How to start the affiliation
The best starting point for Cabal is the earths mightiest core set as it comes with your most well rounded leader as well as good affiliated models and staple TTCs. You should probably look at eBay and the like for a classic 3 threat Baron Zemo too. After that Cabal has a million ways you can go but sadly not many packs have two Cabal characters in them. It’s probably best to look at the list of affiliated characters (further below) and figure out the route you want to take.
What leaderships are available and what is the typical archetype
Master of Evil is a very good leadership especially for characters that attack with Beams, area attacks and the like and need a lot of power to fund their kit.
My Cabal is only for the Strong is a strong leadership that makes every attack you make more efficient. Something to watch out for, especially as the opponent, is that you have to decide to use the leadership before the defenders initial defense roll.
The Dark Council is Sam Wilson’s leadership turned on his head where it gives you a gigantic boon for killing your opponents models, but it has nothing helping you to do it directly (of course the movement and additional power will usually go towards killing the next model of course).
Red Mayhem is… weird. It creates a lot of chaos but it is also super unreliable and can have crisises where half of it just does nothing. Hard to build around.
Overall Cabal plays mostly a type 3 sometimes type 4 stlye game plan so they mostly try to kill you, sometimes with the option to play scenario if they feel you can outfight them.
Rating every affiliated TTC and Character
Team Tactics (4)
Cosmic Invigoration
B. If you have OG Red Skull in your squad you should think about the card. Removing an activated token from one of your higher threat killing machines is definitely worth a spot in your 5.
Dark Reign
A+. You’ll play exactly 0 Cabal games without this card.
Dig In
B-. It’s a cool card but camping on a point with Crossbones is probably not going to further your own game plan enough to be worth taking it over other options.
The Black Bifrost
A. Very hard to play correctly (too hard for me to try personally) and needs a lot of reps but if you are good at it it will be very good.
Characters (36)
Arnim Zola (3)
C+. Zola is one of the coolest looking models in the game and comes with good attacks and superpowers but he’s very slow and too easy to take out
Baron Helmut Zemo (4)
B. 4 threat Zemo is a totally fine damage 4 threat. He just has to face the competition of his own alter ego which makes it hard for him.
Baron Mordo (3)
B. Mordo is cool and very different. He doesn’t have the highest damage output himself but he can spread incinerate and Hex around as well as boosting your hard hitters dice making him a really cool support piece.
Baron Strucker (3)
B. Strucker is often overlooked for the faster and harder hitting Zemo but Strucker is often better as a support piece as he stays more in your bunker and can hand out Incinerate.
Baron Zemo (3)
A+. Arguably the best 3 threat in the game. (Only challenged by Miles Morales and Black Cat)
Bob, Agent of Hydra (2)
B-. An affiliated 2 threat is always worth considering and Bob brings very unique tricks with him. His biggest problem is:
Bullseye (2)
A. Bullseye is absolutely fantastic bringing absolutely reliable ping damage, hit and run, parting shot and range 4 attacks. You have to have a specific reasoning to not have him in your roster.
Cassandra Nova (5)
C. Cassandra has cool abilities but lacks the action economy here to actually use them. There’s also a lot of competition for the affiliated 5 threat slot.
Crossbones (3)
C+. Original Crossbones is very slow but has decent attacks and the option for good character specific TTCs. More interesting if you bring Sin.
Crossbones, Merciless Merc (3)
B+. Crossbones 2 is deceptively fast(er) with aggressive and Hit and Run, brings a beam, flat damage reduction and a great spender.
Dracula (5)
A. Drac is straight up fantastic from reading his card.
Enchantress (4)
A++. I love Amora. No seriously more a B. She has great abilities but can be taken out quickly if they focus her down.
Hood (3)
B. Hood brings very unique abilities to the table including a heal. In Demon form he is quite tanky and in regular form his Mystic Rapid Fire can take care of nasty Spider-People.
Killmonger (4)
B+. If you can deliver him to where he needs to go he is a heat seeking missile. If your opponent has seen him do any kind of work before he’ll try to kill him from range which he is very vulnerable to.
Kingpin (4)
C. Kingpin is a very cool character but doesn’t really fit in any of the leaderships here.
Klaw (5)
B. Klaw is weird as hell but can rule a board in the right situation. Will reward a lot of reps. Without his own leadership he does lack much needed action economy. Both Red Skulls can help with that.
Loki, God of Mischief (4)
B+. Do you like to annoy the hell out of your opponent? Loki is your man. Especially under Red Skull, Master of the World he shines because the combination of leadership and I am a God! can make his attacks very scary with only Shields and the any Skulls after the first one being misses.
M.O.D.O.K. (5)
B-. The terror of the early days of the game is still a good damage dealer and control piece.
Magneto (6)
C-. Magneto needs his own leadership to work and playing him under a Red Skull also feels very wrong.
Malekith The Accursed (7)
A-. Mal has had a couple of much needed nerfs and is now a totally fine 7 threat you don’t have to feel bad for playing with a very good leadership and TTC attached to him.
Mephisto, Lord of Temptation (5)
B+. Mephisto is a hard character to predict without having seen him on the table yet. I think he’ll be pretty good overall and Red Skull (1) leadership could be very interesting for him to get power and Devil’s Deals tokens out of his free attack.
Mister Sinister (4)
C+. It breaks my heart but one of my favourite characters in Marvel sadly isn’t in MCP. He works decently in Red Skull (1) leadership but otherwise you can probably get more out of your 4 threat. But honestly? He’s a cool character with a great model and interesting rules. Play him more not less (I should too but he really doesn’t fit in my Asgard or Spider-Foes list at the moment that are already overloaded on 4s…).
Mysterio (3)
A. Mysterio is very much a role player and not an every game piece. But he is absolutely fantastic at his role and the Grand Illusion has to be in consideration for top 10 best character specific TTCs.
Mystique (3)
B. Mystique is fast and has stealth and Martial Artist. She used to be a staple here with Deception but Stolen Identity doesn’t bare the same weight. A perfectly fine option at 3 but nothing special.
Omega Red (4)
C+. Another personal favourite character of mine who suffers from the competition in threat value both inside and outside the affiliation. He won’t loose you the game for being there by any means but his impact on the game will also be rather limited most of the times.
Red Skull (4)
B-. While you’d never take him outside his own leadership classic Red Skull is a bit undervalued as a character. He has a size less throw on his ranged spender which is incredible and his teleport is also great. With Advanced RnD (thankfully ) gone from the game you should never ever touch his superpower that generates power but deals him a damage for each skull.
Red Skull, Master of Hydra (5)
A. Red Skull 2 is an excellent damage dealer and brings the unique selling point of having secure Grunts. Fantastic in a pure Malekith list.
Red Skull, Master of the World (4)
A. Red Skull 3 is a fantastic character in his own right coupled with a very good leadership. Pretty much the default Cabal leader nowadays.
Sabretooth (4)
B-. A fast damage dealer with a counter attack.
Sin (3)
C. Aside from her weird leadership Sin just doesn’t offer a lot for a Cabal list you can’t get otherwise. She has fantastic TTCs though.
Skurge, The Executioner (3)
B+. I love Skurge. Taunt, Aggressive, a terrain throw and very good attacks. What more can you ask of a 3 threat not named Zemo?
The Wrecking Crew (4)
A. They look absolutely awesome on paper. We’ll see if they actually live up to the hype.
Ulik (5)
A. One of the fastest 5 threats in the game and with fantastic attacks and control.
Ultron (4)
C-. Original Ultron absolutely needed Age of Ultron to be worth his threat and without it now he is just extremely overshadowed by pretty much any other 4 threat.
Ultron, Metal Tyrant (5)
A. People stopped playing him everywhere after Age went but he doesn’t need the cars to be absolutely worth his 5 threat.
Viper (3)
B-. L move with a Range 2 place and Stealth. Every objective based team (which Cabal usually isn’t) would play her if there wasn’t a model with the exact same selling points but also a steal, automatic Stagger, no rerolls and no crits against her… Yeah Black Cat is a bit overtuned in my humble opinion.
Winter Soldier, Operative (4)
B. 4 threat Bucky is fine. Blowing up terrain is nice and Soldat Activated is a strong card. You’d have to have a reason playing him over his 3 threat version though.
Who could be added to the affiliation in the future especially as new leaders
Who the F**k knows at this point? I was sure Namor would be affiliated but he isn’t so 🤷 He would’ve been the most likely candidate for another leadership to me. Otherwise anyone that is considered a villain could end up here but you never know.
Example Roster*
* I know Thanos in Red Skull 3 Cabal is considered the strongest version of the affiliation right now but this list is to show of Cabal as a faction not how broken Thanos still is.
Characters (10)
Baron Zemo (3)
Bullseye (2)
Crossbones, Merciless Merc (3)
Loki, God of Mischief (4)
Malekith The Accursed (7)
Mysterio (3)
Red Skull, Master of the World (4)
Ulik (5)
Ultron, Metal Tyrant (5)
Baron Mordo (3)
Team Tactics (10)
Dark Reign
The Black Bifrost
Cosmic Obliteration
Giant‘s Blood
I Am A Baron, After All
Midnight Phantasmagoria
The Grand Illusion
Brace for Impact (R)
Sacrifice (R)
Recalibration Matrix
Secure Crisis
Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest (E, 15)
Infinity Formula Goes Missing! (B, 17)
Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse (C, 19)
Extract Crisis
Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown! (C, 17)
Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (C, 19)
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)
That’s it for today. Next up: Convocation
Cheers from Germany 🍻
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