How to Play the Star Wars Deckbuilding Game Mandalorian Faction Pack

The Mandalorian Faction Pack does two things for Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game. It adds a brand new playable faction you can drop into the core game, and it introduces a full three player free-for-all mode. This presents the first time the game supports more than two players. This guide assumes you already know the base game. If you’ve played a game or two, everything here will follow easily.

As a quick refresher Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game is an asymmetric deckbuilder where you spend resources to buy cards from a shared galaxy row, build up the forces in your deck, and attack your opponent’s bases. The Balance of the Force track provides bonuses to whoever currently controls the Force, and in a standard game the first player to destroy three enemy bases wins. The Mandalorian pack keeps all of that intact and layers new options on top.

What the Pack Adds

The pack contains a complete Mandalorian faction: 10 base cards, 10 starter cards, 30 galaxy cards, and a double sided Balance of the Force card. It also includes a set of neutral components used only in the new three player mode. 3 neutral base cards, 15 neutral galaxy cards, and a unique unit called the Pyke Repulsor Train. Cards marked “THREE-PLAYER ONLY” are reserved for that mode exclusively.

There are two ways to use all of this. Substitute the Mandalorians into a normal two player duel, or set up for the new three player game.

Playing the Mandalorians in a Standard Duel

Using the Mandalorians in a 1v1 game is a straight faction swap:

1. Pick a faction to replace with the Mandalorians.
2. Swap that faction’s base deck and starter deck for the Mandalorians’ base deck and starter deck.
3. Remove the replaced faction’s 30 galaxy cards from the galaxy deck, then shuffle in the 30 Mandalorian galaxy cards.
4. Cover the replaced faction’s side of the Balance of the Force track with the Mandalorian side of the new Balance of the Force card.
5. Randomly choose who goes first, and place the Force marker all the way on the other player’s side of the track.

From there it’s the normal game. Buy, build, and destroy your opponent’s bases to win. If you’re teaching the faction to someone new, the rulebook suggests a simplified base deck of just five cards: Concord Dawn (the starting base), Mandalore, Nevarro, Trask, and Arvala-VII.

One wrinkle worth knowing up front: several Mandalorian cards let you commandeer enemy capital ships. Trask and the Mandalorian Hijacker can take an opponent’s capital ship into your own control, a flavorful identity for the aggressive Mandalorians.

Setting Up the Three-Player Mode

This is the headline feature, and the setup is more involved than a duel because the table geometry changes. Seat the three players around one end of the table, one player at the end, the other two across from each other. Then:

1. Each player takes a faction’s 10-card base deck and starter deck, then replaces that faction’s starting base with one of the pack’s neutral bases. Return the original starting bases to the box. They aren’t used in this mode.
2. Each player splits their 30 faction galaxy cards into two 15-card stacks. The table then combines those halves into three decks, one for each pair of players: A+B, A+C, and B+C.
3. Shuffle the pack’s 15 neutral galaxy cards into the base game’s 30 neutral galaxy cards (45 total), split them into three 15-card stacks, and shuffle one stack into each paired deck. You now have three 45-card galaxy decks.
4. Place each galaxy deck between the two players it belongs to, and deal a galaxy row of four cards from each. Arranged around the table. The three rows should look like spokes radiating out from the center.
5. Put the standard Balance of the Force track between the two players sitting across from each other, then set the new pack’s Balance of the Force card perpendicular to it, facing the player at the end of the table, tucked so only a single neutral space shows. The result is a three-sided Force track meeting at one shared neutral space.
6. Put the Pyke Repulsor Train into play next to the Force track, and place the Outer Rim Pilot deck on the other side. Give each player their own supply of resource and damage counters.
7. For the iconic matchups it’s a fixed turn order: Empire / Rebel / Mandalorian goes Empire, Mandalorian, Rebel (Force starts on the Rebel side). Republic / Separatist / Mandalorian goes Separatist, Mandalorian, Republic (Force starts on the Republic side). For any other mix of three factions, randomly pick a first player, proceed clockwise, and start the Force all the way on the last player’s side.

Each player then draws five cards and you’re ready.

How a Three-Player Turn Works

Play proceeds like a normal game, with a handful of important additions:

• Each player can interact with the row, deck, and discard pile to their left or their right, but never the row sitting between their two opponents. Whenever a card refers to “a galaxy row,” “the galaxy deck,” or “a discard pile,” you choose your left or right. (The Corellian Transport deliberately breaks this rule.)
• When a card refers to “an opponent,” pick which of your two opponents it hits.
• Declare which opponent’s base you’re attacking and assign your units and capital ships to that attack. You can attack both opponents in the same turn, but each unit or capital ship can only be committed to one attack per turn.
• The Pyke Repulsor Train is a permanent unit that sits by the Force track, outside everyone’s galaxy row. Any player may attack it, bounty hunting or sabotaging it as if it were in their own row. Succeed and you collect its reward (draw an extra card at end of turn). It never leaves play, so you can attack it multiple times in a turn, and each success counts as defeating a galaxy row target.
• Any player can buy from the Outer Rim Pilot deck regardless of where it sits.
• Because the Force can be with an opponent, gaining Force resolves in two steps: move the marker toward the neutral space first, and only once it passes neutral does it continue down your own side.

Table talk is fair game. Many of the neutral cards are explicitly designed to encourage deal making and temporary alliances.

Winning the Three-Player Game

The victory condition is completely different from the duel. Each base you destroy goes into your victory pile, and the first player to collect at least five bases, including at least two from each opponent’s faction, wins.

The two of each requirement is the strategic hook of the mode. You can’t simply gang up on one player to make it to the finish line. You have to land meaningful blows on both opponents, which keeps the free-for-all properly three sided.

Rules Clarifications

A few clarifications and edge cases worth knowing:

• A neutral base in your victory pile counts toward your total of five, but not toward the two of each faction requirement.
• There’s no cap on how many of a single opponent’s bases you can collect.
• If a player’s base deck runs out before anyone meets the win condition, the game ends immediately in a draw.
• Gauntlet Dropship reveals the top five cards of your deck. If fewer than five remain, reveal what’s left, shuffle your discard pile into a new deck, and keep revealing until you’ve seen five. Then return the unused cards to the top in the order revealed.
• Koska Reeves (attacking a neutral unit) and the Mandalorian Hijacker (attacking a capital ship) do not let other units join their attack.
• Any enemy capital ship you take control of becomes yours and goes to your discard pile when destroyed.
• If two card abilities would resolve simultaneously, the active player decides the order.

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Rules reference: Mandalorian Faction Pack rulebook. For more on the game’s expansions, see our coverage of the Rebels & Empire Reinforcements expansion.