This review is going to contain spoilers, though, Disney hasn’t tried that hard not to spoil things. So the big reveal, you probably already know about. The rest of the stuff will be discussing the plot for the show, so definitely going to be spoilers in that, but I think compared to some shows, Game of Thrones, spoilers don’t matter as much for the Mandalorian, and I’ll talk about why I think that as well.

So, what’s the plot of the Mandalorian?

We meet in the first episode a Mandalorian bounty hunter, simply referred to as Mando. He’s good at his job as a bounty hunter, but he gets an off the book job from a former empire man to bring in an asset, which happens to be a baby, a 50 year old baby. The same species as Yoda, but that species doesn’t have a name, so hence forth he’ll just be known as Baby Yoda. Mando gets some help retrieving the asset, and he brings him back to the empire man (this takes place after episode 6 of the Skywalker Saga) and into the hands of a cloner. However, he doesn’t feel good about it and ends up stealing him back. He then has to go on the run with Baby Yoda and comes across parts of his old life as well as a former Rebel shock trooper. When bounty hunters are still coming after him and Baby Yoda, he ends up having to go back at finish what he started, taking out the stormtroopers, but there are more now, and things go sideways. Getting help from the friends he’s made along the way, they manage to escape with Baby Yoda and the bounty has been taken care of, but things aren’t good as we see the new big bad guy has survived his TIE Fighter crash.

This show is actually pretty easy to summarize because the plot isn’t that complex. Where the show shines is how it can create great episodes that are a lot of filler but still turn them into something interesting. Now, I’m sure not everyone will think that, but when we meet Cara Dune, the former Rebel Shock Trooper, it’s a filler episode. So, there are a few things that are important during those episodes, but nothing that is extremely important. They are just very thematically nice and they have a very space western feel to them. In fact, the whole series relies heavily on the space western feel and it does it really well. It feels very Star Wars, and it manages to do that without invoking any of the recognizable characters. Sure, there is an IG unit and a few things we’ve seen before, but nobody major. There isn’t a CGI Luke in the background of some scene, so there is one episode where they end up in the Cantina on Tatooine.

Besides that very Star Wars feel to the show, they do a good job with the characters as well. Mando, Pedro Pascal, does a great job in the lead. He’s meant to be more a focused character and they do a good job of him having his code. The supporting characters, in particular IG-11, Greef Karga, and Cara Dune are all well done. I haven’t always been a huge fan of Gina Carano as an actress, I thought she was okay in Deadpool, but in this show, she does a good job as Cara Dune. Carl Weathers as Greef Karga, the head of the local bounty hunters, does a good job, and he just carries himself in a way that you can understand his history. But really the show is about two characters, Mando and Baby Yoda. And Baby Yoda, just as a puppet and CGI character is done really well. You can feel that Baby Yoda is a puppet at times in a good way, because the other characters interact with them better.

Now, I did say that I was going to talk briefly why I don’t think spoilers are a massive Mandalorian concern. Mainly it’s because the plot is pretty simple. There is a big reveal at the end of episode one when he finds out that his bounty that he’s bringing in is Baby Yoda, but beyond that, the show doesn’t take massive risks in the plot. That isn’t a bad thing though because they really focus on the quality of each episode, and it is very high. Also, because the episodes are so short, they can even more focus down on the quality. That was a complaint that I’ve heard from some, that the episodes were too short, but I like it for binging (which I didn’t do), but I also like it because it allowed them to really focus the story. Even the filler episodes didn’t try and do too much and just told a good focused story.

For me, was there anything wrong with the show? I don’t think that there was. Like I’ve been talking about, I think the plot is focused enough, the storytelling is tightly done. I can see why people would want longer episodes, because how well the aesthetic and storytelling are handled, but I feel like some of what makes the Mandalorian work could have been lost if it had been changed into a slightly longer format. Maybe they could have tied in the filler episodes better, but I really liked those episodes and a couple of them were up there for being my favorite episodes of the show.

So, I think the final thing to talk about is the future of the show. When the last episode was released, it was announced that there would be a 2nd Season coming this year. I’m definitely looking forward to that very much, so what sort of storylines might we be looking at? We definitely haven’t seen the last of the new big bad, Moff Gideon and his dark saber. I also think that Mando has been given the task of finding where Baby Yoda belongs, so which of those two things is going to be focus. I suspect it might be more Baby Yoda focused again with Moff Gideon harassing them, and then if/when there is a third season, that is more Moff Gideon focused. But that’s just 100% speculation on my behalf. I think that makes the more interesting story instead of stretching out a more direct confrontation with Moff Gideon who seems like a big bad who they want to keep around for a while, and just have hims survive multiple times.

Those are my thoughts on The Mandalorian. I really liked the show and I think that it’s up there with the original trilogy in terms of Star Wars material. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Did you like it? Did you have any major issues with it? What stood out to you about it?

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There is a grand-daddy of all area control games, and that’s Risk. Probably as I was describing area control, that’s what popped into a lot of peoples heads, trying to control the continent so that you can get the bonus troops. So while you might be getting the two bonus troops from Australia, how do you get out of Australia so you don’t have to try and take over Asia, because that will never work. However, if that’s what you’re thinking of for area control, you might not be a big fan of area control games. Risk has one major issue that cropped up in it and other older area control games. That being the one that I might have one troop and you might have twenty, but because I’m the defensive players and win ties, I might be able to deplete your troop if I get lucky rolling the dice.

Risk also has one more fairly large issue besides the dice, and that’s the length of game and the fact that a player can be eliminated and then might have to sit around another four hours if they want to see how the game ends. Thankfully, that’s a part of a lot of area control games that has since gone away. In every game I mention below, if you are knocked off the board, you are always able to come back, or in the case of Star Wars: Rebellion, if that was to happen, that would likely just end the game, especially if the Empire did that to the Rebels.

Modern area control games do several things to try and mitigate die rolling, though some of them still use that as the luck for the game so that doesn’t because a complete strategy game.

Star Wars: Rebellion is a game that has more going on in it than just area control, but there is that aspect where if you have more planets and certain planets you’ll be able to build more ships. The combat is based on a die pool that you build with the troops you have. There are a couple of things to make this not just a die roll to see who wins. First, you have the ability to negate hits by playing cards or add in additional hits by playing cards. You have a limited number of cards, but you can possibly get more as you go through combat. Also, the ships or troops you bring in do damage of certain types, depending on the color of dice, and same with how ships take damage. While there is some universal damage, it means you could easily out number someone, but if your troops can’t hit their troops as well, they can come in and wipe you out. This is one that is still primarily die rolling through, but it’s not longer just pure luck.

Smallworld is probably the most Risk like in terms of area control on the list, because the game is purely area control. You get points for controlling certain areas and any skills that you might have. But Smallworld removes basically all luck from the game. The luck comes from correctly using your race and special ability and being able to find one that is working well. However, when taking over an area, the rule is simple, you need one more piece of cardboard, the troops are cardboard, than is on the spot you are trying to take over. Where there is a tiny bit of luck is that you can push for a final take over at the end of your turn. So if you have one guy left and you want to take over a spot with one guy on it, you can roll a die that hope to get two or better. The downside is that this isn’t a normal six sided die so there are multiple blanks and multiple ones that are going to stop it from succeeding most of the time.

There are some games that just do away with die rolling for area control. Blood Rage and Cry Havoc are two examples of how this can work very differently. In Blood Rage you have an action point economy that is helping you put troops onto the board into areas. The areas have a certain number of spots for troops, so you can try and totally control and area, but if you out number your opponent in the area or you have good combat cards, you can try and take over an area to get the reward while it is contested. The luck in this combat comes from playing a variety of combat cards, though only one per combat. Some of the combat cards just add a large combat value, others may cancel other combat cards or steal some of their rage, which are your action points. So while winning a combat is generally the best, there are strategies where you can play without controlling too many areas.

Cry Havoc, a game about collecting gems on a crazy planet. In fact it reminds me a lot of Avatar. This is extremely unique area control. So you score based off of having the most gems at various times, but to have gems, you must control the areas with the gems. So you’re in conflict with the other players over the areas. Instead of doing a straight swap of troops or rolling to see if you kill, there is a combat board. There are three areas of the combat board, you can control the area, kill the other persons troops, or take prisoners. What’s interesting with this is that even if your troops in the control the area are killed later in combat, if you have the most there, you still control the area. So the combat has a bit of a puzzle feel because of the order of combat. Then there are cards you can play that allow you to adjust combat once you’ve seen what your enemy is doing as well. It is an extremely unique combat for area control and one that seems fairly polarizing.

Now, all of these are games where area control is a huge part of the game and you are looking to keep control of areas throughout the game. Area control does go into other games as well.

An interesting example of this is a combat game still, but is handled differently than most games like it. The game is Sword and Sorcery. It’s a pretty standard dungeon crawler, but it looks like a lot of fun. I haven’t played it yet, but it’s a game that I might track down for live streaming at some time. In the game there are a couple of different options for controlling spaces while fighting an enemy. If you have more characters than the enemy does in the area, you might get a special bonus, if you have twice as many characters, then you get an even better bonus. However, the same is true if the enemies out number the troops. This means that you have to go in with force yourself, and you may not want to divide and conquer in some situations, but you might also want to divide and conquer in others to keep the troops from all rushing to a single injured party member.

Area control is a mechanic that can show up in a number of games. Clearly I have it focused more on combat games. I think that there are some games with area control that might have more of an Euro aspect to them, but a lot of them are more the Ameri-thrash games. The reason for that is that a lot of area control does rely on luck, so it is less planned than a lot of euro games are. However, there are likely some games out there that are handling it in a Euro game, and even Cry Havoc has some Euro tendencies for a combat area control game.

What are some area control games that you like? For the most part I like all of the games I’ve talked about with the exception of Risk, and even Risk I’ve had plenty of fun times playing it. Area control games can be fun, but you have to be willing to be cut throat.

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