When Atomic Mass Games sent me the new Winter Guard Affiliation Pack, I was flabbergasted at first. Number one, they made models of these characters? By now, a number of us gamers had seen Thunderbolts, so we’re kind of familiar with Red Guardian, and I recall some Iron Man comics from the 2000s which made fun of Crimson Dynamo. Number two, there’s a bear model?
This pack has some weirdness that I am looking for out of my Marvel Crisis Protocol models, so let’s take a deep dive into the geopolitical Soviet Super Soldier team!
In comic book lore, the Winter Guard was formed after the fall of the USSR, as a combination of two other soviet themed teams, with the awesome names of The People’s Protectorate and Siberforce. The Winter Guard Affiliation Pack does them good justice by including Red Guardian, who is in many ways the Russian Captain America. He is backed up by Darkstar, a character who manipulates the Darkforce(extra-dimensional black energy), Crimson Dynamo, who is basically a Russian Iron Man, and the aptly named Ursa Major, who is a mutant who can turn into a giant bear, easily the most awesome of the team.
The pack comes with all 4 models, their team cards, and character cards. This affiliation focuses on team synthesis and taking advantage of the field. Cards like Dark Aura Manifestation (reduces enemy defense rolls by 1), Sovereign Strike (allows any Winter Guard character to blow up size 4 terrain), and Winter Rush (allows for any Winter Guard models to spend power to move the entire team towards a damaged enemy) really reward the player for using the entire affiliation.
The entire Faction in the box is 14 threat, which means all you need to do is add Winter Soldier, Operative/Omega Red, and Black Widow, and you’ve got a solid 20 threat team (if you want to stick with the theme). I’ll be honest though: I would just add a 6 threat to the team to really round it out. Hulk is a good example.
Images courtesy of Jarvis Protocol
Looking at the character cards, some powers stand out. Unbreakable Red Line, which is the leadership power for Crimson Dynamo, allows you to remove one special condition per activation. Let that threat 6 Hulk on the table collect conditions, and remove them with that for free.
Ursa and Red Guardian are bruiser characters, with powers like Shield Throw (creates ricochet attacks on a wild), and Ursine Temper (once a turn throw a terrain size 2)
And Darkstar is going to be the model that helps move everyone around the table with Dimensional Portal.
The models themselves are actually pretty cool. Ursa Major is just such a fun pose, very dynamic. Not as big as I thought he’d be, but I’m into it. Crimson Dynamo has a lot of fun lines, and the pose is aching for a huge OSL energy blast. Red Guardian comes with his own base, which is very nice, thank you. And Darkstar is floating off the ground…if I’m honest, the models that are kinda delicate are not my most favorite. I like that her head is one solid piece.
We’ll get these painted up in the future. Big shout out to Atomic Mass Games for sending us the package, and we’ll see you in the next one!
Asmodee USA
