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Review: Marvel Dice Masters – Uncanny X-Men

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Uncanny-X-Men-Dice-Masters
Title: Marvel Dice Masters – Uncanny X-Men
Designer: Mike Elliott, Eric M. Lang
Publisher: WizKids Games
Players: 2
Play Time: <20 minutes
Setup Time: 5  minutes
Difficulty Rating: 5
Let’s just get this out of the way from the start – this is a cash cow game! It’s a great game but it’s also one that you’ll find yourself spending a decent amount of change on.71658_XMen_Starter_Set_Dice2
Marvel Dicemasters is brought to us by WizKids who published Quarriors and the same design team behind, Elliot and Lang developed both games. At it’s core the game is all about dicebuilding, the principles of deckbuilding games like Magic the Gathering or Yu-Gi Oh are applied but instead of cards, players will collect dice. These dice represent Marvel heroes and in the Uncanny X-Men, the dice are reflective of the mutants from Marvel’s Universe.
Players can pick up a Starter Pack which contains 44 custom dice, 38 cards, two dice bags, and a core rulebook, all of which are enough for two players to get a grasp on the game and learn the fundamentals. The booster packs are pretty inexpensive but you’re paying for what you get, they’ll be more on that later though – each booster pack will contain two cards and two dice.
The dice are split into two types, stylised ones that represent your heroes and generic white dice that represent sidekicks – at the start of their turn a player will draw dice from their bag and depending on their roll (each turn a player may re-roll all or none of their dice)SuperheroSfxPlaymat4-22-2014-2 players will either generate energy, which is used to buy more dice or gain sidekicks which can attack or defend.
The starter set does not include a player mat and I’d highly recommend picking one up, the rulebook contains a middle page guide which is great to help map out the field of play but useless during the game. Spent dice are moved to the used pile and once a dice bag is empty, the used pile of dice are returned to the bag along with any purchased dice.
As the game progresses players use energy to purchase more powerful dice from their hero cards, these will have higher attacks and defense than the sidekicks. Combat is engaged when players move their sidekicks or heroes into the attack zone and any damage dealt is subtracted from the your opponents life points. The first to reduce their opponent from 20 points to 0 is the winner.
Those are the basics needed to play, actions are also available as some hero cards will describe special abilities the hero can use or can be used by either player throughout the game.
Matches are pretty quick, while the games start out slow as players try to bank more powerful dice, once it kicks off a player can dominate quickly and take the win before their opponent has time to build a proper defense. While dice-building is similar to deck-building and both feature an element of chance, I’ve found Dicemasters to play out more fairly (or unfairly depending on how I’m rolling) – you can plan your deck to play out in a variety of ways and you can formulate something similar for Dicemasters but it will all come down to where the dice fall!
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As I mentioned above, it’s a cash cow game much like any other deck or dice building game – you’ll fork out for booster packs and you’ll build a variety of teams based on your collection. While I am hunting some cards and dice, I’m doing so more from an aesthetic/collectors point of view, it’s one of my favourite things about the game! The hero cards feature some great art but their corresponding dice are the real treat, with their own colours andkitty symbol i.e. Shadowcat’s dice (♥) are yellow and black and her symbol is her silhouette emerging from a brick wall.
I’ve seen other players and bloggers comment on the quality of the dice/cards from booster packs but I can’t comment on that, everything I’ve received to date has been in great condition.
Marvel Dicemasters won’t win awards for it’s complexity, it’s a dice collecting and rolling game, an interest in tactics and team building will certainly work for you but the game relies on your luck and even the most bank rolled player may find probability rolling against them. The game doesn’t capture the intense ferocious combat depicted in the comics, cartoons or movies, come on, it’s plastic dice that’s not to say the game is without excitement though. It does have it’s own moments and tension can build with each turn, when a win or loss comes down to a single dice roll, it really can be nerve wrecking!
This game appeals to me on so many levels, it’s competitive enough without over complicating it’s system, it offers my insatiable need to collect something to get worked up about and of course as a fan of Marvel it feels great to take on their characters and pit them against each other! This won’t be for everyone, hardcore deck-builders may see some initial appeal but as I said it’s not the most taxing to take on. If you can get passed that you’ll enjoy it!

 Simple and enjoyable! A collector’s dream! 8/10

The Arcade recommends BoardGamer.ie to pick up all your board, card and dice games!

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