The Star Wars franchise is home to a number of favorites, and The Mandalorian is certainly counted among them. That’s why fans were delighted when Unexpected Games and Asmodee brought Mando, Grogu, and the rest of the season 1 gang to the world of tabletop in The Mandalorian Adventures. Now the team is back in the anticipated expansion Clan of Two, bringing in fan favorite characters from season 2 as well as new gameplay mechanics, four new maps, and even more options so you can create your perfect Star Wars game night however you see fit, and it’s marvelous.
A Fearsome Roster
Four new characters are entering the fray in Clan of Two, including some Star Wars heavy hitters that each change your approach and playstyle. Those new characters include Ahsoka, Bo-Katan Kryze, Boba Fett, and Fennec Shand, but you’ll also be able to bring all six characters from the original game into the expansion to mix and match as you please.
That said, the new characters feel fantastic to play, and let’s start with Boba Fett, who is all about damaging the enemy in as many ways as possible. Fett’s unique ability lets him break one of the game’s fundamental rules, which is that you can’t repeat an action during the same turn. Fett throws that out the window by being able to attack twice in a turn, and while there are two small checks to that, the sheer ability to do that at all opens up the game in a major way when it’s his turn. Coupled with the bevy of weapons and tools at his disposal (like his missile launcher, jetpack, and laser rifle, to name but a few), he can absolutely wreck enemy forces in a matter of turns.
The other high damage dealer is Ahsoka, who can deliver an impressive amount of damage in just one attack, but the catch is that they have to be in her space. That’s because she’s limited to only attacking enemies in her space due to her lightsaber, but the benefit is that her cards allow you to boost her damage considerably with certain combinations, so even high-level enemies can be cut down in short order.
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If you are looking to control and manipulate the battlefield, look no further than Fennec. Fennec’s built-in ability offers her a way to do this immediately, as once per turn, you can reduce a card’s strength by 1 to increase its range by 1, and the rest of her deck builds upon this. Fennec has several powerful cards that don’t add to the action cost and allow for multiple options to hit at different ranges, and one card (Life Debt) even allows her to deal 4 damage to a threat in another player’s space, and at any range. She can also move enemies, disrupt others, and deal high damage herself, depending on the cards you draw, so if you’re a fan of affecting every aspect of the board, Fennec is the character for you.
That brings us to the wild card of the bunch in Bo-Katan Kryze, and that’s in relation to her core mechanic. Bo-Katan differs from every other player with the ability to keep the top card of her skill deck face up, and it will be up to some of her other card abilities to take advantage of that top card in various ways. Some of her cards allow you to add whatever strength is on the top card to the card you’re playing, which can give you a huge strength boost depending on what it is, and others will allow you to use that top card to deliver a free attack too. Manipulation of the skill deck is also key, as some of Bo-Katan’s cards allow you to search the deck for a great card or discard the top card from the deck to boost a move action, so this mechanic really blends into just about every action and turn for whoever is playing the character.
New Additions
The new characters are refreshing to play thanks to their more complex nature compared to the heroes from the base game, though the new missions do bring in some of the other characters, and pairing those up still feels fun and rewarding. The new maps and scenarios are all great additions too, and though there are only four new maps, they bring to life some famous moments from the show, including the fight with Morgan Elsbeth, the battle against Moff Gideon’s forces as Grogu is at the seeing stone, the infiltration mission on Morak, and the battle against Gideon and the Death Troopers on the Light Cruiser.
One of the other big new additions comes in the form of Mercenary Missions, which allow other major moments from the series to be experienced on their own without breaking the rest of the game. This includes the battle against the Krayt Dragon, which ups the ante compared to other enemies and can even swallow your characters whole.
There are other key additions to the main gameplay as well, and while on the smaller side, they can have a sizable impact on whether or not your mission is successful. The Duel deck is one of these new additions, and it comes into play against elite enemies. These enemies demand that you draw a card from this deck during any attack against them, and the cards here provide additional obstacles and damage reduction to make these fights feel more like the epic one-on-one battles we see in the show. New cards have also been added to the Event deck, and some of these feature ongoing effects that kick in on an action slot when certain parameters are met. Some can be removed, but others are locked in for the rest of that mission and can cause more impediments to you completing your mission.
There are also additions like a moving spawn (through the Star Token) and Scope Tokens, which come into play during one particular mission and allow you to have two characters act as snipers, helping you from afar. However, Snipers can’t be damaged by enemies, so while you will have two extra attackers, only two units will be taking the brunt of all the damage, so you will need to plan accordingly. There are also replacement cards for Mando and Grogu’s decks, and they added another key card to the Planning deck in the Mobilize card, which allows you to get a key move boost and makes the Planning action that much more useful.
Final Thoughts
One of my favorite aspects of this game is how modular it is, and with an expansion’s worth of new additions, the mix-and-match nature of this game and its innate customizability are out of this world. This set even gives you new Dangerous Event cards that raise the challenge even further, and you can already boost enemy difficulty with the Expert enemies in the base game. There’s also the Hidden Motives mode from the base game that changes things up, and with the extra Mercenary Missions now available, you can literally mix and match this game to fit whatever game group or game night scenario that pops up.
Want a longer campaign-style game that sticks to the story? You can make that happen, but if you want to play four characters who weren’t involved with that moment in the show at all, you can do that as well, and you can moderate the challenge and the other elements as needed. Fans of the franchise will find an approachable cooperative experience with surprising depth, and those looking for a crunchy challenge can ratchet up those elements and give themselves a real throwdown. The Mandalorian Adventures – Clan of Two allows this game to be whatever you need it to be in the moment, and I can’t think of a bigger compliment.
Rating: 5 out of 5
- Published By: Unexpected Games and Asmodee
- Designed By: Corey Konieczka and Josh Beppler
- Art By: Matt Bradbury, J. B. Casacop, Graey Erb, Tony Foti, Mariusz Gandzel, Nasrul Hakim, Audrey Hotte, Ben Judd, Atha Kanaani, Ron Lemen, Henning Ludvigsen, Alyssa McCarthy, Preston Stone, Darren Tan, and Ryan Valle
- Graphic Design By: David Ardila
- Edited By: Timothy Meyer
The Mandalorian Adventures – Clan of Two is available in stores and online retailers now.
Will you be jumping into Clan of Two, and which moments and characters from season 3 would you love to see in a possible future expansion? Let us know in the comments, and you can talk all things The Mandalorian and tabletop with me on Bluesky @knightofoa!
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