Marvel: Crisis Protocol Character Breakdown: Black Widow

Black Widow is defensively-minded character in Marvel: Crisis Protocol who excels at moving across the battlefield. 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 Black Widow, a character available in Marvel: Crisis Protocol's Core Set. Black Widow is the only character currently available in Marvel: Crisis Protocol with a Threat Level of 2 and has the lowest health of any character in the game with only 4 hit points. While her low Threat Level and health seem like a detriment, she offers a level of flexibility when building a team for a specific objective. Because of her low Threat Level, players can add her to their roster without sacrificing a slot for another character.

Like Baron Zemo, Black Widow has a "L" movement speed, making her one of the fastest characters in the Core Set. However, she also benefits from the Stealth ability, which prevents players from targeting her with an attack unless they're within a range of 3 from her. Not only does this keep Black Widow from getting sniped off the battlefield, it also forces opponents to get close to her to engage. Black Widow's other persistent ability is her Martial Artist ability, which gives her the ability to count blank rolls as successes whenever she's being targeted by an attack within a range of 2. This combination means that Black Widow has a surprisingly strong defense when attacked from up close AND can't be attacked from a distance.

Black Widow's defensive arsenal also includes the Counter-Strike superpower, which costs two power to activate. When attacked by any character, Black Widow can roll 4 dice and deal damage equal to the number of successes. Targets of a counter-strike ability can't defend against that damage, so she can potentially dish out a lot of damage whenever she's attacked.

Black Widow's offensive abilities are a bit limited. Her strongest attack is the Strike, an Energy attack that generates Power and removes Power from an opponent. Most characters have low Energy Defense, so Black Widow can reliably do damage, generate power AND drain power from an opponent. Black Widow's other main attack is the Mixed Technique attack that can Stagger an opponent,thus costing them an Action during their next activation. What's more - Black Widow can also make a "S" movement after using Mixed Technique, thus potentially getting her out of range from any retaliatory attacks. An ideal move would see Black Widow use Mixed Technique to Stagger an opponent and then moving out of a range of 3 using its Elusive ability. That way, she can't be targeted by a long range attack (thanks to her Stealth superpower), and the Stagger would prevent that opponent from moving into range and attack on the same activation.

Black Widow isn't going to defeat many characters on her own, but her abilities should let her pester and hinder opponents at will as she moves through the battlefield to achieve objectives. With her low cost, you'll likely be seeing a lot of Black Widow in early Marvel: Crisis Protocol games.

The Marvel: Crisis Protocol Core Set is available now.