Who Is Malekith the Accursed?
Malekith is King of the Dark Elves and Lord of Svartalfheim. Atop his Bog Tiger, he has been a scourge to Midgard and its champions (and Thor in particular) for years. Now he calls his Dark Council to his banner, and seeks to call the Wild Hunt once more.
Veteran players probably still feel a chill of terror at the mention of His Highness, but several rounds of nerfs have brought him more into the “fair” zone.
Character Card:
Malkeith has 4 across all defenses, which seems to be the standard for high threats. 9 health on his healthy side, 7 on his injured, makes him a little fragile for the Threat, but he has a means of mitigating that some. Medium Move on large base with Flight makes getting where you want to go no issue. With Flight, size 4 works against us more than for us, but does let us some dodge some displacement from lower-threat models.
Blade of Midnight is our standard gainer. With the Pierce being removed in the last round of nerfs, this is not the terror it used to be. Even so, energy is a common soft spot on enemies, and with Malekith’s abilities can still be a consistent damage dealer.
Blood Boil is a Beam 4 mystic attack that inflicts poison on a wild. While it can give quite a bit of power with enough targets (remember, each attack in the beam gives 1 power), it’s not the attack you’re looking for when you activate the model.
Malekith declared himself Butcher of Thors while fighting 4 Thors at once (comic books, don’t worry about it). This mighty spender provides mobility, a solid 10 die attack, and the ability to dish out conditions for each wild rolled. Most notably Hex, which causes crits to no longer explode. 4 power is a lot to spend, especially with some of the other (yet undiscussed) tricks in our toolkit. However, if you find yourself out of formation and flush on power, you could do worse than firing this off.
A great check to see how long someone has been playing the game is to see if they still flinch when you call Ferocity. In the halls of “enhanced Charge” abilities, this one is still a doozy. The nerf to Blade of Midnight have obviously hurt it, and locking the throw to size 3 or less is annoying, but still a great means of kill confirming or getting extra damage if your opponent clumps up.
Cloak of Shadows is why you play Malekith. Spending to turn skulls into crits feels AWESOME! Keep in mind that anytime you are doing this for Blade of Midnight, you get the power back. Doing on the defense or dodge can also save your life, which given your low life total is important.
For passives, Conqueror of the Ten Realms gives us an extra power, which is nice. We have flight (as discussed) and is immune to Hex and Stun. Hex is a rare condition, but it sucks to have, so being immune to it is nice. Stun keeps us from losing power, which is good, because we need all of it.
Leadership
In times past, Malekith convened The Dark Council in order to conquer the Ten Realms. Here we act as a sort of anti-Sam Wilson; healing, moving, and gaining power when we daze or KO an enemy. As far as Cabal leaderships go, this is solidly mid. It’s not the worst Cabal has access to, but more often than not this is just consolation for fitting this 7 threat monster into your team.
Affiliations
Malekith is only Cabal, adding to the “Dark Asgard” side of the affiliation with Loki, Ulik, Enchantress, and Skurge. There was a time when Malekith was everywhere, but as he’s been bonked multiple times with the Nerf-bat, he frankly even rarely sees play in his own affiliation.
Which is a bit of a shame (as I will detail in the verdict.)
Tactics Cards
Malekith has two tactics cards tied to him.
The Black Bifrost is locked to Cabal. For 3 power, you can create a pair of portals. The first within 1 of Malekith himself, the other 5 from the first one. One per turn, anyone can take 1 damage to travel between the two portals. This can be good against go-wide opponents so that you can chase them down or even use it to pull out of the heat post-charge.
Midnight Phantasmagoria is a further means of protecting yourself. Push all enemies within 3 away short and heal 1 damage for every enemy pushed. It is important to note that, unlike Ferocity, this is not size locked. Charge in, raise hell, then displace your opponent’s squad
The Verdict
I’m not here to deny reality. His majesty is not the terror he was in 2023. However, I do think he is now a role-player, and is worthy of consideration in your Cabal list.
In his current interaction, Malekith is a bully. While he can’t just melt whoever he pleases, he can still thrive in a target-rich environment. Size 3 will still throw most of the models in the game, including a lot of the bigger threats like Thor, Namor, and Thanos. Keep him topped off with power, and he can still throw out a surprisingly consistent amount of damage. 7 threat is a lot, but the fact that he is also a leader mean you can feel confident throwing around some of Cabal’s scarier 5 threats, such a Red Skull Master of Hydra or Ultron Metal Tyrant.
I’m not saying he’s poised to make a comeback and take the meta by storm, but I also think it’s a shame that he’s being completely ignored.
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