Today we take a short break from our affiliation overviews to see what we can learn from the new timeline 2025 document.
Theme
It was stated multiple times before that this season’s theme would be cosmic and the document mostly delivers on that with some interesting additions. Apparently it ended up being battle for the Infinity Stones which is how they included some of the lesser spacey parts here I think (I didn’t read that arch as Thanos is a mind numbingly boring villain in my opinion).
Affiliations and possible release dates for new characters
Using the precedent from the 2024 timeline document we can assume that the affiliations here will be the ones the character also get in standard (but they might get additional ones for standard of course).
Elsa Bloodstone: Defenders and Midnight Sons (leadership star)
Man-Thing: Defenders and Midnight Sons
Nova: Guardians of the Galaxy (no leadership star 😭)
Yondu: Guardians of the Galaxy (no leadership star either)
Exodus: Brotherhood of Mutants (also no leadership star)
Lady Mastermind: Brotherhood of Mutants
Maximus: Inhumans (leadership star)
King Black Bolt: Inhumans (no leadership star)
Karnak: Inhumans
Gorgon: Inhumans
Avalanche: Brotherhood of Mutants
Gladiator: Unaffiliated. A bit sad but honestly none of the existing affiliations really fit him so not unexpected either.
Seeing as how Namor also doesn’t have a leadership star for SHIELD there’s still hope to see a new Guardians leadership on a TTC but we’ll see. That could realistically make Nova, Yondu and/or Rocket the leader. A 2 threat leader in Rocket would probably break the game though so that’s not especially likely 😅
Elsa and Man-Thing in Defenders is interesting and ever increasing that affiliation to 29 models almost challenging Cabal and Avengers for most in faction (those two are in the high 30s so it’s still a bit off).
And probably the most interesting piece of information here is that we can expect Exodus, Lady Mastermind and Avalanche to release before Adepticon which is especially good news for Brotherhood players as their affiliation has been struggling heavily since the card rotation. The same goes for the new Inhumas four model pack. The Ministravaganza Road Map had them both for Q2 2025 but we can now hope they’ve been moved up to March. Of course they could be on the document for later events but it feels highly unlikely to me to exclude seven new models from play at Adepticon. It would basically make Inhumans unplayable there if they released after the event.
Update: New TTCs and my guess whose they are
Call for Backup – Guardians?
Covering Fire – Elsa Bloodstone
Dimensional Quagmire – maybe Brotherhood? Update: probably Man-Thing, thanks Nate Horn.
Genetic Prophecy – Inhumans
Inhomo Supremis – Inhumans
Inhuman Queen – Inhumans / Medusa
Plots within Plots – Probably Maximus, possibly Exodus
Plundered Goods – Yondu
Praetor of the Imperial Guard – Gladiator
Protector of the Empire – Gladiator
Royal Guardians – Inhumans
The Great Refuge – Brotherhood maybe?
Veterans of the Annihilation War – Guardians
Which characters and affiliations are available to actually play a timelines event in 2025
A-Force without Okoye to help keep She-Hulk alive is scary. You also don’t really have any of your objective runner 3s besides Crystal. This version of A-Force is pretty boiled down to: Girls that punch really hard. Nothing wrong with that in theory and the Asgard dual is very easy but honestly: why not just play Asgard as one of your lists anyway then?
Asgard misses their two other leaders and of course the new Loki but is otherwise fully intact and Jane is the best leader (though Loki 2 the overall stronger model) anyway so it’s not that bad a sting. There’d have to be a very good reason not to make Asgard one of your 3 lists. At least butcher it for parts if you don’t want to play it as Asgard.
Finally it’s time for Hulkbuster leadership to shine! The list of available characters is pretty good but that leadership is so extremely match up dependent that you’ll probably have to dual affiliate with it if you want to go this way.
Ugh Thanos. So be sure he’ll be in every player’s 30 probably. But in Black Order at least he isn’t as bad. The affiliation is fully intact and as the major player of the loose narrative here it makes total sense that they are. Spoilers: this is an extremely killy timeline so they might not stand out as much as you’d probably like.
No Mystique so also probably on more of a killing plan but we of course would need to see what the three new models do before we can really evaluate the options for Brotherhood.
Cabal looks really interesting and brings the best available extract carrier in Viper who could shine if any of the teams would favour scenario, which spoiler: they kind of don’t. Otherwise Malekith has a very strong support cast that doesn’t offer just plain damage output but rather a lot of displacement in the form of bows and pushes too. It will just get expensive quickly most likely, as you’ll want to add a number of 5 threats which is very hard with a 7 threat leader. You’ll probably want to look at spreading some of the goodness available here around to your other lists too. Would probably be my second pick after Asgard, or maybe be an easy pivot for them too. Interestingly Mephisto is here but Legion of the Lost isn’t available to play.
Unless Elsa and Man-Thing are absolutely incredible under Doctor Strange I’m sad to say that I don’t think Defenders have a real place here. The rest of the to be expected meta is just way to killy for Strange Defenders which such a small available roster to strive in.
Guardians remain fully intact and also have access to three of their classic big boy splashes in Thanos, Hulk and Space Maw. Guardians very much feels like another of the teams you’d have a hard time not to just take. If you’re worried about both them and Asgard wanting Bill, stick him here. Sif is often better than him in Asgard anyway and Brothers in Arms isn’t legal in the format either.
While Hydra does bring a decent roster themselves I think this is more a butcher for parts situation.
Inhumans are absolutely impossible to judge before we know what the new characters and especially the new leadership do.
It’s cool to see my favourite team out of the comics making it in this season but I also think they are missing too many of their core pieces here. Heavily dependant on what Elsa and Man-Thing will do of course. Good to see the monsters available and they’d absolutely make it into lists for me, but probably not in Midnight Sons.
I combined these two because SHIELD is basically unplayable here and to point out that the forgot the leadership star on Namor, giving me a slight hope for a TTC leadership for Nova (or Yondu). But Dracula has his leadership star and he needs a TTC for it, too so it might just be a mistake on Namor and nothing else.
Playing Thralls of Dracula is a much more doable prospect than SHIELD here, but the question is whether or not you can build a stronger Thralls list than some other team.
X-Men would usually qualify as a more scenario (type 2) focused affiliation but they only get attrition leader Cyclops and a pretty short list of models here. Playable but not sticking out to me.
X-Force do miss two of their best pieces in Domino and X-23. The latter is an especially weird omission since Honey Badger is available. They do get their good new models in Archangel, Sunspot and Warlock but the math in X-Force often works out in a way where you need multiple good 3s and while I like Warlock a lot, he plays a very different game from the standard X-Force plan.
As said above I wouldn’t have known where to stick Gladiator so him being unaffiliated isn’t the biggest suprise. We can hope he will have some sort of Rogue Agents like ability as he’s a character everyone will have to buy to get the new missions.
Servants miss a couple of members in Iceman, Magik, Psylocke and Toad. While I like Iceman and Psylocke a lot in Servants Toad is the biggest loss here as that means you can only play with all four horseman from 17 threat upwards here instead of the usual 16. And Toad is just a great 2 threat anyway of course.
Here’s my first quick take at timelines 25 rosters. Currently the available crisis cards are the ones we know from standard but I’m about 100% sure that these will change completely before the first big timeline event at Adepticon with the release of the War of Kings crisis pack.
Asgard:
Characters (10)
- The Mighty Thor (5)
Thor, Hero of Midgard (6)
Valkyrie (3)
Skurge, The Executioner (3)
Lady Sif (4)
Heimdall, The All-Seeing (3)
Enchantress (4)
Frankenstein‘s Monster (4)
N‘Kantu, the Living Mummy (3)
Wong (2)
Team Tactics (10)
Doomed Prophecy
Heart of the Worthy
Odin‘s Blessing
Rainbow Bridge
Freyja‘s Blessing
Hideous Monster
Meet My Executioner
Patch Up (R)
Warpath
Indomitable (R)
Secure Crisis
Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians (I, 17)
Mutant Madman Turns City Into Lethal Amusement Park (B, 18)
Super-Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate (F, 20)
Extract Crisis
Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators! (L, 19)
The Montesi Formula Found (E, 18)
Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (C, 19)
Cabal (with Thralls of Dracula emergency flex if math doesn’t work out for Malekith)
Characters (10)
- Dracula (5)
- Malekith The Accursed (7)
The Wrecking Crew (4)
Crossbones, Merciless Merc (3)
Bob, Agent of Hydra (2)
Ultron, Metal Tyrant (5)
Viper (3)
Ms. Marvel (3)
Loki, God of Mischief (4)
Archangel (4)
Team Tactics (10)
Dig In
Glory of Ultron
Midnight Phantasmagoria
Mystic Menace
Stronger Together
The Black Bifrost
Dark Reign
Sacrifice (R)
Recalibration Matrix
Thralls of Dracula
Secure Crisis
Mayor Fisk Vows To Find Missing Witnesses (H, 16)
Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse (C, 19)
Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 (D, 17)
Extract Crisis
Research Station Attacked! (E, 15) (R)
Fear Grips World As “Worthy“ Terrorize Cities (D, 18)
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)
Guardians of the Galaxy
Characters (10)
Agent Venom (4)
Beta Ray Bill (4)
Drax the Destroyer (3)
Groot (3)
Nebula (2)
Nova (0)
- Star-Lord (3)
Rocket Raccoon (2) - Thanos, The Mad Titan (Reality, Space) (8)
Hulk (6)
Team Tactics (10)
Galaxy‘s Greatest
Lovable Misfits
Foreign Assignment
Deadly Duo
We Are Groot
Fall Back (R)
Brace for Impact (R)
Survival
Heavy Firepower
Power of the Cosmos
Secure Crisis
Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest (E, 15)
Infinity Formula Goes Missing! (B, 17)
Demons Downtown! Has Our Comeuppance Come Due? (E, 19)
Extract Crisis
Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown! (C, 17)
Struggle For The Cube Continues (F, 17)
Paranoia Pummels Populace! (K, 16)
I’ll obviously never get to play these in an actual Timelines event as there simply won’t be one anywhere close enough to me.
What do you think about the 25 timeline?
Cheers from Germany 🍻
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