Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. (Marvel Dagger)

Marvel DAGGER is a co-op where 1-5 players take on a nefarious Nemesis from the villain pantheon – Loki, Red Skull, Ultron and Thanos all rear their heads in the base game (there’s clearly space for expansion here, just warning you now!) This is a push towards a heavier-weight gaming experience than you might expect, and that’s not a bad thing but might put off some younger or more casual players.

It’s Big

First of all, though you need to be aware that you’re going to need SPACE – this is a big game – and, at least the first couple of times, plenty of time. Part of this stems from creating the mission decks. From 30 available missions, you’re randomly selecting 9 and creating 3 stacks, each with a Nemesis (boss villain) mission added in. This is not dissimilar to mechanics in, say, Pandemic or DC Rebirth, but it’s a wee bit faffy – especially the first time you play, with cards split over multiple bits of internal packing. This does get a bit quicker with practice but you’re still stacking and setting up decks. I mean yes, it’s FFG, but still.

You also have to build your team, from a huge roster of heroes including Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain Marvel and even more unfamiliar characters (at least to MCU fans) such as Jericho Drum. Hero cards are double sided, with characters that have similar (though not identical) power sets on each (e.g. Captain Marvel/Spectrum, or Black Panther / Shuri). Now, I like the double-sided hero cards, although straight out of the gate it means you can’t team-up Hulk and She-Hulk irks me (though Miles Morales does have a neat multiversal Team-up ability to sidestep this). You also need to assign an aspect to your hero, which will feel very familiar to fans of Marvel Champions: on top of Aggression, Leadership, Justice and Protection, there’s now also Vigilance and Determination, which are more team-work orientated, as the game is all about combo’ing your characters. Team-up is an integral part of the game, and I love that it’s emphasied, but a little more direction in who, and which aspects, to pick for your first game would be helpful – it does suggest Loki as the Nemesis, so surely this wouldn’t’ve been too much of a stretch – after all, Captain Marvel is pre-built in the Champions base game, with instructions on how to change her about after your first game.

The board is clear and of excellent quality, with familiar regions and pathways between them. There is a lot to love in the tokens here – they are all visually and physically distinctive, which is always good from an #accessbility perspective; I particularly like that the enemy standees change not only in size but in physical shape depending on their level. Whilst all Aspect tokens are round, this is in keeping with that wider FFG philosophy of Tokens that last just for the Round are ROUND (and this being FFG, you get quite a lot of tokens, but you do at least get plenty of baggies also).

The dice are… fine. I’m not completely sold on the icongraphy – could we not have had ones that match X-Wing, or (whisper it) MCP in a different colour? Worked for Outer Rim, that’s all I’m saying. It particularly annoys me that the Wild token is a Lightning bolt.

But niggles aside, this is still a very visually appealing game with a lot of presence. Setup over – let’s get playing!

Once you get the hang of the gameplay – I’d really like a quickstart guide – it’s extremely good. Each player turn, you take turns using one of your 3 actions tokens (2 Regular, 1 Boost) to perform either an action on your persona or their Aspect. The aspects are Aggression, Leadership, Justice and Protection (as with Champions) plus Vigilance and Determination, which are more team-work orientated. You’ll move around the board, trying to defeat enemies from side missions or generated by the nemesis, before the threat track on the current mission is passed (quite reminiscent of the Doom track in Hellboy). You can also activate the DAGGER ability at certain sites where there are bases, and can even attempt to Stun the Nemesis – whilst you can’t defeat them till the final confrontation (having beaten all 3 nemesis missions), a Stunned nemesis has the abilities greatly diminished.

In the Nemesis turn, once an event has triggered from the relevant deck, they (unless stunned) and their minions fight in rank order. They simply damage – there’s no dice rolling which is good insofar as you can up to a point anticipate, but not as much risk/reward. On balance it probably makes the game smoother but some will feel it’s not as heavy as it could be. I particularly like the event deck – you never know when a B-List villain is going to rock up and mess with your carefully crafted plan!

Final Thoughts

So, gameplay is pretty good – almost great. I would say it’s unnecessarily cumbersome in some places. For example, it shares some terminology and iconograhy with Champions LCG, which is good, but them some that inexplicably and needlessly differs. For example, you Defy the Nemesis and their missions – why not just Thwart their main/ side Scheme? My 13 year-old was really confused by the Defy mechanic till I explained it in those terms. Also having ATTack and TACtics is inherently confusing, especially in a co-op where communication is key. But that being said, it has the edge over lighter-weight co-ops such as Marvel United which, though great fun, is nowhere near as intense an experience. If I’m being honest, it’s pleasantly surprising to feel a real sense of threat in this game: the heroes can win, but it’s never easy.

On balance, we like Marvel DAGGER a lot. It’s a cracking game which is good at whatever player count – simple modifications to the number of actions means 1/2 is still balanced, and higher player counts are all about proper communication, because if you don’t plan and play together you WILL lose. Yes, it takes a fair amount of time to play – the box says 3-4 hrs, but we found 2.5 or so – so it’s less time hungry than, say, Rebellion and if you want a big, absorbing, IP co-op it’s very satisfying. It will draw some comparison with Pandemic, and the clone wars reskin especially, but this is definitely the better game.