CabinCon 2022 - Part V
So. Marvel Crisis Protocol.
I honestly never had much interest in the game. I like the characters and the minis, but I'm already playing Armada and X-Wing and don't make nearly enough time to play Kill Team, so why would I start in on MCP? I did buy a Mister Sinister mini awhile back just because it looked really cool, it was on sale, and I enjoy the concept of the character, but that was the extent of it. However, Josh had spoken frequently about how much he enjoys the game and offered to bring a team to CabinCon for me. I figured what the hell?
He had asked me if I had any team preferences with which to learn and I mentioned I wanted to play with Mister Sinister more than any other character, but would also be happy to see Ms Marvel and Omega Red in action. He was good enough to set me up with a badass list that included Red Skull, Omega Red, Mister Sinister, Moon Knight, and Bullseye. He was between two lists, but decided to forgo the X-Men in order to field Iron Man, Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Doctor Strange. He mentioned that that combination of heroes would help him introduce me to more game mechanics than the team of X-Men he was considering.
I've mentioned it before, but one of my favorite things about CabinCon is that so many of the new games I play are taught by other people. And since just about everyone here either is a teacher or has been a teacher, everyone knows how to teach games. Josh is no exception. I appreciate having so many good friends who are not only happy to share their knowledge of games, but actually know how to do it well! In recording an episode of a podcast I co-host called The Secret Origins of Mint Condition, I talked a lot about how my enthusiasm for games when I was younger overshadowed any sort of ability to effectively teach them. I used Magic: The Gathering as an example. My co-hosts, Joe and James, both talked about how complicated the game had always seemed and asked if it was intentionally designed this way. I explained that it was a very basic premise, but it's extremely common for gamers to try and explain the whole game to new players and that's not a good way to teach a game. We don't start teaching language by teaching exceptions to the rules. We don't teach science by trying to include every niche "exception that proves the law" in introductory classes. It should be the same with games: we don't need to cover every single possible situation while we're teaching because that doesn't really set up the student for success. I mention all of this because Josh is really good at cutting to the core of a game's mechanics and handwaving stuff that can be learned later. For instance, Josh had already built us squads, so we didn't spend too much time discussing how that happened. Josh correctly assessed that we should find out if I like the game before talking about how to build a team because the latter was totally unimportant if I didn't enjoy actually playing the game.
For this game, we played with the Infinity Formula and Struggle for the Cube Continues. Both were pretty straightforward objectives, so they introduced me to the depth of the game without putting me in a situation where I didn't stand a chance of understanding enough to be competitive. Gameplay was pretty vanilla for a round or two simply because it was all about positioning. But then I had an absolutely bonkers turn in which I put both Daredevil and Spidey in positions to get Dazed at the top of the round so they'd drop their Cubes. Then Omega Red hooked Doctor Strange, reeled him in, and absolutely unloaded on him, knocking him down for the round. At this point, I had all of my characters and he only had Iron Man standing. But let me tell you: Iron Man did work.
At this point, I felt really good about my positioning and how much ground I'd made up in the past turn. Then Josh's heroes got back up. But in particular, Daredevil stood up and said:
I'm here to tell you that Matt Murdock is a BAD MAN. Daredevil singlehandedly took down Mister Sinister AND Moon Knight. Then Omega Red botched his second onslaught against Doctor Strange, at which point, Strange hauled off on Red Skull, knocking him down. Josh scored a monster 6 points to win the game in round 4. The backlash was absolutely unreal. I will say that the back and forth of battle absolutely felt like reading a comic book story. I will also say that the various characters I and Josh played definitely felt very much like those characters. I think it's a really impressive design space! That said, I also decided this is not a game for me. I think it's cool, the minis are terrific, and it can create awesome narratives. As a comics fan, I was very impressed. But as a gamer, this is the kind of game that gets my competitive dander up, and it's just too swingy for me to feel good about competing. One of the things that kept me away from X-Wing for so long was my perception that it often just came down to dice and whoever made the first mistake. I know positioning is everything in MCP, but it still swings too hard for me and I'm not likely to invest in a miniatures game just for casual play.
Speaking of X-Wing, whatever the other guys were playing was still going on, so Josh and I figured we already had a 3x3 area set up, so why not get into some X-Wing? I decided to fly (more or less) the same thing I'd flown against Josh the last time we played online: it's a Separatist list that included Cad Bane, a MagnaGuard, Sun Fac, and an HMP Gunship. As Josh is the vastly superior player, he was playing a Jedi squad he hadn't flown before, featuring Obi-Wan, Anakin, Aayla, and "Klick." We randomly selected Assault on the Satellite as our objective.
I've mentioned it before, but it's worth mentioning it again: objective play makes X-Wing a game I want to play. There are a lot of people who badmouth objective play and say "it killed X-Wing; I don't recognize the game anymore." If that's how they feel about it and don't play anymore, I can appreciate that. But I think anyone who tries to argue that X-Wing is objectively in a worse design space because of objective play is totally wrong. Anyway, I'm glad we played X-Wing in person because I hadn't had the opportunity to do that since Adepticon several months back!
I need to keep working on my deployment and just play the game more frequently so I have a better handle on ranges and maneuvers. You can see my Rogue fighters are out really wide with Sun Fac. I'm not terribly worried about that simply because in this build, Cad can Cloak for some extra maneuverability, and Sun Fac can do Sun Fac things, then move the token over to the MagnaGuard to give it a little boost. But it's timing out engagement and making sure I don't get in my own way that is truly the issue. It's just still a big adjustment for me from Armada, wherein if I deployed my ships like this, I've probably desperately miscalculated and the game will be over before it begins (Depends on what Armada ship the HMP represents, of course, but in most cases, it would cost me the game).
Ultimately, Cad just doesn't work in the way I built him. It's true that I had trouble lining up bull's-eye shots because I need practice AND I was flying against an experienced Jedi player, but Josh and I debriefed afterward and agreed that the theory was simply better than the practice of it.
A Nice Hat
I honestly can't remember enough to go through the match blow by blow at this point, but there were a couple of moments that stood out for me.
- The HMP Gunship somehow got lucky enough to survive the previous engagement with only one hull point left so it could drop a ridiculously well-placed and well-timed Seismic Charge that killed Aayla with minimal damage to my own squad. The moment I declared it, Josh knew he was in trouble because he had forgotten I had that capability. Especially because I had actually dialed up a full stop that completely took him by surprise. I love that the HMP can do that. It's so great. It's not to be overused, but I just enjoy the hell out of this ship. It can do terrific work so long as I give it the chance.
- I really thought I'd herded Anakin into a kill box with Cad Bane waiting at the end of that particular tunnel down which Anakin was traveling. I continue to be so freaking wrong about that guy. Anakin dodged out of my bull's-eye arc and proceeded to turn back on me and just start unleashing hell. One day, I'll figure out how to take Anakin down, but it was not this day. I was trying to take what Josh gave me, which was precious little. It was mainly just Aayla. But in dealing with the Jedi, it was easy to take for granted that I would just *get* "Klick." Once more proving that I can't just take these kinds of things for granted. Again - in Armada, when a Victory Star Destroyer wanders into a kill box, it's not getting out of there as long as you've got the firepower. It might take a little longer than one would like, but one can almost take for granted that the thing is going down. It's just not the case in X-Wing. MOAR PRACTICE!! (A thing made a lot more difficult because I forgot ALL of my cards in NC, except for my Cad squad and two ships I fly for Aces High.
I ended up scooping in round 6 when Josh went up 15-10. I had a couple of decent moments, but at this point, I was down a couple of ships, Anakin was likely to kill another, and even if he didn't, Josh was going to score objective points. Again, I liked the direction I was heading in, but it just wasn't working. Josh agreed that even if I had flown better, the Cad build in particular just doesn't work very well. So he was kind enough to overhaul it for me! Below is the list I'm looking forward to flying the next time I fly!
(5) MagnaGuard Protector [Rogue-class Starfighter]
(4) Proton Cannons
(4) Energy-Shell Charges
(10) Afterburners
Points: 5
(6) Sun Fac [Nantex-class Starfighter]
(10) Ensnare
(3) Crack Shot
(4) Gravitic Deflection
Points: 6
(4) Onderon Oppressor [HMP Droid Gunship]
(0) Repulsorlift Stabilizers
(3) Seismic Charges
(4) Energy-Shell Charges
Points: 4
(5) Cad Bane [Rogue-class Starfighter]
(4) Heavy Laser Cannon
(6) Ion Cannon
(3) Jango Fett
(3) Contraband Cybernetics
(2) Notorious
(0) Xanadu Blood
Points: 5
Total points: 20
We mostly left everyone else alone because we liked how they were working. But Cad Bane got himself an overhaul. We really liked having the Xanadu Blood title because it adds the crew slot for Jango Fett and gives me the option to use Cloak (which, ostensibly, should help me line up Bull's-Eye shots with more ease). Josh suggested putting Ion Cannons on there because it would make it easier to line up my shots on ionized prey. We also kept Heavy Laser Cannon because that particular upgrade should synergize well with Cad's "Dead to Rights" ability. Because I like to link actions with Cad as well as Cloak, it's extremely easy for me to end up Stressed when I need to be doing something else. Contraband Cybernetics helps with that for a round. Also, while I'm mentioning it last, I'm pretty sure Notorious was the first upgrade that Josh put on Cad. Being able to reroll blanks would've been absolutely huge for me in this game, and since Cad is a threat, he is often a target. Plus, I tend to sort of have him as a rearguard the couple of times I've flown him in the hopes that he can finish what my other pilots started. Kinda feels as though that means Notorious will be that much more relevant for him. I haven't gotten to try this yet, but I'm looking forward to getting it on the table a few times and seeing how it goes. Kind of even especially true because I don't have my cards to build anything else right now!
I must've just been absolutely beat, because apparently, X-Wing was my last game of that night! I crashed out hard and the next morning, we kicked off the day with Champions of Midgard. I'm excited to write about this one, as I learned quite a lot about the game and my experience was especially interesting from a game design standpoint! For anyone keeping track, this got us to about halfway through my CabinCon 2022 experience! If I'm not mistaken, I've got 15 games left to write up, so there's still lots of content here. Stand by!
**Also, if anyone reading this is interested in this most excellent group of adventurers and their exploits, you should check out their Twitter! They're the Champions of Valinwood!
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