Three Box Challenge: Guardians of the Galaxy

Another Friday, another Three Box Challenge! This time: Guardians of the Galaxy!

What is the Three Box Challenge, you may ask? It’s simple – what affiliated rosters can you put together with just the core set plus three boxes of your choice. I know a lot of us obsessively purchase every single box, but I think a huge part of why this game is so great is you can pick up a core box, and a couple boxes of what appeals to you and you could take that to a game night or tournament and do OK.

If you’re coming to this article without having any MCP experience whatsoever and are doubting the value of the Core box, I’m here to tell you that it is worth it. For $100 you get:

All the dice you should need

All the measuring tools you will need

~Half a tournament board’s worth of terrain

10 characters (a standard game requires a roster of 10)

20 tactics (you’ll need 10)

3 secure crises and 3 extract crises (you’ll need 3 of each to play)

Compared to other big wargames like 40k/AOS and WMH, its really impressive what you can get for ~$200. So, this is somewhat akin to a budget/beginner’s MCP guide, focusing on a different faction each time.

I wanted to do Guardians ever since their updates were announced, and now that everything is revealed it seemed like a good time to finally put out the article.

Guardians of the Galaxy are a wide affiliation that focuses on attrition through things like Star-Lord’s Leadership:

handing out 6 rerolls a round, boosting your key pieces in key moments. Alongside it are tactics cards like Deadly Duo and We are Groot:

dishing out damage and healing up your squad no matter how spread out. And you’ll be spread out pretty often, easily playing 6 wide on 17 (if you can muster the affiliated characters!). Guardians up until the Bullseye rework was unique for its 7 threat 3 character core of Star-Lord, Nebula, Rocket which allows for an incredible amount of team building flexibility for crossovers. That is, outside of the Three Box Challenge where assembling those 3 characters takes up all your boxes.

Another unhappy moment comes in the form of their signature crisis card having the distinction of being the first and only crisis banned:

Never going to play this

But beyond that if you want to play the swarmiest of swarms in a Three Box Challenge, Guardians are going to be the natural pick. The first two boxes will be pretty obvious after seeing the cards already shown – Star-Lord and Rocket + Groot. Between these three you get an 8 threat starting core (9 if you go with Power Gem Star-Lord), and two tactics you’ll be wanting to play pretty much every game. Before we move on to talking about the options for the third box lets talk the Power Gem:

Do you put it on Star-Lord or no? Personally I’m against it. Sure, having hit & run guaranteed every round, and building up extra for some Full Auto hit & run goodness is nice, but it detracts from the “swarm” mentality of the roster in exchange for making your 3 threat point holder feel more consistently powerful. That said Star-Lord as a 4 threat creates a 9 threat core, so if you have two particular 4 threats (or a 5 and a 3) you REALLY want to play it is a viable option. But focusing on the swarm mentality may I present to you our first suggestion:

MCP Gamora & Nebula – 7th Dimension Games, PA

This box gives you 2 more Guardians members with a combined total of 6 threat, giving you a 5 character guardian core of 13 threat, slot in your favorite 4 threat from the core box (presumably Ultron or Peter Parker depending on which one you enjoy more) and you’re covered on any 17 threat match. And at higher than 17 threat you can go a terrifying 7 wide! You even get a restricted card upgrade in the form of Medpack:

Admittedly with We are Groot and Patch Up this isn’t TOO much of an upgrade on your healing, but its flexibility over Patch Up usually gets it the nod. You can even take Patch Up and Medpack and shun brace, but again with We Are Groot you’re probably going to find you have more healing than there are characters to heal.

[Characters]

  • Baron Zemo: 3
  • Black Widow: 2
  • Crossbones: 3
  • Gamora: 4
  • Groot: 3
  • Nebula: 2
  • Rocket Raccoon: 2
  • Star-Lord: 3
  • Spider-Man (Peter Parker): 4
  • Ultron: 4

[Team Tactics]

  • Brace for Impact
  • Crew of the Milano
  • Daughters of Thanos
  • Deadly Duo
  • Disarm
  • Follow Me
  • Medpack
  • Mission Objective
  • Sacrifice
  • We Are Groot

[Extract Crises]

  • Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership [C]: 17
  • Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan [F]: 17
  • Struggle for the Cube Continues [F]: 17

[Secure Crises]

  • Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians [C]: 17
  • Infinity Formula Goes Missing [B]: 17
  • Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 [D]: 17

Next up we’re going to go to the more expensive end of the Guardians options:

Marvel Crisis Protocol Angela & Enchantress – Common Ground Games

Coming in at as much as a Power Gem Ronan but doing oh so much more, Angela is the undisputed queen of the 5 threat slot in Three Box Challenge. Thanks to her medium base and long move she can make it to the midline in a single move, stealing extracts and doing damage round one. She also happens to be a really solid Guardians member, using the rerolls to boost her impressive stats into winning ones. Enchantress while nerfed is still situationally valid, and especially attractive if/when you want to play 5 wide. Consider Star-Lord, Angela, Groot, Rocket, and Enchantress on 17 for a balanced team that puts forward Star-Lord, Angela, and Enchantress to win the day while Rocket and Groot play the scenario. It is impossible to play affiliated 6+ at 17 so do keep that in mind for playstyle considerations.

[Characters]

  • Angela: 5
  • Baron Zemo: 3
  • Black Widow: 2
  • Enchantress: 4
  • Groot: 3
  • Iron Man: 3
  • Rocket Raccoon: 2
  • Star-Lord: 3
  • Spider-Man (Peter Parker): 4
  • Ultron: 4

[Team Tactics]

  • Brace for Impact
  • Crew of the Milano
  • Deadly Duo
  • Disarm
  • Follow Me
  • Lovable Misfits
  • Patch Up
  • Mission Objective
  • Sacrifice
  • We Are Groot

[Extract Crises]

  • Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership [C]: 17
  • Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan [F]: 17
  • Struggle for the Cube Continues [F]: 17

[Secure Crises]

  • Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians [C]: 17
  • Infinity Formula Goes Missing [B]: 17
  • Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 [D]: 17

And to round things out as Ronan isn’t much appealing without Eye on the Prize lets look at an unconventional Guardian:

MCP Vision & Winter Soldier – 7th Dimension Games, PA

By now you might have noticed that your third box for Guardians has to either have a 5+ threat or another Guardian member otherwise you can’t play affiliated at 17 which will be the threat for 90+% of your TBC games. We can’t take Nebula & Gamora or Angela because we’ve already covered them. I don’t like Ronan without Eye on the Prize, and Drax alone isn’t worth a box. So, it had to be Taskmaster & Punisher… or the obvious choice in Vision & Winter Soldier. Not only do you get a freshly buffed Bucky who pairs incredibly well with aggro attrition swarms but you also get the swarm’s favorite weapon:

Do you know how many full competitive games of MCP are decided by a wide team Field Dressing a character to activate after all of their opponent’s characters have gone? A lot. Star-Lord Groot Rocket Winter Soldier Baron Zemo Iron Man is a hell of a 17 threat team to fight through, and the threat of going buck wild with a dazed character will be that extra bit over the top to beat down your opponents. Psychic Shielding Device (P.S.D.) and Till the End of the Line are also awesome tactics cards in their own right but due to the nature of the limited format Tactical Analysis was the only one that made the cut. If you have someone you know will take Thanos and / or the Mind Gem / bows, consider slotting in PSD as counter-tech.

[Characters]

  • Baron Zemo: 3
  • Black Widow: 2
  • Captain America (Steve Rogers): 4
  • Captain Marvel: 4
  • Iron Man: 3
  • Groot: 3
  • Rocket Raccoon: 2
  • Star-Lord: 3
  • Vision: 4
  • Winter Soldier: 3

[Team Tactics]

  • Brace for Impact
  • Crew of the Milano
  • Deadly Duo
  • Disarm
  • Field Dressing
  • Mission Objective
  • Ricochet Blast
  • Sacrifice
  • Tactical Analysis
  • We Are Groot

[Extract Crises]

  • Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership [C]: 17
  • Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan [F]: 17
  • Struggle for the Cube Continues [F]: 17

[Secure Crises]

  • Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians [C]: 17
  • Infinity Formula Goes Missing [B]: 17
  • Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 [D]: 17

And FINALLY, if you’re not supporting your FLGS for MCP, I would like to bring your attention to our sponsors for your wargaming needs in both NA and the UK:

NA:

https://www.discountgamesinc.com/

UK:

https://blackgategames.co.uk


That will wrap us up for this Three Box Challenge article here on acrossthebifrost.com! Also make sure to check out the Roster Doctor on Facebook, Youtube and Twitch!

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