MCP is three hobbies in one: a tactical miniature game, a painting project, and an ongoing roster puzzle. The first month is mostly about learning the rules, surviving your first squad selection, and figuring out which characters you actually want to paint and play.
Marvel Crisis Protocol is one of those games that looks complicated from a distance and obvious once you’ve played it. The rulebook is dense. The box full of tokens, cards, terrain, and sprues is genuinely intimidating the first time you open it. And then you play a game, and most of it clicks into place.
This is what the first month actually looks like, and what matters most to get from “I just got the core set” to “I know what I’m doing and I have a roster I love.”
Week 1: Your first game
Before you read the rulebook, watch a learn-to-play video. The rules are much easier to absorb while watching someone play than from reading prose. Atomic Mass Games has an official one. Midwest Warmongers on YouTube has excellent beginner content. Either works. Thirty minutes of watching beats two hours of reading for your first session.
The core rules you actually need to remember for game one:
- Threat levels. Each character has a point cost (threat value). You build a 10-point roster before the game, then secretly pick a squad matching the game’s threat level (usually 15 or 17 threat). This is what makes MCP feel different from other miniature games.
- Activation alternates. Each round, players alternate activating one character at a time. You can move, attack, or use powers. Timing matters; don’t burn your best character’s activation too early.
- Crisis cards. Each game has two randomly selected crisis objectives that determine what’s happening on the table (secure locations, collect infinity stones, etc.). Points win games, not kills.
- Power generates power. Characters gain power each round and from taking damage. Powers are what make characters feel unique. Use them; beginners who forget to spend power lose to beginners who don’t.
For your first game: read through each character’s card before you deploy them. You don’t need to memorize anything, just know what’s there. Look up rules when they come up rather than trying to have everything in your head before you start.
You will get things wrong. That’s fine. Play the full six rounds anyway.
Week 2: The roster puzzle
After your first game or two, you’ll want to buy more characters. Before you do, understand what you’re actually buying into.
MCP uses an affiliation system. Each character belongs to one or more affiliations (Avengers, X-Men, Cabal, Wakanda, etc.). When your entire squad shares an affiliation, you get a leadership ability that changes how the team plays. Avengers leadership makes your team more resilient. Cabal leadership leans aggressive and disruptive. This system makes roster building the deep game within the game.
The practical implications for your first purchases:
Buy who you love first. Seriously. The character packs you’ll actually open, prime, and paint are the ones you care about from Marvel. A perfectly optimized roster you’re not excited about loses to an imperfect roster you’re emotionally invested in. Every time.
Build one affiliation before branching. It’s tempting to grab one pack from every faction. Resist. Pick the affiliation you find most interesting, get 5-7 characters that belong to it, and learn what that team can do. You can branch out after you have a functional main roster.
The core set gives you a starting point, not a complete team. The core set characters span two affiliations but don’t fully support either. Your first pack should push one direction: more Avengers, more Cabal, or a new faction that excites you.
The free Atomic Mass Games app handles roster construction, tracks the current card errata, and shows you which affiliations you can run with your collection. Use it from the start.
Week 3: Getting minis on the table
You can play bare gray plastic. Plenty of people do. But at some point in your first month, you’ll probably want to paint something, and the first mini you paint will set your expectations for everything that follows.
The speed paint approach works. The Army Painter Speedpaints and Citadel Contrast paints are genuinely transformative tools. The method is simple: spray the mini with gray primer, let it dry fully, then apply one speed paint color per area (one for the costume, one for skin, one for any metal areas). The paint flows into recesses and creates automatic shading. Add a quick drybrush of a lighter color over raised edges if you want highlights. That’s it. The results look significantly better than bare plastic and each mini takes under an hour.
Start with one character. Pick your favorite from the core set. Don’t prime all ten at once; prime one, paint one, see how it feels.
A few things that will immediately improve your results:
- Prime in good conditions. Spray outdoors or in a well-ventilated space. Don’t prime on humid or cold days; the finish goes grainy. Let primer cure for at least two hours before painting.
- Thin your paints slightly. Even speed paints benefit from being slightly thinned with water. A drop of water per brush-load gives you better control.
- Paint the base. A simple brown or grey textured base makes even an average paint job look intentional. Sand-colored texture paste is under $10 and takes two minutes to apply.
The biggest mistake beginners make with miniature painting is trying to make their first character perfect. You’re learning the medium. Paint it, move on, paint the next one. Every mini improves on the last.
Week 4: You have opinions now
By the end of your first month, you’ll have played 5-10 games and painted at least a handful of miniatures. At this point, something shifts: you’ll start to have specific opinions about which characters you want next, which affiliation feels right for your playstyle, and which part of the game you find most rewarding.
Some players fall deeply into the competitive side: they track the meta, attend local game store events, and build optimized rosters. MCP has robust organized play through Atomic Mass Games and Longshanks (the event registration platform), and the community is genuinely competitive at the top levels.
Other players stay entirely on the hobby side: they buy characters they love from Marvel, paint them with care, and play casual games with friends. Both are legitimate ways to play, and neither is doing it wrong.
The game rewards long-term players who stay engaged. Atomic Mass Games releases new characters regularly, the card errata keeps the meta fresh, and the community produces excellent strategy and hobby content. This is a game with legs.
What month two looks like
A few things that tend to happen in the second month:
- You’ll want to buy the next pack. That’s normal and expected. Budget for it. Most active players spend $30-50 per month on character packs and terrain.
- You’ll join a community. The MCP Discord (Warzone: Crisis) and the r/marvelcrisisprotocol subreddit are both active and welcoming. Posting your first paint job there is genuinely rewarding.
- Your first character pack creates a problem you didn’t expect. Now you have more options for roster building, and the puzzle gets more interesting. This is what the game is.
- You’ll have a favorite character. Probably one you didn’t expect going in. For most players it’s whoever they painted first with any real care.
If you’re playing games regularly and painting here and there, you’re doing it right. MCP doesn’t have a wrong pace.
Best starter 
