Panel to Play: Operation Zero Tolerance

In today’s Panel to Play, we take a look at the exciting new Character & Crisis Card pack, Operation: Zero Tolerance! This pack comes with 5 new Extraction Crisis cards, 5 new Secure Crisis cards, and 2 Prime Sentinels to expand your games of Marvel: Crisis Protocol in a unique scenario centered around the rise and fall of mutant-hating villain Bastion and his Prime Sentinels.

If you choose to play through the scenario, you get to match the Crisis Cards in set combinations to go through 5 thematic and exciting scenarios that follow the storyline of an emerging anti-mutant plot among governmental entities, fighting off a surprise attack, going on the run, and eventually confronting Bastion and his Sentinels to defeat them in an epic showdown. These scenarios represent a classic Marvel universe storyline and let you experience it on the tabletop like never before. Players can use

Of course, if you would like to, you are always free to mix and match these Crisis Cards with your collection and use them in any combination you like, expanding player’s choices and gameplay variety in Standard and Challenger games.

Experienced players might notice that there are 2 interesting things present among several of these new Extraction Crisis Cards. First of all, the new Source tokens that were recently added to the Core Rules. These source tokens represent a new kind of Extraction Crisis with a token that flips over to its exhausted side when it creates another kind of token. All these new tokens are then removed from the game in the cleanup phase, and the Source Extraction Tokens are then flipped back to their “full” side, causing players to have to be able to return and interact again to continue to score as many points as possible! The other thing many players will notice is the Limited objective tokens, ensuring that characters can only hold a single one of them at a time.

This leads to players needing to take teams specifically suited for these scenarios of only being able to hold one secure token at a time while also needing to interact with the scenario each round to score a point! Can you think of any characters or teams that would be specifically useful at staying in one place to interact each turn? Maybe you need a character that is very mobile so they can always get to an open Source objective! With new scenarios comes new ways to interact with the game and challenge your opponents!

Keen eyes will notice the first Zone Secure Crisis objective in “X-Men Infiltrate Secret Weapons Facility”, giving the scenario a very unique feel by having an arc that players want to avoid being in, lest they give their opponents an additional 1 Victory Point! Each of these new Extraction and Secure Crisis Cards offers players something new to add fresh variety to their game.

When Bastion implemented Operation: Zero Tolerance his main weapon against mutantkind were the Prime Sentinels, human-Sentinel hybrids created by infecting unwilling humans with nanomachines to transform them into tools for Bastion to guide. These unknowing humans were spread far and wide, and could be activated when needed. In this pack, players will receive 2 Prime Sentinels and be able to field both at the same time!

Players will find that the male and female Prime Sentinel miniatures represent the fact that these unwilling hybrids were taken from all over and now serve the greater objectives of their Sentinel masters. Thanks to the “Bastion’s Legion” rule, players can take 2 of these 3 threat characters in a squad and roster. Sentinel players have been asking for a lower-threat character, and now they have two!

As these characters were made from a nano-infection taking over their bodies, this rule is heavily represented by the Root special condition. “Sentinel Nanotech Infection” gives other characters Root when ending an activation within range 2, as it spreads through the air into other characters to take them over. If that doesn’t work, both of their attacks are energy type and also apply Root.

Root is a theme for them, and rightly so! As they attempt to take over other characters, they can “control them” by using “Guided Infection” and “Sentinel Nanotech Corruption”, two superpowers that only work if the target has Root. Both superpowers allow dice modification as the Sentinel attempts to control either while the Prime Sentinel is attacking the target with Root, or when the Prime Sentinel or another ally are defending from a Rooted enemy.

Considering that Nimrod and Bastion can also apply Root, players might be encouraged to try using it heavily as a way to consistently stymie their opponents and grab the edge they need to halt the mutants.

Whether players are looking to play through the 5 story-based scenarios, expand their Crisis Card collection, or pick up the 2 new Prime Sentinels, Operation: Zero Tolerance adds several core pieces for Marvel: Crisis Protocol players.

Will you stand against Bastion and his Sentinel allies or will you stand in defense of mutantkind?

Till next time!