SEIZE INFINITE POWER WITH MARVEL VILLAINOUS

In the award-winning Villainous game system, players take the role of iconic Villains and compete to be the first to reach a unique, devious objective. Along the way, they’ll vanquish Heroes, play henchmen to help them towards victory, and deal twists of fate to their opponents. 

The Next Chapter of Villainous

Now Villainous has come to the Marvel Universe in Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power. Players can choose between Thanos, Hela, Taskmaster, Killmonger, or Ultron.

Unlike in previous versions of Villainous, Marvel Villains are not isolated within their own storyline. Designers at Prospero Hall and developers at Ravensburger made several changes to reflect the shared universe and interwoven storylines.

First, Villains interact directly. Thanos must confront other Villains to collect Infinity Stones, which appear in the Domains of other Villains. Killmonger must relocate explosives to other Villains’ Domains. Hela can place Soul Marks on almost any Hero in play, no matter whose Domain they’re in.

Second is a shared Fate deck. The Fate deck is the primary way players interact with each other to slow down their plots and schemes and includes Items, Effects, and Heroes that can foil a players’ plans. In Marvel, all Villains can face the same Heroes. A Common Fate deck containing Heroes like Thor, Black Widow, Captain America, and more is used with every game. Villain-specific Fate decks for each Villain playing in a specific game are shuffled in with the Common Fate deck.

Instead of each Villain drawing from their own Fate deck, players draw from a single deck, then choose which Villain to target. While each Villain’s Fate cards are more effective against them, they can be played on anyone. Each Villain may have to face off against one of the Avengers, like Thor, or against other Heroes like Adam Warlock or Black Panther that players may recognize from Marvel comics.

Marvel Villainous introduces a new type of Fate card: Events. These cards inflict a penalty while in play. After Villains resolve the Events by playing Allies to them, all Villains who contributed to resolving the Event gain a reward.  There are two types of Events: Targeted and Global. Targeted events must be resolved by a specific Villain, while Global Events can be resolved by multiple Villains. Each player must decide if it’s in their best interest to resolve a Global Event, or if keeping it active is worth the extra trouble to not help an opponent receive a reward.

Since Events provide a new and exciting challenge, we recommend that players new to the game or trying out a new Villain remove all Events prior to playing. As players master the rules, they can incorporate Events back into the game. For a true test of skill, players can forego restricting the number of Global Events in play with the Undying game mode!

Specialty cards are also new to Marvel Villainous. They are played to the new rightmost space in a Villain’s Domain and make it easier for the Villain to achieve their objective. For example, the Infinity Stones Thanos must collect are Specialty cards that have ongoing abilities he can use during his turn. To play a Specialty card, Villains must pay their price. Some Specialty cards also have activation costs. Villains can play multiple Specialty cards and use each Specialty once per turn as long as they pay the activation costs.

The Marvel Villains

Thanos

Thanos’ goal is to collect the six Infinity Stones. Infinity Stones affect all Villains in the game as Thanos must relocate Allies from his Domain to any location in any Domain containing a Stone. Specific to this Villain is that after he’s relocated one of his Allies to another Villain’s Domain, this Ally can then initiate a vanquish action to defeat the Ally that currently has a Stone attached to them. Heightened player interaction is especially apparent here, as Thanos has Allies who can get stronger after he’s relocated them to another Domain. For example, Black Swan gains strength equal to the Strongest Ally not under Thanos’ control when she’s at the same location as an Infinity Stone. Once Thanos’ Allies have retrieved a Stone, Thanos must relocate them back to his own Domain. There, the Stone tiles flip over to become a Specialty as Thanos places the Stone into his gauntlet.

Thanos is considered one of the more complex Villains to play in the set.

Hela

Hela must gather a combination of eight Allies and Soul Marks and have no opposing characters at Odin’s Vault, one of the locations on her Domain. During the game, Hela attaches Soul Marks to Heroes. After a Hero is defeated or vanquished, the Soul Mark can be collected and placed in Odin’s Vault. As the Asgardian goddess of death, many of Hela’s Specialty cards center around raising the dead – playing Allies directly from her discard pile. Another of her Specialty cards, Hand of Glory, allows her to find Heroes from the Fate discard pile to play them to any Domain with an attached Soul Mark, which helps her get more Heroes with Soul Marks into play. However, her Targeted Event card prevents her from going through her discard pile to achieve this.

Ultron

Ultron must unleash the Age of Ultron to win, but he needs to go through three other Upgrades to do so. The Age of Ultron, plus the three other Upgrade tiles each have a unique set of requirements that a player must meet to reveal the Specialty ability. Ultron may only reveal one Upgrade per turn in a specific order and needs to pay 12 power to complete the last Upgrade. His Targeted Event reduces the Power he gains. 

Killmonger

Killmonger must take control of Wakanda’s vibranium mines and relocate two explosives to other players’ Domains in order to win. As part of a multi-step mission, he must first defeat Klaw, move on to Challenge the Throne, and finally Control the Mines. There are unique Fate cards that cause the Black Panther to keep coming back to stop Killmonger from reaching his objective. Therefore, this Villain must move quickly to complete each mission.

Taskmaster

To win, Taskmaster must have four Allies, each with 5 or more Strength and each at a different location.  These Allies count whether they are played at the player’s Domain, at an opponent’s Domain, or at an Event. Additionally, Taskmaster has cards like Training Dummy that add permanent Strength to an Ally. The Government Work event will slow him down considerably, as he cannot perform any relocate actions except to move his Allies to this event. Therefore, if it is in play Taskmaster would do well to resolve it as soon as possible.

Get Marvel Villainous Today!

Find out if you have what it takes to take over the Marvel universe. Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power is available now at friendly local games stores!