Marvel Legendary Game 2

Planned Game: SHIELD

• Scheme: SHIELD VS HYDRA War
• Mastermind: HYDRA Super Adaptoid
• Villain Group 1: AIM HYDRA Offshoot
• Villain Group 2: HYDRA
• Henchmen: Hand Ninjas
• Heroes:
• Agent Phil Coulson
• Deathlok
• Mockingbird
• Quake
• Nick Fury
• Result: Lose

Marvel Legendary Game 1

Planned Game: SHIELD

• Scheme: Hail HYDRA
• Mastermind: HYDRA High Council
• Villain Group 1: HYDRA Elite
• Villain Group 2: AIM HYDRA Offshoot
• Henchmen: Hand Ninjas
• Heroes:
• Agent Phil Coulson
• Deathlok
• Mockingbird
• Quake
• Nick Fury
• Result: Win

Prologue: Game Nights

I have enjoyed playing board and card games since I was young. Game nights had me excited days ahead of time. We had this rule in our house: winner chooses the next game. So, if you want to play the game you want, you had to earn it. We played all the traditional family classics; so many rounds of Monopoly, Yahtzee, The Game of Life, and one of my all time favorites: Clue. I played checkers with my mom and chess with my dad. As I got older, my mom and dad both taught me some card games like gin and rummy. From there, I found games that were based on some of my favorite cartoons. Soon, my brothers and I would play at least a couple of rounds of the board game based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon from the 2000s almost every single Saturday. Then came the game that changed everything: HeroScape.

HeroScape, with its customizable maps and vast cast of characters was everything I had been wanting: a game I not only played, but built and rebuilt, again and again; I wasn't just a player anymore, I was a creator. Of course, now I know that games just as advanced, and far more advanced, have existed far longer than I have been aware of them. However, in that moment, that was the most engaging and inspiring board game experience I had ever had; it was the absolute peak of board gaming. Soon, I was building out entire campaigns. I had notebooks full of customized maps, as well as the lore behind those maps and any special rules I had come up with. I worked on creating a way for the characters to level up over the span of multiple battles. When they came out with the Marvel edition, I immediately thought of how I could create compatible characters from shows like Dragonball Z, Yu Yu Hakuhso, and G Gundam especially; I was really excited at the idea of creating characters that would take up even more spaces on the board than Grut or Mimring. I made sure HeroScape and all my other board games stayed with me, even after I graduated and moved out for college. They were one of the first things I unpacked when I moved into each of the apartments I've lived in since graduating college.

My time after college sparsely included board games. I had run out of people to play them with. Fortunately, I made a few friends and I have since had wonderful people to play my favorite games with. I am excited, grateful, and elated to say I now have a gaming partner to play with for the rest of my life. 10 months ago, I got married. My wife and I have had some of our most meaningful conversations while playing games together. We've made each other laugh to the point of tears. We've had silly, overly-invested disagreements about grammar when certain details are written ambiguously. We've built one another up, helping each other believe in ourselves and in the strength we have together. More than anything, I have had the most fun I've ever had each time I play games with my wife; which is why the theme and title of this blog are inspired by one game in particular: Marvel Legendary.

I chose Marvel Legendary as the theme for the blog, because it's the one game that I play exclusively with my wife. We've even talked about including some of our friends and each of the few times that has happened, we almost immediately look at each other, smile, and share an unspoken thought: no, when we play Legendary, it's our time. So, here it is: the blog where my preferred type of journaling meets one of my very favorite ways to spend time, with the most important person in my life at the heart of it all.

I love you my love and I cannot thank you enough for all the memories.