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Marvel: Crisis Protocol Review—Overall Rankings

Lore: 9/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Hobbying: 3/10

With Spider-Man: No Way Home nearly out, I thought that it was high time that I give a Marvel: Crisis Protocol review. I had real questions about reviewing this game because I can’t quite decide if it qualifies as a “wargame” per se. It’s got very few models, so definitely a skirmish game, and there’s no board so it’s not a board game. It’s certainly a miniatures game (and has everything that goes with that including assembly and painting) so in the end I decided that it counts. If Warcry and Kill Team count as wargames, the Marvel: Crisis Protocol counts.

Now, here’s the deal. I’ve had this game for the better part of the year and I haven’t reviewed it more than writing an article about the assembly. But it was the assembly and the painting of this game that I found so very off-putting. So off-putting, in fact, that I stuffed the box into the closet for six months and never came back to it until recently.

Hobbying—Marvel: Crisis Protocol Review

Assembling Marvel: Crisis Protocol

When I was buying this game I read reviews that said that it was hard to assemble and I scoffed thinking “I’ve been putting these kinds of models together since I was ten. How hard can it be?” And I ordered the game, started cutting pieces of sprues, and immediately started swearing.

Assembling the models in Marvel: Crisis Protocol is maddeningly stupid. Take a delicate piece like Captain Marvel’s arm: it is in three pieces–the upper arm, the lower arm, and the hand. There is NO reason for this. These pieces could easily be one piece, but they are two or three or more.

One that I found especially frustrating was Baron Zemo’s face plate. He has a regular head and then a skull mask, and the skull mask is–inexplicably–a separate piece. And it is tiny. And when I was assembling, I had to use tweezers to fix it in place because it was too small for my fingers and I DROPPED IT. And it landed in the carpet and it is gone forever.

I do not want to judge the game solely on assembly, but you can see why this game gets such a low hobbying score (well, this is the first reason).

Painting Marvel: Crisis Protocol

I don’t want to be too harsh here, but this kind of painting is simply not for me. Superheros–even superheros in movies wearing real clothes and getting really dirty–do not easily fit into the base coat, wash, highlight type of scheme. You can see in this picture of Captain America that I painted that the wash just looks atrocious–he doesn’t look like a comic book character, he looks filthy.

On the other hand, this model of Red Skull went much better, and I think it’s because he does not have such a flashy and colorful uniform. I found that to be the case with all of the models: if they have spandex uniforms then they will look poor and if they have regular clothes they will look better. I don’t consider myself to be a great painter, but I’m a good enough painter that I should have been able to make these models look better than this. (I am happy with Red Skull’s OSL from the tesseract, though.)

One More Hobby Thing To Note

The Core Set comes with some really delightful terrain. For as much as I don’t like the assembly, I love the fact that it comes with a newsstand and dumpsters and cars and light posts–all of which not only can be painted to look like the game, but which are usable in the game–the Hulk can pick up a car and throw it, essentially rearranging line-of-sight and movement, as well as being a big chunk of damage. Cool stuff.

Playing—Marvel: Crisis Protocol Review

Marvel: Crisis Protocol is based around objective tokens. There are generally six or eight tokens on the playing field and each one requires you to either grab it and retrieve it, or get to it and stand on it. These can represent people you’re rescuing or protecting, or objects that are important (like the tesseract) or anything else. These are all placed out on the table at the beginning before play begins.

One thing that I absolutely love about the gameplay, starting right at the very beginning, is that anyone can fight anyone. For people who are just familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe you can think that this represents Avengers: Civil War, but for fans of the comics you’ll know that virtually every superhero fights virtually every other superhero at one time or another. Maybe they’re working for Hydra, or maybe they’re arguing over politics and philosophy, or maybe they’re mind controlled. But the point is that you can have a team with Captain Marvel, Red Skull and Spider-Man fighting against a team with Captain America, Baron Zemo, and Black Widow.

Another thing that I love about the gameplay of Marvel: Crisis Protocol is that the game is fully contained in the starter set. With the core box you have everything that you need to play the game. No need to wait for your friend to buy and build an opposing force. You’ve got it all right here. And while there is definitely room for expansion (and expand they certainly have) you can play not just a starter game but a full and complete game of Crisis Protocol as soon as you assemble the stupid little miniatures.

Actions and Movement

Every character has two actions per turn, and, unless otherwise noted on their cards, they can do any actions twice: two melee attacks, two moves, one of each, etc.

I am NOT in love with the movement in this game. It uses range sticks that come in five different lengths, and if you need to turn a corner there are range sticks that have hinges in the middle to allow for that. And I just have to think: why can’t the game have included a tape measure. As we’ve seen with other games that have done this (like Games Workshop’s Kill Team 2.0) there is no reason why a movement stick is any better than a tape measure. Not only is it just one extra thing you have to worry about, but if you ever lose one they’re very hard to replace (unlike a tape measure you can buy for a couple bucks).

But the gameplay itself is very good and thematic. As I mentioned before, you have to negotiate terrain, hiding behind some and looking over some (there is a stat on your card that shows how big you are–what you can hide behind and what you can see over). But the terrain changes as things are blasted and thrown and moved, all of which disrupts your plans if you’re getting ready to charge someone in hand-to-hand and suddenly there’s car in-between the two of you.

The cards are a great mechanic. Each card has two sides (obviously) with one side showing your powers and abilities when you are fresh and new, and one that shows your powers and abilities when you are damaged and stressed. This can be good or bad. When you’re damaged, or wounded, you can lose power in some stats, but there are times when you gain power instead. Captain America gets more wounds once he’s damaged because Cap has grit and he “can do this all day.”

Lore—Marvel Crisis Protocol Review

It should go without saying that a genre of storytelling that has existed for eighty years will have PLENTY of lore on which to draw, and Atomic Mass Games has not pulled any punches. I was extremely pleased to see that the Core Set was not second-rate heroes but included the big guys like Captain America and Spider-Man and Red Skull and Doc Ock. But the expansions are wonderful, too.

Want to replay Avengers? All of them are here. Want to recreate Spider-Man: No Way Home? You’ve got Spider-Man (in multiple forms), Doc Ock, Green Goblin, Lizard, and more. Want an X-Men force? There’s Wolverine, Magneto, Storm, Cyclops, Sabretooth, and many many more.

I’m not a comic book expert who can discuss the lore in great detail. As a kid I had a subscription to The Amazing Spider-Man and that was it. But from what I have seen they have an absolute ton of options for models, and they appear to be gorgeous sculpts, combined with a good gameplay system (assuming you can assemble them).

The natural comparison here is: how does this stand up to Heroclix, the other game that follows quite a bit of the same ideas. The gameplay of both is different, but they’re spiritually connected. And while Heroclix has a much wider range of models, the Marvel Crisis Protocol models are superior, and the gameplay is much more rich and detailed. It’s hard to make a one-to-one comparison, but if I had to play one versus the other, Marvel: Crisis Protocol would win handily.

My scores for this Marvel: Crisis Protocol Review are:

Lore: 9/10 — truly rich and detailed, with decades of story
Gameplay: 7/10 — fun and dynamic but not groundbreaking
Hobbying: 3/10 — Painting is hard and assembly is harder

Looking to Pick Up Marvel: Crisis Protocol?

Here’s just a selection to whet the palette.

Marvel: Crisis Protocol Core Set (Buy)

Thanos: (Buy)

Wolverine and Sabretooth: (Buy)

Groot and Rocket: (Buy)

Venom: (Buy)