Play the villain in the new Tales of Asgard expansion for Marvel United

Sow distrust and conduct a villainous masterplan in the latest expansion for co-op board game Marvel United, called Tales of Asgard.

Marvel United is a board game for two to four players in which everyone works together as superheroes battling against a villainous foe. Each round sees players taking it in turns to lay down a card that will enable them to perform certain actions - such as moving, dealing damage and saving civilians - across a variety of locations.

All cards are played in a circle, including the villain’s, with every hero card laid before another player’s applying to their turn as well as their own. For example, if one player lays down a damage card in front of another player’s move card, then they are able to perform both actions.

As a co-op board game, players are usually encouraged in Marvel United to collaborate during hero turns - to both prepare for upcoming villain turns and further their mission progress - with the overall goal being to eventually wittle a villain’s health down to zero.

However, the new Tales of Asgard expansion introduces a traitor mechanic to the base game, that’s designed to make it harder for the heroes to succeed by hiding a villain in their mist.

Tales of Asgard comes with a deck of alignment cards that contains a single betray card, indicating to a random player that they will be working on the side of the villain. All players then receive a mistrust token which they can choose to discard by laying an action card face-down on their turn - doing so will prevent them from performing their own action but will allow them to benefit from any actions shown on previously played cards.

Those players who have not removed their mistrust token by the completion of mission two take three damage, except for the traitor, with a chance to gain an action token if the heroes successfully guess the traitor.

At this point, the traitor then removes their hero model and deck from the game, as they are now openly playing the game’s villain. Each villain turn is then conducted by the traitor, with the choice to select from two masterplan cards before performing the corresponding actions. The villainous player now aims to either successfully knock out a hero player on their turn, or draw their masterplan deck down before the heroes defeat them.

Alongside this traitor mechanic are also a selection of heroes to choose from - including Thor, Valkyrie and Korg - and a new villain to play against in the form of trickster god Loki. Players can choose to play Tales of Asgard as a standalone expansion or combine its elements with the main game.

Marvel United is being published by CMON, the company responsible for the Zombicide series and Rising Sun, and Spin Master Games - which released the party board game 5-Minute Dungeon.

The Kickstarter for Marvel United is currently live until March 5th, with Tales of Asgard available as an optional expansion for $25 (around £19) that’s estimated to ship sometime in March 2021.