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Marvel Superhero Showdown (MSS) is a new action figure collectible card board game thingy, jointly produced by Toy Biz and Upper Deck. I picked up the Spidey/Thing starter and the Captain America, Iron Man and Doctor Doom booster figures on Friday, since I had cash in hand and my Rocketmen box hadn't arrived (Alliance allocated my store down to ZERO boxes, grr).
Here's the game in a nutshell:
Scaled down action figures (Marvel Legends sculpts, but remolded for simpler and cheaper joints) are the playing pieces, held up on articulated rods like the one used for the ML War Machine figure. They move around a grid of location or plot device tiles (3x4 for a two figure basic game) and do battle. Posing the figures is an important game mechanic, indicating both your attack type this turn, and having various secondary effects (bonuses to you or to your opponent for being in a particular pose). There's four poses: punch (attack non-diagonally adjacent tiles), kick (attack diagonally adjacent tiles), ranged (clip on the little missile shooter and fire it at any figure in a non-adjacent tile), and power pose (anything that doesn't look like one of the previous three, lets you use one of the special power cards you bring for the character).
Your three power cards also serve as hit points. As you take hits, you turn the cards sideways. As you use the powers, you flip the cards face down (or face up in the advanced game, where they start face down and hidden). The two conditions are unrelated...you can still use a power that's been turned, or turn a power that's been flipped. Each character comes with three cards, an the single-character boosters come with three additional cards for characters other than the one they come with. I ended up with 5 Iron Man, 5 Doom, 4 Cap, 3 Spidey and 3 Thing cards, plus several for characters I don't have. The cards do things like give you bonuses to attack or defense, seizing initiative, moving to any tile, etc.
The movement tiles affect play in various ways, usually offering some kind of bonus when you end your move on it (no tile works for you if you started the turn on it, so it's best to keep moving). A lot of these effects duplicate power cards, but some are unique (as far as I can tell from my limited selection...they just have rules wording that doesn't seem like it'd fit a power card well).
When you attack, you roll 2d6 and add it to your Attack number, while your opponent rolls 2d6 and adds that to their Defense. Various power cards and location tiles can adjust either number, and sometimes you get bonuses against targets in particular poses (i.e. the Leg Sweep location gives you a bonus against targets who are in the Kick pose). There's not a lot of spread in these numbers, at least in the figures I got, and the assignment of values seems somewhat arbitrary. For instance, Doctor Doom has A11/D11, the least powerful figure of the five I got. Meanwhile, Spider-Man and Cap both have A12/D13, Thing has A13/D12, and Iron Man has A12/D12. Just about everyone has at least one power card that can boost one of those by 4-5, though.
Ranged attacks are the one kinda goofy part of the game. You target an opposing figure in a non-adjacent square, and then fire the toy's missile launcher. If it hits, the target is damaged. Generally, you can't reload the launcher, so you're only guaranteed one shot per game. But several powers and locations allow reloads. Fortunately, this is the only part of the game where your personal skill in using toy missile launchers matters. And melee is purely diced.
The initiative system is a little wonky, and I can see it getting really complicated in multiplayer games. High roll at the start of the game "gets the jump on" the opponent(s) and goes first each round. But several powers and tiles let you seize initiative...presumably this doesn't change order of actions on the round it happens, otherwise the messiness mentioned above comes in. If you actually play this, I'd recommend using a counter to keep track of shifting initiative (i.e. the Emperor's Favor in L5R, or the "buck" in poker).
The rules come in four levels, a common enough thing these days for collectible games marketed to younger players but expected to also sell to adults (i.e. SportsClix). Level 1 is bare bones. Level 2 turns the location tiles face up and introduces their abilities. Level 3 lets you bring in power cards other than the base three (the cards are numbered so you can always tell which the original three are), and start with powers face down so you can surprise your opponent. Level 4 is the "more than 2 figures" rules, both multiplayer and teams of figures. You need to buy two Starters to have enough tiles to do most of the larger maps, a starter and four boosters to do the 4x4 map recommended for 2-on-2 team games.
Now...the figures. Rather cheap-feeling. They clearly took the sculpts of Marvel Legends figures and then simplified (although even the Thing has 23 meaningful joints, and the rest have slightly more) and shrunken (to about 4" tall). The quality control is iffy (my Cap had the ball part of the waist joint set too deep in his pelvis, so the socket can't reach it. Had to kitbash it), and often the figures are just shoved into the blisters with limbs bent sideways because the rubbery plastic allows it. The level of detail is acceptable, and the paint jobs reasonably good. The missile launcher accessories only come in three or four styles, and don't always fit well on the arm of the figure (for instance, Spidey's arm is too thin, while Iron Man's arm is too thick). There's at least two styles of missile: an energy blob tip and a missile tipped with a FIST. Which is also a goofy part of the game. The rigs for holding the figures up in kicking poses are okay, although the Thing is a bit too heavy for his to hold for too long. The bases have the character's face or icon molded into them, so you can tell them apart.
Just to summarize what you get:
Starters - two figures, with bases and missile launchers; 12 gameboard tiles; 3 power cards for each character; rulebook.
Boosters - one figure, with base and missile launcher; 1 tile; 3 power cards for that character and 3 for random other characters; turn sequence guidesheet.
So, there's a blind-packed collectible aspect in addition to the "you know what you're getting" collectible figures. There's not a whole lot of difference between the figures, especially if you collect all the power cards. Oh, and there's chase figures...a "Spider-Sense Spider-Man" figure with glowy bits around the head, and Wolverine in a wifebeater and jeans. I know they're chase because my store ordered complete boxes of each assortment and got none. Each box of starters has 4 of the Spider-Man/Thing starter and 2 of the Hulk/Wolverine. The booster boxes have 10 figures IIRC, 3 each of two varieties, 2 each of the others.
Do I recommend picking this up? Ehn. It's too expensive for just the figures, and I suspect the game will wear thin after a half dozen playings (games with a "physical challenge" never seem to go over well with adult gamers...if we had good coordination we'd be playing sports :) ). If you have a burning need for 4" superposeable action figures, you might try grabbing a couple.
Here's the game in a nutshell:
Scaled down action figures (Marvel Legends sculpts, but remolded for simpler and cheaper joints) are the playing pieces, held up on articulated rods like the one used for the ML War Machine figure. They move around a grid of location or plot device tiles (3x4 for a two figure basic game) and do battle. Posing the figures is an important game mechanic, indicating both your attack type this turn, and having various secondary effects (bonuses to you or to your opponent for being in a particular pose). There's four poses: punch (attack non-diagonally adjacent tiles), kick (attack diagonally adjacent tiles), ranged (clip on the little missile shooter and fire it at any figure in a non-adjacent tile), and power pose (anything that doesn't look like one of the previous three, lets you use one of the special power cards you bring for the character).
Your three power cards also serve as hit points. As you take hits, you turn the cards sideways. As you use the powers, you flip the cards face down (or face up in the advanced game, where they start face down and hidden). The two conditions are unrelated...you can still use a power that's been turned, or turn a power that's been flipped. Each character comes with three cards, an the single-character boosters come with three additional cards for characters other than the one they come with. I ended up with 5 Iron Man, 5 Doom, 4 Cap, 3 Spidey and 3 Thing cards, plus several for characters I don't have. The cards do things like give you bonuses to attack or defense, seizing initiative, moving to any tile, etc.
The movement tiles affect play in various ways, usually offering some kind of bonus when you end your move on it (no tile works for you if you started the turn on it, so it's best to keep moving). A lot of these effects duplicate power cards, but some are unique (as far as I can tell from my limited selection...they just have rules wording that doesn't seem like it'd fit a power card well).
When you attack, you roll 2d6 and add it to your Attack number, while your opponent rolls 2d6 and adds that to their Defense. Various power cards and location tiles can adjust either number, and sometimes you get bonuses against targets in particular poses (i.e. the Leg Sweep location gives you a bonus against targets who are in the Kick pose). There's not a lot of spread in these numbers, at least in the figures I got, and the assignment of values seems somewhat arbitrary. For instance, Doctor Doom has A11/D11, the least powerful figure of the five I got. Meanwhile, Spider-Man and Cap both have A12/D13, Thing has A13/D12, and Iron Man has A12/D12. Just about everyone has at least one power card that can boost one of those by 4-5, though.
Ranged attacks are the one kinda goofy part of the game. You target an opposing figure in a non-adjacent square, and then fire the toy's missile launcher. If it hits, the target is damaged. Generally, you can't reload the launcher, so you're only guaranteed one shot per game. But several powers and locations allow reloads. Fortunately, this is the only part of the game where your personal skill in using toy missile launchers matters. And melee is purely diced.
The initiative system is a little wonky, and I can see it getting really complicated in multiplayer games. High roll at the start of the game "gets the jump on" the opponent(s) and goes first each round. But several powers and tiles let you seize initiative...presumably this doesn't change order of actions on the round it happens, otherwise the messiness mentioned above comes in. If you actually play this, I'd recommend using a counter to keep track of shifting initiative (i.e. the Emperor's Favor in L5R, or the "buck" in poker).
The rules come in four levels, a common enough thing these days for collectible games marketed to younger players but expected to also sell to adults (i.e. SportsClix). Level 1 is bare bones. Level 2 turns the location tiles face up and introduces their abilities. Level 3 lets you bring in power cards other than the base three (the cards are numbered so you can always tell which the original three are), and start with powers face down so you can surprise your opponent. Level 4 is the "more than 2 figures" rules, both multiplayer and teams of figures. You need to buy two Starters to have enough tiles to do most of the larger maps, a starter and four boosters to do the 4x4 map recommended for 2-on-2 team games.
Now...the figures. Rather cheap-feeling. They clearly took the sculpts of Marvel Legends figures and then simplified (although even the Thing has 23 meaningful joints, and the rest have slightly more) and shrunken (to about 4" tall). The quality control is iffy (my Cap had the ball part of the waist joint set too deep in his pelvis, so the socket can't reach it. Had to kitbash it), and often the figures are just shoved into the blisters with limbs bent sideways because the rubbery plastic allows it. The level of detail is acceptable, and the paint jobs reasonably good. The missile launcher accessories only come in three or four styles, and don't always fit well on the arm of the figure (for instance, Spidey's arm is too thin, while Iron Man's arm is too thick). There's at least two styles of missile: an energy blob tip and a missile tipped with a FIST. Which is also a goofy part of the game. The rigs for holding the figures up in kicking poses are okay, although the Thing is a bit too heavy for his to hold for too long. The bases have the character's face or icon molded into them, so you can tell them apart.
Just to summarize what you get:
Starters - two figures, with bases and missile launchers; 12 gameboard tiles; 3 power cards for each character; rulebook.
Boosters - one figure, with base and missile launcher; 1 tile; 3 power cards for that character and 3 for random other characters; turn sequence guidesheet.
So, there's a blind-packed collectible aspect in addition to the "you know what you're getting" collectible figures. There's not a whole lot of difference between the figures, especially if you collect all the power cards. Oh, and there's chase figures...a "Spider-Sense Spider-Man" figure with glowy bits around the head, and Wolverine in a wifebeater and jeans. I know they're chase because my store ordered complete boxes of each assortment and got none. Each box of starters has 4 of the Spider-Man/Thing starter and 2 of the Hulk/Wolverine. The booster boxes have 10 figures IIRC, 3 each of two varieties, 2 each of the others.
Do I recommend picking this up? Ehn. It's too expensive for just the figures, and I suspect the game will wear thin after a half dozen playings (games with a "physical challenge" never seem to go over well with adult gamers...if we had good coordination we'd be playing sports :) ). If you have a burning need for 4" superposeable action figures, you might try grabbing a couple.
