Designer Journal 2: New Heroes
One of the things I’m most proud of with The Mandalorian: Adventures board game is how unique each character plays. Each character has its own deck of skill cards full of their own tricks and synergies. I still have fun replaying old missions with different characters just to see what wild moments will happen.
With the Clan of Two expansion, we wanted to take this even further. Luckily, Season 2 included
4 of the most popular Star Wars characters of all time. Our task, our challenge really, was to faithfully translate them to your tabletop.
We started by designing Ahsoka Tano, and there was a lot of pressure to get her right. Not only is she insanely popular, but her Jedi training meant that she needed to play differently than anyone else in the game. How could we do this? The solution was to give her a persistent ability.
Unlike characters in the base game, persistent abilities can be used multiple times throughout the game. Most of them are positive, but some are restrictions. For example, Ahsoka Tano can only attack enemies in her space (instead of up to 1 space away). Her main weapons are lightsabers, so it just made sense!
This raised the big question – how could we counteract this drawback so that she feels appropriately powerful? The answer was twofold: first off, we let her move 1 space for free every turn. This makes her the most mobile character in the game and makes sure she can always close the distance to overcome her short attack range.
The second solution was to give her some of the most powerful cards in the game. For example, with her lightsaber she can deal up to 6 damage against a single target! Since she has 2 lightsabers in the show, she has 2 copies of this card.
Ahsoka also has several ways of retrieving planning cards so she’s almost always blocking attacks or reflecting blaster bolts at enemies. Many of her cards become more powerful when certain cards are on top of the planning discard pile, so this play style encourages smart decisions and clever combos.
For example, she can use her free movement to move toward a sentry enemy, reflect that damage with a retaliate planning card, then since that card is now in the planning discard pile she can use her lightsabers to attack another enemy in her space for 6 damage. This is just one example of the types of combos she can pull off.
The other 3 characters in the box also have persistent abilities that capture the essence of their characters. For example the renowned sniper Fennec Shand can always attack from range 2 (at the cost of reducing the card’s strength). This makes her ideal for picking off sentries or providing cover fire. Many of her other cards compliment this attack-from-range strategy, including ways of boosting her attacks, piercing armor, or even attacking from a whopping 4 spaces away!
Boba Fett’s persistent ability allows him to break a core rule in the game – he can attack twice on the same turn! This is complemented by his arsenal of unique weaponry, including his EE-3 Blaster Rifle, Rocket Pack Missile, and his Gaderffii Stick!
He also has other cards that combo with his character ability, such as gaining an additional action on his turn or even discarding a card from the attack action. He’s a blast to play.
Bo-Katan Kryze was the character that went through the most changes during development. We tried a variety of different things, from gaining bonuses from using cards with boost icons, to giving bonuses to the next action any player performed. None of these felt unique or fun enough.
We finally found a mechanic that was both fun and unique: Bo-Katan plays with the top card of her skill deck faceup. This not only lets her know what card she’s going to draw next, but many abilities gain bonuses based on the top card of the deck or manipulate this card.
She can pull off some wacky combos by setting her deck, and then making big, bold plays.
These characters are a ton of fun to play, and I can’t wait for you to get your hands on them.
In our next article, we’ll dive into some new mechanics that will keep you on your toes and open up brand new strategies.
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