Married and Board
Married and Board
Marvel Champions Summer: Age of Apocalypse
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We have a treat for you this week with special guests Mike and Steve from the Critical Encounters podcast joining the show! Mike takes us on a hilarious journey through his recent adventures in Norway and Iceland, complete with a run-in with aggressive Arctic terns. Then, we dive deep into Marvel lore, discussing the menacing X-Men villain, Apocalypse, and his ripple effects across the Marvel universe. With the latest Marvel Champions expansion just announced at Gen Con, we're all buzzing with excitement and speculating about potential new characters and future expansions.
Ever wondered who might join the Marvel Champions roster next? We get into a heated debate over possible newcomers like Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and even fan-favorite TV characters like FitzSimmons and their iconic shotgun axe. From MODOK to Doctor Doom, we dissect the villains that could up the ante in future releases. Plus, we explore the untapped potential of integrating teams like the Defenders and the Fantastic Four into the game, imagining how characters like Wilson Fisk and Galactus could transform the gameplay experience.
To round things off, we tackle the complex strategies needed to defeat tough scenarios, focusing on the challenging Apocalypse scenario. We break down the mechanics of side missions, ally management, and the nuances of facing formidable foes like Eunice. And for a bit of fun, we share our shared passion for the Olympics, Steve's love for the TV series "Shogun." Don't miss this episode packed with Marvel Champions insights, personal anecdotes, and engaging discussions that will keep you entertained and on the edge of your seat!
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Hi, I'm Christian.
Angela:And I'm Angela and we are married.
Christian:And bored hey everybody. Welcome to another episode.
Angela:That was a big sigh.
Christian:Well, I mean it was a lot to say and I'm very excited about tonight.
Angela:Okay, christian is very excited. We have not only another episode of Marvel Champions.
Christian:Summer. That's right, we are in our. Is it called the penultimate episode?
Angela:Yeah.
Christian:Yep, which means second to last Correct, until you say there's another one, probably right.
Angela:Yeah, I really. It's just Christian does whatever I want. Okay, so Love you. So we are in the penultimate episode of the Marvel Champions Summer, yes, and we have guests.
Christian:We do. We have guests today. Everybody put your hands together and welcome. We should do like an opening ceremonies thing because the Olympics are on right now. We can play their national anthems or their favorite songs, whatever, and introduce them. But we have Mike and Steve here from the Critical Encounters podcast, friends of the show they're two thirds of the show are joining us. One of their members is off. You know, fighting heroes because you don't fight villains, right guys? You're the villains fighting the heroes on your show.
Mike:That's true, and thank you so much for putting us on the penultimate episode, because that's usually the movie where the villain wins.
Angela:Oh yeah, that's true. Yeah, oh yeah, that's true, yeah well, welcome, welcome guys.
Christian:Uh, we appreciate you guys being here to talk age of apocalypse. Um, who's a pretty bad villain I would say. Right, when you think of x-men, you think of maybe like three big bads and I would say he's usually top three, would you guys?
Steve:agree, yeah, he's definitely up there as one of the uh ultimates. So I mean, if you watch any of the 90s cartoon he shows up all the time thwarting them. He his movie appearances haven't been so great, uh, but in the comics yeah, I mean there's like a whole age of apocalypse set of comics. He's a big time villain, yeah big he is.
Christian:He is one of my favorites, probably from the 90s cartoon, and he has a little, a little uh, not spoiler, but cameo, I guess, in x-men 97. So he's, he's coming. Oh yeah, but I haven't seen it yet.
Steve:I'm looking forward to.
Christian:I've been uh re-watching all the original x-men cartoons so that I can like roll into it fresh, okay, yeah so I I was thinking about doing that, and then I started it, and it does get kind of like long-winded at times, I felt, and so I found a youtube video that was like 20 minutes recap, and that's the former one, yeah, and that's that's what I watched but well, also, I mean probably like a year or two ago, like with our kids, you watched all of them, that's true.
Steve:I mean, I did that. I have eight more to go, eight more to go. I'm almost there, okay. Yeah, you're almost there.
Christian:So let's just start our show, like we start the show every time, just kind of say what's up. Every time. Just kind of say what's up. And guys, we just want to hear about, like kind of, what you've been up to this summer, whether that's board games, vacations you've took. And then I thought it'd be kind of fun to talk about our initial reactions on the new Marvel Champions expansion announcement from Gen.
Angela:Con yes, so why?
Christian:don't we just start with Mike. Mike, what's up? What's been going?
Mike:on All right. Oh, my goodness, it's been kind of a weird summer, but I just got back a week ago from Norway and Iceland. It was fantastic. We went to see the fjords. We saw fjords and 100,000 puffins and I got attacked by Arctic tern and for the few of you out there that know what Arctic tern are, you're laughing right now. If you're in the same time zone as one of their nests, they get vicious, but they're beautiful birds. So you hold a stick above your head so they attack your stick instead of you and just before they dive, bomb you. You get a really good look at them. And these things migrate from Iceland to the Antarctic and back every year. They're just amazing creatures. Every year they're just amazing creatures.
Christian:That's something they teach you is to hold a stick above your head so that they don't get you.
Mike:Yeah, they said go to the bucket, pick up a stick. It's not for hitting the birds, it's for just yeah.
Angela:Self-defense only.
Mike:That was fantastic. So that was my non-gaming, and then just the usual gaming. I'm heavily involved in all of the LCGs, the Marvel Champions, arkham Horror and Lord of the Rings. There's a couple conventions coming up in the fall that I'm going to hit up. Okay, yeah, which ones are you going to? I'm going to BusterCon and then Con of the Rings. Con of the Rings.
Steve:Ooh, they're almost back to back. And Con of the Rings, con of the Rings. Ooh, they're almost back-to-back. Mike is a host of a Marvel Champions podcast. Critical Encounters yes, he's not come to the Marvel Champions convention, but he goes to the other two conventions.
Mike:It was badly timed.
Steve:Yeah, I mean talk about being a villain, Mike. Come on, this is public shaming, yeah this is a penultimate episode.
Christian:Someone has to be the villain.
Mike:That's what they expect me to do, steve, I know.
Christian:Okay, I think he probably has secret podcasts.
Angela:Yeah.
Mike:That's what he has. Sometimes I do spring a secret episode on him.
Christian:Just a Lord of the Rings recap from the past year, or whatever. That's great. Norway is a place that we want to go.
Angela:I have been.
Christian:You got to go in high school.
Angela:I got to go in high school, which is great, but I wish I would experience it much differently as an adult. I think I want to go back. That's where our ancestors are from.
Christian:Oh lovely, be Vikings. Yeah, I'd go back, that's where our ancestors are from, so we'd you know. Oh lovely, Be Vikings and do stuff.
Mike:Yeah, I'd go back.
Christian:That was great. Yeah, that sounds like a really, really fun trip. Steve, how about you? What's been going on this summer with you?
Steve:So I did a week of summer camp. It's not as good as Iceland and Norway, but, uh, yep, went camping with the kids for a week. I'm big into like the scouting, uh activities, so we've been doing that and playing a ton of Marvel champions, um, as well as Imperial assault. My group plays that. We've been working our way through every single mission. Um, one of our guys is a really nice painter of the minis, so all the minis are always fully painted so that helps, that helps, so fun I mean that helps so much so
Christian:much yeah, yeah, do you like? Do you? What character are you playing? Do you like switch it up every time? Are you always?
Steve:yeah, we play different characters based on the campaigns. We just finished Twinsons, which was a lot of tattooing stuff, and I played a base character. We've basically now played every single. In our group somebody has played every single hero at least once, so we're starting to rotate around through and it turns out a lot of the base heroes are just so much better than the expansion heroes. It's like the opposite of Power Creep and you would think that wouldn't be the case, but it definitely is.
Christian:Yeah, that's one that we own.
Angela:Oh yeah, we still do.
Christian:We still do. It's in the garage Just for some reason. For us, like the dungeon crawly aspect of it just doesn't. It doesn't hit.
Steve:Yeah, and that one is not fully cooperative. Right, you have your up to four players, but then you have your emperor playing the empire. The bad guys. And the game is definitely skewed towards the heroes. We lament the villains on our podcast but really Imperial Assault is very much skewed away from the villains in that game. So you, if you're gonna run the game, you have to be willing to accept like a dungeon master role, like you're telling the story, and take those couple wins when you get them, because, yeah, that guy loses all the time all the time beat up on yeah, occasionally he'll put out a set of here.
Steve:Here's a whole bunch of elite heavy stormtroopers and we kill them off in like one activation.
Angela:It just looks dejected like sorry man well, it's so, because that's so opposite of the movies, you know, it's like they're always the underdog, the rebellion. That's funny. Um, what's up with you, christian?
Christian:well, um nothing new just okay no, just normal, normal things. Kids are back in school. It's hot as heck in arizona, so, uh, we don't go outside anymore. Um, never, try to stay inside. I've been, uh, into star wars unlimited a little bit. Got some packs while we're on vacation, so that's fun. Uh, I do, admittedly, need to play it more, and I've said on this show.
Steve:It's a rabbit hole, man.
Christian:Yeah, and I've said on this show before, in terms of Marvel Champions, I'm not good at deck building. In this game you have to deck build in Unlimited, and so I just I can't sit. I can't get myself to sit down and actually make a deck to play other than the ones that are like the pre-constructed ones.
Steve:So you know. Whatever, take advantage of those online resources to net deck something you know to get you moving.
Angela:Yes.
Steve:Then you don't have all the cards like an LCG, you just have all the cards. So you can go to Marvel CDB. You can say I want to play the new Jubilee, who has a deck Great. You can say I want to play the new jubilee who has a deck great. Yes, copy them and play, and that's, that's great. That is a good way to play these games. But with star wars unlimited, you might not have the cards they're telling you to put in this deck because you haven't bought enough packs yet or whatever. Yeah, that's hard that's.
Christian:That's the hard part too. So I did. I did find some rare ones and I am trying to sell them, so that's been fun. I have no bytes, so that hasn't been fun.
Steve:But just waiting for someone.
Christian:What was?
Steve:that I think there's a site TCG Player. Yeah, that's where they are.
Christian:Yep, ok, I think. When I got them I put them on the high end of the market value and the market value has dropped even further and I just haven't adjusted yet. So you gotta adjust supply and demand. You know I'm learning economics as I play board look at you, so good job yeah angela, what about you?
Angela:um, I've been playing a lot of marvel champions. I feel like that is just my, uh, summer thing and I can get the kids into it. Um, when the kids are with it, christians usually not because we don't like playing four player. Yeah, it's just too slow. But, um, yeah, I've. I've been really liking that.
Christian:So I usually hover. Yeah, you hover, hover and help.
Angela:Um, but no, I I feel like that's been all consuming. You've been playing a little bit of the mandalorian adventure oh, that's right.
Christian:Yeah, that's very uh, imperial salt-esque I know it's like light. Yes, what is this game? It's called the mandalorian adventures. Um it is think of. What is that game? Jaws of the lion, like um. Gloomhaven, like the, the smaller version of gloomhaven, but um and um mixed with imperial salt yeah, yeah, there's no minis.
Christian:It's just all cardboard and it's. It has the book that has the maps in it. So that's how it's, like jaws of the lion-esque um. So yeah, it it's by Unexpected Games, and so they did 3000. Scoundrels is a funny one that we have, and they did Voices. My Head it's Corey Canizia is the guy who owns and runs Unexpected Games. He did a lot for Fantasy Flight back in the day, yeah, but yeah, check it out if you're a Star Wars fan.
Steve:It's been pretty good.
Christian:It and I on my radar yeah, our son and myself have enjoyed that so the big news is no one here went to Gen Con I don't. Yeah, that's unfortunate, but it had it just wrapped up a couple days ago yeah, so the announcement you mentioned yeah, we agents of shield agents of shield just like wow.
Christian:just like wow, yep. Just like the show, right Like the new Marvel champions expansion. I was always curious on where they're going to go next with, with the, with the game after X-Men. I think everyone knew that age of apocalypse was probably the last X-Men box. I think everybody thought fantastic four was kind of like the natural way to go, but I think I was very surprised. So it'd be cool to get your guys' reactions to that and what you think overall on what possibly could be coming down the road for this game.
Mike:Alright, well, I'll start because Steve can definitely expand on what I'm going to say because I saw Agents of SHIELD for the first time four days ago, the TV show or the announcement oh, the tv show okay okay, it seems pretty good, yeah, so I'm going to stick with it for a bit, but in terms of what I'm expecting, I want to see some mockingbird because, if anyone reads comics, the self-titled series was released in 2016. It's a six-issue series of Mockingbird. It is fantastic, and I think that alone deserves her a spot somewhere, somewhere beyond that basic ally we got in the core set.
Christian:Yeah, the one card everyone used for two and a half years.
Angela:Yeah she still comes into my eyes.
Mike:Yeah, but I think it's exciting because I'm not a huge Fantastic Four man myself. I think a lot of people are also expecting Defenders.
Angela:Yeah, that's what I was expecting.
Mike:Maybe because they just really want to play Daredevil, yeah, and if you just think of what's coming down the pipe in terms of movies and TV.
Christian:Fantastic Four and Daredevil are getting reboots like, oh are they? It makes sense, okay, but I don't know yeah it's kind of fun to see quote unquote normal people as hero. You know, like sure they're agents of shield, so they have, you know, powers, so to say.
Mike:But yeah, it does seem like they're trying to go a little bit back to street level. I say street level kind of shields, a bit different. But uh, yeah, you're right. Just the non-powered people are the people who are just extraordinary.
Steve:They're not mutants, they're not right, we might get somebody like a quake um, who does have powers but works for shield and wasn't like spidey and some of his friends or the champions, didn't? They work with shield at a certain point in the comics, so maybe I feel like everyone get some of those guys again right like no, but I would captain america slash falcon, like the falcon version of captain america.
Christian:That seems very shieldy.
Steve:Yeah, that feels shieldy. I mean if we don't get a Nick Fury in the Agents of SHIELD, then yeah, no, we need a Nick Fury.
Mike:We are, though, right. They showed us the silhouettes. One of them is definitely Nick Fury. Right Two silhouettes.
Steve:I mean it could be Nick Fury. It seems like it's Nick Fury, but they've hit this before right. Like everybody said beast, beast, beast. And we got Magneto now they do.
Mike:The one thing they've always done is they've always split the roster. It's half male, half female and I don't see them changing that up now. And that other silhouette had no idea who it was, no idea you're talking like Maria Hill them changing that up now and that other silhouette had no idea who it was.
Steve:No idea. Right, you're talking like Maria Hill Quake. Oh, maybe it's Maria Hill Walking Bird. I like the TV series. You have the Fitzsimmons characters. Now I don't know how much the TV series FFG can like. Who owns the TV series? Is that right, is he?
Mike:Is that Marvel? Is that what do the yeah allow?
Steve:them to use, right, can I mean this mike? This is a spoiler for way down along the seasons, but there's a shotgun axe that I really hope we get. Uh, from the tv show one of the character uses oh, it's a half shotgun, half axe and I'm like I want one of those how does that work?
Steve:oh uh, it's basically an axe underneath the barrel, it's like a bayonet, but it's an accent head on the bottom. Uh, it's great, it's. It's so, it's great for the tv show. It's a lot of fun. I'm like that was my first thought, like when they said agents of shield, like shotgun axe some sort of attachment, it better be in there.
Christian:Yeah, I'm thinking maria hill, if if you go for like two like quote commanders, and like she pairs well with nick fury, just because they always are working together, at least in the movies, comics, not all the time, but but she's such a jerk which is the director of shield at a point in the comics right, so like yeah, yeah, um and that's another one of those ally cards that we got early on that we everybody use like great leadership ally, so there's a chance to give us a hero version of it.
Mike:So Okay, if it's not fury, who is it? Is it Colson? Oh, yeah.
Christian:Colson would be cool. It'd be interesting. Could you tell, like I haven't looked at the silhouette in a while. Could you tell, is it like the bald man, Nick Fury, or is it like the classic flat top?
Steve:Nick Fury. Sr or Jr right, yeah, right.
Mike:Whoever it is, is either wearing a skull cap or is bald.
Steve:Is it the David Hasselhoff, Nick Fury?
Mike:or is it the?
Steve:Samuel L jackson, nick fury, right, right, like who knows it's exciting, um, I I wonder what other hero packs.
Christian:Or even, well, let's talk about villains, because you guys are here, we should probably do that.
Mike:Oh, they showed um some aim soldiers, so that tells me that like yes, I mean finally, finally, yeah.
Christian:And I don't know what else you guys may have picked up that I missed.
Steve:Yeah, there was just that one picture. People pointed out where you had aim and maybe so that suggests Modoc and the scientist Supreme shield versus Hydra is a huge thing. So maybe we go back to Hydra stuff. Right, we don't have a Baron Zemo villain, we have a oh Nemesis.
Mike:Yeah, there's a Nemesis.
Steve:Yeah, yeah.
Christian:Yeah, I feel like Zemo's a good one.
Steve:The TV show agents of Shield. They're pitted against Hydra a lot. So if they're banking off of that, you know.
Angela:Yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm totally interested, but my first thought was don't we already have shield heroes like jessica natasha?
Christian:yeah, but maybe they'll just lean into that a little bit more. More combinations like oh, that would be nice they can do like white widow, like she's, she's around um, around, like from whatever her name is the new Black Widow, basically.
Steve:Oh yeah, lena Belova, yeah, that's yeah.
Christian:Yeah, kate Bishop, I don't know, does she work for SHIELD ever? That'd be kind of fun. A new, a new Hawkeye. I.
Mike:I hope they don't only because her own universe is still very cool and I want to see that coming, okay.
Christian:Right, yeah, right, I can see that too. Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of fun ones. I think I personally, like I would love to do like a daredevil or Luke cage. I think that'd be really cool, but yeah, I don't think.
Steve:I don't think there'll be in this run.
Mike:I think you have boxes of Defenders.
Steve:You have boxes of Fantastic Four. You have a box of the Supernaturals, like Elsa Bloodstone. Oh, like the creepy people, the guy in the motorcycle with the flaming skull.
Mike:I can't think of his name Ghost Rider, yeah, ghost.
Steve:Rider, you have all that we haven't touched on in the game series. There's a lot of room for other boxes. Midnight Suns.
Christian:Midnight Suns game series. Right there's, there's a lot of room for other boxes, or midnight suns and suns.
Angela:There you go you can go places wow, well they haven't announced any of that.
Mike:They haven't they haven't yeah, and there's some big villains they they're missing out on too. Like yeah, like who?
Christian:uh, well, wilson fisk, oh, I mean like, yeah, of course dr doom doom doom has to come galactus. I guess, right, like Wilson Fisk, of course Doom Doom has to come Galactus. I guess he's a big guy. How many times would you have to unfold the Galactus card?
Steve:Like an 8x11 piece of paper.
Mike:You just keep going. It's huge. I'll have to ask Molly about that.
Christian:If you can get that idea going, that would be amazing.
Angela:Yeah, everyone just immediately dies when you unfold.
Mike:If you unfold to the full extent, everyone's dead.
Steve:It's like the poster in the back of the pack.
Angela:Exactly They've been preparing for this. That's what.
Christian:I'm going to do with the posters, finally. Well, awesome guys, thanks for catching up with us. They've been preparing for this. That's what I'm going to do with the posters, finally. Well, awesome guys, thanks for the catching up with us, and we're going to take just a quick little break here and then we're going to jump in and dive into the age of apocalypse thank you for finishing my sentences this episode is sponsored by Show it.
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Christian:Well, guys, thanks again for being here, mike and Steve. But let's jump into Age of Apocalypse. When this was announced, I was super excited, I think, like most people were to get Apocalypse Come to find out that it comes with two pretty, I would say iconic heroes in the X-Men world, with Bishop and Magic Angie. You want to kick us off and talk? About either one of those or both.
Angela:Yeah, I mean, I love Bishop. I think that I started out kind of rocky with learning how he plays and then, uh again, another plug for marvel, um cdb cbd okay, uh, don't go to that one.
Angela:And he had a deck about I don't even know what it was called, energy something and just you know, has so many resource cards in his deck and I mean I love the playthrough of him, just almost against every villain I've tried and magic I haven't done. Personally, I've seen her played by both you and um, my son and daughter, so I I don't, I mean, I like, I like the twist she has where she plays with the top card of her deck, face up, sure, um, but again, I don't know that that's like my style, yeah. So I'm curious to hear what, uh, you and uh and Steve and Mike think about these two.
Steve:I'll go first. Let's talk about magic. Real quick, girl Gandalf.
Mike:Girl Gandalf.
Steve:So we say that because if you play the Lord of the Rings card game, gandalf hero played with the top card of the encounter deck or the player deck face up and that's her whole game and he's allowed to play it.
Mike:It's the same ability.
Steve:Same thing. Um, I think caleb designed both characters, so that makes sense. Oh, there you go, yeah, I mean. So anyone listening doesn't know her gimmick that the when she's in hero form, the top card of your deck is face up and you can play it as if it was in your hand, and she has ways to swap cards with your hand for the top deck and she has all these different effects, like one of them here mystical armor. It's an upgrade. And when it's out, it says while the top card of your deck has a energy or wild resource, she gets plus one defense. So she has all these effects that will play off of that icon that is on your top.
Steve:So you, you have to be paying close attention, you have to be sequencing. Just right, she's not a hero. I think that you can just sort of like Captain Mary can just be like I punch and stand up, I punch and stand up, like you have to really be paying attention. But she can have some really powerful turns. You can make these neat loops. I'm the kind of player who likes to fiddle around with my stuff, even if I only make a little bit of progress, but I do 100 different things, so she's like right up my alley. I really enjoy playing uh with her and you know her cards all give these fun effects that nothing's crazy over the top. It's not like she deals 40 damage, but you could just sequence all these different things.
Christian:So I really enjoy her what is your favorite aspect to pair with magic?
Steve:I think it's going to be aggression which she comes with, or maybe justice, because leadership you can put on more allies and things like that. But that doesn't have that same effect of like. Here's this event sitting there or transfer event in and know what's going to happen. I don't know. I like those two and I'm not a huge aggression player, but she seems to work well with it. But Mike would probably. Mike, do you find? Have you played her in protection?
Mike:I actually haven't played her very much at all. I like to try them with the pre-cons first so I get a feel for them. I got distracted heavily by Bishop.
Angela:Yep.
Mike:I had the same kind of reaction that Angela did, like it just turns deck building on its head and I just pulled up my deck list. I had 16 resources in that deck.
Angela:Yeah.
Mike:That's crazy.
Christian:So you just have like energy, genius, strength, and like all the double ones Band together effective leadership innovation.
Mike:Yeah, Digging deep. Yep, three copies of Digging Deep. It's just such a neat little deck. But yeah, actually I'm just pulling up Magic. Now she's got a defense of two. You can do something with that in protection.
Steve:The interesting thing with her in protection is her ability is once per phase, so you can have a protection card on top of your player deck and it's in your hand.
Steve:So a lot of times the protection's like oh, I don't want to use this because then my hand size is smaller going into the next phase. In this case it's not because that card is just sitting there, you play it and then another card is face up so you have that for the next turn. So she effectively always has a plus one hand size, which makes her pretty powerful yeah, steve, you're.
Mike:You're speaking to, speaking to my heart right there. That's why I picked up Gamora. Initially, it was the whole oh once per phase. That's why I started using her in protection.
Angela:Well, this makes me want to play Magic now.
Christian:Yeah, I mean I think I played two games with her pretty early on with the pre-con and I never do well with those. I love Justice, so I try to make a justice deck with any new hero just to see how it goes. And I think I did okay it wasn't awesome, but I also didn't play more than one game, you know yeah, I think the pre-con, I think, is a great idea.
Steve:You get the box, you get the pack, you open it up, you can play a game, one or two games, you kind of see it right. And then now it's time to deck build, because a lot of times the pre-cons have three of something and really you only want one of them in your deck or it's missing resource generation or something along those lines. But uh and she, she is much better when you deck build with her.
Christian:So good right right well, let's take another look for sure uh, yeah, I will.
Angela:Um, okay. And then, along with bishop and magic being introduced in this set, we've also got the whole idea of side missions being introduced in this campaign.
Mike:Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Angela:So side missions basically represent for anyone who doesn't know or hasn't dug into the Age of Apocalypse box. They represent like, okay, there's a big fight going on here with the main villain, but there's also like fights around the world, you know. So there's other fights going on and who are the heroes that are going to go over there and, um, you're going to need some allies to help you out and I don't know. I have back and forth feelings about the side missions and there's some times where I really feel like I balance it well, and then there's some times where I'm like why is this even here? So curious to hear thoughts about the side missions okay, so I guess I think maybe you go first steve maybe.
Steve:Yeah, uh, I'm also with you on the back and forth. Um, overall, the idea and the theme of that story where other things are happening and you're going to take your allies and you're going to say, you guys go over there and do this side mission while I hold back dark beast, you know, you go liberate the seattle core or whatever the mission might be right, is great. I love that story element. Mechanically. I don't really care for them. I I played them a couple times. I probably won't play them again and I don't like being negative on some. I played them a couple times. I probably won't play them again and I don't like being negative on some of this stuff because somebody out there is going to really enjoy it. I don't want to turn them off from it, but the side mission mechanic is not for me. This has been one of those campaigns. I've played it once or twice. I'm done playing the campaign on this one.
Christian:I like it thematically. I think it's really cool.
Angela:Such a good story yeah.
Christian:It also hinders what you can do because you're like, oh man, I got this great ally. It's like, no, you gotta put it over here and ignore it.
Angela:Ignore the text.
Christian:It's a numbers game, right? You just put as much as you can over here.
Steve:Even that part hits a good theme, like, oh I, magic could do really well if her brother, colossus, was with her, but he's got to go off and do this thing. So like thematically, that feels good. Yes, you can't use colossus because he's saving the day over there, but then in game, wise, yeah, I don't know I have a rule dispute about this and I wonder if you guys could settle it oh boy so we're really good at arguing over rules.
Mike:Really good, are you okay?
Angela:okay, yeah so I've never heard you argue about a rule, so now I'm excited listen to our episode on wild okay, okay we've got tony fangy involved in that one, so so maybe this will be like an easy one then, because I feel like, um, you know, there's probably a cut and dry answer, but I'm just not getting it. So, for instance, a ally like angel I've got angel in my hand. His text reads that if I'm an X-Men, is that what it is?
Mike:That he costs one less resource to play.
Angela:So does he cost one less resource to go to the mission, or is his text box blank?
Mike:Oh, I would say, he costs one less okay, because don't you would say it would happen before the card is played okay the blanking of the text would happen once you play, so you don't play a card and then pay for it yeah, and
Steve:yeah, you have to pay for it before it comes out, you're paying this cost and its cost is reduced, and then you're assigning it to the mission area and so then it's text box is blank, which is fine.
Angela:It's like great angels, yeah it's after the fact yeah yeah yeah, that's fine okay, all right, I like this. I've I've been playing it hard on myself because I didn't know. You know like, I'm like okay, if, if I don't know and I can't find an easy answer, I'm gonna make it harder yeah, that's one thing you always have done with rules.
Christian:It's like I don't know. If I can't find an easy answer, I'm going to make it harder. Yeah, that's one thing you always have done with rules. It's like I don't know if this is right, but we're going to do the impossible way, it's not impossible.
Angela:It's one more resource.
Steve:So when a player plays an ally, so in order to play the ally you must pay its cost and his cost is reduced prior to playing him. So you pay the reduced cost and you play him. And then it says you decide where you play him into your play area or the mission area and once he goes into the mission area then he's blanked.
Angela:So love it. Yeah, yep, cause then I don't care if he's blanked, he's effectively blank anyway. Anything, anyhow.
Christian:Yeah, and you're not swearing when we say blank you're not swearing when we say blank.
Steve:You're just no, no, okay, um, no side.
Angela:You don't like captain america in the background going to language, yeah, right uh, side note, just curious, what do you guys do for blanking text boxes and remembering that, like as a when you play?
Mike:good, good, I actually. I have various little tokens, beads, whatever from other games and I started actually for Lord of the Rings bringing multicolored ones to symbolize different things.
Mike:Okay, there's so many as a game goes on. I mean, there's more and more things to remember, so I would just put some obvious token. I'm not used to seeing right on the text box, okay, Every time I look at the card it's like nope, something's wrong. So I would just put some obvious token. I'm not used to seeing right on the text box, ok, every time I look at the card it's like nope, something's wrong and it accused me.
Christian:Got it. So it's like why is this dice on this card Basically? Yeah, yeah.
Steve:OK.
Angela:OK.
Steve:I bet you, some of these third party Etsy token makers, have one that just says blank.
Angela:Yes, they totally do A hundred percent. Yeah, they totally do 100%.
Mike:Yeah.
Angela:I just you know like I'm being, like I don't want to buy it.
Steve:Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I just try to remember it and then I'm sure I forget it later. So, right, right yeah.
Mike:I have some thoughts on the missions though.
Angela:Okay, yes.
Mike:Side missions Go. So I play this game a lot solo and then some two-player, but the two-player usually doesn't happen for a while, so we're still getting through the last box, let alone Age of Apocalypse. So I have only touched it in single-player and it strikes me as being very advantageous in single-player because that card that lets you play allies into that area has a once-per-turn effect that gives you a cost discount, which is great in solo, but in two player, no it's.
Mike:It's every second round. You get a discount off an ally right, and once you finish the mission, in a solo game that's one extra card in your hand every round, as opposed to a four player game where it's one extra card every four rounds. It just it becomes less and less worthwhile interesting players you have.
Mike:So I was talking to someone who's like yeah, I just I did the, the regular villain got him down to one hit point and then did the mission. I said no, no, no I wanted I wanted the benefit, so yeah, I do the mission. First I get that out of the way, get the card draw and then hopefully I'm still alive long enough to actually play it. I didn't find it that bad. It was a little easy and I wasn't using magic.
Steve:Magic is really easy. Yeah, it's super easy with magic.
Mike:But Bishop's got two allies with wild resources on them.
Angela:Right, yeah.
Mike:I built them in leadership, so you put an attachment on them, right, yeah, and you put I built them in leadership, so you put an attachment on them, yeah. There you go. Two rounds, they're done.
Angela:You did it exactly, yeah that's the thing like it can be. I never thought about. I saw it scale from two to three and how it didn't become as advantageous, but I never thought about solo yeah and how that's going to be. It's yeah, it's not scaling like per per, you know, per player.
Mike:It's like you get all the benefits yeah, yeah, interesting, so it wasn't so bad in solo mode okay, yeah, I can get behind that yeah definitely now.
Christian:I'm never playing with you again all right, and with that said, thanks for being here everybody. Yeah, that's that.
Steve:Yeah, mike I I only I've only played it solo as well and uh, first time through it was like with magic and you drop colossus in the side mission. Every time he's a, he's a wild resource. She knows exactly what's coming anyways, so you can adjust for whatever the overseer is. I just didn't find it that compelling like some of the other campaigns. Yeah so, and then I played it without her and it was like way too random and I was like oh geez, and like why am I wasting my time over here? And before, like you were saying, you could just clear a mission in a couple turns with Colossus sitting over there. And now you've got the mission team benefit, team benefit, you know extra card every turn. The allies they give you are really neat allies and it's too bad we can't get them later, like Morph from the old cartoon and Destiny.
Steve:Mystique's wife, that sort of thing. There's some really cool allies that you can get.
Christian:Oh, from the side missions. From the side missions, yes, I always had Destiny. Yeah, you did choose her.
Angela:And I like that. It's an interesting spin to just that their text activates when drawn, so that I would always feel kind of safe to send them to the mission, because it's like, well, I've already used that ally for its text, because when they come into your hand you do whatever it says.
Mike:Oh yeah, great. Did you notice the little kick in the teeth they give you on the final mission? It's really easy to miss. But remember the steps when you finish a mission, how all the characters get shuffled into your deck. Okay, yes, in the last mission, they're removed from the game.
Angela:Oh, I did not recognize that. I wonder if I played it wrong or if I just it's an easy miss, but yeah, wow like I'm just kidding, you don't get them right, oh, interesting.
Christian:Yeah, I think it's I think it's a unique mechanic that's been added to to the campaign. I think camp, each campaign, has had their own, like new thing I think, this is kind of a to me. It's a very thematic addition to to the game. It might not play well for everybody, but you know it's kind of fun definitely appealing enough to make you want to see how you play against it yeah, definitely, let's jump into the big bad guys, shall we um?
Christian:yeah there are five of them, classic. Um, yeah, I have to admit I don't know. I didn't know like half of them. Just yeah, you and me both. So, like the first one in the box, uh, his name is and I might be mispronouncing this, but I think it's Eunice like my grandma yeah, how else would you say it, eunice?
Angela:I don't know.
Steve:I would say Eunice, because we had a few guests on our show and we had somebody come on and talk to us about a character called Eunice Goney, and then this was supposed to be her father. Oh, yes. I think that was us that was yeah, yeah, so I don't know.
Angela:So I didn't never made that connection okay, who told us that?
Steve:so I know we didn't have this box yet at the time so that's true.
Angela:That's true in yes, in fairness to me, yeah, yeah, yes. So I, I mean, I know you guys usually talk from the perspective of villains, but maybe talk about how, how a hero would feel playing against eunice, or I love calling him eunice now, because that's just stuck it's your grandma, my grandma's real name.
Christian:But yeah, I'm just looking at the card here and it I mean anything that says toughness I immediately hate. Um, so that's terrible. And then he's got like bonuses based on numbers cool yeah, and so you get like, retaliate stalwart and just some other garbage that he just brings to the table.
Angela:Um, I don't like him and they stack yeah it's not like one or the other right, he strikes me.
Mike:I think he's gonna grow and end up like the oh no, I'm blanking. Uh, the drang of this box which is kind of the one you can go back to because it's kind of got a a nebula feel to it, like don't let the things build up, but it's not as punishing, yeah, like yeah, it's bad, but it doesn't just like body slam you if you get more than two that drain encounter, like just comes out of a box, like just kicking your butt right away.
Christian:It's like, oh man, I wasn't ready for this but it's tough enough.
Mike:But also I don't know it.
Angela:It lends itself to just a good old beat down and there were times when, uh, I played with my son on this one and I remember, uh, getting like gene pool's threat just going out of control, and we would just, and I just decided I was like, hey, bud, we're just not going to worry about gene pool and we're just gonna, you know, like he's just gonna be all three of them, he's gonna have retaliate, he's gonna be stalwart, and you know, we're got.
Steve:We have the extra, yeah, the extra boost yeah, I, I, I like this one a lot actually. Um, I like that this gene pool side scheme sits out there and it's its counters. A justice player always has something to thwart because every round one is going on there. You're watching the number tick up, minimum once a turn, right, so you can kind of plan okay, it's at a one, now it's going to go up to a two. It's not going up by one per player, it's just like one total right.
Steve:There are some cards that put a bunch on it, but it really punishes you for chump blocking as well, because if an ally, right ally, gets defeated by anything other than consequential damage, you're putting some threat there. So you have to. How am I going to defend these attacks? I? I want to use my allies up for attacking and thwarting instead of defending. So it kind of makes you think about that. And then you know that there are like these infinite soldiers, not just unis, who who gets better based on the numbers. But those soldiers can quick strike you, they could surge you, they can come out, you know, guard with six health. So you're gonna have targets for your aggression player too. Um, and then you have like one modular set that you can play around with and make it a little easier or harder if you don't want to use the dystopian nightmare.
Steve:Um yeah, I found that he's he's got a bunch going on, but it's not so complicated, that right. I lose track of it. Sometimes I lose track of stuff. There's too many things going on, but this is just all right. What is this side scheme? Every turn it gets another token and then, as a card comes up, I you have you reference the number of tokens.
Mike:So yeah, yeah, I mean, he only has 12 health to start with, so that's that's pretty low true yeah, now I know some of the the would-be heroes out there are thinking oh yeah, I'm just gonna use some crazy, you know thwart deck and just thwart all the things off. Gene pool for cool effects. Remember, the gene pool is permanent. Yep, so a lot of those effects are like when this side scheme is defeated, do X, it ain't defeated.
Angela:Right, it stays in play it doesn't go away.
Mike:Yeah, you're right, no cheating cable.
Christian:That's a good point, because you haven't played cable. Well, yeah, you did I, I didn't play cable against this guy, but no, he's the most recent one, I've played, yeah, a lot of so this would stump cable, yeah I would probably get upset well, you know what are games for yeah, they're supposed to be fun well, uh, I agree, I think he's a good.
Angela:It's like okay, are you, are you ready for this campaign? Here we go, but it's not so bad that you're just don't want to pick it up again. So I agree, it's a good start.
Christian:And then we jump into number two, which is actually let's do it.
Steve:We're villains.
Christian:This is the four horsemen Of apocalypse, and so We've got war, famine, pestilence, death, aka Archangel. I haven't played this one, so I'll leave this one all up to you guys. But how does it play compared to the other scenarios that have multiple villains? Is it similar to like Sinister Six?
Steve:Best one yet. Yeah, best one yet. I agree with Mike.
Angela:So explain that why.
Mike:Because, steve, it just seems simpler. For a start, you're not doing a whole lot of shuffling. They're all in play. You're still having that active villain move around, but you can't. The game doesn't get easier as you finish it, like Wrecking Crew, the game gets a lot easier as you go through it and I feel like the ramp should be going the other way this one. They don't die until they're all dead. Yes, and there's enough tricks in the deck that they can just surprise you at a moment's notice. It is fun. I love that sentence. They don't die until they're dead. Yeah, they don't die until all four of them are dead.
Steve:And in that regard it's very similar to Proxima and Corvus, which both of you know.
Angela:That's what it reminds me of.
Steve:So I like that. They stay out and they continue to attack you. Now, if you knock them down to zero health, they are weaker, their effects don't trigger, but there are ways that allow them to trigger their effects which are not good for the players. Right, the heroes do not want their effects to trigger, um, so you want to knock. You got to kind of prioritize which one of these guys you not want to have the effects trigger, which one's going to hurt you the most. Knock them down to zero and just hope they don't get their health return to them or something along those lines. Or they are very susceptible to stun and confuse as well, because if you stun them, they don't activate, they don't trigger their thing their token doesn't
Christian:move, so yeah have you guys figured out an optimal like kill order? Or have you not played enough to know that, like we have to go through famine first and then we take out death and then hate?
Steve:War has to go down for me first. Okay.
Angela:He's the one that discards your upgrades and supports. Oh my gosh. I talked about this in the last episode with Gray Crow. Oh my gosh Discarding upgrades and supports, why I just spent three resources on that. You can't discard that yeah.
Steve:Famine, you discard top 10 cards off your deck eight. You know if you're, if you've got digging deep and white fox in there, that's great. You might get cards in your hand actually right and sure it. You look and you're like, oh no, I discarded my plasma pistol or whatever. But in this game you dig, you get your deck back pretty quick and sure you get an encounter card. So famine is probably, I think maybe the weakest one.
Mike:Depends on who you're bringing, because Pestilence can be bad. If you have, oh yeah, it blanks your tech. So if you're bringing a Brute, that's fine, but some of the more finesse-y characters like Ms Marvel, that can really hurt you.
Christian:Yeah, you got to get those events If you can't trigger your hero that's pretty bad.
Steve:Yeah, you're right. Like Gamora, she doesn't get to do her thing Like Widow. Yeah, anyone who's relying on that. That's true. Pestilence is pretty bad. Now. It only blanks it for a turn and then it moves on, so you kind of have to manage for a turn and then Death just deals extra damage.
Mike:What is it like? One point it's a splash damage.
Steve:Yeah, yeah, one to everything which can ruin, like colossus's day, or anyone who's relying on a bunch of tough tokens, um, or a board of a wide board of a lot of allies that you're trying to keep alive, and now you've just done one damage to everything.
Christian:Your leadership players are hating this guy for sure yeah, there's a little bit in there for everyone so yeah, that's why you know, that's why they come before apocalypse to really make you upset, right. Well, let's jump into apocalypse.
Angela:Um, the main, the main, uh course well, yeah, namesake, yeah, the namesake, the namesake yeah, that's true.
Christian:so like in you know, thanos, he was number three. He was number three. What's up with that? We have Apocalypse number three and what is Ange? What does Apocalypse do?
Angela:Well, he can't be defeated.
Christian:Okay, game over.
Angela:Pretty much ever, yeah, until you get no longer worthy attachment attached to him, which is like signifying that people are aware that he's no longer worthy.
Christian:He's no longer the king.
Angela:Yes, Threading out now just reveals the next stage of him. So instead of you know, the players lose if this gets, if this, this gets completed, it's like it goes on to apocalypse two and then three and then four, and he doesn't get weaker. Guess what? He just keeps getting stronger. Um, and and then the required side schemes that they keep bringing out pre-late minions because you're gonna have to go through these side schemes. That they keep bringing out pre-late minions because you're going to have to go through these side schemes in order to get to no longer worthy. But they keep bringing out the pre-late minions and they keep adding more acceleration tokens. So you have to really plan when you are going to defeat that side scheme and if it's a good time to do that or not. What do you guys think, mike and Steve?
Mike:I'm trying to refresh my memory because of the two Apocalypse levels.
Steve:Okay, so I'll go then. So this one. There's actually Apocalypse 1 through 4 villain cards. I guess you use the one if you want to start off at an easier level. I kind of forget why there's a level 1 there.
Angela:From people like me?
Steve:uh, not now well, I was just trying to think of the rules on that, but so it's similar to a magneto scenario where there's a set of side schemes that you are trying to burn through before apocalypse uh, I don't know evolves into his final form and then causes his Age of Apocalypse. I found this one to be very difficult, at least with the decks that I've built, because those prelate minions are powerful characters.
Angela:They do some nasty things.
Steve:You can't target the side scheme until you've killed off the prelate, so you have to go after them. Ap is still doing his thing. He's getting attachments that can be cleared if you defeat him. But if you defeat him, uh, all it does is clear his stuff and clear the threat off the main right, and then he just, he just resets yeah, I find like this is one where you have to sort of turtle like I find.
Steve:A way I win is I sit there at the very beginning, I kill off the initial prelate and I manage threat and I manage apocalypse until I've got my board built. Then I clear the first side scheme the heart of the empire, I think it's called and then that flips right to the next one. That's got two accelerations OK. So now I got to worry about it's going to advance even quicker and there's a new prelate menu. But I've got my board built up so I can take him out quick and I start doing this and then it's like a race to get that no longer worthy on which is the fourth side of the side schemes.
Steve:Right, you have to thwart these three side schemes. You've got to defeat four prelates. Then you can go after Apocalypse and and maybe by then he's advanced to level four and if he advances if he would advance to five you actually lose that sort of thing. So yeah, it's. I find if you can manage the first few rounds and hold on and get your board built, you can do it. If you can't do that, I just like I lose quicker to this one than anything else.
Angela:Right, because then also you've got that whole side mission happening.
Steve:So if you're playing campaign, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Angela:If you're playing campaign. So I just found that this was like I think right away and I knew it. I just kind of shook my head at myself but like I was like, oh, I cleared that side scheme right before the villain phase, which is terrible, because then you get more acceleration, you get a minion that comes out before you can do anything, um. So it's really about timing on this one, and I have had better success playing this with someone, because of the decks we tend to play are very lopsided towards a specific skill, so we don't really tend to play well-rounded decks. So I feel like I'm playing Bishop and I'm playing him justice. I need someone with leadership or aggression to be on my team.
Christian:I'll balance out what he's throwing at you, right.
Steve:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, I was going to say, those prelate minions like if they get to attack the shadow King, is turning your thwart into scheme.
Angela:The abyss guy steals your cards and gets bigger, so I had the abyss guy come up first gets bigger.
Steve:So I had the abyss guy come up first. He had 14 health on him because of an attachment. That's the minion apocalypse doesn't have 14 health apocalypse only has 9, but this guy's got 14 and I gotta get through him these are like mini villains that he's just like fight for me sugar man heals himself 5 damage if you don't kill him. Forget it. And they have per player health Five per player health.
Mike:So four player game they have 20 health.
Steve:It's a lot.
Mike:It's so refreshing to see that A minion that's not going to die the turn it enters.
Christian:Spoken like a true villain.
Angela:I remember the first time, I think, seeing a minion with per player health in the Rise like a true villain. Yeah, I remember the first time, I think, seeing a minion with the her player health, uh, in the rise of red skull, I think yeah, the sleeper uh-huh and I was like what? I don't like this all right.
Christian:Well, yeah, this is just a taste of what Apocalypse can do, because he comes back after this guy and this one for me. Honestly, I had no idea. This was a thing. I'm still kind of confused on why he's here. I'm sure it makes sense in the story or the little comic book.
Angela:Yeah, what's the lore on Dark?
Christian:Beast but Dark Beast. Do you guys know what's going on with him? He's from another universe.
Mike:Okay, on with him. He's from another universe. Okay. There's a multiverse where dark beast basically learns mr sinister's gene editing. Okay, so he is a different beast entirely. You can still play with your beast card.
Christian:It's fine, and we'll break the rules and your beast hero that may or may not ever come yeah, it looks like no hey may not ever come yeah oh was beast a member of shield.
Steve:Is he ever an agent of shield?
Christian:I don't think so okay well, I tried, yeah, all right, what so? What does beast do, ang?
Angela:um, okay, so he is, um, all about the settings and environments. So he has three of them. See if I can remember them off the top of my head genosha, savage land and, uh, blue moon. Um, yeah, so you're starting with one of those settings in play and the rest of the of those cards are put into the encounter set and then when you flip to the next beast, let's say you go beast one, beast two. So when you flip to beast two, you're replacing the setting, but you're going to shuffle more cards in, so a new setting is coming out. I, I don't know how to describe it except to say, like the settings don't seem that bad, but they would just wear on us. When I played, all of them have a bad thing. Um, and then my son's favorite thing to do and he doesn't realize how that he does it is he goes oh, this one's the worst setting. And then fast forward to the next day oh no, this one's the worst one.
Angela:It's like, yeah, because you get used to one.
Christian:And you know how to counter it.
Angela:Right, and then you're just like and yeah, it's a slow burn for me, but I have never defeated dark beast really oh dang oh to be fair, I've only played it with a eight-year-old that, yeah, okay, okay yeah, uh, yeah.
Mike:Is this a good time to say I found it the easiest in the box.
Christian:No, that's fine, that's totally fine, that's when you're supposed to say it.
Angela:All right, all right, just throw me under the bus.
Mike:No, Play it again. It's just fun. It's an easygoing fun ride. And you never know what you're going to expect, Steve. That's all I know. And you never know what you're going to expect, Steve. That's all I know. That's all I can say. I don't know. It's just yeah, I agree, I think it's fun.
Steve:I want to play it again, yeah, try a different combination, because you might get a different star or a different combo of the environments and you can swap out one modular set.
Angela:So there's some modularity there. You know, it's not just like the three locations Right, yeah, right.
Steve:I'm curious, looking at the art of dark beast, how the heroes were tricked into thinking that was regular beast. I mean, he looks pretty evil right, I mean yeah.
Christian:It's not a smile, right? Yeah, yeah.
Angela:I mean, there's no, no question there.
Christian:Right, yeah, that's not like a power drill that he's using to like repair the x-jet, that's a bone saw right like he's cutting somebody up yeah, but maybe if, if hank mccoy doesn't get his chick-fil-a sauce in his uh oh, in his grub hub, you know like this might be the case.
Angela:This might be it. Um, I will say, like how you said it was easy or the easiest one in the box. It did remind me that when I got to this villain, I experienced us like a relief being the controller of the game, because I feel like the three before that. There was just a lot to remember, and this one wasn't as bad this is yeah, this is pretty straightforward.
Steve:Right, it's, there's an environment. Here's. Maybe there's not a lot of things on the board at the same time, unless the minions start to get out of hand or something like that. It's not like check this side scheme for a number and then reference this keyword and then blank my text box and then remember that I, yeah, yeah yes, exactly the blanking the text box.
Angela:Man, I'm just like okay, I got to remember that this text box is blank, but only this round.
Steve:I did hear some people say that they were a little thrown off by the theme because he's supposed to go through like supposed to have created this time portal or be using a time portal, but then all the places he's going are kind of right now. But if you read the whole thing, it says casting them adrift through time and space. So somebody tackles, calibrates it properly so he never really travels through time too much, he's mostly just bouncing around and is that where the uh, those settings are supposed to like, mimic, like where you're getting?
Steve:right or yeah.
Christian:Yeah, we're getting they're all just like classic x-men locations, right like you get to see a bunch of like the uh what?
Mike:are they?
Christian:she are, yeah, the, she are people gladiator, he's one of my favorites and uh, genosha's, you know that's classic x-men, savage land, of course, but like, yeah, it doesn't seem time, but it doesn't seem time related, but it's more space related.
Mike:Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah, that was because it's uh, it's dark beast, bogus journey, not excellent. That's what it is.
Christian:Yeah, there you go yeah, that's, that's really funny. Um well, and then he ports you straight to um n sabanur, which means apocalypse in Egyptian, I believe, the first mutant.
Angela:Yes, so this is the first ever for a villain. We are seeing three forms for a villain.
Christian:You have front, back and unfolded so like angel and ant man and all those guys one is better at scheming, one is better attacking and one has the best of both. The worst of both.
Angela:Then you've got power counters on the main scheme, which is basically just like a timer that's going to bring out superpowers and then the superpowers result in him changing form and when he changes form, bad stuff happens. And then there's also the ancient ritual side scheme, which is part of a modular set that's permanent and that just keeps on dealing encounter cards, which is your least favorite thing to get dealt an encounter card.
Christian:It is my least favorite thing.
Angela:Which is why you hate Star-Lord. I don't understand why.
Christian:Why would you want more of this garbage to? Maybe do one more damage.
Angela:So yeah, I mean, okay, I'll let you guys chime in Steve and Mike, what do you think?
Mike:It's about time the villains got the double-sided card. Yeah, it is very, very cool.
Steve:Yeah, he's a good hero, uh, oops, he's a good villain, uh, to give that to, because he does have that giant former. He just like grows, um, and he has all these different forms. I think this one is maybe not as difficult as the other apocalypse yeah creed.
Steve:Um, it's fun and it's not like a cakewalk or anything, but I think the original apocalypse is harder, at least to get rolling on. I haven't played this one as much as as the other one, but it's fun. It has the neat effects like ant-man has when he changes to this form, do this terrible thing. So you don't want him to change, you want to stay at what he is, but maybe you don't want the one he's at because, like man, his scheme is so high he can't flip to alter ego. But I wish I don't want him to flip, because then he'll do this damage to me if he flips. And, um, you don't really have any control over when he's flipping. You just have to let him do his flip and hope for the best right, right, he's got some wonderful, wonderful tech.
Mike:If you shuffle in the celestial tech in that one, armors and weapons you can't get rid of.
Christian:Are they?
Mike:permanent.
Angela:They just don't have a way to get rid of them. They don't have a hero action. That is terrible.
Mike:So there's one weapon, one armor and then one treachery that fetches one.
Angela:Yes.
Mike:Okay.
Steve:I've used those in other scenarios and they're fun because they make any villain just that much better. And it's a small modulus, yeah, and they are unique too.
Christian:I'm looking at them here and they both have. They add zero to either scheme or attack, but based on the card that you discard on top of your deck, you do something bad, right am I? Yeah, I think I'm reading, and one of them, if you have a wild, is do all of the above, so which is fun with bishop, because there's a lot of.
Angela:You have a ton of a lot of wilds or domino.
Steve:Domino's got a lot of yeah, yeah, so that's crazy.
Christian:I, I do.
Steve:I do enjoy the uh multi-fold villains and heroes, so that's cool to see that he, he has that yeah, so angela mentioned the ancient ritual side scheme that is permanent in a setup and when it hits 10 threat, you remove five threat, you get a face down encounter card yeah I have lucked out and never had that trigger oh, whoa managed to thwart it a little bit just to knock it down, because it only gets threat from other cards and it's set, so you have to right to draw the minions or you know you can get onesie, twosie part threat put on them or you can like choose, put three threat or give it this card three boosts and it's like oh right, my ch, I chump locking, fine, three boosts.
Steve:So I have lucked out where they have not completed their ritual.
Angela:That is cool Because I feel like that's the way to do it, because once you hit that 10, it doesn't remove at all. It removes half. Oh, just five, yeah. So I feel like you just can't let that one snowball. So that's a good point. I do feel like this one is slightly easier. It's funny because I think we talked about it in the last episode. I don't know how to describe it, the word's not anticlimactic but I've been confused by the last villain in a lot of these campaigns. Just as to why is this the last villain in a lot of these campaigns? Just as to why? Why is this the last one?
Christian:so I don't know you feel like just because he was easier to beat than the other ones or just yeah, maybe like I.
Steve:Or I mean, you know loki and mad titan shadow and uh strife, um, just I'm just like yeah, now apocalypse seeing apocalypse twice is great, I think having the reoccurring villain and you get two completely different versions of apocalypse and he's not like this is not like an easy scenario. So it's still worthy of level five, but, like you're saying, um, I think Loki was the first time right, they tricked us. He wasn't even pictured on the box. Yeah, spoil him at all. And everyone was just expecting this big thanos fight. We got it early on and and that that was pretty fun actually.
Steve:I I feel like right kind of getting rickrolled there by the whole, like wait, it's not thanos, it's loki. The whole time, um and then.
Steve:But you can't do that every time, right no, I know, and then it becomes yeah right but I mean venom goblin super hard and that whole story kind of led up to that when I thought, right like symbiote, and goblin was using the sinister six for his own ends. Uh, that's true. And then you know, magneto's the big bad out of X-Men box, which makes sense. Who was the oh Strife? Yeah, that was the next one. That was a little bit like oh wait, I didn't even know who Strife was.
Angela:Right, that was the one we had to look up to Right.
Steve:Yeah.
Angela:Maybe it's. Maybe it's the fact that it's like, it's just not, it's not who you picture.
Christian:Well, it is, it's Apocalypse. But you already saw him.
Angela:Maybe that one Well right or like Mad Titan's Shadow. I'm picturing Thanos. It's not that Loki. It's not that I don't like the story, because Hela was one of my favorite villains and the whole campaign, whole Marvel.
Mike:Champions series Nope. Whole Marvel Champions series Nope, I blanked out.
Angela:So I feel like it's not that it's bad. It's just like you want the big ticket, the moneymaker, to be the fifth villain, and so that's what throws me off. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what throws me off, yeah.
Christian:I mean, I think that's.
Mike:I don't know, except that the only thing I can say is that you got at least the epic unfolding arc. But yes.
Angela:The story always makes sense.
Christian:Yes.
Angela:And I feel like so this box in general, this campaign in general and it could just be that it was summer, so I'm curious to get someone else's take on it but I feel like my brain had to do a lot of work to manage the campaign. Okay.
Christian:Do you guys have similar?
Mike:experience. I think you're right. Well, definitely the heroes in the box. I would never give these heroes to a first-time player, right, either of them? I think you're right. These ones are a little more complex, just thinking back. Yeah, I personally like the second box in the X-Men series the best, okay. And I think it's also generally on the simpler end. Any last thoughts about all of it.
Steve:Yeah, overall a good box. I think it's a great capstone to our mutant story, right? I think you know it's not necessarily directly tied to the previous mutant stories, like where the uh, first three boxes, you know power stone to the gauntlet, to this and like it all, all the three boxes are told one cohesive story sort of this. One doesn't really do that. The three three, but they're the villains are so iconic. They kind of have their own little sub stories. But I think if we didn't get apocalypse, you know people would be like what the heck?
Christian:no, yeah, who else would?
Steve:you've gotten for mutants and we have our x-Force and our X-Factor. I guess not, it's X-Force and X-Men teamed up. We never got any X-Factor, but still I enjoy it.
Christian:You know, the campaign part is my miss, but the rest of it's a big hit for me and at the time of this recording too, there are still two hero packs that are not out yet as a part of this whole age of apocalypse wave. So we still have nightcrawler coming and magneto, which we mentioned earlier. I'm looking forward to those. I think I'm always looking forward to to new, to new heroes, and I think you know nightcrawler is a classic if you love the cartoon, you always loved when he showed up, and magneto is a new he's. He's not always a good guy, but in the recent run of Krakoa he's definitely a good guy-ish, so it'll be fun to play as him as well.
Steve:Yeah, he's one of those unfairly labeled villains. He's misunderstood. His goal is a noble goal, and then we have him donning his white outfit, which lets us know that he's the good guy now.
Steve:yeah, he's magneto the white role yeah yeah, I mean, at one point he runs xavier's institute right when he's wearing that costume. Yeah, um, so he it's a little change of heart. So I'm still not sure. I I feel if he's betrayed us, mike, as villains or not or if he's finally yeah we've been complaining about the whole time is he's misunderstood, and now he gets a hero card. So, oh, he'll be back.
Mike:He'll always comes back.
Steve:Okay, yeah.
Mike:Yeah, okay, can you play the Magneto hero?
Christian:against the Magneto villain. Need a villain um scenario.
Angela:We're going to I'm definitely in the multiverse. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's, it's comics. We can do whatever we want. Yeah, don't say it.
Christian:Wow. So that was that went a little long, guys, but we appreciate you, uh, sharing your thoughts. There's a lot to be said about age of apocalypse as it bookends the x-men experience and marvel champions. Uh, if you have a few more minutes, we'd love to just wrap up the show with you and talk about. You know we like to talk about what brings us joy outside of board games. Yes, so we will. We will kick this off because Angela and I have we have the same one.
Christian:Oh, I think I know what you're going to say, say yeah and uh. I don't know about you guys, but we have been watching so much olympics. We, uh, we. We both grew up playing sports angela more than me like, but I did like the classic little league. I did basketball, baseball, um, I I took golf lessons like I did. I did a lot.
Angela:Yeah.
Christian:And so, like I just love watching sports and I love watching Olympic sports, because there's a lot that are just unique yeah, we don't get to watch karate or kayaking, just kind of like the oddball sports.
Angela:Absolutely. Yeah, I play. I ran cross country, I played basketball and then I threw shot and disc so I feel like watching those are so fun.
Christian:Um, there's very little things that are boring to watch for me in the olympics yeah, it's sad that it's ending soon, but also it's taking up a lot of our time, so maybe we'll be actually get some stuff.
Angela:Maybe we'll get stuff done.
Christian:We can play some more Marvel Champions. That's right, steve. What has been bringing you joy outside of board games?
Steve:The TV series Shogun.
Christian:Okay, that is a good one we have read that.
Angela:I was going to say we've read that, we've watched that.
Steve:I have read that. I read it a long time ago and then it was so well done. My only complaint was it was over too quickly, like.
Steve:I wanted more episodes, just the visuals, the acting, the authenticity, the story. I went and listened to the official podcast about it, um, which I don't normally do for shows, yeah, yeah, that was so good and it made me want to like revisit other japanese genre things that I've done in my life. I used to play the L5R card game and just like get that book back out. If you haven't seen it and you have Hulu I think it's on Hulu go watch it. Shogun, just so good.
Christian:Yeah, we. How do you feel about a second season? I heard they're doing a second season and as far as I understand, the book or the first season kind of, was the book or was there enough left out that there are places, I think there's enough left out.
Steve:They could have done like. I feel like they could have done another four episodes. I thought right, the last 20 minutes of the final episode felt like rushed uh so if they're gonna, do it okay and they're gonna pick up where they left off, then that'd be, I'm all for.
Steve:I'm all for it. So I don't know if you get eight episodes or not. Uh, depending, yeah, you know. Okay, I'm all for a second season if they they keep going with the book and stuff and don't try to. Just well, I, I don't know, they could maybe they could probably just go in more detail and add to it, and I'd be happy with it.
Christian:So yeah, right, yeah, we, we, we enjoyed that a lot. I also got interested in, uh, you know, historical japanese things and so I downloaded, uh I think, the video game ghost of tsushima. Um, okay, I've heard good things about that, yeah, and it was just if you, if you have playstation, it's playstation plus, so it's probably free for you, but I played, I I only played like two hours worth, but I was like this is shogun like I felt exactly the same.
Christian:So it was pretty cool and you like sneak into a house and it's like laid out exactly like their little houses were with, like where they drank tea and stuff. So, yeah, definitely definitely a good one. Um, so we, we agree with what's bringing you joy.
Angela:Absolutely, that's allowed.
Steve:It brings me more joy.
Mike:Mike, how about you? Oh, still living, still living off this vacation. Hi, yeah, fantastic, yeah, shield, which is. You know that that'll be my new obsession for the next little while. Um, my, my fam, my wife likes it too, and my dog loves it, because my dog can sit between us and you know, she never lets us sit together. She always has to sit right in the middle and yeah, of course. What kind of dog uh, my, yeah, she rescued and got her just before the covid lockdown oh nice and I'll.
Christian:and I'll ask just one question about your trip when in Norway did you go?
Mike:We hit the outskirts, so we just did some of the fjords, so we did Flom is a big one, alicent In and around those areas.
Christian:Did you have any lutefisk? No, no. Were you offered any? No, okay, should I have? No, were you offered any?
Angela:No, should I have.
Steve:No, it's like a fermented fish. Ask Daniel about it.
Mike:he'll tell you Is that the fermented whale that they bury in the ground.
Angela:They do bury it. Is it whale?
Christian:I think it's like hat-hopper it's shark.
Mike:They have to bury it because if it's not fermented, it's poisonous.
Christian:it uh, it's poisonous yeah, I think that there's. They do that in iceland too. But, like my grandpa was 100 norwegian and he would back in minnesota when we were growing up, you know they would have like lutefisk nights at their local church and so they would go and eat this crazy stuff. He still loves it. He's still he's like 95 and he would eat it today if he yeah yeah, he could. So, yeah, vacation high. We feel that, uh, and it's always a question for mike about his vacation.
Steve:Yeah, are you still pining for the fjords?
Mike:it's not pining, it's passed on, okay okay, for a second.
Steve:I thought I was in trouble, all right. Well, steve and mike, we appreciate you coming on the show and chatting marvel champions.
Christian:Okay, woo For a second there. I thought I was in trouble, all right. Well, steve and Mike, we appreciate you coming on the show and chatting Marvel Champions. I'll give you guys a second to just give a shout out to everyone out there and let everyone know where they can find you. Yes and a little bit more information about your show. So, Steve or Mike, whoever wants to take that go?
Steve:for it. Yeah, so before we go into where you can find us, angelo what are you reading?
Angela:oh my gosh, I thought I was gonna get away with it. I was gonna I'm on I was gonna rub it in christian's face I knew mike.
Christian:I knew mike had that sorry.
Angela:I knew steve had that in his backpack ready to go oh man, all right, well, I am, uh, physically reading the Challenger. It is well, it's titled the Challenger, but it's also about the US's space race and it culminates with the Challenger, so it doesn't go beyond that. So I'm reading that and that is a very interesting but also slow read for me because I want it's very detailed and I want to read the details. And then I am listening to oh, what's it called Like a short?
Angela:I just started it, so I'm only like 5% in. It's called A Short Walk Through a Wide World.
Christian:And so far I like it a lot.
Angela:Sounds like it could be a fantasy novel title. It's kind of. It's kind of got uh, I don't know what the exact genre is, but it's got some lenience that way. Okay, cool there you go. I feel like I always need to ask what is everyone else reading?
Steve:you, we don't do books. I just started reading Lord of the Rings to my 10 year old.
Christian:Nice, that's a good one.
Mike:I've heard of that.
Angela:Yeah, you've heard of that one.
Mike:I had to stay thematic to the vacation, so I finished reading Neil Gaiman's Interpretation of Norse Gods. That's a good one too, I've read that.
Christian:That one's super good, a lot of fun. That's awesome. Yeah, do you want to continue, steve? Just let everyone know where, yeah, we're going to. We're going to plug our shows.
Mike:Let's do it yeah.
Mike:Yes, you can. You can email us at critical encounters. Pot at g, we are Critical Encounters. You can find us on Facebook. You can find us on YouTube. You can find us on Patreon and on Discord. We are Vardane, bigfumloof and WanderingTook. We're out there. We'll answer your questions. We like chatting with the community. Our shows come out every Tuesday on your favorite podcast app and in addition, if you're interested in the other LCGs, daniel and I Twitch. Every Monday night we do a show called Monday Night Twitch. It is very informal. There's almost no video editing at all. It is just a bunch of people having fun and we get guests on all the time. We oscillate between Lord of the Rings and Arkham Horror. The videos that get streamed eventually get thrown up on YouTube. Twitchtv slash, wanderingtube.
Christian:Yeah, that's awesome. Well, well, we appreciate it, guys. Um, we will, definitely we'll do this again. We've this is we've had you on like three times. We've been on yours like yeah, we'll do it again.
Angela:We're going to continue, maybe regular board games again.
Christian:I know we did that with you guys. I think it was almost a year ago oh yeah, we should definitely get at the end of the summer we kind of did a summer recap. So yeah, maybe we can uh touch base and just chat beyond marvel champions yeah, maybe a live from gen con one of these years, we'll meet up at gen con next year.
Steve:So yeah, there we go.
Christian:It's only, yeah, it's. I was gonna say we should drive to gen con, but that's like a 27 hour drive for yeah, that is.
Angela:It's a long one.
Steve:Probably not just under 10 for me, so it's I did it before I could do it again okay, well, we'll fly to you and then drive. Okay, yeah, sounds good, I'll have some company great all right, guys, we appreciate it.
Christian:And angela, uh, why don't you just say really quick where they can find us?
Angela:yeah, you can find us on instagram at married and bored. You can find us. Yeah, you can find us on Instagram at Married and Bored. You can email us hello at marriedandboredcom. I highly recommend the Critical Encounters podcast. It is. These guys know what they're talking about.
Christian:I mean, we went pretty deep for a Married and Bored podcast today. We did, but if you want to dive deep into the oceans of the villains of Marvel Champions, definitely check these guys out. Thanks for making it this far, everybody, and we will catch you next time.
Angela:Thanks for listening to this episode of the Married and Bored podcast. And guess what? We have a website where you can listen to podcast episodes and so much more. Find us at marriedandboredcom, or you can email us at hello at marriedandboredcom, or follow us on Instagram at marriedandbored. Music in this episode is by Joseph McDade. See you next time.
Steve:You guys are going to edit right, so like if we need to we know, we're alive, no, we don't.
Christian:we don't edit, we just use AI to edit. So it's just kind of a crapshoot.