Welcome to SG Protocol.
Today we look at every 4 character pack and see if it is a good start for an affiliation or not. We rate how often you are likely to use each of the four characters in affiliation and how splahable s/he is. Also what you get in terms of TTCs.
First up Asgard:
CP138 Asgard Affiliation pack:
Up until last weekend it was pretty much mandatory to get as it contained your only leader but those days are gone now.
What do you get?
Thor, Prince of Asgard. A.
A great model in affiliation and also pretty good in Mighty Steve Avengers if you have core set 2.
Valkyrie. B-.
A decent 3 threat and pretty much necessary until you get Heimdall and Skurge where especially the latter will be your workhorse character. Valk is also decent in her A-Force and Defenders homes but there like here not the #1 choice of 3 threats usually.
Loki, God of Mischief . B- for Cabal or as a Splash. C in Asgard
Loki 1 is a tonne of fun to play but had a hard time fitting in Asgard rosters even before the new box and is now even farther from securing a spot. Cool if you want to dual Asgard and Cabal though.
Hela, Queen of Hel. C. Unlike Beta Ray Bill, Hela very much is hurt by the loss of Eyes on the Prize. She becomes a tech piece now that you can bring out if you’re pestered by Spiders. Absolutely gorgeous sculpt and loads of fun to paint though.
TTCs and Tokens: You get something like 20 Asgard tokens which is pretty awesome and the faction staple cards Odin’s Blessing, Doomed Prophecy and Rainbow Bridge.
Overall rating of the box: C+
You really have to decide if you want Loki and Hela here. Often it is just around 10€ more expensive than getting Thor and Valkyrie who are the characters you’re more likely to bring. If you have any interest in the two (even just painting them up) you should get this pack.
But: it’s not the ideal first purchase for this faction anymore because of:
CP91 The Mighty Thor, Lady Sif, Thor, Hero of Midgard and Loki, Prince of Lies
The Mighty Thor: A. Awesome sculpt and a nice, cost free, if not world breaking leadership. Not suuuper splashable but decent enough.
Lady Sif. B. A reliable and durable 4 threat brawler.
Thor, Hero of Midgard. B+. Your very own Kaiju. Chances are you like Thor when you’re interested in playing Asgard and this is his steroid version. I’m not yet convinced he is better than Thor 1 since he lacks control but his damage ceiling might be the highest in the entire game.
Loki, Prince of Lies. A. Great leadership, great abilities, great mini, great TTCs. You’ll use him a lot.
TTCs:
Loki’s are both great. The rest is fine. You don’t get the best Asgard card in Odin’s Blessing of course and no tokens.
Box overall: A+ for Asgard. C if you don’t play Asgard. (But it’s my main faction so automatically the best in the game so why wouldn’t you want to play them?)
Next purchases for the affiliation:
Beta Ray Bill and Ulik
Heimdall and Skurge
Enchantress and Angela are more to taste. I absolutely love Enchantress but your milage may vary.
Avengers
CP141 Avengers Affiliation Pack.
If you can’t get a copy of core 1 and want these characters this is really a decent enough pick up.
Steve 1: A+ for Avengers. D as a splash.
Iron Man: A for Avengers and as a splash
Black Widow: A for Avengers and as a splash.
Captain Marvel: C- for Avengers. C+ as a splash.
Steve 1 has still one of the best leaderships in the game, Iron Man is a fantastic 3 threat for Avengers and can fit in basically any list you play and Black Widow is an excellent 2 threat objective runner. The only non competitive staple character here is Carol 1 and even she can be decent in the right situations.
Box: A for Avengers. B for splashes.
But if you’re interested in these characters I’d always try to see if you can get a core set 1 for close to the same price.
Next purchases:
Hulk
Luke Cage and Iron Fist
Captain America (Sam Wilson) and War Machine
Black Order
CP159 Black Order affiliation pack
Corvus Glaive: A. A model you will use in almost all of your Black Order games. A good splash model too if you need a killing machine.
Proxima Midnight: A. Will be in 99% of your games you bring Corvus in due to their husband and wife mechanic. Proxima also has gained a lot of love as a solo splash in affiliations like Web Warriors due to her speed and durability.
Ebony Maw. B in Black Order, A as a splash. Often has trouble fitting in BO squads especially if you run him with the Space Gem. Very strong nevertheless.
Black Dwarf: A. A model whose value has gone way up since the rotation of Eyes on the Prize because he has a gigantic health pool with damage reduction so he can survive the midline quite well.
TTCs: You get a big chunk for TTCs in the pack, most notably First of the Black Order which doesn’t come in either of the solo boxes this pack consists of but rather in the Supergiant and Black Swan box. It is the leadership for Corvus so absolutely necessary as long as you don’t also own Thanos.
Box rating: A for BO. A as Splash characters, too as every one of the four can find a home in loads of places.
Next purchases for the affiliation:
Thanos. Chances are you are playing BO because you like him.
Black Swan and Supergiant are probably also a good idea to get in the longer run.
Brotherhood of Mutants
CP140 Brotherhood of Mutants Affiliation Pack
Magneto. A in affiliation (BoM), C- as a splash or in Cabal. He is one of your two leaders for the faction and can be a real powerhouse under his own leadership.
Mystique. A in affiliation (both BoM and Cabal). B- as a splash. Be aware that her TTC Deception that comes in the pack was replaced by Stolen Identity (free to print from AMGs website)
Toad. A+ in affiliation. A+ as a splash. Arguably the best 2 threat character in the game. Fantastic objective runner.
Sabretooth. B- in affiliation, probably better in Cabal than in BoM honestly. C- as a splash. Probably the model you’ll use the least overall from the pack.
TTCs and Tokens:
You don’t get a lot of BoM tokens which is a big shame. But all the TTCs are there.
Pack rating: A for BoM. B- as splash characters. Interesting for Cabal players too with 3 affiliated Cabal characters inside.
Next purchases:
Juggernaut
Blob and Pyro
Cabal
CP142 Cabal affiliation pack
Ultron. D. He needed Age of Ultron to even be somewhat relevant but with the loss of the card he is just extremely overshadowed by his 5 threat version.
Red Skull. D. He had a cute gimmick play with Advanced RnD but with that card (finally) gone from Standard he doesn’t really hold a candle to his newer Master of the World form.
Crossbones. C. Useable but far from great and once again overshadowed by his Merciless Merc form. Interesting if you’re a really big Sin fan at least.
Baron Zemo. A+++. Arguably the best 3 threat in the game even to this day (Black Cat and Miles Morales are the only ones challenging that). You should first look on eBay and the like for a single model Zemo 1 before considering this pack.
Pack rating: D. If you really want the models look for the original core Set. As for starting Cabal, Core Set 2 is the far better (but of course much more expensive) best entry point for that.
Next purchase:
Really depends on if you have core set 2 or not.
If you don’t have it and want to stick with RS 1 leadership:
Mister Sinister. He uses the leadership well, is a great character in the lore and his model looks fantastic. He sadly isn’t great on the table but you’ve apparently already decided that’s not the route you want to take.
Spider-Foes
CP148 Spider-Foes affiliation pack
Green Goblin. B- in affiliation. C- as a splash. Goblin is one of your two possible leader with the other being Doc Ick, Sinister Scientist from core set 2. Goblin is the overall worse leader for the majority of the affiliated models in the roster. But he has been gaining popularity again.
Doctor Octopus. B in affiliation. B as splash (underappreciated)
Doc Ock 1 faces his most fierce competition from his 4 threat leader version, but otherwise he is fast, comparatively durable and has good control.
Lizard. A in affiliation. A as a splash. A premier tanky and mobile objective runner with control on top of it. Basically an every game piece under Doc Ock and will also often see the table under Green Goblin.
Kraven the Hunter. B in affiliation. C as a splash. I’ve always had a difficult relationship with Kraven myself. In theory his kit is fantastic but in practice he mostly just fell over dead for me. He definitely got a boost by the new SF TTCs.
TTCs:
You get the old staples Well Laid Plans and Sinister Traps here. Both are still good cards to own as a Foes player.
Pack Rating: A-.
CP156 Electro, Sandman, Shocker and Vulture character pack
Electro. A in affiliation. A as a splash. Electro is just straight up fantastic. Not much more to say.
Sandman. C in affiliation. C as a splash. It hurts me dearly as Flint Marko is one of my favourite characters from the comics but his MCP version sadly doesn’t come together as great as I would’ve hoped. The Sculpt is awesome though.
Shocker. A in affiliation. B as a splash. While we were all a bit down on Shocker after his card was revealed he has proven himself to be an excellent role player to stick in your opponents face and make them roll less dice. Not flashy but very effective. Probably the secret star of the box behind the obvious best character in Electro.
Vulture. C- in affiliation. C- as a splash. He has a cool kit that he struggles to fund outside of taking damage which he can’t take a lot of without falling over dead.
TTCs: A+. The box gave Spider-Foes their new identity cards in Custom Upgrades and Suprise Webhead which you will play in basically every game with them.
Pack rating: B+
Next purchase:
Rhino.
Mysterio and Carnage
Uncanny X-Men
CP138 Uncanny X-Men Affiliation Pack
First of be aware that Beast is the only character in this pack that doesn’t have an updated stat card from the 2023 character updates.
Storm. A in X-Men. B in Wakanda and A-Force. C as a splash. In X-Men she is your primary leader and even though her leadership was nerfed in the 23 update it remains very very strong.
Cyclops. B+ in affiliation. C as a splash. Cyc is your second leader in the pack and his leadership and overall stat card got way better in the 23 updates. For splashing he needs specific homes like MODOK CS or Mighty Steve Avengers where you can make the most out of his new Speed of Sight trigger.
Wolverine. A in his affiliations. B as a splash. Wolverine mostly competes for a roster spot in X-Men with Logan, the Wolverine. He is very good since his 23 update in his own right however.
Beast. B+ in his affiliations. B- as a splash. Beast has his obvious weakness of being bad defensively against energy attacks but aside from that he his a fast objective runner with good control.
TTC and Tokens: You get a load of X-Men tokens which is very nice since the chance that you play pay to flips with them is pretty high. In terms of TTCs you get faction staples To Me My X-Men and First Class as well as Children Of The Atom. Beware that X-Ceptional Healing was replaced by Instant Recovery which is free to Print from AMGs website.
Pack rating: A for X-Men. C- for splash characters.
Wakanda
CP147 Wakanda Affiliation Pack
Black Panther. A in affiliation (Wakanda and Avengers). A as a splash. Black Panther is your only leader option in the pack. He is a fast durable damage dealer with good control. For quite a while he was considered the best 4 threat in the game. While that might not be the case anymore he is still fantastic at what he does and a very good model to own regardless of affiliation.
Killmonger. A in affiliation (Wakanda, Cabal, Criminal Syndicate). B as a splash. Killmonger lives and dies by being able to successfully play his signature TTC Usurp the Throne. Any team that can help him get this off he strives in. Wakanda remains probably the best home overall for him as you can use the Wakanda Forever turn on combination with Usurp.
Shuri. A in affiliation (Wakanda and A-Force). B as a splash. Shuri offers the longest range control in the game at Range 5 and auto push (size 3 or less) and can hand out rerolls to her team. She needs specific homes to do well but having a model with a reroll bubble in your collection never hurts.
Okoye. A in affiliation (Wakanda and A-Force). B+ as a splash. Owning 2 threats is always useful and Okoye is unique in that class as she is a bodyguard. She is probably even more core to A-Force than Wakanda but having an affiliated 2 threat is great no matter what.
TTCs: You get faction and character defining cards with Wakanda Forever and Usurp the Throne in the pack as well Vibrainium Shielding and a lot of Wakanda tokens.
Pack rating: A for Wakanda. A for splash characters. This is just a very good pack to own for every MCP player.
Web Warriors
CP146 Web Warriors Affiliation Pack
Miles Morales Spider-Man. A+ in affiliation. A+ as a splash. He is one of the two characters who challenge Baron Zemo for the title of best 3 threat in the game. He is also your leader in the pack and the primary leader for the faction that is always at least in the top 3 in terms of power level.
Ghost Spider. A in affiliation. B as a splash. She has a bit more competition for a roster slot nowadays with Gwenom having the same alter ego but she is still very much a staple of the wide Webs lists.
Peter Parker Spider-Man. C- in affiliation. D as a splash. Core Set 1 Peter is by far the worst threat for threat Parker and doesn’t really see play either in or outside of his home affiliations. If you have either core set you also either already own him or the overall more useful Spectacular Spidey.
Venom. B- in affiliation. C as a splash. Venom makes or breaks the pack for you pretty much. If you want him than grabbing the pack basically just comes with Peter for free. If you don’t want him you’re better up just picking up Miles and Gwen in their two model box (if you can find it still).
TTCs: You get the faction staple cards All Webbed Up, Spider Tracker and Aunt Mays Weatcakes as well as a bunch of WW tokens.
Pack Rating: Completely dependent on Venom as said above. D if you don’t want him. B if you do. Miles is a model that’s extremely useful to have in your collection anyway but the same really can’t be said for Peter Parker Spider-Man.
And that’s all the 4 character packs currently on sale.
While every pack, except for the Cabal one, is at least decent, most of them great, for picking up that specific affiliations the Wakanda and Black Order packs stick out as just generally great packs to own for splash characters. Next up on that queue would probably be Brotherhood.
I hope you found this useful and thanks for reading through to the end.
Cheers from Germany 🍻
