Marvel United

Objective and cooperation: The players work together as superheroes against a villain operated by the rules. Choose a villain, heroes, six locations, and the matching mission and threat components, then prepare the Master Plan and Hero decks as instructed. The team completes Missions, handles location crises, and reduces the villain’s Health to zero before the villain’s plan causes a loss. Players do not compete for VP; the selected villain’s rules and the team’s actions determine victory or defeat.

Hero turn and Storyline: Draw one card, then play a Hero card from hand at the end of the Storyline. Use the bottom action symbols of that card and the previous Hero card, even if a Master Plan lies between them; the first Hero has no previous Hero card. Resolve available move, attack, heroic, and wild actions in any order, without borrowing another card’s Special Effect. At turn end, if the Hero’s location has no Threat covering its effect, optionally use that location effect once.

Movement, rescue, and combat: Each Move goes to an adjacent location; each Attack deals one damage to an enemy at the active Hero’s location. An ordinary Thug is defeated by one damage. A Henchman loses one Health token per damage and is cleared when all are removed. A Heroic Action rescues one Civilian or fills an action slot on the local Threat; Wild can serve as a Move, Attack, or Heroic Action. Heroes can attack the Villain directly only after two Missions are complete.

The Villain’s Master Plan: The Villain takes the first turn. Thereafter draw a Master Plan card into the Storyline and resolve it according to the current stage. Before the first Mission is completed, the usual sequence inserts a Villain plan after every three Hero cards; after the first Mission, the plan occurs after every two Hero cards. A card may move the Villain, add Civilians or Thugs, and trigger BAM! Ending movement at a location can also trigger a Threat. Resolve location and quantity from the card, Villain rules, and current stage.

Locations and Threats: Each location has slots for civilians, thugs, and possible Threat cards. A Threat can impose a lasting restriction, damage a Hero at a particular time, or trigger a BAM! effect. Players may need to clear Threats to complete a Mission or prevent them from disrupting later actions. If a location is full, resolve its Villain-specific Overflow effect; excess tokens do not universally move clockwise to the next location.

Missions and attacking the Villain: Setup places Missions such as rescuing Civilians, defeating Thugs, or clearing Threats. Complete each by accumulating the progress tokens required by its card and resolve its reward. Heroes generally need to finish the first two Missions before attacking the Villain. The rules allow that if the second Mission is completed and a Hero still has actions at the Villain’s location, that Hero may attack during the same turn. The third Mission is optional and lets all Heroes draw cards when completed. Reduce Villain Health to zero to win, subject to its location and special rules.

Villain victory and loss conditions: The team wins by reducing the Villain to zero Health first. The core rules give three general loss conditions: if the Villain has a Villainous Plot, it fulfills the condition on its dashboard; a Master Plan must be drawn when the Villain deck is empty; or a Hero begins their turn with no cards in both hand and deck. A Villain may also have additional special effects, so check its board and cards. During setup, identify the Plot and plan deck instead of watching Health alone.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Solo: One player chooses three Heroes, shuffles their decks into a shared deck, and draws five starting cards. On each Hero turn play any Hero card in hand, including the same Hero as the previous turn; that card’s Hero is active and benefits from the previous Hero card’s bottom symbols. The hand and Action tokens belong to the player and may serve any Hero. Set Villain Health for three Heroes. If the solo player is KO’d, the game ends in defeat.

Edition scope: CMON lists one to four players and about thirty minutes; the MUN001 rulebook presents standard two-to-four-player cooperation and separately includes a solo mode controlling three Heroes. The base box has seven Heroes, three Villains, and eight Location cards, but only six Locations are chosen for a game. Consult the selected Villain’s Threats, Master Plan and loss conditions. Later expansions and modes are outside this entry.