I had the pleasure of getting to play a game of Marvel Crisis Protocol the other day. This is a miniatures skirmish game set in the Marvel universe. Each player controls 4-6 heroes or villains and pull scenarios from a deck of cards that set the way to gain points. You play up to six rounds of back-and-forth, taking objectives and beating the snot out of each other.

At one point, I used MODOK to telekinetically throw a dumpster at Doc Oc.

I could probably end my blog post there, and you know based on just that sentence if this game is right for you. From my single play experience, I would say it captures the fun of superhero fights from comic books. It’s a nice medium complexity, more crunchy with rules than, say, Frostgrave or other Osprey titles. But not quite as complicated as Malifaux. A tad bit more rich than something like Warcry or Killteam.

The characters do have a lot of options and mechanics and powers on them, so if you dive right in with five characters like I did, take 10 minutes to read them carefully. The person who was teaching me helped keep it all straight, but there were several tactical blunders I made by not reading the characters’ abilities closely enough. For instance, I treated MODOK as a weakling when he was actually a big ol whirling dervish of death, which I realized only too late.

I don’t think it’s one that I would pick up and purchase myself. For one, I have zero interest in painting anything “comic book accurate.” That’s just not my style. I’m more intrigued by the Star Wars Shatterpoint game that they’re launching this summer that plays very similiarly, although I have the same problem. I like being able to paint my minis however the fancy strikes me, and these games feel like they really want you to paint the minis in a “true to media” fashion.

And yes, it has passed my mind more than once that my fascination with miniatures games in my forties is a bit childish. In fact, it’s been grating on me for a while now how many of my hobbies could be said to be “for kids.” I’ve got another blog post ruminating on this and what it means for me.