Because I mean, Nic got what he wanted, no one on Harry's crew managed to die. That's...basically it.

  I don't think he did.  He may have claimed he wanted the Grail, but in my opinion his real aim was the Spear.  If Michael is right, and he usually is about these things, under the heading of "be careful
for what you ask for you may get it,"  Nic getting the Grail may backfire on him.   In other words the Grail may lead to his redemption, not a bad thing but not what he was after at all.

If by con, you mean that Nic got the grail but Harry got the other pieces of the Holy set?

  Yeah, but what I am wondering is does Mab even know that Harry retrieved the Spear, etc.?
  Or she does know in her usual four dimensional chess way, saying eventually when Harry does
bring them out, that that was her plan all along?

So rereading Small Favour Chapter 3 " a leather pouch made from the genital sac of i kid you not an actual African lion. It was a gift. Don't ask."

Where did that come from?

   Some poor lion somewhere is walking around without a pair....

   No one snatched Harry at six.  Wasn't he in a state run orphanage for the next five years or so? I think Lea visited from time to time, but she didn't influence him. I don't think even she planned for Justin to grab him at twelve.  Six is the perfect age for brain washing and molding of young forming minds, yet it didn't happen.  Was everyone hedging their bets until his talent started to manifest itself?  Or they were all clueless as to what Harry was? Perhaps Justin wasn't looking for star born kids when he adopted Harry and Elaine, but merely wanted talented unattached that he could train up as enforcers with no questions asked?  Which begs thequestion, enforcers for what?

In terms of sides there is Harry and the A team.  Two skulls and a crusty prison guard.  Toot Toot and the Guard.  The Tooth Fairy. A newly minted Knight with bad vision.  A white vamp and proto father.  Three werewolves and a Temple Dog. Two on the injured reserve, an ex cop with a bad knee and a former Knight with a most perfect safe house.

Not that significant, good in small fights, but no political pull..

Team Winter.

Significant, but not clear who is teaming up with them aside from wizard or two..

Uriel, Mab, and Vadderung.  With Hades as a banker. The god squad, kinda.

Not clear because they keep their cards close to their vests...  Now against Reds with the exception of Hades[unknown as a player at the time] they were on team Harry..

Nemesis and whatever "it" is supposed to represent.

Indeed, and since almost anybody can be vulnerable to infiltration by  it, it is unclear who's side who is on, or who the sides are.

The Circle, some bitchin bad guys maybe based in Egypt.

Totally fuzzy at this point, only guy who might be a member is Cowl. 

Oh, and the Senior Council, which has one foot on a banana peel and the other over the abyss.

Back to my original premise, I doubt it is clear as to what side everyone is on or even what the sides are

Comic relief, the Formor.  Who may or may not be due an upgrade.

Agreed, they are at best a distraction, but do not underestimate a group that kidnaps children at
the rate that they do.  Unless they enjoy them roasted over a slow fire, just what are they planning to do with all of them.

He smashed them down in Cold Days. Because his power was not his magic, but his mind.

So suggests to me his key powerup will be knowledge, as Odin alluded to.

  Of course, that too.

  If course Harry is getting more powerful, he is the star child, by the BAT he has to be a real bad ass otherwise he won't have a chance against the Outsiders.

Cram as much meaning as you wish in those two sentences.  They do not say that he soul gazed Malcolm.  They can be read multiple ways.  Your interpretation is only one.  It may be the right one, but WAG's are built on the other interpretations. 

Soul gazes are presented as something more intimate than sex.  I would need to have a premise that justified Malcolm letting a stranger impose that intimacy upon him.

Eb wouldn't have been a stranger, this was the father of the woman Malcolm loved.  Not some stranger that came in from the street getting randomly soul gazed.  This is a man his daughter loved, who apparently left Lord Raith for and all the risks that entails, it is only natural he'd want to know just who this guy is. And what is the best way for that?  Drum roll please, the soul gaze.  There is as much justification for my wag as yours...

Eb met Malcolm at that same meeting.  The meeting was about producing a child as a Starborn.  Malcolm is a scion of an angel.  Eb objects but Margaret says to hell with it since she is under the influence  of Raith and has the baby anyway and falls for Malcolm releasing her from Raith's control.  True love.  Possibly Malcolm was himself controlled by Raith. 

Where exactly is your justification from the text for that again?  Where is it written that Malcolm was even at this meeting?   Or that Malcolm is the scion of an angel?  Eb says Malcolm was just an ordinary vanilla human, nothing special about save his goodness.  Or where is your text evidence even remote evidence that Malcolm was possibly controlled by Raith?

Exactly when and where did Malcolm get soul gazed by Eb?  Graveside?

So you think that Eb never met Malcolm?  In Blood Rites

Eb tells Harry  page 299 paperback

"She met your father.  A man.  A mortal, without power, without influence, without resources. But a man with a good soul, like few I've ever seen,I believe she fell in love with him.

So evidently Eb did meet Malcolm, and since he talks about what Malcolm's soul looks like compared to others he has seen.. That sounds like a soul gaze to me, which makes sense that Eb might want to know why his daughter is so interested in this seemingly ordinary guy.

I don't know that the stars had anything to do with it.

Metaphorically speaking, but astrological as well, as Lash tells Harry page 363 White Night hardback

"There was a complex confluence of events, of energies, of circumstances that would have given a child born under them the potential to wield power over Outsiders."

 

If Lash knew what they were, apparently Margaret did as well.  After she met Malcolm, no doubt she felt he was exactly the guy to father such a child.  I am willing also to bet she payed close attention to her cycle, knew when she would be the most fertile.  With help from the Winter Court, and who knows, Listens to Wind, she could tweak her moment of conception... Heck since it appears that Malcolm cooperated in this, Harry could have been conceived in a test tube to make sure the timing was just right.   

He died in his sleep one night. An aneurism, the doctors said. I found him, cold, smiling.

I know, however that still doesn't mean it was easy to set things up to kill him does it?