Tag: mcu

We had to discuss the Marvel United: Fantastic Four expansion from the Marvel United: X-Men launch. In fact, we’ll begin our coverage of the Marvel United: X-Men wave with this expansion. Hey, hey, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here. We return once again to Marvel United. This is one of those game systems with a heap of expansions. Too many, if you ask me. But we’ll cover the expansions that will either be fan favorites (plenty of people will be interested in adding them to their collection) or good additions because of their gameplay variants. Fortunately, Marvel United: Fantastic Four fits both criteria.

We’ll get to Marvel’s first family in a minute, but first, let’s take a look at Marvel United: Fantastic Four’s less heroic details.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Andrea Chiarvesio, Eric M. Lang, and Francesco Rugerfred Sedda
Publisher: CMON Global Limited and Spin Master Ltd.
Date Released: 2022
Number of Players: 1-5
Age Range: 8 and up
Setup Time: 5-10 minutes
Play Time: 30-40 minutes

Game Mechanisms

Cooperative Play
Hand Management
Modular Board
Solo / Solitaire Game
Variable Player Powers

Game Setup

We already covered the Game Setup and Game Flow in our original Marvel United review (here’s a link to that review), so we’ll go over the basics in the following two sections. Let’s cover an abbreviated review of the game setup and rules.

Marvel United: Fantastic Four’s setup can change depending on which Villain(s) and Heroes you choose to play. Each game consists of six locations. Since Marvel United: Fantastic Four is an expansion, only includes four locations, and you’ll need a core set in addition to this expansion to play. You may choose your locations or shuffle them and choose six at random. Each Location card has spaces at the top for civilians and thugs, and a rectangle with a block of text that will state “End of Turn” at the top of the box.

Place civilian/thug tokens on their matching spaces. Shuffle the Villain’s Threat deck and deal out each Threat face-up so that it covers the rectangle at the bottom of each location. You must clear this threat before gaining the “End of Turn” effect printed on a Location. Place health tokens where signified on threat cards and on the Villain dashboard. Place the three mission cards (Defeat Thugs, Rescue Civilians, and Clear Threats) face up under the villain dashboard where the text reads “Unlocked.”

Each player shuffles their hero decks and then draws three cards to form their hands. Shuffle the Villain’s Master Plan deck. Leave the Master Plan deck face down. This will be the villain’s draw pile.

Players place their miniatures on one of the six location cards, usually the centralmost location for each player (easy access). Then, they place the villain on the location card opposing the heroes. If one player chooses to play as the villain, hand the Super Villain cards to them, and the Heroes gain access to Super Hero cards. These new card times can be played if the game state triggers their use (for example, “You play a Master Plan card” or “Any Hero has 4 or more cards in their hand at the end of the Hero turn.” Timing is key.

Game Flow

The villain(s) play first. Draw the top card of their master plan deck. The villain moves the number of spaces indicated. Resolve any BAM! Effects and these effects will be printed on a space within the villain’s dashboard. Then, place the civilian/thug tokens (if any) indicated at the bottom of the card. If a player has taken the role of the villain, they get a hand of cards and can choose which card they play. The heroes get their turn after all the villain’s effects are resolved.

Heroes pick which player goes first, and hero turns will continue around the table clockwise. At the beginning of each game, Heroes will get three turns before the villain receives another turn. During their turn, heroes play one card from their hand.

Resolve actions and the symbols printed at the bottom of the hero’s card in any order. The symbols at the bottom of a hero’s card will be shared with the next player, but any printed action will not be shared. Heroes will use these actions to complete missions. The game begins with three missions in play: Defeat Thugs, Rescue Civilians, and Clear Threats. Each mission card will have spaces for the tokens they require to complete. As soon as these spaces are filled, the card is discarded, and the mission is considered complete. Mission cards can be completed in any order.

After the heroes complete the first mission, the villain panics and will act (play a card) every two hero cards instead of every three hero cards. After the heroes complete the second mission, the villain becomes vulnerable to damage. The heroes can complete the third mission, but it isn’t necessary. If the heroes do complete the third mission, each hero immediately draws 1 card, increasing each player’s hand size by one.

Play continues back and forth until either the villain wins (by completing their unique master plan or anyone, heroes or villains, runs out of cards) or the heroes win by dealing enough damage to the villain after the villain becomes vulnerable to damage.

Review

Marvel United: Fantastic Four has a huge legacy to live up to, and it lives up to the hype. I’m writing this review in June 2025, and Marvel United: Fantastic Four’s BGG score is an 8.5 (out of 10). This makes Fantastic Four the highest-rated Marvel United expansion. Yeah. It’s—pardon the pun—fantastic.

While Marvel United: X-Men Blue and Gold Teams features semi-cooperative play (players compete to clear the most goals), and this gives me strong X-Men: Under Siege vibes (a game I have a soft spot for), Fantastic Four introduces the idea of teamwork, and it does so simply and elegantly. Included in the box is a Fantastic Four team card. Various hero cards (from the members of the Fantastic Four) will add action tokens to the card, and can then use all actions on the Fantastic Four team card with different cards in their deck. This promotes a slow build. It simulates teamwork without using a lot of convoluted rules. I like the Team Cards from Marvel United’s third wave (Multiversus), but the method used in Fantastic Four is easy to follow and makes narrative sense.

Marvel United: Fantastic Four includes six heroes. One of which is the anti-hero (hero and villain) Doctor Doom. That’s a lot of heroes for one expansion—it’s almost as many as a core box—and each hero illustrates Marvel United’s second wave’s power creep. Granted, to get the most out of the Fantastic Four characters (Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing, and Human Torch), you’re encouraged to play as the Fantastic Four. The aforementioned Fantastic Four Team Card is amazing, but these characters are still effective outside the team setting.

Each member has a unique flavor. Mr. Fantastic is flexible. Get it? Flexible? Ha…ha. Invisible Woman can avoid damage altogether (using her “Invisiblity” card), but she takes herself out of combat, which makes sense. Human Torch can use Nova Flame and deal 2 damage to everything at his location—super useful. And The Thing deals copious amounts of damage and can ignore 1 damage during each Villain Turn. Very nice.

The remaining two heroes, Doctor Doom and Silver Surfer, don’t gain any benefit from the Fantastic Four team card, but they don’t need it. Doom gets tokens for each damage he takes. He can even use the symbols from the 3 previous Hero cards in the Storyline (instead of the previous one). This can generate as many as seven actions on a single turn. Yikes! Silver Surfer has extra card draw, can move anywhere with one of his special abilities, and can exchange a Location in play with one that isn’t in play. What? Silver Surfer can literally yeet any Location for another Location. That’s coconuts.

But Marvel United: Fantastic Four’s villains are just as overpowered as their hero counterparts. Even though Doctor Doom is the marquee villain, we’ll begin with Super-Skrull. Don’t overlook Super-Skrull. He has one of the more unique Special Rules in Marvel United. Whenever he BAM!s, he performs actions based on the symbols on the last Hero card in the Storyline. The heroes have some control over what Super-Skrull can do, but that doesn’t matter. None of Super-Skrull’s BAM! actions are things you want to happen. Super-Skrull attempts to knock out (KO) and hand each in-play hero a KO token, but this isn’t the only way he can win. Super-Skrull can’t be damage if any Crisis tokens exist, and he adds cards from his deck facedown in the Storyline, which leads to a shortened clock.

Super-Skrull is a spiffier version of Green Goblin. He does enough things well that you must split your focus on the various ways he can win, and even though he doesn’t have Henchmen (like Green Goblin), he makes up for it with crazy Threat card abilities that make clearing Thugs and Civilians less efficient, and each Threat card requires one of each action type. Super-Skrull covers all bases. But most people purchase Marvel United: Fantastic Four for Doctor Doom, and Doom delivers.

First off, Doom must be played with Latveria—naturally—and Latveria is the first Location card that has a negative “End of Turn” effect. In fact, Doom only has five Threat cards because Latveria begins the game without one. Latveria marks the first time Marvel United has included an “End of Turn” effect that benefits the villain. “You MUST take 1 damage for each Thug or Doombot in this Location.” Ouch! Latveria begins every game with three Doombot tokens, so if you don’t take out all of the Doombots, you’re discarding your entire hand. Double ouch! Doom’s Threat cards add extra Doombots (sometimes not even in the same place as the Threat card’s location) and can deal extra damage to heroes. Triple ouch!

As for his Villainous Plot, Doc Doom plays like Red Skull but way, way worse. He can increase the Doom Track (changed from the Red Skull’s Threat Track) far more often, and he can’t be damaged if a Doombot is at his Location. In short, Doctor Doom is nasty. You’ll need the Fantastic Four with their Team Card to defeat him. It can be done, but it’s a tough go. I find Doctor Doom tuned to the perfect level of difficulty. He may be one of the many reasons Marvel United: Fantastic Four is the highest-rated Marvel United expansion.

We talked about Latveria, but there’s another Location, Mount Wundagore, that has a negative “End of Turn” effect: Each Hero in this Location MUST discard all cards in their hand and draw the same number of cards (this does not KO). Even though this effect doesn’t count as a KO, it’s another way to shorten the clock. If anyone (including Heroes) runs out of cards in their deck, the heroes lose. Yowza! I like Marvel United: Fantastic Four’s inclusion of villain-centric Locations. We’ll see more of this later in the series, but villain-centric Locations do a lot to shake up Marvel United’s status quo. The remaining Locations have unique “End of Turn” abilities as well. The Baxter Building provides token draw if the character you’re playing was ever a member of the Fantastic Four. This is a boon for anyone who knows the comics. I appreciate that.

I also appreciate the Takeover Challenge card included in Marvel United: Fantastic Four. If a Thug, Civilian, or Doombot token can’t be added to a Location, after resolving Overflow, place the excess tokens on the Takeover card. If the card is full, Heroes immediately lose. The Takeover card has two sides with different difficulties (number of spots for tokens). This Challenge card, like the Fantastic Four’s Team Card, is simple and elegant. It adds just enough difficulty if the game has gotten too predictable.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

Marvel United: Fantastic Four is the highest-rated Marvel United expansion on BoardGameGeek and for good reason. This expansion adds more layers of complexity while staying thematic and not burdening the player with too many over-complicated rules. Every element from the Locations, the Challenge Card, the Heroes, and especially the Villains is well thought out and an excellent addition to any Marvel United collection.