Whether you’re a fan of Marvel or not, there are many fantastic Marvel board games out there to be enjoyed with your friends. Whether fighting against each other or side by side, you’ll all be in for a good time.
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Marvel Villainous
In Marvel Villainous, players take control of one of five notorious Marvel villains to try and complete what they couldn’t. Each villain has their own board, abilities, and win condition to race toward. As players try t o be the first to complete their objective, other players will try to complicate their efforts.
What makes Marvel Villainous interesting is, despite how complex this makes it, every villain is doing their own thing. Players will have to keep a keen eye on the activities of their opponents to understand who to prioritise stalling.
With many expansions and lots of replay values, if you want to gather your friends and take on the mighty tasks the villains have set themselves out to do, just make sure you’re prepared for all the rules.
Marvel Champions
Marvel Champions is a cooperative deck-building card game where players will work together to stop a villain before their scheme is unfurled. Fair warning: although there are five characters with pre-built decks in the core set, you’ll want to invest time in understanding deck building to get the most out of this game.
The card game itself is solid, and playing with decks you’ve designed yourself is gratifying and satisfying. Fighting against different villains and adapting to their ways and methods grants Marvel Champions lots of replayability. Although complex, it’s reasonably graspable for most players.
There are many expansions for Marvel Champions that add more characters and villains, so players will be hardly left wanting more. Again, just be warned that forming your decks of 40 to 50 cards takes patience, genuine interest, and a great understanding of all the mechanics and how they mesh together.
Marvel Remix
Marvel Remix is a light and quick card game that can be played almost endlessly thanks to the wide range of cards players can pull. Each player will start off with six regular cards (Remix cards) and one harmful Villain card.
Throughout the game, players will be trying to amass as many points as they can. They can pick up either a Remix card, a Villain card, or a previously discarded card to replace a card in their hand. Each card interacts with other cards in your hands, meaning you must be careful about which cards you keep and replace.
Upon there being ten discarded cards, the game immediately ends, and players resolve card effects in any order to score points. It’s incredibly simple, yet the card interactions are delightfully complex and satisfying.
Marvel United
Marvel United is a very thematic cooperative board game that gives players the task of teaming up and taking down the villain of choice.
The players must stop the villain’s evil plan by traveling around the locations to complete missions, by taking down enough thugs and minions, or by rescuing civilians. Once the heroes have accomplished their objectives, then they can directly hurt the villain. Naturally, if the villain performs their evil plan, then the players lose.
What makes Marvel United unique is the lengths it goes to to make the game feel like a story. Villain and hero action cards are placed in a circle around the game board to form a storyboard of sorts, which also has its own gameplay implementations.
Hail Hydra
Hail Hydra is a very unique social deduction game where players will be secretly assigned the role of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent or Hydra Agent. Every turn, the players must band together to defeat the villains wreaking havoc on New York City, although the Hydra Agents will actively try to sabotage these efforts.
There are five villains that the good guys need to beat to win the game. The villains will be damaging New York City, so they need to be dealt with as fast as possible. The damage done to the villains, however, is determined by the values (either positive or negative) each player secretly puts forward.
Each turn, a player will be voted out of the next battle phase in the hopes of removing a sabotaging Hydra Agent from the next conflict. However, a Hydra Agent can yell “Hail Hydra!” revealing themselves and having more direct negative effects on the game.
Thanos Rising
Thanos Rising is a tense cooperative game where players try to challenge and take down Thanos before he gains full control of the Infinity Stones. Or before he annihilates too many heroes, naturally.
The Thanos figure will be rotated during play to different sectors, where any heroes stationed there and the heroes of any present players could be open to a Thanos attack. Whether it’s Thanos or his minions attacking, the players need to make sure their heroes and the neutral heroes on the board don’t fall.
As players recruit heroes and use their abilities, they will take on the minions and, eventually, Thanos himself. Careful positioning and priority is required to succeed in Thanos Rising, and a bit of luck, too.
Marvel Crisis Protocol
The Marvel: Crisis Protocol miniatures game pits two players against each other in a bid to score sixteen points. Unlike other miniature games, each character in Crisis Protocol is a mighty hero, meaning it’s much harder to take down any one character.
Players will assemble teams of ten characters (heroes or villains) to play on the board. If over half of the characters are of the same affiliation, then the team is open to bonuses. Taking it in turns, players will activate and use their characters in glorious battle.
What’s especially interesting about Marvel: Crisis Protocol is that when a character gets defeated, they can come back stronger. Although when they fall again, they’re done for good. If you want a miniature board game with more permanent characters and prolonged epic battles, then you can’t go wrong with this one.
Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R.
Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. is a meaty and long cooperative game that sets players against a big bag of their choice. There are many Marvel heroes to choose from, and each one can be set up differently when starting, allowing for a range of combinations and set-ups.
The game itself is a loop of the heroes traveling throughout the worlds to take down minions that spawn and defy the main villain’s plans. With numerous stages to the game, it does simulate the whole process of taking down and finally confronting a supervillain just like in the movies.
If you are to play Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R., then you need to be prepared for some grindy and heavy turns, but if you’re prepared for a long bout against a villain, you can make the next game night one of epic proportions.
Splendor Marvel
Splendor: Marvel is a deck-building game where players build tableaus of characters using points gained every turn and from their current tableau.
A player’s tableau is their economy, and alongside the points they get each turn, players must decide which cards to buy, as this will determine their spending power and types next turn. As players are able to afford more expensive and valuable cards, they will gain access to buildings that give them a solid base stat of points.
A player will win Splendor: Marvel by assembling the Infinity Gauntlet by having one card of each type, a high-value card, and sixteen points, meaning how you build your tableau will determine your path to victory.
Marvel Zombies Heroes’ Resistance
Marvel Zombies: Heroes’ Resistance is a cooperative game set in a fan-favorite setting of the Marvel zombie apocalypse. Players need to score victory points together and fight off the hordes of zombies. And every now and then, a zombified superhero will come into play…
The game itself isn’t too complicated, although teamwork and thinking five steps ahead is key, thanks to how zombie spawning and activation works. As there are lots of unknowns, players must be cautious, although being too careful can cost the game.
The figures in Marvel Zombies: Heroes’ Resistance are fantastic, and they’re all fun to play with. Doing battle with zombie heroes is always a fun time, although remember not to get too carried away fighting zombies when there are objectives that you need to complete.
Now that you know what amazing Marvel board games are out there, all you’ve gotta do now is choose the one you like best.
Published: Oct 6, 2024 07:46 am