Yearly Archives: 2025

We had time for just one more Marvel Crisis Protocol event in 2025, and this time we’re back to Common Ground Games in Stirling for another of Allan’s tournaments. Gareth and a bunch of the Edinburgh gang joined me on the train over; I love the opportunity to chat about the game on the way to and from the venue.

I’m sticking with Thralls of Dracula again here. I’m involved in a team event early in 2026 and I did consider playing my team roster here but ultimately decided to just stick with the same roster I’ve been tinkering with for the last few months.

Characters (10)
* Dracula (5)
Abomination (5)
* Blade (4)
Drax the Destroyer (3)
Juggernaut (5)
* Red Skull, Master of Hydra (5)
Rogue (4)
Shang-Chi (4)
N‘Kantu, the Living Mummy (3)
* Hulkbuster (6)

Team Tactics (10)
Sacrifice (R)
Thralls of Dracula
Chi Mastery
Cosmic Obliteration
Do You Know Who I Am?
Grievous Wounds
Recalibration Matrix
Warpath
Stark Armory
Indomitable (R)

Secure Crisis
Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse (C, 19)
Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack! (R, 20)
Deadline to Destruction (P, 16)
Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 (D, 17)
Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians (I, 17)

Extract Crisis
Fear Grips World As “Worthy“ Terrorize Cities (D, 18)
Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry (O, 18)
Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (C, 19)
The Montesi Formula Found (E, 18)
Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown! (C, 17)

Game 1: Stu playing Winter Guard on Deadline and Skrulls

Stu has once again made the epic trip down from Orkney, and I see Dracula on his tray so I assume that we’re in for a weird mirror match where everyone is bleeding constantly. But in fact he’s playing Winter Guard which is a bit of an issue for Thralls as he can just undo my leadership and I think it’s pretty much not worth me spending the power to give out Bleed most of the time as it will just be removed without issues. If I wasn’t chasing Longshanks badges I probably would just go unaffiliated and enjoy my extra card. I win Priority and choose my Secures and Stu picks the lower threat value. I think that Red Skull is probably my best play here; the Troopers can just park themselves quietly and score a point each turn and they can really turn the screw on Extract carriers with an extra damage ping on this Secure. That locks me into Drax and Mummy so the team almost builds itself.

Extraction: Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership
Secure: Deadline to Destruction
Threat: 16
My team: Dracula, Drax the Destroyer, N‘Kantu the Living Mummy, Red Skull Master of Hydra
My cards: Indomitable, Recalibration Matrix, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Stu’s team: Crimson Dynamo, Red Guardian, Ursa Major, Shuri, Wong
Stu’s cards: Bear Hug, Comrade’s Keeper, Patch Up, Recalibration Matrix, Sovereign Strike

Round 1: As usual with this kind of set up I’m aiming to go for parity by the end of the round. I think that Stu will be a bit cautious around Dracula as he doesn’t really have anyone great for dealing with him and I can probably use my leader more as a space denial tool rather than expecting to get a load of big hits in. Stu wins the second Priority roll and sends up Ursa Major to take the his central Skrull. I send Drax to get the left one which leaves Stu with the option to expose someone to Dracula on the right or go down 3 – 1 on the Extracts. Wong contests on the left and so I send up N’Kantu to pick up the Skrull on the right (I really want him holding something to make sure that he keeps contributing to the score) and dare Stu to sit someone in front of Red Skull if he wants the last one. Stu isn’t so unwise though, and sends Red Guardian to join Wong on the left. Red Skull picks up the final Skrull and heads to the left to join Drax while the Troopers settle in on my home Secure. Crimson Dynamo and Shuri zap him a bit and Dracula makes a boring double move over to the right Secure. The score is 5 – 3 to me.

Round 2: Time to start the attrition! I have the points advantage so I want to just shut Stu’s options down and keep him away from me. Red Skull lays into Red Guardian but leaves him on a single wound, which Crimson Dynamo immediately plays Patch Up to recover. Red Guardian himself throws Drax off the Secure. Dracula moves to the far Secure and leaves Shuri on one wound too and uses Hypnotic Gaze to send Crimson Dynamo away as he has no power left and will have to walk back into the action. He does just that and zaps Dracula but the counter attack does nothing other than give him Bleed; at least he’ll have to take that point of damage! Ursa Major moves to the right to contest and the Mummy pokes at him before Shuri pushes the latter off the Secure. Drax dazes Red Guardian and then Wong dazes Drax! The score is 8 – 8.

Round 3: That was a bit of a disaster; I didn’t achieve any of my goals and I’ve also given up one of my Extracts to Wong. I can’t even easily get it off him because Comrade’s Keeper is still online. I need to daze someone here but I’m not really sure how I’m going to do it. We start out with Dracula hurting Crimson Dynamo; I can’t remember why I just left Shuri alone as she was surely the better target. Ursa Major dazes N’Kantu and I pass so Shuri pushes Dracula off the Secure. Presumably there is some reason why I didn’t Warpath back and daze here her but I didn’t note it; looking back this would have been something of an opportunity. The Troopers and Red Skull team up to daze Ursa Major and Red Skull helpfully hits the Blitz trigger to move back to score a point on my home Secure. Red Guardian walks over and dazes him with a great use of Sovereign Strike before walking back to protect Wong. Drax attacks Wong and Comrade’s Keeper comes out; I can’t put Red Guardian down so Drax is hurled away. He walks back and throws Wong into his protector but can’t get the two damage I need to daze him. Wong heals himself and Red Guardian before walking to my home Secure. The score is 11 – 9 to Stu.

Round 4: I feel like this game is slipping away from me; Stu is making canny moves and I can’t get much damage to stick. I think I’m not worried about giving up Priority; I just need to stop Stu taking actions and make sure I end up ahead going into the final round. Drax dazes Crimson Dynamo at last and hurts Red Guardian yet again; Wong just moves back there and heals him. Red Skull saves my bacon a bit KOing Ursa Major with his spender, then collects a Skrull and settles in on a Secure. Shuri pushes Dracula again and he moves back in and dazes her at last. Red Guardian moves to my home Secure and N’Kantu KOs him after I see an opportunity to lock it in with Recalibration Matrix. The score evens up at 13 – 13.

Round 5: Stu looks at the board and reckons that he’s run out of stuff to fight me off with and suggests we just talk out the round. The score gets entered at 18 – 16 to me.

Thanks Stu, I always love to play together. I’m a bit disappointed in my game here; I missed several opportunities to play Warpath on Dracula and sort out Shuri, who I left alone for far too long. I was also a bit precious about trying to keep Priority but Stu didn’t really have any big hitters other than Ursa Major and I would have been fine going last anyway to score points. Better target priority would have gone a long way in general as Stu’s team is really good on the defence and I kept giving Stu the chance to use all his healing tricks to keep pushing back my attrition by never focussing properly on any victim. Full credit to Stu who played this really well and took advantage of my misplays to keep himself in it.

Game 2: Allan playing Web Warriors on Extremis Consoles and Senators

It’s been ages since I got to play Allan and it’s a delight to be able to get in another game. Allan is probably the most variable player I know; equally likely to finish an event 4 – 0 and 0 – 4. I win Priority and pick my Secures and we draw Extremis and Senators which is probably a better draw for Allan than me. I pick Red Skull because he really likes this Secure, and Shang-Chi because he’s pretty good at chasing down Spider-people. That leaves me needing a 3 threat and I don’t see Drax having a very effective game here so I just go with Mummy; also not ideal but he does at least bring a good mystic attack if I need it in a pinch.

Extraction: Mutant Extremists Target US Senators
Secure: Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0
Threat: 17
My team: Dracula, N‘Kantu the Living Mummy, Red Skull Master of Hydra, Shang-Chi
My cards: Cosmic Obliteration, Indomitable, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Allan’s team: Spider-Man (Miles Morales), Black Cat, Ghost Spider, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man Noir
Allan’s cards: All Webbed Up, Aunt May’s Wheat Cakes, Spider-Sleuth, Spider-Tracker, The Cat And The Spider

Round 1: The key thing will be to not let Allan have any freebies with the Extracts as it’ll be really hard to relieve him of them once the Webs team starts scattering. I win the second Priority and use Dracula to dive one of the Senators on Allan’s side of the board. Allan plays The Cat And The Spider but I think he mis-positions as I don’t see him getting any great joy out of it; Black Cat picks up a Senator. N’Kantu, Shang-Chi and Spider-Man Noir each collect a Senator, leaving one on the ground right in front of Red Skull. I should probably just collect it but I get greedy which is a mistake as it means that Ghost Spider can move up and make a random attack to gain a power, putting Lifesaver online. This means that when I do activate Red Skull Allan is able to save Black Cat and make me put a much less useful attack into Spider-Man Noir. Spider-Man and Spider-Ham take up station on Secures; the score is 5 – 3 to me.

Round 2: That was a pretty good start and if I can keep Black Cat honest then I can eventually just ride my Extract lead to victory as Allan’s team is not at all set to daze any of my characters. I can freely just remove activations too as I’m two characters down on Allan’s wide team. Dracula starts us out moving to the far Secure. Spider-Ham plays Spider-Tracker to get out of range so Dracula puts a fairly unexciting attack into Black Cat. Spider-Man Noir throws terrain into Dracula and moves to score and Black Cat shakes her Slow and moves to the right. Ghost Spider pulls Dracula off his Secure and Red Skull is pretty happy where he is so just sits still. Spider-Man dazes the Troopers and N’Kantu moves to join Red Skull. Spectacular Spider-Man moves onto Allan’s home point and Shang-Chi goes to the left. Spider-Ham also heads that way but he can’t make it as Allan took him too far to the right with his Spider-Tracker move. The score goes to 11 – 7 to me.

Round 3: I think I can just win this round because Allan is unlikely to take any Extracts off me and I think that I can probably safely stand on at least one Secure and score it over him. The left and my home points are the key ones. Dracula starts us out by strolling back onto the far Secure and laying into Ghost Spider but he can’t take her out. Black Cat just shakes Bleed and heals herself on the right. Ghost Spider pulls Dracula again then double moves to the left Secure. Shang-Chi charges into Spider-Ham, one-shots him and Flows back onto the Secure where he also dazes Ghost Spider. Good work Shang-Chi! Spider-Man Noir shuffles his feet a bit but is wise enough not to attack Dracula, while Spectacular Spider-Man goes left to contest with Shang-Chi. Red Skull and N’Kantu just hang around where they are too and eventually Allan realises that he has to walk, Web Swing and then one-shot Red Skull with his builder in order to not just lose here. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t manage it. We end up at 16 – 11 to me.

I always love to play Allan but this was a game where it just didn’t feel like he was paying attention to the score at all and then only realised that he needed to make a long shot in the very last activation to keep the game alive. I didn’t do anything very clever here and even didn’t really roll many dice but the numbers just increased in my favour each turn after I ended up with the Extract lead at the start.

Game 3: Will playing S.H.I.E.L.D on Mutant Madman and Hammers

Now I’m up against a really skilled opponent. Will has a great facility for any minis game I’ve seen him take up and also a very careful student of the game. He wins Priority and chooses his Secures and we end up on Mutant Madman and Hammers. I think that Thralls is generally not great on pay-to-flip Secures as they really want to have an extra power available to put Bleed out early and this really stymies the early power economy and it is worse here as there is no particular reason for Will to offer up anything on midline for me. I like Blade here as I’m expecting a fairly physical-heavy team apart from Hawkeye and being able to shrug off conditions is also very nice.

Extraction: Fear Grips World As “Worthy“ Terrorize Cities
Secure: Mutant Madman Turns City Into Lethal Amusement Park
Threat: 18
My team: Dracula, Blade, Red Skull Master of Hydra, Rogue
My cards: Indomitable, Cosmic Obliteration, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Will’s team: Namor The Submariner, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, Baron Zemo, Echo
Will’s cards: Battlefield Medicine, Eye In The Sky, Fall Back, The Invaders, The Shieldmobile

Round 1: As always I just want to come out of round 1 with score parity. I’ve set up Red Skull on the left to be able to punish anyone going for the left Hammer and Dracula to do the same on the right, but I realise too late that it doesn’t matter at all against this team as the Agents can pick one up without much risk on the right and Namor can just collect the Hammer and then head home on the left. Will wins the send roll too and starts out with the Agents collecting the right Hammer and Fury flipping the back right Trap. I send in Red Skull to collect the left Hammer which puts him in a lot of danger (probably I should have had Blade there instead) and the Grunts flip my home left Secure. Zemo goes to stand on the far left Secure but doesn’t pay to flip it, presumably so he’ll have the power to Charge next round. Rogue flips the right home Secure for me. Hawkeye walks up, flips the last Trap and lands a nasty hit into Red Skull before Hook Arrow-ing over to pick up the home Hammer. Blade just picks up the last one and heads left. Namor walks up and puts down Red Skull, which is rather upsetting. Dracula goes aggressive across the board to put Bleed on Fury but can’t quite land on the Secure there which is quite annoying. Echo just joins the gang on the left. The score is 5 – 3 to Will.

Round 2: Having Red Skull daze so early is going to be a huge problem and I also need to activate him first or I’ll definitely lose him. If he can survive another round of attacks and gets to activate in round 3 I might be able to come back into this, otherwise I’ve locked myself in too hard on the right without any very clever plan to score points off it. Red Skull does at least manage to daze Namor and take his Hammer; he draws Fall Back in the process which makes me commit Red Skull even deeper. Over on the right the Agents shoot Dracula and Fury does the same; he uses Eye In The Sky to avoid a counterattack which is a very cool way to play that as I don’t even get any action back. Dracula turns into mist to heal a little and moves onto the Secure. He stabs Fury and uses Hypnotic Gaze to move the Agents a bit closer to Rogue; in retrospect I should have just dropped the Agents there and let Rogue double move to get their Hammer as this way I wasn’t able to actually get it in a timely manner. Back on the left, Zemo hurts Red Skull before Blade dazes him. Echo goes into Blade, Charges into Red Skull and I have to Sacrifice it into Blade. Rogue drops the Grunts and Hawkeye KOs Red Skull. I thought he might survive as Hawkeye had to do it with no rerolls this time but it wasn’t to be. The score is 8 – 6 to Will.

Round 3: I’m down on points and down on attrition, so I need the dice to bail me out a bit here. Blade puts Bleed on Namor to open up the spender attack but he gets out of range with Eye In The Sky, so I do at least KO Zemo as a consolation prize. On the right Fury brings back the Agents (to the tune of his favourite song, “The Boys Are Back In Town” by Thin Lizzy; joke courtesy of Will!) to collect their Hammer and walks over to flip a Secure. Hawkeye dazes Blade, and Rogue kills the Agents again, this time actually picking up the Hammer. Dracula has to go to start working on the left so just double walks over there; he probably waves to Namor crossing the other way with a walk, Shieldmobile and Charge to hurt Rogue and flip that point. The score is 14 – 8.

Round 4: I don’t have enough to win this here so I’m just going to try to get some spite kills instead and maybe end up holding some Hammers at least. Dracula Hypnotic Gazes Hawkeye into range and attacks him, doing zero damage and not even giving out any conditions. Hawkeye then one-shots him in return and moves over to flip a Secure. Rogue gently tickles Namor who uses the Spender to drop her Hammer which Fury eventually collects. Blade goes after Hawkeye but also fails to do any damage to him, not that it mattered by this point. We finish up at 20 – 10 to Will.

What a great game; I always love to test myself into Will as he’s such a skilled and thoughtful player. I feel like I started off with the wrong strategy here, and probably the wrong team selection too. I didn’t make particularly good choices, notably my targeting Fury instead of the Agents with Dracula in round 2. And there were a few times where I really needed the dice to bail me out and they didn’t. Putting Red Skull in danger in round 1 was the beginning of the end; Will checked later on and it was about 50% to daze him including a swing from Echo if it had been needed. One the one hand, if I survive with even one wound left then it’s a different game as I get to make two attacks with Red Skull but also there is zero risk to Will from his line whereas the fail case is terrible for me. If anyone out there has any clever suggestions of a better way to have handled this game then I’m definitely interested.

Game 4: Simon playing Midnight Sons on Deadly Meteors and Inhuman Weapons

Last for today is Simon, one of the Edinburgh folks who travelled over on the train with me in the morning. He’s got N’Kantu and Immortal Hulk in his roster and I’m tempted to play mind games by reminding him that I have Grievous Wounds in my roster even though I have no intention of playing it, but I keep quiet. I win the Priority roll but it doesn’t matter a lot now as we have largely similar Crises and I can definitely avoid Mayor Fisk. I decide to try my big monsters now that I’m less worried about them being hurled around by Hulk. That leaves me needing a three threat again so I go with Drax as I think he’s probably better suited here than bringing my own N’Kantu.

Extraction: Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry
Secure: Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians
Threat: 18
My team: Dracula, Abomination, Drax the Destroyer, Juggernaut
My cards: Do You Know Who I Am?, Indomitable, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Simon’s team: Blade, Doctor Voodoo, Immortal Hulk, N‘Kantu the Living Mummy
Simon’s cards: Bats The Ghost Hound, Brace For Impact, One Below All, Patch Up, Siege Of Darkness

Round 1: We’re both clearly on the same attrition plan here so I’m not super worried about scoring at the start; if I can end up with two of the Extracts then I’ll be happy and we can sort out the Secures as and when the opportunity arises. I win the second roll-off too and start with Drax collecting the Inhuman weapon on the left, N’Kantu takes one on the right. I send Juggernaut into him, getting the push and then following up with a nice bump into him to leave him on one wound ready for next turn. Doctor Voodoo moves to the left Secure, hurts Drax and flips that Secure while collecting the last Extract. I send Abomination into the middle and flip, then Hulk does the usual Bump and One Below All to beat him up, throwing twice into Dracula in the process. Dracula comes up in wolf form and hurts Hulk before using Hypnotic Gaze to send him away. Blade moves up and flips the right Secure. The score is 4 – 3 to Simon.

Round 2: My top priority in this game will be to daze Blade and take Bump off the table; Hulk doesn’t need it but both N’Kantu and Doctor Voodoo gain so much from it. Juggernauts dazes Blade and then slides into N’Kantu to daze him too. I’ve decided that I don’t mind about Priority too much here as I want to be able to go last to mess with the Secures. Hulk lays into Dracula who counterattacks to throw him away, then he Bumps back in and dazes my leader. Abomination moves to heal off Hulk then goes right to collect a fallen Extract and finally Doctor Voodoo dazes Drax. The score is 7 – 6 to me, and somehow we only activated 2 models each that turn.

Round 3: Abomination is full of power and right next to Blade so it’s time to get rid of him. It works, as I leave Blade on a couple of health after the attacks and am able to polish him off with the automatic damage from Radiation Zone. Doctor Voodoo uses Bats The Ghost Hound to guarantee the KO on Drax and we’re back to where we started! Juggernaut attacks Mummy and my dice turn cold; I throw him away with Do You Know Who I Am? which in retrospect was probably a mistake as I should have saved it for Hulk or to put the last point of damage on someone. Hulk collects an Extract, flips in the middle and tries to throw Dracula away but I play Indomitable. He uses Siege for another attack and does get the throw this time and I play Warpath to come back into action. The Mummy attacks Abomination and I have Sacrifice it onto Juggernaut. We finish the round at 11 – 8 to me.

Round 4: I feel like I’m close enough to the end now that I want to deal with Hulk properly and then hopefully pick up 5 points and see this out. Dracula dazes Hulk and walks N’Kantu away using Hypnotic Gaze. The Mummy comes back in and upsettingly drops 5 damage into Abomination to daze him with his Spender which really changes the game, especially as Juggernaut tries and fails again to KO him in return. Voodoo walks over and flips the Secure under Dracula but doesn’t want to attack him. We go up to 14 – 12 in my favour.

Round 5: OK, this is definitely the last turn. Dracula unleashes everything he has into Hulk but can’t deal enough damage. In retrospect this was highly unlikely to land the needed 10 wounds and I should definitely have done this to Voodoo instead. N’Kantu walks back in and flips the middle, hurting Dracula in the process. On my side it takes both Juggernaut and Abomination’s full activations to drop N’Kantu after some truly crazy dice but I do finally get him. Voodoo attacks Dracula and gets the precise damage needed to KO him, and Hulk sensibly just Gamma Leaps and walks to flip both of my Secures. Simon takes the win 17 – 16.

Phew, well done to Simon there for seeing the line to win and taking it instead of just punching my team with Hulk. I definitely stalled out there on N’Kantu and if Simon hadn’t rolled five blocks into six attacks in a row onto him I might have been able to see this out. On the other hand, I got pretty lucky in the early game doing a big chunk of damage to Blade with Juggernaut to daze him in round 2. I think I probably should have taken a different team here entirely as Abomination’s Poison tricks are rather wasted into this team and I would have been better served replacing him and Drax with Rogue and Shang-Chi. In the last round I got very greedy attacking Hulk and should instead have concentrated on picking up Doctor Voodoo and just moved Hulk away with Hypnotic Gaze.

In the end I finish 8th out of 20, top of the 2 – 2 bracket on Strength Of Schedule thanks to Allan, Simon and Will only dropping 2 games between them; Stu had a rougher day, finishing as the Strongest Avenger [our joke: he’s holding up the whole table] at 0 – 4. As always at these events I had a great time and learned some cool stuff which hopefully I’ll remember to put into practice for future games. 2025 has been a good year for me in MCP playing in 16 events and with an overall record of 50 – 11 in rated games, and I’m looking forward to more in 2026. Thanks to Stu, Allan Will and Simon for four very fun games of MCP, and of course to Allan (again) for all the hard work he does to run these events.

I’m lucky enough to live in an area where I can reach several different gaming groups who run tournaments for Marvel Crisis Protocol, and sometimes things work out for me to attend those. I’ve played MCP in Newcastle a few times previously and this time it lined up nicely for me to attend on route for a family visit. So Gareth, Simon and I hopped on the train down to Northern Alliance Games for another tournament hosted by Sam. This had the further advantage that a few other groups of travellers had made the journey from scenes in Stockport and Stockton (making me wish I lived in Stockbridge, Edinburgh!) so there was a good mix of players.

My roster is Thralls of Dracula again. It’s basically the same as last time with the addition of two extra Crises of each type to align with the updated Crisis selection rules. Of course, these are my 4th and 5th favoured of each type but I think that I’m fine to play them here. I’m also trying out Indomitable instead of Brace For Impact now that I’m much less worried about my big villains being thrown into each other. Reflecting a bit more on the wider question of why to play Thralls in general when Cabal is available and has Dracula affiliated, I think that it comes down in part to being able to play Red Skull Master of Hydra here as he goes very nicely with the attrition plan that I’m on.

Characters (10)
* Dracula (5)
Abomination (5)
* Blade (4)
Drax the Destroyer (3)
Juggernaut (5)
* Red Skull, Master of Hydra (5)
Rogue (4)
Shang-Chi (4)
N‘Kantu, the Living Mummy (3)
* Hulkbuster (6)

Team Tactics (10)
Sacrifice (R)
Thralls of Dracula
Chi Mastery
Cosmic Obliteration
Do You Know Who I Am?
Grievous Wounds
Recalibration Matrix
Warpath
Stark Armory
Indomitable (R)

Secure Crisis
Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse (C, 19)
Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack! (R, 20)
Deadline to Destruction (P, 16)
Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 (D, 17)
Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians (I, 17)

Extract Crisis
Fear Grips World As “Worthy“ Terrorize Cities (D, 18)
Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry (O, 18)
Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (C, 19)
The Montesi Formula Found (E, 18)
Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown! (C, 17)

Game 1: Logan playing Brotherhood on Wedding Party and Skrulls

Logan is pretty new to the game and immediately impresses me with his enthusiasm and good attitude. He wins the first Priority roll and takes his Extracts, presumably because our Secures were largely similar. We end up on Skrulls and Wedding Party which is fine for me; I have a bit of a mixed relationship with Skrulls because occasionally you miss the roll and someone gets pushed into a kill zone and I find that frustrating off the back of a single roll. Hulkbuster is going to take one side and just push people around, and I’ll gang up everyone else on the right. It’s rather ironic that the first game in years where I haven’t had Brace For Impact in my roster turns out to be the one where Magneto is sitting on the other side of the board.

Extraction: Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership
Secure: Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack!
Threat: 20
My team: Dracula, Hulkbuster, Juggernaut, Shang-Chi
My cards: Do You Know Who I Am?, Indomitable, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Logan’s team: Magneto, Juggernaut, Magik, Pyro, The Blob
Logan’s cards: Asteroid M, Do You Know Who I Am?, Magnetic Refraction, Recalibration Matrix, The Books Of Truth

Round 1: I leave Hulkbuster to take care of the right side and get an immediate reality check when I see that Logan has cleverly deployed Blob on that side; he’s the perfect counter for what I want to do over there. Otherwise I’m just going to overload the right side and hope that Hulkbuster can stay in the game for long enough. I get the second Priority roll. Shang-Chi and Blob take the outside Skrulls, then Magik moves up to contest the Wedding Party on the right. That’s exactly where Dracula wants her so he uses Wolf form to move up and then helpfully one-shots her. Juggernaut comes up and punches Dracula but he’s gained so much power off Magik that the spender counterattack is online and poor Juggernaut gets launched back toward his own deployment zone. My Juggernaut and Magneto both collect the remaining central Skrulls. Over on the left, Hulkbuster back-stops himself on a bit of terrain to stop himself getting pushed away by the Blob and doesn’t bother spending for Hit and Run as it won’t actually get me on the point. But I roll like a god and one-shot Blob anyway, stealing his Skrull! Pyro takes his place and we finish up at 5 – 3 to me.

Round 2: I want to leverage my insane dice from round one and start out by KOing one of Logan’s team. Magik is a much more appealing victim as she’s far easier to take out, so I need to use Dracula for that job. Otherwise the plan remains the same – try to keep Priority for one more round and don’t do anything silly on the left. Dracula obliges me by healing a little of Magik before KOing her. Blob and Pyro hurt Hulkbuster pretty badly but helpfully don’t bother with the Secure; he hurts them back a bit. I see an opportunity to marginalise Magneto so Juggernaut plays Do You Know Who I Am? to hurl him off into Narnia; he can’t even play Asteroid M to return as he’s holding a Skrull. Logan’s Juggernaut dazes Dracula and Shang-Chi bounces off him while Magneto sadly walks back toward the action. The score goes to 12 – 4 to me.

Round 3: I’m feeling pretty confident to see this out this turn so I’m not going to worry about Priority for next round; instead I just want to remove Logan’s actions as soon as possible. Hulkbuster dazes Pyro and KOs Blob, which more or less locks in the win right there. Juggernaut plays Do You Know Who I Am? to throw Dracula but I have Indomitable for just such a moment. He punches Dracula to push him away and I use Warpath to daze Juggernaut on the counterattack. My Juggernaut leaves Magneto on one wound and Logan opts to just walk him away to preserve that one point rather than take the risk of Shang-Chi spitefully removing even that. We finish up at 19 – 5 to me.

Thanks to Logan for a fun game. Unfortunately my amazing round one dice turned a game which already heavily favoured me into a bit of a non-game. Logan is going to be a good player once he has some more experience but for now he didn’t really know how to counter my nonsense and largely walked into everything I wanted to do.

Game 2: Ged playing Asgard on Deadly Meteors and Unexpected Guests

Ged is a very experienced player travelling over from the group playing out of Element Games in Stockport and I expect this to be a much rougher ride. I win Priority and pick my Secures out of habit; there wasn’t anything in Ged’s Crisis cards that I really needed to avoid. I think I want Red Skull here as his Hydra Troopers can do a lot of work in a scenario like this, and that locks me into playing a three threat. I don’t think that either Drax or Mummy have a great deal to recommend them on this Crisis so I take the latter on the basis that I expect there to be a lot of Souls available. Ged picks Thor, Prince of Asgard as his leader so our leaderships are going to be like the hokey-cokey with me paying a power to give out Bleed and then Ged paying a power to make it go away again.

Extraction: Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding
Secure: Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians
Threat: 17 (Thanks to beardboldly7899273659 commenting below to let me correct this from 20)
My team: Dracula, N‘Kantu the Living Mummy, Red Skull Master of Hydra, Rogue
My cards: Cosmic Obliteration, Indomitable, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Ged’s team: Thor Prince of Asgard, Beta Ray Bill, The Mighty Thor, Valkyrie
Ged’s cards: Heart Of The Worthy, Indomitable, Odin’s Blessing, Patch Up, Rainbow Bridge

Round 1: This is going to be a very back-and-forth game so I need to make sure I don’t fall too far behind on points and leverage some good attrition. I mainly need to make sure that I can get an Extract onto the Mummy so the Asgardian’s have to actually interact with him rather than just throwing him away each turn, but I think it’ll be hard for Ged to do that unless he really commits to a dive. Odin’s Blessing is a key card for Ged so I need to hit his team hard and often and force it out sooner rather than later as it’s the kind of play that gets more impactful the longer he can hold it. Ged wins the second Priority roll and Valkyrie makes use of her two power to collect on the left and also flip the left Secure. The Mummy collects an Extract on the right. Slightly to my surprise Mighty Thor just goes right up the middle early, while on the right the Troopers fail to flip the Secure and Red Skull doesn’t even bother trying the contested roll, instead just picks up a Secure and gives Bleed to Valkyrie. Bill goes to my right point and fails to flip it, then Rogue joins him and also fails to flip it. Thor heads to the left and puts a rather annoying Shock onto Red Skull and finally Dracula turns into a wolf and races on the middle point and lands a highly disappointing hit on Mighty Thor and fails to flip the Secure. The score is 4 – 2 to Ged after a truly epic series of failing contested rolls on the Secure.

Round 2: As I don’t have Priority I can just freely fight my way through Ged’s team without worrying about the consequences. I expect Ged to go into either Red Skull or Dracula and the results of that activation will determine how my first move is made. But I can’t simply ignore the score here so I need to either start working on the Secures or somehow relieve Valkyrie or Bill of their Extracts. Valkyrie starts us out with some nice damage into Red Skull and throws him away. He’s now far enough away from Thor that I think he’s a low risk so I open up with Dracula into Mighty Thor, drawing Odin’s Blessing out nice and early and still leaving her reeling and wearing a whole raft of conditions. He also Hypnotic Gazes her away (briefly, as she can just Charge back into the fray) to actually flip that middle Secure. Bill reminds us both that he’s a defensive rather than offensive powerhouse by bouncing uselessly off the Troopers, then moves to flip the central Secure. N’Kantu is quite happy where he is, so he flips on the right and just chills until he racks up enough power and / or Souls to contribute from a longer range. Thor charges into Dracula, hitting the Stagger and forcing me to pay Indomitable to avoid being sent flying; he takes a sweet return hit though. Rogue joins the mob in the middle, gently tickling Thor but getting a great Mutant Absorption out into Bill. Mighty Thor, as expected, charges right back into the middle (we are like five-year-olds playing football!) and throws Dracula away. Finally the Grunts fail to damage Bill and Red Skull does almost nothing to Valkyrie which is going to be more of a problem next turn. He does at least push her off the Secure and flip it though, so it’s not all bad. The score tightens up a little at 7 – 6 in Ged’s favour, and I take the opportunity to push Valkyrie further away with the Unexpected Guests effect.

Round 3: Things are a bit tighter now and I can really go to town removing Ged’s activations now that his team are pretty badly mauled. My target list is going to be aimed at characters who haven’t activated yet so he has less to work with this turn. Mighty Thor starts us off going after Red Skull but leave him standing (albeit having been thrown away) after a pretty poor attack roll. Rogue puts Bill down and takes his Extract but can’t add Thor to her tally. Slightly to my surprise, Ged passes so N’Kantu, who is now feeling a bit more flush with Soul tokens, finishes off Thor. Ged passes again so Dracula shakes his Stagger, uses Mist form to heal a bit and then goes back into the middle of board and flips that point. Valkyrie comes over and flips the left Secure and Red Skull finishes us off by dazing Mighty Thor and flipping that Secure. The score goes to a much more comfortable 12 – 8 to me.

Round 4: I could theoretically see this out this turn, but Ged can’t get over the line. I will probably take a bit of a pasting here as the Asgardians are flush with power and full on health and the opposite is true for my team. If I can just hold on to a few points while I work over the team, ideally KOing someone, then I’m confident I can score out next turn if it slips this turn. Thor starts with a spender which takes out the Troopers and leaves Rogue on one wound, which of course is promptly dealt with by throwing her into Dracula. He then throws Dracula away off an attack and flips the Secure. Red Skull plays Cosmic Obliteration to inconvenience Valkyrie and Mighty Thor, then KOs the latter and leaves the former on a single wound. She dazes him in return, throws the Troopers away and flips the Secure. Dracula turns into Mist again to clear some wounds and get back to the middle, then spends a power with the leadership to give Thor Bleed and KOs him with the spender. Sadly this leaves me with zero power and unable to collect the fallen Extract. Bill gladly grabs it, throws Dracula away yet again and flips the central Secure. N’Kantu puts some nice damage into Bill, walks to the middle and flips that Secure back. We go to 15 – 11 in my favour.

Round 5: With only two pieces left on the board, both of whom are almost out of wounds, I’m pretty confident here. Whoever doesn’t activate first is definitely going down. Valkyrie lays into Red Skull and manages enough to KO him, but then she dazes to the Bleed. Dracula makes no mistake KOing Bill and we finish this at 21 – 11 to me.

What a cool game. It’s always fun to go for a game where both parties are committed to a long-lasting brawl and our leaderships were very much opposites to each other. I got pretty lucky in round 3 with Red Skull surviving the first activation and maybe that was critical to the result. On the other hand, I think that Thor’s early activation in round 4 was a mistake (albeit one with a very high potential upside) as it let Red Skull really swing attrition my way on the left. N’Kantu had a quiet but effective game; scoring me a point each turn for an Extract and generally making Ged’s life miserable while his hands were full with the rest of my team.

Game 3: James playing Dark Dimension on Wedding Party and Inhuman Weapons

I’m very excited to play James here for two reasons. Firstly, I think that we’ve seen each other at countless events over the last few years but never managed to get drawn together. And secondly because he’s playing Dark Dimension which, at least in Scotland, is rather uncommon. I win Priority and choose my Secures and James chooses the higher threat. I don’t really know much about playing into Dormammu so I just go with my basic team on Wedding Party and hope for the best. Rogue comes in over Shang-Chi as James has a lot of options for long range attacks which of course Shang-Chi really hates.

Extraction: Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry
Secure: Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack!
Threat: 20
My team: Dracula, Hulkbuster, Juggernaut, Rogue
My cards: Indomitable, Recalibration Matrix, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
James’s team: Dormammu, Baron Zemo, Iron Man, Okoye, Scarlet Spider
James’s cards: Dark Restoration, Helios Laser Bombardment, I Am A Baron After All, Patch Up, Recalibration Matrix

Round 1: My main play here is going to be to take a lead on the left and just try to manage Dormammu over on the right. If I can daze Okoye early it’ll make her less relevant for the scoring and hopefully my two bodies can stay up long enough to score over Dormammu himself. On the left I’m mainly worried about Scarlet Spider as he’ll get to move last and can dicelessly displace even Hulkbuster so I need to make sure I’m working the attrition hard. I win the second Priority and we start out with Rogue and Dormammu just walking onto the right point and collecting Extracts. I pass and Zemo goes to collect on the left, then Juggernaut crashes into Dormammu and helpfully pushes him back off the Secure. Iron Man collects the last Extract, showing up a bit of an error from me here as there was no reason not to have grabbed that with Dracula instead of activating Juggernaut. However Dracula is clearly just in the mood to bail me out as he turns into a Wolf to make it to the point then one-shots Baron Zemo to take his Extract, pops Bleed onto Iron Man and then Hypnotic Gazes him off the Secure. Scarlet Spider comes up and Web Whips Dracula off the Secure before Hulkbuster Hit and Runs to push him away in turn. Okoye doesn’t even bother with the Secure on the right, just moves up and zaps Rogue. After the first round we’re at 6 – 2 to me.

Round 2: I need to burn through Dark Restoration at some point so I’ll try to KO Zemo nice and early here. Otherwise I just need to not give up too much on the right and rely on Hulkbuster moving late and displacing everyone off the left Secure. Dracula’s dice return to the median as he gently tickles Zemo (though he does give him some nice conditions to keep him busy) and then Hypnotic Gazes Scarlet Spider out of my hair. Dormammu teleports onto the right Secure and leaves Rogue on a single wound. Juggernaut goes into him but Okoye takes the hit, getting pushed away and she walks back and attacks Rogue. I don’t want to lose her so early so I very reluctantly play Sacrifice to keep her standing as it’s worth a 1VP for the Extract and another 2 to not let James score the Secure. Rogue puts some damage into Dormammu, clears her Hex and heals a bit of Okoye’s Bleed. Over on the right, Zemo and Scarlet Spider get stuck into Hulkbuster who lives with judicious use of Built To Take It; Scarlet Spider also Web Whips Dracula again. Hulkbuster pushes them both off the Secure and finally Iron Man moves onto the point. The score goes to 10 – 4 to me.

Round 3: I could theoretically get to 16 this turn but in reality I think I’m likely to get overwhelmed on the right before I can do enough damage to get anything there and so I just need to focus on not losing out too hard on the left. Rogue attacks Dormammu and Okoye to soften them up for next round, then Dormammu dazes Juggernaut (which is going to be a problem as most of his ‘anti-Dormammu’ tech goes away when he flips to his injured side) and leaves Rogue on one wound again. I’ll say here that James’s dice were pretty unexciting and he didn’t hit the repeat trigger on Dormammu’s spender either time. Dracula still can’t get Zemo but does move Iron Man off the Secure at least. Zemo and Iron Man continue to work through Hulkbuster and Okoye finally dazes Rogue. Hulkbuster is feeling flush with power so he puts two Meteor Punches into Iron Man, dazing him and KOing Zemo with the splash damage. Scarlet Spider collects the dopped Extract and Web Whips Hulkbuster off the Secure. We move to 12 – 10 to me.

Round 4: That was a good round for James but now my team are feeling healthy and full of power, and Dormammu somehow doesn’t have the power to play Dark Restoration. I’m highly unlikely to be able to take out Dormammu so I just want to remove as many others as I can manage, ideally before they activate. Dracula KOs Iron Man and stands on the Secure. Dormammu can’t finish Juggernaut who gratefully finishes off Okoye without dice (by bumping in to her with Nothing Stops The Juggernaut and then throwing her into the building. Scarlet Spider doesn’t have what it takes to polish off Hulkbuster, then he and Rogue drop him to take that Secure. The score ends up at 19 – 11.

Thanks to James for a very fun game, that was much closer than it looked. I got some great dice in round 1 to daze Zemo and perhaps more importantly to push Dormammu off the Secure with Juggernaut and James was always having to stretch to catch me after that, which caused him to take bigger risks that didn’t pay off. James’s dice also definitely didn’t do him any favours; apart from in round one they were generally fine but he wasn’t hitting triggers when he needed them. Rogue turned out to be surprisingly good into Dormammu as removing his power with Mutant Absorption is really annoying for him, and if anyone in Scotland ever starts playing Dark Dimension then I’ll try replicate that trick. James and Ged played each other in the final game with James taking the win over for a tasty 3 – 1 result.

Game 4: Will playing Midnight Sons on Wedding Party and Unexpected Guests

In the final game I’m playing into Will. It turns out that we’re both on ridiculous winning streaks so someone is getting reset to zero after this. I win the initial Priority roll and pick my Secures, but clearly we’re on the same plan here as Will’s Crisis cards are not hugely different to mine. Will chooses 20 threat which I think is probably less good for him as I rate Immortal Hulk as being proportionally better the lower the threat. Still, I like 20 threat a lot here as I really like my teams. Both Hulkbuster and Juggernaut are good options for dealing with Immortal Hulk in their own way and I’m also much less worried about him repeatedly throwing either of them into the rest of my team now with the updated throw damage rules.

Extraction: Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding
Secure: Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack!
Threat: 20
My team: Dracula, Hulkbuster, Juggernaut, Shang-Chi
My cards: Do You Know Who I Am?, Indomitable, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Will’s team: Blade, Doctor Voodoo, Ghost Rider, Immortal Hulk
Will’s cards: Bats The Ghost Hound, Deal With The Devil, One Below All, Patch Up, Siege Of Darkness

Round 1: I’d ideally like to get Hulkbuster paired up into Blade and Juggernaut into Hulk as I reckon they’re the best fits for deployment. I need to end up equal with the Extracts and then hope that I can do better displacement with Hulkbuster than Will can with Hulk! Will takes the second Priority roll and Ghost Rider start out by collecting an Extract on the left. Shang-Chi and Voodoo pick up the Extracts on the right of the board and contest the Secure with Voodoo doing his best to backstop himself on the building. I decide that I’m not going to be able to fully wait out Hulk so Dracula comes forward to hit Ghost Rider and Hypnotic Gaze him off the point. Blade contests on the right and Hulkbuster uses his Hit and Run to contest it while pushing Blade back off the Secure; I’m also angled to possibly be able to push Voodoo next turn in the unlikely event that he doesn’t move at all. Hulk Bumps, uses One Below All and gets in about Dracula for fairly minimal damage (and eats a counterattack off one of them to put a cheeky Bleed out) before throwing the big vampire away. Finally Juggernaut collects the last Extract and contests with Hulk on the left. The score is 4 – 2 to me.

Round 2: Now that I have a slight lead I just need to keep putting Will into positions where he has to overextend to come back. I think my best shot is over on the right where I have Blade and Voodoo rather outclassed, while on the left I guess I just need to survive and not give up too many activations. Voodoo tickles Hulkbuster who pushes him off the Secure and then dazes Blade. Ghost Rider hurts Juggernaut and I decide that I’m more likely to lose Dracula so so I go with him first, using Mist to heal a bit and get back to the Secure, healing again from the Leadership and then slapping Hulk with his spender to launch him into Ghost Rider. Of course he comes back with Bump and Gamma Leap but at least this way he has to spend some resources. Ghost Rider takes the opportunity to play Patch Up on the big guy too. Shang-Chi pushes Voodoo around but doesn’t actually manage to damage him, and we go to 7 – 5 to me.

Round 3: My top priority is to KO Blade and get his leadership off the table, but anyone I can daze is going to be welcome. I suspect that I’m wasting time attacking into Hulk but at least it’s getting me plenty of power on Dracula! Blade attacks Hulkbuster to give him Bleed so I Sacrifice the spender into Shang-Chi as he, at least briefly, does not have Bleed. Siege of Darkness comes out to put even more damage into Hulkbuster and also allows Hulk to throw Juggernaut away. I need to go with Hulkbuster before he goes down and Voodoo is well placed to do it so he has become the top target; I get the daze and collect his Extract, then push Blade off the Secure and Hit and Run onto it. Ghost Rider piles more damage onto the increasingly fragile looking gigantic mecha. Dracula hurts Hulk a bit more and Hypnotic Gazes him away. Will passes which I think is probably a mistake as it allows Shang-Chi to KO Blade with a truly epic Rising Phoenix Kick and take Bump off the table. Hulk leaves Dracula alive on one wound and counterattack spender dazes him; Juggernaut collects the fallen Extract and looks a bit sheepish. The score is 14 – 6.

Round 4: It seems pretty unlikely that Will can come back from this but we’ve got plenty of time to play it out. I just need to remove any activations where possible as almost any score will do me just fine. Voodoo goes into Hulkbuster with double Staff of Legba and leaves him on one wound. Hulkbuster gratefully dazes Ghost Rider, the only piece that could realistically put more damage on him this game. Will passes which is definitely a mistake as Juggernaut swaggers over and hurls him off to Narnia with Do You Know Who I Am? before retreating to the Wedding Party. We end this at 21 – 6 to me.

Many thanks to Will for another very fun game. We went back and forth but I think overall I just had the right tools to swing this in my favour. Not having to worry about keeping Priority was quite nice as it meant that I could just go wild with attacking Will’s models. I usually try to make a decision early on about whether I’m going to bother dealing with a Hulk and this time I didn’t particularly want to. But Will played him well and he was the only choice for Dracula to attack; obviously it worked out for me but I did worry that I was just feeding him more and more power.

The scores come in and I’m first overall, with Will and James in second and third respectively doing my Strength Of Schedule no harm at all. Gareth and Simon put in very good days at the MCP factory, dropping only three games between them two of which were into Will himself. I’m continuing to very much enjoy Thralls of Dracula and at the time of writing I’m on top of the global Longshanks leaderboard for the affiliation. Thanks to Logan, Ged, James and Will for four fun games of MCP, and thanks to Sam for hosting and organising everything.

Gareth, Frazer and I hopped on a train to Stirling so we could attend another of the monthly Marvel Crisis Protocol events running at Common Ground Games. CGG is a great gaming venue and has become the de facto home of the MCP scene in Scotland both because of the size and convenience of the shop itself and because of the hard work that Allan continues to put in to running great events. We’re generally at 20 or more gamers even for ‘just’ a regular event; if all the different communities that occasionally attend were to come along on the same day then we would top 50, as seen when there is a headline event such as the team tournament back in May.

I’m playing Thralls of Dracula this time. The entire affiliation list is just Vlad Dracula himself, but the leadership card makes anyone else in your team affiliated in addition to the little Bleed action. I started my roster out with Dracula and then added Blade and Drax on the basis that they get a benefit for other people having Bleed; this happens a lot when you’re playing Thralls. After that I picked 7 more characters who are annoying to hurt in various ways as my theory is that this is the best way to get value out of the healing part of the leadership. Not surprisingly, this means that my roster looks like a podcaster’s tier list. Red Skull Master of Hydra got the nod as his Hydra Troopers let me cheat the Priority game a little bit and gives me some wiggle room on a wider Crisis. Finally, after some test games with friends I realised that I needed an affiliated 6+ threat character in case I play Wedding Party at 20 threat and I’ve ended up with Hulkbuster. This is partly so I can twirl my hipster moustache but I think Hulkbuster does synergise well with both the Thralls leadership and the Wedding Party Crisis and I also like my paint job on the big chap. The Secure Crises are ones with a midline point to stand on so I can get Dracula involved as quickly as possible while the Extracts are somewhat slow scoring, also with midline points to tempt people to stand where my team can drink their blood most effectively. I had been playing M’Kraan Crystal but the shape wasn’t as good for Dracula as I had hoped, plus having to pay for the pay-to-flip meant that I couldn’t also give anyone Bleed in the early game so I swapped it out for Deadline To Destruction.

Characters (10)
* Dracula (5)
Abomination (5)
* Blade (4)
Drax the Destroyer (3)
Juggernaut (5)
* Red Skull, Master of Hydra (5)
Rogue (4)
Shang-Chi (4)
N‘Kantu, the Living Mummy (3)
* Hulkbuster (6)

Team Tactics (10)
Brace for Impact (R)
Sacrifice (R)
Thralls of Dracula
Chi Mastery
Cosmic Obliteration
Do You Know Who I Am?
Grievous Wounds
Recalibration Matrix
Warpath
Stark Armory

Secure Crisis
Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse (C, 19)
Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack! (R, 20)
Deadline to Destruction (P, 16)

Extract Crisis
Fear Grips World As “Worthy“ Terrorize Cities (D, 18)
Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry (O, 18)
Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (C, 19)

Game 1: Franky playing Avengers on M’Kraan Crystal and Inhuman Weapons

After the first game of our last event had me paired up with Franky, we get the same again this time. Luckily Franky is a lovely guy and I’m always pleased to be able play him. I win Priority and pick my Extracts on the basis that our Crisis Cards are pretty similar. I want to stay narrower than the Avengers but without falling behind on scoring, so Red Skull and his Hydra Troopers are a good option here. I’m a bit worried about the prospect of double Thors throwing my big people into each other but I think that I can afford to use Juggernaut and will plan to keep him near Red Skull in Null Field so they don’t worry much about collisions. I want to make Franky go for one of the Extracts, then get in about the lucky hero with Dracula and make them unhappy, meanwhile playing around with the M’Kraan between the ‘extra’ activation of the Troopers and Juggernaut’s mobility.

Extraction: Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry
Secure: M’Kraan Crystal Gets Heroes Home!
Threat: 19
My team: Dracula, Juggernaut, Red Skull Master of Hydra, Shang-Chi
My cards: Brace For Impact, Do You Know Who I Am?, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Franky’s team: Captain America First Avenger, Captain America (Sam Wilson), Shang-Chi Thor Prince of Asgard, Gorgon
Franky’s cards: Avengers Assemble, Brace For Impact, Chi Mastery, Sacrifice, Warpath

Round 1: Thor gets to deploy opposite Juggernaut because I finished deploying first, but I think that is probably OK. Ideally we’ll end up with 2 Extracts each but I’ll have managed to take a swing with Dracula into someone. Red Skull starts in Null Field and will stay that way for the entire game. Both of our Shang-Chis go to the right and collect an Inhuman Weapon. Thor flips the back right Secure and hits my Shang-Chi for Shock and nothing else; I would have been fine with taking a damage so I could have had his Charge superpower available next turn. Juggernaut moves to join Thor, flipping the near right Secure on the way and giving the Asgardian Bleed when he arrives. Gorgon picks up the outside left Extract. The Troopers flip on the near left and Red Skull pushes Franky’s Shang-Chi but can’t get within range to heal himself off Thor with the leadership. In retrospect I should have used Dracula at this point as this gives Franky free reign on the Extracts on the left and Captain Steve does indeed come to claim the last one. Oh well, Dracula turns into a wolf to close the distance then lands a nice hit into Captain Steve. Finally Captain Sam flips the back left Secure and throws his shield at the Hydra Troopers. The score is 5 – 3 to Franky.

Round 2: I need to go for the throat (fittingly, for a vampire team) on attrition here as Franky has enough bodies to move around and score very efficiently if he gets the chance. Dracula starts us out by dazing Captain Steve, collecting his Extract and strolling to the Secure with Captain Sam. He invites the latter to leave with Hypnotic Gaze, then flips it for me. Captain Sam moves to the near left point, KOing the Troopers in transit and flips it. I’d ideally daze him at this point but my only actual targets are Shang-Chi and Thor. The Troopers pop out again and shoot Thor, then Red Skull dazes him with two ‘counts blanks’ attacks. I’ll happily take that, even though it’ll cost me Priority next round. His Shang-Chi gives mine Stagger before Juggernaut dazes him too. Gorgon makes a mess of attacking Dracula and eats a very rough counterattack for his troubles and finally my Shang-Chi decides that everything is in hand and just Shakes both conditions. The score is 9 – 7 to me after some very kind dice rolls.

Round 3: I’m up on points and attrition so I’m feeling quite good here. If I can KO at least one of Captain Steve, Shang-Chi and Thor (admittedly, all easier said than done) then I’m feeling great for the game; unfortunately I have given away Priority so at one of them is going to have his way with me. Thor slaps Red Skull silly but he does remain standing, then throws that bus into Juggernaut who pays for Brace. He would probably be fine but it’s the biggest throw I have to worry about so it’s a fair time for the card. I can’t actually remember why I decided to hold Red Skull’s activation here but anyway I use Juggernaut who puts Bleed on Thor and lands some nasty damage into him before launching Shang-Chi down the board with Do You Know Who I Am?. Shang-Chi at least has to move first before charging into Red Skull but my luck holds out and he gets to survive on a single wound. It would be embarrassing and negligent to leave him now and lose an activation to Captain Sam so Red Skull heals of Thor’s Bleed then KOs the musclebound meddler. Then we get complicated. Gorgon puts his spender into Dracula, launching him off down the board. I play Warpath and come back to counterattack, then Captain Steve plays Sacrifice to take the attack. This was probably a bit of a misplay from Franky as Gorgon is now not standing on the point and has no power or a way to gain any in order to flip the Secure. Dracula has a go into Captain Steve for no effect, then Hypnotic Gazes Gorgon to go away. Captain Steve knocks Dracula off the Secure, and both he and Captain Sam flip some points Franky’s way. My Shang-Chi bounces ineffectually but predictably off his; Shang-Chi is hilariously ineffective into his evil twin. The score is 13 – 11 to me.

Round 4: Franky made a good come back there but I’m really far ahead on attrition here and so it’s time to put this away. I need to flip the Secures but more importantly I need to do this by limiting Franky’s options which I intned to do by dazing his characters before they activate. Shang-Chi goes into Captain Sam and leaves him on one wound, then also fails to flip the Secure. Uh oh! Gorgon decides to make sure of his point and just runs away from Dracula. My Troopers walk over and flip under Captain Steve and Red Skull KOs Shang-Chi. Captain Steve does get the Troopers and then Juggernaut slides into Captain Sam to daze him. Finally Dracula moves Captain Steve away with Hypnotic Gaze and flips that point too, ending us at 20 – 12 in my favour.

Many thanks to Franky for another great game. My dice were, for the second time in a row against poor Franky, absolutely crazy and I got lots of work done on attrition just by rolling really well rather than doing anything especially clever. I do like being able to deal with hard characters with non-attack damage like Bleed, Nothing Stops The Juggernaut etc; for example Shang-Chi takes a lot less work to put down when he’s already lost a couple of wounds to incidental tick damage. All that said, I think that Franky’s team selection would have been much better just by swapping out which version of Steve Rogers he put on the table, and putting Reserve Members on Gorgon in favour of Warpath.

Game 2: Ross playing Avengers on Deadline and Unexpected Guests

Next up we have the mighty Ross, pivoting onto Avengers but, I fully expect, still with a roster primed to fight everyone. After all, why move away from your strengths? I win Priority and pick my Secures; we have somewhat similar Crises again but I don’t particularly want to have to worry about dealing with a Hulk on Mayor Fisk. I think that Red Skull would be pretty good for this Crisis but I decide that I want something a bit more durable sitting at the back scoring points so I go for a slightly different mix and take Mummy. I could have also picked Red Skull, Mummy and Drax and been happy but Rogue is fun to play. Similarly I did think about going 3 wide and really going deep into attrition but I think that’s not the ideal play for this Crisis combination and I also worry about going very narrow as if you go down to a spike early it can be hard to come back. Basically the plan is to site nicely on a Secure with Mummy and zap people, then go forth and fight everyone with the other three, making sure that there is a lot of Bleed out there and that I use my displacement smartly.

Extraction: Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding
Secure: Deadline to Destruction
Threat: 16
My team: Dracula, N‘Kantu the Living Mummy, Rogue, Shang-Chi
My cards: Brace For Impact, Recalibration Matrix, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Ross’s team: Captain America, Hulk, Shang-Chi, Wong
Ross’s cards: Avengers Assemble, Brace For Impact, Chi Mastery, Patch Up, Recalibration Matrix

Round 1: I’m a bit nervous about how Ross plays here as I might end up feeding people into a Hulk-shaped blender. I decide that my early activations will have to be cagey as I want to the one hitting people, not being hit. Mummy starts us out by taking the left Extract and taking station at the back. Wong meditates and gives power to Shang-Chi so I change my plan of going up with Rogue and instead pick up my right Extract with Shang-Chi and join the Mummy. Ross’s Shang-Chi collect his left Extract and comes to sit on the left Secure where Rogue joins him and hands him a Bleed token. Ross surprises me by collecting the last Secure with Hulk and then just sitting on the home Secure so Dracula just shrugs and walks to the right where Captain America eventually bounces a shield off him. The score is 4 – 3 to me.

Round 2: I think that Ross is going to find it quite hard to take any of my Extracts… but also I don’t really know how I’ll take any of his. On the one hand, this is probably fine as if we just score 4 points per round from here on in then I’ll get to 16 first. But in reality I need to do something cool to break the deadlock, and this is mainly going to involve Rogue and Shang-Chi displacing people who have already activated. Dracula starts us out by bringing Captain America to him with Hypnotic Gaze, then landing two good hits (including giving Hex on the first swing) to daze him. Giving up Priority was inevitable at some stage but I definitely didn’t expect it so soon. Ross’s Shang-Chi gives Rogue Stagger, then she heals via the Leadership and launches him off the point with her spender. Wong then comes over and heals the damage off Shang-Chi, leaving us both largely where we were before. Mummy doesn’t have anyone in range so just sits there happily scoring two points for me. Hulk goes after Dracula, getting the push away, and I spend Warpath and come back in with Fury of the Vampyr to send the big green one back where he came from. Shang-Chi rotates left so he’s relevant for next turn. The score goes to 9 – 6 to me.

Round 3: Now I’ve lost Priority it gives me a different opportunity to rotate and score by moving last. If I can KO Captain America then I’d be very happy but that seems extremely unlikely as I don’t really have the tools to do it. Instead, I just want to ride out my points lead and not give anything big to Ross. His Shang-Chi Staggers mine and pushes him, then mine charges back to the point and pushes his off while also giving out Stagger. Wong comes to heal him but it puts him in range of Rogue who easily dazes him and heals again from the leadership. Hulk moves to line up for the rarely used Thunderclap, then he, Captain America and Shang-Chi pay for Avengers Assemble to get onto Secures. Mummy has the tools to Sever Soul twice on Hulk but I don’t really want to give him power and I’m unlikely to daze him so I just pass again. Captain America moves away from Dracula who follows him and hands out Bleed. We go to 13 – 9 in my favour.

Round 4: I can see this out from here and if necessary I can probably get two points of the three I need just from Mummy. If I can remove any activations then I will but ideally I just keep Ross focussed on the left of the board. Wong starts us out by removing the Stagger from Shang-Chi, then attacks mine. This predictably does no damage and he gets thrown into Ross’s evil twin Shang-Chi. Rogue attacks Shang-Chi with her Spender, doing no damage but at least throwing him too far to use his counter-throw, then makes him drop the Extract with the Deadline console, picks it up and runs away. Shang-Chi chases and gets her using Chi Mastery. My Shang-Chi Staggers Hulk and rotates to my home Secure, but I make a mistake and forget to heal with the leadership so he only has one wound left. Oops. Hulk follows and makes him drop his Extract with the console and throws Mummy away. N’Kantu knows when he’s not wanted and walks to the right Secure. Captain America can’t drop Dracula even using Recalibration Matrix in a final act of desperation and he gets moved off the Secure with Hypnotic Gaze. The final score is 16 – 12 to me.

That was a fun game into Ross but I felt that I was always favoured here as Wong was just too passive to be used for the attrition the Ross was wanting to play and the whole thing was too spread out to make good use of Captain America bodyguarding big hits. I made a couple of mistakes, notably forgetting to heal Shang-Chi with the leadership which would have fractionally widened the score so that is definitely something for me to be more careful with. I liked this team, and although Mummy didn’t really do anything it was good to know that I could rotate him as needed and he would be hard to drop.

Game 3: Liam playing Servants of Apocalypse on Deadline and Inhuman Weapons

Now that I’m two games in, it’s almost inevitable that I get paired into a very good player, and Liam is perhaps the best player in Scotland with an extraordinary list of performances in the global TTS leagues. To say that this game will be difficult is an understatement as not only is Liam highly skilled but he’s also playing one of the current best affiliations. I do at least win Priority as I’m definitely happier on my Secures than his, and unsurprisingly Liam opts for ‘not 16’ as the threat level. I wanted Juggernaut to threaten to throw Apocalypse off into the distance if needed with his card, and otherwise I chose characters who weren’t too heavy on the status conditions that Apocalypse is immune to. Juggernaut is also good on Deadline anyway as the Crisis effect doesn’t really impact him. I don’t particularly expect to fight Apocalypse much but I decide to bring Grievous Wounds instead of Brace For Impact (I probably won’t need the latter) just in case an opportunity presents itself or, more likely, I need a desperation play.

Extraction: Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry
Secure: Deadline to Destruction
Threat: 18
My team: Dracula, Juggernaut, Rogue, Shang-Chi
My cards: Do You Know Who I Am?, Grievous Wounds, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Liam’s team: Apocalypse, Beast (Pestilence), Gambit (Death), Iceman (Famine), Magik (War)
Liam’s cards: Brace For Impact, Fall Back, Immortal Servants, Journey Through Limbo, Recalibration Matrix

Round 1: I need to avoid giving up too easy a Pestilence bomb as my top priority but the very nature of this Crisis is that I’m eventually going to end up with two villains together for Beast. If I can end the turn on four VPs and in reach to do some damage then I’ll be happy. Rogue collects an Extract on the right, then Iceman just moves to Liam’s home Secure. Shang-Chi and Gambit take up the two left Extracts and Magik goes to the right but stays off the Secure in favour of zapping Rogue gently (and also not being in range for Dracula to blend her). Juggernaut gets some nice damage into Gambit and gains enough power to slide into him for the daze, which neatly gives me his Extract. Beast comes in and gives Poison to Shang-Chi and Root to Juggernaut, which is quite upsetting. I realise that I’m not going to get a good attack off Dracula here so just walk up and collect the last Inhuman Weapon on the right. Apocalypse comes to the left, using Famine to strip another power off Juggernaut and land on the Secure, then zaps him to add Shock to the list of conditions he’s carrying. The score is 5 – 2 in my favour as I’m somehow holding all the Extracts.

Round 2: On the one hand, I didn’t do any of the things I wanted from Round 1, but on the other hand I’m somehow up on points anyway. I have a long thing about my options here and eventually decide that I just need to get Juggernaut away from all those scary people on the left; if Liam wants anyone to follow him then at least they’re closer to Dracula. I suspect that I’m losing badly on the left so I want to cut my losses there and make sure that I have the right well under control. Juggernaut just double walks to my home Secure before Gambit needs two attacks to daze Shang-Chi. I pass and Iceman rotates to the left to pick up Shang-Chi’s Inhuman Weapon. Rogue puts some fairly unexciting damage into Magik but does manage 5 / 5 successes on Mutant Absorption to really limit her options to fight back. Magik punches back, I Sacrifice the second swing into Dracula but weirdly he takes no damage so I can’t even counterattack! Apocalypse comes to my home point to daze Juggernaut and take his Extract, then Dracula turns into a wolf and walks down there, landing a decent attack that forces Liam to paly Immortal Servants to remove a spike. Apocalypse also uses Fall Back to get away to the left. Beast comes over to contest and puts Root on Dracula, which he definitely doesn’t like. We score up to 8 – 5 to me.

Round 3: I think that I can daze Apocalypse here with Juggernaut and if I can’t then I will throw him away with Do You Know Who I Am?. I need to get some value out of Shang-Chi too as he’s in a lot of danger from Gambit where he’s currently standing. I’m more confident about Beast vs Dracula and Magik vs Rogue so if things go well and I can contain Liam’s team on the left I could put myself into a strong spot. Juggernaut walks and slides into Apocalypse, getting the daze and retaking his Extract. He also throughs Iceman into Gambit Rogue survives a round of being attacked by Magik after some pretty poor dice from Liam, then Shang-Chi dazes Iceman and leaves Gambit alive on one wound; Gambit uses Enhanced Agility to make sure that he’s too far away to be given Bleed. Beast walks twice to his home Secure, pausing to give Root to Juggernaut on the way. Rogue dazes Magik and Gambit lets rip with his beam into Juggernaut and Shang-Chi. Finally Dracula follows Beast across the board, gives him Bleed and Hypnotic Gazes him off the Secure. Somehow I’ve scored almost every point available here, and we go to 15 – 5 to me.

Round 4: I’ve given away Priority so I’m somewhat at the mercy of Liam’s opening move here, but on the other hand it’s quite hard to see a world where he can stop me scoring out; at the very least I can double move Dracula into a far corner if things look a bit hairy. If Juggernaut lives though the first activation then I’m going to be throwing whoever didn’t activate away with Do You Know Who I Am? to further limit Liam’s options. Apocalypse uses Celestial Technology to bring Beast and Gambit close to him. Gambit attacks Shang-Chi and Juggernaut but has some pretty rubbish dice (and my defence dice are also quite good) and he doesn’t put either of them down. Juggernaut doesn’t need a second invitation, throwing Apocalypse downfield, landing a giant hit into Beast and dazing him with Nothing Stops The Juggernaut. Liam has seen enough at this point and calls it. It’s not particularly clear to me how we should score in such a case so it gets entered as 15 – 5.

I’m very relieved to get a win against Liam, and I had a very good time playing him. Liam is such a strong player that, if I’m honest with myself, I need a bit of luck if I’m to prevail. And while I don’t think that the dice were egregious (for example, like when I played Franky in game 1), they were helping me out when I needed to ride my fortune. I think that Liam probably hurt himself a little by collapsing onto the left point a bit too early as it meant that he had to move if he wanted to shake me off any of the other points. It’s always a pleasure to play with Liam; his play is very clean and technical and he thinks through angles that I never see coming.

Game 4: Gordon playing Defenders on Wedding Party and Skrulls

There are three of us remaining undefeated and I get the pair down into Gordon. This is quite funny as it means that my first and last game opponents are the same as in my last event. Gordon is play Defenders and so I resign myself to having my entire team wearing Hex for the whole game, but Gordon surprises me by picking his Extracts after winning Priority. Wedding Party seems like a rough ride for Doctor Strange and that’s probably overall better for me as I don’t mind it much if the Defenders want to fight me. I put Hulkbuster in my roster for this exact situation so my choices are about which 4 threat and which 5 threat I select. Ultimately I think that there are pros and cons to all my choices so rather than sink into analysis paralysis I put down Juggernaut and Shang-Chi since they did me strong last time. Gordon isn’t packing a Hulk nor much in the way of throws so I opt to leave Brace at home again. The overall plan is not to go down too far on the Extracts then force a brawl on the right where I gradually work my way through the Defenders, while Hulkbuster sits on the left and either contests or pushes people off the Secure.

Extraction: Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership
Secure: Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack!
Threat: 20
My team: Dracula, Hulkbuster, Juggernaut, Shang-Chi
My cards: Do You Know Who I Am?, Recalibration Matrix, Sacrifice, Thralls of Dracula, Warpath
Gordon’s team: Daredevil, Blade, Hawkeye, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Man-Thing
Gordon’s cards: Brace For Impact, Cover Me, Heroes For Hire, Mystic Ward, Street Smarts

Round 1: If I can end up even on the Skrulls then I’ll be perfectly happy; I’m unlikely to lose the left Secure unless Gordon heavily overloads it as I can push one person off with Hulkbuster. Luke Cage starts by picking up the left Skrull and getting pushed, while Shang-Chi goes to the right. Daredevil hurts him with a Baton Hook but misses the pull which is certainly a relief. Iron Fist gets the further away Skrull in the centre and I make a mistake and get greedy with Juggernaut. He walks up, punches Iron Fist needing to just generate one power to slide up to the last Skrull and pick it up, but he fails to damage Iron Fist. I decide not to bother with the slide either as I can use the power next turn. Man-Thing comes to the right point and Dracula uses his Wolf form to join him, land a nice hit and then Hypnotic Gaze Daredevil into the fray (maybe this was also needlessly risky) to give him Bleed and set me up nicely for next turn. Hulkbuster pushes Luke Cage further away on his way to the Secure with Hit and Run, while Blade and Hawkeye move up to score. We start out at 4 – 1 to Gordon.

Round 2: I quite like my board position here despite failing to get that Skrull, but I need to turn on the attrition and get some dazes on the right. Hulkbuster will probably be fine over on the left. Shang-Chi pushes Daredevil and gives him Stagger then goes into Man-Thing hoping for the same thing. Iron Fist jumps in with Heroes For Hire but fortunately I saw this coming and made it a mystic attack so I get to daze Iron Fist and take his Skrull anyway. Man-Thing attacks Shang-Chi and I Sacrifice it into Dracula so he can counterattack but this does no damage anyway. Dracula dazes Blade and moves Man-Thing away with Hypnotic Gaze before collecting the Skrull that Iron Fist had been carrying. Daredevil collects the Skrull in the middle near Juggernaut and moves back to score; Juggernaut follows him and gets the daze, collecting the Skrull and getting pushed away. Hawkeye comes over to daze Shang-Chi and then uses Hook Arrow to collect it in a very cool move that I didn’t see coming at all (not that I could have done much about it anyway). Hulkbuster pushes Luke Cage and he just double walks back to the left Secure. We go to 6 – 5 in Gordon’s favour.

Round 3: The scoring situation is much less alarming now and I’m very happy with the attirition too. I need to start KOing Gordon’s team now with Iron Fist a top priority as I really don’t want him to get his The Iron Fist attack out onto me. Gordon plays Cover Me on Blade. I start out with Dracula who dazes Man-Thing to build some power then puts Bleed onto Iron Fist and KOs him with Fury Of The Vampyr, so that is objective number one achieved. Hawkeye attacks Dracula twice, leaving him on one wound, then Shang-Chi chases over to daze him and retake that Skrull. Blade tickles Juggernaut then puts his spender into Dracula. We end up with a ridiculous situation here; Gordon rolls a bunch of skulls on his attack roll so I take the risk to use Recalibration Matrix and it works as Dracula survives. His counterattack then fittingly does zero damage to damage to Blade and then Daredevil’s Cover Me attack (which I’d forgotten about) also does zero damage. Juggernaut bounces ineffectually off Blade and Luke Cage spends two attacks to do nothing to Hulkbuster who then pushes him off the Secure. Daredevil, who I guess is sick of vampire nonsense on his side of the board, double moves over to the left to put Mystic Ward on the Wedding Party. The score goes now to 10 – 7 in my favour.

Round 4: Now that things are swinging my way I need to work my way through the rest of Gordon’s team and KO the heroes where I can. Dracula bounces off Blade again twice (loading him up on conditions in the process) and uses Hypnotic Gaze to move Man-Thing away. I play Do You Know Who I Am? to throw Blade far enough away that he’ll effectively be Staggered trying to get back to the action. Hawkeye uses Hook Arrow to build some distance from Shang-Chi and leaves him alive on one wound with Bleed and Slow. That hurt! Shang-Chi then walks and charges very slowly towards Daredevil and heals with both the leadership and his own Cleansing Strike. Daredevil moves between Juggernaut and Shang-Chi to do his spender and Shang-Chi uses Wild Goose Leaves The Flock. I’m not actually sure that we did this correctly but Shang-Chi (and Hulkbuster) survived the attack, got pushed away, then Shang-Chi got another move and placed Daredevil halfway across the board from where he started. Crucially this is right next to Juggernaut who finally KOs him. Man-Thing gets his own back by putting the long-overdue last wound on Dracula and Blade bounces off Shang-Chi. Hulkbuster and Luke Cage move to keep up their ineffective staring match on the left. The score is 14 – 9 now.

Round 5: This is going to be the final turn so my first choice is going to be to daze / KO characters who haven’t activated since I don’t need to worry about Priority anymore. Shang-Chi finally polishes off Blade with a Dim Mak. Hawkeye makes the long walk over the board but can’t quite repeat his earlier trick shots to KO Shang-Chi. Dracula hits Man-Thing to build power and apply Bleed, then shatters him with the spender and takes his Skrull. Cage hits Hulkbuster a couple of times before going down to a Meteor Punch. The Skrull ends up moving Hulkbuster off the left Secure so Juggernaut crosses the board to score it and we finish up at 22 – 9 to me.

Many thanks to Gordon for another fun game. I love his bizarre puns during the game and the whole thing was played out in a very lighthearted way. Gordon’s choice of Daredevil was probably right as I think that I just murder Doctor Stange on this Crisis but I wonder if he would have been better served with a slightly taller roster. Being 6 wide vs my 4 meant that I could just daze unactivated models with impunity, knowing that I would almost certainly keep Priority. He did very smartly just leave Luke Cage tangling with Hulkbuster which meant he was able to make a bit more of his numerical advantage on the right.

Once the scores are all in, I get second place (of 20 players), just behind the mighty Will on Strength of Schedule. Frazer and Gareth both lost only a single game too – both to Will – so it was a pretty successful day out for our wee group. Thralls of Dracula was a lot of fun to play and a bit better on the table than I had initially thought from reading the card so I definitely plan to stick with them for a little while. Thanks to Franky, Ross, Liam and Gordon for four very fun games of MCP, and as always thanks to Allan for being the TO we need, rather than the one we deserve.