Flying High
Announcing the Falcon Hero Pack for Marvel Champions: The Card Game
“Now, I can do this all day!” – Falcon
Sam Wilson has always helped people, serving as a prodigious social worker even before he became a soaring superhero. Once he donned a pair of high-tech vibranium wings, Sam—also known as the Falcon—used his aerial mobility and empathic connection with birds to provide his fellow Avengers a powerful tactical advantage. A longtime partner of Steve Rogers, Sam has even taken on the shield and title of Captain America to serve as a soaring symbol of truth.
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the Falcon Hero Pack for Marvel Champions: The Card Game!
As a high-flying Avenger and master of the air, Falcon soars into battle with this expansion pack, which introduces him as a new playable hero alongside his fifteen signature cards. Equipped with a pre-built Leadership deck to command his allies from the skies, you’ll be able to use Falcon’s keen eyesight and adaptable nature from the moment you open the box. This pack also features a bonus modular encounter set featuring Fixer of the Thunderbolts!
Eagle-Eyed
As you might expect from a winged hero with a connection to birds, Falcon’s entire playstyle revolves around the power of flight—as well as the unique advantages it affords him.
For starters, Sam Wilson (Falcon, 1B) can search his deck and discard pile for a Bird card to add to his hand. The most obvious target for this ability is his trusty sidekick Redwing (Falcon, 2), who can deal a decent burst of damage or threat removal depending on the number of boost icons on a card discarded from the encounter deck. Naturally, you’ll want to make sure you discard a card with as many boost icons as possible, and that’s where Falcon (Falcon, 1A) and his innate abilities come in!
While Falcon is in hero form, the top card of the encounter deck is turned face up during the player phase, and every time you play an Aerial card, you can choose to discard the top card of the encounter deck. These two abilities combined allow you to know exactly how many boost icons will be on the top card of the encounter deck at any time, representing Falcon’s proficiency at scouting. As you might expect, this lets you get the most possible use out of cards like Bird of Prey (Falcon, 3) and Bird’s-Eye View (Falcon, 4), which both scale to the number of icons in an encounter card’s boost area. You do have to discard a card from the encounter deck to gain those benefits, but thankfully, since Falcon’s first ability is always active, you’ll immediately flip the new top card of the encounter deck to know what’s coming next.
Of course, scouting the encounter deck will only get you so far, and the rest of Falcon’s kit is designed to help his team weather any storm that might emerge from the cards you don’t see in advance. Aerial Evacuation (Falcon, 8) can pull a friend out of harm’s way, while Draw Their Fire (Falcon, 11) lets Falcon defend for the entire team without exhausting. If a relatively mild encounter card is on top of the deck, you can use Aerial Recon (Falcon, 9) to deal it to a player early, allowing you to potentially avoid a nastier encounter card later down the line. If things start to turn south, you can utilize the Talon Line (Falcon, 12) in conjunction with a big discarded card to swing the game’s momentum back in your favor!
Outside of his signature cards, the rest of Falcon’s pre-built Leadership deck is also themed around flight, particularly the Aerial trait. Kicking things off, we have the Flight Squadron (Falcon, 20) support card, which grants Falcon an extra ally slot and a once-per-turn ally ready, so long as all of his allies are Aerial. This, naturally, pairs well with allies like Hugin & Munin (Falcon, 17), who are not only Aerial, but also a Bird ally, which means Sam can summon them from his deck while in alter-ego form. Hugin & Munin can ready multiple characters at once, which synergizes well with Aero (Falcon, 15), allowing you to get extra uses out of her attack boost. Once you get an ally that you want to keep around as long as possible, mark another ally as your Wingman (Falcon, 24) to reduce the consequential damage they take. Finally, with so many different traits on display in Falcon’s deck, he can make great use out of the flexible Strength in Diversity (Falcon, 19); with an extra ally slot from Flight Squadron, and Adam Warlock (Falcon, 14), Aero, Cloud Nine (Falcon, 16), and Hugin & Munin all in play alongside Falcon himself, that’s seven traits you can turn into damage or threat removal, all without even taking other players into account!
Techno
As we mentioned earlier, the Falcon Hero Pack also comes with a modular encounter set featuring Fixer!
Like his fellow Thunderbolts, Fixer (Falcon, 38) is a formidable Elite minion with health well into the double digits. His specialty revolves around Tech attachments, and he has the unique ability to equip non-scenario-specific ones that would normally be reserved for the villain. Naturally, Fixer’s encounter set comes with a couple Tech attachments of his own in the form of a Jet Pack (Falcon, 39) and a Tech-Pac (Falcon, 40). Top that off with his Technological Innovation (Falcon, 41) side scheme getting extra threat for every Tech card in play—player or encounter—and it’s clear that Fixer is not someone to be underestimated!
As an Elite, Thunderbolt minion, Fixer’s encounter set can be used as part of the Thunderbolts scenario in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. That said, it is still a modular encounter set in its own right, which means you can add Fixer into any scenario for some extra challenge. Better suit up if you hope to win!
Aerial Recon
With his arsenal of Aerial cards and his ability to scout out and exploit the encounter deck, Falcon is a terrific hero and a fantastic addition to any team. Look forward to taking on the agents of A.I.M. with Falcon when the Falcon Hero Pack arrives in June!
You can pre-order your own copy of the Falcon Hero Pack (MC53en) at your local retailer or online through our webstore today!
Written by Peter Schumacher
