Ministravaganza 2025 Marvel Crisis Protocol Wrap-Up

Ministravaganza, Atomic Mass Games's annual celebration of their miniature game lines, has come and gone. Our Marvel: Crisis Protocol team is here with hot takes on all the new models, new rules and character changes that were revealed during the event. If you missed the panel, AMG has uploaded it to their Youtube channel ">here.

New Model Reveals

Image courtesy Atomic Mass Games

Beezer: So much good stuff here! I’ve got so much respect for the folks who have been grinding it out with Sentinels, and I’m really excited about the updates to the current models (more on that below) and the very cool new additions to the affiliation. They feel way more fleshed-out now and I’m excited to see those cards revealed. I’m also slapping some of the new Iron-People into my Webs rosters ASAP, especially Rescue, to help keep my already resilient models alive longer to score out. Since I don’t really play Asgard, I kind of glossed over the Valk and Warriors Three reveals, but the models look sick. Adam Warlock may also get me to dust off my Guardians again. Also, I would’ve never guessed that Blackheart, Jack O’ Lantern, and The Orb would be introduced to the game before the Fantastic 4 and Dr. Doom. It’s becoming more than a meme, I believe.

Brushwizard: I am so excited for new Sentinels and their updates, I couldn’t stick with them in their original form because it was a super uphill battle trying to stay in affiliation with all three of the big bots. X-Men stuff will always be one of my favorite things in Marvel and they were the main reason I started playing in the first place. Seeing their iconic enemies getting some love is very welcome. Hopefully it's the shot in the arm they need and I’ll finally find some fun with them?

It was really nice seeing the new X-Men characters in color. I’m hyped to get Jubilee into my roster and run an X-Men ‘97 list. And then there’s Onslaught? Man I wasn’t expecting that one, but it’ll be really fun seeing him on the table. That model looks super imposing and should be a blast to paint up. Mutant fans are eating good this next year.

I am also happy to see more Dark Dimension themed terrain coming, my Dark Dimension terrain set is getting a big boost with that terrain pack. That destroyed Sanctum Sanctorum is WILD.

Wake: A lot of neat stuff here- some really fabulous sculpts I’m looking forward to painting, first of all! MCP continues to go back to the Marvel well in interesting ways and bring out new and exciting characters (and versions of existing ones) that make the game a joy to follow. I’m not sold on Adam Warlock as a go-wide Guardians player- and definitely not sold on the fact that if he does bring a leadership as had previously been hinted, it will apparently be as a Team Tactics Card that is stapled to a 7 threat character- but I’m willing to be wrong!

Image courtesy Atomic Mass Games

KyleB: Oh boy! There are some phenomenal models in this round of reveals. If nothing else, I am very excited to paint the models landing over the course of the next year. AMG’s sculpting at artwork have come a long way.

As an enjoyer of the Ultimate Encounters, I’m hoping for something exciting attached to Onslaught. I wouldn’t say he is a character I was hoping to see in game, but he’ll probably give us some new and interesting tools.

Iron Monger represents a very cool design space. A size four model at only three threat. Unless I missed something, that’s a first. It will be cool to put such a large piece onto the table for cheap. He seems close to durable enough that he won’t evaporate to a stiff breeze. To think, all Obadiah Stain needed to rival the durability of Luke Cage was ten tons of advanced exoskeletal armor.

It does look, to me at least, like we are seeing just a hair of power creep, for lack of a better term. Iron lad bringing twelve stamina on a three threat model with a good attack suite and defensive tech is not totally unprecedented, but it does push the envelope a little.

Alfred Pharius: The new sculpts look incredible. Nimrod looks particularly imposing with that bulky frame. 2026 looks like it will be the year of the Sentinels and I am all for it. When they were first released like many I was a little disappointed that the faction didn’t seem as fleshed out as others with only a few datasheets to choose from but all that has changed now!

It’s nice to see that it’s not only the mutant factions getting some love. Some new Asgard characters will be a welcome addition as will the new guardians of the galaxy.

It was great to see the roadmap further into the future as well, i’m excited for the future of the game and hope that it continues to grow from strength to strength.

Image courtesy Atomic Mass Games

Character Changes

Matt: Sentinels have 4 physical defense now! I’m hopeful that all of these changes will have us seeing the Sentinel faction on the table more, the models are all spectacular.

Beezer: Like Matt said, I hope the Sentinel changes get them on the table more, as the models fall into the “get people to come see the game you’re playing” category of MCP models. As for the others, I think the characters that didn’t get an update are going to generate some more discussion from the fanbase than the ones that did. Also, I think the seemingly small Stamina increases to existing characters will have a pretty large effect on the game that we just don’t know yet. I do know Nick Fury, Jr. at 7/6 health with defensive re-rolls sounds real good in my Webs now!

A True Poster: Cassandra Nova is a fantastic character when they have the power they need. I’ve found that they can really run a flank on Infinity Formula, so I think the extra power they’ll now have far outweighs the downside of having Mind Possession changed to a Short move.

Don’t forget Mental Domination and the fact that it doesn’t cost an Action!

Image courtesy Atomic Mass Games

A True Poster: Emma Frost now feels way more thematic and has a whopping 3 methods of advancing enemies in her Normal Form. Diamond Form needed some serious love as it was previously a big downside to Emma’s kit. It now has a character throw and 5/5/4 defences which help both in the new collision damage world AND on pay to flips.

I hope we see more of Emma in other affiliations after this change (don’t forget that Headmistress is a great Uncanny X-Men card!)

Brushwizard: I’m hyped for the Sentinels changes too. Being able to walk over terrain and destroy it, rather than getting stuck in place is a welcome change.

I’m definitely going to give Emma another look in my X-Men roster. I’ve played her a few times and it doesn’t seem like she was worth choosing most of the time. I generally ended up picking Jean as my Psychic character instead, or Xavier at 4 Threat. I think I can count on what hand the number of times I put her into Diamond Form previously as well.

Xavier getting an extra HP might help me choose him a bit more often, Cyclops is my usual X-Leader. Also, I’m really looking forward to getting an updated Psylocke onto the table, a lot of the time she’d get Injured and then fold on me immediately afterwards. Maybe that extra hit point on her injured side will help her out a bit.

My usual opponent is excited for the Dormammu changes, I’m not sure I should be happy about that…

Image courtesy Atomic Mass Games

Wake: These all seem like solid changes- I’m more surprised by what’s not here; i.e. buffs to some of the upcoming releases who could really use it (looking at you, Shadow King) or adjustments to things terrorizing the meta, specifically Servants of the Apocalypse and the Inhumans. That said, perhaps the rules changes will provide a balancing factor all by themselves!

KyleB: I think we’re in the middle of an interesting point of change for MCP. It feels like the design philosophy is shifting pretty dramatically, but we are still in the middle of it. Adding stamina to a dozen or so models definitely gives the impression that AMG wants to see models stick around on the table longer. Which is interesting to note in a climate where I have felt an increase in the lethality of attacks over the last couple of years.

With these increases, including the last couple of rounds of character updates, there are still a handful of affiliations that are largely untouched. I am very interested to see where the game ends up in the next year or two.

Alfred Pharius: The choices of characters to update were interesting to say the least. Like many in the community I was expecting a rebalance of some of the most common characters like Shang-Chi but instead there were some health changes to several characters that were probably already fine like Nick Fury and Yondu.

Why Yondu needs more health but Sin can stay as she is remains a mystery to me.

Outside of the health changes some of the reworks look great. I’m excited to try Emma Frost’s new abilities and might even give the Hellfire Club a spin!

Rules Changes

Image courtesy Atomic Mass Games

A True Poster: Changing collision damage to 3 across the board has a ton of knock-on effects that we’re still discovering.

Magneto will now choose to spend 3 power to throw 2 x trash cans instead of 5 power to throw 2 x cars. Which feels like a thematic miss.

Characters that can throw Size 4 terrain have all been nerfed by this…but perhaps deservedly so? Characters with 2 cost terrain throws now output the same amount of damage as the big guys.

Will Shick suggested adding more Size 1-2 terrain pieces to tables but I worry that this will further lean into the buff to smaller terrain throws, while doubling down on Hulk and co having to spend extra power to deal the same amount of damage.

Alfred Pharius: I agree with True Poster the new collision changes seem like a thematic miss in most instances. Terrain size will still matter for line of sight and climbing over things for the characters that don’t have fly/wallcrawler but some tactical nuance has gone away now.

Previously I might have thought twice before standing near a Rhino and a size 4 building. Now I might as well stand next to him and a lamp post it makes no difference.

While the collision damage might take a while to get used to the second priority role is a welcome addition. Previously a skilled player could set up their deployment knowing which of the extracts they could immediately pick up. With this change both players have to deploy without that level of knowledge making those deployment decisions more impactful.

Image courtesy Atomic Mass Games

Beezer: This really feels like a brand new edition of the game. The changes to Crisis Selection, multiple Priority rolls, and the introduction of new Crisis subtypes is more than just an errata pass. These are all going to fundamentally change the game in ways we just don’t know yet. I even think the change to all throws being a flat 3 damage is a huge change, and it will have really far-reachiing implications because it applies to both character and terrain throws. Stonks up on variable-cost throws like Cable’s!

Brushwizard: Oh yeah big changes, I was talking to a friend before about the possibility of a new edition, previously. These changes feel like it’s an edition change, without the numbering. I like the idea of a 2nd priority roll, shaking up turn one, and it’ll be interesting to see how that affects the beginning of the game. I’ve never been one to min/max my gameplay for events, and normally play pretty casual. So it probably won’t affect me too much.

I’m also a fan of the switch to 5 of each Crisis type in your roster. Drawing 2 and your opponent choosing one, is nice and it’ll give each player a bit of say in the mission. I like seeing more variety in the mission set up. Sometimes in our casual games, we’ll just draw one of each Crisis just to see what happens, otherwise we’d just be playing the same sets of objectives all the time and it gets stale. Having more randomness in the mission selection sounds like fun to me.

My terrain sets are designed to be super thematic and densely packed. In my opinion, the game feels more alive when the board is packed. Having the change in throw damage means we can include more 3-4 size terrain pieces without having to worry about spiking someone off of the table when they get tossed. I also have a lot of size 1 terrain pieces that weren’t being used, because they were always left on the table. It’ll be nice to get the mailboxes, lightpoles and benches back on the table.

Wake: I agree with the above comments about how much this changes the nature of the game, and especially in ways we won’t really know until we get some table time with the new rules. They’re definitely going to be impactful, it’s just hard to predict exactly what that impact will be.

What’s that? Those aren’t the scalding hot takes you’re looking for here? Very well- I think these changes are really interesting and adjust the overall experience of playing the game, but I don’t think they’re going to do much to shake up the current “power rankings” of affiliations…at least not until somebody comes up with the most efficient throw list and machine guns trash cans and lampposts into their opponent’s squad!

In all seriousness, this looks like fun to play and the extra steps at the beginning of the game to give your opponent more control over the crisis selection may help to prevent some of the feels bad of being trapped into a suboptimal crisis setup. Only time will tell how this actually trickles down into the community meta as a whole!

Image courtesy Atomic Mass Games

KyleB: Echoing much of what was said above, the biggest takeaway for me is that we are likely to see more terrain on tables in the future. I am very excited about this. I know I have already written about it a ton, but having more terrains allows for more interesting and thematic tables.

I understand the feeling that the sky is falling, but I am hopeful for the future of the game. I think a few terrain throws need to be adjusted in cost, as the size four terrain throws are going to be less impactful. Still, a size four terrain throw will still have more options on the table than size two or three. I also do not think Apocalypse needed this win.

Now that area and beam attacks do not damage friendly models, maybe we will see more use out of area attacks. I’m not sure about this as a thing. It is usually possible to avoid friendly models with beam attacks through careful placement of the template, so I do not see beams being used very differently. Area attacks will probably be more usable, which I think is a good thing. Still, with the current spread of crises, it is rare to see models grouped together. I also do not think this is enough to make very expensive area attacks particularly attractive.

The crisis and priority roll changes are probably the most exciting for me. More uncertainty adds more opportunities to screw up plans, which means players will need to have more options available to them. AMG’s example of the centerline grab and counter placement is an apt example for the impact of the second priority roll. Players will need to build contingencies into their opening turn because they could win it or lose it.

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