keep up-to-date with all our written content
Madness on the Airwaves – our custom variant for Midnight Masks
Wakanda Forever – Remembering Chadwick Boseman, aka Black Panther
Scarlet Witch – Preview & Speculation
Wrath of N’Kai – Review of the new Arkham Horror Novel from Aconyte Books
Klaw 4×4 – check out our custom Klaw Level IV cards
All Mystic / No Mystic – find out what happens when 4 Mystic Investigators try to beat a scenario with no Mystic cards!
Shadow of the Past (Mini Episodes focusing on an individual scenario)
Arkham
Essex County Express
Carnevale of Horrors
Lord of the Rings
Into the Pit
Escape from Mount Gram
Marvel Champions
Taskmaster
Wrecking Crew
official card announcements provided by Fantasy Flight Games and more
Surveillance Team 1 – Electrostatic Armour (Marvel Champions – Hulk Hero Pack)
Surveillance Team 2 – Marked for Death (Marvel Champions – Rise of Red Skull)
Surveillance Team 3 – Adam Warlock (Marvel Champions – Star Lord Hero Pack)
Surveillance Team 4 – Major Victory (Marvel Champions – Mad Titan’s Shadow)
Surveillance Team 5 – Cheat the System (Arkham Horror – Edge of the Earth)
Surveillance Team 6 – Veteran Eagle (Lord of the Rings ALEP – Fire on the Eastemnet)
Lore of the Rings
A joint project with Critical Encounters Podcast where we take a deep dive into the lore and cards from specific LOTR LCG scenarios
Core Set
Like many people, I woke up on Saturday 29th August 2020 to the shock news that Chadwick Boseman had died from cancer at the age of 43.
Although he was a talented actor who played a wide variety of roles in his too-short life, Boseman was probably best known (certainly to Marvel fans) for his portrayal of King T’Challa of Wakanda, aka Black Panther, a role which he played in Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame.
Although T’Challa has been appearing in Marvel Comics since the 1960s (he was probably the first black superhero, certainly in mainstream comics), I think it’s fair to say that Boseman’s performances, particularly as the eponymous hero of Ryan Coogler’s 2018 Black Panther film, played a huge role in bringing awareness of the character to a much wider audience. As a piece of entertainment, I found Black Panther to be a fairly middle-of-the-road Marvel film: entertaining, without necessarily being a stand-out. However, I’m white. I’ve spent my life being told that superheroes look like me. If I want to see superhero films made by people who look like me, starring people who look like me, I’m spoilt for choice.
Black Panther was the first (and so far the only) Marvel film with a black director and black main cast (aside from a couple of Tolkien white guys played by Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis), and that mattered a lot. Rather than try to put words in other people’s mouths, I’m just going to let you all watch for yourselves as black fans tell Chadwick Boseman why the film meant so much to them
https://twitter.com/fallontonight/status/969071212197396480?s=21
Boseman always came across as a nice guy, and someone who appreciated the responsibility that came with such a prominent role. Stories like how he fought for T’Challa to have an African accent in the films can seem like little details, but they show a level of awareness that cannot be taken for granted from Hollywood stars. Obviously Boseman was far from the only actor to bulk up for a film, or to visit sick kids in hospital, but knowing that he did all that whilst hiding his own cancer diagnosis only adds to the amount of respect that he deserves.
An obituary may feel a bit out of place on the blog of a card-games podcast, but I wanted to say something. Bringing things closer to our normal subject matter, I find myself wondering: without Boseman would Black Panther have been picked as one of the 5 heroes for the Marvel Champions core set? I’m not sure anyone can really say, but it’s definitely going to impact how I feel next time I play Black Panther.
At the Card Game Cooperative, our little act of remembrance is going to be taking Black Panther up against Klaw, with Killmonger and the rest of the Nemesis set already mixed in, in place of a modular set (just as soon as we’ve finished re-watching Black Panther). In this sad time, let us know what Black Panther gaming you’ve got planned to remind us all of happier times.
RIP Chadwick Boseman, 1976-2020
We will no longer watch from the shadows. We cannot. We must not. We will work to be an example of how we, as brothers and sisters on this earth, should treat each other. Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe.
Wakanda Forever!
a few rules clarifications from Caleb:
“While Mockingbird is faceup under the side scheme she is in play but under no player’s control” – so you can’t play core set Mockingbird whilst this scheme is in play.
If you happen to have Made the Call to someone else’s Core Set Mockingbird when this comes out, she would be captured instead. However, the unique rule would mean that you couldn’t then play your Hawkeye Mockingbird anyway.
for “when this stage is defeated” read “when this scheme is defeated”
At GenCon last week, we got announcements for our next 4 heroes in Marvel Champions, including our second Mystic but not (surprising some) our first Mutant.
Today I’m going to take a bit of a look at Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch, one of the upcoming heroes for Marvel Champions.
For those who want to read up on her twin brother Pietro, aka Quicksilver, check out 1-2-Punchboard’s recently published Fastest Man Alive.
Wanda Maximoff was first introduced to the comics in the 1960s and – like so many comic-book characters, has undergone various revisions to her origin story over the years (we won’t bother talking about the Whizzer) Thinking too hard about her backstory can definitely make your head hurt, but here’s an attempt at a brief summary…
For many years, the best-known story of Scarlet Witch was as the daughter of everyone’s favourite Villain/Anti-Hero, Magneto. She and her brother were founding members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants before switching to the good guys and joining the Avengers. Wanda’s Powers are “Hexes” or “Hex-bolts,” which basically meant that she was able to do whatever Stan Lee and Jack Kirby needed her to do for that week’s storyline! Despite her superhero name, she was not originally an actual magic user, although this angle was explored in later stories, where she came under the tutelage of Salem survivor Agatha Harkness.
Wanda found love in the Avengers, marrying Vision and having 2 sons with him (magically conceived) but was not destined for happiness, suffering not only the standard comic-book challenges of her lover’s death (he got better…), but also finding her children erased from reality entirely. This experience would be traumatic for most of us, but coupled with unpredictable, reality-warping powers, led to a nervous breakdown, in which she first re-wrote the world as a mutant-led “Utopia” (unless you happen to be a human) in the House of M event and then swung back to the other extreme, eliminating the vast majority of the global mutant population in an instant. Whilst this “Decimation” was eventually more-or-less undone, it won her more than a few enemies among mutantkind.
In the most recent, and probably final, retcon of her backstory, it was established that she and Pietro are, in fact normal Homo Sapiens who had been subject to experimentation by a character known as the High Evolutionary to give them their powers. Rather than try to define too closely what exactly this experimentation unlocked, the most recent runs have focused much more heavily on Wanda as a sorcerer and explored far more closely how she relates to the wider world of magic.
In the MCU, of course, mutants aren’t a thing yet, and Wanda and Pietro’s powers are the result of dark experiments involving the Mind Stone, something much more akin to the most recent version of her comic-book story. It seems a fair bet that the decision to remove the Mutant aspect of their story had a fair amount to do with Marvel not having the film rights for X-Men and making a broad, concerted attempt to minimise the visibility of mutant characters across their stories.
Assuming that brief summary hasn’t already prompted a migraine, let’s see what early hints we’ve had about how Scarlet Witch will play in the game…
Wanda is a Mystic and, when in her Hero form, also an Avenger. Her abilities are both pretty low-key: in alter-ego form she can cycle cards from her hand, getting a net draw effect if her brother is in play.
In hero form, she can mulligan the number of boost icons on a card (although not cancel boost effects), which might save you some damage, but could equally just come back and bite you.
As a Mystic, she will be only the second character after Dr Strange to be able to take the Sorcerer Supreme card, giving her a nice hand-size of 6 whether in Hero or Alter-Ego form.
Given how understated these powers are, I’m hoping for big things from her set of 15 and the one card spoiled so far looks very promising in this respect. Hex Bolt is a 2-cost event, Spell and superpower. It discards 3 cards off the encounter deck and depending on the number of boost icons on each of them, it can damage enemies, remove threat from schemes, draw you cards, or place status cards on characters – this has the potential to be really high-impact, but is also really unpredictable (unless you’re running Falcon) and comes at a significant cost, as you’re milling the encounter deck more quickly, hastening the inevitable growth of the Acceleration tokens. The designers have indicated on stream that this kind of unpredictability and high power at a cost are themes we can expect to see a lot more of in her deck.
The scale of Wanda’s powers are truly incredible – in the comics, she has single-handedly dismantled the Avengers, re-made the entire world into a Mutant-dominated society, changed it back at the same time as de-powering millions of mutants and, ultimately re-instated mutantkind as a species. There is very little that would be implausible for her to achieve. That said, game balance still has to be a thing, so I don’t think we can expect a card which simply makes all the minions in play cease to exist.
One area where I think there is room to explore is with the Confused status: most people tend to find waking up in a new timeline pretty disorienting, and even without re-writing history, she’s well capable of messing up the villains’ best-laid plans. I’d be particularly keen to see a card which does for Confuse what Webbed Up does for Stun, and think that as a 4-cost Hero-card it wouldn’t be particularly OP.
Wanda has never really had a particular “Nemesis” of her own. She certainly clashed with the man she believed to be her father a fair few times, but I’d be amazed if we see Magneto in this pack.
Rumours kicking around the internet suggest that Agatha Harkness might be the main villain in the upcoming Disney+ series Wandavision, but in the comics she has generally been more of a mentor/ally to Wanda, so this would seem an odd direction in which to take her.
Given that FFG seem to be pushing the more modern idea of Wanda as a magic-wielding character, I’d like to see what they could do with the Emerald Warlock – he’s certainly a newer, less well-known character, but no more of a deep cut than Thomas Edison for comic fans. I’d imagine that his power-set would probably be quite similar to Baron Mordo’s (Dr Strange’s Nemesis) in terms of acting as a dark mirror to Wanda’s own powers. I’d also like to see them find a way to mechanically represent Emerald Warlock as someone who just seems to enjoy fighting Scarlet Witch for the sake of it, as much as for his own grand goals (which often, but not exclusively, seem to involve conquering Ireland…)
Whatever happens, I’m sure that FFG won’t disappoint, and I look forward to getting my hands on the Scarlet Witch pack, probably early in 2021.
In the meantime: – Scarlet Witch: selected reading list
join us, your remotely competent LCG loving hosts for our main topic of Alpha players and table talk, sandwiched between all the lovely GenCon news and us interrupting the FFG X-Wing live stream with a question thats on everyones minds!
After what feels like forever, we’re back with a bumper episode of fun as we discuss our favorite thematic cards and have a bit of a rant about a few cards which we feel dont fit the theme of their respective games.
For anyone who missed the announcements, Aconyte Books (a still-fairly-new Asmodee subsidiary) are going to be putting out tie-in fiction for some of Asmodee’s major game-lines: Keyforge, Legend of the Five Rings, Terrinoth (Descent, Runebound, Legend of Dragonholt etc) and – most relevant for fans of the Card Game Cooperative – Arkham Horror!
It’s been several years since FFG produced tie-in novels for Arkham. The Dark Waters Trilogy, the Lord of Nightmares Trilogy, and (my personal favourite) Feeders From Within were entertaining stories in their own right, although they seem to have slipped to non-cannonical status since the soft-reboot of Arkham lore which came with 2017’s The Investigators of Arkham Horror.
We also have, of course, had some novellas direct from FFG, often (unfairly in my opinion) dismissed as “those things the promo cards come in,” but this is the first time in a long while that we’ve had full-length fiction to really sink our teeth into.
The first of 2 announced Arkham novels coming from Aconyte, Wrath of N’Kai is written by Joshua Reynolds, a prolific writer who brings a huge amount of experience from writing Warhammer tie-in fiction, as well as his own original creations (you can find out more about his work here)
I was lucky enough to get my hands on a review copy of Wrath of N’Kai, and, whilst I haven’t seen the final, published book yet, I’ve seen enough of the writing and the story to be able to share a few thoughts with everyone today…
Our protagonist for The Wrath of N’Kai, is one Countess Alessandra Zorzi, a self-declared “acquisitionist” (you or I would probably say “thief…”). Specialising in the acquisition of weird and esoteric items, Alessandra has come to Arkham to steal a mummy, recently unearthed from a mound in Oklahoma, of all places. Unfortunately for her, she is not the only interested party, and Alessandra soon finds herself becoming rather more familiar with Arkham than she would have liked, caught between numerous factions as she tries to uncover the truth, get paid, and maybe even make it out alive.
Alessandra herself is an interesting character. The author does a good job in presenting us with a loveable rogue who we can sympathise with, despite her chosen occupation being squarely on the wrong side of the law. We’re gradually given hints at her background, previous brushes with the supernatural, as well as some thoroughly human tragedy in her past: there’s enough there to make her feel real without overwhelming us with an info-dump, or removing that element of mystery.
The story starts off at a good pace, and events keep ticking along at a rate to keep us engaged. I felt like the plot got a little bit loose in the middle, but by then, hopefully, you’re engaged enough with the story and the key characters that you won’t mind too much.
If, like me, you’re coming to Wrath of N’Kai as an huge Arkham Horror Files fan, one of your biggest questions is probably whether your favourite investigators will be putting in an appearance. I’m on a strict “no-spoilers” warning, so won’t be naming any names, but I counted 4 who actually appeared, (plus a 5th who gets mentioned by name). Of these, 2 are essentially cameo appearances, whilst the others get to actually make a proper contribution to events.
In some respects, the FFG-investigators were the one aspect of Wrath of N’Kai that I found a bit disappointing: in particular, the one who appears the most never feels particularly developed as a character, even by the end. However, that probably says as much about the expectations and preconceptions I already had about the character (and how I would have expected them to have behaved) as it does about their depiction in the novel.
Unlike the FFG novellas, the board/card-game Investigators are not the stars of the show, and whilst they play a key part in making Arkham feel like Arkham, Wrath of N’Kai is primarily its own story: Alessandra, her sidekick, her foil, her chief adversary – are all new creations from Reynolds’ pen, and these characters all feel believable enough for a story of this length.
Whilst Alessandra herself is an intriguing character, the real reason that Wrath of N’Kai works is that Reynolds has captured the flavour of Arkham so well. This might not be Lovecraft’s Arkham – Wrath of N’Kai certainly isn’t a work of cosmic horror – but it is FFG and Chaosium’s Arkham. That subtle, creeping, wrongness that leaves an all-pervasive sense of unease, the nagging voice that cuts through the loudest jazz and gunfire. There are appearances from plenty of key Arkham figures, those recurring characters who crop up in many of the stories, but beyond that, the city itself is a character
All-in-all, I really enjoyed Wrath of N’Kai. Tie-in fiction always walks a difficult line, and I think this book does it well. We have an engaging lead whose story you will want to follow, plenty of Easter-Eggs for die-hard fans, but also a work that is accessible for those with only the most superficial knowledge of the setting. If this is the standard that we can expect from Aconyte, then I’ll be watching their upcoming releases with interest.
As someone who reads a lot of secondary world Fantasy, I could find holes to pick in the world-building, but you don’t need to spend long looking at the cover to understand that Wrath of N’Kai is wearing its pulpy heart on its sleeve. This is a fast-paced story that doesn’t burden you with more detail than the story really needs. All-in-all a satisfying read.
Now we just need to lobby FFG for Alessandra to start appearing in the games.
If you’re a fan of all things Arkham Horror lore, you might enjoy my Chance Encounters series – narrativized accounts of an Arkham Horror the Card Game campaign.
You can also check out my Investigators Revisited series to understand why I get quite so over-obsessed with the portrayal of the FFG characters in fiction – once Wrath of N’Kai is released properly, it might even get referenced in an upcoming article in this series!
The Card Game Cooperative