Welcome back to SG Protocol.
Today we have confirmation on where the 11 models of the Earth’s Mightiest Core Set are affiliated and got a nice boost to one of the smallest Affiliations in Winter Guard, too.
Captain Marvel, Cosmic Avenger: A-Force and Avengers. No surprises here.
The Black Widow: A-Force, Avengers, Shield. So the same places her other two versions are affiliated (or are they?). Once again what was expected.
Captain America, First Avenger: Avengers (leader) and surprisingly Shield. I don’t think he is quite good enough without his leadership but it makes a Shield/ Avengers dual list even easier I guess. Bad news for 40s Cap I guess as he really only had the Shield affiliation tag against this new incarnation.
Invincible Iron Man: as expected the reverse of Steve in being a Shield leader and an affiliated Avenger.
Spectacular Spider-Man: Spidey, Agent of Shield apparently. Peter gets Shield and obviously Web Warriors but interestingly no Defenders like his other two versions had.
Red Skull, Master of the World: Cabal (leader) and Hydra. Just like his other two versions though he has a hard time edging out other options in Hydra I would say. Especially since his 5 threat Master of Hydra version is such a strong leader there. It’s of course a very easy dual affiliation and Master of the World is a valide candidate for the two more shall rise tactics card if you choose Baron Strucker or Baron Helmut Zemo as your leader.
Baron Helmut Zemo: once again as to be expected Helmut is in Cabal and as we’ve known before he is a Hydra leader. No surprises.
Crossbones, Merciless Merc: Cabal, Criminal Syndicate and Hydra. Just like his older version.
Ultron, Metal Tyrant: Cabal only. One of two models that just get the single affiliation, both from the “bad guys” side of the box. It’s hard justifying Ultron to be in any other affiliation though I guess.
Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist: Spider-Foes leader as he should be but no second affiliation just like his older 3 threat version. I think you could have put him in Criminal Syndicate too and in the Ultimate Spider-Man show (which to me feels like the justification for Spidey in Shield) he worked with Hydra so I wouldn’t have been shocked to see him in there, too. Especially as only 3 of the 5 main “villains” here are now in Hydra and it has to be a playable faction out of the core box according to AMG. Well the answer is:
Winter Soldier, Operative: Will Shick had said he believed WSO would be a Rouge Agent and then everyone was shocked to not see it on his card and had speculations about it appearing on the affiliation list instead of the stat card. But we got confirmation that this couldn’t be true when we saw Taskmasters updated card that still had the Rogue Agent superpower like before. Now Shicks misremembering came from this: new Bucky is affiliated in all 4 playable affiliations out of the new core set. He is in Avengers, Shield, Cabal, Hydra and Winter Guard. Notably not in Criminal Syndicate although his new tactics card Soldat activated works there. Being an affiliated piece in Avengers, Cabal and Hydra raises his stock against his (rightfully) nerfed 3 threat version quite a bit.
And what was that? Did you just read Winter Guard? Yes. AMG gave one of the smallest factions in the game a big boost with not only affiliating new Bucky but also Omega Red and 2 threat Black Widow almost doubling the size of the affiliation from 4 models to 7.
Having more targets for Winter Rush that cards stock goes way up:
Bucky is the only affiliated 4 threat that isn’t a medium base S mover now and doesn’t really need the effect but all of Dynamo, Ursa Major and Omega Red love this a lot. And Bucky can use it to get in better shooting position, too. Same goes for the already very mobile ranged blaster Darkstar and super 3 threat tank Red Guardian. Black Widow is an L moving objective runner most of the time but extra movement is always nice (though having your objective runner moving towards an enemy character might not always be what you want to do). All in all the card now creates a round where every attack against your team can trigger a move of your team where before it was seldom worth the slot as you basically never brought more than 3 WG models to the actual playing table.
The longer affiliated list is also a boost to one of my favourite tactics cards in the game:
WG lacks terrain throws but this can be straight up better than that because the size doesn’t matter for the damage and it can’t be blocked at all. It’s also a good use of some extra power on say, Black Widow. Speaking of Winter Guard will also love affiliated access to Vertical Assistance:
That’s it for today folks. See you next time and cheers from Germany 🍻