X-Men fans hoping for an expansion to Marvel Champions have something to look forward to… sort of. Fantasy Flight Games revealed X-Men: Mutant Insurrection, a dice-based cooperative board game that sees players taking the mighty mutants on a series of famous missions. While it’s not compatible with Marvel Champions, it does seem to borrow mechanics from another solid game, Elder Sign. For many, that and the X-Men branding will make this game an instant buy.

X-Men: Mutant Insurrection supports one to six players for about an hour of play. Players will take on the best-known of Professor Xavier’s students including Cyclops, Wolverine, and Jean Grey (with Phoenix powers, if her mini is any indication). It begins when players choose a plot card. Examples given are Magneto staging a mutant uprising and Jean being consumed by the Phoenix Force. Players put their characters into a little cardboard Blackbird and travel around the world, taking on villains and getting closer to the ultimate final battle.

When it comes time to throw down, the players must choose their field team of X-Men carefully. That’s because each hero has different colors of dice at their disposal. Completing objectives and beating baddies comes down to meeting certain roll requirements, so the strategy is in picking the right team to meet the unique blend of mutant powers, and dice, the mission requires.

Success and failure in missions will shape how the players progress, as these can forge and break bonds. The X-Men are a family, and many of their stories reflect both their incredible loyalty and devastating betrayal. The game has cards that reflect both of these ideas, and which ones the players draw will decide how their team looks going into the final battle.

Overall, the game boasts a fast pace and easy-to-learn mechanics. It will likely serve as a good entry point to Fantasy Flight’s more complex Marvel games. Fans interested in boarding the Blackbird can pre-order X-Men: Mutant Insurrection now for $54.95, although the release date still sits at a vague “fourth quarter of 2020.”

Source: Fantasy Flight Games

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