It wouldn’t be Christmas without the obligatory #MarvelLegendary expansion. As some of you might know, Legendary is my little brother’s favourite game of all time and we are fast approaching 500 plays, so his Christmas present this year was the X-Men expansion
15 new heroes, 6 new masterminds plus plenty of other cool additions make this a great value set but not one for the faint hearted.
So far we have played against 3 of the new Masterminds, Arcade, Dark Phoenix and Deathbird.
Arcade didn’t pose too much of a problem, although we beat him with only about 2 cards to spare. Deathbird and Phoenix however have been putting up a fight. Deathbird spawns 7 fight battlecruisers into the city and when you kill her she descends into the city to fight you, essentially giving her 4 extra lives.
Dark Phoenix however is even worse. 13 fight makes her a tough mastermind, but her Master Strikes are hideous. Each one KO’s every hero of a single colour from the hero deck and when the deck runs out she wins. This is a strategy killer. Just as you start working on your deck she destroys every card you need. And let’s not forget that with Dual Class and Divided heroes she could strip two colours out of the deck with a single strike.
So, X-Men ups the challenge but it also brings some classic heroes to the game like Jubilee and Phoenix, while refreshing some older heroes like Beast and Colossus and introducing newer heroes like X-23.
There’s a new currency in the game, in the form of Piercing Energy which allows you to attack villains using their Victory Point value, rather than their attack strength. I worried this might unbalance the game, making it too easy to kill Masterminds but so far it has proven difficult to pull this off. The other keywords in this set also manage to be different and interesting, which is a feat unto itself given that this is the 13th expansion to date.
Overall, I would recommend Legendary: X-Men if you’re a fan of the Marvel Legendary series and you’re looking for a challenge. Oh and if you think the Masterminds are too easy, flip them over to their Epic side!
