When I heard Captain America say these words in the final act of Avengers Endgame I, like many fans of the MCU, went mad with excitement.
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| So happy to have this on my lap right now... |
Marvel and Me
I can honestly say I've been a Marvel fanboy since I was a kid. As soon as I first watched the Marvel X-Men and Spider-man Cartoons for the early 90's I was hooked, and I've been a fanboy ever since.
Over the years as my enthusiasm (and finances) waxed and waned I've picked up comic books and followed the stories more and less actively, holding subscriptions to some of my favourite characters for shorter or longer periods. I won't go into too much detail here (possibly content for another time!), but throughout all of that I was desperate for a Marvel based miniatures game.
Then, a few years ago, my dreams were answered. Knight Models produced a Marvel Miniatures Game, offering Starter Forces for the Guardians of the Galaxy, the X-Men and the Avengers. For 12-18 months I was hooked, and bought every model they released.
But sadly, it was not meant to be. Support for the game was silenced, the community got increasingly toxic, and finally we had an announcement saying the game was discontinued.
On reflection, it wasn't the best game. The miniatures were average - okay sculpts but terrible mold lines and very fine detail which was often lost in manufacture - and the game system was pretty poor.
When Crisis Protocol was first released in 2019 my hope was rekindled, but I'd been burned before and wanted to take some before buying.
That all changed when I saw this;
A teaser from Atomic Games... the X-men were coming.
That was all the excuse I needed to jump head first into the game system! And I cannot wait to see that teaser in full!
With the base game picked I thought I'd start a new blog series tracking my experiences collecting and learning the games, starting from the very beginning...
Unboxing Marvel Crisis Protocol
I've never written an Unboxing before, so let's give this a go!
First Impressions
Sat here, box on my lap, I'm struck by how light the box is. A lot of modern boxed-mini games are packed full of dense resin minis and hefty sets of cards.
I'm considering this a good sign.
The production quality of the box is great - detailed full colour artwork all over, a nice short summary on the back with a detailed pic of the box contents. Great!
There's also a Box Contents listed on the back, which was a nice touch for those looking to buy as a passing fancy.
It was here I found my first surprise; the base game comes with scenery!! That'll teach me to read the product description!
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| An impression amount of content for around £80 |
Under the Lid; First Opening
Lifting the lid I was pretty impressed with how packed the box is, despite the weight.
The box content can be broadly broken into a few layers
Layer 1 has the character cards, rules book and the tokens
Layer 2 contains the real meat of the box - bags and bags of sprue!
I was super impressed with the decision to wrap everything in it's own sprue. Whilst the plastic looks pretty solid, the bags will help keep any pesky runaways from falling off!
Plus with all the tokens and cards some baggies are just what Doc Ock ordered!
Layer 3 contains the last little bits, the dice and cards held securely by a fold out cardboard insert (not that there was much wiggle room with all that sprue lying on top of it.
Now, I thought that was everything until I removed the cardboard and found secret layer 4; the measuring devices and car chassis'
A really hefty amount of kit for the game!
I'm certainly a fan of the "everything in one box" type of game, and knowing I get all the dice and measuring stick included is great. Especially considering the measuring sticks are the same plastic as the models; that was under unexpected, but pleasant, surprise!
Opening the booklet
Coming in at 45 pages, the Learn to Play booklet is nice and lean; just what I want to see!
I was a bit concerned to only find one booklet inside, accustomed as I am to Games Workshop's practice of separate rule and build guide books), but flicking to the Contents Page I was reassured
The Learn to play booklet provides a comprehensive overview of the game rules in the first 26 Pages.
The remaining elements of the book are character overviews (a nice touch for fans of the MCU that may have less knowledge of the comic book origins of the characters) and the Assembly diagrams for the models.
One of the nicer elements of the booklet is that there's different colours on the page edges between the rules and assembly guides; the rules are orange and the assembly guides black. It provides a nice quick reference between the sections
As nice as this is, I think I'd have preferred to have them as two separate booklets. personal preference I guess!
It also just feels a little strange getting half way through a booklet before seeing a page that reads "read this first"
As a Veteran Wargamer I've come to expect build guides with models and went looking for it, but I can see more inexperienced players getting tripped up by this.
It's a minor sin though, and certainly not one that's curbing my excitement
The gaming accessories
Sheet of tokens are like Pringles - once you pop you just can't stop! And naturally the first thing I did was pop them all out!
I've played enough of these out-of-the-box, token-heavy games to have built up a bit of a superstition/ philosophy about tokens; I think you can really judge a game by the quality of the tokens, and the tokens themselves can speak volumes about the production quality of a set.
I've had a few games where the tokens have been flimsy, or have started to feel as soon as they're popped out because they we're cut properly, or the design was bonded to the badly.
None of these were true for the tokens with Crisis protocol; nice thick cardboard, popped out easy with a clean and clear design.
There's not much to say about the dice - D8s are always a nice choice to see in games! I'm also a fan on non-standard / non-numeric dice too. It's make losing the dice painful, but helps keep the game nice and compact (I've got an obscene number of dice at home, as I'm sure many readers do!)
Each Character ability name has a very comic-style font, whilst the rules are written in a more "normal" font. Fun/ quirky font's for rules can create problems when reading, and I personally love this balance between style and substance
Another thing I love about the design of these cards is the double-sided nature.
Based on a cursory scan of the rules, a character's profile can change over the course of the battle, and this is denoted by players flipping the character card.
In the first character card photo you'll notice a the cards have a blue-hue, and the icons beneath the character name are Teal.
If we flip the cards...
You'll notice the card hue has changed to a red/black and the character symbols are now orange, not tear.
Oh, and FAR MORE NOTICEABLY the Character artwork has changed; on the undamaged side our hero's look clean and stoic, on the damaged side they're much more worse for wear.
It's a really small touch that really shows the detail and depth the designers went into when making the game.
In addition to the Character cards, there are also smaller Tactics/ Map/ Affiliation cards. The design of these cards is great, with some appropriate artwork on one side and rules on the reverse.
I'm not overly impressed with the finish on the cards. I've played a lot of card games, and there's something about these that feel's 'off'; the edges are a bit too sharp/ firm and the finish, whilst laminated, isn't to the same quality as i'd expect from other card/mini games.
That being said, I don't know how the cards interact with the rules yet. If there's not hard/ deck to speak of then my criticism means nothing - doesn't matter how they feel if you don't need to hold them!
As a side note these cards are also the same as a standard playing card/ Magic the Gathering card, so getting card sleeves should be no issue at all
Moving on to the measuring tools, I'd seen photos of the kit assumed they were card, like in X-wing. I was pleasantly surprised to find out they were plastic!
The distance measuring tools really blew me away though.
Not only are they two part hard plastic, with a nice simple clip design to attach them...
...but the designs on them were outstanding!
As I said on the character cards, it's a cute little detail that's ultimately unnecessary, but shows how much attention and love the developers poured into the game.
Phenomenal!
What we've all been waiting for...
Now the entrees' are over it's time for the main course - the models.
I've not committed to clipping them out yet, but oh my these models are fantastic!
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| Captain America; side 1 |
The quality is as good as anything you'd expect from Games Workshop, with crisp well resolved details and not a mold-line in sight.
Moreover, each model is supplied on their own individual sprue, which is another great touch. Something you probably can't see on the sprue is that the pieces are individually numbered, which actually ties in to one of the criticisms I have of the set.
The build instructions for the models are super clean, tidy and visually very easy to follow; great for beginners and veteran alike.
Overall verdict
For the cost of the box, I'm stunned by the quality. Not only do you get a hefty selection of miniatures and scenery, but the quality is good enough to rival anyone in the industry.
The gaming extras are just as good, with small design elements that elevate them beyond just functional pieces.
It's not perfect and there are some things that haven't sat well with me, although they're very minor and could be ironed out in subsequent printings.
It's rare for me to open a new boxed game and be disappointed to be fair, but this has exceeded all my expectations.
9.5/10 for sure!
If the rules are as lovingly assembled as the box content I'll be a happy man!
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! If you've got any comments or suggestions for improving this style of content then let me know in the comments below.
Equally if you want to read more unboxing articles, or more Crisis Protocol content then let me know and I'll up the frequency!
Until next time, stay safe and happy hobby all!
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