MCP in 2023, A Year in Review.

 MCP in 2023, A Year in Review.

Hey folks :)

Thought I would resurrect this old thing :) Been over 2 years since I last posted on this, mainly as the Midlife Crisis Protocol channel took off; in views and time required for editing and posting. So I guess this blog kind of fell redundant, til now.

I did actually mean to post up in 2022 but between work and life and everything else I forgot, and when I got round to it it was far past a reasonable time to post a review of 2022. 

SO....where are we? Well I'd have referred back to 2021 to remind me how to put a format to all of this, but it turns out Blogger only keeps posts for about 18 months, so this post is going to be a combination of planned structure and actual winging it :)

I will try and break it down into a few subsections for easier reading :)

Midlife Crisis Protocol.

Well, I guess this works as a starting point. :) Back in 2021 we were still in the early days of this, but since then the channel has grow to almost 100 battle reports. We started filming with new players, new people and adding some variety to the channel, alongside playing in new locations and stores.

Going forward into 2024 I am hoping to produce at least 2 videos a month, with more if possible. We are approaching 100 videos now so I am keen to do something different for video 100, similar to what we did for the 50th episode :)

Events.

I will mainly focus on 2023 here, but 2022 was a good year for the Scottish MCP scene. We grew to fairly decent numbers getting usually 16-18 players per event. For 2023 the scene continued to grow and we are now hitting 20+ for all of our events. There has been players from 2021 and 2022 coming to events regularly and we picked up a ton of new players in 2023, including some familiar faces from the days when I was a Warmachine player. 

We also managed to run a successful team tournament. 8 teams of 3 players over 3 rounds :) 2024 I was feeling ambitious and have kept the teams at 8, but upped the team size to 5, if there is enough demand we could expand to 10 teams, so fingers crossed for that :). With our regular events every month continuing for 2024 I have also submitted an application to Tabletop Scotland to run a Marvel event there in their 2024 convention, so fingers crossed also for us being successful on that front :)

I would be amiss if I didn't mention the guys from ProTech, our nearest meta across the border. I attended events regularly across 2022 and 2023 and honestly was worth every trip. Even managed to get some of the local guys to come with me on occasion :)

We also have the WTC for 2024, preparations for which are already underway. As a meta we are hoping to send 2 teams to represent Scotland :)

Lastly, but definitely not least, the York Weekender!

This event ran twice this year by the guys at NextGen from York (and hopefully returning in 2024). Amazing event, fantastic value for money and a great way to catch up with friends and fellow gamers across a lot of different metas and areas. The first time we went down in spring it was only 4 of us, but in Autumn 7 of the Scottish guys went down, some of them for their first major event in gaming and they all did exceptionally well :)

State of the Game.

Phew! Where to begin here. The state of the game, in my opinion, is very balanced. From the Guardians/Thanos build, to Malekith to the current boogieman of Cosmic Ghost Rider, things have changed a lot over the last 2 years. We have had 2 (I think) balance updates since I last posted on here. The first propelling Guardians to the top end of the board and the recent one pushing Inhumans, Defenders and X-Men back up the rankings. The game, to me, overall is in a great place. CGR is definitely an issue, and hopefully sometime soon might get addressed by the powers that be.

We also had the release of a new core set in 2023 with new versions of the OG Core set with a couple of new additions. New scenarios released alongside the card rotation definitely has kept the game new and fresh and interesting.

Looking forward to 2024 we are expecting new Wakandans, Asgardians, X-men and Web Warriors amongst whatever else AMG have in store.

Going into 2024 I myself plan to play some more Avengers, the new Captain America is growing on me so will see where this road takes me :)

In Conclusion.

So that's it for me for 2023. I apologise this isn't as well written as a lot of my other blog posts, I am very rusty at this, compared to when I did them back in 2021. I look forward to 2024 to see what it brings, in the gaming sense and otherwise. Hopefully will see some of you at future events, or you can always catch up with my ramblings online or over at the Midlife channel on Youtube.

Happy New Year and all the best for 2024 :)