Marvel Skirmish! in New York is a 2-player card game.

Title: Marvel Skirmish! in New York

Year Published: 2025

Designer: Matthias Cramer

Publisher: Lookout Games

Players: 2

Game Time: ~30 minutes

Set-up Time: ~2 minutes

Ages: 10+

Theme: Marvel: Heroes vs Villains

Mechanisms: Hand Management, Take That

How to win: Get to the number of points for your side of the battle, or rescue all but 2 civilians as the Heroes.

Old friends and enemies meet in the streets of New York, and an epic battle of good vs. evil erupts: Who will prevail? Doctor Strange and Hulk, or Ultron and Loki?

How to play Marvel Skirmish! in New York

Learn how to play Marvel Skirmish! in New York quickly and concisely.

Main Mechanisms

Hand management. You need to discard cards to play cards.

Powerful cards cost 4 cards in hand to play, and you only draw 2 each turn, so you need to manage your hand.

Theme

Marvel! The character abilities fit thematically into the mechanisms.

Setup & Rulebook

Setup is easy. Lay out the board and shuffle your decks.

The rulebook does a good job of explaining the rules.

There is an appendix that explains all of the cards and tiles’ abilities… But for some reason, it’s only available digitally.

Components & Artwork

The components are fine. It’s not an expensive game, so I wouldn’t expect too much. However, if you plan on playing this a lot, I would sleeve the hero and villain cards.

The art is OK. It’s Marvel, so hard to get wrong, but it’s not ‘great’.

Ease of Teaching

The game mechanisms themselves are easy to teach. Some of the rules on the cards are a little more complicated.

If only there were a roundup of these cads included in the box.

Similar Games

2-player back-and-forth games like Hanamikoji and Splendor Duel are fun, but without the Marvel theme.

Marvel Skirmish! in New York Review

Positives

I like the Marvel theme.

I always like it when you have to discard cards to play cards. It makes for tough choices.

Gaiing and artefact takes a while, but feels big.

The swing between control over the regions changes a lot during the game…

Negatives

…but it is a bit too swingy in a way.

Luck of the draw is important.

Marvel Skirmish! in New York Round-Up

A very fun 2-player only game with an attractive theme.

Rating

I give it 6/10