The moment that Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, or S.H.I.E.L.D. was mentioned in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I had visions of Helicarriers, Dum Dum Dugan, Maria Hill, and multiple Nick Fury robots. To this day, while I’ve gotten to see a number of these on screen, they still don’t match the super-spy weirdness that the organization brings to the screen. And that’s ok.
And yes, I mean a transforming barber shop that serves as a base of operations and everyone wearing explosive shirts…hire me, Disney!
While I wait for that phone call, I might as well put together this new Affiliation pack for Marvel Crisis Protocol containing Nick Fury Jr, a pile of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. Let’s dive in!
What’s in the Box?
If you’re a long-time reader of my unboxings, you’ll know what to expect. In this box, you’re going to get all of the sprues for the 3 core miniatures, and then the parts for the Agents, which if we’re counting, means you’re getting 6 miniatures in one box (the Grunts act as a one for gameplay, but are 3 separate models), along with some tokens, the character cards, and a whopping TWELVE tactic cards, which I think is more than any other pack I’ve assembled so far. The core set comes with twenty, so this was really surprising.
Building the models was generally easy, but I will warn you now that these are older models, so there are some tiny details that you have to assemble. All of the characters come with holsters and small belt packs that can be an absolute pain to put together, and Black Widow’s weapons come un-assembled...o my advice for this is to assemble her wrist shooters while the arms are still on the sprue. It will just make life easier.
Once you have them all assembled, which took maybe 2-3 episodes of The Bad Batch, you can breathe. Lastly, I opted to keep the Grunts off of the base so that painting each of them later will be much easier to do.
What about the cards?
Diving into the strategy of this affiliation, this box gives you a lot of what you need to build a sizable S.H.I.E.L.D. force. Checking out the affiliation itself, you can add in all sorts of great models. Winter Soldier, She-Hulk, Namor, Captain America (both models), just to name a few.
Looking at Nick Fury Jr ( I feel like I have a Sam Jackson model now), he has several intriguing powers that I haven’t seen on a card yet in MCP. His leadership ability, Last Line of Defense, triggers the first time an allied character is dazed or KO’d each round, resulting in a victory point. Additionally, if his team is tied or ahead on victory points, allied characters can spend Power to advance toward attackers when damaged, maintaining forward momentum. Keep your opponent on their toes.
His builders are fairly basic: Tactical Knife and Fury Special. The knife is a basic builder attack that adds special conditions on wild rolls, with a Pierce keyword allowing you to change a defender's dice result. The special does the same, but it really feels like the knife will get more usage.
Call in the Cavalry, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Lead From The Front all deal with using the Grunts that come along with the pack. These powers help move the grunts towards defenders and get an immediate attack, drop them in to handle Extraction objectives, and re-roll defensive dice, along with a power builder.
I haven’t really covered Grunts before, so here it goes: Grunts are an expendable character. Unlike the rest of your squad, they don’t operate independently; rather, they are used at the same time as their paired card. If the Grunts are KO’d, they’re out of the game. With 2 health, these S.H.I.E.L.D. grunts are best used in a pinch to help hold an objective. When they get KO’d, you get to choose where the objective goes. Much like the power’s name, they Buy You Time.
Now, let’s go over to our Avengers, Hawkeye and Black Widow.
Surprisingly, Hawkeye has a pretty limited power set, but what he has should be useful for players looking to move and shoot. Arrow Shot is his builder, dealing 5 dice at a range of 5, which is pretty big. On wild rolls, you can apply a variety of status effects, and you can choose whether it’s a physical or energy attack. Hook Arrow moves you around the battlefield, Trick Shot allows you to ignore LOS, which is a huge benefit in a terrain-heavy game, and Fast Draw allows you to fire back when attacked. Not bad for a Threat 3 character, making him an affordable addition to your roster.
Black Widow has a more diverse set of skills, with Automatic Pistol allowing her to use the Rapid Fire special rule, which gives her double attacks. Widow's Kiss is a good pairing for Hawkeye’s moveset, as it allows you to add more attack dice depending on the number of special conditions the defender has. Tear Gas causes the opponent to not gain power when damaged, along with a poison condition, and her final powers, Interrogate and Parting Shot, both have some effects in resolution, with the first allowing the player to score additional victory points, and the second allowing additional damage to be dealt to an opponent and allowing Black Widow to move away from the character. Once again, some decent powers for cheap costs (she also costs 3), so good if you want a character-heavy team.
Now, onto the Tactics cards. Since there are 12 of them, I don’t really want to go into great depth, but I’ll pick a few that I think are standouts.
The Initiative is a card deployed at the beginning of the game, and it allows the player to assign a Gadget token to a non-S.H.I.E.L.D. affiliated character (I would use Deadpool), and that token allows the player to reroll a defensive die, discard a special condition, or allow it to move an objective token to another character.
Life Model Decoy is exclusively for Nick Fury, and allows the use of tokens to potentially re-roll attacker dice, and represents Nick using robots constantly to hide his real location
Defensive Prototype allows two characters within 3 range (that’s kinda big) to spend a point of power to allow them not to be pushed, thrown, or placed by enemy effects. Effectively, an energy wall surrounds them.
Eye in the Sky allows a player to bend the rules by keeping the card in play after being used. As a reaction to being attacked, Nick Fury can help an ally by spending power to move the ally out of harm's way.
Professionals allows Black Widow and Hawkeye to move Extraction tokens from damaged enemies to Black Widow.
Lastly, my personal favorite is Helicarrier Strike, which adds a special attack to your team to make an attack from above that ignores line of sight and cover, and if you roll a wild, you deal additional area of effect damage and set them on fire!
Should I purchase this box?
Heavy maybe. While I like some of the tactics cards and Nick Fury, I feel like the grunts will get automatically wiped, and both Black Widow and Hawkeye don’t have a whole lot of depth to them…I think I would use these models to help supplement a bigger force. I do like Nick’s leadership ability, which would grant me some grunt help in a pinch.
Check back with us in a few weeks and see just how we paint up the S.H.I.E.L.D. affiliation pack!
