Marvel: Crisis Protocol has a problem that most miniatures games would love to have: too much choice. Two dozen affiliations, hundreds of characters, and a buying experience where every single box has somebody on the front you recognise.
So let us answer the question underneath all of it.
First: What Is an Affiliation, Really?
An affiliation is a team tag. Characters belong to one or more, and when you build a squad you nominate a leader, whose leadership ability applies to characters who share their affiliation. Build within a team and everybody gets the bonus. Build a squad of whoever you think is coolest, and you simply do not get it.
That is the whole trade-off, and it is a gentle one. You can absolutely play a squad of unaffiliated favourites. You will be giving up a leadership ability, not losing automatically. Plenty of people start exactly that way, work out which characters they keep reaching for, and let their affiliation choose itself.
If you want the short version: pick the team whose models you want to paint. The game is generous enough that this works.
Now, the teams.
The Obvious Front Doors
These are where most people start, and there is no shame in it. They are popular because they are good introductions.
- Avengers are the default and the most forgiving. Broad, well-rounded, and the roster you already know without looking anything up.
- Uncanny X-Men are the other headline team, and the entry point to the single largest character pool in the game.
- Guardians of the Galaxy are a small, characterful roster where nearly every model is somebody you have opinions about.
- Defenders are the street-level answer: fewer world-enders, more people who solve problems with their fists in an alley.
The Mutant Question
Crisis Protocol takes the X-Men seriously enough to split them into distinct teams rather than one big pile, and they are genuinely different to play.
- Uncanny X-Men - the classic squad.
- X-Force - the same idea with the safety off.
- New Mutants - younger, stranger, and a smaller pool to learn with.
- Brotherhood of Mutants - the other side of the argument, and the most thematically coherent villain team in the game.
- Hellfire Club - money, manipulation and telepathy. For players who like a plan.
- Sentinels - the machines built to end all of the above. Small roster, enormous presence.
If mutants are why you are here, start with Uncanny X-Men and let the others grow out of it. Characters cross over constantly, so almost nothing you buy is wasted.
Cosmic and Mythic
For when a street fight is not enough.
- Asgard - Thor, and the family drama that follows him. Big, durable, hits like a truck.
- Black Order - Thanos's enforcers. A short roster of genuine heavy hitters.
- Servants of the Apocalypse - apocalyptic in both senses, and one of the more distinctive-looking teams on a table.
- Convocation - the mystics. If you want the team that solves problems in ways the rulebook has to explain carefully, it is this one.
- Inhumans and Wakanda - two small, tightly themed rosters that both punch above their model count.
The Villains
Crisis Protocol is unusually good at making villain teams feel like teams rather than a bag of antagonists.
- Cabal - the flagship villain affiliation and one of the deepest rosters we stock.
- Criminal Syndicate - organised crime rather than supervillainy. Kingpin's world.
- Hydra - soldiers and science. The most conventionally military team in the game.
- Spider-Foes - the best rogues' gallery in comics, and it plays like it: every model does something completely different.
Street Level and Everything Else
- Web-Warriors - every Spider-person at once. Mobile, tricky, and a joy if you like moving.
- Midnight Sons - Marvel's horror corner, and a great pick if you want a team nobody else at the table has.
- S.H.I.E.L.D. - the professionals. Fewer superpowers, more competence.
- A-Force - a wide, deep roster that crosses over with almost every other team on this page.
- Mighty Avengers - a distinct take on the Avengers idea with a different character pool.
Which Box Do I Actually Buy?
If you want the full game in one purchase: the Earth's Mightiest Core Set. Two forces, terrain, and everything you need for two people to play.
If you already know your allegiance: the themed starters are a better deal than buying characters one at a time.
- X-Men Starter Set
- Spider-Foes Starter Set
- Guardians of the Galaxy Starter Set
- Asgardians Starter Set
Then buy terrain before you buy your fifth character. This is the advice people ignore at first and later agree with. Crisis Protocol is a game about throwing things, and a board with nothing to throw is a much duller game. The NYC Terrain Pack and NYC City Block Terrain Collection turn an empty mat into a place where a fight makes sense, and there are themed sets like the Sanctum Sanctorum and the Asgardian Shrine if you want the board to match your squad.
The Honest Recommendation
Buy the characters you would put on a shelf. Crisis Protocol rewards that more than almost any other miniatures game, because affiliations overlap so heavily that today's favourite model is usually legal in three of tomorrow's squads.
Then, once you have eight or ten characters and you have noticed which three you always field, look at what affiliation they share and build toward it deliberately. That is a much better process than picking a team off a page and dutifully buying models you do not care about.
Our full Crisis Protocol range is here, affiliation by affiliation.
So who is it? The team you grew up with, or the one you always secretly thought had a point?
