From Panel to Play: X-Men Starter

In Marvel: Crisis Protocol, 2 players build a handpicked roster of heroes, villains, and other characters from all over the Marvel universe and attempt to be the first to complete the mission objectives. Players work together to set up the features and obstacles on the battlefield that will affect the fight and create the mission for the game from a selection of randomly drawn Crisis Cards. Once the mission is set, each player calls on characters from their roster of ten characters to form the best mix of skills and abilities for the task at hand. The two squads will clash using unique attacks, super-powers, and even the battlefield itself to complete the mission.

This exciting new pack includes everything a new player needs to join the engaging world of Marvel: Crisis Protocol; miniatures, Character Stat Cards, and Team Tactic Cards. It also includes Crisis Cards and all the tokens, measuring tools, and dice needed to play.

Since the discovery of the x-gene, mutantkind has been under attack and segregated from humankind. Multiple philosophies and viewpoints have clashed surrounding mutantkind and their potential place on Earth, but none are so iconic as those of Charles Xavier and his X-Men. Alternating between educators, ambassadors, and heroes, these X-Men serve to bridge the gap between mutants and the world that fears them. Arising in opposition to this philosophy though, is that of the powerful mutant known as Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants. They believe in a more Darwinian might-makes-right ideal, and will do anything to subjugate or destroy humanity, seeing themselves as the natural next step above humans in the evolutionary tree. This pack contains all the tools to start playing with Uncanny X-Men, Brotherhood of Mutants, or both!

Let’s take a closer look at the characters and possibilities within.

As the leader of Blue team, Cyclops is one choice for the leadership ability you can choose after squad building. Cyclops makes sure his team is working effectively together and can have them gain additional power after damaging an enemy. This helps the team pay for attacks and superpowers and gain a tactical advantage.

He also comes with powerful ranged attacks that can push back enemies and help allies seize objectives after he pushes them off.

As a contrast to Cyclops, Storm is another leader you could choose. Her leadership ability represents her focusing her powers to cloak the team in mist and use winds to help them move about the battlefield. While Cyclops helps his team get more powerful, Storm focuses on protecting her X-Men and getting them around. Storm comes with a mix of energy and physical attacks, but her most useful skill might be her Tempest superpower, allowing her to throw a terrain feature or enemy character!

Wolverine is the best at what he does, but what he does isn’t very nice. Wolverine is a physical attacker with short range, but he makes up for that with a superpower allowing him to make a move action and attack action for a single action! Uniquely in this box, Wolverine also changes on his injured side and gains the Wild Rage superpower. This gives him an additional attack die for each damage token on his card, but at the cost of being unable to interact with or hold objective tokens. He can still contest and control for certain crisis cards, but it is a trade off that new players will want to be careful about.

Henry McCoy is extremely agile and has movement abilities built into both of his attacks to help him get around the field and better control the objectives. He includes abilities that gain him extra power, a throw superpower, and he can reroll his defense dice when he needs to!

Moving to the Brotherhood of Mutants, Magento arrives as their first choice for leaders. Coming in at a hefty cost of 6 threat, you know Magneto has to be the powerhouse of this pack! He comes with leadership for Brotherhood of Mutants granting significant power gain, activating each turn when terrain is destroyed and giving his allies additional power. He has the only terrain throw that can be used multiple times in one turn, and strong physical attacks. Additionally, Magneto has a special rule that allows him to rip metal out of the world around him and makes a metal construct miniature on the table each turn. Anyone can use this as normal terrain, but Magneto can use his Shrapnel Blast attack off of these pieces as if they were his own base.

For those who aren’t sure they want the Master of Magnetism as their squad leader, a player might choose to play more… mysteriously. Mystique has a leadership ability for Brotherhood of Mutants that allows for a more objective-oriented playstyle, refunding power spent on Extracts and allowing Mystique to hold a secure objective token even while moving away!

Additionally, she can destroy terrain with her Expert Sabotage superpower and stops enemies from using Reactive Superpowers or Team Tactic Cards while she operates. The enemy can’t avoid what they don’t notice when their friend suddenly attacks them!

Toad is unique to this pack as the only 2 threat choice for squad building, but players shouldn’t underestimate him. Veteran players know him to be an extremely dangerous objective piece that can interact with objectives at a further range than others, hop into an area, then escape attacks using his Slippery reactive superpower.

Sabertooth serves as a feral physical attacker, similar to Wolverine although he would say better! However, his Aggressive superpower and long movement lets him get into place and not be removed easily. His Savage Predator attack also has a chance to grant a free extra attack as well, increasing his potential to truly dangerous levels.

For keen readers, you may have noticed that the lovely LeBeaus seems to have been skipped. That is because Gambit and Rogue are affiliated to both the Uncanny X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants, and when building your squad, a new player should consider both of them!

Gambit has an array of useful energy ranged attacks and a Bo Staff attack that could push an opponent away. More useful might be his ability to increase the odds of getting a wild result while attacking, or his Enhanced Agility, letting him damage and move after being attacked. Gambit always makes his own luck however, so using his final superpower lets Gambit always count a wild as 2 successes while attacking and defending.

Rogue serves as a powerhouse physical attacker with some interesting superpowers. Besides a powerful throwing superpower, Rogue can use her Mutant Absorption power to deal undefendable damage without attacking. She also has a host of powers that she kept after stealing them from Carol Danvers, including flight, immunity to the poison special condition, and damage prevention!

For new players looking to form a squad, let us present two choices for a sample 17 threat team.

• Storm (leader)
• Beast
• Wolverine
• Cyclops
• Gambit

This squad focuses on movement, pushing enemies off of objectives, and uses Storm’s leadership to move into place and keep them safer from long range attacks.

• Magneto
• Gambit
• Rogue
• Sabretooth

This squad is aggressive and wants Magneto and his allies to throw terrain at the enemies to gain power to give access to their bigger and stronger attacks. Because it has 4 characters instead of 5, it might have to be more careful about not falling behind in objective points, but it gives access to lots of big attacks that should be able to turn the tides of battle in their favor.

This new pack offers everything a player needs to start playing Uncanny X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants.