Another Tuesday, another Three Box Challenge! This time, A-Force! I’ve been promising A-Force soonTM for a while at this point so I figured I’d finally make good on my promise. But first let’s go over the usual spiel for anyone who isn’t familiar:
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 8)
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.
Back to A-Force, why would you want to play A-Force? If the roster of all of the greatest female superheroes in the game (except for Gwen for some reason) isn’t enough to entice you, I have two words: Special Delivery.
For those of you who haven’t been around since the beginning of the game, Special Delivery is an A-Force specific reprint (with an affiliation/character restriction added) of the very first banned card in MCP, Drop Off. There was so much unrest over the printing of this card that AMG made a public statement as to why they thought this card was okay to print – the additional restrictions made it very consistent in its output and was generally quite hard to break like Drop Off. And their justification has mostly borne out, as A-Force has been a relatively unloved faction in organized play despite so many top tier characters in their ranks. But the point is, if you are playing A-Force you’re taking this card. It basically reads “start She-Hulk in the middle of the board instead of on the deployment line” in most games, but you can do so much more with it. If your opponent is playing cagey you can hold the card to rapidly redeploy She-Hulk once she’s wrapped up on her flank. Do note that Special Delivery requires an affiliated flier, which you do have in the form of Captain Marvel, but expect to be joined at the hip to her unless you spend boxes on affiliated fliers.
Admittedly, A-Force is in a bit of a tricky spot in the Three Box Challenge. To unlock A-Force, you HAVE to buy the She-Hulk box. She’s the leadership, she’s all the affiliated tactics, she’s the whole shebang. But thats a big allocation for a single affiliated character in such a limited format. She-Hulk can also struggle at threats below 17 so be prepared to play leaderless or even unaffiliated if your opponent brings you to a low enough threat. That said, we do find some help in the core box.
Unlike most affiliations outside of Avengers and Cabal, we actually find TWO A-Force members in the core box – Black Widow and Captain Marvel. Both work well in a pinch, and in combination with She-Hulk put you at 12 threat. That means you want either a 3 and a 2 to add, or a 5 – ideally both so you can decide to play 4 characters or 5 characters depending on the matchup.
So now that we know what we’re looking for, we come to the obvious second box to lock in – Shuri and Okoye. Both are affiliated to increase roster flexibility, Okoye is an excellent 2 threat that pairs with She-Hulk to create a tight net of bodyguarding, and Shuri’s reroll support is fueled to new heights with the A-Force leadership ensuring she’s got power to spend. You also get access to one of the most generically important cards you can add to your MCP collection:
Getting extra power is huge, especially on round 1 to smooth out interacting with scenario elements and using superpowers, and thanks to your leadership you can pass around a lot if this doesn’t get burned round 1. For example on non-C extract boards you can advanced r&d a power onto Captain Marvel to pick up an extract before using Special Delivery to drop off She-Hulk. You can squeeze in an extra power for a Superior Weight Training, or Clear the Bench to throw someone off a point. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted taking Advanced R&D, and neither will you.
So with those two boxes we’ve found our core team – She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Shuri, Black Widow, Okoye on 17. Where do we go from here? Technically the sky is the limit here as our core team is 5 affiliated characters – we can turn any two characters with whomever we want and it’ll still be an A-Force team. The main sensitivity here revolves around Captain Marvel. She’s our only affiliated character with flying which means to remove her we must find another affiliated flier or we lose access to by far the best A-Force card. So that leads us to the natural first box to look at:
Angela is a 5 threat affiliated flier which checks all the boxes of what we were looking for. Enchantress is one of the best 4 threat characters in the game, bringing a lot of control and a surprising amount of damage output with her beam attack. All of a sudden we have a new 4 wide on 17 team to consider with a ton of firepower – She-Hulk, Angela, Enchantress, Okoye. Two of the heaviest hitters in the game alongside some best-in-threat characters. Unfortunately none of the tactics will see much play for you, as Lovable Misfits and Rainbow Bridge are for other affiliations and Grievous Wounds is niche at best (though perhaps if literally everyone is taking patch up, its stock goes up?).
[Characters]
- Angela: 5
- Baron Zemo: 3
- Black Widow: 2
- Captain Marvel: 4
- Enchantress: 4
- Iron Man: 3
- Okoye: 2
- She-Hulk: 6
- Shuri: 3
- Spider-Man (Peter Parker): 4
[Team Tactics]
- Advanced R&D
- A-Force Assemble!
- Brace for Impact
- Disarm
- Escort to Safety
- Patch Up
- Special Delivery
- Stalwart Determination
[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 have a more… Inhuman flavored option
I’m going to be real, you’re pretty much just getting this box for Medusa, not Black Bolt. Black Bolt is one of those 5 threats who is okay in affiliation when he’s giving out his leadership but doesn’t exactly want to be splashed. Medusa on the other hand is probably pound for pound the best 4 threat in the game at the moment, her only competition being Enchantress. And unlike Enchantress, Medusa is actually A-Force affiliated! To top it off you get Terrigen Clouds which is one of the better secures for She-Hulk as she’s poison immune (so is Medusa!) and Bitter Rivals which is one of the best unrestricted attrition cards in the game.
[Characters]
- Baron Zemo: 3
- Black Widow: 2
- Captain Marvel: 4
- Doctor Octopus: 3
- Iron Man: 3
- Medusa: 4
- Okoye: 2
- She-Hulk: 6
- Shuri: 3
- Spider-Man (Peter Parker): 4
[Team Tactics]
- Advanced R&D
- A-Force Assemble!
- Bitter Rivals
- Brace for Impact
- Disarm
- Patch Up
- Special Delivery
- Stalwart Determination
[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
- Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 [D]: 17
- Terrigen Clouds Sweep Over City [C]: 20
Finally we have the Maximoff twins. Scarlet Witch fills a similar role to Angela – 5 threat affiliated flier to take advantage of Special Delivery with. Quicksilver is less at home but he IS an Avenger which leaves you open to a fascinating dual affiliation set of options. And as an unaffiliated splash you could do worse than Quicksilver, he LOVES extra power to fuel his mobility and defensive tools. He also brings extract theft with Can I Borrow That? A rare effect in Three Box rosters. Scarlet Witch is no slouch on the tactics either, with No More Mutants and The Whims of Chaos. I wouldn’t recommend putting in all 3 into your roster unless you’re willing to commit to playing at least one of the twins in every game, but if you love Wanda enough to play her every game go for it.
[Characters]
- Baron Zemo: 3
- Black Widow: 2
- Captain America (Steve Rogers): 4
- Captain Marvel: 4
- Iron Man: 3
- Okoye: 2
- Quicksilver: 3
- Scarlet Witch: 5
- She-Hulk: 6
- Shuri: 3
[Team Tactics]
- Advanced R&D
- A-Force Assemble!
- Brace for Impact
- Can I Borrow That?
- Disarm
- Escort to Safety
- No More Mutants
- Special Delivery
[Extract Crises]
- Research Station Attacked! [E]: 16
- 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:
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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