Marvel Champions Age of Apocalypse Expansion Review

The Age of Apocalypse expansion for Marvel Champions is the game’s seventh campaign expansion and the conclusion of the (so far excellent) mutant trilogy. This expansion includes five brand new scenarios, featuring the x-men’s greatest villain, the evil Apocalypse. They can be played individually or as part of a larger campaign. It also includes two new playable heroes, Bishop and Magik, each with their own pre built deck ready for action.

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Marvel Champions Age of Apocalypse Expansion

Despite being the game’s seventh campaign expansion, The Age of Apocalypse manages to feel really fresh and compelling. Each of these villain’s either introduces a completely new concept or works to improve on previously explored ideas. The theme comes through very well and is the perfect opportunity for our growing roster of classic x-men characters to face off against some of their most iconic opponents – as well as some surprises.

The five villains included in the box are Unus (who was unfamiliar to me, but is one of Apocalypse’s prelate minions), The Four Horsemen, Apocalypse himself, Dark Beast (I obviously know Beast, but not his evil counterpart), and Apocalypse (again). There are those out there that are upset about seeing two of the same villain in the box, because they believe there are so many other options of villains to add to the game. Theme is secondary to the mechanics for me and they are quite different mechanically, so it didn’t really bother me. And it is, after all, Apocalypse’s box.

The two heroes are Bishop and Magik, both with all new, fresh mechanics that create a lot of interesting deckbuilding opportunities. Both are very engaging and feel very different from one another. I’m consistently surprised that this game can keep giving us heroes that feel so unique and different, but they’ve definitely done it with these two. One of the main reasons this game has managed to keep me engaged for years.

This expansion also introduces the new mission side schemes which I’ll discuss in detail below. Gotta say, not my favorite mechanic, and the clunker of this box. It’s only required if you are playing the campaign, so nothing that should turn people off, but they make the game longer without adding any real benefit. I didn’t mind it as a one off idea for a campaign, but it was mostly bloat as far as I’m concerned.

What’s In The Box?

Heroes

Bishop

Bishop is all about resource cards and, since his mechanics are mostly built around them, you’ll likely want to include as many as you can. Couldn’t exactly tell you why, but as a player, I’ve moved away from the double resources, in many of my decks lately and I haven’t touched the power-of cards in years, so his mechanics have accomplished exactly what I’m looking for from a new hero: make me look at old cards in new ways and, as a result, bring new life to the game.

Bishop comes complete with three double resources of his own and has upgrades and attachments that allow him to spend resource cards to charge up his Super-Charged ability (reminiscent of Captain Marvel’s Energy Channel) or do 1 damage per energy card in hand when his rifle is in play (which, in my opinion, is a bit over-powered). All his event cards have a kicker, usually allowing him to ready, that depends on whether they were paid for with a resource card.

His hero ability allows him to discard cards from the top of this deck for each damage he takes (making him a great candidate for White fox and Digging Deep) and add each resource card discard is added to his hand. If his armor is attached he heals for each resource card in hand, making him very difficult to kill, and a perfect option for tanking strategies or avoiding flipping to alter-ego.

He comes with two signature allies, Malcom and Randall, which is the first time we’ve seen more than one in a deck. The allies are complementary – one better at thwarting, one better at attack – but both can be readied and healed by spending a resource.

Prebuilt Deck

His prebuilt deck comes in leadership, which isn’t particularly complementary to his playstyle, other than the fact that he can easily play expensive cards. These aspect cards do introduce a completely new playstyle to the game, based on the Sidekick attachment, which can be added to a signature ally giving them two health and the ability to heal when you heal your identity.

There are also event cards that allows hero and sidekick to ready and boost stats or heal. I really like suit up, which allows you to search deck and discard for an ally and attachment, which could be used to find your signature ally as well as the single copy of sidekick, but could be used for any ally or attachment and is a must include for any Voltron deck moving forward. I was using the Call for Backup side scheme, but this is more consistent, and potentially a better value.

These cards create a whole new archetype for leadership decks and it immediately makes me want to build something for SP//dr, Spider-Woman, and Drax – anyone with a great signature ally with an activation effect, since I’ll be able to reliably keep them on the board longer.

The included allies in this deck are excellent, including ally forms of X-23 and Cable, who like their hero forms get to ready when they kill a minion or clear a side scheme.

The deck was one of the most powerful precon decks I’ve played, but that’s not because the two halves made any sense together. It’s because the two halves are each quite powerful independently of one another.

In considering what other aspects to try him in, it’s tempting to play into his skill as a defender, and put him in protection with cards like Taunt and Bait and Switch, so you can benefit from his healing during the hero phase. I’m convinced, though, that Bishop belongs in Aggression, using Toe to Toe, to similar effect, since, if you build him right, he can’t really die. He should focus on playing expensive attack events and allies. That said, his basic cards are strong enough, that you could probably build him in any aspect, and do just fine.

Magik

Magik is easy to compare to Domino, from the previous box, since they both deal with deck manipulation. In Magic’s case, rather than stacking the deck, she takes it one step further and plays the game with her top card face up. Once Limbo is in play, she can swap a card in her hand with the one of top of the deck and she can play whatever card is face up at a 1 cost discount, once per phase.

The card on top of the deck matters a lot to Magik, since her event cards, as well as her three (very powerful) attachments, have a kickers that only trigger when the correct resource type is showing. So, like with Domino, you’ll need to be very conscious about what card is on top.

Despite those comparisons, they feel very different to play. Domino feels a bit more chaotic and light and Magik feels like more of a puzzle. She’ll has the ability to scry, and also has the mystic trait, which gives her access to cards that let her quickly cycle her deck and set up perfect hands. She’ll be very interesting to build around because you will be able to reliably get the exact cards you want in hand every time you play and won’t have to wait to thin your deck or get the perfect draw.

And, let’s just say it, Mystics are WAY overpowered in this game. That tradition continues here. Once you get her set up you have piercing, retaliate, and steady, an effective seven card hand size, and the ability to swap cards with the top of the deck. Sure that requires some set up, but each of those elements, for another hero, might make up their entire gimmick.

Throw in Sorcerer’s Supreme and other trait-locked mystic cards, including the new Basic Spell… she’s very strong. Though I’m NOT getting Dr. Strange vibes here. I still have a puzzle to work out with every hand and that’s why the game doesn’t feel as broken here, because it isn’t obvious what to do and the cards I put in her deck matter a lot more than they do for Dr. Strange, who ultimately just wants to play his invocation deck. So it’s not really that she is less powerful, it’s just that she is much more interesting to play.

Potential negative is that, because she provide a meaty puzzle with complex decisions in every hand, she can be slow. I don’t know that I recommend her as a multiplayer hero for that reason, since I think she has the habit of slowing the game down. Which is fine for the person engaging with the puzzle, but can be a little tedious for the other members of the team. So worth considering.

All in all, a cool design. A very strong hero that still manages to be interesting to play and interesting to deck build for.

Prebuilt Deck

Aggression was an odd choice for her, I have to say. I like the new cards, and they’ve already found their way into decks for other heroes, but I quickly swapped Magik into Protection where I can take advantage of the cost reduction of the top card of her deck in both the villain phase and the hero phase, maximizing her economy and using defense cards to address her one weakness – the 9 health – which Aggression does nothing to help.

But the new red cards are great. Blood Rage is an auto include for any minion slaying deck and charging up Test the Defense is great fun and instantly improves any attack event heavy, fluid motion deck. Full-body charge is VERY expensive at a 4-cost, but it’s a huge hit and can get you overkill. It’s a nice to have and in my play throughs, I found myself using it way more than I thought I would.

Some alt-art reprints with Power or Aggression, Clobber, and Spiritual Meditation, but it’s the allies here, that are particularly great. Love Goldballs, so I can do precise damage and Tempus is very interesting as an option to avoid a scheme. Will be really strong in solo Aggression decks, I think.

Triage is amazing with her ability to heal two from an x-men character, especially as a Basic card that can go in any deck. Very glad she isn’t locked into protection builds. Admittedly, I put her in my Wolverine deck as soon as I finished my run through of the campaign with the precons – and she’s likely not to leave any time soon – but she will go well in any X-men deck – heroes or allies, doesn’t matter. Auto-include for that trait.

New Villains

In the Age of Apocalypse box, there are five scenarios that offer unique challenges:

Unus

I wouldn’t call Unus difficult , but he does one thing extremely well – rewarding balanced play and discouraging chump blocking with allies. Technically, there aren’t any obstacles to rushing a villain like this, but, if you do ,he has a permanent side scheme that, as threat is added, makes the villain, minions, and encounter cards more powerful.

Something I don’t love is when the villain gets stronger as a consequence of you doing poorly in the game. A good example of that is The Hood scenario, where, if you let the main scheme pop, so many bad things happen it’s pretty much a game ender.

I don’t think that is the case here. Instead, I think this scenario presents you with interesting decisions. Do I want to clear the threat on the side scheme to lessen the effects of the villain, or am I willing to risk those impacts by focusing on reducing the villain’s health and letting that side scheme get out of control? So things can spiral out of hand, but in this case, you at least decided how much risk you wanted to take on – it didn’t just happen to you.

It’s worth comparing him to Rhino, where, the threat threshold is just too low. So if you don’t pay attention to threat, you lose. Here, you’ve got a little more wiggle room on the main scheme, but if you don’t pay attention to threat on the side scheme, everything gets a lot worse. Definitely preferable to swingy losses.

I also compare him to Absorbing Man – which is probably the weakest and perhaps least interesting scenario in the game; however I think that Unus get’s everything right that Absorbing Man got wrong. Absorbing Man adds delay counters each villain phase and when he adds enough they start to trigger nastier effects on the encounter cards. But the threshold is five, so you have five rounds in order to get set up – which is plenty, especially against a weak villain.

With Unus, there are different levels of impact at three threat, six threat and nine threat. It immediately comes into play and if you play expert, you add additional threat to the side scheme, so it’s more punishing straightaway. There’s also boost cards that add a threat to this side scheme each time as well and the encounter cards have similar escalating effects.

My favorite mechanic here is that you have to add additional threat to the side scheme every time an ally is defeated by anything other than consequential damage, which is a great way to discourage chump blocking. It’s still something you might do, but it makes that strategy much weaker, which is important because it is so overpowered.

All in all, his gimick is much better integrated than the brutes and other punching bags of the past and he forces you to engage with the mechanics. It probably won’t blow you away, but it’s likely to become the new standard deck tester and serves as an excellent introductory scenario for a box (unlike, say, Sabertooth).

Four Horsemen

There’s a long history of multiple villain scenarios in this game – from the deservedly unloved Wrecking Crew to the forgettable two-villain Tower Defense, from the wild romp against the Sinister Six to the excellent Mansion Attack, which seemed to finally get everything right (by also including all team members as minions, so you are actually facing off against a team).

The thing that the multiple villain scenarios tend to get wrong is they get weaker and weaker as the villains are defeated. As a result you can usually game the scenario by focusing on the most powerful of the bunch. Also, thematically, these scenarios tend to miss for me because only one villain is active at a time, it doesn’t really feel like you are facing off against a team.

With the Four Horsemen they address this by giving all four villains really nasty activation effects, right at the beginning of the game and then throwing a ton of extra activations in the encounter deck. It makes it tricky to plan for who will be attacking you.

Additionally, these effects are all equally brutal and disrupt pretty much every deck building strategy – deal 1 damage to each character you control, discard 10 cards from the top of your deck, discard and upgrade or support you control, and blank you identity’s text box for an entire round.

Losing upgrades is probably the worst, and the one I’ve usually focused on to start with, but the great thing is that it depends. If you care about your allies, 1 damage to each character is crushing. If you’ve built around your identity’s abilities or any specific cards in your deck, the other two will consistently ruin your plans. The strategy here isn’t obvious and it isn’t possible to “game” it; you’re too busy surviving it.

So turn one, you are already in trouble and you spend the whole game catching up.

Another great improvement here is that the villains never go away. You can stop their activation effect from triggering by reducing their health to zero, but they keep attacking and scheming. My favorite move by the designers was putting a bunch of villain healing in the deck, so that none of the activation effects are truly out of play until the very end of the game.

Good implementation of the multi-villain scenario, and manages to feel very different from previous successes. Keeps all the villains in the game for the duration, and manages to (finally) be fairly difficult, as far as these go. In a lot of ways this feels like a perfected Wrecking Crew, which had a lot of similar ideas, but was poorly executed. Not sure why you would ever play that again, when you can play this.

Apocalypse (1)

I’m on record about how much I love the scenarios in this game where you are required to progress through a series of side schemes before you can defeat the villain. Extremely satisfying and adds just enough narrative flavor. It also creates opportunities for the designers to make the scenario more difficult as you progress from scheme to scheme, which is so important in a game where you build out your board and, generally, become quite powerful later in the game. Great examples of this progression include Collector II, Hela, and Magneto.

With Apocalypse we are treated to another excellent scenario in that tradition. In this one, you have to navigate a dark future and fight against a series of nasty Prelate minions as you press your way into the throne room. Only then can you finally expose Apocalypse for the ruthless tyrant he is. Until you’ve cleared those (great and brutal) minions and their series of side schemes, Apocalypse will just keep resetting his hit points, no matter how many times you kill him.

What works really well here (and improves on how they did this with Magneto) is that, instead of just making damage worthless after a certain threshold, you are able to gain a benefit from “defeating” Apocalypse. He consistenly pulls out really strong attachments from the encounter deck and the only way to clear them is by defeating him (defeating him also gets you some threat removal, reminiscent of the Sinister Six) so you have to decide whether you want to leave the attachments in place and focus on progressing through the scenario or to clear the attachments to make things easier on you and your team. Interesting decision space that doesn’t feel restrictive, like Magneto does.

Love this one. Brutal but fair, with narrative quality and a mechanically sound design. Probably the best from the box, and the only question people will be asking is whether this one would have made a better final boss than the three-sided Apocalypse we see at the end. That remains to be seen, but no matter which you end up preferring, the two feel quite distinct from one another – and for that reason, it doesn’t bother me at all that he shows up twice.

Dark Beast

With Dark Beast the modular sets are the real stars of the show as we race through up to three different environments: The Savage Land, Genosha, and the Blue Area of the Moon. Each are packed with great minions, global effects, and an environmental effect that triggers every time the villain activates. Each of the modulars is well-designed and feels really thematic and I like that Beast keeps running off to new places, accumulating new threats from each environment.

It is reminiscent of Spiral and Mojo, because of the way environments are used and it is just as successful here. My only problem is that these three specifc modulars are required, so, unlike the Hood scenario, I don’t have the option to customize things exactly the way I want. I seems to me that I could probably use the ones from Mojo since they have a similar structure, which would add six more options to the repertoire, but I wonder if I’ll eventually miss the infinite flexibility of The Hood, even though this is much more balanced scenario.

That said, I like the theming here and I like chasing this guy through different dimensions. Beast himself, as a villain, is sort of forgettable. He gets some attachments and has frustrating side schemes, but is ultimately a bit easy, a bit vanilla. But the side schemes that keep rolling in feel fresh and thematic and fun (get ready to take on some Dinosaurs!)- making this one work for me. I only wish it was more modular, so that it could stay fresh over time, but no reason to complain yet. There’s still plenty of interesting plays here, even with just the three, because these modulars are that good.

Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur)

While we’ve got 3 three-sided heroes and one two-sided villain, this is the first time we’ve seen a three-sided villain, and he doesn’t dissapoint.

. When I first heard they were setting the final boss up this way, I was concerned that it was going to feel gimmicky, but instead it feels like you are facing off against a constantly changing villain, making him tricky to predict. And it doesn’t hurt that his double card version does manage to feel enourmous and intimidating. It has that something extra, and I, for one, am here for it.

The encounter deck effects ensure that he’s consistently flipping, which makes it challenging to plan for exactly what you are going to see from him. I love that he has instant effects every time he flips – either healing, dealing damage, or adding threat to all schemes – and that each form has a different stats and traits. It makes this one feel more tactical, since I need to adapt play to the form I’m presented with.

Like Zola and Magneto, he also puts out counters each turn. Four of those triggers an effect, pulling out his powerful attachments that help him hit hard or scheme big. Low health heroes might struggle with him as a result, and you’ll need to bring some thwart.

I can’t imagine playing without the recommended modular, Clan Akkaba, because it’s doing most of the thematic work here with it’s Scarab, Ozymandias, and, of course, a sphinx. It adds a permanent side scheme that, when triggered, gives you extra encounter cards and adds to the difficulty considerably. I actually forgot to put out the side scheme the first time I played, and was surprised at how much harder it was when I remembered to put that in on my second play.

He’s definitely dryer than the other Apocalypse scenario, and possibly, a little easier, which feels a bit strange. Need more plays to be certain of that, but he’s definitely no slouch. I just wouldn’t put him in the same class as a Ronan or Venom Goblin that are borderline unfair. More in line with Magneto, as far as final bosses go. A tough but fair bad guy that is no joke, but is definitely manageable with a well-rounded deck or team.

Side Missions:

Mission Side Schemes is a new mechanic that adds a minion and a side scheme to a separate play area presenting an additional challenge. You can deploy allies into this side area and have them complete a series of mission attempts in order to defeat the minion and clear the scheme. The first player is given a card that allows them to take one of two actions: either play an ally to the mission area with a two-cost discount, or attempt the mission. You can only do one action per turn. If you are able to complete the mission you then flip that card, which allows you to draw a card each turn and you flip the scheme which gives you an immediate benefit.

Thematically you are sending your allies off to complete these various missions, working toward foiling the villains plans in other locations, while you take on the big bad guy, but mechanically, all I’m getting from these is bloat. Makes the game slower, makes it take up more space. It just costs too much to send the allies to the set aside area and then wait a few turns to complete.

You can fail, if you are unable to complete it after a few attempts, which generates an unfortunate effect, but the negative impact isn’t bad enough to avoid these, and the positive effect if you complete them isn’t strong enough to encourage you to sacrifice (an incredible amount of) tempo.

I’m a huge Marvel Champions fan. I love everything they do. But this mechanic was a bust for me. I played with it in all my plays of the campaign, and made a point to defeat all the missions, and, ultimately, it just felt like a distraction. Not enough thematic weight or mechanical interest to justify its existence, and I certainly can’t see myself ever including this in a stand alone game. And, as we’ll see in the next section, the missions will probably keep me from ever running this particular campaign again.

Campaign:

The campaign leans pretty heavily on the mission side schemes, which holds it back from being great. It’s too bad, because the narrative is fun and interesting. You travel to a dark future ruled with an iron fist by Apocalypse and chase him and his minions across time to a final battle in another reality where the ruthless tyrant rules as well. Ultimately needing to defeat him twice.

Something I love, which reminded me a bit of the bad publicity and community service cards from the campaign for Sinister Motives, was the Age of Apocalypse modular set that is included in all scenarios in the campaign. Event though it’s only a few cards, it manages to help tie the different scenarios together. Again, they focus on interactions with the missions, so I don’t love that, but i do think they should include modulars like this in every campaign – like the Badoon Headhunter or the Days of Future Past minions, building a larger narrative in the background.

Standard III

The standard set is required in (nearly) every scenario in the game. It gives the villain lots of extra activations and creates other generic problems for you. One of the most notorious cards in that set is Shadows of the Past, which makes you play your nemesis minion set – a set of thematic encounter cards unique to each hero, centered around a significant minion from their canon. This is, by far, the most brutal card in any deck, because it brings in a minion and a side scheme, both designed specifically to counter your hero’s specific strengths and capitalize on their weaknesses.

I love the nemesis cards and I hate that in so many games they don’t get played, so I absolutely want them to appear more consistently. But despite that, this card has become a meme with how brutal it can be. It all comes down to the timing of when this card comes out as an encounter card and the difference in timing can significantly alter the difficulty of a scenario. For instance, drawing it in the first two turns, in some cases, can all but guarantee a loss.

Enter Standard III. It does not include Shadows of the Past and instead has a permanent card, Pursued by the Past, that you add counters to over the course of the game – both from encounter card effects AND boost effects – that eventually triggers and puts your nemesis set into play. So now there’s no way to avoid it; you’ll almost certainly see your nemesis minion at some point – but it is VERY unlikely that you’ll see it in the first one or two turns.

The villain still gets it’s extra activations and typical effects, but without the swingy-ness of Shadows of the Past making for much more consistent difficulty. I’ll admit that it tends to feel a bit easier than Standard I, and it certainly is easier than an early Shadows of the Past draw, but I think that the difficulty between the two is functionally the same. Standard III is just a lot more balanced.

One of my favorite things about this game is the ability to very precisely tune the difficulty, using the modulars and different villain stages. I hadn’t really considered it too much before, but Standard I was actually making that quite a bit less precise since I couldn’t control when, or if Shadows of the Past would come out. There’s an unpredictability to it, which has its merits, but, having played the more balanced version, I now feel that it was just swingy design that we have all just accepted as part of the game.

I LOVE Standard III and I don’t know that I’ll ever play without it again. My only criticism is that we didn’t get a complimentary Expert III set, one that slightly escalates the addition of the counters, but I’m still happy. This plus expert I, is my go-to moving forward.

A note on Standard II: Standard II and Expert II were included with the Hood scenario pack, but were universally disliked for being too difficult and/or swingy because of its over reliance on surge as a way to add difficulty to a scenario. It was dissapointing and definitely too difficult, and while I think it’s still worth having and playing with from time to time, Standard III is WAY better. Full review of The Hood, including a full breakdown of Standard II and Expert II here.

Final Thoughts: Marvel Champions Age of Apocalypse

You should pick this one up. Perhaps not a good one for your first box, because there are some complex mechanics here, but the difficulty level is really solid and it’s a great way to expand your villain repertoire. You get a more sophisticated punching bag in Unus, one of the best multi-villain scenarios in the game, a thematic romp with some excellent modulars in Dark Beast, and two tense boss battles that are both unique and difficult.

The heroes have more moving parts than other, but are very strong and interesting to pilot. Can’t go wrong with either. There’s some cool aspect cards, including side kick, which introduces a whole new potential playstyle.

The campaign and the missions side schemes aren’t great, but you can mostly ignore that content.

But the real reason you have to get this ASAP is Standard III. It improves the whole game and is the best content we’ve received in a long time.

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FAQ: Marvel Champions Age of Apocalypse