Another Friday, another Three Box Challenge! This time: Criminal Syndicate!
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 cover one of the final affiliations (until SHIELD arrives) covering the lighter flavor of evil available to us, the Criminal Syndicate:
Criminal Syndicate as a collective is the face of “small picture” evil in MCP. Every character who might rob a bank or kidnap the mayor of NYC for ransom finds their home in the Syndicate. At the moment they have two leaders, Kingpin:
and more recently, Shadowland Daredevil
Unfortunately at the moment of writing we still do not fully know the Grunt rules so we’re going to be focusing hard on Fisk for our Three Box Challenge, and as you may have noticed by his leadership ability he is ALL IN on scenario. Counting double on secures (note it doesn’t work on flip secures!) and alley-oop-ing (sp?) extracts to safer allies is the name of the game. Tankiness and mobility are premium stats in the Syndicate, to terrorize enemy secures / threaten to steal extracts. If a game plan where the heist comes before anything else sounds like fun then this is the affiliation for you.
Now, I won’t lie, CS has some awkwardness in 3 Box. Kingpin is a solo character box. You only have a single CS member in the core box. And most annoyingly, there is no box you can buy that comes with two CS members in it. For some reason every CS member is in a solo box (M.O.D.O.K., Omega Red), or is paired with a good guy. To that end I recommend you dual affiliation with Cabal in your roster to ensure easier coverage as pretty much every Syndicate member also happens to be Cabal. But enough caveats lets lay down the core boxes! First and foremost is of course Kingpin:
In addition to the big man you get the two main signature CS cards, Shadow Organization and All According to Plan:
Do note that Hired Muscle, the third tactic in the box, has the dubious distinction of being banned for absolutely breaking the game. Whip it out on a game night if you want to suck the fun out of the table! You also get a pretty CS favored Crisis as well:
For our second core box, I’ve decided to lean into the limited resources angle. Hard to find CS members, and want to leave option Cabal options so naturally:
I already hyped up Sin as a Cabal leader in the last Three Box Challenge article on Cabal but here she more importantly comes with two signature tactics cards to use with her partner in crime Crossbones:
Admittedly Illicit Tech is the better of the two but I think they are both fun and powerful tactics in their own right. But now that we’ve identified our two core boxes, what are we going to look at to round things out?
In the early days I used to advertise Shuri and Okoye for everything. Then as people started to break All You’ve Got I would push Miles & Gwen. Today’s “hot box” is Doctor Voodoo and Hood. Hood is a top tier 3 threat, doing massive mystic damage at range while healing your tanks and handing out shock. Doctor Voodoo is one of the most important control pieces you can take in the current game, is incredibly tanky due to his effective 4/4/6 defense dice, and plays perfectly naturally into the CS game plan. Consider the following roster:
[Characters]
- Baron Zemo: 3
- Black Widow: 2
- Crossbones: 4
- Doctor Voodoo: 4
- Hood: 3
- Kingpin: 4
- Red Skull: 4
- Sin: 3
- Ultron: 4
- Viper: 3
[Team Tactics]
- All According to Plan
- Brace for Impact
- Cosmic Invigoration
- Dark Reign
- Disarm
- Illicit Tech
- Mission Objective
- Patch Up
- Sacrifice
- Shadow Organization
[Extract Crises]
- Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership [C]: 17
- Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan [F]: 17
- Struggle for the Cube Continues [F]: 17
[Secure Crises]
- Infinity Formula Goes Missing [B]: 17
- Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 [D]: 17
- Mayor Fisk Vows to Find Missing Witnesses [C]: 16
Next we’ll be giving you a 2 threat CS option in the form of Bullseye:
In case you haven’t seen, Bullseye got a makeover:
Some diehard fans of the 3 box might have noticed by now that I’m literally suggesting the same third box options as the Cabal episode. This is… semi-intentional? Virtually every CS member is Cabal which means there are a LOT of parallels in the boxes they want. Hopefully this demonstrates the flexibility of bad guys in fleshing out your collection, giving you multiple different leaderships and affiliated tactics options from a limited pool. I want to shout out Climbing Gear in particular:
from this box as a tactic I use pretty much EVERYWHERE I can find the power to afford it. Out of activation short moves have been cash money in my experience. Check out the following roster:
[Characters]
- Baron Zemo: 3
- Black Widow: 2
- Bullseye: 2
- Crossbones: 4
- Iron Man: 3
- Kingpin: 4
- Red Skull: 4
- Sin: 3
- Ultron: 4
- Viper: 3
[Team Tactics]
- All According to Plan
- Brace for Impact
- Cosmic Invigoration
- Climbing Gear
- Dark Reign
- Disarm
- Illicit Tech
- Patch Up
- Sacrifice
- Shadow Organization
[Extract Crises]
- Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership [C]: 17
- Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan [F]: 17
- Struggle for the Cube Continues [F]: 17
[Secure Crises]
- Infinity Formula Goes Missing [B]: 17
- Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 [D]: 17
- Mayor Fisk Vows to Find Missing Witnesses [C]: 16
And FINALLY, to complete the copy/paste of my Cabal episode we’ll talk about CS classic member M.O.D.O.K. with some literal copy paste from the last article as it covered the bases so well. Do note M.O.D.O.K. has had an errata from the version you’ll probably find in your box:
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. You can also pass the Ship Core to a safer backline option (M.O.D.O.K.?) with Kingpin’s leadership if you want. Our final roster:
[Characters]
- Baron Zemo: 3
- Black Widow: 2
- Crossbones: 3
- Doctor Voodoo: 4
- Hood: 3
- Kingpin: 4
- M.O.D.O.K.: 5
- Red Skull: 4
- Sin: 3
- Viper: 3
[Team Tactics]
- AIM Lackeys
- Brace for Impact
- Cosmic Invigoration
- Dark Reign
- Disarm
- Illicit Tech
- Patch Up
- Psychic Fortress
- Sacrifice
- Shadow Organization
[Extract Crises]
- Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown [C]: 20
- Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership [C]: 17
- Struggle for the Cube Continues [F]: 17
[Secure Crises]
- Infinity Formula Goes Missing [B]: 17
- Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 [D]: 17
- Mayor Fisk Vows to Find Missing Witnesses [C]: 16
I will say this is hardly an exhaustive list of good CS box options. Omega Red, Black Cat & ASM, Kraven & Lizard and a bunch more are all decent CS selections for you to make your Three Box roster yours. What I presented here should be considered as a jumping off point to build something you think you’ll like.
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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