Christmas is over and the new year has begun which means I had to leave behind my friends and family and return to work. Fortunately there's plenty of solo board games these days to get your chops around even when you can't game with your loved ones.
For me, my most played solo game is easily Marvel Champions and I'm still slowly working my way through all the content there is for this game. Typically I'll run each hero against all the scenarios in the deluxe expansion for the cycle they are part of, so I'm currently playing through all the Guardians heroes against the Galaxy's Most Wanted scenarios.
The final hero for this cycle was Venom, no, not Eddie Brock, although he has shown up later as an ally and villain, no, this is Flash Thompson. Flash, originally the school bully of Peter Parker's childhood, becomes a war hero and a bilateral amputee. When he becomes infected with the venom symbiote he regains the use of his legs and becomes Agent Venom.
The Venom hero pack has him set up as a Justice Hero, however with his stats of 1, 2, 2, Venom should play equally well in any role. My biggest surprise with Venom was how much of a slow burn hero he is. Typically in the comics Venom is fairly hitty-smashy-bitey, but here he's all about building up an arsenal of weaponry before he becomes powerful enough to tackle the villain head on.
Venom is capable of holding an additional restricted attachment, which is good because his out of the box build comes with a lot of them. He also has access to multiple side holsters to boost his arsenal even further. His dual pistols can each boost one of his core stats each round, again making him a perfect all rounder, while his Run and Gun action card can ready Venom and all his weapon attachments.
Venom can also hurt himself once per phase to generate a wild resource, while his Life Foundation alter ego card grants him healing or card draw as needed. Despite being in a Justice build out of the box, the majority of his aspect cards focus on damage and confusion more than thwart boost or threat reduction.
While Venom functions well as a solo hero, with events to help in attack, thwarting and defending, he is a little vulnerable to massive damage. Not only does he harm himself through the use of his power to generate resources, he also lacks allies to defend against swarms, with only two in his base build.
Overall then, Venom is an interesting hero in my plays so far, certainly not the most powerful in the cycle, which is likely Gamora, but definitely a more playable solo hero than Rocket who also relies heavily on weapon upgrades, but struggles to keep all your bases covered when taking on the scenarios alone.
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, Santa gave to me... 12 Enraged Symbiotes... Why Santa? Why?Arrrrrrrrgh!