“If you’re not with me, you’re on your own.” – The Hood

Ever since he witnessed a battle between Electro and Daredevil as a child, the life of a supervillain was enticing to Parker Robbins. Later, while stealing money to pay for his mother’s medical care, a chance encounter with a demon left Robbins with a pair of boots that let him walk on air and an equally-mystical red cloak. Now, as the Hood, Robbins and his budding criminal empire are swiftly becoming a formidable threat to the people of New York City.

This 78-card scenario pack introduces a new scenario to Marvel Champions showcasing the Hood and his notorious organization of supervillains. Also included are a whopping nine modular encounter sets that can be mixed in with any scenario—including the Hood’s—to add more customization options to your Marvel Champions experience. Are you prepared to take down a dangerous criminal empire?

Crime State

Hello, heroes.

We’ve received intel that the Hood has been busy recruiting lowlifes from every nook and cranny of the city.

The villains he has reached out to aren’t ones to scoff at. Among others, he’s made contact with Mister Hyde, the Sinister Syndicate, and the Wrecking Crew. Additionally, there are reports that he may have raided one of our armories, although that is currently unverified. It’s also likely that the recent string of emergencies—the fire, the shipyard disaster, the prison escape—are all connected to the Hood and his group in one way or another.

If the Hood is able to truly unite all of these criminals under one banner, he’ll have a formidable empire that even the strongest of you will struggle against.

When you first begin the Hood ’s (The Hood, 1) scenario, he is only just beginning to establish his empire by Making Connections (The Hood, 4A). During setup, you will choose seven modular encounter sets from your Marvel Champions collection (including from those included in this scenario pack, if you wish), but you will only shuffle one of these into the encounter deck to begin with.

As the heroes battle the Hood, they will repeatedly be forced to resolve his Foul Play ability through cards like Establish Dominance (The Hood, 7) and Madame Masque (The Hood, 10). A side-effect of this ability is that it swiftly burns through the Hood’s deck, causing him to gradually build up acceleration tokens on the main scheme. As he completes his schemes, the Hood draws more and more criminals into his organization with Promised Prosperity (The Hood, 5A), permanently adding additional encounter sets from the set-aside pool into the game. Add in the chance for some Field Recruitment (The Hood, 12), and suddenly the Hood’s budding empire has grown into a threat that even some of Earth’s mightiest heroes might struggle against!

Even when he isn’t building up his criminal organization, the Hood is still a formidable threat in his own right. Armed with his two Pistols (The Hood, 9), the Hood can easily dish out enough damage and threat to keep heroes on the defensive, and his Mantle (The Hood, 8) can protect him from the heroes’ attempts to slow his momentum. Once he has the Upper Hand (The Hood, 13), the Hood will call in his new supervillain friends to make things even more difficult for the heroes—you’ll have to stay on your toes to keep yourselves from being overwhelmed!

A Villainous Empire

As we mentioned before, this expansion comes with nine new modular encounter sets for your Marvel Champions collection. While you can use any seven encounter sets for the Hood’s scenario, the nine that come in his pack are all thematically related to his criminal empire in some way.

For example, as was mentioned in the S.H.I.E.L.D. briefing in the previous section, the Hood has reached out to notable villains like the scheming Calvin Zabo (The Hood, 34). While not a very imposing minion on his own, the true terror of Zabo is when his Self-Experimentation (The Hood, 33) causes him to transform into the monstrous Mister Hyde (The Hood, 35). Hyde is a powerhouse of a minion with a ridiculous amount of health, which means he is a perfect distraction to keep the heroes away from the Hood’s plans.

Other notable villains in the Hood’s organization are Boomerang (The Hood, 44) and Shocker (The Hood, 45) from the Sinister Syndicate, Crossfire (The Hood, 26) and his Crew, and all four members of the Wrecking Crew. Even beyond the members of his organization, the Hood can arm his lackeys with a Flamethrower (The Hood, 37) from a ransacked armory, take advantage of a Citywide Crisis (The Hood, 59) to keep the heroes busy, and retreat to a Secret Lair (The Hood, 61) to accelerate his schemes even further.

Finally, if all that still isn’t enough challenge for you, this scenario pack also comes with more difficult versions of the Standard and Expert encounter sets. The Standard II and Expert II encounter sets can be implemented in any scenario in place of the usual Standard and/or Expert sets, and they pack quite the punch. For example, Standard II makes the villain a more Formidable Foe (The Hood, 49A), utilizing Dark Dealings (The Hood, 50) to advance the scheme and Total Annihilation (The Hood, 54) to tear through heroes and allies. With all this and more, now is the perfect opportunity to revisit some old foes and see if you can rise to the new level of challenge!  

Establishing Dominance

Just because the Hood isn’t a powerful cosmic entity like Thanos doesn’t mean he is any less threatening. Muster your heroes and get ready to challenge his criminal empire when The Hood Scenario Pack arrives this fall!