My name is Bret, though I often go by Chocobsessed online. I’ve been playing miniature wargames since my friend foolishly talked me into buying Tau instead of Imperial Guard…. In Fourth Edition. Despite that, I kept playing miniature games and after college played mainly Warmachine for over a decade, so I have plenty of experience in scenario, positioning and trying to avoid rolling dice as much as humanly possible.
The goal of this article series, similar to the sister podcast, Doomed Prophecy (and Line of Sight and Leyline before it) is to:
Help players of all ability levels understand Marvel: Crisis Protocol more fully using an analytic approach to rules and roster construction, while emphasizing the value of sportsmanship
Out of all the miniature games, from the ancient to the brand new, why did I pick MCP? It’s not quite the only game in town for me, but I do believe it offers some important advantages over its competitors:
- Strong emphasis on scenario play, meaning that the game doesn’t devolve into a calculation of who does the most damage for the fewest points, but instead forcing players to judge intangibles like “Is a 2 inch place better than 2 extra dice of damage?”
- Clean ruleset with clear timings, and system for clarifying rules questions (most of the time)
- Very deep roster creation choices, especially for a game of its size.
- The priority system is the best I’ve seen for an alternating activation system (though I do find it to be a little too game-able and powerful)
There’s also, of course, the value of the IP and sculpts, but that’s not really why I get into games. I do appreciate how those aspects bring in players, so (except for Black Dwarf) I always play fully painted.
However, the game does have a couple of downsides I want to mention here, and then never complain about again:
- The developers are very clear that they have no desire to make a competitive game, so I know I’ll continue to have to put up with changes I don’t like (such as purely random scenarios) or long-standing balance issues.
- As my local likes to say, “Marvel Dice cause psychic damage.” I’m not a huge fan of attack vs defense rolls to begin with, but exploding criticals and no damage caps means that damage outcomes can and often do swing by enormous amounts. Likely because of the previous complaint, there simply aren’t consistent ways to make dice rolls more reliable or to smooth out the effects a spike can have on the game.
So that’s who I am, and why I’m talking about MCP. In the next several articles, I plan on going over the fundamentals of the game and sharing some of the terms and knowledge that experienced players take for granted. Hope to see you there, but to close out, here are some fun personal facts:
Favorite Marvel character: Nightcrawler
Favorite MCU movie: Black Panther
Model that got me into MCP: Miles Morales
Favorite affiliation: Brotherhood of Mutants
Most insane MCP play: Quicksilver (with no buffs) dazing a full health Rogue and Doctor Voodoo in a single action.