On March 8, 2023, Fantasy Flight Games held an FFG Live stream featuring Marvel Champions. Josh Massey returned as the host of FFG Live, with Marvel Champions lead designers Caleb Grace and Tony Fanchi commanding Rogue and Gambit to play against Magneto; from the Mutant Genesis box. Here’s a quick recap of everything that came out of that stream.
The full March 2023 Marvel Champions stream
Quotes from the March 2023 stream
No new announcements were made outside of the existence of an upcoming OP kit for the game, though an FAQ is “coming out in the near future,” (headed up by Tony), and the game is still alive and well.
“Hello everyone! Thanks for joining us for a playthrough of the Magneto Scenario! Tony and Caleb will be showing off the brand new Rogue and Gambit Hero Packs and we will be discussing OP as well! – FFG
“We know that we have not really said a lot about the future of Marvel Champions and we want to put all of your minds at ease. There have been a lot of changes inside the studio…Tony is coming on board and doing wonderful things, but because of that there were some learning curves and things like that. The game is not going anywhere. We’re going to mention something else…that’s coming out soon.” – Josh
“Tony has also made himself invaluable to the team by taking on the next iteration of the FAQ. I’ve been a little busy. People can expect that in the near future too.” – Caleb
“Magneto is a big deal. That’s the first X-Men comic I read.” – Caleb
“A tough status card is something we put in the core set…as basically tools of the trade. Maybe not every villain, but most villains will interact with these tokens in some way. I don’t know if it was a conscious choice…but Magneto, Magneto should be hard to put down. That’s as much as I can share off my memory.” – Caleb
OP (organized play) cards/materials shown off in the March 2023 stream
“We know that you have all the content for the game…we’ve created booster packs for this game. What will happen in your store, just for hanging out and participating, you’ll receive a booster pack. These will contain what we’re calling our common cards, like villains…in my case, I got Toad. Or heroes…I got Kitty Pryde. Each of these packs will have also what we’re calling rare cards, which will be that alternate art hero card.” – Josh
“Each kit is designed to support 4 players (more than 4 players means multiple kits). Kit has 1 hero dial, 1 villain dial, and 5 blind bags for each of those 4 players.
It is the 8 heroes from this wave, and the villains from Mutant Genesis. Each villain gets one card that is double-sided.” – Peter S – FFG Marketing Writer (Discord)
Thanks to the incredible efforts from community member Logan Giannini, many Marvel Champions heroes that never received official playmats now have official-esque files to plug and play into various playmat printing services.
Logan’s Google Drive can be found here. The drive now also has labeled playmats, as well as deck boxes, from several other community members (Lyle Valentine and Nicholas Guppy).
The results are simply astounding: Logan has not only replicated the official Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) playmat style, but they’ve also provided 1-4 player mats for every campaign box thus far (Galaxy’s Most Wanted, Sinister Motives, and Mutant Genesis are among the choices).
For reference, FFG stopped providing hero mats after wave 2 (post Scarlet Witch), and never made any 1-4 player mats after The Rise of Red Skull box. The Thor mat was also never official released, though the art/design was revealed. You can find a list of every official playmat here.
Choosing a service to print them with
Logan has thankfully provided a full breakdown of how to print their playmat projects: which you can find in the gallery above. A standard playmat (read: an individual hero mat) generally clocks in at 24″x14.”
Your core options are Inkedgaming and Yourplaymat.com. Yourplaymat offers an array of standard sizes, as well as a “custom sized playmat” option. Logan suggests a 26″x26″ size for the bigger mats, which aligns with the previous measurement of FFG’s limited run 1-4 player mats.
Inkedgaming only offers non-standard sizes in 24″x28″, 36″x36″, and 48″x48″ (which is excessive), so keep that in mind. The images are of high enough quality where you have other options too, including MCustomInk on Etsy. A UK community member has recommended Custom Patriot Games for UK orders.
The results
The end product is incredible, thanks to Logan’s diligent handling of the source images. They’re extremely high in quality, to the point where this massive 36″x36″ 1-4 player Mutant Genesis project below turned out fantastically: with vibrant colors to boot.
FFG Chat: “We had over 100 submissions. There will be PDFs of the campaigns on our website. Due to the number of campaign submissions we received we did not play through any of the submissions…yet. We will post on our social channels when they are available on our website.”
Intro
Josh: “For anyone that did submit a campaign, feel free to share it. If it isn’t one of these top five we talked about today, feel free to share it on social media. “These will be shared by us in the future. There are steps we need to take. Just a heads-up, there might be some story elements we can’t really talk about when we post them on our own websites.”
Caleb: “The top five are in no particular order.”
Tony: “So when we posted the announcement article we listed some criteria…I gave everything a score from 1-5 in each category, and averaged out the numbers.”
Josh: “36% of submissions had The Hood as one of the villains. 34% used Kang. Rhino was in 30% of them. Green Goblin was 29% (Risky Business). Following that Ultron with 26%. Mutagen was 25%, Klaw was 25%, Mysterio was 23%, Wrecking Crew at 22%, and Taskmaster at 19%. One and a half from every submission had scenario packs. 81% had core set, 78% from Red Skull, 69% from MTS.”
First winner: What If…? – Amanda S.
Caleb: “It starts modest. Risky Business is the first scenario. At the end when you get to victory, ‘what if’ happens. You choose a trait. You get access to cards with this trait [across aspects] after the campaign. Spider-Man becomes the Sorcerer Supreme, Miles becomes Thor. Some of the titles were great. Scenario 2 was Tower Defense, but the title was ‘I feel like we defended this tower before.’ There were cool setup things. When setting up TD, you choose an aspect one of the other players is playing…and depending on the aspect you choose it changes the additional setup. If you choose aggression each player chooses a minion and puts it into play engaged with them at the start. Save the shawarma place is here.”
Tony: “Scenario three is Taskmaster, and you start with your hero-specific ally captured. Scenario four is The Hood. Four of the modular sets that were selected were based on the trait you picked at the start of the campaign. Ultron with the infinity gauntlet is the next scenario.”
Second winner: Entropic Ascension – Carl W.
Tony: “This one has two different scenario two options. You can only play one of them.”
Caleb: “I did it with a ton in LOTR, designing these branching paths. I do it visually, I’m the same way. Every scenario begins with a choice during setup, choose these modular sets. You can choose Tombstone and try and protect the journalists, and you shuffle the running interference set…or Electro is threatening the power grid in the city. You can’t do both. So whatever one you don’t do it comes back to haunt you later. That was a neat touch.”
Tony: “You start with Taskmaster, and you make a choice, what are you going to do. That first choice also impacts which modular sets you include. Your two options for scenario two are Rhino and Mysterio.”
Caleb: “The next one is Oscorp: you can shuffle in Iron Spider Sinister Six, or Crossfire.”
Tony: “Going into scenario four we have The Hood. All the choices you made dictate the mods The Hood is going to use.”
Third winner: Awesome Campaign Volume 1 – Steel Hull
Caleb: “This was possibly my favorite. Every scenario the name has been changed to be a title of the song [a song from the first Guardians movie]. You can’t choose a Guardian traited hero this campaign. The story is you’re teaming up with the Guardians. Scenario one is Ronan, Ronan has a reputation for being a challenging scenario. With MODOK. You start with honorary guardian attached to your hero, start with a Guardian ally in play. You get a card from the market.”
Tony: “I think they’re all the ship mods. Upgrades you start in play.”
Caleb: Scenario 2 is Aint No Mountain High Enough. It’s Absorbing Man. I thought this was a slick use of Absorbing Man. Including the Frost Giants. Heroes can’t be readied by player card effects starts out in play. Each player starts out stunned/confused/exhausted. Here we have Ronan which is notoriously difficult…then we have Absorbing Man which is deemed to be on the easier side.
Scenario 3 is escape, this is a Wrecking Crew scenario. Only the active villain can take damage, and only the active villain side scheme can be thwarted. This one actually has one of my favorite flourishes. One complaint I heard is that it didn’t allow for you to modify the deck. You take the four card experimental weapons set, then shuffle one card into each deck.”
Tony: “Next we have Cherry Bomb with Red Skull. You include both the Wrecking Crew and Children of Thanos modular set. Scenario five is Spirit in the Sky. You have Thanos coming down…if you didn’t defeat MODOK he comes out, if you didn’t defeat the Sleeper he comes out. The Guardians then make their return.”
Fourth winner: The Crimson Cowl Conspiracy – Kurt H
Tony: “You’re tracking down the Masters of Evil. There’s the assembled Avengers, so every time you have an Avenger in play at the end of the game, it gets cheaper to play in future scenarios. It uses the SHIELD tech upgrades from Sinister Motives.”
Caleb: “During setup for the first scenario you have to choose an aspect all of them have to be different. Those get referenced throughout during setup. A Leadership player draws an additional card during setup, and each non-L player puts the Quinjet in play.”
Tony: “Scenario 2 we take on Klaw. Aggression puts a free card into play. Each other player gets the counterattack upgrade. Every Masters of Evil minion shows up that didn’t get defeated in the first one.”
Caleb: “Scenario 3 is Absorbing Man again.”
Tony: “Everyone not in Protection is getting the anticipation upgrade. Then you take down Wrecking Crew. For all the minions you put away, you add their scheme together which becomes an intel level, which comes into play.”
Caleb: “Then there’s Ultron. You have this intel value, and when you setup, you have this throwback to all the special setups you had. If you have seven or greater you do all of the special aspect setups. If you get to nine, you get a tough card.”
Fifth winner: Going Viral – Henry B
Tony: “Ultron is trying to spread a computer virus to all the cybernetic heroes and apply it to other heroes as well.”
Caleb: “Taskmaster is first…this campaign adds several more heroes for hire allies. Ant-Man Hank Pym. Tony Stark, Jocasta, Vision, Wasp. All the people connected to Ultron’s lore.”
Tony: “There’s a Pym anti-virus tracker. You move up for good things, bad things, like threat on main scheme, it moves the tracker. The more Ultron moves toward his goal of infecting the planet. We go to an interlude, like the Arkham Horror card game, leading into a choice of scenario 2 again. This takes a different angle. Three scenario 2s, with choosing the order to play them…and it matters.”
Caleb: “You fail forward, like Arkham Horror. You have three different threats where Ultron is expanding his goal, and you can’t get to all three, and you choose two of the three, and each one you fail to stop, increases the difficulty of the final showdown. The first option is Zola [2A]. I designed Zola a long time ago, thematically, it makes sense. Zola is the expert with his bio-engineered creations.”
Tony: “If you chose Zola second, a minion gets an attachment.”
Caleb: “Yeah, some scenario setups are different [and impact other scenarios based on the order]. If there’s a copy of MODOK or the MODOK side scheme in play, you record that MODOK got away. [After the extra scenarios] You move onto interlude 2 and Ultron.”
Tony: “Scenario 2B is Sinister Six. They’re working for Oscorp, helping Ultron.”
Caleb: “Both Doctor Octopus and Scorpion have tech in their kit. Ultron has already invaded their minds. Then we move to Nebula [2C]…who is vulnerable to Ultron.”
Tony: “You need to remove all evasion counters from Nebula, otherwise she gets away, even if you defeated her.”
Josh: “You have another interlude. Depending on the log there’s different story beats going on. Capturing Zola, defeating the Sinister Six…”
Caleb: “Ultron makes a great final villain.”
Wrap-up
Josh: “So after looking at this and seeing other design processes, give other people an idea of what’s similar to what you might do.”
Tony: “Probably the first thing I’d point out…the comic panels in the rulebooks. Those are a very important part of Marvel Champions, it gives the game that comic book feel. Those are great but they can also be a little restrictive with what we can do with the campaign structure, so we’re limited. So all the branching stories…AH does a fantastic job of those, they don’t quite fit the structure of Marvel Champions campaigns.”
Caleb: “Yeah people reach out…have you thought of branching paths and failing forward…we only have so many cards we can put in the box, and only so many pages we can put in the rulebook. So far we haven’t cracked that code. We’re under some restrictions the people are doing this aren’t. We’re designing new scenarios. Space is a premium, we’re figuring out…we want all these different modular sets…so in order to fit this thing we need to share sets between scenarios. It’s a little bit like Jenga.”
Tony: “Another advantage the contest entrants have is they can combine many different products…whereas we make every product standalone, except for the core. As I was thinking about how I’d approach this contest, the scenarios that exist have story elements you need to kind of tie in, like Hela, she didn’t show up a lot, maybe that’s due to the story elements.”
Josh: “The people that we chose today will be getting a copy of Mutant Genesis. Look forward to that very soon. A huge thank you and shoutout to everyone who submitted to this contest. We appreciate you for doing that.”
If you have a campaign, please send it to hallofheroescontact(at)gmail.com, preferably with a GDrive link, and a name you would like to be credited with.
A list of other Marvel Champions Campaign Contest entrants (those that are hosted directly are hosted with permission):
Head of Studio Chris Gerber gears up for an on-location “In-Flight Short” with FFG stream host Josh Massey.
FFG is demoing “seven games” at Gen Con 2022, alongside of the Twilight Imperium 25th anniversary tournament. “Today is Marvel day,” Massey says. Gerber notes that his favorite mutants are Colossus and Gambit: as well as Magneto.
“We did a trilogy of three boxes….and a little Spider-Man drop there, but now we’re getting into the mutants, and we’re going to have a few similar campaigns dealing with them.” – Gerber
Gerber reiterates that Colossus, Kitty Pryde, Phoenix, and Cyclops have all been announced. He also announced another hero: “the next one coming” is Wolverine. That’s the hero pack after Phoenix.
“Wolverine has the amazing healing factor involved, so he actually damages himself to fuel his attack powers and obviously then can heal those back up. So he’s very unique. We’ll talk about him in the next couple of months.” – Gerber
“We’re not quite ready to divulge the next big actual campaign, but we make those scenario packs…so the next one is later this year called Mojo Mania, and all the shenanigans he’s up to. The heroes get captured…and thrown into a gauntlet of crazy television tropes, because of the way it works you get three scenarios that can link together to get a mini campaign. You face off against different genres of television, so fantasy, crime drama all that stuff down to sitcom.” – Gerber
So much news and it was just Day 1 of the FFG Live In-Flight Shorts! Wolverine and Mojo will be entering play in Marvel Champions: The Card Game! And a brand new board game is on its way… Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R.! Catch up on all the news on our Youtube page: https://t.co/o0HUrpq3drpic.twitter.com/P32HAQi5oD
Gerber announces “Marvel DAGGER,” a board game. It means “defense alliance for global and galactic emergency response.” A logo is coming on social media “soon.” [Edit: see above]
The duo then showed off a video of the things they discussed on the stream (which were mostly still images of the two above announcements).
Summation of the Marvel Champions news today:
Wolverine is the next hero pack after Phoenix
Mojo Mania is a three-scenario standalone pack due out “this year”
Caleb joins Josh in-person to talk about Mutant Genesis (images are as high-res as possible captured directly from the stream)
“We work so far ahead I have to try and remember what are the innovations. We want every box to bring something new to the game. This box in particular…we didn’t want to shoot too high…this box we wanted it to be a good entry point. Right away when I ran the first demo, “when are the X-Men coming,” we want to strike a balance to make sure it’s beginner friendly, but give people something new for people who have been with us since 2019.” – Caleb
“Each of these roles [in the X-Men box story rules] have specific cards associated with them, but it also grants you limited access to those spheres…those custom cards allow you to do things that a commander would allow you to do. We envisioned the X-Men different from the Avengers and different from the Guardians…they live together. They’re constantly drilling and using their powers together. That’s where the roles came from and where the player cards came from too.” – Caleb
“Storm is a very capable leader.” – Caleb
“You earn your campaign card for that scenario, and you also shuffle in something nasty…so this is Nimrod. Whenever you defeat one of these it’s a balance, you get something good and something bad. When you defeat this [a side scheme]…now you got ally Magneto, you flip it over, you get to control Magneto.” – Caleb
“I talked about the X-Men being very team oriented, so they have an ally focus instead of chump blocking with allies you’re encouraged to keep them in play. So one of the things I like the most about is the villains…I grew up in the ’90s so Magneto has his own crew. So we have the keyword teamwork…these sets are so fun to design, so I think it’s the only new keyword: if you’re already engaged with Fabian Cortez here, and you reveal Amelia, the moment she engages you they’re both going to activate. I might have made a treachery that triggers their when defeated ability.” – Caleb
Stream ended at 2:27PM ET
MJ Newman has shared some behind the scenes pictures of what FFG’s presence at Gen Con looks like in person
Head of Studio Chris Gerber is back with FFG host Josh Massey on day 2 of Gen Con to present the second In-Flight short.
Today is the one year anniversary of Descent’s new edition. “We could not be more pleased with the fan reception,” says Gerber.
FFG is teasing the “Act 2” cover art on the back of their shirts at Gen Con [see the image below]. It’ll pick up the story “right where Act 1 leaves off at the cliffhanger.”
Meanwhile Ghosts of Greyhaven is still a side story, though it’s not part of the main structure/storyline of the game. “We’re still working on that product,” Gerber says, “while prioritizing Act 2.” It’s still intended to be a side story to be played at any time.
Now they’ve shifted gears to Arkham Horror LCG for the Scarlet Keys expansion
“It’s pretty much the largest campaign we’ve ever made for Arkham” – Gerber
“That’s not all the Arkham Horror we’re working on. We’re working on multiple campaigns for the future.” – Gerber
Gerber then shows a map of the Scarlet Keys campaign. The concept of the foldable map will be in the final product, but the above image isn’t the exact final production version.
“This is a map of the entire…everywhere you can go in your campaign. So the cool thing about this, it starts out from a place where there’s a set beginning to the campaign, but opens up to a non-linear story. You couldn’t really have it in the [old release model].
It has all the locations you can go…some hidden locations some secret things that might be unlocked during the campaign. Also the green…locations are the side story locations, you can actually take your side stories that we’ve made like…Blob, and incorporate them as possible locations within this campaign, expanding this campaign as you see fit.” – Gerber
A “Monte Carlo product” is teased, and is an extra location on the map [MJ shared the third image in the above gallery herself].
Maxine “MJ” Newman then joins Josh to talk about Arkham Horror
“[Monte Carlo] All I can say is if you’re always wanted to participate, plan and execute a daring heist in Arkham, you might have your chance soon.” – MJ
“Kymani is one of the new investigators…they’re absolutely new to the IP…which is really exciting. Kymani is especially cool to me because their whole backstory involves…they are a security consultant, that’s their day job. By night they’re actually the thief that’s stealing…they’re reclaiming these artifacts from museums and collectors and bringing them back to the people who originally own them.” – MJ
“[On the pronunciation] I say [Kai]-Mani” – MJ
“You’ll be using this card almost every turn when you put this into play [grappling hook]. What’s really cool though is there’s some new cards coming that interact with tools. At least one has already been spoiled.” – MJ
“Kymani’s weakness is interesting…it’s another new character we’re adding to the IP. What you can’t see from this card is that he’s an ICCP agent that’s on to Kymani’s antics. He’s also a member of the Red Cotorie” – MJ
“We can’t say exactly…when it’s coming out [Scarlet Keys] but it is coming soon. We’ll have playthroughs.” – Josh
No news was provided on other products, including the next revised cycle.
This stream is billed as “a conversation about Cosmic Encounter’s newest expansion: Cosmic Odyssey” with Jack Reda. This was said in the YouTube chat: “There won’t be any big news today, but tune in tomorrow as we close out the In-Flight Shorts for the week!”
FFG host Josh Massey intros the stream, noting that they’re at the “final table” of the Twilight Imperium tournament, with the top eight.
FFG then showed a very short video for Cosmic Encounters as a bumper, similar to the other two days of the “In-Flight Short” format. When the video ended, Jack Reda joined Josh to talk about the game.
“I was inmiddle school in Detroit in the ’80s when I was introduced to the…real board game Dune. We loved it, we played it every week. My friend said I had another game from the same designs, that’s Cosmic Encounters. We never played Dune again with that group. I mean I’ve played it again and I’m designing expansions for Dune years later, but Cosmic Encounters captured my imagination in a way I never thought possible…each expansion made the game and the universe more exciting. It inspired me to come up with my own designs for a game. I came up with designs when I was in high school.” – Reda
“The original designers asked me to join their company…and one of those things was a seventh edition for Fantasy Flight’s Cosmic Encounter…and they said unleash yourself…I’m frankly astounding that Fantasy Flight packed as much into the box as they did.” – Reda
Josh says that Reda mentioned something exciting about Cosmic Encounters off-camera and it’s the “best part of the expansion.” Reda replies that it’s a “multiverse” of Cosmic Encounter, including original references and Easter eggs. It “expands everything that Fantasy Flight has put into Cosmic Encounter over the years.” Elements of the expansion can combine or standalone for “more space stations, hazards, and an even bigger reward deck.” Reda states: “There’s new stuff as well…like the moons…those are very vibrant and robust variants, but there’s stuff that’s never been part of Cosmic Encounter before.”
“Probably one of the biggest strengths of the campaign…is a lot of people are like you have all these expansions and variants. It’s modular by design…but the campaign prescribes exactly what you’re going to use, and it parcels it out, and it’s challenging but not too challenging. It tells you ‘we’re going to use moons,’ and in the campaign guide it tells you…it handholds and walks you through the process.” – Reda
Reda is asked for a closing thought:
“We’re forward thinking, I always hear sometime an expansion comes out…there couldn’t possibly be anything else that comes out after this. We’re always thinking about the future, we don’t know if there will be an expansion after seven…but there’s one thing that hasn’t been re-imagined for Fantasy Flight, and if we ever get the opportunity to bring it out, it’ll blow people’s minds. The gauntlet is out Fantasy Flight, I challenge you to let us do it. But this expansion alone, 42 new aliens…it’s so wildly different. It would take you 100 lifetimes to see the full spectrum. We started a thing called the bucket list of virtually impossible things you can do in Cosmic…and we check them off…it’s happening, we’re trying to build a community on Discord. We want people to keep homebrewing. We’re in an age now where it’s so easy to implement those crazy new ideas and take them for a test drive.” – Reda
“We’ll catch you at the same time tomorrow for our closing of Gen Con.” – Josh
In the chat before the stream: “Hello everyone, and thanks for joining us today! We’re super excited to wrap up Gen Con with you all, as well as introduce you to the winner of the Twilight Imperium 25th Anniversary Tournament!”
FFG was given a “best of Gen Con” award from Gaming Trend for Twilight Inscription, which is coming out in “September.”
A quick video was shown off of Twilight Inscription “while the team transitions over to the Twilight Imperium 25th chat.” Bethany Wehby was the champion for the Twilight Imperium 25th anniversary tournament. Bethany talked about her experience with the Twilight Imperium tournament, then head of studio Chris Gerber came on to “say goodbye” to Gen Con 2022. According to the chat, the winner of the Twilight Imperium was “received a trophy with a large War Sun on top, along with other participation prizes for each day!”
Gerber has one more “fun thing they’re excited to share.”
The Rebel vs. Empire Star Wars deckbuilding game. The stream then abruptly ended immediately, without any elaboration beyond an image. Caleb Grace (LOTR LCG/Marvel LCG) is front and center on the box.
This past week, we held our second “favorite scenario” survey. Here are the results, with a pretty large sample size of 645 votes!
The top 10
Amazingly, exactly one year to the day of the first poll results, Kang has won again. The Lord of the Rings-inspired design takes the crown, which directly leads into another Lord of the Rings-adjacent villain and newcomer that has taken the number two spot: Hela. It was close!
Given how good the word of mouth is for Hela, it’s a no-brainer that people like her so much: she offers a way to play the game that differs from the typical “cage match” villain battle. It’ll be fascinating to see how she holds up in the future if we get more of those types of scenarios. Assuming that the team sees the positive reception and decides to iterate upon Hela, we could see it sometime around mid-2023 (given the year and a half lead time).
Coming in at number three is Mutagen Formula, which took home the number two spot in 2021. I had fully expected these three to make an appearance in the top five, but it’s good to see that newcomers and long-timers alike are still enjoying Kang and Mutagen.
From there, things get a little less predictable. 65 people voted for the Sinister Six scenario to take the fourth overall spot, which is one of the one of the two appearances of the Sinister Motives box in the top 10. It seems as if people took to the unique approach of fighting a horde of villains and escaping via a side scheme. The other is the thematic and encounter card-heavy Mysterio, which comes in at number five, directly below Sinister Six.
After that is The Hood, which has been polarizing in many circles, but popular enough to warrant the overall sixth spot. Some defenders cite the heavy usage of modular sets as a reason to revisit The Hood. That’s followed by Red Skull, Thanos, Tower Defense, and Taskmaster comprising the top 10 respectively.
As far as the breakdown of the top 10 goes, there’s a great split of six Caleb-helmed scenarios and four Boggs-led scenarios. One scenario is from 2019, three are from 2020, four are from 2021, and two are from 2022. Mad Titan’s Shadow was the most represented box with three scenarios, but Sinister Motives was right behind it. Three of the top 10 scenarios were from individual packs, seven were from boxes.
Kang, Mutagen, Red Skull, and Taskmaster all remained in the top 10 from 2021 to 2022, and deserve a special honor for withstanding the test of time.
Middle of the road
Venom comes in very close right behind Taskmaster with 14 votes to Taskmaster’s 16.
Outside of the top 10, beyond Venom, we have Risky Business, Sandman, Ultron, Klaw, Collector 2, Collector 1, Crossbones, Rhino, Loki, Drang, Zola, and Ebony Maw.
Throughout the lifetime of these scenarios, players have reported all sorts of experiences (positive and negative), and several of these were already in the middle of the pack in the 2021 poll: they stayed stagnant, without any sort of new lease on life/revelatory mod situation.
Risky Business (previously overall third last year, now 12) is one of the biggest falls from the 2021 poll to the most recent one, now that there’s more competition to deal with. Ultron and Klaw similarly fell a bit out of the top 10 but are still at a respectable position in the 2022 poll.
The bottom five
Looking at the bottom five, not much has changed. Absorbing Man, Nebula, and Ronan are still a few of the least-liked scenarios. Now they are joined by Wrecking Crew being dragged down from the middle of the pack to the bottom five, with Venom Goblin making a surprise-appearance in that same category.
None of these are real big surprises, and if you frequent any online communities, they are frequently coming up. Nebula, Ronan, and Venom Goblin are disliked because they’re overtuned, or too random (excessive RNG is generally a design principle that can create negative player experiences for everyone involved). Wrecking Crew doesn’t support modular sets, so as time goes on, it ages less gracefully. Absorbing Man is one of the standout outliers, but theme and mechanics generally don’t go far enough to make use of the scenario’s potential, and it ultimately doesn’t even justify the use of the character.
Thanks to everyone for voting! Our second poll was a huge success and you’re a big reason why.
Once again Chris Gerber, Head of FFG studio, is presenting for the 2021 InFlight Report.
Gerber notes there will be “some updates to some of our biggest product lines, including new things we’re going to tease for the first time.” He also explains that FFG “will not be able to give precise release dates for anything.”
Descent: Legends of the Dark
Gerber: “This beast of a game is one of FFG’s crowning achievements…over three years in the making”
A Terrinoth Legends universe has been teased
High quality dice from LevelUp are shown as is the new book.
“Pleased to confirm Act 2 is well on its way through development at FFG.” A “tricky new foe for Ghosts of Grayhaven” is confirmed. Incorporated in the main Blood and Flame campaign. This is a prototype.
Early tease of Act 2: they are “upping the ante” in terms of scale (Act 2 is on the right)
Onto KeyForge
Gerber re-iterates that the game is “going on hiatus for a bit.” [Context] They still “hope and intend to launch a digital version.”
A new faction of merchants about trade and exchange is confirmed. House Mars returns.
That was it for KeyForge.
B’Twixt
“All of your power is shared with one neighbor or the other.” [Context]
Planning to release the game in “late fall of this year.”
Unfathomable
“We hoped to get it into your hands by the end of September. Just like every other company in the world right now we’re facing shipping and logistics delays.
We will keep you all posted…and hope to have it in your hands by the end of the year.”
Journeys in Middle-Earth
“Last big box expansion” reconfirmed as Spreading War.
Mini DLCs coming. “Check the website to stay up to date.”
Arkham Horror LCG
Machinations Through Time standalone confirmed, which will be at GenCon’s popup at Gamezenter.
Edge of the Earth recapped as two big box expansions.
“We’re also doing it for the old stuff [the new model].” The first repack is Dunwich.
Aiming for “first quarter of next year.” Investigator expansion coming first, and scenarios coming “a month or two later.”
Lord of the Rings LCG
“Revamping this core set to support 1-4 players out of the box.”
It will add a campaign mode with brand new boons and burdens. If you own the original you won’t need to buy the revised core. Those boons and burden cards will be freely available as print and play content. Early 2022 date.
There will be a campaign box and player box for each cycle. “Getting into the game will be easier than ever before.” Each of these will contain the boons and burdens.
Also available as print and play. Unlike Arkham they will not be releasing “all of the old content.” It will be a “selection of stories.”
The Dark of Mirkwood will be released in early 2022 (from the two-player starter set) and can be played as a mini campaign or as part of the core set.
Marvel LCG
Vision confirmed for “first quarter of 2022” as a Protection pack. Article coming in 1-2 weeks.
Sinister Motives confirmed (Miles and Gwen) with an article in the “coming months.” Additional Web Warriors coming.
Twilight Imperium
A new line of graphic novels at CMON are coming for Twilight Imperium.
What’s the deal with Mad Titan’s Shadow in the US?
To put it bluntly, Mad Titan’s Shadow has been delayed in the US beyond the original August 27 date. In fact on an FFG Live Marvel Champions stream on August 25, the company confirmed that they “hope to get it released by the end of the year” in the US. The thing is, it’s already being shipped in the UK! Here’s a few community-vetted places to pre-order from.
Note that while Canada was supposed to get shipments on August 27, many stores are reporting that they are not arriving on time. Keep that in mind when picking a place to pre-order. Although Canada did get Return to TCU (Arkham LCG) early, that does not seem to be the case for Mad Titan’s Shadow. Right now the UK is one of the only vetted countries to import from.
Stock is fully confirmed to be landed in the UK for many stores; the image above is from Ludoquist, a London-based store. Note that as time passes, not all of these stores will constantly have stock. Keep them bookmarked and/or contact them for when they might get a restock.
I can personally vouch for Board Game Extras, having used them in the past for Arkham content imports. You can find Mad Titan’s Shadow here. Shipments from here generally take a week to reach me and you can get tracked or untracked. Untracked shipping can come out to £39.33 in some locations, which is roughly $54 US.
In case you missed it, we held our first-ever poll to see what your “favorite scenario” was to date, at the release of Galaxy’s Most Wanted. We asked, and you showed up! In just over a week, we received 777 results! This makes it, to our knowledge, one of the largest surveys for Marvel Champions to date.
Here are the full transparent results, as well as a breakdown of some interesting highlights (image slightly altered to accommodate multiple results).
So Kang won out by a landslide! Kang garnered 209 votes, and it’s well-deserved after all of the heavy lifting it did getting players from October 2020 through April 2021 with zero new scenarios to play. With three great modular sets and a wonderful take on the “Foundations of Stone” scenario from Lord of the Rings LCG, it’s no wonder that it’s the current darling of Marvel Champions.
Then, Mutagen scored second place with a respectable 139 votes, over double the amount of its nearest competitor. Comparatively, the top two choices are extremely telling: they’re both non-story-box content. The fans have spoken, and standalone packs rule the roost.
I mean, Risky Business is third! That puts the combined pack of Mutagen Formula and Risky Business at roughly Kang’s level of popularity. That’s a very important thing to point out, as Green Goblin is still the only pack to date that contains two scenarios: it’s still our favorite Champions product as well.
From there we move on to murky territory. rounding out the rest of the top 10. Red Skull is next, followed by Klaw, Ultron, Taskmaster, Wrecking Crew, Collector 2, and Drang.
That puts two out of five Red Skull box scenarios in the top 10. Collector and Drang snuck in too to represent Galaxy’s Most Wanted, and people have really taken to the former’s unique Lord of the Rings LCG “questing” approach.
Then we start to go into the weeds. Crossbones is next at 11, followed by Zola, Rhino, Nebula, Collector 1, Absorbing Man, and Ronan.This might be the most eye-catching dataset of all. Here, we have three out of five Galaxy’s Most Wanted scenarios in the bottom five spots. Typically, when a pack comes out the reception is positive due to recency bias. But the community has decidedly gone the other way. Perhaps some of it due to the fact that some folks don’t have the box? Either way, that’s the data we have.
Thanks to everyone for voting! Our first poll was a huge success and you’re a big reason why.
A new Rules Reference Guide (RRG) is out for Champions and quite a bit has changed. Or changed back, depending on your view.
Let’s dig into the major alterations.
RRG 1.4 Resources
If you want to dive into RRG 1.4 for yourself, here are a few places you can go.
This is the raw RRG 1.4 file. Hall of Heroes collects and stores each RRG entry on-site, as FFG has overwritten old rulebooks in the past, and it’s helpful to have them all to compare/contrast.
The confusion of “You” is one of the most contentious elements of Marvel Champions, and naturally, it has the biggest section of the FAQ.
Nearly every facet of “You” is now explained. For the most part, it deals with how cards interact with your identity by and large. This is codifying the “allies don’t count for cards like Hall of Heroes” ruling that has been floating around development circles and communities for nearly a year now.
Here’s what you need to remember: events, resources, and upgrades are part of the identity. Allies and supports are not an extension of your identity.
So there’s a lot to unpack, but the big takeaway is that defense events now count as a defense. So if you use Wiggle Room, you can trigger abilities like Unflappable, which require a defense. RRG 1.2 controversially claimed that using cards like Wiggle Room was not a defense.
The new RRG also clarifies that only one player at a time can defend against an enemy attack, preventing players from stacking defenses upon defenses and breaking certain interactions.
What’s the takeaway? Protection got a huge buff. The original change did not make a lot of sense, and Protection can now use a lot more cards in their pool in both solo and multiplayer.
This aspect is still being debated by various members of the community because of the sheer number of card interactions, but a lot of prior (defense) cards are now back on the menu and more viable for play. It’s a very good change (on a change on a change).
Since the core set, people have been wanting a “timing chart” for the game, which previously shipped with both other co-op LCGs at launch. A year and a half removed, we’re getting something similar.
Although it’s not a “chart” per se, under the triggered abilities section of RRG 1.4, we have some more clarity on how abilities work.
In short, it goes
Constant abilities
Forced Interrupts
Forced Responses
Responses
This lines up with prior rulings in the past, but it’s good to have clarity, as usual. Some timing bits are also peppered into the RRG throughout, like the “ability” section, which goes into more detail of each of the above bullet points.
Campaign play and difficulties are actually defined now
Previously, Rookie and Heroic modes were added in haste at the behest of the community in early 2020, and weren’t fully defined. Now they are.
An entire modes of play section was added to the RRG, which explains that Rookie mode is now “Skirmish mode.” As a refresher, Rookie mode allowed players to deal with one phase of the villain only.
Now, you can merge Skirmish mode (again, formerly Rookie) with other modes of play. So you can fight any version of Ronan (like Ronan Stage III) with expert, heroic, or campaign play.
Further official FAQ clarification of rules listed on Hall of Heroes
Hall of Heroes spends a ton of time compiling rule answers for the community to reference, but a lot of players rely on the official materials for their games.
Thankfully, the developers have added a ton of questions to the official FAQ, including a number of them asked by this very site directly!
Hall of Heroes provides community errata for cards that are printed incorrectly, and now the official RRG is getting with the times.
For reference, Honorary Avenger (max 1 per character), Wrecking Crew’s I’ve Been Waiting For This (gains changed to heals), Iron Fist (response to interrupt), Warning (removed defense trait), Inner Demons (removed “then”), Avengers Tower (Red Skull’s version was misprinted and should have had the Avengers trait), Marked for Death (stage to scheme), Hail Hydra (shuffle only occurs if the deck was searched, which is now the primary way to resolve all three versions of Hail Hydra), and Attack on Mount Athena (Hydra Assault is correct) were all errataed.
Hall of Heroes 
