Marvel Dice Masters: Uncanny X-Men
Expansion Overview
A quick look at what’s unique in the Marvel Dice Masters: Uncanny X-Men 2-Player Starter Set.
See our full review of Dice Masters >
Starter Set Characters
Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Cyclops, Angel, Juggernaut, Magneto, Quicksilver and Iceman.
Basic Action Dice Colors
The basic action dice colors in the set are purple, orange, brown and pink.
Basic Action Cards
Out of the 10 Basic action cards, 6 have a purchasing cost of 3 and 4 have a cost of 4. A few that stood out from the other Dice Masters sets were Possession, Imprisoned and Feedback.
Possession allows you to control an opposing character and attack with it, that’s one more attacker for you and one less blocker for your opponent!
Imprisoned can really change a round up as it allows your action die to capture (temporarily remove) any number of your opposing player’s characters with a fielding cost of 2 or less. The are set free once you damage your opponent or when effect is canceled. This could allow you to completely devastate your opponent by clearing their field and then attacking with a huge force.
Feedback allows you to do 1 damage to your opponent for each of thier characters that gets knocked out. A great bonus if your opponent has a field full of sidekicks!
User Reviews (4)
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Magic the Gathering is a game I enjoy casually. I find how terrible I am at it when I play those who take it as seriously as some embrace chess.
How do I handle that 8/8 humungoid when I have a dwindling cadre of creatures and the big daddy attacks me every turn?
What I like about Dice Masters (I’ve played Uncanny, Avengers vs X-Men and D&D) is that once one successfully attacks, the attacker heads to the used pile. It demands that players think carefully about who attacks and who should be left behind as a defender. Further, character card effects can not only lead to potent offensive or defensive strategies, WizKids has done a brilliant job ensuring those effects are specific to the character. That Kitty/Ariel/Shadowcat/Sprite can’t be blocked by Sidekicks (pawn image on white dice) is a great expression of her phasing powers.
I won’t go into the rules here as Boardgaming.com nicely handles how one plays the game. I can say that the thematic feel Dice Masters brings using relatively simple mechanics with a blend of strategy and luck, make this game a worthy addition to a gamer’s collection.
Pros:
Relatively easy to learn and play (some finicky rules at first, but things fall into place eventually. There are also some great how-to-play videos, specifically Watch it Played).
Nice balance of luck (rolling dice, and re-rolling dice) and strategy (who to recruit, who to field, who will attack, who will defend).
Thematically wonderful. Each character’s powers resolve as one would think.
Mix and match. Want Superman to battle alongside Magneto? Sure. All of the Dice Master sets can blend.
Affordability. About $15 for an ample starter set and a buck for booster packs, which come with two cards and their attendant dice.
Cons:
Wallet annihilator. If you’re a completionist, this game will hurt your bank account.
Some won’t like the randomness of dice rolling. I personally think this is what makes the game exciting (like when all I had to do was roll a character die with an attack of 1 and I would have won the game and instead on my roll and re-roll it was all energy that I couldn’t use. And I lost) but not for everyone.
Theme could be a deterrent. If you think comic book characters (Uncanny, AvX, DC’s set) are of little interest, this game may not have the same appeal. I grew up with Marvel characters and still read a number of titles, so Marvel Dice Masters is right up my alley.
Verdict:
I love Marvel and I really enjoy the huge fun factor this game offers without feeling as soul-crushing as Magic the Gathering (which I do enjoy, but it makes me sad from time to time). Excelsior!
As the first expansion for DM, UXM brings a lot of great cards/dice (some already are Meta) and other mechanics that are kinda awkward at the moment (or rarely used – e.g. Heroic)
As expected, this set focus mainly in our favorite mutant heroes (and villains).
The new global abilities seen here are really good (PXG, anyone?) and have become fan favorite in no time.
Other abilities, as previously mentioned, have still to prove their worth – Heroic requires you to have 2 characters on the field with this condition and after assigning the team duo, you get an ability from each one of them. Sadly, most of them aren’t worthy of the trouble to field expensive characters that met this criteria.
The only sad part about this expansion is that Wizkids have stated that even when the dice from characters that appear both in AvX and UXM share the same stats and burst icons, they can’t be mixed.
How is this? Let’s say you have a Wolverine AvX card and 2 yellow dice from said set. Then you get your hands on another Wolvie, but from UXM, which has blue dice but the same stats/face die/burst icon as the yellow one.
One would thing you could mix them up since they are basically the same dice (but different color, pardon that minor detail) and only the card is the one that can’t be duplicated on your team, but that would be incorrect.
A great expansion (and more to come, thankfully) and cheap as the core game.
Can’t go wrong with that.
This 2 player game features Wolverine, Magneto, Cyclops, Iceman, Psylocke, the Sentinels and more.
You start with 15 dice for each player and can draft additional dice or members of your team as the game goes on. Like all WizKids Games dice games There are additional dice and cards that can be purchased to expand the game.
The starter set comes with 44 custom dice, 38 cards, two dice bags, and a core rulebook. Booster packs include two dice with two matching character cards.
I will play this game with others who own it but never purchase it becasue you can spend your entire gaming budget trying to keep up with the never ending expansions that will come to market for WizKids dice games.
Easy to learn. Plays quick. If you like dice collecting this game is for you.
Uncanny X-Men Dice Masters (UXM) is a compatible follow up the Avengers vs X-Men (AVX). The fact that UXM offers stand alone starters is great since the starters for AVX are almost impossible to find at retail, and almost certainly not at retail price. Even though the set focuses on the X-Men franchise there are still a number of non X-Men available, including several that aren’t reprints. There were several very powerful cards in AVX that seem to be run all the time in Organized Play (OP), but UXM released several answers to deal with them. All in all I’m quite pleased with UXM and look forward to further expansions, particularly D&D and Age of Ultron.