Dicebreaker Recommends is a series of monthly board game, RPG and other tabletop recommendations from our friends at our sibling site, Dicebreaker.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has just been recently released to rave reviews, whilst Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and other classic superheroes continue to remain beloved in the hearts and minds of Marvel fans everywhere. But what about the antagonists of the Marvel world? You can’t have a hero without a villain and Marvel sure has some memorable ones, which is why the Marvel Villainous board game series is such a fun idea.
The first entry in the series was Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power and featured the likes of Thanos, Hella and Killmonger – an excellent choice of playable characters but outclassed by the next game, Mischief & Malice. I am undoubtedly extremely biased towards Mischief & Malice purely because it features my favourite character from the MCU, Loki, but I also genuinely enjoy a lot of the title’s core gameplay elements and its emphasis on introducing some lesser-known villains from the Marvel universe.
Mischief & Malice can be played as an expansion to Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power, but it can also be experienced on its own as long as you don’t need to support more than three people. In the game, players can choose from Loki – the god of mischief, you know him and love him – M.O.D.O.K, an incredibly intelligent mastermind and leader of A.I.M; and Madame Masque, an experienced assassin with a lot of contracts to complete. Mischief & Malice is a competition to see whoever can achieve their objectives first, but how players go about them will be different depending on who they’re playing as.
The core gameplay system for Mischief & Malice is based on one first established by Disney Villainous, a board game which saw players becoming the likes of Hades and Jafar in a race to secure their place as the ultimate Disney baddie, but makes some welcome changes. Apart from the obvious difference in theme and playable roster, Mischief & Malice takes the premise of the Villainous formula in a much more interesting direction than the initial Disney release ever did.