Squad Analysis: This Is The Way Squad

The Mandalorians were a proud and fierce warrior culture, known for their armor made out of Beskar steel and their suberb combat prowess. Now their once thriving empire has whithered away leaving different creeds of Mandalorians scattered throughout the galaxy. Today we shall meet a few of them along the way: the crafty Armorer, the brave Paz Vizsla and the covert Mandalorians.

The Armorer a.k.a. the Woman-dalorian

Role: Melee Tank with Force-saving Bonus

Strengths:

Fantastic Force Identity: with “Our survival is our strength” allied Mandos don’t have to spend extra Force for active or reactive abilities when they are wounded or injured. This is the most important ability of the Armorer! Force management wins games, and this makes it significantly easier. Mandos are generally Force-hungry, and this lets them really go wild.

Strong Melee Fighter: Up to 9 damage in both stances. In “Strength of the Hammer” she rolls 8 dice with top-tier expertise = at 2+ already 1 Hit, 1 Crit, and a Crit to fail (you can almost hear the hammer smashing the armor). At 4+ there’s even an additional Crit to fail!

Very tanky: “Insight of the Forge” is her defensive stance with 6 defense dice in both melee and ranged combat! Her defensive expertise is super strong. At 3+ you get 2 blocks and 2 Crits turned to fails. That's extremely strong against high-Crit characters like Jedi.

She also has the passive ability “Just as we shape Mandalorian steel. We shape ourselves”, which gives +1 melee defense die for every 3 damage taken, and +1 die if she has an injured token. That’s basically like Maul's Identity in reverse.

Good Mobility: Her tactical ability lets her and another Mando jump. Through “Both Hunter and Prey”, the Armorer can jump or advance towards an enemy character. If they end up in melee, both become Exposed.

Weaknesses:

No ranged attack: she is the Armorer and solely relies on her tools.

Not a great objective player: Can’t easily capture objectives (no access to an early double shove) and also not great at holding them (no Steadfast or reposition through defense expertise).

By the WAY.... have you heard about the two Mandalorians walking through a forest? Here it goes:  they walk through the forrest when all of a sudden one of them faints and drops to the ground. The first Mandalorian activates his communicator and tells his commander "I think Mando just died! what he should do?". The commander says, ‘First, make sure he’s really dead.’ A few seconds later a blaster shot is heard. The first Mandalorian then says, "alright, now what?".

Paz Vizsla a.ka. "we need a bigger gun!"

Role: Looks like a damage dealer but is actually a much better objective holder (but can still deal damage!)

Special Feature: Paz has two stances. In “Fearless” he uses a vibroblade and shield. In “Heavy Firepower”, he uses the Gatling Blaster.

Strengths:

Strong at Defending Objectives: With his reactive ability “I cover the rear”, whenever an allied character within Range 2 (including Paz himself) is attacked, Paz may jump anywhere and make a 5-dice ranged attack against the attacker. That’s really good! Opponents will think twice about attacking Paz or nearby characters. So it's a deterrence as well.

Additionally, in the “Fearless” stance, he gains Steadfast.

Great Support for Other Mandalorians: Paz wants to stay in midfield. His tactical ability “We are Mandalorians” heals 1 damage or condition from every allied Mandalorian (including himself) within Range 4. Then, all Mandalorian Support characters within Range 4 may jump.

Good Damage Dealer: In Heavy Firepower, he can deal up to 8 damage with 7 ranged dice. In Fearless, 9 damage with 8 melee dice. That’s nothing to frown upon!

In addition to his 5-dice counter from “I cover the rear,” he has a crazy kamikaze revenge trigger:

“Go. There are too many": When Paz is wounded, he may take 2 injured tokens and perform a 5-dice attack against the attacker. Luckily Paz has 3 Health Points so it doesn't immediately knock him out. Once again this is more useful as a general deterrence.

Very Tanky in Melee: In Fearless, his shield gives him great melee defense: at 3+ Expertise = 2 Blocks, Crit to fail, and Crit to Hit. Plus, he rolls 6 defense dice.

Weaknesses:

Hard to Play: To optimize him, you need to switch intelligently between Fearless and Heavy Firepower.

Vulnerable to DDP (Diceless Displacement): Force Push etc. can easily remove him from the action.

Linear Combat Tree: In Fearless, he has a no-branching combat tree (straight line).

Identity Restriction: Can’t be put into Reserve while having an injured token due to his Identity.

Expensive at 5 points: In Mandalorian lists, he’s sometimes replaced due to his cost.

By the way... how do Mandos travel back to the future?

– With a Man-DeLorean.

Speaking of cars. Let's move on to the Corvette Mandalorians.

      Covert Mandalorians

Role: Mid-range all-rounders

Strengths:

Typical Mandalorians: Good vertical mobility via jetpacks. Easy access to Focus through “Mandalorians are stronger together” (great action economy).

Flexible in Combat: Unlike Clan Kryze (ranged) or Super Commandos (melee), the Covert Mandalorians combine the best of both worlds. You can choose between Sharpshooter and Impact.

More Resilient than your average Mando: If they’re in the deck or in reserve, they gain Protection.

Good Combat Tree: On the first three steps: 2 Shoves, or 5 damage, or 3 damage + Strain + Shove. Very flexible and very strong!

Weaknesses:

Weak Defense Expertise: they must have mistakenly switched their Beskar for Clone Trooper armor = max 2 blocks at 2+ expertise.

With only 7 HP, they can go down quickly.

Era-limited: Rare era and heavily tied to the Armorer. Without her, they become too Force-hungry.

Good Squad Combinations

Full Mando Mode: Din Djarin, Bo-Katan, Clan Kryze / Armorer, Paz Vizsla, Covert Mandalorians

= Strong and easy-to-play list. Great mobility, solid damage output, good objective play, excellent revenge trigger (Din Djarin), and minimal Force management required.

Unlike other lists that get weaker as the game progresses, the Mandos actually get stronger (Force economy stays consistent and Armorer adds increasing tankiness).

Note: To play all Mandos, you’ll need two Squad Packs and the Core Set. So they are more expensive than other strike teams.

A dip into the dark side: Maul, Gar Saxon, Super Commandos / Armorer, Paz Vizsla, Covert Mandalorians

This is the more aggressive version of the above list. Maul and Gar Saxon have very high damage output. The list leans heavily into melee, but has enough mobility to balance that out.

Scoundrel-loreans: Cad Bane, Aurra Sing, Super Commandos / Armorer, Paz Vizsla, Covert Mandalorians

Aurra Sing is very strong since her update but also super Force-hungry. In this list, she gains the Mandalorian tag via “On Contract”, so she doesn’t cost more Force when wounded.

Cad Bane’s role here is objective play: with “How about you step aside,” he can steal objectives, and his defensive healing and jump make him surprisingly tanky.

Variant: Swap Aurra for Shaak Ti. She can move Mercenaries, brings extra Force, and is very good at capturing objectives.

Difficult Matchups:

As a pure midrange team, they don’t have obvious weaknesses.

However, they are a bit vulnerable to strong displacement tools (like Force Push) due to their mostly vertical mobility.

Good Missions:

Sabotage Showdown

Never Tell Me the Odds

First Contact

Bad Mission:

Shifting Priorities due to long horizontal distances.

Summary:

The “This is the Way” squad is a very strong midrange team, offering good list-building flexibility with Mandalorians and Scoundrels.

They are rather easy to play, Force-efficient, and tend to get stronger as the game progresses.

Now I'm all of a sudden thinking about fruit and craving Mangos. There must be a joke in there somewhere...