Marvel United: X-Men – Blue Team Expansion

Finally, an expansion I can really get on board with that adds a lot of depth to Marvel United. The Gold expansion is incredibly similar to this set, just one small difference other than the villain and heroes included. Blue Team expansion sees the introduction of team play into the Marvel United Universe which is incredible. You do need a core box set of either Marvel United or Marvel United X Men to make this expansion work. This is a set worth going after, not only do you have the threat of the Villain to contend with, but also a rival group of heroes that may make things easy for you, or a lot harder. Marvel United is a cooperative, until this expansion was introduced and now we have player opposition which, as someone who loves competition, I think is brilliant.

Here’s what the Blue Team Expansion brings to Marvel United.

New X Men

• Rogue – A very balanced character with a reasonable spread of the 3 action types. Her ability is in taking the powers of others. This could be particularly handy, drawing on the power of another hero’s ability from the storyline.
• Psylocke – Again, a balanced character with their actions. She is clever though and can stun the villain to prevent their next BAM, they can also swap a card in the story to gain better actions on their turn, very clever.
• Jubilee – A more heroic hero having more heroic actions in their locker. She has the chance to prevent a BAM effect hitting her as well as the opportunity to spread a special attack across 3 targets in her location. I’ve always liked Jubilee.
• Gambit – He is fast! Not surprising as he is a Master Thief with the ability to steal tokens from other heroes. Handy in a Team Battle, not sure in your typical co op but could be useful.

Mister Sinister

I’m sure the villains just get harder and harder. Mr Sinister harvests the DNA of mutants as part of his Master plan. At the start of the game, 12 DNA tokens are evenly distributed amongst all the heroes. As well as him playing 12 Master Plan cards for his victory, the heroes also lose if he takes 9 of the 12 DNA tokens in play. You have to stay out of his way to not lose your DNA, but at some point, your also need to get stuck into him for Victory. A brilliant villain but a ridiculously tough one also.

The DNA tokens are the only difference (I can pick out) between the Blue set and the Gold set, they are a specific requirement to the Mister Sinister plot. That’s not factoring in the new heroes and villain which are different.

Team Play

This is where the blue team expansion really comes into its own. The set is equipped with blue and gold discs that clip to the hero bases. There are 3 discs in each colour allowing for 2 on 2 team play or 3 on 3 team play. So, you could have up to 6 players around the table now.

To start, set up is a little different. Flip the initiative token and the winning player decides whether they start 2 locations to the left of the villain, or 2 locations to the right. The other team set up in the unpicked location. Flip the initiative token over to the other team colour and take the first villain master plan card. Once the villain has had their turn the team who didn’t pick the location starts and the initiative token should have been turned to reflect this. They take the action with one of their heroes, then the opposing team takes an action with one of theirs, and it goes back and forth until each team have completed 3 actions. The villain then gets their next turn.

Each team has their respective 3 mission cards to complete, in a similar manner to usual Marvel United play, however, they are team mission cards so check those out. When the first mission has been completed, by either side, that ups the Villains intensity allowing only two hero actions. Then when a team takes the second mission, that team, and that team alone can start striking the villain. The other team has to catch up and complete two missions before they are allowed to strike the villain.

The winning team is the team that deals the most damage to the villain in that final phase of play (and defeats them). In the event of a tie, it is the side that dealt the final blow.

The villain will still win if they complete their master plan.

Some of the novel additional inclusions are the at the heroes on opposing teams can attack each other. You can deal damage to your opponents with an attack action if in the same location, but you cannot deal a KO strike, that’s just for the villain. A clever addition and something to seriously consider in the game play.

What’s great is that a lot of additional game challenges are compatible. All those rules and challenges that came before with Season 1 can be used in team play. It is worth checking the rule set in this expansion as there are a few things that are not compatible with team play. It is minor though.

Final Thoughts

Anyone who has been following my blogs on Marvel United will know I am a big fan of the game series. The Blue Team set and the Gold Team expansion really takes the game to new levels for me with a hugely different dynamic and I love it. The heroes all to often work in teams in the movies so this set was needed. I’m looking forward to having the Avengers take on the X Men, or create a Civil War set up, or any other team battle I can think of. It is brilliant and allows more people around the table. It is definitely worth picking this expansion set up to add to your core game.