My wife’s due date was 3 days ago but no baby. So we’re all ready to go but have no plans. Since we had no plans I decided Friday night to go to a standard 3 game event on Saturday. Might as well turn these lemons into lemonade. 
So I took my SHIELD roster which I tested last week (and with the tweaks made) and gave it my best go!
Game 1
First game was against Convocation on Intrusions and Cubes at 17 threat.
I just practiced this last week! So I hope my changes work! I did add Rogue to my roster for just this occasion. 
I focused on picking up cubes while my opponent stood on the secures. I was 1 point behind for the first two turns.
Elektra absolutely crushed Iron Man on the left flank which, surprisingly, was okay. It was a 3 threat against a 4 threat. And losing Iron Man meant I could use my Shield leadership to tie my opponent. And on the next turn I had priority which I used to start attacking Wong.
A nearly indestructible Wong almost prevented me from winning but after taking my entire team (Fury, Rogue, and Winter Soldier) into him he went down and I won 17 to 13.
MVP: Shuri or Winter Soldier. Shuri pushed Strange a few times that certainly prevented a few attacks from coming my way. She also boosted defense and offense when it mattered. Winter Soldier got a couple lucky bursts off on Strange early game and grabbed the cubes from the nigh-invulnerable Wong and ran away turn 4.
Game 2
2nd game was against X-men on Gamma and Legacy Virus at 15 threat.
Black Widow may not have been a great 3rd affiliation choice for this matchup. But I did want to get Hulk into this match. Or perhaps instead of both Fury and Agents going for separate viruses I might have placed Fury and Agents together to be a bit more resilient.
Beast rolled bananas and one shot my Black Widow twice. She took 4 move actions and picked up a virus and that’s all she did. She only rolled two defense rolls. 
Hulk missed a bunch and my opponent did a great job throwing size 4 terrain at my guys while ignoring hulk. Hulk did finally get a hit in against Storm on the final turn claiming the opponent’s Gamma Shelter. If nothing else changes I would win the game.
Unfortunately for me Jean Gray made short work of Winter Soldier and Beast walked onto my Gamma Shelter giving him the win.
X-Men won 16 to 14.
I don’t think I have any MVPs this game. Hulk missed over and over. Black Widow was torn apart by a blue werewolf. And Fury did very little picking up a VP and then running back only to have a building thrown at him followed by Rogue flattening him. I think by default Winter Soldier doing some work would have to be the MVP.
Game 3
3rd game was against Asgard on Terrigen Clouds and Cubes at 17 threat.
My opponent said they had Convocation / Asgard and for whatever reason I assumed they’d go Convocation. So I prepared my roster for that. If I looked at all of the Asgard models they had I might not have made that assumption. Good reminder for me. 
I missed several triggers this game which held me back. And I forgot about Skurge’s aggressive (which wasted a Shuri attack).
I did make one pretty interesting play end of round 1. After Thor For Asgard and killed my agents and Shuri failed pushing Skurge I realized I couldn’t get any more points. So I moved Rogue right infront of Thor so it forces him to act first otherwise she’ll probably beat him up.
Thor used his whole activation to daze Rogue which let Iron Man and Winter Soldier to KO Magik. That worked out pretty well.
For the most part I ignored the secures and kept poisoning and putting a damage on Skurge & Loki.
It came down to me wanting to make a cinematic game so I took the 90% looks-really-cool-in-my-head victory of Bucky shooting down Loki and grabbing his cube instead of the 100% chance of double move onto an empty secure and win play.
And wouldn’t you know it but Loki survives on one health and I lose. A good reminder to always make the boring plays! 
Asgard won 18 to 17.
Wrap Up
Overall I went 1-2 in the event. I definitely could have done better in game 3 but sometimes the fun option is the best option.
I missed a bunch of triggers through the game. I forgot Got Your Back at least once each game (and had the power to use it). And I don’t think I used the Shield Leadership to move towards my opponent. I need to remember that more often.
I love the Shield tactics cards. I used Battlefield Medicine, The Initiative, and The Shieldmobile every game. They’re all so good! And The Shieldmobile almost always helps with a clutch play.
In the final game I used Helios Laser and that might be one of my favorite cards to play. It’s very fun to charge up and blast someone off the table. Definitely keeping that card in there.
In game 2 I took Mission Objective but didn’t find a good time to use it. And in game 3 I could have used Mission objective to get a cube off of Shuri or Iron Man which would have seriously helped in that last turn (they wouldn’t have dazed in the power phase).
Painting
As a bonus there was a single model painting contest. Four people submitted models. And my She-Hulk won. 
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