Marvel Crisis Protocol: ‘Ministravaganza’ Roundup – Hulkbuster, X-Men, and More
This weekend Atomic Mass Games released a series of videos about upcoming releases and big changes coming to M:CP. Let’s look at what was shown!
Fist things first: if you want to catch the streams from this weekend, check out the official playlist on YouTube! There are a ton of videos covering the updates I will be covering here as well as plenty of other content including modeling and painting streams, Star Wars Legion news, and more. There were a few expected spoilers, some really cool reveals, and some very big changes coming to the game!
Hulkbuster and Ms. Marvel
First off, we have the expected reveal. We knew from previous announcements that we were going to get a few more large models that each had ways of transforming between a large model and a much smaller model with the Hulkbuster Armor and Ms. Marvel. We now get to see that stat cards for both of these releases, and they have me quite excited! I really like the direction they took both of these characters with two very different methods for their transformations.
With Hulkbuster we get a third leadership for the Avengers and a big tanky character. When the opponent chews through 13 hit points he transforms into a regular-sized ironman that pops out of the damaged suit. The small ironman is much less impressive but still gets some nice rules with rapid fire pushes and some out of activation movement. If he manages to amass 10 more power after being put on the table, he can call in another Hulkbuster suit! It will be hard to pull off, but very cool when it happens.
The big draw to this model in my mind is that the model never goes to the damaged side of a card. Both the Hulkbuster and the ironman armor only have a healthy side, which can be really key for objective grabbing and some other card interactions.
In Ms Marvel we have a very flexible 3 point model added to the Inhumans. Unlike Hulkbuster, Kamala starts as a small model and can temporarily Embiggen herself to do some better damage, shifting back at the end of her turn. The shifting gives her some slight repositioning ability, and the damage output plus long reach from the larger version are really nice on a cheap model. The damage might not look like much, but a 5 dice builder with 2 different reroll abilities is actually quite effective.
I have been wanting to play some Inhumans, and this model will definitely make me put them on the table more often. Ms Marvel is also one of my daughter’s favorite heroes, and will be in most of our games at home!
New X-Men!
New models have been shown for the next wave of x-men and brotherhood models! Colossus, Magik, Rogue, Gambit and Juggernaut are all coming soon.
We are getting a lot more X-Men than Brotherhood, but both sides are getting some love. I am a huge X-Men fan, and I personally am quite happy with this set of characters. There will always be people wishing different characters were released, especially with the massive number of possibilities from X-Men history, but these are all iconic popular characters that I am really looking forward to seeing play out.
Also, Fastball Special! As mentioned in a much older article, I have been looking forward to this card for a while.
Errata/Rebalancing Incoming!
We were all expecting a lot of model spoilers which we got in spades, but at the end of the weekend we got some huge news that has been received with mixed emotions by the online community.
Coming by the end of the year, several existing models are receiving a rework. We don’t know yet the full list of characters that will be changed, but updated stat cards were shown for Hulk, Captain America, MODOK and Shuri. It was said more updates are coming. The new rules will be officially released by the end of the year for printing at home, with physical replacement cards available Q1 or 2 next year.
The updates shown so far are a mix of clarifications (on reroll timing), small adjustments down for MODOK and Shuri and buffs to Cap and Hulk.
This news has been getting a lot of feedback online. On the negative side some people are concerned about new cards making their current cards no longer playable, others are expressing dislike of the new format of the cards (which were done for accessibility and translation purposes according to AMG staff). On the positive side, the updates made to the models feel like they have taken player input into consideration. The updates to the models shown so far make a lot of sense and look great. I am looking forward to trying out the updates to Hulk as soon as possible!
Of course the announcement leaves a lot of speculation on what other models might be changed and how the players think those models need to be updated!
What new models are you looking forward to the most? Who were you wishing for in an X-Men update that didn’t get chosen? If you got to choose, what other models would get new stat cards in the upcoming rebalance? Let me know below in the comments!
