I've already written about my first attempt at creating my own custom scenario: the Danger Room. I had a ton of fun trawling through all the possibilities in the various encounter decks to put together a unique new challenge, so much so that I expect it's an itch I'll keep coming back to scratch... and Galaxy's Most Wanted has just gifted me a whole slew of new encounter cards to use, too!
But before I get into Galaxy's Most Wanted cards there's still a lot I think I can do with the existing expansions that everyone has already become used to. With the Danger Room scenario I set out to make The Bestest Most Difficultest And Most Funnest Encounter Ever and, well, I mostly didn't succeed... but still had a good time anyway.
For my second custom scenario I wanted to try a cross-section of two different ideas: something with a much stronger theme running through it, and exploring the multi-villain mechanics of the Wrecking Crew expansion. I also knew that I wanted this scenario to be a good bit easier than Danger Room was. The recent kerfuffle over the difficulty level of Ronan's scenario in Galaxy Most Wanted has really highlighted just how many players aren't in Marvel Champions to have every mental sinew tested to breaking point by a villain, they just want a nice fun way to spend an hour or two.
As with my first custom scenario I tried to stick to my golden rules as much as possible:
- No New Cards. The encounter would entirely be made from existing cards that players can easily pull together from their collection.
- No New Rules. The cards should all be able to be played exactly as they are in any other encounter. (Although in this case I had to change some rules to formally ensure that they *did* play exactly how you would expect them to)
I'm going to share the scenario first, then talk a little bit about some of the design decisions that I made.
***** UPDATED MAY 2021 *****
I'm enjoying this scenario so much that it's become my main opponent for the majority of my games. Since I originally published it I've been gradually tweaking the two decks to give them more distinct personalities and I've updated the blog to reflect my latest version.
Sinister Six... Assemble!
The Green Goblin has been thwarted too many times by Spider-Man and has decided it's time to end the meddlesome menace once and for all. But he's not going to do it alone: the Goblin and Rhino are working together on breaking into the state penitentiary on Ryker's Island to recruit some of Spider-Man's most dangerous foes to their cause.
The Goblin's plan? To form a new Sinister Six and together they will kill the spider!
Once inside the walls the Green Goblin sends Rhino crashing into the maximum security wing where Shocker, Sandman and Electro are being held, meanwhile the Goblin himself is heading to solitary confinement to release the dreaded Scorpion.
Can anybody stop this prison riot before the villains make good their escape in all the chaos?
Main Scheme Deck - Breakout (1A)
Breakout 1A now reads as follows: "Put the Day of Reckoning and Thunderstruck side schemes into play. Place the active counter on Rhino."
Villain Deck A - Rhino II
Encounter Deck A
Text version, sorted by expansion:
Core Set: Stampede x3, Charge x2, Enhanced Ivory Horn, Armored Rhino Suit, Breakin & Takin, Crowd Control, Sandman, Shocker, Caught Off Guard, Under Fire
Wrecking Crew: Thunderstruck, Buddy System x2, Escaped Convict x2, Oversized Hands x2, Chaos In The Prison, Get Wrecked!, I've Been Waiting For This
Green Goblin: Electro, Electromagnetic Pulse
Rise of the Red Skull: Hard As Nails x2
Galaxy's Most Wanted: Honor Among Thieves
Villain Deck B - Green Goblin II (Mutagen Formula)
Encounter Deck B
Text version, sorted by expansion:
Core Set: Advance, Masterplan, Shadows of the Past
Wrecking Crew: Day of Reckoning, Buddy System x2, Escaped Convict x2, Tactical Prowess, I've Been Waiting For This x2, You're Dead Meat x2, Held Hostage
Green Goblin: Goblin Thrall x3, Goblin Soldier x2 Goblin Knight, Hysteria, Pumpkin Bombs x2, I See You, Scorpion, A Mess of Things
Hulk: Clash of the Titans
Rise of the Red Skull: Cornered Staff
Setup
Once you're all set up you probably look something like this (Funko Pops optional)...
Pro Tip: I'm using different sleeve colours for the two encounter decks to help track cards so they don't get mixed between the two decks.
Additional Scenario Rules & Clarifications
- Both Rhino and the Green Goblin gain the Wrecking Crew text "When this villain schemes, place the threat on his Side Scheme instead of the main scheme".
- Thunderstruck now reads "Rhino's Side Scheme. This card cannot leave play while Rhino is in play".
- Day of Reckoning new reads "Green Goblin's Side Scheme. This card cannot leave play while Green Goblin is in play".
- You're Dead Meat now reads "...place 3 threat on Green Goblin's side scheme"
The above rules formally connect the villains and their side schemes to ensure they function the same way the Wrecking Crew do.
- Any encounter cards that reference side schemes will ONLY apply to the villain's relevant Wrecking Crew side scheme and not any other side schemes the villain may have in play.
The original Wrecking Crew scenario didn't feature any other side schemes but these decks do, so the above rule ensures that the Wrecking Crew cards (eg. Tactical Prowess, Get Wrecked!, anything that checks for Side Schemes with the most/least threat etc) don't get affected by other side schemes that might be in play. Note that this is a material change to how Masterplan works as it now only puts 4 threat onto Thunderstruck & Day of Reckoning - that's a big enough threat in itself!
- When a minion schemes it adds threat to the current active villain's Side Scheme.
There were very few minions in Wrecking Crew and most of them had 0 SCH anyway. This clarifies that minions are directing their schemes toward the side scheme not the main scheme as it matters much more now that there are better minions in these decks. As a further clarification the ONLY effect in the scenario that puts threat onto the main scheme more rapidly than the usual 1 per player per turn is the Green Goblin's text if he attacks the hero and deals damage. Everything else is putting threat onto side schemes.
- If Shadows of the Past is revealed then the Nemesis Minion, Side Scheme and other Nemesis cards are considered to be owned by whoever is the active villain at that time.
Adjustable Difficulty
I don't intend that this scenario be the toughest thing in the world so hopefully you aren't going to have a really rough time against it. But if you're used to playing against Standard difficulty then the fact that Rhino and Green Goblin both start in Stage II may be a bit too much - it means the game starts with Breakin & Takin in play and two encounter cards locked and loaded so the villains initally come out swinging and give the heroes a rough time at first.
If you want to make this encounter easier my recommendation would be to keep Rhino & Green Goblin on Stage II but ignore their When Revealed: abilities during setup.
If that's still too much then use Rhino I & Green Goblin I, which lowers their hit points and damage output a bit.
Design Notes
Replacing the Wrecking Crew: if you're at all familiar with the Wrecking Crew scenario then you'll know it's not one that's very well regarded by most players. Although throwing four villains onto the table at once is a really unique experience for Marvel Champions the reality was that players very quickly learned to isolate one member of the Wrecking Crew at a time by managing their side scheme threat so they couldn't 'tag out'. Rather than feeling like fighting four villains at once it was actually more like the heroes were picking the Wrecking Crew off one by one. When I picked up the Wrecking Crew mechanics for this scenario I was very mindful of the fact that it was a bit of a flawed bundle first time out and did my best to at least try and improve the situation.
You'll notice that even though I'm using two villains instead of four I've 'doubled down' on some of the Wrecking Crew's tag team mechanics by including two copies of cards like Escaped Convict and Buddy System in each villain's deck, while the original Wrecking Crew only had one each. Even though I'm playing with bigger encounter decks the chance of drawing a 'tag team' card is higher in this version of the deck, making it less likely players will only have to worry about one villain at a time. This is particularly true in the Green Goblin's case where he also has two copies of "I've Been Waiting For This!" that are good at permanently tagging Rhino when revealed as boost card, and using Clash of the Titans instead of Assault will always mean Goblin is calling Rhino in for the extra attack.
Both villains also have two copies of a Wrecking Crew card that can add threat to their scheme and trigger it, at which point the villain effectively 'tags out' by dropping to just 3 three threat. Rhino has Oversized Hands to smash upgrades and supports, while Green Goblin adds more direct damage to his Pumpkin Bombs by playing with You're Dead Meat.
One other important change is that by dropping from 4 villains to 2 I've reduced the total health pool of the villains significantly. The four 'A' side Wrecking Crew villains totalled 50HP per player, while Rhino and Green Goblin are only 33HP per player. There's two reasons why I think this is ok - the first is that the Wrecking Crew encounter decks had very few minions and they were all small fry, while Rhino and Goblin have more minions and much more threatening ones so although the villain's health pool has shrunk I think the amount of damage you'll have to deal in order to fight your way through to the villains may well be higher than in Wrecking Crew. The second step I made is that I've also added a good amount of healing abilities to prop the villains up and avoid them going down too quickly. Rhino always had lots of defensive effects in his card pool, while for Goblin I gave him plenty of Goblin Thralls as meat shields with Guard, as well as two copies of "I've Been Waiting For This"
Making the Villains Feel Unique: Because a big chunk of each villain's deck was being taken up by must-have cards from the Wrecking Crew pool just to make the scenario work I was really worried that the two villains would behave like one another. I worked really hard to give Rhino and Goblin completely different personalities, which hopefully comes across when you play against them.
Rhino is very direct. He doesn't scheme much or do anything too fancy or technical - he just has a deck full of aggressive cards like Stampede and Charge so that he can keep personally pressure on the heroes, and this direct and physical style also runs to smashing up your Support and Upgrade cards as collaterial damage! I also carried forward the tough Rhino's hide from his original encounter deck with cards like Armored Rhino Suit, Hard As Nails and Uncanny Resilience to make Rhino tough to bring down, much as he should be. For a secondary theme I gave Rhino the lion's share of the unique villains, and in Electromagnetic Pulse and Honor Among Thieves he's got two treacheries that help to bring these criminals into play from the encounter deck.
I also tried to modernise Rhino's deck a little bit because as he's the starter villain in the Core set he has no boost abilities at all. You get a bunch of those just by playing the Wrecking Crew cards, but it's adding boost effects that is 100% of the reason why you've got Hard As Nails in here instead of something like Hard To Keep Down from Rhino's original deck.
In contrast to Rhino I wanted the Green Goblin to come at you a little bit sideways, so a lot of the Green Goblin's cards are around manipulating the side schemes or getting other people to do the work for him. He's got two copies of "I've Been Waiting For This" which can switch the active villain to Rhino permanently if Rhino schemes more threat onto his side scheme, and he's also got Clash of the Titans which will call Rhino or another big minion into combat while the Goblin can sit back and watch. And while Goblin leaves most of the attacking to Rhino he's not short of damage himself - he just likes to do it from afar. Goblin's side scheme can decimate a board of minions with direct damage and that theme is supported by a pair of Pumpkin Bombs and two You're Dead Meat.
On top of that the Goblin has also got Advance, Masterplan,Tactical Prowess and Held Hostage that are intended to ensure he gets to complete his Day of Reckoning Side Scheme and attack you that way. Finally, with Shadows of the Past in the Green Goblin's deck it's always possible that he'll summon your worst nightmare to face you. Don't get me wrong, the Goblin is a force to be reckoned with on his own, but he's also trying to stay one step ahead of you all the way.
Stick to the Theme: when I made the Danger Room I honestly couldn't have given two hoots about what the name of the card was, or what the artwork was: I only cared about the mechanics of what the card did in the game. Heart-Shaped Herb, Avalanche, Electric Whip Attack and Vibranium Armor all one deck? No problem!
For the Sinister Six encounter I was already given a strong central theme in all the Wrecking Crew cards that were set in a prison. That immediately worked pretty well with my goal of assembling a Sinister Six and I wanted to try and stick as closely to that sort of earthy/gritty tone of criminals breaking out of prison. There's several cards that I wanted to play that I threw out of contention just because of the name (Invasive AI, Hunted by Hydra) or the artwork/theme was just really wacky even if I thought the effect was perfect (I really wanted Impossible Geometry in the Goblin's deck of curveball effects).
I'm actually really pleased with how well I've succeeded at this. Yes, the picture on Honor Among Thieves is of space pirates in a spaceship in space but they're still criminals and you can picture how Shocker or Sandman may be prepared to plunge into a fight for Rhino after he went out on a limb to break them out of prison... it works. Rhino smashed things up with his Oversized Hands... it works. The Goblin has Cornered Staff from the prison... it works. I could have used Time Portal from Kang, or Vandarian Power Wand, or even a Magical Teapot, but I didn't and I think the scenario feels that much better because of it.
Marvel may be Disney, but I'm not prepared to go this far yet!
So Long, Have Fun, Play Nicely!
So there you go. I hope you give this scenario a try and I'd love to hear your feedback on what you liked about it, or didn't like!
Y'all come back now, y'hear?
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