From Panel to Play: Guardians of the Galaxy

The Milano lands here for today’s From Panel to Play, a throwback to the early days of Marvel: Crisis Protocol as we revisit its dysfunctional crew, the Guardians of the Galaxy. The original release of the Guardians was years ago and their crew has only grown over time. Now is the ideal time to re-introduce them in their own set of Affiliation boxes. These boxes take multiple previously released character boxes and combine them into one box, making them an easier pick up for players looking to boost their collection.

The Guardians have so many characters out now that they will be receiving two of these boxes. Today we will dive into the Guardians of the Galaxy Affiliation box which holds four characters, along with their Team Tactic Cards.

The first character is Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord, the leader of the team who hails from Earth. Peter left Earth by stealing a ship and soon found himself stranded and in need of rescue. He was saved and grew up traveling the galaxy, and despite his lack of the ability to develop and execute effective plans, he found himself to be the leader of the team in part due to his Plucky Attitude (brought to Marvel: Crisis Protocol as an Innate superpower that allows him to reroll attack and defense dice in certain situations).

Peter Quill is a Threat Value 3 character with moderate defensive stats. As the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy he comes with the Winging It Leadership ability. This ability was changed a few years ago into its current form which grants up to three allied characters a Winging It token each Power Phase. These tokens are then used to reroll dice during attacks or while dodging, giving his squad some flexible reliability when dealing with their opponents. Peter’s rocket boots give him excellent mobility by granting him the Flight Innate superpower and can be used to perform stylish combat maneuvers. Hit and Run allows him to make an attack before moving, ensuring he is difficult to engage or able to move into position while still dealing damage to enemy characters.

Peter’s two attacks have the Energy type and solid range, perfect for a character like him. His Element Gun generates Power for him while Full Auto ensures opponents are left wounded and full of special conditions. Both of these attacks are Range 4 which dovetails nicely with Hit and Run’s ability to add distance between himself and enemies.

While Star-Lord doesn’t require the most Power to contribute to his team, players may opt to give him the Infinity Gem: Power. This card grants him 2 additional Power during the Power Phase which enables him to use his abilities earlier and more often in battle.

The second character in this pack is the diminutive Rocket Raccoon. Rocket has been a Guardian since the beginning of the team and is well known for the mayhem he can cause with his weapons and devices. Rocket’s attacks, the basic Plasma Rifle and impressive Hadron Enforcer, are both Energy attacks with a Range of 5. The Hadron Enforcer also comes with the Vortex, rule which will cause enemies near the target to be pulled into the target and damaged.

Rocket is not an imposing figure on the battlefield. He has a Size of 1 and only 3 Stamina, but he has a lot of ways to avoid taking damage. Anyone trying to get close to him will have to get past his Booby Traps before they can take a swing at him. These traps have the potential to damage any enemy ending a movement near him. This applies to any movement making it extremely flexible and in some cases can Daze opponents that don’t respect their potential.

The rest of Rocket’s survivability is found in his Personal Bodyguard superpower and his two Innate superpowers. Personal Bodyguard allows Rocket to redirect any attack made against him into his longtime partner Groot. His first Innate superpower is Nimble which prevents him from taking damage from collisions. This sort of immunity to a particular type of damage is rare in Marvel: Crisis Protocol and allows Rocket Raccoon to fully benefit from Groot’s presence. Opponents that attempt to squash the raccoon with the tree will instead see Rocket pop up from under Groot, Plasma Rifle ready and not a scratch on him. His final superpower is Small Statue, his last line of defense against enemy attacks. This superpower ensures he will always have the benefits of Cover. Taken together, these three superpowers make Rocket surprisingly resistant to enemies trying to remove him from the battlefield.

Groot is one of the flora colossi from Planet X and long-time friend and bodyguard of Rocket Raccoon. This Guardian of the Galaxy is perhaps most well known for his language, which consists of exactly three words always delivered in the same order.

Groot has one of the simpler cards in Marvel: Crisis Protocol. His Threat Value is 3, but he has a very high Stamina value and a couple solid superpowers. His best attack, I AM GROOT!, has a large dice pool and can Throw the target Medium distance. This Throw is not triggered by dice results like most Throws and is not limited to enemies of a particular Size. When Groot gets angry, his strength can move anything! Additionally, the target will gain the Stagger special condition after the attack, ensuring the target’s next activation is limited in usefulness.

Groot’s ability to take a beating is legendary and his Living Plant superpower ensures he can continue to do so. When he uses this ability he will remove up to 3 damage from himself. As this only costs 2 Power, it can do a great job of keeping him in the fight and allowing him to use his other superpower or his I AM GROOT! attack. His second superpower is Tangling Vines, which causes an enemy character near him to gain the Root special condition to reduce the efficiency of their Power use.

The final character in this pack is one of the newer additions to Marvel: Crisis Protocol, Cosmic Ghost Rider. This version of Frank Castle is a bit unstable, having been killed, remade, fractured, stitched back together, killed, drained, empowered, and brought back over and over. He has become, in his own vengeful way, a Guardian of the Galaxy, though he has not often been aligned with Peter Quill’s team.

Since his initial release, Cosmic Ghost Rider’s card has had a few changes made to it to help him be a bit more in line with the rest of the game. Those changes can be found in the FAQ/Errata document, however, this release brings his updated card to print.

Cosmic Ghost Rider earns his Threat Value of 6 with abilities like Interstellar Hellcycle, which allows him to Place up to Range 5 away! He can also punish enemies for Dazing or KO’ing his allies with Cosmic Justice on Wheels, which allows him to make an attack against them in retaliation. Finally, he has a new version of the Penance Stare, Power Cosmic Penance Stare. This Strength 12 attack denies the target any Power gain from the damage they take and can potentially deny them successes on their defense roll!

Taken together these abilities may make him very strong, but he also suffers from Psychosis granted by the Ready to Roll and I’m the Spirit of Vengeance, Bearer of the Power Cosmic, and Just a Bit Unstable which can disrupt his player’s plans for him by preventing him from interacting with the Crisis Cards in meaningful ways. Cosmic Ghost Rider has tons of mobility, battlefield control, and raw damage, forcing any opponent to carefully consider how to deal with him and the rest of his squad as what he loses to Psychosis may be made up for by everything else with good play and a little luck.

In addition to these characters this box contains the Team Tactic Cards that go along with them from the wild flurry of attacks that is the Deadly Duo card to the battlefield-altering It’s Time Travel… Don’t Ask. This pack has them all.

That’s all we have for this From Panel to Play. As the galaxy’s greatest take off in the Milano or on the back of a Hellcycle for their next battle, their foes need to keep in mind that while they may just be a group of big, dumb heroes, they get the job done! Pre-order your copy of the Guardians of the Galaxy Affiliation Pack at your local game store or through the webstore today!

Until next time, Atomic Mass Games, signing off!