Now, let's take a better look at Headlines and the Mastermind Villains behind them.

Designing the Headlines was a very interesting challenge. We wanted to lift stories from the comics; however we also had the need to lift the story in a way that they would not necessarily be the same as originally written. I think this create, for the die-hard fan, a sort of Trivia effect... when did THIS happen before?

Apart from the flavor element (which of course we think should not be ignored, else lose the sense of what we're playing), all Headlines will fall into 3 general categories (Danger, Crime, Mystery), need one of six different skills (you may not have the skill, but you're going to get into bigger trouble!), and may be or may be not a "Mastermind" Headline.

The first thing that happens when a Hero (or group of Heroes) try to solve a Headline is to generate how much Trouble he's getting into: this is done with a roll of the special dice included in the game. There are a few cards which can affect this roll, but most important is that on a Mastermind Headline the Nemesis of your team may put his own weight and try to increase the trouble by performing "Scheming" actions.
Every villain has his specialties, so of course expect bigger problems when facing a Crime headline if Kingpin is your Nemesis!
After trouble is generated, the Hero uses HIS ratings to reduce it. If it's now zero, great! The mission is solved. But most often you will have trouble left: this means that some nasty super-criminal is in action and you've got to fight...

Every Villain player will draw a card (again, on a Mastermind Headline the Nemesis will have an option to draw more), and after that the Trouble generated during the previous phase will be used to play one "Lead Villain", representing the main opponent in this episode of the story, and one or more "Backup Effects", representing Villains who help the Lead Villain or just special circustamces and unusual powers of the opponent.

On your side, you will have your Ready Heroes in the District, any Supporting Heroes in the Area, and any Ally you may have in play. All of these elements will go into defining the result of the fight (together with a few dice rolls - be assured this is NOT a diceless game!!!). But we will talk about combat later. Let's just say for the moment that a third option for your Nemesis in a Mastermind Headline is to improve the odds of combat in favor of the villains.

In the combat your Hero may be defeated: the Headline will not be solved, evil wins the day, your Hero gets away to lick his wounds and the Villain may remain available for future use (not all Villains do: we put an icon on the card, called a "most wanted" icon, on the villains with a penchant to comebacks). If your Hero wins, the Headline is solved, gaining experience for your teams.
However... if this is a Mastermind Headline, it may not be over yet! There could be a greater plan behind the events of the day, and the Mastermind itself could be involved in the plot as he's trying to finish one of his Master Plans. If this is the case, there is an additional confrontation between the Heroes and their Nemesis, where the stakes are even greater. Completing a Master Plan is a big bonus for a Mastermind Villain, while defeating him will grant a Power-Up to your team. In some scenarios, completing Master Plan and Power-Ups will not just ease your way to victory, but be a victory condition itself, so winning these challenges become even more important.

A final concept we need to introduce is the Arch-Nemesis. Apart from the fun value of your villain being the baddiest boy on the block, this is also a balancing mechanism against yet another typical problem of adventure games. In most adventure games there is really no way, except a turn of tide in the luck of a player, to prevent a player that gets ahead early in the game to continue to run on to victory, and often an early advantage just mean a greater advantage later on in the game. In Marvel Heroes, the Nemesis of the player who has the most victory points at a given moment becomes the Arch-Nemesis. The Arch-Nemesis may intervene on EVERY Headline that his opposing team is trying to solve, not just on "Mastermind" Headlines. On top of this, the Arch-Nemesis will be able to do more than one "Scheming" action (raising trouble, drawing cards, boosting combat) to make the mission even more difficult for the Heroes.

That's all for now, next time I will go in some more detail about combat.

These preview articles are great! and I look forward to readng them all. My big question is this: Since you know more about the game than anyone to whom we have had access, when will we be able to have it in our sweaty little hands? I have heard July 2006 but I'm wondering if that is a viable date. So I ask you, campare, when will it hit the stores in the States? Molto gracie

That's it. I've died from the anticipation that this preview has generated. My corpse is typing for me.

In all seriousness, this preview has me so excited for what looks like a solid game set in my favorite comic universe!

Thanks again for the preview.

Thank you for the preview.

Each preview is making me more excited! Plus, it's a pretty cheap marketing tool for you! Thanks again! Can't wait for tomorrow.

As posted on a different thread, we are set to shipping out in late august/early september from the China factory, so we should expect the game to be in distribution in late september/early october.

However we're working to try to get preview copies flying from China to GenCon if we can achieve it.

Thanks for the answer on availability, albeit disappointing because it will not be available YESTERDAY. It looks like you have a real winner here. I am eager for your next preview segment. It's clear that you guys know what you are doing. Thanks again for everything!

Would you release the game, already!? YOU'RE KILLING ME!!

I can't wait for this one!

Ah. The game sound good to me, but I don't think I'd have any luck getting anyone in my group to play it. I don't think mechanically it'd be interesting enough for them. I'm the only 'comic book geek' out of all of us. Oh well, it's still interesting to read the previews. Thanks!

Game sounds good so far.

I hope you make a expansion in which every super hero team can change some members of the group.

For example the fantastic four roster could be change like that:
Mr Fantastic
Invisible Woman +---+ Medusa
Human Torch
Thing +---+ She-Hulk

X-Men:
Cyclops
Wolverine +---+ Iceman
Storm +---+ Beast
Jean Grey

... and so on. You know every super hero group got some filled-ins in stories or changed roster.

Yes, that's one of the expansion concepts we are thinking of.
One or two Heroes for each team, maybe a complete new team, and one or two Mastermind Villains. This in addition to enhancing the game in additional ways (there are still MANY things in the Marvel Universe outside of Manhattan!!!).

Yeah, like Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, Jersey, etc.

What about villain teams? The Sinister Six, Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Hellfire club ...

I am really looking forward to the next preview part. I hope you could also explain a little how the board (manhatten) is layouted/designed.

Wow! Thanks so much for the preview. I have so thouroughly enjoyed War of the Ring and now I cannot, cannot, CANNOT WAIT to get my sweaty hands on this game. I long ago pre-bought it at Thoughthammer. I just hope that it comes out soon!


Again, thanks for taking the time to preview