Another Friday, another Three Box Challenge! This time: Cabal!
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 article series is somewhat akin to a budget/beginner’s MCP guide, focusing on a different faction each time.
And today to complete the full cycle on current affiliations we are going back to our roots and covering the masters of evil, the Cabal:
As you might have guessed by now, Cabal is MCP’s catch-all for Marvel’s villains. If you want to play bad guys and don’t want to drill down into one of the more narrowly focused “bad guy” affiliations like Criminal Syndicate, Spider-Foes, Black Order, or the Brotherhood of Mutants this is going to be your best bet. You also get the benefit of having 4 affiliated characters in the core box (Red Skull, Crossbones, Baron Zemo, and Ultron). Do note that Ultron has recently been buffed from the card you might find in the box:
Which has made him far more appealing in the modern day than his original iteration. Baron Zemo and Crossbones are perrennially solid 3-threats in and out of affiliation and Red Skull, despite not being the talk of the town nowadays, is still a pretty solid leader. Which is a pretty solid start because in all of MCP there is only ONE box where you can get two Cabal Members which will obviously be our first core box:
Sin just so happens to be Cabal’s other leader bringing a diametrically opposed style to Red Skulls calculated aggression:
There’s a lot of text but the gist of it is – if your opponent is scoring something and you have an ally within r2 of the character scoring, there’s a 50-50 chance they’ll not be scoring at the start of the next round. It rewards mobility, tankiness, persistence, and above all else a little bit of MAYHEM. She also comes with two signature tactics cards to use with her partner in crime Crossbones:
Slightly less impressive is Viper who isn’t terrible but when you already have Sin, Crossbones, and Baron Zemo you probably won’t take her unless you’re really fond of playing 6 characters at 17, something like Sin, Crossbones, Zemo, Viper, Widow, and the 3 threat of your choice. Which naturally, brings us to our second box:
This is a very tough pick to be honest. As mentioned before, after Sin and Viper there are LITERALLY no boxes with two Cabal members for you to get. So I went with the Cabal member I’ve been playing the most recently (though in Criminal Syndicate rather than Cabal) – Hood. With his suite of terrifying mystic attacks paired with healing from his dark arts, he’ll impress even if your opponent doesn’t knock him into his demon form. Voodoo, his counterpart in the box is a serious contender for best 4 threat in the game as of writing this and realistically can slide into either a Red Skull or Sin team as you see fit. The tactics aren’t the most relevant but you’ve already got a pretty solid 10 between the core set and Sin’s box so going for strong characters is a priority.
From here on out the third choice boxes are a bit looser due to the strange nature of Cabal releases. There is the upside of these options all being in-roads to other affiliations post-Three Box, starting with dipping our toe into some X-Force action:
This box is one of the more expensive boxes in the game, especially for a Three Box Challenge roster where only one character in the box is affiliated and you can only use one of the tactics cards in the box (unless you pick up some X-Force boxes):
I’m not going to lie to you – Chimichangas isn’t going to light the world on fire. But it DOES have some interesting interactions with Sin’s leadership to keep it on your team. If you can somehow connive its way onto Crossbones he’ll be a hell of a happy camper!
More importantly, you get Bob, Agent of Hydra, the first Cabal 2 threat we’re going to talk about today. His defenses are bad and his builder is worse but he comes with a VERY POWERFUL attack you get 1-2 times a game (usually once is enough, especially if you combo it with Dark Reign):
And while Deadpool isn’t the focus of the box his immunity to mystic trickery or superpowers moving him and always counting as healthy for scoring makes him an excellent option to jam in wide Sin teams where you want to push in relentlessly to stick on points. Check out the following roster:
[Characters]
- Baron Zemo: 3
- Bob, Agent of Hydra: 2
- Crossbones: 4
- Deadpool: 3
- Doctor Voodoo
- Hood
- Red Skull: 4
- Sin: 3
- Ultron: 4
- Viper: 3
[Team Tactics]
- Brace for Impact
- Chimichangas
- Cosmic Invigoration
- Dark Reign
- Disarm
- Illicit Tech
- Mission Objective
- Patch Up
- The Age of Ultron
- Sacrifice
[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 we’ll be covering another 2 threat variation, this time pointing you towards Criminal Syndicate:
Another box all about a 2 threat, and ignoring the other character. Don’t be fooled by the card that comes in the box, by the way, Bullseye has received an update as of November 2021:
No longer a serious candidate for the worst 3 threat in the game, Bullseye is a VERY competitive 2 threat that will fit into either Red Skull or Sin’s teams as an affiliated member. Do note that I Never Miss does NOT work with Red Skulls leadership so you won’t be getting free power if your opponents are too tanky (or you roll too bad). You also get a pretty generically excellent tactic card in the form of Climbing Gear:
But beyond those two cards you’ll not find much use for the rest of the box unless you get into Criminal Syndicate or REALLY like Daredevil. For your consideration:
[Characters]
- Baron Zemo: 3
- Black Widow: 2
- Bullseye: 2
- Crossbones: 4
- Doctor Voodoo: 4
- Hood: 3
- Red Skull: 4
- Sin: 3
- Ultron: 4
- Viper: 3
[Team Tactics]
- Brace for Impact
- Cosmic Invigoration
- Dark Reign
- Disarm
- Follow Me
- Illicit Tech
- Mission Objective
- Patch Up
- The Age of Ultron
- Sacrifice
[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
[Secure Crises]
- Infinity Formula Goes Missing [B]: 17
- Intrusions Open Across City as Seals Collapse [C]: 19
- Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 [D]: 17
George Tarleton is the Mental Organism Designed Only (for) Killing AKA M.O.D.O.K., head of AIM Labs and the biggest brain in the Cabal Roster. Do note that just as Ultron and Bullseye were buffed, M.O.D.O.K. has been nerfed from the card you might find in the box. Here is the current version:
The only changes are “Bow to the Will of M.O.D.O.K.” became once/turn rather than once/character/turn (if you have some free time at the store and a willing participant give the old version of Bow a try just to see how nutty it was), and “Pea-Brain! M.O.D.O.K.’s Genius is Infinite!” is once per turn, preventing him from turning into an infinite power engine to murder two people in two attacks and bow/throw terrain at the remaining foes. He also comes with TWO excellent signature tactics cards:
A.I.M. Lackeys can be similar to Climbing Gear in ways, though has certain different advantages and hoops to jump through to make it work. Getting a free long move out of Zemo with it can be quite gratifying, especially if your opponent is foolish enough to let you pull it off round 1. Psychic Fortress is the more defensive option of the two, giving your whole team Cover for a round. Don’t make the mistake I made when I started playing in assuming that the Cover didn’t work if the opponent was within range 2 like “normal” Cover – that’s just how you can get Cover from terrain and has nothing to do with the benefit of Cover. But we now come to the crisis in the box:
Admittedly I do not like “rummage” crises like Alien Ship and Skrulls – they’re random in a game I try and remove as much randomness from to gain advantages and the consequences of your opponent finding the extract on round 1 can often be game losing. But if you want to focus on attrition by massively slowing the game down you’ve come to the right place. Unlike Skrulls it also works with Sin’s Leadership so you can run someone up to the Core holder for a 50-50 chance to force them to drop it after scoring it. 20 threat also can lead to some epic and interesting games, especially if you want to fit ol’ George in. Our final roster:
[Characters]
- Baron Zemo: 3
- Black Widow: 2
- Crossbones: 4
- Doctor Voodoo: 4
- Hood: 3
- M.O.D.O.K.: 5
- Red Skull: 4
- Sin: 3
- Ultron: 4
- Viper: 3
[Team Tactics]
- A.I.M. Lackeys
- Brace for Impact
- Cosmic Invigoration
- Dark Reign
- Disarm
- Illicit Tech
- Patch Up
- Psychic Fortress
- The Age of Ultron
- Sacrifice
[Extract Crises]
- Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown [C]: 20
- Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership [C]: 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
Before we go I want to talk about plans for Three Box now that all affiliations have been covered (edit: whoops, CS and DD were not done, those are top of the docket now!). Of course Three Box will continue once we know enough about SHIELD to do a SHIELD episode, but I plan on revisiting old affiliation episodes and updating them (no more telling you to buy Miles/Gwen for All You’ve Got, for example), after a short intermission. Also stay tuned for some exciting extras coming down the pipe!
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:
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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