Marvel Crisis Protocol Phoenix Review

In Marvel Crisis Protocol, players put teams of Marvel characters head to head in skirmish combat. Most of the time, it's pretty similar characters all battling each other. Captain America and Crossbones. Wolverine and Toad. But not too often do you see godlike characters hit the table. And no, not Thor. I mean real big characters. Ones that can wreck just about everything on the table.

Phoenix & Phoenix Unleashed - atomicmassgames

Atomic Mass Games

atomicmassgames

This is where Phoenix and Phoenix Unleashed come into play. In this character pack, AMG provides us the embodiment of life, death, and rebirth, for only 6 threat! You can easily stack her into your X-Men team affiliation.

Her character card has some pretty solid stats. Starting off at 7 health with a defense rating of 4/4/5 (this corresponds to physical, energy, and psychic resistance), she's beefy. Which is odd, because as we get further into the article, you really want Phoenix to get hurt.

Her starting power set involves some powerful moves. During the Power Phase, she gains an additional power, which means she's already getting 2 power per turn. Then, she flies and is immune to poison and incinerate. Her basic builder attack, Bolts of Flame, requires a close range of 3, but then does a whopping 6 dice of damage, and then instead of gaining 1 power, she gains power equal to damage dealt. And then, she lights the enemy on fire.

Her second attack, Firestorm, is an area attack, and eats 6 power, so you'll need at least 3 turns to pull this one off. And it heals allies. It burns, but also feels good?

Her special moves include Cosmically Empowered Telekinesis, which lets her throw nearly every character and terrain feature. Rejuvenating Flames is an awesome healing move, which allows her to heal an ally from 3 away for 2 health and a special condition. Take that, Hex! And finally, Burning Resolve prevents an ally from being pushed, advanced, or placed by an enemy effect.

On paper, she's a good support model. I wouldn't send her out to capture objectives, but rather hang in the middle of combat and get whacked a bunch.

Which brings me to her big ability, I Am Fire and Life Incarnate, which says that during combat, when allies get dazed of KO'd, she gains Phoenix tokens. And if she gets taken out, she gets 3. Then at the start of your turn, or if she would flip to the injured side, Phoenix Unleashed appears. Swap the model for the much bigger and more awesome Phoenix Unleashed.

Now you've got a serious threat. With 10 health, 4/5/3 for her defenses ( I suspect the 3 mystic defense is a balancing mechanic), a larger blast radius, and becoming a slower size 4 model, she focuses more on damage than heals.

Phoenix Blast is a range 4 attack, still with 6 damage die, but can now destroy terrain and replace them with pillars of FIRE. Molecular Disintegration is a beam attack dealing 8 damage at the cost of 6 power.  
To help, she can use All Are Beneath Me, which allows her to leverage those Pillars to direct line of sight for those 2 attacks. The pillar is destroyed, but hey, go make more. I love that this character utilizes terrain in so many fun ways.

Lastly, she gains a Reroll superpower called Temporal Domination. Once per turn, she can modify up to 3 dice, at the cost of a Phoenix Token.

About Phoenix Tokens, this is a mechanic designed so that she's not overpowering, but the proper strategy would balance those tokens. So, if Blast is a builder, and Molecular is a spender, then what happens with these tokens?

Untamed Cosmic Entity triggers. During the power phase, she will gain additional power for the tokens she's gained. She also gets them for allies who are dazed and KO'd, and loses them if she dazes or KO's enemies... the point of this is that if she gets 5 tokens at the end of her Activation, you roll dice equal to the amount of tokens. End result? She explodes!  Those dice will deal damage to both allies and enemies, and terrain equal to or less than the number of positive rolls also gets vaporized. Also, Phoenix is KO'd.

But wait, there's more! When she is KO'd, she can leverage a Team Tactic Card, The White-Hot Room, which will bring her back to life for a one time use. However, it will take 2 rounds before she's back, so it's risky. She also comes with I Am Reborn, which acts as a reactive to her being Dazed, pushes characters away from her, and sets them on fire. Lastly, she has Flames of Life, which uses all the incinerating to heal or empower allies. Phoenix Unleashed can spend a token to play this card, keeping her alive, and then leveraging the pillars to light more people on fire and gain power.

Godlike. I am so excited to get her on the table and start lighting everything on fire. Assembly of the models is pretty easy, with the pillars being super easy to snap together and the sculpt quality is solid, no difficult mold lines. I will say, her back arm on the Unleashed side is a bit more difficult, and I had to use tweezers. Big fingers beware.

I'm pretty thrilled to have not just a cornerstone of the X-Men, but a beautiful model to work with.