I've always liked comic books, Spider-Man and the X-Men were my go to characters for the odd escape until April 1988, when I picked up Amazing Spider-Man #299, where on the very last page I came across one of the most iconic Spider-Man villains of all time, for the first time - Venom! Now I didn't realise at the time this was the first time anyone had seen him, but that black grinning Spider-Man gripped me and my like it or leave it interest turned into a full on love on comics and their characters.





Skip forward 31 years, comics have been pushed back in my list of interests and board games have come to the forefront, I'm browsing YouTube for something to waste time watching when I come across a YouTube video previewing Fantasy Flight Games' new Marvel Living Card Game, Marvel Champions: The Card Game. Watching the guy's over at Team Covenant play this game, got me excited, the game taking elements of Arkham Horror: The Card Game and tweeting and tuning the fine points.









Marvel Champions: The Card Game is a co-operative game for 1-4 players when each player takes on the role of one of the many superheroes from the Marvel universe as they attempt to foil the dastardly scheme of iconic villains. Each player combines their chosen champion with one of four aspects: Aggression, Justice, Leadership or Protection.





The game is played around two phases, the player's phase and the villain's phase. During the player's phase each can make any number of actions from cards they have down, or that are in their hand. Each card / action usually has an associated cost that is paid for using cards in their hand, so begins the challenge of managing the pay or play aspect of the game. Players need to buff their heroes, recruit their allies into the field and build a chain of support for themselves and the other players.





To defeat the villain the players need to alternate between attacking the villain themselves and thwarting their scheme, because to succeed they must knock their health to 0, but to prevent the villain from winning they must continue to remove threat from the villain's scheme. To add another dimension to the game, player's also have to keep switching between their hero and their alter-ego, since hero's can't naturally recover health, unless they're off the battlefield. Once all the players have gone they all draw back up to their hand size, that varies not only from character to character, but also on if in their hero or alter-ego forms.





During the villain's phase, each villain will attack each hero or add threat to the scheme, if the hero is in their alter-ego form. Then each minion will do the same against their hero they're engaged with. Next each player draws an encounter card that will cause an additional effect to help the villain.





The core engine behind the game is simplistic and easy to learn at it's core but the sheer variety and possibly, means strategy and planning, for the most part need to be done on the fly and adapting to the current situation is a must. Deck-building is fun and simple choosing a hero's signature cards, along with their nemesis and obligation, combined with a single aspect and some neutral cards and away you go. Each hero in the core set is very different, Ironman starts with a hand-size of one, needing to spend the start of the game as Tony, so he can gather his armour, each added one card to his Ironman hand-size. She-Hulk, has abilities that deal more damage the more damage she has taken and the others are no exception.





This has to have been my favourite game of 2019 and will certainly be on my must have every expansion list. I can't wait to see where Fantasy Flight takes this game, with Captain America, Ms. Marvel and Green Goblin already added to my games, it's one I keep coming back to. I would recommend it for anyone who likes cooperative or even solo play. True believers are set for an exciting new year, Excelsior!