and play one of Marvel’s biggest good-guy squads? Then you’re in the right place! Today we are going to give you the rundown of the MCU's finest - and how this box stacks up against the current meta and if it’s worth your money.

Avengers, Assemble!

Captain America Character Card

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Captain America

Let’s start with the big cheese himself, Captain America!

Let’s start with the leadership A Day Unlike Any Other. It’s the perfect starter leadership in the game, by a country mile. It’s exactly the leadership you should start with if you’re just getting into MCP. But does that make it less competitive? **** NO! (I’m refusing to swear here because Steve Rogers wouldn’t approve). This leadership makes almost every model in MCP reach their full potential. It’s been a meme since the game first released that every new character that comes along needs to be judged as “do they work under Steve?”. This leadership makes even the most balanced characters reach new heights, while also making all your favourite characters really feel how they should on the table. It’s simple, yet extremely effective - even after all these years.

Now onto his actual kit. Captain America’s primary role comes in two forms; Bodyguard and displacement. Bodyguard being a reactive ability that costs 2 means it benefits from the leadership nicely. Steve will usually just pay 1 for this - making it possible for him to then Bodyguard the next attack too (where he’ll pay the usual 2). Opponents are really going to have to go through him before they get to the people they actually want to hit. We’ll come back to this ability later though…

Strike having a Push trigger and Shield Slam having an automatic throw makes Steve great for displacing people off Secures.

Shield Throw is also fantastic. Range 4 is huge and hitting the Ricochet trigger makes it reach even further. If Steve has achieved his job of standing on a Secure with no enemies around, throwing the odd Shield Throw here and there is great value.

Now…onto his injured side.

Captain America Injured Side

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Characters changing on their injured side is a great piece of game design from Atomic Mass Games. Captain America really comes into his own here as he gains the superpower I Can Do This All Day. He now counts Blanks as successes on his defence rolls, which pairs perfectly with Vibranium Shield. He becomes a much more reliable Bodyguard…just be careful to not get him KO’d too easily as you will lose that awesome leadership!

Black Widow Character Card

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Black Widow

Now if you’re new to MCP, you might be wondering why the numbers on Natasha Romanoff’s card are kinda low…so let me quickly introduce you to 2 threats. They have inherent power in being cheap characters that still get 2 actions and can hold and secure objectives just like everyone else. Black Widow is a point scorer - and it’s her job to run around doing exactly that, while also being annoyingly tricky to KO and forcing your opponent to put their valuable resources into taking her down.

Martial Artist makes her pretty tanky when being hit up close and Stealth means she can’t even be targeted by attacks outside of Range 3.

Her attacks leave much to be desired, but to be honest - if you find yourself attacking with Black Widow, something has likely gone wrong. Her job is to move LONG and grab points wherever she can and then run into Stealth range.

Iron Man Character Card

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Iron Man

Let’s face it; no Avengers box would be complete without Tony Stark showing up.

Repulsor Blast is the real money here. Range 4 is huge and the Push trigger is sizeless. I had to re-read that for a second…it really can Push any size of character, which is great!

Iron Man sitting on a back point and firing out Repulsor Blasts is 100% his job. I wouldn’t recommend using Homing Rockets unless there is a target left on 1 health and you can hit one of their allies within 2, shooting for the double-kill. Friday AI costing 2 makes Iron Man a perfect companion for Captain America’s leadership -- paying 1 for 2 extra dice is fantastic value.

Invincible Iron Man makes this character deceptively hard to take down, but when that does happen…

Iron Man Injured Side

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Here we have another character that changes on their injured side! Iron Man gains the attack Unibeam. When paired with Friday AI (probably costing 1, thanks to Steve’s leadership), this becomes an 8 dice, Range 5, energy beam! The core rules were recently changed so that beam and AoE attacks no longer harm your allies. So this beam can be placed anywhere without fear of friendly fire, meaning you’re likely hitting 3+ characters. It’s going to feel great - and your opponent will hopefully regret flipping our friend Tony here!

Captain Marvel Character Card

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Captain Marvel

Now Carol Danvers here admittedly does feel like the most ‘dusty’ of all characters in this pack. She didn’t see much play in the early-days of MCP, let alone in today’s meta.

Binary Form is expensive. Captain America does help with it…and if you do this at the start of your activation then you’re technically paying 3-4 power for 4 additional attack dice, which is good. But Rocket Punch & Danvers’ Special are likely better ways to spend power.

Energy Absorption is situationally…very good. Energy is one of the rarer attack types in MCP, so there will be games where this just doesn’t show up. But if you’re expecting your opponent to bring lots of energy attacks (perhaps they’re playing Guardians Of The Galaxy or Sentinels?) then Captain Marvel may be some fantastic tech for you to bring along.

While Captain America, Iron Man & Black Widow are every-game models for an Avengers roster, I feel that Captain Marvel gets relegated to the tech piece category…only coming out when you’re faced with lots of energy and size 4 characters for her to throw around. Not bad! Just not generically good.

Tactics Cards

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Speaking of every-game things. THIS is an absolute staple card for any Avengers roster. I don’t care what playstyle you are adopting for this team - this card gets played every game.

Out-of-activation movement is king in MCP. It can move displaced characters back into position, onto Secures, or simply back in range to hit your opponent right back in their freedom-hating teeth.

This costing 1 power is insane value. Plus it enables safe mid-line Extract grabs on other Avengers like Hulk and Iron Fist in Round 1.

Second Wind TTC

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

This card is a little more niche.

Stun isn’t too common in today’s meta, but it does get dished out from the Mayor Fisk Vows To Find Missing Witnesses crisis card, which you may want to play with Avengers as they’re pretty good at it, especially Hulk. Removing that for just 1 power and getting a cheeky heal off this card would be huge in the right scenarios.

It’s one for your 10 - but probably not for every game.

Ricochet Blast TTC

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Team-up cards are a bit of a meme in MCP, admittedly. They’re super cool and we all want to play them all of the time when we first jump in, but they tend to be on the weaker side. EXCEPT FOR RICHOCET BLAST!

Picture this: Iron Man is sitting on a back secure, Captain America has charged your opponents back Secure and is now up in the enemies face. Iron Man activates, spends 1 power for Friday AI (thanks Steve) to boost his next attack by 2 dice and then pays a whopping 1 power (so does Steve) to make a now 8 dice attack attack on a target miles away (within 4 of Steve, not Tony), re-rolling any number of dice. It’s sneaky good and can blitz someone who very much wasn’t expecting it.

Is this the best team-up card in the game? Maybe!

Future Purchases

So now you’ve nabbed yourself the Avengers Affiliation Box, I wanted to point you towards your next purchase or two. These boxes will really take your Avengers roster to the next level.

Hulk Model

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Hulk

It wouldn’t be an Avengers roster without Hulk right?! This guy has always been one of the best characters in MCP. Coming in at a whopping 6 threat, he is worth every point of it.

Under the Captain America leadership he reaches silly levels of efficiency. He uses Avengers Assemble better than any other Avenger, he’s immune to Stun, he can throw anyone and anything…sometimes 3 times a turn?!

He’s amazing. He plays how you’d expect. He’s a fantastic purchase for anyone getting into MCP.

I wrote an article all about Hulk which you can check out here.

Luke Cage & Iron Fist models Marvel Crisis Protocol

Luke Cage & Iron Fist models Marvel Crisis Protocol

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Iron Fist & Luke Cage

These two are the meat & potatoes of MCP. There’s a ton of value in this box. Luke Cage is another bodyguard to help keep your squishy models alive. Iron Fist is both a safe mid-line grab with Avenger Assemble and he can activate characters before they’ve even taken a turn!

They also come with one of the best Team Tactics Cards in the game, Heroes For Hire. You can’t go wrong with a box like this if you’re fleshing out your Avengers.

I wrote an article covering how great these two are here.

Final Thoughts

Is this box good value? Yes! Does it hold up in today’s meta? Yes! Is it a great place to start your MCP journey? Definitely! Captain America is and likely always will be the best leadership to start the game with - and basically every other character in the game fits in perfectly with him. Assemble!

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