Marvel: Crisis Protocol Character Breakdown: Baron Zemo

ComicBook.com is doing a deep dive into Marvel: Crisis Protocol's heroes and villains, starting with Baron Zemo. Marvel: Crisis Protocol is a brand new tabletop skirmish game by Atomic Mass Games featuring Marvel's greatest superheroes and villains. Players can mix and match their heroes and villains into teams that they send out on different scenarios. While attacking an opponent's characters is definitely part of Marvel: Crisis Protocol, players score Victory Points by completing objectives, which means that positioning and movement is a critical part of the game too.

Each character in Marvel: Crisis Protocol has their own strengths and weaknesses, so we thought we'd highlight what each character does to help players interested in the game. Today, we're looking at Baron Zemo, a character available in Marvel: Crisis Protocol's Core Set. Baron Zemo has a Threat Level of 3, making him one of the less powerful characters in the Core Set. However, he's still incredibly versatile and dangerous, with the ability to make opponents Bleed and move around the battlefield quicker than most opponents.

Zemo's greatest strength is his "Long" movement speed, which is greater than any other core character besides Spider-Man and Black Widow. Not only can Zemo move quickly, but he can also Charge by spending two power, giving him the ability to move and attack as one action. He can also use his Steel Rush to attack and then make a "Medium" movement, giving him the opportunity to basically move around the battlefield at will.

Both of Zemo's main attacks also cause Bleed, a persistent effect that deals one damage at the end of a character's activations. While Bleed effects don't stack, it is persistent damage that wears down an opponent's character over the course of a few rounds.

Not only does Zemo strike fast, he also has the ability to strike hard thanks to his Master Swordsman superpower, which allows him to reroll any number of attack or defense dice when he's either the target of a physical attack or targets a character of a physical attack. Not only can this add damage to Zemo's rolls, it also can keep Zemo on the field and moving when he would otherwise be knocked out. Even if Zemo doesn't use his Master Swordsman superpower, he also has the Strategic Genius superpower, which gives him and all allied characters within a range of 2 a free re-roll of one dice on all attack or defense rolls.

While Zemo has average defenses, his Counter-Strike superpower ensures that players think twice about attacking him. As long as the player who attacked him is within a range of three, Zemo rolls four dice and deals damage for all wilds and criticals rolled. Note that the opponent can't block Counter-Strike, so that potentially can cause a whole lot of damage to opponents who get too close.

Zemo's biggest weakness is that almost all of his attacks and superpowers require Power to activate, and he just doesn't have the ability to produce a whole bunch of power. While his Sword Strike attack generates power equal to the amount of damage dealt, it only has a strength of five and is a physical attack. Considering that most characters in Marvel: Crisis Protocol have a Physical Defense of 4, the odds aren't good for Zemo generating a lot of damage with Sword Strike.

Zemo is fast and can hurt opponents in a lot of different ways. If you manage Zemo's power consumption properly, he can easily be the MVP of your Marvel: Crisis Protocol team.

The Marvel: Crisis Protocol Core Set is available now.