Getting Started – Marvel: Crisis Protocol Avengers

At Goonhammer we’ve devoted a lot of words to talking about how to compete and take your game to the next level. In “Getting Started,” we look at how to get started with an army – the basics you need to know, how to start collecting models that will leave you with a serviceable army, and what the best deals are.

“Avengers, assemble” is not just an iconic line in Marvel comics, but also represents a watershed moment for the MCU at the conclusion of the Infinity Saga.  If you want to play some of the most iconic characters in the entire Marvel Universe, read on True Believer to learn if The Avengers may be the right affiliation for you!

Who Are the Avengers?

The Avengers are a group of super-powered individuals who join together to defend Earth from equally powerful threats on Earth and beyond.  They were originally created by the iconic duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and debuted in comic book form in 1963.  The original members of the team were Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, The Wasp, and Hulk.  Captain America joined the team in issue #4 after being discovered trapped in ice.  Much like the similarly-large affiliation of Cabal in Marvel Crisis Protocol, The Avengers are an all-star cast of superheroes from the history of Marvel.  However, unlike other superhero teams in the Marvel Universe, The Avengers don’t always work together.  Members often operate independently of the larger team, but are still affiliated and viewed in their comics world as Avengers. During any given Avengers storyline throughout their publication history, there are usually one or two very popular characters leading the team, with the rest of the roster filled out by lesser-known characters getting an opportunity for audiences to experience them.  The Avengers have also participated in some of the biggest storylines in Marvel Comics history including Secret Wars, Ultimate Vision, Avengers: Disassembled, and Civil War.  The roster of characters who have been Avengers is constantly changing, and around fourteen different superhero groups have splintered off of the Avengers. 

Essential Reading and Viewing

All of the comics mentioned below are available to read on Marvel Unlimited, which is an incredible service available for comics fans that don’t mind reading their comics on their phone, tablet, or web browser. The movies can be streamed on Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, among other services.

The Ultimates (The Ultimates #1-13; Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch): This is the introduction of the Avengers in the Ultimate universe crafted by Mark Millar.  The Ultimate universe is one of my favorites runs of ANY comics, and they are all a really fun read.

Civil War (Civil War #1-7; Mark Millar and Steve McNiven): This series would have gigantic ramifications for not only the Avengers, but for the entire Marvel Universe.  It also served as the narrative groundwork for Captain America: Civil War in the MCU.

The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019): These are the movies in the MCU (so far) that center around the Avengers as a team instead of individual superheroes.  Not only are these essential viewing for fans of Marvel comics in general, but these are pretty much required viewing if you are interested in playing the Avengers in Marvel Crisis Protocol.

How Do They Play?

With a whopping 36 affiliated characters, Avengers players are really spoiled for choice when it comes to filling out their roster.  This can be both a blessing and a curse, as players can be faced with supreme flexibility because of the number of choices available, or also suffer paralysis by analysis for the same reason.  

Affiliation Strengths

• So. Many. Characters.
• Flexible playstyle that you can shape to your crisis selection.
• Multiple leaderships available to choose from (and they’re all pretty different).
• Most characters in the game will be OK in Avengers.
• Can go both tall AND wide during squad selection.

Affiliation Weaknesses

• So. Many. Characters.
• Suffer from being too much of a generalist affiliation instead of specializing in one play style.
• Some characters will never make it into a roster.
• Because unique, Avengers-affiliated characters are in both Core Sets, it can be an expensive affiliation if you want to collect them all.  

Leaderships

The Avengers currently have four different leadership possibilities, and they are three different flavors of Captain America, and one version of Tony Stark.  The oldest leader for this affiliation is Captain America (Steve Rogers) who has one of my leaderships in the game.  His leadership ability A Day Unlike Any Other allows you to reduce the power cost of the first superpower your characters use by one.  A cheaper superpower every turn always has a use, and changing your squad’s power economy can lead to different strategies being available in-game.  The second leadership ability that Avengers have comes from Captain America (Sam Wilson). His ability All New, All Different allows members of your team to remove one damage, one special condition, and advance short when an allied character is dazed or KO’d.  I’m not a big fan of abilities that trigger when my characters are dazed or KO’d, but there is utility here.  This leadership ability has been the favorite for really competitive Avengers lists, and Sam has a really great card even in lists where he is not the leader or in an Avengers affiliation.

Next, you have the newest Avengers leader in Captain America, First Avenger (Steve Rogers) from the Earth’s Mightiest Core Set. Not only do I love the sculpt (even if it harkens back to the infamous Liefeld illustration), but his leadership ability Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is really strong, too. If your characters roll a hit, they can spend a power while attacking and can then change one of the die results to any other result.  You can only do this once per turn, BUT “turn” means each time your characters activate, AND when your opponent’s characters activate if you get to attack with a reactive superpower or team tactics card.  Being able to manipulate a die roll is incredibly powerful, and this version of Captain America is starting to see more play in competitive Avengers lists. The last leadership available to Avengers is Hulkbuster, who doesn’t really see much play as a leader.  All his leadership ability allows you do is reduce collision damage by 1, which doesn’t have a ton of utility. He is still a useful character to include in a roster, but I don’t know that I would use his leadership ability.

First Purchases

If you don’t want to purchase a Core Set, you can get started with Avengers by purchasing the Avengers Affiliation Pack, 2023 Crisis Card Pack, Movement Tools and a dice pack.  From there, you can really go in any direction you want in terms of character selection, because there is such a deep roster to pick from.  You could theoretically make three full rosters of ONLY Avenger-affiliated characters if you wanted to. However, I do recommend picking up CP38 Captain America (Sam Wilson) and War Machine (James Rhodes) not only because it has one of the affiliations three leaders, but it also has the always-useful Team Tactics Card Eyes on the Prize.  Some other recommendations for early Avengers purchases include Hulk, Black Panther, and, especially since his latest card update, Deadpool.

Do I Need A Core Set?

AMG has made it possible to buy the components that come in a Core Set (dice, measurement tools, etc.) separately from a Core Set.  However, I think buying Earth’s Mightiest Core Set is a great value purchase alongside the Avenger Affiliation Pack, and will give you a good bit of variety to choose from to build out your Avengers roster.

Core Set and Extra Purchases Sample Roster

This particular list uses models, tactics cards, and crises from both the original Core Set and Earth’s Mightiest Core Set along with the purchase of CP 38 for Captain America (Sam Wilson) and War Machine.  This is nowhere near a bleeding-edge competitive list, but with characters like Ultron, Metal Tyrant and the original Baron Zemo alongside Captain Marvel, Cosmic Avenger among others, this list is not to be taken lightly.

”Core

Branching Out

The following rosters are thematically based.  I have tried to limit the amount of purchases you would need to make for each list, but with so many affiliated characters, this can be an expensive affiliation to get into.

MCU Avengers Assemble

You know them, you love them, these are the Avengers from the silver screen.  With the addition of characters like Hulk and Black Panther, this group will certainly pack a punch!

“MCU

Small Screen Avengers

This list features characters that have featured heavily into various Marvel TV shows that have been released recently on both Netflix and Disney+ including Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Luke Cage, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Secret Wars, Iron Fist, Wandavision, and Hawkeye.  This list is really fun and has a wide variety of characters to build from to fit the crises that are drawn.  And anytime you can include Hulk, your list has teeth.

“Small

Starting Other Affiliations

Thanks to a ton of character choices to make affiliation and a roster chock-full of crossover affiliations, being able to dual-affiliate and full-on start new affiliations is pretty easy if your starting point is with The Avengers.

Defenders

With the addition of a leadership ability to Daredevil in the form of Marvel Knights, The Defenders have become a very popular affiliation to play in Marvel Crisis Protocol.  In addition, the “street-level” aesthetic of the affiliation works really well with the more fantastically-powered members of The Avengers.  I chose Sam Wilson as the Avengers leader because I felt like his backstory as a member of the modern-day US Air Force would ground him in a way that Steve Rogers can’t be.  Additionally, with BOTH Hulk and Defenders mainstay Ghost Rider, your opponent has to respect that they could appear in almost any matchup, and both are a serious threat to every team out there.  Both Deadpool and Wolverine have some real staying power and can hold down a point with their healing factor ability and in Daredevil Defenders, they both really benefit from the re-rolls for enemies within range 2. Since Defenders don’t really have a tactics card (outside of Heroes for Hire) yet, they have to maximize the value of their unaffiliated cards.

“Avengers/Defenders”

S.H.I.E.L.D

S.H.I.E.L.D is another easy affiliation to branch out into if you start with the Avengers.  You even have crossover with Invincible Iron Man as a second choice for a S.H.I.E.L.D leader and affiliated Avengers character.  

“SHIELD/Avengers”

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