Path of the Mandalore
Variety is the spice of life, so I’m going to mix things up here with one of my other favorite games: Star Wars: Legion. While not the first wargame that I ever bought into, it is the first that I ever managed to play with other actual people (Ah, the days of ClickyTech, when I was a highschooler that had no money and zero desire to actually meet people to play with). The local group (shoutout to 5280 Legion!) set a very high bar for a game community for me, and while Infinity is my competitive game of choice these days, Legion and the people that play still hold a very dear place in my heart.
And now we’re finally getting a TON of Mandalorian units and some all-Mandalorian Battle Forces! My first lists and games were with Rebel Mandos, and I absolutely experimented with putting as many Mandalorian Super Commandos as I could into Shadow Collective lists, so you’d better believe I’m looking forward to this release.
We don’t have a lot of information about many of the most interesting units, but there is some. And with the latest Developer Update, we now know what some of the new weapon keywords mean, and how other keywords and concepts that have seen updates might mean for the Mandos.
So I want to start doing some preliminary theory-crafting about them. Like I said, we still don’t have a lot of information, so this is EARLY days kind of stuff, relying on a TON of assumptions, and which will probably all be entirely wrong.
But I’m really excited for this, so I’m going to do it anyway.
I’m going to assume a fairly standard Organizational Chart:
· 1-2 Commanders
· 0-2 Operatives
· 3-6 Corps Units
· 0-3 Special Forces Units
· 0-3 Support Units
· 0-2 Heavy Support Units
I think there’s likely to be some differences in the final version. I could see including increasing the upper limits on the Operative and Special Forces ranks, and decreasing the minimum Corps requirement. Mandalorians are generally pretty elite, so something along the lines of the 501st makes sense to me, though they may not go that far. There could also be differences in Org Chart for the different clans, though the (intentionally) blurred Battle Force document they’ve previewed doesn’t seem to support that at first glance.
So let’s go through the various options for each rank, then talk about what might be in the two upgrades they slipped in behind the Battle Force document, and then what I’ve seen picked out from that Battle Force document.
Heavy Support
There’s been some talk about “stealing” vehicles or something, so there will almost certainly be something here, and it may vary by clan. But I’m here for the Beskar Soldiers, so unless there’s something spectacularly good or cool, I’m out.
Well, that was easy. Maybe this won’t be fifty pages long.
Support
In this slot, we currently only know about the Mandalorian Warriors: Fire Support. I don’t know how many people realized what might be coming down the road for Strike Teams once this was revealed, but I think it was definitely a signal of that Strike Team change.
The only way to take these units is to include a unit of corps Mandalorian Warriors for each Fire Support unit you want to include.
It includes the Heavy Weapon Team keyword, so it will have a Heavy Weapon upgrade slot and you’re required to fill it to legally take this unit in your list. They haven’t shown any Heavy Weapon upgrades for Mandalorians yet, much less their cost, so these may or may not be super desirable. They have the same Jump 2 and Impervious of their base unit, all qualities of full Mandalorians. These also have Sharpshooter 1, which makes me inclined to think we’ll see at least a couple, even if their weapon upgrades are only so-so.
For the unit’s base weapons, we have Vibro Blades for melee work and the GALAAR-15 Carbines that have longer range than the base unit’s Blaster Rifles. Hooray for Star Wars, where the words are made up and the meanings don’t matter (there was some exasperation, particularly among the veterans, in the 5280 Discord about carbines having more range than rifles, so this one’s for you, Ben!). Having native Range 3 instead of Range 2 and Long Shot is some pretty great fire support for what will likely be a close ranged army. The Vibro Blades, judging on their parent unit, are likely 1 white and 1 black die, and the Carbines are likely 1 black die.
I would think the unit would have 1 health per mini, 2 courage, red saves that don’t surge, and offensively surging to hit. I’d bet they’ll be Speed 2. An interesting note is that, unlike their Strike Team predecessors, they appear to be a full unit of 4 models, which inclines me to think they will be pretty common in lists. Having these beings lay down fire for their parent unit to advance and close into melee seems like it will be a pretty common thing.
For a SWAPG (Scientific Wild-Ass Points Guestimation), I could see these being somewhere in the upper 40s or 50s, and if I’m being conservative I would say mid-50s. This is based on them being similar to, and arguably more capable than, Clone Infantry. They do require another unit to be present, so that might qualify them for a points discount, but on first impression they seem to be a very capable unit.
Corps
I think it makes the most sense to talk about the corps units in the faction next, and since we just went over the Fire Support detachment, let’s go over its parent unit.
The Mandalorian Warriors unit card looks very similar to its detachment. Red saves, surges to hit, one wound, two courage, Jump 2, Impervious, Vibro Blades. Like I mentioned above, the unit trades the Carbines for generic Blaster Rifles with the same black die at range 1-2 with Long Shot.
One of their most interesting keywords is Duelist. We’ve seen that before on the Rebel Mandalorian Resistance Beskad Duelist upgrade. It makes me wonder if there will be another such upgrade to improve the melee power of the Warriors, or perhaps it will even be a generic upgrade.
The other most interesting part of their card, in my opinion, is that the base squad size appears to be five models. For units that are as capable as these, that’s very surprising.
The Warriors aren’t as mobile or durable of Mandalorians as we’ve grown used to in the game, but they appear to be really solid units.
The other corps option are the Mandalorian Initiates.
As far as Mandalorians go, these are exceptionally barebones. They do keep a lot of the base stats, like their red saves and surge-to-hit, Long Shot Blaster Rifles, as well as the five-model unit size. Their Vibroblades aren’t as good as their fully initiated vods’, and they lose Jump, Impervious, and one point of courage.
I think the five-model unit size will really help them out, as will any upgrades that can help increase their courage or provide sources of Inspire. In a lot of ways, I think they seem like they should cost just a little bit more than Storm Troopers. The Blaster Rifles don’t have the range of the E-11, but they’ve got better dice and Long Shot. The surge-hit probably bumps up the base model to more than the cost of a Storm Trooper, and the extra guy in the base squad probably bumps it up a little more. I’d estimate between 40 and 45 points for the Initiates.
Depending on their upgrades, and Mandalorians are all huge geardos so they should have better than average upgrade slots, I think these will likely make decent, though probably not great, shock troops to soften up the enemy before your more veteran units exploit any weak points. Alternatively, these are kind of your cheerleaders, to borrow an Infinity term. With some clan rules, as we understand them, they might be able to provide tokens or be relatively sticky backwater POI holders.
We’ve seen a couple of Personnel upgrades from the Army Box in the form of Din and the Armorer, which I’ll talk about more later, but I don’t know how much I want to add either of them to Initiate or Warrior squads just to strengthen them. The surges are great for both units for defense, and that does kind of seem like what they’re intended for, but those are a lot of points to upgrade some pretty basic units.
Special Forces
These absolutely have potential to be the spicy units. The named clans all appear to have their own veteran unit with a bevy of keywords, and all looking like the Mandalorians we’ve grown used to. Or better.
We haven’t seen an updated Mandalorian Super Commandos unit card like we have for Clan Wren, so I might expect them to get something specific for their new independent Battle Force. I don’t think it will change all that much, though. They might get a fun keyword of their own like the other clans. Someone that remembers those arcs of The Clone Wars might be able to come up with something about power or whatever. Otherwise, I expect them to remain pretty similar, with their cost reflecting that.
Clan Wren Veterans are very interesting, and overall look similar to their Mandalorian Resistance cousins. They’re Mercenary: Rebels, so I would not be surprised to see them there, and they’ve got the same stat line and unit size. However they’ve added a Range 3 “Carbine” (thank the Force), as well as the Dauntless keyword, to go with the Jump, Impervious, and Nimble that we would expect. With suppression being back on the menu after the Developer Update, ensuring that your Mandalorians can still get to where they need to be will be useful in some matchups. I think these may end up in the 70s, points-wise, with the additional keywords over the standard Resistance.
The Wren keyword is We Fight For Our Family which, based on the conversations in the 5280 Discord Mandalorian channel, might provide some Guardian or Guardian-like effects. Which could be interesting in helping Sabine or Ursa do their job. If that’s the only thing the keyword(s) provide, I feel like it might be one of the weaker clan keywords, especially now that Guardianing units also receive suppression. I would guess that if that is how the Fight For Our Family rule works, it’s probably a significant motivator in the Guardian change. Ursa appears to provide some innate Inspire, so perhaps that will help.
On the other hand, the Clan Kryze Veterans look cool as the Corellian Hells.
Their basic stat lines and weapons are the same as the Wren Veterans, but they start with a base squad of five, add Tactical 1 (always appreciated), and the Clan Kryze rule is Mandalorians Are Stronger Together. If I remember correctly, we’ve been told that this rule functions similarly to Clone token sharing, which is honestly a little bananas. I think you will have to be a little bit careful to not outrun your other token sharing targets, at least with the Kryze Vets.
I think this unit will cost at least 70 points, base. Everything about it looks good, the Kryze rule as I understand it is likely to be very good, and it’s got that new-Mando squad size. I think this unit will be one of the easier units to get value out of on release, at least at the time of this writing.
Commanders
I’ll wander over to Commanders first, since there are (barely) fewer units to get through here than in the Operative slot.
I think AMG has done a great job imbuing each of the possible commanders for the various clans with a bunch of flavor, and I think most of the units are pretty good. All are certainly playable. Obviously this depends on how each one is pointed, but I think they would have had to make these characters absurdly expensive for them to be unplayable, even in competitive play.
I guess we should start with the generic/custom Mandalorian Leader. A pretty standard stat line for a Mandalorian character, with Speed 3, surges all around, Jump 2, Impervious, five health and courage 2. They’ve got solid weapons, with a 2-black and 2-white dice Vibroknife with Pierce 1 and a Range 1-2 Blaster Pistol with two red dice and two white dice. They also have to equip a Weapon upgrade, and I’d imagine there will be options to improve their melee, close-ranged attack, or give them a longer-ranged attack. They also have to equip a Doctrine, and I’m very excited to see what AMG has been cooking up for them in that regard.
I suppose I should state that unless I say otherwise, all of these characters have five health, two courage, Jump 2, Impervious, and are Speed 3, with surging attacks and saves.
We’ll start the named characters with Ursa Wren, who is getting her own unit card at last. She can act as a mercenary for Rebels, which isn’t a surprise. She also keeps the Resistance’s Nimble.
She relies on Range Engaged-to-2 Blaster Pistols with two black and two red dice. Which, while not spectacular, is far from nothing. I’d rate her weapon as solid to good for a character, and her mobility should help her get good, out-of-cover shots with it. I’m a little surprised she didn’t get her upgrade card’s Long Shot, or any Pierce on the gun. But if it helps keep her cost down, it’s acceptable.
I would imagine she’ll have a Command upgrade, and I think Vigilance will be an extremely popular one for Clan Wren builds.
I think she’ll make a good support commander for her clan. She also gets Inspire 1 which, like I said above, will come in handy in general and for Guardian shenanigans. Lead From the Front may also be a pretty popular upgrade for her, depending on the details of her clan’s keyword. Of more general utility is her Bolster 2. Like Padme in Republic, I think Ursa will have a big role supporting her clan’s Initiates and Warriors.
I’d imagine she’ll be somewhere in the 90 point range, though I might hope for 80. Worst case, she’ll be in the low 100s.
Next, let’s take a look at her former commander in the liberation of Mandalore, Bo-Katan. She can be a mercenary for both Rebels and Republic. She shares Mandalorians are Stronger Together with her Veterans, as well as the Tactical 1. She actually has Courage 3, which is always great, and she surges to crit on the attack.
Bo-Katan has the legally distinct Dual Blaster Pistols, with the same dice profile as Ursa’s, but Bo-Katan’s add High Velocity, which is quite neat.
What’s even more neat is her Death From Above keyword. Only seen on Geonosians so far, if Bo-Katan is above the tabletop, which will be real easy with Speed 3 and Jump 2, she denies cover to anything she attacks.
I think she’ll be a very aggressive commander, and well supported by her Veterans and Warriors and her clan’s keyword. I also think she’ll die fairly often, especially in the hands of brand new players, until they get used to the game and understand how fragile 5 health and how fickle red dice can be. She’ll almost certainly come with a shield upgrade, which should help her survivability.
I would expect her to cost at least 100 points, possibly as much as 120.
Next is the commander for The Covert clan, The Armorer. She’s only Speed 2, though she still has Jump 2, and doesn’t surge offensively. She gets an additional health over her Mandalorian character fellows and shares Bo-Katan’s Courage 3. She also only carries her Hammer And Tongs that gives her a melee attack with three red, three black dice, Critical 1, Impact 2, and Pierce 1.
Good lord, I didn’t really register this before, but that’s a dang lightsaber.
She also comes with Charge to use it, though she's not fully immune to Pierce.
She has Reliable 1, so her lack of offensive surges is mitigated. More interestingly, she also has Aid: Covert, so she can give her surges to other Covert Clan units that might be able to get more use out of them that turn. She can also give other tokens to Covert Mandalorians, which is going to take more actions or upgrades.
I haven’t heard exactly what the This Is The Way keyword does, but it might have something to do with units being close to characters with the keyword. I would imagine this kind of thing would trigger for units contesting an objective (thereby “proving” themselves). So in that context, The Armorer’s ability seems to give units near her Move 1 or Recover 2 (this seems like giving 2 units a free Recover action) while they’re contesting.
This is an interesting bit of utility and I think makes The Armorer a solid utility/support piece. That most units aren’t going to want to dive into melee with. Move can be really great to get units into better positions for cover or, more likely, moving more units to contest Points of Interest, possibly into melees. I think most Mandalorian lists will be close-range brawler lists, so any extra movement to get into their optimum range will help them. She’ll probably be best utilized advancing with Initiates and Warriors to help them move more and get them surge tokens with her Reliable and Aid. The Recover 2 will be great for any rechargeable shields other units have, and I think we can expect more upgrades in that fashion. It will also be good for helping your lower-courage units ditch any suppression to keep them scoring a point.
I’m taking another SWAPG here, or maybe even just a WAPG, but I think she’ll be somewhere between 90 (as a more support/melee focused commander) and 110? Just a guess.
Last of the commanders is, likely, Gar Saxon. He’s probably not going to be too different, if at all, than his current unit card, which is… fine. I think he’s a perfectly serviceable Mandalorian hero, and if he gets to keep his existing command cards, I think he’ll be a solid Death Watch leader. Again, like the Super Commandos, I would expect some Death Watch specific unit cards for both units, with whatever the Death Watch clan keyword is.
Operatives
One thing to get out of the way for the Operative slots is that, if I remember correctly, Boba Fett is not likely to be an eligible unit for any of the Mandalorian clans, no matter what the list builders may currently say.
He is of Mandalorian descent and heritage, but he’s not Mandalorian. He even says so. In both Canon and Legends (even if he eventually comes around to it late in Legends).
I would not expect to see either of his profiles in any Mandalorian Clan, or any mix of them.
Don’t get your hopes up for that.
Great, that finishes up 2 of the… 7 units that Legion HQ2 lists for the Mandalorians. Oh boy.
I guess I’ll start with the custom Mandalorian Operative again, the Hunter. The Hunter has doesn’t surge defensively and can be a mercenary for any of the four factions. It shares the same weapons as the Leader and is also required to take a Weapon and Doctrine upgrade.
Not a lot to go on, but I’m excited to see all of the customization options for them.
Axe Woves looks to be about like you’d expect. Standard Mandalorian, mercenary for Rebels and Republic, Kryze Tactical 1 and Stronger Together. He’s wielding a Vibroknife and Pistol all in one weapon profile that’s good from Engaged to Range 2 and throws two red and two white dice with no other keywords, though he does have Charge.
Also of note is Coordinate: Clan Kryze Unit. That feature alone will make him a popular pick in Kryze lists, or in lists bringing Kryze mercenaries. I think it does put him at over 110 points, though.
Last of the new revealed profiles is Paz Viszla. Also one of the new Courage 3 Mandos, he has the Field Commander keyword. So he can fulfill your Commander requirements in Covert and mixed-clan lists. Like The Armorer, Paz doesn’t deign to do mercenary work, so you’ll likely only see him in Mandalorian armies.
Unlike the other veteran Mandalorian characters, Paz is only Speed 2 which befits his stature. His Vibroknife is two red and two white dice with Pierce 1. His Repeating Blaster is one of his most interesting features. It’s only one red, two black, and three white dice able to hit targets out to Range 3, and it has one of the new weapon keywords: Overwhelm. Overwhelm gives a suppression token to the targeted enemy unit during the Assign Suppression Token to Defender step of the attack sequence, so it’s like adding Suppressive to the weapon, but only if you’ve spent an aim during the attack. With the dice on that weapon, I think you’re going to want to always attack with an aim.
His This Is The Way is Aim 2, which I think all Mandalorians will appreciate with their (generally) 2-dice weapons, though I don’t know that he’ll have as many dramatic moments with it as The Armorer will with hers. If there’s any way that he gets those aims, then he’ll be really good as an attack and suppressing piece.
Again, I’m betting he’ll be about 100 points, +20 or -10.
That leaves Din and Sabine in the Operative spot.
I think it would be neat to get a new Sabine, maybe a Field Commander variant like Paz, though I don’t think it would otherwise be terribly different. I think most likely we’ll see a rule in a Clan Wren list that gives her We Fight For Our Family instead and otherwise she’ll keep her unit card.
And I think she’ll be good. She’s already fun to play, if deceptively fragile like any 5-wound model, even with surging red saves.
I’m not sure what direction they’ll go with Din. He may get a new card with a Covert loyalty, instead of his generic Mercenary card, but again, I don’t know how much they would change with him, and he’s already a great tar pit for enemy units.
Upgrades
So far we’ve only seen glimpses of a couple of the Mandalorian-specific upgrades. Both Din and The Armorer can be taken as unit upgrades, befitting AMG’s objective to get more characters on the table. It wouldn’t surprise me to see more of the other Mando characters following suite. Then hidden behind the blurred Battle Force documents, we have new Jetpack Rockets, a Mandalorian-specific upgrade that appears to be Children of the Watch, a personnel upgrade, and what look to be two more weapon upgrades, including what I’m fairly certain is a Flame Projector.
The Din and Armorer upgrades are both usable on Covert units only. Din costs 30 points and becomes the leader of the unit and brings his Blaster Pistol with Lethal 1, 1 red and 1 black die, and can shoot from engaged to Range 2. Once per round, when his unit is chosen as a target of a This Is The Way keyword, it gains a surge token. Din seems like a good way to stiffen the spines of some Initiates or Warriors. He might be a little expensive at 30 points, and he only comes with one wound. The Armorer costs 40, also becomes the leader of the unit, increases the unit’s courage by one, and gives the unit Reliable 2. She also brings her Hammer and Tongs to give a melee attack of two red and two black dice with Pierce 1. She’s pretty expensive, also for one wound, but I definitely prefer her over Din’s unit upgrade on first glance.
I’m also not so much a fan of the new direction of character upgrades only having one wound, especially when even a newer Clone Trooper character upgrade like Rex has two. I know they’re not supposed to be as powerful as their independent unit versions, but it’s still rough when they can be so subject to bad dice luck. And these two cost a ton.
If there are other character unit upgrades (it wouldn’t shock me to see Bo-Katan, Axe, and Paz, along with the existing Tristan and Ursa), I think we can expect them to also only have one wound and probably cost about the same.
But moving on, we have updated Jetpack Rockets and a Flame Projector. The Rockets appear to have been moved to the Grenade slot and limited to two in a list. I think this, while sad, makes sense, as salvos of 5 rockets for quite a few of the Mandalorian squads with Impact and Critical 5 sounds horrible to play against, even with their new black die. We also see the price go back up to 10 points. We don’t know if this will affect rockets in all other factions that can take Mandalorians, but I think there’s a good chance that the existing rockets will stay the same, given that they are restricted by what unit can take them. The Flame Projecter is similarly limited to two in a list, which is probably necessary to not eliminate super squads as a strategy for everyone.
The Children of the Watch upgrade, as translated by 5280 local Kuetsum, seems to say, to change the faction/loyalty to Children of the Watch (I assume that’s the actual name for the Covert clan) and then the equipped unit gains either This Is The Way: Recover 1 (Warriors) or Aim 1 (Warriors Fire Support). Probably pretty good, especially at what appears to be 0 points. Or maybe 8ish. I’d bet it’s 0 so that you can align your Warriors to your clan for flavor and synergy. It wouldn’t surprise me to see one of these for each of the clans.
The Personnel upgrade, after a lot of squinting and eye strain, looks like it is a super-squad upgrade, maybe for Initiates? It’s really blurry, and hard to determine how long that second word in the rules text is exactly. It does look to be about 45 points, though, which gives me some hope that the base squad will be in the 40 point range. This could be like Pykes, though, and only add 3ish models, instead of doubling the size of the squad. And the rest of it is so blurry that it’s hard to make out the rest of the rules text, beyond what is almost certainly at least one Range indicator, likely for cohesion purposes.
And my eyes are too worn out to determine what the last weapon upgrade hiding behind the Battle Force pages is, other than that it is a ranged weapon with some amount of white and black dice with two keywords. Could be Micro-Grenade Launcher?
Battle Force(s)
Again, Kuetsum’s translation of at least part of the blur: “During list building, if all your Commander and Operative units are the same affiliation, your army gains _ additional special rule.”
This all aligns with what AMG has said about the Battle Force so far. And it looks like making a custom clan gets you two or three choices. On is of relentless/dauntless/reinforcements (unclear which one). Another looks like gaining Coordinate: Mandalorian Warriors and Independent: Recover(?) 1.
What’s been said during the couple of interviews I’ve heard so far has be very excited to see these in general play, and arguably even more excited to see them in more narrative games like Tours of Duty. These are already feeling quite thematic and my initial impression is that AMG has nailed the flavor while offering meaningful gameplay choices for standard and competitive games.
Command Cards
We’ve gotten to see one of the new Mandalorian Clans command cards, thanks to the prize wall at Adepticon. The 2-pip, Aerial Assault, is super cool. It orders two units, and the two units issued orders by the card (provided they have Jump X) can make a Jump 2 action. Then, during that round, when an allied unit that has a faceup order token and the Jump X keyword attacks, it gains Death From Above until the end of the round. That’s really cool, especially on some tables that support multiple heights. A free jump action can, again, move a unit to safety (especially if they’re holding a critical asset token) or into position to utilize the Death From Above that turn. I think this will be extremely good in a Kryze list with Axe’s Coordinate and some HQ Uplinks. And hopefully there will be more options for getting faceup orders out, like with the Battle force benefits.
Last First Thoughts
The more I look at these units, the more I think this is likely to be a pretty elite-style army, or set of armies. Their more veteran corps units are very solid, and their special forces units look to be borderline wild. As such, I expect them to come at a premium, offset by their basic corps. The Initiates and Warriors seem like they’d make good anvils for their mobile special forces.
They might have some play with an objective like Cauldron with some builds (The Armorer’s Recover 2 might be great to sink a bunch of suppression at once), but overall I’d expect them to prefer the more mobile objectives. Supplies are back, and I think even the Warriors can do that secondary fairly well with their Jump, even if they’re not as fast as the clan veterans. The Veterans, though, will be pretty spectacular with the new Failed Negotiations. I think in that scenario you want them to hunt your opponent’s hostage carrier and take it back to the middle for you to score. Payload can be good for them, and Shifting or Recover the Research I think will all be good options for them.
We don’t have any news on what the Mandalorian Trooper type does, or if it does anything special on its own. I think we can expect to see upgrades that specifically reference the unit type, likely with much of their equipment like the Jetpack Rockets and flamethrowers. I’d be surprised if they got another special rule like Clones or Droid Troopers, and expect it will release the same way as the Wookie Trooper unit type.
Overall, I think they’ll be really fun to play, especially if you like mobile brawlers. They’re all reasonably durable, especially their corps units with five models in the base units, and if they can keep enough mass and also maintain 10+ activations, I think they’ll see regular competitive play. I also think they’ll be a good faction for beginners, with great theme and a shallower learning curve with the main difficulty being their generally shorter range. And at the top end, in the hands of an experience player, I think you can terrorize local metas with them.
I’m definitely looking forward to what comes next, and am only slightly disappointed that I can’t take them to Rocky Mountain Open this weekend.
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