Another month, and another excellent Marvel Crisis Protocol tournament to attend at Common Ground Games in Stirling. A lot of my regular co-commuters were otherwise engaged this month but I rode the train with Stephen and we (or at least, I) had a great time chatting as we commuted.
This month I’m playing Spider Foes under Green Goblin after an extremely long break from this very fun faction. The basis of this roster is two things. Firstly, the fairly small updates to Carnage this year turn out to have a really big impact on how fun he is to actually use on the table, so half of the plan is just to mess about with him eating fools while deflecting enough attacks that he can hope to survive long enough to do so. The other part is either trap abilities and displacement to trigger them. Shang-Chi covers displacement but also, and I realise that this is a hot take and a half, has rather good rules! On that basis it probably seems odd that I’m not bringing the Sinister Traps card but there are too many ways to negate it now that I don’t really find it worth bringing at all.
Characters (10)
* Green Goblin (4)
Carnage (4)
Electro (4)
Kraven the Hunter (3)
Mysterio (3)
Rhino (4)
Rocket Raccoon (2)
Shang-Chi (4)
* Captain America (Sam Wilson) (3)
Ultron, Metal Tyrant (5)
Team Tactics (10)
Brace for Impact (R)
Sacrifice (R)
Custom Upgrades
Sinister Traps
Surprise, Webhead
Carnage Rules
The Grand Illusion
This is a Robbery
Chi Mastery
Survival
Secure Crisis
Guardians Save Shi‘ar Empress in Style (M, 17)
Mutant Madman Turns City Into Lethal Amusement Park (B, 18)
M‘Kraan Crystal Gets Heroes Home! (G, 19)
Extract Crisis
Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan (F, 17)
Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding (N, 17)
Scientific Samples Found in Discovered Universe (D, 17)
Game 1: Al playing Wakanda on Intrusions and Unexpected Guests
It’s great to start a morning out with a game into Al, his enthusiasm for the game is just infectious – not that I need much extra enthusiasm as I love MCP. Al wins Priority and chooses his Secures; I choose 17 threat. Probably this is a mistake because it effectively locks me into Captain America or Rocket if I want to go 5 wide and in another mistake I actually do go 5 wide when probably 4 wide would be preferable. My thinking was that an extra body would help me to stay ahead on the Secure along with a bit of displacement and some judicious throwing of pumpkin bombs, but of course it is obvious in retrospect that Al would take King T’Challa and be able to reliably end one or more of my characters each activation.
Extraction: Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding
Secure: Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse
Threat: 17
My team: Green Goblin, Carnage, Kraven The Hunter, Mysterio, Captain America (Sam Wilson)
My cards: Brace For Impact, Carnage Rules, Sacrifice, Surprise Webhead, The Grand Illusion
Al’s team: M’Baku, King T’Challa, Okoye, Hulk
Al’s cards: Brace For Impact, Sacrifice, Spirit of Wakanda, Wisdom of the Ancestors, Wakanda Forever
Round 1: I’m going to take both of the Extracts on my side and then judiciously contest whenever I can just to stop Al running ahead of the score. M’Baku starts us out on the right and then Captain America takes my left Extract and sits in the middle, figuring that he can probably survive a single swing from Hulk or T’Challa. Hulk comes forward to the centre collecting the other Extract en route and throws Captain America towards T’Challa, but this should be OK as long as I don’t give Al power for Bound and he’s just poking me with six dice and no rerolls. Okoye and Kraven park themselves on points, while Goblin picks up the final Extract and zaps M’Baku. I’ve misplaced Mysterio badly so he can’t even make it to the Secure – not that he’d win it this round but at least then Al would have to do something with him later. King T’Challa strolls over to Captain America and lands seven hits into him off his six unmodified dice, which at least means that I don’t have to worry about whether Lizard would have been a better inclusion (because he would also have dazed under that assault) which is quite upsetting. On the other hand, this whole thing was terrible play from me because while this outcome wasn’t particularly likely it also wasn’t that unlikely and I could have just played safe with Captain America anyway. The score is 4 – 1 to Al.
Round 2: Well, that was extremely silly and I’m now almost certain to lose Captain America before I get to activate anyone at all. I just need to pay to my outs from here, which is to threaten a big Kraven turn in round 3 (or earlier if something odd happens), put Carnage in annoying places and most importantly make a start on gunning down M’Baku. King T’Challa doesn’t need a second invitation (or action) to KO Captain America. Mysterio moves M’Baku away from Okoye but fails to get a hit off Tricks and Traps which would have let him move onto the Secure; in isolation this isn’t exactly a disaster but it really highlights my awful deployment of him and leaves Mr Beck irrelevant for the scenario. M’Baku moves back and bops Mysterio, then Okoye puts a couple of attacks into him without even bothering to pay to ignore his defences and drops Mysterio. Back on the left, Kraven lays into King T’Challa with all of his might and secures a single wound on the big chap while almost dying in return thanks to Royal Rebuke. Hulk throws Carnage away before easily dazing Kraven, Carnage comes back to jump through the Portal but misses and ends up with Hulk; in desperation to stay in the game for points I play Carnage Rules to at least displace him off the Secure. Green Goblin manages to shave 3 wounds off Okoye as she gamely Bodyguards M’Baku. The score has gone to 8 – 3 in Al’s favour.
Round 3: This game is basically over and I don’t see a way back into it that doesn’t involve an improbable misplay from Al so I’m just going to try to thin out the Wakandans and score whatever I can manage for the benefit of my overall event score. Al plays Wisdom of the Ancestors on King T’Challa then lets rip with Wakanda Forever. Kraven gets one-shot by the King before M’Baku and Okoye KO Mysterio. King T’Challa then hops through the portal and lays into Green Goblin. Carnage tries again with the Portal and gets it right this time, dazing Okoye and King T’Challa and collecting one of the Extracts. M’Baku puts a spender into Green Goblin and I Sacrifice it into Carnage; annoyingly this is where Al’s dice desert him as no damage goes through but he does get the throw which leaves Carnage stranded and without power. A second spender into Green Goblin leaves him on one wound and throws him away (I thought he might throw into terrain to polish him off but maybe there is something clever that I had missed). Green Goblin finishes dazing M’Baku, then Hulk helps me a little but failing two rolls on the Portal in a row and just settles for scoring his points. We’re at 10 – 6 now.
Round 4: There’s not much of a plan here; I’m just going to run away and score points again while the game ends. Green Goblin take a Hit and Run shot at King T’Challa on his way away from the action. Slightly to my surprise, King T’Challa engages with Carnage and doesn’t daze him so I get to have my little bit of fun by KOing the King. Everyone else just moves to score points and we go to 15 – 8.
Round 5: Carnage lays ineffectually into M’Baku and eventually gets thrown away, then Green Goblin KOs M’Baku out of spite – which is probably fitting for Dr Osborn. Al takes the game at 19 – 10.
Thanks to Al for a very clean game; it’s always a pleasure to play such a gentleman. Immediately after the game I was really annoyed about the dice here and moaned about them a bit but fortunately one of the benefits of writing these game reports is that I have to face up to what I could have done differently. It’s obvious in retrospect that putting Captain America in danger at the start of the game was asking for trouble; it’s not particularly likely that he does down to a single non-reroll swing from King T’Challa but it’s hardly in ‘buy a lottery ticket tonight’ land either. More importantly, it was completely avoidable because it was clear that Al would be able to displace him off any Secure I put him on. I should have put my Extracts on Carnage and Mysterio to force Al to engage with them, though Mysterio didn’t do anything useful here before being stabbed very effectively by Okoye anyway. You can possibly see from my deployment that I was considering this for Mysterio already but then went with Green Goblin first and that left Mysterio’s slow moving self badly positioned for round 2 onward. Overall, I had a terrible plan and then failed to have dice bail me out. Sorry to Al having to listen to me moaning about all of this (if you’re reading, I appreciate your politeness my old friend) and thanks for not pointing out that it was basically all entirely self-inflicted. Al is more than good enough to beat me even without me making suicidally bad choices throughout the game.
Game 2: David playing Midnight Sons on Shi’Ar Empress and Deadly Legacy Virus
I’m delighted to get another game in with David as it’s been far too long since we faced each other across a tabletop. This time I win Priority and pick my Secures to force him onto a pay-to-flip and reduce the value of Blade’s Bump In The Night leadership round 1. This definitely is a game where I want be as wide as possible so I end up with six characters on the board which I do by simply adding Rocket to the team from last time. This should ensure that I have last activation each round and hopefully I can leverage this into a scoring lead on the Secure while remaining in contention on the Extract.
Extraction: Deadly Legacy Virus Cured?
Secure: Guardians Save Shi‘ar Empress in Style
Threat: 19
My team: Green Goblin, Carnage, Kraven The Hunter, Mysterio, Captain America (Sam Wilson), Rocket
My cards: Brace For Impact, Carnage Rules, Sacrifice, Surprise Webhead, The Grand Illusion
David’s team: Blade, Doctor Voodoo, Iron Fist, N’Kantu The Living Mummy, Red Skull Master of Hydra
David’s cards: Bats The Ghost Hound, Brace For Impact, Cosmic Obliteration, Sacrifice, Siege of Darkness
Round 1: In theory this should go 4 – 3 to me but I’m not sure if I want to send anyone out into the middle where David’s entire team can get attacks on them. So probably I’m initially accepting to take just one of the Extracts (which I’ll do with Mysterio this time to make David play with him) and will focus my efforts more on the Secures. There are also a couple of opportunities for me to remove an activation from David by focussing on either Iron Fist or Mummy; neither exactly easy marks but both just three threats and far from indestructible. We start out with Mysterio taking the left Cure and Mummy on the right. As planned I’ll let David take the centre one for now and instead I focus fire on Mummy, bringing him down with two rather nice shots from Green Goblin and Rocket. Iron Fist does indeed take the centre while Red Skull beelines straight for Mysterio, burning off 5 health in a single swing. I make a mistake here and don’t pick up the Mummy’s dropped Extract with Captain America and instead just saunter Kraven forward to flip my left Secure. Doctor Voodoo moves in to get the fallen Extract so Captain America dives across the board to make a cheeky flip of David’s right Secure but sadly for me Blade is able to make the roll to take it back. I was going to dive David’s left Secure with Carnage but he’s nicely blocked me off it with the Hydra Troopers so I make so with putting a bit of damage into Red Skull as he needs to be dealt with very quickly. The score is 4 – 3 to David.
Round 2: We’re basically on the same plan here; don’t sweat too much on the Extracts but focus on the Secures. Priority one is to KO Mummy and get him out of my hair; but if David activates him first then Red Skull is going to get a thorough going over from my team on that side of the board. David does start with Red Skull though, the Troopers drop Mysterio and Red Skull pokes Carnage for some nice but non-terminal damage. Goblin’s run of good dice continue as he KOs Mummy on his own which I should be able to ride into a decent scenario advantage over the next few turns. Blade then dazes Captain America and Rocket zaps Doctor Voodoo. Over on the left Carnage does what he does best, dazing Red Skull, removing the Troopers, flipping that point and retaking the Extract. Doctor Voodoo, who is a bit injured already from Rocket, comes into for Goblin, takes two sets of traps for zero damage and immediately dazes my leader which is rather annoying. Iron Fist manages to flip the Secure from underneath Carnage but Kraven can’t do the same in return. We go to 8 – 6 to David.
Round 3: I’m behind on points but it’s not bad enough to worry about yet; meanwhile I’m feeling OK about the attrition game. I need to make Red Skull go away this turn and stop David running away with the score, then I can start to claw the points deficit back. The Hydra Troopers and Red Skull gang up to KO Mysterio but Red Skull does fail to flip my left Secure which is very handy, then the remaining eligible team members pay for a rather painful Siege of Darkness. Green Goblin is angry this turn, dazing Doctor Voodoo with a Glider Ram and Blade with his attacks. Limiting David to just one more activation this turn is massive, and it’s not like I was going to get Priority anyway. Iron Fist hurts Kraven but leaves him on a single wound, so then Kraven returns the favour! Carnage mops up the rest of that side of the board including, fittingly, dazing Kraven with his area attack. Captain America fails to flip his point before moving away to safety and Rocket collects the Cure that Doctor Voodoo had been looking after. The score now goes to 12 – 9 to me.
Round 4: This is almost certain to be the end of the game and David is going to struggle to bring enough to bear with his few activations. Although I obviously need to be mindful of the scenario I can also get a lot done here by KOing David’s team so whoever doesn’t activate first is certainly getting my full attention. Iron Fist KOs Kraven who helpfully played Sacrifice to keep the big attack off Carnage. Green Goblin gives Doctor Voodoo all he’s got, which turns out to be enough to KO him. Blade needs to play Bats The Ghost Hound to trigger Pursuit on an attack but it’s sufficient so he dazes Rocket and relieves him of the Extract. It’s clean up time now. Carnage KOs Iron Fist and scores everything on the left while Captain America charges and pushes Blade off my Secure and then flips them all to be mine. We finish up at 18 – 10 to me.
Many thanks to David for a very closely fought and enjoyable game here. You can almost see the tipping point in round 3 where the attrition gave me the number of activations needed to get ahead on scenario and I think that this is probably where Spider Foes excel – they’re good enough at attrition to wear down the scenario teams while also being good enough at scenario to keep the attrition teams on their best behaviour. The dice on both sides here were quite spiky even by MCP standards; at one point in round 2 I think that we rolled something like 20 consecutive successful blocks between us. Funnily enough, watching David play Midnight Sons has inspired me a bit to put own on the table after quite a long break.
Game 3: Stu playing Web Warriors on Shi’Ar Empress and Cubes
After lunch I get paired into Stu who has made the truly epic journey down from Orkney to play today. What a guy! He also has his own wargaming YouTube channel called Northern Invasion that you should definitely check out. Stu’s roster allows him to play either Defenders or Web Warriors but I think that my plan is basically the same either way, though in the latter case I can hope to get a classic Norman Osborn vs Peter Parker match going on. I win Priority and am very pleased to make Stu play on my pay-to-flips here. I pick Electro for more trap potential as it lets me get through all the layered rerolls on defence in case Stu picks Webs, while also threatening Shock if he wasn’t to fight me with Defenders. I’m also bringing Mysterio for this reason but mainly because I just love to play the little guy despite his less-than-stellar performances today.
Extraction: Struggle For The Cube Continues
Secure: Guardians Save Shi‘ar Empress in Style
Threat: 17
My team: Green Goblin, Carnage, Electro, Mysterio, Rocket
My cards: Brace For Impact, Carnage Rules, Sacrifice, Surprise Webhead, The Grand Illusion
Stu’s team: Spider-Man (Miles Morales), Daredevil, Ghost Spider, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Magik
Stu’s cards: All Webbed Up, Brace For Impact, Journey Through Limbo, Patch Up, Spider Tracker
Round 1: I don’t think that Stu’s team has any great way to punish Mysterio here so I put him in the middle to grab the central Cube. Otherwise I’ll mainly be happy to play slightly conservatively with most of my team and just ride out 5 -4 rounds each time if Stu doesn’t come for me. Mysterio takes the centre Cube, and Daredevil comes forward and pulls him in a little. Rocket flips on the left and shoots Daredevil. Peter Parker takes the far left Cube and Electro flips my right point and moves forward. However, he ends up just a little short of being able to Ride The Wires off the big truck over there for future rounds which is a bit of a misplay on my side. Magik slaps Mysterio and Carnage gets the left Cube and jumps into the fray to make Stu’s life hard next turn. Over on the right, Ghost Spider collects her Cube and heads over to the right and Green Goblin gets the final Cube and attacks her for zero damage. Finally Miles Morales comes forward and hits the Wild to throw Carnage away. The score is 5 – 3 to me.
Round 2: I can do a lot of damage this turn if I don’t mind too much about giving up Priority. This might allow me to pull ahead nicely on the scenario this turn and the Crises here mean that we’re going to score out very fast so I think it’s probably worth it. Mysterio pays for The Grand Illusion, dazes Daredevil and hits Miles to move him away. Ghost Spider bounces a fairly unexciting attack off Green Goblin then Rocket shoots her for basically no effect. I’m not really sure why I targeted her here as I’m sure that others on the left would have been better choices. Peter bounces off Carnage ineffectually and Magik does the same later in the turn. Meanwhile Green Goblin leaves Ghost Spider on one wound and Electro hands out some nice Shocks to people who need them. Carnage then unleashes himself and achieves nothing at all. What a let down! Still, I did also flip some Secures this turn so it’s pretty good here and we end the round on 11 – 6 to me.
Round 3: Scoring 5 could be possible for me here and I’ve only really got Daredevil with a big clapback to worry about so the plan here is to remove as many of Stu’s activations as possible and focus on the Secures. Miles plays All Webbed Up on Carnage, Electro and Mysterio before Daredevil comes in for a huge Spender. This means I get to trigger Traps with Electro, Mysterio and Rocket – after two are done he has two wounds left but I blank out the last roll and he gets to do his party trick. Rocket plays Sacrifice to take the hit for Carnage and all three targets go down. Carnage definitely needs to step up here and boy does he get it to work. He dazes Magik and Miles, then follows it up with Carnage Rules and Surprise Webhead (how fitting!) to also daze Peter. So we’re two activations into the round and six characters are dazed! Ghost Spider decides she doesn’t like her odds of dropping Green Goblin so she collects at Cube and runs, and Green Goblin can’t finish her off. We close out at 17 – 8.
For a game with the supposedly scenario-focussed Web Warriors that sure did turn out to be violent! It was super to play with Stu, his easy going manner makes every dice roll fun – I guess you really have to love wargaming to take a ferry for it. I think that this was maybe a bit of a mismatch in terms of experience so there weren’t any huge take away lessons (though as mentioned, there were some minor positional mistakes I could improve here) and even if I’d left openings Stu wasn’t really set up to exploit them.
Game 4: Adam playing Servants of Apocalypse on Shi’Ar Empress and Unexpected Guests
Last up I get a game into the mighty Adam, which is always an excellent close game and I flatter myself that we’re pretty similar in skill level. I win Priority again but our Secures are pretty similar so I pick my Extracts this time and we amusingly end up with Shi’Ar Empress for a third time in a row. I decide I want the additional displacement from Shang-Chi here though if I’m honest it’s more just to put him on the table as he’s really fun. I need to stay spread out until I’ve dealt with Beast so I don’t end up carrying every condition in the game. Otherwise I want to largely ignore Apocalypse (there’s no way I can get through him in a reasonable time with anything I’ve brought) and try to kill everything else. I can already foresee that the big terrain on the back left of the board is going be annoying for me.
Extraction: Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding
Secure: Guardians Save Shi‘ar Empress in Style
Threat: 17
My team: Green Goblin, Carnage, Kraven, Rocket, Shang-Chi
My cards: Brace For Impact, Carnage Rules, Chi Mastery, Sacrifice, Surprise Webhead
Adam’s team: Apocalypse, Beast (Pestilence), Deadpool (Famine), Magik (War), Toad (Death)
Adam’s cards: Brace For Impact, Immortal Servants, Journey Through Limbo, Recalibration Matrix, Sacrifice
Round 1: I guess the way this is set up, we’re quite likely to end up with 4 – 4 so I’m going to stay cagey on my side of the board and see if Adam will over extend anywhere. I do manage to drop Carnage after both Apocalypse and Magik who are likely to make short work of him here so that’s a good start. Rocket takes the left Extract, then Deadpool flips the Secure on that side and retreats again. Kraven flips my right Secure and Toad takes the back left Extract. I decide to just go for it with Carnage and take the risk that Apocalypse wants to chase him so he goes forward as far as possible. Magik flips her right Secure and retreats so I opt to go aggressive with Green Goblin to pick up the far away Extract over there. My thinking was that taking my own gives Beast a much more appealing target for Pestilence whereas this way he likely only gets one victim. Beast does indeed counter-dive and Roots Kraven, the Shang-Chi and Apocalypse put a bit of damage into Beast and Green Goblin respectively. The score is 4 – 4 as foretold.
Round 2: I want to drop Beast first and keep roughly even on the Secures. Green Goblin dazes Beast and moves away from Apocalypse while the going is good. Toad sensible rotates away from Carnage. Shang-Chi charges over and lays into Magik who stays alive after using Evolution tokens judiciously, the Apocalypse one-shots Kraven. Rocket moves up to flip the far left point, staying behind the terrain to make it a bit harder for Deadpool to shoot him. Magik helpfully bounces off Shang-Chi but plays Journey Through Limbo to get him out of the way. Carnage chases after Toad rather ineffectually and finally Deadpool Famine hops in and drops Rocket with a single action, which is quite an unlikely outcome. The score goes to 10 – 6 to Adam.
Round 3: I need to KO Beast in a single activation here if I’m to have any hope of staying in this. Kraven does indeed manage to take down Beast but it costs me Surprise Webhead to make it work. Then Magik starts an extremely upsetting run in which she will never roll fewer than six successes on her attacks for the rest of the game to daze Green Goblin and leave Kraven on a single wound. Rocket takes out Deadpool and flips the point before Toad comes to flip it back from underneath him. Shang-Chi gives Apocalypse a Stagger and puts the last wound on Magik before Apocalypse easily polishes off Kraven. Carnage manages to drop Toad at least. The score is now 13 – 11 to Adam.
Round 4: This is likely to be the last round so I need to preserve as many of my options as possible while reducing Adam’s. Deadpool of course makes no mistake in deleting Rocket. Green Goblin goes into Magik but she Braces the Glider Ram and Sacrifices the second shot into Apocalypse, living on a single wound for the second time. She blends him in return. Shang-Chi gives Apocalypse another Stagger token and flips both Secures on the right, then Toad flips two and then Carnage flips two! In the end, Apocalypse needs to make a contested flip from under Shang-Chi… and makes it! I know it’s more likely than not but there was a brief moment of hope there for me. Adam takes the game 17 – 15.
Thanks Adam for the tightest of games, literally coming down to the last roll of the game. Though even if we do go round again it’s likely that I lose out as attrition was very much not my friend here. I actually think that, unlike game 1, I made basically sound choices here but a succession of not-particularly-likely events all came down against me. Adam made every contested roll on the Secures that he tried and I missed several, Magik survived on one wound twice and absolutely wrecked me in return twice, Deadpool managed his reroll into a Wild in round 2 that allowed him to push through the damage into Rocket and caused a two point swing. The game overall was close enough that if any of those go in my favour I might edge it instead. Still, it was not to be and instead I got to enjoy a quality game with a quality player.
Once all the results are in, I finish in 16th of 25 players so far from my best performance. Still, I enjoyed the day a lot and even a bad day of playing with toys is better than a good day at work! Many thanks to Al, David, Stu and Adam for four very fun games of MCP and, as always, to our might dark-winged overlord Allan for running the events up here in Scotland. Next up is a wee road trip down to Newcastle to an event being put on between the excellent Martin and Sam.
The Bovine Overlord
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