Marvel United – First Impressions
The King of FOMO. The Multitude of Marvel. The Bastion of Boxes. The Mountain of Miniatures.
I mean, cmon (wink), this is Marvel United we’re talking about. You don’t get to be a CMON multi-million dollar campaign (multiple times over now) without doing something right in terms of marketing, design, and consumer appeal.
Marvel is a popular franchise right now and its presence in the board game community is no exception. After the delivery of the first Kickstarter campaign, which brought Marvel to the table in Chibi-fied glory, the game and its qualities burst into the conversational zeitgeist on social media forums and among people in the hobby. And that fire was further fueled (with a 55-gallon drum of kerosene) when the X-Men Kickstarter campaign launched and reached an even higher level of funding as it brought together backers who missed the first campaign and gamers who were even more interested now that Professor Xavier’s band of tight-suited misfits were at the forefront.
And, as frequently happens with humans full of opinions, much debate was stirred into the Marvel United pot of tabletop stew—all of which examined the merits of the game and any elements that detracted from the experience. Many posts were made. Many threads started. And a deluge of comments rained down.
So… I obviously had to play the game. If the hype-train (and accompanying funsuck-truck) wasn’t enough, it’s also an Eric Lang game with high visual appeal and a potential promise of high replay with all of the content that exists.
Disclaimer: I’ve only played once (against the brutal Rhino) but first impressions matter as our musical Jan reminds us in the Played It Once series, so I think it was enough for me to see how I felt about the mechanics and the potential of the game for me. And for others. Because why would you read this otherwise?
Tabletop gamers, assemble!
What It Does
Marvel United is a cooperative superhero strategy game designed by Eric M. Lang and Andrea Chiarvesio. It’s a short game that takes about 30-40 minutes, which could work as either a great warm-up in a long night of gaming or a gameplay experience that you enjoy multiple times in one sitting—particularly if you have the Kickstarter content.
Players take control of heroes and anti-heroes in a fast-paced contest against villains within the expansive universe. It’s a light enough game that you could easily introduce to young children and people new to the hobby.
Each villain plays differently (which is where the best part of the variability comes into play) and the heroes will have to work together in order to survive and to thwart the evil efforts of the encounter’s antagonist.
Players will work from individual decks, playing cards and chaining the abilities together with the cards of heroes before them in order to build momentum and perform larger combos. Whether it’s beating up thugs, rescuing civilians, or clearing the influence and destruction of Villains from different locations, the Marvel superheroes will have to band together in order to win.
While that’s happening, the villain will intercede with their own maniacal machinations, triggering different card effects that deploy new thugs to fight, overload locations with more helpless civilians, and physically attack the heroes as they rush around the map.
It’s simple, approachable, and repeatable.
How It Does It
What’s underneath the hood, though?
I meant the hood of a car, but there is some double meaning there which I appreciate now. And have also ruined it by explicitly mentioning it…
Marvel United houses a circle of locations that can be changed between games for variety but they all operate in identical fashion: they house thugs and civilians, are affected by negative influence until heroes clear it, and are physical spaces that heroes and villains can occupy.
And movement is different for heroes and villains. Players will be able to decide whether they want to move clockwise or counter-clockwise through the locations, either avoiding or confronting the villain when moving to new places. Villains, however, only move clockwise, the limitation of which players will need to take advantage.
There will be three objectives that players have to complete. Only after completing the second will they be able to start damaging the villain, which means heroes can win by KOing the villain or completing all three objectives. Villains, on the other hand, seek to either KO all of the heroes in one fell swoop or exhaust their hero decks, at which point no card can be played and the game ends in defeat.
Each hero has a different configuration of cards (though they use all of the same symbols and actions) and each villain has their own master plan and playstyle that the table will have to overcome together.
And that’s about it. There small mechanisms at play that you’ll encounter, but the structure is simple by design. And the more locations, heroes, and villains you have, the greater the number of combinations you can explore.
Why You Might Like It
With a potentially huge—if you acquire the KS content—roster of heroes to play as and—more importantly—villains to face off against, Marvel United can tweak the main gameplay in small ways many times over.
If you’re looking for a game to help introduce people to the hobby, this is a remarkably accessible title with mechanics that stay consistent no matter what encounter is being played out.
Why You Might Not
If you prefer medium-to-heavy games, then Marvel United might not hold your interest for long enough. For the same reason that it can act as a great introductory game, it may not survive on the shelf of a hobbyist gamer for long.
The exclusivity of so much of the content—which outside of the base games has only been available through Kickstarter—might turn off some gamers who were otherwise interested.
Final Thoughts
Marvel United is a good game and the right kind of game for a lot of people. Unfortunately, it’s not the right game for me. Based on what I enjoy and the games I currently keep in my library, I can’t see myself picking Marvel United over other games that deserve to get to the table.
Part of me is bummed out about that. I wanted to like it enough to buy it. I wanted to jump in on the Kickstarter FOMO and get all of the miniatures. I know that my kids would have loved to have played with them. But, at the end of the day, it doesn’t possess the right kind of variability or depth that I’m looking for in a game.
That being said, for people who are new to the hobby; for people that enjoy lighter games on average in terms of mechanical or strategic complexity; and definitely for people who are being ushered into the board gaming world, I think Marvel United would be an awesome choice for them.
However, there will be a significant population that might not engage deeply enough with what’s there. If you’re considering it just because everybody’s talked about it at some point over the last few months, then maybe look at just trying the base game first. Play online using Tabletop Simulator. Borrow a friend’s copy. Make sure that it’s something you’ll keep before jumping into the superhero deep end in terms of boxes and financial commitment.
It will ultimately be up to you. Marvel United will be a good-looking balm of Marvel magic for some people. And it will not hit the right notes for other players. It’s just a matter of figuring out which camp you’re in!
If you want to check out Marvel United, you can visit CMON or read what the community thinks on BoardGameGeek.
Have you played cooperative games like Marvel United? What games do you use to introduce people to the hobby?
Let us know in the comments and give a recommendation for other games of which to share our first impressions.