Hey all,

We are about to start a new campaign, and we haven't seen anyone use Mak yet in the 3 we have previously played (kinda weird right?). I am thinking about giving him a try after playing Imperial the last 2. What skills do people recommend? My initial take on him, is he is weak but consistent with damage, obviously long range, and seems pretty decent at focusing. How do people use him? Get crates, take out key deployments before they go, finish off weakened troopers? Any help on play strategy, class build, weapon upgrades, and strengths and weaknesses would be greatly appreciated!

Usually Fenn is the damage dealer, leaving Mak to support. He has some really strong abilities for picking up crates and making sure you get something good, keeping your credits income high

Disengage is essential. After that I like either of the three costs or no-escape. He needs to have a weapon that reliably makes 4 range because so much of his damage comes from ambush.

On strategy: Oftentimes you'll be able to move ahead of your team a short distance to attack enemies that haven't activated yet without them being able to attack you. Expertise also allows you to offer utility that no-one else can.

Mirroring the above at some point, as you have to prioritise between different high-end class upgrades, you might want to focus on one of two possible roles:

Building him towards high single-target damage dealer, focusing on damage-dealing class upgrades and a better weapon, dodging the enemy and poking at them from a distance; or focusing on the use of Expertise using Disengage to propell you forward, instead of away from the enemies, making sure to get good armour and defensive gear to endure running point for the Rebels. The action economy of Expertise is sometimes missed, but it can do wonders for the Rebels in a number of missions while on the clock.

Which of the two to go for equally relies on what your group needs and what you think is fun to play.

Mak is the hero with biggest damage potential, and he becomes broken towards the end, dealing up to 20 damage on an AT-ST in a single turn. But he is fragile, so make sure to give him some armor & disengage.

Mak is our mission-accomplishing Glass Cannon.

My upgrade path:

• Disengage - Easily his best ability, maybe even the best ability in the game per-XP. I usually use it to move more into harms way, using it as a free movement to go accomplish the mission. It's also nice because it's extra free movement even when you're wounded. I'll position myself between other Rebels and IMPs, so either they have to move past me to get range, shoot from unfavorable range, or attack Mak (all of which Disengage can be used).
• Jeswandi Training - +2 health and Focus whenever an IMP tries to kill you (or better if you travel in packs so it applies when IMPs try to kill teammates). It's a great "I carry a bigger gun" deterrent. All the other Heroes have finicky Focus abilities, Mak's is the most consistent. I start almost every turn Focused.
• Expertise - Great ability for "accomplish the mission". I'll use it every turn, searching crates for 1 Strain, or opening doors (a lot of Tech checks). Interact is almost everything in the game, including picking up mission-specific objects or passing terminal skill-checks. When I get this I start using Disengage to get close to an object I want to use Expertise on.
• No Escape - Anything that gives you extra actions in this game is powerful. As a double-bonus, this gives you extra dice as well.

Typically, I manage his strain by using surges from my attacks. Give Tactical Display to Mak. My upgrade path was A280 with tactical display range enhancement (later Disruption Cell, which makes it Red+Green and 100% hit from range 4), but DXR-6 is built for Mak.

Focused with DXR-6, Mak can do up to 9 damage + 2 pierce at 6 range. Twice. Darth Vader trembles in front of no one. Except Mak.


With Expertise and No Escape, Mak can do 4 actions per turn, which is ridiculous (at high strain cost). If you count Disengage as effectively an action, technically it's 5 actions.

Mak can be a really nice "jack of all trades" character, second maybe only to Jyn or Diala. It helps that all his skill checks are decently friendly.

Also, these 4 abilities assume you lose every story mission, so you may have 4 extra XP.

Supply Network is a decent one to add sometime after Jeswandi Training if you have 1 XP after a Story mission. The hard part is keep in mind Focus must be used on the skill check, so use Supply Network at the end (setting up the deck for the next turn/person) or middle if you can. C1 Comlink is a powerful card, as are Stun Grenades, so getting those can be really nice.

Target Acquired is necessary if you don't have any other characters that can deal with Imperial Blockades (Diala Force Push - the only other 1XP that's better than Disengage, or Fenn Blast 2 which makes Blockades counter-productive). Otherwise Mak likes to deal with blockades by just decimating them. But sometimes when you have to "shoot that terminal", it comes in handy.

Side note, Force Push has crazy chaining with Disengage. Force Push is entering a space, so often we have Diala Force Push someone to within 3 of Mak, triggering Disengage and doing 1 damage. Also, Deployment is "entering a space", so park Mak near those deployment points and move between rounds.

Decoy I don't like. By the time you get it you only get to use it for 4-5 missions. It's a good hail mary (which goes to say if you have to use it you're doing something wrong), but against squads it's useless. It's way underpowered considering it's a use-once. It should be "attack everything adjacent to you" or something like that.

Execute can be nice if you have nobody else that can deal with weak squad or white dice characters (Fenn Blast 2 or Diala Way of the Sarlaac). But STs are black dice so early on Mak has trouble killing them to recoup that 1 Strain. It's contradictory to Mak's Glass Cannon specialty of terrorizing black-dice characters.

Mak's detriment is his starting weapon sucks. It's one of the worst starting weapons in the game (Gideon is pretty bad, but he doesn't attack much). The surge bonuses are crappy, which is bad considering Mak is focused a lot. The range is nice, but I don't find myself attacking from long range when using Disengage as mission-accomplishing. Get the E-11 (you'd want to toss on a Marksman Barrel) or A280 promptly. T-21 is not an upgrade path, since it doesn't have a 100% chance to hit from Range 4, and the Pierce is a bit redundant.

Mak is not limited to using Rifles. The DL-44 can be a good upgrade path, too, if you don't have Jyn. You'd need to toss on a Marksman Barrel, though, or hope for a usable surge for the +2 range (no cancel surge).

Also, do make the connection that Covert allows you to use Ambush. I didn't at first.

Mak is my favorite and I think the most underrated. Nobody is best, but I feel Mak is the most underutilized.

Jeswandi Training, Execute, and No Escape. He hits very hard shooting 3x a round and focused. The Pulse Cannon is my preferred weapon to give to him. People say the DXR-6, but while Focused (which is often) he's rolling 4 dice, GGYB. Pierce 2, btw, since He'll be "rolling" in surges to remove strain. (See what I did there?)

He'll one turn kill an AT-ST.

Then take whatever XP cards your heart desires.

Spoiler. Don't do his Equipment Mission until you've increased his health a bit.

The Pulse Cannon is my preferred weapon to give to him. People say the DXR-6, but while Focused (which is often) he's rolling 4 dice, GGYB.

Don't let the number of dice cloud your judgment (even though it's **** fun). For pure damage, the numbers don't lie, the DXR-6 is hands down the better damage dealer for the money .

With Focus (RRG vs BYGG) against a Black Dice character (ran through iadice2.py dice roller app that calculates hit probabilities by brute forcing them and takes into account defense dice).

The DXR-6 has 72.1% chance of 5 damage from range 6.

The Pulse Cannon has a 63.2% chance of 5 damage from range 6.

The damage includes using a surge for +2 damage, but doesn't include any Pierce 2 abilities (which is irrelevant since both weapons can use Ambush).

The Pulse Cannon may seem better due to the sheer number of dice, but it's not other than the extra surge for Strain recovery. That is one area where it is favorable, it has an 82% chance of 4 damage, and a 47% chance of 1 extra surge (to use on the Pierce 1 or recover strain), and a 17% chance of 2 extra surges at that 4 damage (5 damage has lower probability of extra usable surges).

In the end, the Pulse Cannon and the DXR-6 are about equal. With an upgrade (Disruption Cell) the Pulse Cannon has more potential to be a downright awesome weapon, but it's a lot of money (1800 credits). It depends what other heroes you need to upgrade. The DXR-6 offers the same punch (and more) as a Pulse Cannon for 100 credits less.

That said, yes, the Pulse Cannon is probably the better weapon for Mak if you can get the Disruption Cell upgrade (replace Blue with Red and Pulse Cannon beats the pants off the DXR-6 then), with the DXR-6 going to Fenn (again, raw damage is king to ensure Blast 2 hits). But that's a lot of cash.

I was using Pulse Cannon with tactical display. The damage was enough to kill pretty much anything anyway, but i found surges very important to keep strain at right level.

Also, the range...

I prefer the Pulse Cannon to the DXR-6 just as much for its non-focused damage and surge potential as well. Two red dice, it's difficult to get those surges on.

But either weapon, Mak is taking down tough opponents rather quickly. Even the A280 is formidable in his hands with No Escape.

I'm controlling Mak, and we'll be doing the final mission (Last Stand) tonight. I bought Disengage --> No Escape --> Jeswandi Training, and now I have 5xp left over and I'm unsure what I should get.

I could get Supply Network + Holo Decoy, or I could get Expertise + Target Acquired. I already know what's coming up on this last mission (since I was the imperial player in our previous campaign), so I know his other 3xp ability Execute won't be too useful (it would have been amazing against that damned Royal Guard Champ though).

Right now I'm leaning toward Holo Decoy. It seems people prefer Expertise, but Holo Decoy might save me a rest action in addition to the extra attack and movement - which might be about as many bonus actions as I would get from Expertise. (I'm also nervous about being the one to open doors, since the Imperial Player always focuses me when he gets the chance.) As for Target Acquired, it would be a lot more tempting if it worked with No Escape, or if I could trigger it more than once per round.

The only thing I don't like with Target Acquired is it is 1S + Exhaust. I don't get what they were thinking when they did that.

It means you can't use it with No Escape.

Okay, question for anyone that has gotten Target Acquired. How useful was this ability? A couple times a mission useful, or an every now and then. Thanks

For Mak, I usually (well, the three times I've played a group with him in it) skip both 1 point XP class cards. Jeswandi Training, Execute, and No Escape makes him a focused killing machine, and I can fill in with other class cards after I get those.

I've only used Target Acquired once. I have found that abilities that cause strain are not my friend. That's why I like Execute so much. Strain Removal.

If Fenn isn't in the group I'll give Mak the E-11, but really you're looking for the A280 in Tier 2. I do like Marksman Barrel, it's great for the Tier 3 guns and some of the larger maps like Imperial Hospitality, Drawn In, etc, anything with a long hallway.

Don't run Loose Cannon before you've given him more health, I believe the "Sweet Spot" for Loose Cannon is Threat 3. Before that the heroes are ill equipped to handle the starting forces, after that it becomes difficult to manage the Threat based reinforcements.

Yeah, Target Acquired sounds great in theory, +2 range and being able to be in the back of your guys shooting through them, or targeting a deployment group that is tucked behind other Imperials.

But, I am wondering how often this actually comes up in game. Based on what everyone says, seems like it wouldn't be used that much. Thanks all for the info on Mak, lot of good stuff. Excited to try him out!!

Yeah, Target Acquired sounds great in theory, +2 range and being able to be in the back of your guys shooting through them, or targeting a deployment group that is tucked behind other Imperials.

But, I am wondering how often this actually comes up in game. Based on what everyone says, seems like it wouldn't be used that much. Thanks all for the info on Mak, lot of good stuff. Excited to try him out!!

There was only one time I specifically wished I had it. Beyond that, I just shot at the closest character. Even then, with using Disengage offensively, I was often 4 away from whatever I wanted to shoot.

Otherwise, as long as you have Diala with Force Push (near-mandatory first purchase for Diala), or Fenn (Blast 1/2 to punish terminal/door blocking), it's not really necessary. Any large characters that block Mak are gone in short order.

But if for some odd reason you're doing a Gaarkhan/Mak/Jyn/Gideon campaign, then yeah, Target Acquired is mandatory to beat blockades.

May be a dumb question but with No Escape, can the target defend that second attack like a normal attack or is the second, focused attack unopposed?

May be a dumb question but with No Escape, can the target defend that second attack like a normal attack or is the second, focused attack unopposed?

Targets can defend as many attacks as they take (unless something specifically stops it).

No Escape tells to get focused and perform an attack. So, it's an attack, so the target defends. It follows all the rules and steps of an attack, being an attack.

Ok guys, in our campaign, we managed to acomplish the side mission for Mak - "Loose Cannon". In order, we claimed the "shadow suit" armor. The doubt consist in the wording of the armor. Look at it:

►Shadow Suit: You can use "Ambush" while attacking figures who have line of sight to you.

Does the timing of "ambush" remains as wrote down on Mak sheet (Ambush - 1 strain: Use when you declare an attack targeting a figure that does not have line of sight to you. This attack gains Pierce 2) or is it ovewrited by the Shadow Suit?

Keep in mind this:

1. when you declare an attack: You can only decide to apply the pierce 2 before rolls are made.
2. while attacking : You can apply the ambush even after the rolls are made, effectively boosting the ability.

So, clarifying, the intent of the developer is only to allow an ambush while enemy figures have LOS to Mak, or is it also a timing change upgrade, from "when you declare an attack" to "while attacking" ?

@ Dommus,

when equipping shadow suit, I don't think the game designers intended Ambush to be used "After" the rolls are made.

I think they only intended it to remove the Ambush requirement of enemy figure not having line of sight to you.

I agree with Serox, Shadow Suit does not change the timing (because it does not explicitly say to change the timing). Ambush still needs to be used when declaring target, but with Shadow Suit it can be used even if the target has line of sight to Mak.

So Mak can use Ambush while adjacent to the target with Shadow Suit, right?

So Mak can use Ambush while adjacent to the target with Shadow Suit, right?

Yes, even if adjacent. It also means Mak doesn't care that much becoming wounded and losing Covert. Without Shadow Suit Covert is the easiest way to trigger Ambush.