New Crisis, Same Protocol

So I spent the weekend at PAX Melbourne, demonstrating games for Let's Play Games. Frankly, I needed the money for something important, so I did a fun 60 hours in the one week with my day job as well. I got to run a few things, from the new Starcraft miniatures game (solid game, but not for me), Marvel Crisis Protocol and the new MCP board game, Alliances (also fun, but probably not going to end up in my collection). I ran into a few friends, as I typically do at these cons, and some mentioned that they were wanting to try MCP again. Well, after having to cancel a few things this year (see above about needing the money), my main hobby focus has been about finishing projects that can get me games at my local clubs and stores, so given that I have a bunch of MCP Avengers in various stages of painting, why not jump back in for a while? However, I needed a few more characters than I had to field a full team, and the two-character boxes I had been buying have been replaced by "Affiliation" packs, most of which would have had me doubling up or getting characters I was unlikely to play. Also, they weren't the cheapest models on the market, so I had to plan carefully. 

Thankfully, most of what I needed, without too much doubling up, was in the current "Earth's Mightiest Core Set" box, and, even better, I could actually get this AUD $250 box for free at PAX Melbourne if I completed a series of QR codes. With the help of some friends, I got my box, and I only have a double of Winter Soldier to do something with now. I may, in fact, sell off the Cabal/Villains and the measuring devices as I don't need them and it might help fund another project along the way. Now, of course, I had to dig out my collection and see what I already had that matched the Avengers affiliation. Now, I'm not certain that this is everything (I suspect I have more somewhere not obvious) and I have some Cabal that I'll probably consider moving on, but looks like I'll have way more than 10 models that should be Avengers available to me, as you can see below. 

Can I just say that it's a shame Atomic Mass Games don't have all their free online resources updated as they used to? Seems like doing that would be a huge boon for your game and company when the models cost so much and the rules are updated so frequently. For all their faults, when I was playing Warhammer 40,000 regularly, the free version of the app updated quickly, not to mention the various fan resources. I think I'm probably going to have a little difficulty playing MCP casually, so don't be too shocked if I stall out on this after a few games. Last time I was looking at getting back into the game, I was working at a FLGS five days a week and there was a scene building; this time it will be the odd game for fun here and there, so I really won't be doing my homework as much as I should be. That said, the minis are nice and I got most of them cheap or free, so I may as well give it a shot. This blog has gotten away from Superhero games the past few years and this is an easy way back in rather than having to build up my SuperSystem Ultimate Alliance stuff again, though I will get to back to that at some stage.