A few months ago Asmodee and Unexpected Games released a new board game Corey Konietzka and Josh Beppler called The Mandalorian: The Adventures.
In the game, you and your friends play as Din Djarin and other beloved characters The Mandalorian Complete four story missions to protect the child. Many thanks to Asmodee for providing me with a review copy. All thoughts below are my own.
The Mandalorian: Adventures brings the thrills of the hit Disney+ series to the tabletop. Across unique maps and missions, players must work together to achieve goals and avoid failure.
Recognizable characters and enemies bring the action to life, and an optional Hidden Traitor mode ensures no two episodes of The Mandalorian: Adventures will ever be exactly the same.
Featuring a novel gameplay system that’s intuitive for players and easy to teach, you can dive into the world of The Mandalorian and start playing right away!
In preparation for this review, I played the first two missions to get a feel for the gameplay and feel. The best way I can find to describe it is as a traditional board game lite.
Like a typical traditional board game, the story continues to unlock new aspects of the game as the missions progress. However, the missions are much shorter than other traditional games I’ve played (less than an hour), and there are only four story missions to complete.
That said, the development team does provide a set of sandbox gameplay rules, which adds a lot of replay value, something I think most traditional games miss. Overall, it feels easier than other traditional games because the missions actually feel doable.
That said, there are some rules provided if you want an easier or more difficult experience. Another thing I noticed is that I haven’t destroyed any game pieces so far, which again increases the replay value.
Another nice touch The Mandalorian: The Adventures Just before each mission, there will be a short comic to introduce the story of the mission. That is, if you’ve seen The Mandalorianyou know the story.
As far as I can tell, the game just follows the story of the show’s first season. Still, it’s fun to play, especially if you want to play in sandbox mode, since you can imagine all kinds of what-if situations with other characters you might like.
I also want to point out that The Mandalorian: The Adventures There are different attitudes towards the board of directors. The book containing the story comics also contains a game board for each mission, instead of the standard folded cardboard rectangle that serves as the game board.
Not only does this create a nice experience when you’re reading the comic and then turning the page to the game board, but it also helps with organization in the game box, which I appreciate having one less piece while allowing for a greater variety of board layouts for each mission.
As you may know from other board game reviews, I’ve become very adamant about inserts. Game insertion is an underappreciated aspect of board game design.
Many would say it doesn’t matter what the add-on looks like, but those who know understand that good gaming add-ons make a game feel so incredible and beautiful. The Mandalorian: The Adventures It does have game inserts, and it’s nice. It’s not an amazing insert by any means, but it functions well and is well organized.
One thing I’d like to have maybe separate the pockets one more time to better separate destruction tokens from damage tokens, but it’s not a big deal.
on the one hand The Mandalorian: The Adventures What I struggle with is the number of players. It says on the box that the game supports 1-4 players, and that’s true. The problem is that for the first two missions, there are only two characters available, which creates a less-than-ideal situation unless you use sandbox mode.
There are some rules for how to play with more players than characters, but it involves sharing characters, which doesn’t sound too fun to me. Going forward, I do see the last two missions actually mitigating this issue by having four characters to choose from, but I do wish there were some options when the first two missions did have 3-4 players.
On the other hand, if you’re playing by yourself, there are rules that require you to play two characters instead of one. I haven’t tried it yet, but it does seem like a good set of rules for a solo player.
But what about the actual gameplay? Ultimately, this is arguably the most important question in any game. I’m honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed playing The Mandalorian: The Adventures.
When I read the rules I was worried it wouldn’t be fun and not worth spending $50 as it seemed like just another traditional board game. When it’s your turn, you can take two actions by playing a skill card. Operations include movement, attack, intelligence and planning. However, some skill cards have special abilities that can be used when the card is placed in a designated action.
Often, this translates into stronger/different actions, such as The Mandalorian’s Howling Bird, which activates on the attack action and lets you deal 5 damage to different enemies instead of the standard action against a single target quantity.
Another aspect I like about this action system is that the skill cards have different numbers that basically determine the strength of the action while playing the game. If you play a skill card with a 2 while moving, then you can move two spaces, but a 4 lets you move four spaces. It’s simple and allows you to develop a strategy since you don’t always just want to play with big numbers.
The way it all balances out is that when the total power of skill cards (and disruption tokens) is 5 or greater at the end of your turn, you have to resolve an event card, which is how enemies interact with you.
Additionally, if the total is six or more, then you first have to perform a mission-specific crisis (listed on the board) and then resolve the incident. You never really want an incident or crisis to be resolved, but they are inevitable, so you and your team need to determine the best way to play your cards right to manage the negatives while you work to accomplish your mission goals.
Ultimately, I enjoy it The Mandalorian: The Adventures. While I wish there was a better attempt to address the player count issues in the early missions, it’s still a lot of fun to play with 2 players.
I think this traditional stripped-down format actually fits the rules of the sandbox mode very well, and the lack of permanent changes to gameplay segments really helps the $49.99 price tag feel more reasonable to more casual gamers.
There’s even additional content on their website! I’d like to see more games adopt a similar model. if you like The Mandalorian and board games, I think you will really enjoy this game.
