Today I'm happy to be bringing new content to this ol' site and a new series of articles - In the Box! In this series I'll be going over contents of various gaming products, starting with today's feature - the X-Men Starter Set for the Marvel: Crisis Protocol Miniatures Game.
This set, alongside the Spider-Foes Starter Set, offer a new jumping off point for players looking to get into Marvel: Crisis Protocol. Maybe you're not a fan the characters of the Earth's Mightiest Core Set or you don't want all of the terrain that comes in it. Or perhaps you're a massive fan of these characters and only want to play them. Now, you can buy one box and get all of the measuring tools, dice models and cards for 10 models. Previously, you needed to buy characters two at a time and then tools and dice separately and you were still without Crisis cards or Team Tactics cards.
Its a full Roster in a box and you're good to go to start playing. They all share a theme and its at a lower price point than the Earth's Mightiest Core set, since it doesn't include terrain, which means less investment.
So let's take a look at what's in the box!
First off let's go over what the back of the box says for contents. Each X-Men Starter set includes everything you need to get started: 10 Characters with their stat cards, 19 Team Tactics cards, 12 Crisis cards, Tokens, 10 Dice, the Mission Tracker with it's tokens, and all of the measuring tools. That's a lot of stuff and it should get a new player started fairly easily.
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The X-Men Starter set comes with all of the gameplay materials needed to get started. These are all your standard Marvel: Crisis Protocol fare. When they were first announced I was hoping for some sweet X-Men themed tools. I later realized that isn't really a feasible option, if they wanted to keep the cost down. I'm sure custom X-Men measuring sticks would balloon the price point.
This starter set includes Beast, Cyclops, Gambit, Magneto, Mystique, Rogue, Sabretooth, Storm, Toad, and Wolverine, all with fresh new artwork and any updates to their stat lines.
These characters all represent the original X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants character packs. That's two Affiliations worth of characters are included in the box, giving you access to either the Uncanny X-Men or the Brotherhood of Mutants affiliations. Meaning, you can either choose to play a squad of X-Men - led by Cyclops or Storm. Or, you can play a squad of Brotherhood of Mutant - led by Magneto or Mystique. Having access to 4 possible Leaders gives you a lot of options to play around with one purchase, that's really nice.
New players will find 12 Crisis cards in this pack. There's 6 Secure Crisis cards and 6 Extraction Crisis cards.
The included Crisis cards are:
Secures: Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians, Guardians Save Shi'ar Empress in Style, Infinity Formula Goes Missing, Super-Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate
Extractions: Alien Ship Crashes in Downtown!, Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry, Scientific Samples Found in Discovered Universe, Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership, Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan
Having 6 of each Crisis Card sets new players up perfectly. In case you don't know, The new rules update as of 11/15/25, states you must take 5 cards of each Crisis type, 5 Secure Crisis and 5 Extraction Crisis cards. So now, new players who pick up this Starter Set won't need to go digging for extra cards in order to have a legal roster.
There's a nice mix of Crisis' in here too, ranging from the original set of cards to a few that were included in the War of Kings Crisis Pack. But don't fret, if you want more variety, AMG does provide a PDF of the Crisis cards on their site for free. That way you don't have to buy anything extra to get caught up on the currently released Crisis cards.
Included in the X-Men Starter Set are reprints of 19 Team Tactics cards! A lot of them are repacks of cards that came with these characters originally, which makes sense since they are character and affiliation specific. Folks who love alternate card art will probably have a field day with these too, there's some great artwork in here.
We have a good mix of cards here too, the ones that came with them original, minus cards that are no longer legal for Standard Timeline play and few extras, such as Brace for Impact (the most taken card in MCP), Joint Effort and Recalibration Matrix. But, also, included for the first time, are physical copies of the new Instant Recovery and Stolen Identity cards - which replaced X-ceptional Healing and Deception earlier last year. That's nice to see.
Overall, this is a very nice set. It beings models that have been out of print and super popular back to the market and gives new players a starting point other than the Earth's Mightiest Core Box. As an X-Men player, I feel like the Brotherhood models could have been their own Starter Box and that other X-Men could have taken their place. But it does give players the options for 4 different leaders across two Affiliations. Also all of these models were originally released alongside each other as the first wave of mutants in Marvel: Crisis Protocol, so it does make sense that they be bundled together.
The X-Men Starter Set is now available! If you can, pick up your copy at your local gaming store and help support your gaming community. You can also find it online, if your prefer. If you're on social media, you can find me on Instagram and Bluesky. Hit me up with your painted models and share your progress on Fridays with the #MCPFriday hashtag, I always enjoy seeing folk's work.
Huge thanks to Asmodee and Atomic Mass Games for providing me with the X-Men Starter Set! It's very much appreciated! I've used these models as an opportunity to do repaints of them, since my originals were old and its been crazy seeing how much better these new ones came out.
Until next time!