Real Name: Ronan the Accuser
First Comic Book Appearance: Fantastic Four (August 1967)
Affiliations in Comic Books: Annihilators, Galactic Council, Kree, Star-force
Marvel United Appearance: Marvel United: Guardians of the Galaxy Remix (July 2020)
Marvel United Team Decks: None
Movement
Special Only
BAM!
Civilians
Thugs
How Ronan Plays: Ronan actively hunts the Heroes. His main way of winning is KOing Heroes. This can satisfy his Villainous Plot (extra win condition) of giving the Heroes 4 KO tokens, but the Heroes can also lose if they run out of cards; Heroes take damage by discarding cards.
Villainous Plot: The Heroes lose when the group has 4 KO tokens.
Special Rules: Whenever a Hero is KO’d, they get a KO token
BAM!: Deal 2 damage to 1 Hero in Ronan’s Location (Heroes choose).
Ronan has tremendous damage output. None of his Threat cards have a BAM! effect, so he doesn’t have the same cascading effect that some Marvel United Villains have. But his BAM! effect deals 2 damage instead of the usual 1 and he chases Heroes around the board. His Overflow effect also contributes to his damage.
Overflow: If a civilian or thug token can’t be added to a Location, deal 1 damage to 1 Hero for each token that can’t be added (Heroes choose who gets each damage).
Ronan’s Overflow ability furthers his damage output. Unlike many other Overflow abilities, his ability triggers each time a token cannot be placed. And since he has plenty of cards in his Master Plan deck that add several Thugs (specifically “Kree-Law”), several Overflow effects can trigger each round.
Threats
Ronan has 2 copies of 3 different Threat Cards.
Jailbreak (Threat)
Clear: 1 Move; 1 Heroics; 1 Attack
Constant Effect: Heroes using a Move to leave this Location must use Two Move instead.
“Jailbreak” makes leaving the Location more difficult; it decreases a Hero’s efficiency. What is unique with this effect is that Heroes need 1 Move, 1 Heroics, and 1 Attack to clear this Threat, instead of the customary 3 Heroics.
Kree Elite Force (Threat)
Clear: 3 Attack
Constant Effect: Each Thug in this Location requires 2 damage to be defeated.
Again, this effect decreases a Hero’s efficiency, but this time “Kree Elite Force” targets a Hero’s ability to defeat Thugs. And like “Jailbreak,” “Kree Elite Force” doesn’t require the customary 3 Heroics to clear the Threat. You’ll need 3 Attack.
Space Ambush (Threat)
Clear: 1 Move; 1 Heroics; 1 Attack
Constant Effect: Heroes starting their turn in this Location take 1 damage.
“Space Ambush” is yet another way Ronan deals damage to Heroes. If heroes are unlucky and begin the game on a Location with “Space Ambush,” they will begin the game with 1 damage. This coupled with the possibility of Ronan landing on the Heroes on the first turn can put a Hero in danger of being KO’d on their first turn.
Like “Jailbreak,” it takes 1 Move, 1 Heroics, and 1 Attack to clear the “Space Ambush” Threat. This Threat is the most deadly of the three and should be player’s top priority to clear.
Master Plan Deck
Movement:
Ronan has an odd manner of Movement. He has two cards where he doesn’t move at all and two other cards where he avoids Heroes. The rest of his Movement will place him on Location with Heroes and he will most likely use his BAM! effect.
Civilians:
Ronan adds an average amount of Civilians; he focuses more on adding Thugs.
Thugs:
Ronan would add an average amount of Thugs, too, but his two cards with the “Kree-Law” effect adds a Thug to every Location. That’d be a whopping 6 Thugs in one turn. This can easily cause Overflow, which can in turn cause extra damage.
BAM!:
Ronan uses his BAM! effect on just over half of his cards. This paired with the fact that Ronan will most likely follow Heroes from Location to Location will add to his damage potential.
Special Effects on Cards
1) Kree-Law: Add a Thug to every Location.
“Kree-Law” adds a whopping 6 Thugs to every Location. This can easily trigger an Overflow, and each one of Ronan’s Overflow effects will deal an additional damage. Ronan himself will not BAM!, so he won’t deal damage directly. Note: The movement text that accompanies “Kree-Law” is the only one where Ronan moves away from the Heroes.
2) Cosmi-Rod: Deal 1 damage to each Hero in Ronan’s Location.
Ronan will move toward Heroes with “Cosmi-Rod.” Neither copy of the two cards with “Cosmi-Rod” have a BAM! effect. But this ability has the potential to deal even more damage than Ronan’s BAM! effect during a 3 or more-player game and those players stay on the same Location. “Cosmi-Rod” deters players from sticking together.
And like the “Space Ambush” Threat above, if Ronan plays this card during the first turn, he will land on the Heroes’ starting Location and deal damage to each Hero there.
General Strategy
Ronan is one of the more difficult villains to defeat, in part because he will hunt down Heroes and doles out a lot of damage. There are two main ways to try and defeat him: Pure Aggro and Sustain. Let’s start with Pure Aggro.
Pure Aggro: This is the easier and faster of the two methods. The Heroes triple down on Attack. Ronan has a fair amount of health, he adds quite a few Thugs with his Master Plan cards, and his Threats require at least 1 Attack to clear with one of his Threat card types requiring 3 Attack. With this strategy, Heroes forgo Heroics (you won’t need much) and try to finish the Clear Threats and Defeat Thugs missions.
The “Space Ambush” Threat gets top priority regardless of which strategy you use, because it deals additional damage to the Heroes. The ”Kree Elite Force” Threat can be tempting, especially if there are a lot of Thugs on the Location with this Threat, but it requires 3 Attack to clear, and the Heroes may want to save their attack Thugs and Ronan himself. “Jailbreak” is more annoying than anything else.
But the Heroes may find themselves splitting the difference between “Kree Elite Force” and “Jailbreak” because speed is of the essence. Unless you have a lot of Move, you’ll most likely clear the Threats closest to you at the beginning of the game. Remember to time completing the first and second missions as close together as possible to avoid the villain speeding up too soon. You want to give Ronan as few turns as possible.
Fortunately, the Guardians of the Galaxy expansion has a couple of great options: Rocket and Gamora. Star-Lord can also grant his teammates extra tokens and that can always help. Any other high Attack character or character who gives out tokens is a good option (Iron Man, Captain America, and Hulk from the core set). But if you have the Kickstarter exclusive Drax, he makes a great Aggro option.
The Aggro option should only take 3 or so turns. If the game lasts longer than 3 turns, you’re chances of winning may decrease.
Sustain: This strategy is far more difficult to pull off and will require more than a little luck. Players can pick the Heroes who can avoid damage (ones like Ant-Man and Wasp from the core set) and attempt to weather Ronan’s attacks. The best way to ensure that Ronan will attack one of these characters while they have their “Shrink” abilities active is to have these Heroes occupy the same Location as Ronan. Ronan won’t move to the nearest Hero if he’s already on a Location with a Hero.
Since you won’t be committing to Attack all the way, you will most likely opt to finish the Rescue Civilians and Clear Threats missions. When clearing threats, you’ll still want to prioritize “Space Ambush,” but “Jailbreak” may be the clear second option. The “Kree Elite Force” Threat will require too much Attack that you’ll need for Ronan.
The Sustain option will last longer than the Aggro option. Games of this kind will most likely last 4 or more turns.
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