This is my first attempt at a battle report for this game, so please give me feedback on anything: either positive or suggestions for improvements.

Down at my FLGS, my opponent and I wanted to get a full run through experience: scenario selection, team selection and card selection for the first time.

Rosters

We both brought the same rosters in terms of characters: all the core set but with Doc Oc replaced by Hulk. For my team tactics cards I hadn’t given it the thought I had planned, so ended up with:

• Gamma Launch – Hulk Sma… er, throw. Great movement shenanigans.
• Age of Ultron – seems real good. If you opponent doesn’t have a plan for it, this can be a huge advantage
• Sucker – my plan for an opponent’s Age of Ultron
• Follow me – when it’s needed, it’s great.
• Mission objective – good for passing extract targets. Currently to only way to offload one.
• Avengers assemble – free moves seem good
• Cosmic invigoration – partly with hulk in mind, to live the dream of double activating with a bunch of damage.
• Patch up – healing is scarce and can be great. Healing up an injured Cap is not something the opponent wants to see.

For crisis cards, I don’t have Modok yet, so I took the three extract from the core set, and for secure I dropped Infinity formula as it seemed the least interesting – it’s similar to Extremis consoles, but without the healing.

Scenario and terrain

We rolled for priority and I won it. I chose secure objectives and gave him extract. I drew Meteor Fragments and Gamma Shelters. Of the two I fancied Gamma shelters with half an eye on giving Hulk a run. He chose Spider infected, so our narrative was simple: the heroes were bravely trying to herd the poor civilians towards the shelters that would protect them, on to find an outbreak of spider infected people.

We then set up the terrain. We were using a Heroclix map as the game store was busy and we only got a table booth instead of a full game table. We set out the objective markers and terrain. My opponent had mounted some O-scale railway people on coins so we used those for Spider Infected.

A heroclix map helps with immersion, and it measures 3’ x 2’. That means you lose the 6” deployment area, but keep all the important bits. We established there was extra space on the board before we started if it became relevant. We ignored all the printed terrain and just played with the stuff on top.

Next on to team selection. I was sorely tempted to try hulk, but didn’t want the spider infected pulling him out of position and wasting power on gamma leap or a precious action, so I bottled it. Instead, the first character on my roster was Spider-Man. The ability to go late and pull people off objectives and out where they would take damage seemed really good. Plus, you know, spider infected. Next was Zemo. With his L move he could pick up a wide spider infected and get to the shelter turn 1. Now if I wanted Captain America and to get his leadership ability – who is pretty ace at not going down on objectives – my next three choices would have to be Avengers. Cap, Carol, Black Widow, crosses my mind, but as I had priority, grabbing the central spider infected with a “disposable” Ultron (using Age of Ultron) seemed like a good line of play. That lead me to a Cabal team with Red Skull. Finally 2 threat left space for Black widow. I was slightly concerned my opponent would throw a Hulk at me, but focusing fire with Skull, Ultron and Zemo I was confident I could handle him.

That chosen, now I needed to narrow my card. Two were easy drops: with no Avengers team and no Hulk, Avengers assemble and Gamma launch were easy drops. Cosmic Invigoration didn’t seem to have a good target given my Ultron gambit that I was planning, so that was my final drop.

After revealing, my opponent has chosen almost the exact opposite. No hulk, but the only character we doubled up on was Baron Zemo. Clearly one was an imposter.

For his tactic cards he chose:

Deployment

I set Black Widow and Zemo wide to pick up spider infected then get in to the gamma shelters. Ultron was deployed to grab the central Spider Infected and claim/contest the central gamma shelter. Skull had babysitting duties for my closest gamma shelter and Spidey was centralish to respond and do Web-things on turn 2-3.

My opponent set Crossbones and Iron Man wide, with Cap and Carol central and Zemo offset towards Iron Man.

Round 1

I had priority, so I confidently double moved Ultron to within 1” of the central gamma shelter, picking up the Spider Infected.

Crossbones moves up to claim his Imfected, and shimmies towards the action, but can’t make the safety of the Gamma Shelters.

Black widow picks up her infected and darts toward the central shelter.

Carol moves to the closest shelter and blasts Ultron for one: he appears to be taking the bait.

Zemo (who should have gone before Black Widow to give his reroll to Ultron), nips up, grabs an infected and end up near Ultron, safe from Gamma.

Cap moves to his closest gamma shelter and throws a shield at Ultron (keep it coming…), doing two

Red skull starts babysitting duties of his closest shelter. I had previously flirted with the idea of Cubing spidey forward so he could double move to the far shelter, but with Cap and Carol on it, it wouldn’t have helped. Instead he just saved the power from the cube, taking no damage.

Zemo charges, moves then charges Ultron (made cheaper by Cap) and does enough to daze him. He drops the infected in a place Spidey can pick it up. This was an ordering error by my opponent: Zemo should have gone last so I had no way to pick up the Infected.

Spidey moves in picking up the dropped infected and contesting the central shelter.

Finally Iron Man pick ups his infected and ends up outside the shelter radius.

Now this is where we make a boo-boo. My Zemo and Widow are out of 1” of the shelter. Ultron is Dazed. So the central objective is contested, but for some reason we agree I score it. This was an honest mistake, that I only realised when I came to write this. So I can only apologise to my opponent (which I have), but he held two infected and his shelter, and I held three infected and my shelter, but I also scored the central shelter. Iron Man and Crossbones take gamma damage.

At this point, spidey is on 7!power. I see an opportunity to

Round 2

After powering up, people went for a wander.

No at this point Spidey and Zemo are staring down Carol and Cap. This does not favour me. I have serious plans for Spider-Man, so I choose to bring him back and try to lay some hurt on my opponent’s Zemo, which he spectacularly fails to do. But having acted already and reatreated, I hope he is a less tempting target.

Carol is within Range 2 of my Zemo and Dazes him. He drops his infected next to Ultron.

Ultron picks up the infected and then blasts at the opponent’s Zemo, throws a paper kiosk at him (which he adroitly dodges with a great roll – even without access to his reroll) and then Ultron dazed him with another energy blast.

Cap moves up to contest the central shelter and slams Widow with his shield, dealing three damage and smashing her in to a car to daze her. While taking out Widow’s activation was a good idea, it left me with the ability to move Cap off that shelter. She drops her infected right next to Red Skull.

Red skull picks up the infected, then unleashes the cube on Cap, doing a little damage and throwing him in to a dumpster, but importantly away from the shelter and in a position to take gamma damage.

At this point, with the benefit of hindsight, my opponent shouldn’t probably have used Avengers Assemble to move Cap back in a bit, and get Iron Man more in to the action. We are all learning.

Instead, Iron Man comes in, still out of gamma safety, and tries a repulsor blast at Ultron. He not only does no damage, but doesn’t get the wild he was hoping for to push him off the shelter.

Finally crossbones runs as much as he can towards Red Skull, but is still out of Shelter range.

With three infected and actually claiming the centre objective, I score 6 – for real this time. And again my opponent scores 3.

Round 3

Red Skull, Crossbones and Ultron go for a walk:

I still had priority and I (no apparently falsely) believed I only needed 4 points. Easy, right?

My Zemo was still up near two power pieces, so he went first while he still could. Charging up so he could hit either Cap or Carol and be within 1” of the far objective, he turned on all the rerolls and got 8 hits on Cap – I think we know who the real Zemo is now. Cap got dazed. Zemo was much less effective at hitting Carol though: no damage at all.

His Crossbones ignores Red Skull and runs straight for my shelter.

Red Skull blasts Crossbones off the shelter by unleashing the cube at him, slamming him in to a car (which we forgot to take off) but he inured to pain away the collision. At this point I want two healthy people on the central objective so Skull moves up and Power of the Cubes to get within 1”. But foolishly leaving me on one power so I can’t shrug of hits to Spider-Man.

His injured Zemo stabs Skull for three then legs it for my shelter.

Ultron considers shooting Carol, but decides that Iron Man needs some love. After some rather unimpressive metallic fury and an energy blast Iron Man has two health left on his healthy side and is bleeding.

Carol hefts a dumpster at Zemo, then moves forward to the central shelter, doing three damage to Skull, dazing him. She turns around and finishes what she started, taking out Zemo.

Black Widow runs to pick up the Infected Red Skull dripped then runs to contest the injured Zemo on my shelter.

At this point we have a discussion about how Spider-Man is going to web things off the top objective then claim it to ensure the win for me. His only play is to try to take down a full health Spider-Man with Iron Man. He smartly decides to try it and his dice go on fire, and Tony manages it. He does take bleed damage and can’t move (another possible use for Avengers Assemble here?) so he’ll take Gamma damage and be dazed next turn. Spidey drops his infected between himself and Red Skull – I’ll keep priority because of Spider-Man being dazed.

I score two for my Spider Infected on Widow and Ultron, he scores 4: two infected and the central shelter.

Round 4

Tony gets dazed and drops his Infected near Carol. No one goes for a walk.

At this point I need 2, and to prevent my opponent from scoring 6. I’m losing attrition and Carol has enough power to Binary this turn. Ouch. So I do what all bad guys do when the tide turns: run away.

Spider-Man activates, grabs up the infected he dropped and double long moves to the far left edge of the board.

He then spends 6 power for “Follow me”.

My Red Skull power of the cubes himself over to grab the infected Iron Man dropped for Carol, then double moves to the top edge as far right as he can get. I’m trying to tie a knot for my opponent to untie.

Looking despairingly at the disappearing Infected, Crossbones muscles over to Black Widow, overpowering her in to a car (that shouldn’t have been there), but leaving her on one health.

She takes her cue to run for yet another corner with her infected. But it isn’t quite far enough.

Zemo moves then charges with a steel rush, KOing her, but lacks the power to grab the infected for himself after moving next to it with Steel rush movement.

I have Ultron left, and he has Cap and Carol. Even with Age of Ultron online, there’s a decent chance the two of them can take down Ultron, daze him making him drop his infected and claim all three objectives. That would give him the game. So I choose to do something I have yet to do in this game.

I pass.

Now either Cap or Carol has to activate. Cap is out of effective range so he moves to camp his own objective.

Ultron tries to shoot Crossbones, but doesn’t do enough. He moves closer but isn’t contesting Crossbone’s shelter. Even if he was, he’s injured where Crossbones is healthy.

This is clearly the last turn. So my opponent goes for the consolation kill on Ultron, neither of us realising that if he does nothing we both go to 17, and he has KOed two of my characters. Carol goes binary, and nukes Ultron, who comes back via Age of Ultron, placing to contest Crossbones and give me the game.

Conclusion

This was a game I really didn’t deserve to win. First there was the mis-scoring. Then the mis-play, taking on Ultron. But at 12-6 up after turn two, I thought I had it sewn up. But some serious attrition from Carol and Zemo really swung things. If the score had been 12-10 at the beginning of turn 4 (as it should have been) I would have played very differently in turn 4, but I’d have to think about exactly how. I was on the ropes.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end, and any feedback would be warmly appreciated. Do you want more crisis reports? Any bits I should give less or more detail on? Let me know.