Marvel Board Games

1. Operation Spider-Man Edition Board Game (Marvel Board Games Rating: 6/10)

The game is about curing Spider-Man’s 11 ailments before it’s too late. These include Webbed Foot, Spider Cents, a radioactive spider bite and many others. With every successful operation, you earn a certain amount of money. The doctor with the most money by the time Spider-Man is all better wins the game.

2. Chutes and Ladders Superhero Squad (Rating 8/10)

Use your favorite Marvel superhero to race to the top as you would do in the popular, traditional chutes and ladders board game. As always, the ladders will take you forward and the chutes will bring you back down. The first player to get to the finish line wins the game.

3. Marvel Matching Game (Rating 6/10)

This is another classic matching game – but it features your favorite Marvel superheroes (and villains) on the cards.

4. Marvel Heroes (8/10)

This 2006 Marvel board game is played by 2 to 4 players (it’s best to play with four players) of the ages 12 and above. The players control a team of superheroes (i.e. the X-Men, the Avengers, Fantastic Four and the Marvel Knights) and the archenemy of the respective team (Magneto, Red Skull, Dr. Doom and Kingpin). Individual players get collaborators, adversaries and power-ups and battle the villains controlled by the other players.

This game includes plastic figures of the various Marvel board game heroes and villains (nemeses). Each character is represented by these figures and character cards (cards that describe the characters’ special abilities). Each character has a different incarnation and they are all included in the game.

5. A Marvel Deck Building Game (Rating 8/10)

This game is a 2012 board game played by between one and five players (best with three players) of the age 14 and above. Players choose an instigator-villain (e.g. Loki, Magneto, Dr. Doom, etc.), stack the villain’s cards (attack) and then modify the deck depending on the villain’s scheme. The players will then choose superhero decks (e.g. Thor, Cyclops, Spider-Man, etc) and shuffle them. Throughout the course of the game, the heroes’ deck varies because the players only use a handful of the hero cards.

A player will want to build a stronger deck of heroes, so he will draft as powerful a collection of hero cards as they can. To draft more heroes, a player will need to boost his recruitment powers. To fight off the villains and gain success hereof, the player will have to boost his fighting ability.

There are five cards from which a player can recruit his heroes. The player reveals a villain (by adding him to the row of villains). This goes on with all the players until the limited villain-slots are filled up. When they fill up, the villain who has stayed in the row the longest time escapes – making room for the next player’s villain.

When a villain turns up for the first time, he can take an action (to harm the innocent). The villains’ deck includes “master strike” cards which allow the instigator (mastermind) villain to take a bonus action.

By defeating villains, the players amass points, which are then tallied at the end of the game.