The Mandalorian: Clan of Two expansion

• Designer: Corey Konieczka and Josh Beppler
• Publisher: Unexpected Games
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 12+
• Time: 30-60 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link (base game): https://amzn.to/43Hvxhc
• Amazon affiliate link (expansion):  https://amzn.to/43JnFuw 
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

The Mandalorian is tasked with reuniting The Child with its own kind, but danger lurks everywhere. Will he find the Jedi, or will Moff Gideon get what he seeks? In The Mandalorian: Adventures – Clan of Two Expansion, you work together to complete thrilling missions inspired by Season 2 of The Mandalorian. Play as four new characters, each with wildly different play styles, skills, and tricks. Put your skills to the test with four story missions on four new locations in a new mission book — doubling the number of maps in the game — and four diverse mercenary missions. The expansion also introduces new enemy types, ongoing events, a duel deck, and more that can be integrated with the base game for more variety.

The Mandalorian: Adventures allows players to experience a new part of the Star Wars universe on their tabletops. Navigating unique maps and missions, players must co-operate to accomplish their goals and avoid defeat. Play as one of eight unique characters, each with their own deck of cards and strategies that will help you fight enemies and solve dilemmas to complete mission objectives. All of the action takes place in an illustrated map book as players recreate iconic moments from the hit Disney+ series.

I reviewed the base game about a year ago, and if you’re unfamiliar with that game, I suggest that you read that review to get acquainted with the game system – https://opinionatedgamers.com/2024/07/29/dale-yu-first-impressions-of-the-mandalorian-adventures/

What I am going to focus on here are the new additions that are included in this expansion box.  The base box lets you play through the adventures of Season 1 of the show.  Unsurprisingly, this expansion focuses on the best scenes for Season 2.  Lucky for me (as I haven’t had Disney+ in quite some time), you don’t need to have any knowledge of the show to enjoy this game – though my friends who have both played the game and watched the show tell me that the scenarios in the game are really quite true to the action on the small screen.

This expansion gives you four new characters to use:

• Ahsoka Tano – She has two lightsabers but can only attack enemies in her space
• Boba Fett – can attack more than once per turn
• Fennec Shand – a sniper who can always attack from 2 spaces away
• Bo-Katan Kryze – she always knows what card she is going to draw next

The special abilities of these heroes are always in effect, so you will never flip the card over – this is a change from the heroes in the first edition of the game..

The story booklet includes four new locations, each representing a memorable moments set in a unique locale:

• Calodan – Home of the villainous Morgan Elsbeth, where our hero meets the outcast Ahsoka Tano.
• Tython – While Grogu uses the Jedi seeing stone, Moff Gideon’s forces arrive! Luckily Boba Fett and Fennec Shand are there to help.
• Morak – Infiltrate an Imperial refinery to find the coordinates to Moff Gideon (and Grogu).
• Moff Gideon’s Light Cruiser – Strike at the heart of Moff Gideon’s forces to free Grogu. Oh, and watch out for those Death Troopers.

While each of these locations is visually different and offers unique topography, some of the maps/scenarios also come with unique mechanics.

As with all good expansions, you’ll also get a few new mechanics thrown in to spice things up.  My favorite are the event cards that come with ongoing effects.  Some event cards have a tan colored ongoing effect that is placed in a card slot, and that effect remains in play until a new card is resolved for that action.  The enemies now also have a few new actions – all of them thematic to their abilities as shown on the TV.  There is even a whole new type of fight – the Duel (which has its own deck of cards!)

There are also a number of new Dangerous event cards that you can add into the game if you need a higher level of difficulty!  Apparently some groups (umm, not mine) were able to easily beat the scenarios in the original game at the highest difficulty levels.  For those savants, even harder event cards can be added to the mix to raise the bar a bit.

The game also adds one new mode – the Narrative Mode – where your group can play through all 8 scenarios from the base box and this expansion.  In this mode, the Mandalorian must always be played, and certain skill cards are taken out of his deck at the start of the run and added in only after completing certain missions.  The goal is to make it through all 8 missions while not failing three times along the way.

The last addition to the box are the Mercenary Missions – these missions are not direct retellings of specific episodes, but some are inspired by events of the show. This presented the perfect opportunity to let players play through certain iconic scenes from the show that simply wouldn’t have translated well to a traditional scenario.

I haven’t had time to play through the entire mission book yet, but I have definitely liked what I have seen so far.  For the most part, you simply combine the bits from this expansion in with the stuff from the base box.  There is no guide deck this time around; you just get to play with everything right from the start.   So, after only a few minutes of prep work, we were off and running with the game.  The first two regular scenarios were loads of fun, and I’m liking how you can just plunk down the Mercenary Missions on any map; and they do play a bit differently as each map has its own quirks.

As with all Mandalorian scenarios, it’s best to sit down and read aloud the special rules for the scenario as well as going over the special abilities of each of the characters in play – as you now have more characters to choose from, you’ll maybe want to see if you can come up with any synergistic combinations of character powers.  We also very much like to pull out the rulebook and read over the small FAQ section before we get started.

While my group is definitely not ready for it yet, the rulebook also gives you some challenge scenarios with harder things in set up to give you a bit more replay value.  As it stands now, I’m fighting for my life on regular difficulty, so I’m not needing any more challenge just yet…   If you’re ready to give Season 2 a go, the game should be on sale as of now.  Go check out your local FLGS or favorite online retailer to get your own copy!

Until your next appointment

The Gaming Doctor

Amazon affiliate link (base game): https://amzn.to/43Hvxhc

Amazon affiliate link (expansion):  https://amzn.to/43JnFuw