Follow me, dear reader, as I invest three days of my life into unboxing, sleevening, tokening, and playing the new X-Men Dice Throne and Missions! Watch as I play solo (me vs. me solo and true solo) and cooperatively (with a group of 4), but encounter some unexpected things along the way! Hopefully my journey will inform you if this is something that would be for you!

 Dice Throne: X-Men and Marvel Dice Throne: Missions (and a whole bunch of stuff) arrived at my house at 12:30 pm on Monday, February 20th, 2025.  I was very excited to get this Kickstarter, so I happened to note the time when it arrived!  This was #2 on my Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative Games of 2024!  And it was “only” 7 months late! (promising arrival in August 2024)!  But what is this giant thingee?

The first big box in here is the Dice Throne: X-Men box; you each play a member of the X-Men!  This is a dice-chucking game with a Yahtzee-type re-roll mechanic: you roll dice, trying to roll a straight or full house or 5-of-a-kind (stuff like that) to activate your super powers!  These powers, when activated, nominally do damage or other crazy things to your opponents.   This is a fully competitive game where the heroes beat each other up: think of the X-Men Danger Room!   You are training in the Danger Room!  (That’s why heroes fight heroes, ya, that’s it: don’t ask too many questions about why heroes are fighting heroes….just enjoy the game)

But why are we talking about a competitive game on this solo and cooperative blog?  Because the second big thing that came with this was Marvel Dice Throne Missions! Marvel Dice Throne Missions (we’ll call it Missions from now on) is an expansion that takes the competitive Dice Throne system and makes the game both solo and cooperative!

The next three days of my life were consumed by the Dice Throne stuff above.  The Dice Throne: X-Men box and Missions box are very closely tied together, as you need a set of heroes to play the Missions! Although you can use any of the Dice Throne heroes (including the original Season 1, Season 2 (see review here) , and Marvel heroes (see review here)), we are going to look at Dice Throne: X-Men and Missions together!!! … because that’s how we played it …

Let’s go back in time and see how three days unfolded ….

Day 1: Unboxings and First Plays

Day 1 was a long day: I got the box at 12:30pm and pretty much unboxed, sleevended, tokened (yes, that’s a word … now), and played non-stop until 8 at night!  There was so more unboxing  and sleevening and tokening than I expected …

What arrived at my house was a giant box! See Coke Can above for perspective.

The crazy thing was that this was a box in a box in a box in a box situation! See above!

On top of the Dice Throne: X-Men box (above) were all the acrylic tokens and some of the figures (right).

Day 1: The Figurines Unboxing

You don’t need the figurines for plain Dice Throne.

The figures are only for the cooperative expansions Dice Throne Adventures or Missions, as figures for the board … you don’t need these figures at all to play competitive plain Dice Throne!  See all eight figures above in the package … and below on a Missions board.

Because the original Marvel Dice Throne did NOT have an option for figures, they included that option here in this Kickstarter! See above for the Marvel Dice Throne figures and below for their standee equivalents!

To be clear; the X-Men Dice Throne (and Marvel Dice Throne) come with cardboard standees so you don’t need to buy the figures (see below for X-Men Dice Throne punchouts, including the standees).

If you are on the fence for buying the figures, remember: they aren’t strictly needed!  You can just use the standees and “probably” buy the figures at a later date if you are so inclined.

Day 1: Acrylics and Sleevening

Another upgrade I got were the Acrylic tokens; again these aren’t necessary.

The acrylic token upgrades packs are for Marvel Dice Throne, X-Men Marvel Dice Throne, and Missions—These just replace the cardboard tokens.

Again, the games include all the tokens you need, so these acrylic tokens aren’t necessary.  I really thought they made the game pop a little more, so I liked them.

I also picked up the premium sleeves: see below.

Again, strictly not necessary. But very nice!

After ooggling the figures, basically, I spent the next 2 or so hours putting the acrylic tokens and sleeves into the X-Men Dice Throne character boxes! 

Whew! Look at all those tokens above!! See below for all 6 characters sleeved and … tokened? (yes, it is a word now: I’ve used it twice).

Yes, this was a long and tedious 2 hours.  But the characters looks great!

Oh yes, and Deadpool wants you to know he is an expansion!  He is a character you can play (he also came with this Kickstarter, but he is a separate expansion you have to pay extra for). I went ahead and unboxed, sleeved, and tokened him too.  See above.

Day 1: First Play

As a reminder, you “probably” don’t want to jump into Missions (cooperative) if you haven’t played the base Dice Throne (competitive)!  See the warning above from the Missions rulebook.

I love Dice Throne, but it has been a while since I played. So I decided to do a Me vs. Me solo game, and play against myself!  This was mostly to remind myself of the rules and see the new characters! Those of you out there are thinking that I will “pander” and play Wolverine vs. Deadpool.  Nope!

I ended up playing Wolverine vs Cyclops. Me vs Me!

Basically, I’d literally switch seats when I had to play the other character: I always like this swapping because it really feels like you are playing both sides well!  

It was an interesting match: Wolverine won, but just barely.  Cyclops looks like he will do best in a cooperative game, as his abilities have some emphasis on helping other players!  He has leadership cards and support tokens/abilities that help others!  Wolverine just heals and does damage … as you’d expect.

This game was reasonably quick, maybe a hour? It went by pretty quickly and I got to learn about Wolverine and Cyclops.

Day 1: Missions Unboxing

Yes, we are still in Day 1.  I told you this was a long day!  But a good day! I finally got to unpack Missions!

The most AMAZING thing is all the little mission books that come with the game!! Holy cow!!  See how many there are?  I put a Coke can next to them for perspective!

My only real complaint with the missions is that they are hard to keep open! We’ll see that more later.

There’s some Momentum dials (this is a new mechanism in the game: each character gets a dial), Allies (another new mechanism: these must be bought with Momentum), and some other tokens.

The Momentum is a major new mechanism in the game; you can actually level-up your Momentum card (as you play more games)!

I mean, this looks great!  See above!

At the top is a tray for tokens: see above.

There are a lot cardboard tokens in Missions … but I ended up replacing them with the acrylic tokens.  This took about the next hour of my life.

At first, putting tokens in the token tray looks VERY DAUNTING.  And it is. Until you notice the side of the box!!! See above!!  The side of the box shows you how to put the token into the tray!

Sounds like an easy job?  Oof.  This was the most tedious thing I did on Day 1.

I basically had to separate out the tokens into piles and start putting them into the box, all while trying to match the picture on the side of the box!!

I mean, it does look cool when you are done … see above.

Finally, I sleeved the Alllies:  these sleeves were extra (I had to pay for them).

But they look pretty cool.

Day 1: The rulebook

There are a few things I have to say about the rulebook.

It completely fails the Chair Test: it droops over the edge of the chair and almost falls off!  

I ended up using the workaround I discovered in my review of  Batman: Gotham City Chronicles!  You need two chairs to hold the rulebook, with the spine in the middle!

The rulebook was generally good otherwise: it had a good components page (see above).

It had a good two-page spread for set-up: I got going right away.

The rulebook had a big, readable font, useful pictures, and even little parenthetical text to emphasize issues.  

The best part was that the back cover had a list of all the statuses on the back.  This was generally a good list of statuses and their effects, but we did have some questions as we played… some of the status descriptions needed more clarification.

This was generally a good rulebook, but I hated the form factor.  It seems like the worst form factor I have seen in a while.  I actually had to change chairs in my cooperative game so I could sit somewhere where I could set-up the the two chairs to see the rulebook! The rulebook is huge and there is no almost no way it’ll fit on the table.

Day 1: Set-up for Solo play

I know, it’s hard to believe we are still in Day 1.  I had just finished dinner, and I am still setting up my first Mission!  

Missions have two sides; the front side is generally fighting some henchmen … (see above)  …

… and the back side is Boss Fight (Scarlet Witch in this case.. see above)!

To win the mission, you need to complete both sides!  See above as I start setting up side one of the mission … and get grumpy that it won’t stay flat …

I chose Wolverine to go on the solo mission: see above!  Note that the rulebook suggests the mission above to start on … so that’s the one I am playing!!  This is true solo play; I will be playing one character as I take on the Henchmen … on side 1 of the mission.

Day 1: Side One of the Mission

I was approaching the end of my Dice Throne Day (yes, I am still in Day 1!!!), as I got a chance to try out solo play with Missions on side 1 of my first mission.

Momentum is a huge new mechanism in the game: you are rewarded with Momentum when you take out a henchman or something in the game!  It’s kind of like experience points, but it’s a little more dynamic in that you can spend it anytime!  You can spend Momentum to give you range (typically, you can only attack things next to you) or to buy Allies.

The Allies give you extra abilities/powers that make the game more interesting. They typically can be used for a “minor” ability without discarding, or for a “major” ability if you discard it (see Nick Fury above). 

What I liked was that when you “cleared” a bad guy, you put down a clear token (see above) to note that he was dispatched!  And the token reminds you of the 2 Momentum you get for killing … I mean clearing him!

Another major mechanism is the Crisis Clock: at the end of each round, the hands of the clock move 1 per player and may invoke some harsh penalties (depending on the mission).

There’s other things going on, but that’s generally most of it!  See above as I cleared the board and made my way towards fighting Doc Ock!  …. but that would have to wait for tomorrow … it’s been a long day!

Day 2: More Missions

I had to work most of Tuesday, but after I got home, I was consumed with playing more Missions!
Note!  When you flip the mission to the other side, you keep you character’s Hit Points, Momentum, and everything the way it was!  While you reset BETWEEN missions, you DO NOT reset when you FLIP the mission!

The Boss Fight side of the Mission 1 basically just has you straight up fight the big boss! And the Crisis Clock is much more damaging!

You are in harms way as you actively are right next to the Boss! See above!  No moving away!

One interesting note; there are tokens that, if you end your turn there, you get a bonus.  So, you can get the +2 token if you go to space 3 above. But if the space has the red tokens underneath, you always get those … but only AFTER The bad guys attacks you!  And there is a cost for moving to a space with red tokens … the boss typically does more damage (crit) to you!

In the end, I defeated Doc Ock pretty handily; I think my Ally made this much easier.  

I went into the Boss Fight with 15 Momentum and basically kept the crisis track completely under control using Nick Fury.

After you defeat a Mission, the player gets “Perk Points”!  These are another thing that are kind of like experience points!  You use them to make your character better.  You may spend some Perk Points to start the next mission with a little more momentum, or have a focus fire, or other things!

There are 6 levels of difficulty in the game; they are marked on top of the mission sheet you choose. See below.

You reallllly don’t want to try harder missions until you have some Perk Points from previous missions!   So, while this isn’t a campaign “per se”, the game encourages you to keep playing and get Perk Points so you can handle more difficult missions!

You could always cheat and just give yourself a bunch of Perk Points to level up yourself ….

I moved on to a harder mission: level 2!

You can really see the Mission board problem above …

Sauron’s Hunger was my second mission … and I had a blast!

Wolverine went after the tree so he could get the Perfect Reward (see above) and more Perk Points at the end of the game!

The second side of the Mission was another Boss Fight: see above!

This one was a little harder, but I expected it to be for a level 2!

In the end, I was able to win and finish another Mission!  It was definitely a little harder. I had two missions under my belt, and I looked forward to another!

Day 3: Cooperative Play

With two days of solo play and set-up experience, I felt ready to teach my friends! We ended with a 2-hour Mission fighting Doc Ock again!

This was a 4-Player cooperative game.

I took Cyclops because I wanted to test his Leadership abilities.  Sara and Teresa took their favorite characters: Ororo and Rogue (respectively).  Sam doesn’t know the X-Men as well, but he knows Wolverine.

Although we beat the first side of the mission, we lost to Doc Ock as he killed two of my players.

Solo Play

The solo play was a hoot to me!  I kept wanting to do more Missions and get more Perk Points!! What are some of the other missions that lay ahead??  Wolverine is probably a better character to play solo; he is good at damage and he can heal himself.  I worry that Cyclops or other heroes might struggle with hit points a little.

I had fun, I was engaged, and I felt like all my rolls mattered!  

I was able to push my luck (and I usually hate dice games), but usually there is a good roll or card that can help you get “something good” on your turn.  With Wolverine especially, even if you didn’t have a good roll, the lesser abilities typically healed him, so something good always happened.

Over the course of two days, I had fun.  I was engaged, and I saw how important Allies are (especially their Exhaust ability) and how Momentum worked.   These are both new things to the Missions mode and they really made me feel like I always had more options.

I would give the Missions solo mode an 8.5/10.  It was great.  It may be that you have to choose a hero that works well with solo; I am not sure Cyclops would have done as well.

Even the me vs me solo mode was fun! Not quite an 8.5/10, maybe 7.5/10, but that was a fun way to play solo too!

Cooperative Mode

This was a surprise for me: my friends didn’t enjoy cooperative Missions very much.  And they (mostly) love the X-Men!!!

Although there is simultaneous play keeping everyone involved (you only serialize your turns when you do damage; all other times, every one is rolling and re-rolling and playing cards simulaneously), no one felt like there was a lot of cooperation.  As Sara said, “it feels like Dice Throne is not a cooperative mode and this feels a little forced.”

I even played Cyclops to try to elicit more cooperation: I’d always say “Hey! I’ve got some support tokens!  Use me! I can help you reroll or get CP if you need it!”  … and I think my players used me once.  And I tried really hard to get them to use me!!

You might think that “Well, your players don’t like co-ops, or they just don’t like to co-operate” and that is patently untrue!  I play co-ops all the time with this group!!  And they cooperate very well together!  For some reason, this just didn’t work.  And Sara even said, “Eh, you can cooperate, but there are many other co-ops I’d rather play.”

I actually have a theory about this!  When we played King of Monster Island a while ago (see review here), we liked the King of Monster Island game, but it also seemed to not promote cooperation as much!! Why? It also has the familiar Yahtzee re-roll mechanism (roll 3 times, keep the ones you want) just like Dice Throne Missions!! And while that mechanism is very engaging, people seem to become TOO engaged in that to the point they don’t cooperate!  It’s a weird thing to say, but too much engagement on your own stuff lessens the cooperation!  And I think that’s what happened here: we all got so caught up in our own characters, we forgot to cooperate!

Maybe this problem would go away after repeated plays, but you have to want to continue playing! And I am sad to say my group mostly doesn’t really want to play this again.

Having said that, maybe if you have a group that really likes cooperative multiplayer solitaire games (no Alpha Player), maybe this is something your group might enjoy!  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of cooperation, just a bunch of heroes beating up stuff and rolling dice!  Maybe that would appeal to your group!

Reactions

Rich: I liked the game solo a lot! 8.5/10: I was engaged and I liked my decisions. Cooperative was probably a 7/10? I still liked it but there wasn’t much cooperation.

Teresa: I got to play Rogue! And I had fun! 7/10

Sara: I don’t know, I just didn’t think it was great.  There wasn’t much cooperation, and even though I love Storm, it wasn’t that interesting to play her.  There are a lot of other cooperative games I’d rather play.  The cooperative mode just feels tacked on. It was okay.  6/10

Sam:  It was okay. 6/10.
Sam actually had a very full write-up on his cooperative experience, which he emailed to me!  I will reproduce that at the end of this review, after the Conclusion.  Read that for another perspective!

Conclusion

I expected X-Men Dice Throne and Missions to go over like gang-busters!  And while it did for me (for the solo mode especially), my group wasn’t that impressed with it.  

The game has gorgeous components, even if you choose not to upgrade everything.  My only real complaint was the Mission mats frequently has trouble staying flat.  This looks like a comic book world on the table, with its colorful villains, colorful heroes, and gorgeous dice and cards.

I think the cooperative mode didn’t go as well because people tended to be too focused on their own mat and their own rerolls … and this self-focus seemed to actually discourage cooperation!  I thought that my group, who love the X-Men, would adore this!  And they did not.

As a solo game, I am very comfortable giving this an 8.5/10.  I will play again, and I look forward to getting more Perk Points to try harder and harder missions!

As a cooperative game, it feels like the game lands at a 6.5/10.  Although Teresa and I would play it again as a co-op, I don’t think Sam and really Sara would.  For more details, see Sam’s Perspective below.

So, that’s my journey: Three Days of Dice Throne!  I loved it! My friends … not so much.  Your group may still love the cooperative Missions especially if they love co-ops that are more multiplayer solitaire.

Sam’s Perspective

Overall score: 6 – would play again if everybody else wanted to but X-Men as Wolverine combined with the Missions mode isn’t something I’d necessarily request or suggest (I could see it being 7-7.5 with avengers)