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Save The City!
Earth's Mightiest Heroes return in the new Core Set for Atomic Mass Games' wildly successful superhero skirmish game, placing you in control of the action and battling the greatest villains of the Marvel Universe, protecting the innocent and getting home for dinner before Aunt May realises.
What Did It Cost?
There are some who might baulk at the price of this core box, but let's be clear: it is absolutely worth it. It's a ridiculously big, beautiful box of gaming goodness (and indeed, badness). Everything you need to play: 13 models, loads of terrain, dice, tokens, rulers, cards... it's the whole package. It is a mighty thing, burdened with great purpose, and well worth the investment. Let's take a dive inside!
Avengers... Assemble!
So, MCP is an evolving, living ruleset, as is increasingly common with Miniature Games these days. As such, the core rules are streamlined, but nevertheless have been clarified and cleaned up: better organisation, better layout, better exemplification. I'm not saying the game was especially confusing, but it's going to make it more accessible to new players - which is a valid concern with an entry level product (though of course, having a physical rulebook to hand is still of use to the veteran player).
I'm also going to get my biggest frustration with MCP out of the way: the terrain rules. It still bugs me enormously that the game is, in many ways, 2-dimensional: the lack of meaningful rules for height, falling and interaction with terrain remains a greatly missed opportunity, in my view. That being said, Atomic Mass have said that they are going to look into retconning terrain rules for pre-existing terrain sets, in light of the fact that the upcoming Wakandan terrain sets will have in-game mechanics. So I'm going to hold onto this for dear life, because the game is undoubtedly great. Also, perhaps, I have misunderstood something about MCP in the past: it's as much a board game as a miniature game (ooh, contentious). It can help to think of MCP almost as an area control board game, albeit in the colours of a tabletop wargame; this is also part of its wider appeal and accessibility, insofar as it is less intimidating to the non-gamer.
Hail Hydra
Don't get me wrong - there is a lot to get your head round with this game. Though the core mechanics are simple and intuitive - gain a power each round, gain power whenever you take damage (a little bit of genius, that) and from some abilities, use power to activate your abilities, all the while saving citizens and completing objectives - the depth and complexity comes from the sheer choice of characters and the set of cards you choose to play with them. Fortunately, this is explained clearly in the core box: pick 10 cards that complement your characters, making sure you have some that are specific to the individual and a few that are one-shot tricks for anyone (healing!) As you progress deeper into the game, you'll want to explore the infinite possibilities, but by focusing on your favourite characters, the choices stay (broadly) manageable. A note on those choices: there are many teams that heroes and villains alike can belong, all drawn from the rich decades of the comics, but to gain a team bonus only half of your characters need to belong to a given team - ah, the unlikely team-ups you can create!
It's A Fighting Pose. You're A Total Poser
As for the models themselves, they are truly stunning, often seeming to defy gravity (that Black Widow), yet far easier to build than previous - fewer tiny parts - and none of the gapping that plagued some earlier plastics. I assembled the contents of the box in just under 2 1/2 hrs (an hour for each "side", 1/2 for the terrain): the sprues are extremely well organised, with each character labelled differently and parts numbered logically; for comparison, building a Blood Bowl team took me DAYS. They're really sturdy, in the main - I will say that the Ultron drone that Natasha is destroying did snap through the knee (too much pressure from me) but it was instantly repaired with a drop of glue and still stands rock solid. Similarly, the ultron drone swarm was fiddly, but got there without much fuss (of the hour, they took almost 20 mins though).
The inclusion of blast effects on Iron Man and (both versions of) Captain Marvel are a gift to painters, and the scenic symbiote base is a fantastic element of the Spider-Man figure - a mini-display in its own right. The new Zemo is imposing and imperious, but even the less dynamic poses are great: the Cap is powerful and authoritative, Bucky meaningfully standing on a case of ammo (no tactical rock here), and Crossbones imperious. I suppose I am perhaps slightly less enamoured of the villain sculpts, but it's marginal; certainly it's good to have a more unusual Doc Ock outside of the rivals panel (love that drip!) and truly awesome Ultron (now with drones!) Crucially, these models are all accessible to more casual / board gamers - as I mention earlier, this is a much more novice-friendly (or at least, non-tabletop wargamer) product than it perhaps appears.
I LOVE YOU 3000
The revised character cards in Earth's Mightiest, as we've seen in the newer card packs and releases, are an absolute joy. Much clearer layout, and any niggles in phrasing have been ironed out. It's worth mentioning that these are new versions of the characters - so this does not render the first core set invalid. It's great to have a strong Spider-Man in the base game, and whilst I liked the original Crossbones I know that many found him underwhelming originally. Also, let's just remind ourselves of the Ultron Drones! It's interesting that they've chosen to introduce this added level of complexity with game's base set: not that I object, and it's absolutely iconic (can we have some Stark drones now please?!), but it is a nod the fact that is appeals to veteran players as well as newcomers.
This is a tremendous product. The new tokens are hefty and the iconography clear. As for the terrain that comes in the set, you get plenty of scatter at various sizes. I'm most impressed with the retooled ROXXON kiosk: by changing one of the sprues from the Crashed Sentinel set to ruined Ultron Drones, it feels like a completely new kit. As for the rest, it's always good to have generic cars, barriers, and other urban scatter, and this has in spades. Would've liked a playmat, maybe: a paper one wouldn't have been to great a stretch, I feel.
As you can tell, I'm really clutching to find negatives here, outside of my general feelings about the game's verticality (or lack thereof). It could do with an organiser, maybe, but you do get plenty of baggies at least. It remains the stand-out IP driven miniature game by quite a long margin, and I look forward to many more hours of play... in fact, I could do this all day.
