Last Spring, I wrote about the state of the game of Marvel: Crisis Protocol. The tl;dr? The game’s in great shape.
For quite awhile, the easiest way to get into Marvel: Crisis Protocol was to pick up either the original core set, or the newer Earth’s Mightiest Core Set. Both of these sets were designed to give two players enough miniatures, terrain, and accessories to learn how to play the game. But neither core set is suited to an important aspect of playing Marvel: Crisis Protocol: building a roster.
Roster building is essentially the army building of the game. In a nutshell, each player selects 10 of their characters for their roster, along with 10 Team Tactics Cards, 5 Secure Crisis Cards, and 5 Extraction Crisis Cards. You bring this roster to a game, where you and your opponent will draw Crisis Cards to form the Mission you will play. Each Mission will have a certain Threat (aka point) value. You then will form a squad equal to or under the Threat value of the mission.
Atomic Mass Games has recently introduced single-player Starter Sets for Marvel: Crisis Protocol, handily giving a player a ready-made roster of 10 characters. At this point there are two sets available: the Spider-Foes Starter Set, and the X-Men Starter Set. These sets take characters previously available in other, smaller, sets, and combine them with all the gameplay accessories you’ll need to play the game.
Even though the Spider-Foes box is much larger than the X-Men one, both starter sets have similar content. The size discrepancy has to do with several larger figures in the Spider-Foes set.
Marvel: Crisis Protocol Starter Sets
The Marvel: Crisis Protocol Spider-Foes starter set comes with the following characters: Green Goblin, Kraven the Hunter, the Lizard, Mysterio, Shocker, Sandman, Carnage, Rhino, Vulture, and Electro. It retails for $94.99, and is available from Amazon or directly from Asmodee, the parent company of Atomic Mass Games.
The Marvel: Crisis Protocol Spider-Foes starter set contains the following:
- 12 minis
- 10 Stat Cards
- 1 Sand Construct card
- 21 Team Tactics cards
- 12 Crisis Card
- 10 Dice
- 1 Punch sheet
- 3 Movement Tools
- 4 Range Tools
- 1 Mission Tracker
- 3 Tracking Cubes
The Marvel: Crisis Protocol X-Men starter set comes with Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Beast, Rogue, Gambit, Magneto, Toad, Mystique, and Sabretooth. It also retails for $94.99, and is available from Amazon or directly from Asmodee.
The Marvel: Crisis Protocol X-Men starter set contains:
- 12 Miniatures
- 10 Character Stat Cards
- 19 Team Tactics Cards
- 12 Crisis Cards
- 2 Punch Sheets
- 10 Dice
- 3 Movement Tools
- 4 Range Tools
- 1 Mission Tracker
- 3 Tracking Cubes
Atomic Mass Games doesn’t include any manuals. Instead, the rules and miniature assembly instructions are available to download from the Atomic Mass Games website. This is to ensure that players always have access to the most up to date rules for Marvel: Crisis Protocol.
Starter Set Common Components
The mission tracker is a 2-layer board that allows both players to keep track of their progress in a match.
A full set of dice are included with each starter set. These MCP-specific eight-sided dice trigger different results as detailed in my original review of Marvel: Crisis Protocol.
Marvel: Crisis Protocol uses special tools for both movement and measuring distances. The starter sets come with both. Players often will also paint these tools to make them more dynamic.
Both sets come with a bunch of tokens. While the tokens sheets pictured above are from the Spider-Foes set, the X-Men set is almost identical, each with just a few different tokens specific to their respective sets.
Spider-Foes Starter Set Components
There are 10 double-sided character stat cards included for Spider-Man’s enemies. Additionally, Sandman has two sand constructs which function as minions. Therefore, he also comes with two character stat cards for the two constructs.
The Spider-Foes starter set comes with 21 different team tactics cards. These cards are special team up powers you can use during the game.
There are also 12 crisis cards, which are used to set the mission for a game of Marvel: Crisis Protocol. The crisis cards come in two different varieties: Secure, which are about holding areas of the map, and Extraction, which are about retrieving and carrying something across the map.
And then, of course, there are the miniatures. I assembled all of the minis from the Spider-Foes starter set:
As you can see, it’s a good representation of Spider-Man’s enemies. The only major omissions are Doctor Octopus, who can instead be found in the Earth’s Mightiest Core Set, and The Kingpin, who is in the Criminal Syndicate Affiliation Pack.
X-Men Starter Set Components
As with Spider-Foes, the X-Men starter set comes with 10 double-sided character stat cards.
There are two less team tactics cards in the X-Men set than with Spider-Foes.
There are also 12 crisis cards included in the X-Men set, though the website lists the number at 6:
I didn’t have time to build all of the X-Men starter set figures, but here’s what they will look like, assembled and professionally painted:
Who Are These Starter Sets For?
I suppose it goes without saying that these starter sets are great ways for individuals to jump into playing Marvel: Crisis Protocol. As I had stated before, the sets come with a complete 10-character roster, so you can build and paint those minis and bring them to play with an opponent. Really, the only thing that you’re missing out of the sets is some terrain. But other players of Marvel: Crisis Protocol or your local game shops likely already have the terrain you need to play. Or, if you want your own dedicated terrain, Atomic Mass Games also has a whole variety of plastic terrain kits available, from Doctor Strange’s Sanctum to the Avenger’s quinjet.
Whether as a start to playing Marvel: Crisis Protocol or for collecting a particular faction, these starter sets are phenomenal values. Let’s look at the X-Men starter set. All of the miniatures in this set were previously available in three separate boxes: an X-Men Affiliation Pack, a Brotherhood of Mutants Affilation Pack, and a box containing just Gambit and Rogue. The retail price of those three boxes totaled $169.97. And that’s just the miniatures; there’s still the additional cost of the dice and the movement and range tools. So if you want to get started playing with either X-Men or Spider-Foes, you’ll be saving almost $110 from purchasing a starter set.
If you want to get started with Marvel: Crisis Protocol or even if you’re looking to start a new character affiliation, both the Spider-Foes starter set and the X-Men starter set are great ways to go. Both boxes are chock full of content, and easily expandable with other characters that share the affiliations of the ones inside these starter sets. A definite recommend.
For more information on Marvel: Crisis Protocol starter sets, head to the Atomic Mass Games website.
Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews.
To subscribe to GeekDad’s tabletop gaming coverage, please copy this link and add it to your RSS reader.
Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes. As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn a small commission on qualified purchases.
