This was a Christmas present to me a couple of years ago, and it sat on my pile of shame for WAY longer than it should have, so it seems only fair that it get some spotlight this holiday season. This is the coolest piece of terrain that I think I own, certainly so for Marvel Crisis Protocol as a game. My brother, who does PLA 3D printing in his spare time, printed this at my request after I picked it up from BlankSlateCreate as a pattern on Etsy – and I can’t recommend that pattern highly enough. It’s the biggest terrain piece I own for that game, but more importantly it’s multiple pieces of terrain and gives me some awesome storage options for “Away” games with Kinpatsusamurai or if I start to branch out more into playing at my FLGS.

Painting this up, though I didn’t lean as far into it as I originally planned, I tried to incorporate a lot of bright colors. I’d originally wanted to tackle this with more of a “neon” aesthetic but that didn’t quite come together – still happy with how the bright yellows look on the grimy, worn-looking building after some sponge treatments on the lower coats. I did some experimenting on the big blue letters with contrast paints, though I wasn’t totally satisfied with the results I think it contrasts nicely (see what I did there?) with some of the other more traditionally painted windows, frames, bricks, and signs. I got to run with a lot of different techniques and as tedious as I found it to paint something up this big, I think it gave me a lot of useful practice out of it.

The Cardcade is more than just a pretty face, though, because it’s a set of modular, destroyable terrain. The air conditioner, windows, awnings, and even individual floors of the building can be detached and used as throwable terrain in the context of the game. The front compartment and back compartment are each the right size for a range ruler holder and for the large, unwieldly MCP character cards, which is going to make it a lot easier for me to haul a handful of heroes back and forth to games. This also isn’t the only building like this that BlankSlateCreate have put together, so with their patterns you could build a pretty cohesive-looking street of terrain.

Even before it was fully painted, me and Kinpatsusamurai had the chance to break the Cardcade in during a co-op game of Marvel Crisis Protocol. We did the co-op “Hel to Pay” scenario, with Goblin Queen standing in for the titular villain character. What followed was hilarity as Hulk and She-Hulk tipped the scales of the scenario in our favor by picking up the Cardcade – the entire Cardcade – and throwing it at Goblin Queen, leaving her standing very confusedly in an enormous pile of rubble while the rest of the heroes finished scoring points and winning the game. Brilliant terrain piece, made for some top-tier shenanigans, and I’m definitely intending to play more games in the new year – and more on that to follow!