Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

“We are agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Our jurisdiction is the planet.” – Maria Hill

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Some can fly, some can shoot energy from their hands, and some are just really, really strong. But there are some heroes who don’t wear capes, heroes who stay out of the spotlight, working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep the world safe from covert threats. These are the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the eighth campaign expansion for Marvel Champions: The Card Game!

This campaign expansion takes us away from the flashy final battles of Avengers-level threats and instead focuses on the efforts of S.H.I.E.L.D. as they combat the forces trying to manipulate the world from the shadows—including a traitor within their own agency. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. comes with five brand-new scenarios, and just like with all other campaign expansions, you can play each of these scenarios individually or sequentially as part of a larger campaign. This box also kicks off a new wave of playable heroes for the game, beginning with Maria Hill and Nick Fury, both of whom come with fully pre-built and ready-to-play decks from the get-go.

Today, we’re providing a first look at the scenario content for this expansion. We’ll go over the heroes in the near future. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the story of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

A Plot Unfolds

The story of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. begins with a mystery. A string of Inhuman kidnappings has been plaguing the country, and Sarah Garza—a S.H.I.E.L.D. computer specialist—is the latest victim. The dastardly super-scientists of A.I.M. are behind the kidnappings, but Maria Hill suspects a rat in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Executive Board may be involved as well. With all that in mind, you and your fellow heroes head to subway tunnel to confront the first obstacle in solving this crisis: Yelena Belova, also known as the Black Widow (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 64).

A skilled spy and lethal assassin, Belova wields a similar array of gadgets and techniques to the heroic Black Widow. Whenever someone attacks Belova, a threat is removed from the main scheme, which seems like a good thing, except it can trigger one of the Black Widow’s traps! Each attachment, minion, and treachery in her signature encounter set has a Preparation effect that can be triggered by Black Widow’s ability. This means attacking her while there’s threat on the main scheme comes at some serious risk; at best, an A.I.M. Grunt (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 73) might just dive in the way and take the hit instead, while at worst, you could find yourself entangled in a Stun Net (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 71) or even counterattacked by Attacrobatics (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 76). Fortunately, Black Widow’s ability only triggers when there is threat for her to remove, which means if you keep the main scheme clear, you should be safe to focus your attacks on her and bring the super-spy down!

After taking down Black Widow, your investigation next leads you to the A.I.M. Island embassy, where you’ll have to sneak in and get the intel you need without raising the alarm too high. Standing in your way is the mercenary Batroc (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 86A), but unlike most scenarios, simply defeating him won’t be enough to achieve your goals. After all, you’re here to rescue people, and the scenario mechanics reflect that. Batroc’s hit points don’t scale to the player count, but defeating him will simply reset him back to his maximum (though you do get some free threat removal as a reward). Since Batroc keeps getting back up each time you knock him down, your goal is instead to clear enough threat off the main scheme (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 87B) to advance to the next stage. Do that enough times—and rescue enough captives (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 91)—and you’ll win!

As you search the embassy for captives to free, you’ll have to contend with the facility’s Alert Level (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 90A). This starts off Low, but every time a character is defeated—including enemies—a bit of threat gets added to it, increasing the pressure and shortening your timeline. Not to mention, all those people you’re rescuing are bound to get the attention of embassy security. Naturally, certain cards like the Embassy Guard (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 93) gain additional abilities if the Alert Level is High, which means you’re incentivized to move through the embassy as quietly as possible. Thankfully, some of the minions in this scenario have the new “vulnerable” keyword, which means they get discarded when they would be stunned or confused. “Discarded” is not the same as “defeated,” which means no threat gets added to the Alert Level. You’ll have to use your skills and your wits to cover your tracks and make it through this tricky situation!

After the A.I.M. embassy, your next destination is A.I.M. Island itself, stronghold of the A.I.M. organization. You finally manage to find the missing Sarah Garza, along with several other Inhuman captives that have been locked away. Unfortunately, you also run into M.O.D.O.K. (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 103A), who is none too pleased about you disrupting his plans to use the Inhumans as genetic templates for his synthetic Adaptoids. Similar to the previous scenario, your primary goal here is rescue, though how you go about it is very different. You’ll need to free Sarah Garza (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 107B) and the other captive Inhumans (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 105B) from their Holding Cells (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 107A) before you can take M.O.D.O.K. down. Of course, you’ll have to contend with the Adaptoids (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 113) themselves as you do so, and if you let them get too many upgrades—such as a Flying Upgrade (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 109)—they’ll become unstoppable, and you’ll lose the scenario. Not to mention all the upgrades that M.O.D.O.K. can give himself, but we’ll have to show those off some other time.

A Thundering Conspiracy

After freeing the captive Inhumans, you return to D.C. for some well-deserved rest. Unfortunately, the mole in the Executive Board has made their move, marking you as rogue agents. Now you must face off against a group of superpowered foes sent to arrest you: the Thunderbolts, led by Citizen V (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 129A)!

While not technically a “multi-villain” scenario, the Thunderbolts absolutely take you on as a team. During setup, you choose a number of Thunderbolt-themed modular encounter sets equal to your player count plus one, and each of those encounter sets comes with an Elite, Thunderbolt minion that you have to contend with before you can take on Citizen V himself. Not only does the main scheme, Apprehend Rogue Agents (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 130B) give each Thunderbolt minion guard, but Citizen V himself also can’t be defeated until you get enough of his cronies into the victory display.

The rest of the Thunderbolts may technically be minions, but they hit hard, and they’re sturdy enough to practically be full-fledged villains in their own right. Each of them has the villainous keyword as well as hit points in the double digits, and the Thunderbolt Backup (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 131B) environment lets them rotate out to patch themselves up and keep the fight going.

The Thunderbolts scenario is a great turning point in the narrative of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. campaign, but it’s also one of the most replayable scenarios in the game. The box comes with six different modular sets featuring Thunderbolts that you can use for this scenario (as well as other scenarios—they are still modular encounter sets, after all), but future Marvel Champions products may come with more sets that can also be slotted in. Any modular encounter set that features an Elite, Thunderbolt minion can qualify for this scenario, allowing all sorts of customization and ensuring that no two faceoffs against this team are alike!

By now, you may be wondering who the villain is for the fifth and final scenario of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Unfortunately, that information has been…redacted. You’ll just have to wait and see who it will be!

Exposing the Mole

While we can’t share who the final villain is, we can share an important element of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. campaign leading up to that scenario: finding the traitor!

As we’ve mentioned, there’s a mole in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Executive Board, and it’s your job to expose them. To do that, you’ll have to utilize “evidence cards” that you’ll collect over the course of the campaigns, which represent the means, motive, and opportunity the mole had to sabotage your efforts. At the beginning of the campaign, one card from each category is secretly tucked into a special “A.I.M. envelope,” and the combination of symbols those cards have will reveal the identity of the traitor. You’ll have to use your powers of deduction to expose the mole when the time is right, but you must tread carefully; if you alienate the board before you have the chance to present your case, it’ll only make your life harder.

Each member of the Executive Board is represented by their own double-sided card, which are always present during the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. campaign. Certain scenario or campaign effects can add “secret counters” to a board member, representing the subtle manipulations of both A.I.M. and the traitor as they try to turn the board against you. If too many secret counters accumulate on a board member, then their card flips over to their attachment side, on which they become a permanent buff for the villain. For example, if the Chief Tactical Officer (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 183A) were to gain 4 secret counters (3 in expert mode), then they would become an attachment (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 183B) that increases the villain’s ATK and can deal damage to you or your allies. If all three board members turn against you, you instantly lose the game, so you’ll have to convince them that you aren’t the bad guys here!

Agents of Justice

As we mentioned earlier, today’s preview is focusing on the scenario content from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. In the coming weeks, we’ll also preview the two heroes that come in the box, Maria Hill and Nick Fury.

Maria Hill comes with a pre-built Leadership deck, and her playstyle revolves around her unique position as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Meanwhile, Nick Fury is a master of mitigating threat, packing a pre-built Justice deck alongside a specialized stealth suit that lets him pull off some impressive stunts. While neither of these heroes possesses any flashy superpowers, that certainly doesn’t make them any less potent as protectors of the Earth.

Of course, as with every Marvel Champions campaign expansion, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. heralds the beginning of a new wave of hero packs. This wave has four hero packs, featuring a mixture of S.H.I.E.L.D. members and a couple surprises. As always, we’ll reveal each of them in time, but for now, here’s a sneak peek of what’s to come:

Dive into a campaign full of thrills and intrigue as the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. scramble to expose the traitor in their midst before it’s too late. Can you defeat a threat that comes from within? Take on the forces of A.I.M. when Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives in February 2025!