Marvel Champions fans are still working their way through the recent Guardians of the Galaxy expansion, but now they have a whole new expansion to look forward to as Fantasy Flight just announced a new expansion titled The Mad Titan’s Shadow. As you can probably surmise from the title, this expansion features Thanos and his deadly Black Order as they look to collect the powerful Infinity Stones, which actually get their own encounter set that can be ported over to just about any other scenario in the game. The set also comes with two new heroes in Monica Rambeau and Adam Warlock, who are ready to throw down with the Black Order.
Speaking of the Black Order, fans will face off against Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive throughout the expansion before facing Thanos himself, and each one brings their own unique skills to the mix. You’ll face Maw first, who has several Spell Environments that will change the battle parameters as they pop up. These include Fireball, which initiates Surge and once it’s spent all of its Invocation Counters causes damage to your heroes. Pacification also Surges, but when it’s spent it makes you exhaust each Upgrade you control and stuns you, and that can cause chaos if it happens at the wrong time. Maw also has the Abjuration Attachment, which prevents all damage, as well as the Restrained Attachment, which actually attaches to a hero and keeps them from readying until the card is disposed of.
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If you get through Maw you’ll then face Midnight and Glaive, who actually work together and place threat on their own Main Schemes but draw while the same single Villain Deck. You’ll need to make sure you’re paying attention to your Focused Defense and keep your attacks on the bigger threat, but you’ll also need to take them down at the same time, so yeah, no pressure.
If you make it through those three, you’ll take on Thanos, who cannot be stunned or confused, and who can cause chaos with the Balance The Scales Main Scheme, which makes you discard the top half of your deck from the game.
That also doesn’t factor in the Infinity Stones deck, which will cycle in and out of play and when in play allows the villain to wield their power against the heroes. They will make the villain’s schemes and attacks more powerful, but they will also allow things like confusion (the Mind Stone), teleportation (the Space Stone), and more.
The good news is you’ll have new heroes to counter Thanos and his forces, including Adam Warlock. Warlock brings one of the most interesting Hero Decks into the game, as you must have an equal number of cards from all four Aspects in his deck and he can’t have any duplicates outside of his signature cards. His Battle Mage Hero ability takes advantage of these four aspects and allows a number of handy actions to be accessed once per turn, which include doing damage to an enemy, removing threat, healing damage, and boosting a hero’s Thwart, Attack, and Defense.
He also has special cards like the Living Tribunal and Shield Spell, and the former gets shuffled into the Encounter Deck, not your own. He also has upgrades like Warlock’s Cape and Mystic Senses, which allow you to ready Warlock or draw 1 card after using his Battle Mage ability. Now, Warlock will go through his deck faster than other heroes, but once you do you gain a Soul Counter, and when activated on the Soul World card it will allow you to heal all damage from your identity. You can also speed this process up by using cards like Zone of Silence and Summoning Spell, which help you run through deck quicker.
You can also bring Monica Rambeau into the battle, aka Spectrum. Rambeau focuses on the Leadership Aspect, and can take on several different energy forms, including Gamma, Photon, and Pulsar. Each form gives her a different bonus and allows allows her to affect the enemy in a different way when she changes into it, and she can choose which Energy form she takes every time she flips to Hero form. Cards like Energy Duplication, Pulsar Shield, and Speed of Light also allow her to utilize these multiple forms in unique ways or switch between them as well.
Rambeau also has powerful Leadership cards in her deck, including allies like White Tiger and Kaluu, and you can then assemble the Mighty Avengers, which gives you and your allies (like Power Man for instance) welcome buff. You can also make the most out of cards like Mass Attack, which can be deadly if you’ve assembled the right team.
This appears to be one of the most packed expansions yet for Marvel Champions yet, and it is set to hit stores in August of this year.
Will you be picking up the new Marvel Champions expansion? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things Marvel Champions and tabletop with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
