Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
When word went out to the Meeple Mountain team that The Op had a review copy of Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men available, my interest was piqued. I’d known about the series for years, but never had a chance to play. I volunteered, albeit with trepidation.
“Would…would I like…Dice Throne?”
The responses, along the lines of “I kind of want to see your reaction to a Dice Throne game,” were not encouraging.
I learnt a long time ago not to listen to someone who hands you a glass and says, “Drink it,” with a smirk on their face. I have apparently not learnt that lesson when it comes to board games.
Yahtzee!
I can teach you this bad boy in almost no time at all. Here’s your character board, which lists all of the different valid dice combinations and what they do for you. Most, if not all, are attacks. Dice Throne is not a game for the pacifists among us. Victory comes through player elimination. It’s Unmatched if Unmatched allowed for absolutely zero future planning.
Here’s your character sheet, which includes in-depth explanations of each of your character’s powers. In Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men, most characters have three such abilities, though there are exceptions. These, by and large, are what bring out the flavor in your character. Iceman lets you freeze your opponents’ lowest rolls, Wolverine can heal damage, and Jean Grey/Phoenix changes her strengths as she alternates between those two modes.
Next up is your deck, which includes cards that allow you to manipulate some of your dice, or modify an attack, or, if you’re lucky, you’ll draw a card that upgrades one of the moves on your board. They supercharge the dopamine rush by allowing for powerful attacks.
Finally, you have your dice, five in all, customized to your character. Each turn, you get to roll and re-roll up to three times, either settling for a weaker combination of faces or pushing your luck to try and level your opponent(s).
It isn’t controversial to say that Dice Throne is Yahtzee with asymmetry. That’s the whole idea. The designers—Gavan Brown, Nate Chatellier, and Manny Trembley—squarely aim for “Throw some dice, have some fun,” and they hit the mark for those of a certain inclination.
I am not those of a certain inclination.
I Don’t Really Care for Gob Dice Throne
It’s not that I don’t enjoy push-your-luck games. That is certainly not true. I find push-your-luck as addictive as anyone when it’s presented in a context where I feel like I’m making real decisions, like in Ra or Sekigahara. Heck, Chicken! is a charming push-your-luck dice game that I’ll play any time.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy the theme. If anything, I wish the theme were more prevalent. I have a good amount of experience with systems built around various characters, like Root, Villainous, and Unmatched, and while I cannot speak for the broader offerings of Dice Throne characters, I can say that those included in Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men don’t feel meaningfully different from one another. They are different. I wouldn’t say they are the same. That would be a fib. But I’d also be fibbing if I said I felt any difference when playing as Psylocke or Iceman, as Cyclops or Wolverine.
It all comes down to what feels to me like a lack of any meaningful decisions. Your character board makes it seem like you have all these choices, but you don’t, really. At least not as far as I can tell. I roll the dice. I do what the dice let me do. You roll the dice. You do what the dice let you do. We continue until one of us can no longer find the strength to roll on. There is an argument to be made that I have just defined most board games, but most board games don’t feel that way. Every game is an illusion. Some games are just better at it than others.
Why then, you may ask, the fairly positive rating? Well, I didn’t play this in a vacuum, I played it with other people, and many of those people enjoyed Dice Throne quite a bit. Would I play it again? I’d rather not! Would I understand if someone told me it was their favorite game? I’d blink on the way to comprehending, but I’d manage. I think Dice Throne scratches a particular itch, and I get the impression that it scratches that itch rather well, but I don’t think I’ve ever once experienced that itch in my life.
Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men details
- Designer: Gavan Brown, Manny Trembley, Nate Chatellier
- Artists: Manny Trembley
- Publishers: Dice Throne, Inc., The Op Games
- Release Date: 2025
- Player count : 2 - 6
- Age range : 8+
- Time range : 20 - 40 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Dice Rolling, Take That, Team-Based Game, Variable Player Powers
- BGG Geek Rating: 8.46762 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.0.
- More articles about Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men.
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