Avengers Assemble! Roleplay as Earth's Mightiest Heroes in MARVEL UNITED, a hybrid card game that incorporates fantastic tabletop miniatures, which lets players team up as their favorite Avengers. Have yourself a super family game night attempting to stop the dastardly master plans of dangerous villains.
Two to four players each take on the role of one of seven Avengers characters (Ant Man, Black Widow, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Iron Man or Wasp) in this cooperative game co-created by CMON and Spin Master Games. MARVEL UNITED is a mashup of plots and characters from both the Marvel comics and cinematic universe with the artwork and figure models in a unique chibi style to be appealing to tweens and teenagers based upon the current popularity of anime and manga. The game has been specifically designed to be easy to learn yet challenging enough to be entertaining to play to maximize its playability with a wide range of ages making MARVEL UNITED an ideal selection for a family game night.
One of the reasons I picked up MARVEL UNITED was that it isn't too complicated for my twelve year old twins to enjoy but is comprehensive enough to keep me interested in playing it too. I also appreciate the cooperative nature of the game where we would all be working together to win the game. This game has the potential for a lot or repeat playability and I liked how it can provide us quality family time immersing ourselves in the fantasy world of Marvel super heroes and villains.
The core box of MARVEL UNITED focusses on the Avengers with a team that is pretty consistent with the makeup of the characters as portrayed in the Marvel cinematic universe. You can pick from one of three villains (Red Skull, Ultron or Taskmaster) for your team of Avengers to tackle in an adventure. Players only go head to head against one of these villains per game. Each villain and hero gets their own deck of cards which are utilized in turns throughout the game.
Rising to power during World War II, the Red Skull was one of the planet's most dangerous threats and Captain America's greatest enemy during the conflict. Exposed to an experimental gas near the end of the war he remained in suspended animation for decades. He emerged in modern times to continue his desire for world domination as the leader of a terrorist organization known as Hydra.
Has photographic reflexes that allow him to replicate any super hero fighting move he sees. He is a mercenary who trains super villains in combat techniques and engages in covert missions. Taskmaster utilizes his martial arts skills and special ability for a wide range of criminal enterprises from assassinations to high priced heists. He doesn't have loyalty to any particular creed beyond the accumulation of wealth.
A science experiment gone wrong, Ultron is a sentient robot that hates and seeks to destroy humanity. Ultron’s abilities include superhuman strength, flight, and various weapons such as concussion blasters, radiation emitters and his “encephalo-ray,” which plunges its victims into a deathlike coma. As a mechanical being Ultron can transfer his consciousness from robotic body to body making him nearly indestructible.
In MARVEL UNITED an actual storyline is created by drawing villain cards that imperil the heroes and move the master plan forward. Players build a hand of cards from drawing blindly from their individual hero decks during the game. Hero cards allow players to take certain actions such as moving to different locations, clearing threats, fighting thugs, rescuing civilians, inflicting damage on the villains and their henchmen or utilizing a unique power.
Don't rush into making a decision in your turn because your decision also impacts your team mates. Heroes can unite their powers so your move can impact what someone may or may not be able to turn the next turn. Remember no one wins the game unless your team prevents the villain from enacting their master plan.
While the Avengers strategize and leap into action, the villain will roam around six locations in the game (ranging from the grounds of New York City's Central Park to the airborne deck of a S.H.I.E.L.D. helocarrier hovering over Manhattan) creating chaos. They could be deploying minions to terrorize the city, kidnapping civilians and more. Oh and while there is only one primary villain (represented by a game board figure piece) they do have some powerful henchmen that the Avengers will have to battle one on one too.
Plus just to make things a little more tricky ... you can't battle the main villain until you do two of three things. Before you can inflict damage on the villain your heroes must defeat nine minion thugs, rescue nine civilians or do a combination of defeating powerful henchmen and clearing threat scenarios. And once you get close to getting to the big bad guy the villains cards start to be drawn after every two hero turns instead of at the conclusion of an entire Avengers' team. Are you up to the challenge?!
For our first family game night playing MARVEL UNITED, we took on Red Skull. While the Avengers we played as resembled the heroes portrayed on the silver screen, the Red Skull and his henchmen were closer to characters from the pages of Marvel comic books. As I said earlier, the Red Skull wasn't just backed by nameless thugs. We also had to combat Crossbones, Madame Hydra, and Bob (Agent of Hydra) before we can go after Red Skull. And while we can't engage right away with the main villain, Red Skull and his henchmen can inflict damage on each of our heroes from the get go. We have to make quick work of the henchmen and thugs or our heroes could get KO'd. Game over!
BAM! BAM! BAM! Red Skull and his henchmen were hitting us hard doing a ton of damage to our heroes as the Avengers started off the game clearing out locations of minor thugs and rescuing civilians in danger. Things started to swing our way though starting with Bob being a bit of a pushover and Madame Hydra falling next. Crossbones was more of a challenge but Captain America and Iron Man combined their abilities to take him down. With Hydra's thugs and henchmen out of the way this opened up an opportunity for The Incredible Hulk to smash Red Skull for an Avengers victory in our first time playing MARVEL UNITED.
This game has been available for retailers since the 2020 holiday season, but we just received it now because I purchased it through a Kickstarter pledge which took awhile to arrive because it included some exclusive items. One of those items is the wonderful game mat with a neoprene non-skid backing shown in our pictures playing the game. This game mat really enhanced the game play.
Also I received a box of additional hero and villain miniatures with their own card decks. While the core box focus is on the Avengers this Kickstarter exclusive expansion pack brings into play a variety of characters from the comic books, television shows, and movies. These range from heroes such as Daredevil, Squirrel Girl, and Howard the Duck to villains that include M.O.D.O.K. and Kingpin.
With these Kickstarter exclusives there is so much re-playability with MARVEL UNITED. We're going to be having a lot of family game night fun with this game. MARVEL UNITED absolutely gets a Geek Daddy nod of approval.
