‘Marvel: Crisis Protocol – Black Panther Expansion’ Review
If you’re a regular reader of our board game coverage, you’ll struggle to miss the fact that I have a new favourite miniatures game in the form of Marvel’s Crisis Protocol, a game that delivers the perfect mechanical theme for a game about superheroes, whilst also keeping things fast paced and simple. We were a little late with our recent review because we wanted to make sure our miniatures were perfectly painted, and as a result of that, there are already several expansion packs available for Crisis Protocol.
The first of these that we’ve been able to get our hands on is the Black Panther and Erik Killmonger pack, which makes up half of the in-game Wakanda faction, with the other two fighters being Shuri and Okoye. Sadly, we don’t have access to Wakanda’s leading ladies, so we haven’t been able to test the faction as a whole – but of course I hope to do so in the future. What I can say is that Black Panther’s King of Wakanda affiliation ability is interesting, allowing allied characters to spend one power to re-roll one dice – an understated ability that is probably more powerful than it sounds.
Getting into more detail, both Black Panther and Killmonger feature other abilities that allow them to reroll dice fairly frequently. Black Panther’s Mantle allows him to spend two energy and re-roll any number of attack dice, whilst Killmonger gains the interesting ability to reroll one die for each opposing character he has knocked out. These abilities make both Black Panther and Killmonger fairly consistent to play. Whilst neither has what I would consider to be a super powerful ability, each character will hit regularly and there are a few other key abilities to factor in.
Let’s look at Black Panther first. Aside from his King of Wakanda affiliation ability and his mantle, Panther moves based on the long movement template and has six base health, making him excellent at moving into danger to snag objectives or to take out a powerful but physically weak opposing character. His basic strike ability is a strength 5 physical attack that returns energy based on damage dealt, whilst also automatically pushing the model being attacked (off an objective, for example.)
His other main attack, Kinetic Burst, is a 6 strength energy attack that can be “overcharged” with extra dice by spending energy. Once complete, this attack also produces a shockwave that pushes back and damages nearby models. Finally, Black Panther can pounce (which resolves like a throw, but doesn’t damage Panther) and of course, he has the benefit of Vibranium Armour. This allows Black Panther to count black rolls towards his defence against certain attacks, which further adds to his durability as a lone operator.
Erik Killmonger on the other hand, is slower to unleash his full potential, but as the battle goes on, he becomes more and more dangerous. Aside from a basic strength 5 attack that also has Pierce (allowing Killmonger to change a defenders die result to a blank), Killmonger has the Black Ops Strike, a massive range 3, 7 strength attack that costs three energy and brings Killmonger within 1 range of his target, then staggers them. Despite moving medium, Killmonger also has a Charge superpower, allowing him to move and immediately attack (effectively allowing him to potentially move twice, then attack in a single turn.)
Special Forces allows Killmonger to convert more of his rolls into hits for two energy, whilst Focused on the Kill allows Killmonger to add two dice to his attack if he’s already attacked the same target that turn. As an example, if he can move into range with a Charge as mentioned earlier, then for his second action use Focused on the Kill, the opposing player will be in real trouble. Add to this his Kill Count ability (as mentioned earlier) which allows him to collect Kill Count tokens and then reroll attack dice based on how many he has, and Killmonger can get very dangerous indeed.
Both Black Panther and Killmonger come with tactics cards, but Killmonger’s Usurp the Throne tactic actually allows him to score victory points directly if he can KO a character whilst using it. Speaking for the base game at least, no tactics card we’ve seen so far has actually scored points in this way. There are also a few new Crisis cards of course, and one of these involves collecting the Wakanda Herb, which offers tokens that bestow certain status resistance whilst slowing down the bearer. Holding a herb at a control point scores a huge 4 victory points, shifting the focus of the game onto objectives which really suits Black Panther and Killmonger.
With the superb miniatures (Black Panther about to launch a leap and Killmonger pointing menacingly towards his foe) and really focused abilities that each character has, I really like adding Black Panther and Killmonger to my rosters. I am now even more excited about playing more Crisis Protocol and in particular, about bringing some of the other factions (in this case Wakanda) together to see what they can do.
