Villainous occupies an interesting spot in the board game market. It’s clearly popular enough to have various different editions, each with their own expansion packs available, and its complexity means it’s engaging to the most involved tabletop enthusiasts. There’s also an approachability that allows less experienced players to come along for the ride. Recently, I played Twisted Ambitions, the latest expansion to Marvel Villainous, to see what it brought to the table.
Marvel Villainous is an asymmetrical game where you need to try and complete your villain’s tasks befor♌e your opponents can do theirs. The th🍌ree characters included in Twisted Ambitions are Kang the Conqueror, Doctor Octopus, and Titania, all of whom come with a fresh goal, new cards, and their own mat and figurine as a player counter. These figurines have always been the best designed and most expensive-looking part of a Villainous set, and this is no exception. Kang’s is blue and shaped for his helm, Titania’s a purple plastic recreation of her hair with some spiked shoulder-padded flair, and Doc Ock’s might be my favourite across Marvel Villainous with a column of twirling octopus arms.
These figures highlight my biggest gripe with Villainous from an aesthetic point of view - all of the counters and tokens and cards and boards look very high end, but then there’s a cheap plastic dog bowl to keep the tokens in. Twisted Ambitions comes in a smaller, more tra🐷vel-friendly box about half the size of the base game, so it doesn’t replace the thin plastic bowl, unless you include replacing it with nothing. It’s perfectly possible, especially in a two or three player game using just Twisted Ambitions, to get by without it.
A two player game was exactly what I started with, playing as Titani🎉a while my partner was Doc Ock. Titania has one of the simplest paths to victory in the game, possibly even more straightforward than Killmonger, making her good for beginners. She starts at 1 Strength and, if she defeats a Hero equal to or greater than her current Strength, she goes up to 2 Strength, and so on until she reaches 8. Then, like how Killmonger must defeat Black Panther, she must pulverise She-Hulk.
Doc Ock is a little more complicated, but still digestible and makes good use of the deck. He has six cards cal🍌led ‘Schemes’ in his deck, and must successfully play five of them. For example, one scheme is The Sinister Six, which requires hi𝐆m to have five allies on the board when the card is played. It’s a goal that makes excellent use of the discard pile and means you need a good awareness of your hand as the value of cards changes significantly as the game goes on.
Kang, however, is best avoided for two player games. He’s not as intense as Thanos, but it can be tough to understand what you need to do with him. Kang is an interesting character. He’s just not a starter character in the way Doc Ock and Titania are. He’s also a slow burn character, which can be hard work. He doesn’t fit in a smaller game with just a pair of players (which would natura⭕lly be faster), but in a larger game his play is far slower, making him suited only to specific tacticians.
Kang has two decks, one regular and one made up of Variants which are shuffled into every player’s deck. When you pull them into your hand, you have to pl﷽ay them, and must defeat them before Kang can send cards to attack them himself. If Kang kills four Variants, he wins. Though the goal is simple, the reliance on forcing other players to play and the relative ineffectiveness when no Va🐻riants are in play make Kang a bit more of a chore than he needs to be.
All three characters have different approaches, to their credit, but with Kang I would advise finding a sweet spot with your number of players - not too few that Kang is disruptive and turns it into attack and defence between players, but not so many that his slow pace and repeated lack of action lead to boredom. When I roadtested Twisted Ambitions with a bigger group, Kang gave us the most trouble. He did end up with one of the less experienced board gamers, but they seemed to understand the goals of other characters and still stumbled with Kang. Likewise, other newcomers⛦ got to grips with theiꦛr own aims, but couldn’t see what Kang could do.
Of course, these characters don’t only bring new counters and goals, but also cards. As well as Kang’s Variants, the box has other intriguing deck mechanics. As Doc Ock’s goal is deck-based rather than board based, he has a lot of cards that allow him to draw extra, replace, examine his discard pile, and generally rely less on the luck of the draw. Titania, meanwhile, has several cards that can force combat and boost Allies and opponents, and her All🔜ies aren’t all discarded after use as it is with some others.
As far as the Fate deck goes, Doc Ock’s introduction brings some all-time great Heroes, like Peter Parker, Daredevil, and Steve Rogers, as well as expands the general Spider-Mᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚan mythos with Black Cat and Captain Stacy. She-Hulk, Thunderstrike, and Hercules arrive with Titania, and they interact with her Allies in fresh ways that stop her from just being combat after combat without thought. Kang, perhaps surprisingly given his more complex playstyle, has some straightforward Avengers cards into the mix.
All things considered, Twisted Ambitions is a strong addition to Marvel Villainous that has two fantastic characters for two player games, and brings three different approaches that freshen up the situation. Whether you’re looking for an entry level combat character, a tacticꦏal character who makes use of their deck, or a strategist who can disrupt other players, Twisted Ambitions has options that complement and offer depth to the core game. It’s not essential for the Marvel Villainous experience, but it definitely improves things and adds more options to your gameplay. With the addition being packed in a smaller box for ease of transportation, it’s well worth picking up for Villainous fans.