Silverball guide · The Mandalorian
Three lists and a finish
The Mandalorian is unusually honest about what it wants from you. Five missions, three multiballs, three encounters — and knowing that changes what you shoot on ball one.
The shape of the whole game
Most modern Sterns make you reverse-engineer their structure from the display. The Mandalorian more or less tells you: there are three separate lists, each with its own wizard mode at the end, and a fourth wizard mode for finishing all three.
Start five missions and you qualify I Like Those Odds. Start three Razor Crest multiballs and you qualify Precious Cargo. Complete three encounters and you qualify You Have What I Want. Do all three and This Is The Way becomes available.
The useful thing about that shape is that the three lists advance independently, from different shots. You are never really stuck — if the missions are not falling, the Razor Crest target is right there. Knowing which of the three you are closest to is most of playing this machine well.
Missions, and the shortcut in front of you
A mission starts by shooting both ramps and then the left scoop. Straightforward enough, and on a bad ball the ramps can be a long way away.
So use the shortcut: the left scoop spots a ramp for you. Three shots to the left scoop and nothing else will start a mission outright. This works for the first two missions only, after which you shoot the ramps properly — but two free mission starts at the beginning of a game is a real head start, and it is the single most useful thing to know about this machine.
Missions are timed, and a drain ends one uncompleted. Completing one pays a time bonus and a completion bonus, and completed missions are worth a lot in the end-of-ball bonus — which is a good reason to finish the one you are in rather than chase the next thing that lights.
Multiballs are a target, not a shot
All three Razor Crest multiballs start the same way: hit the Razor Crest target until it lights. There is no lock sequence to learn and no ramp route to memorise, which makes this the most reliable of the three lists to advance under pressure.
They play very differently once running. Ice Spider comes in waves, and clearing a wave lights the super jackpot on a timer — so shoot as many as you can before it lapses. Pirates also works in waves, with a Rhydonium meter setting your jackpot value; when the values sag, the spinner steadies it.
Jetpack is the odd one out and catches people every time. The super jackpot does not light while you have multiple balls in play. You spend the multiball building its value, and it only lights once you are down to a single ball, with a few seconds to cash it. Do not go hunting for it early — it is not there.
After the first and third multiballs there is a hurry-up: shoot the centre ramp to start it, then hit the Razor Crest target three times, quickly.
Encounters, and the one that matters
The three encounters — Protect The Child, Catch the Jawas, Escape to the Sewer — each run three levels, with a short bonus level after each one you clear. They start from the left ramp.
This is the list most players neglect, and it is the one gating You Have What I Want. If you are playing for the finish rather than for a big single multiball, the left ramp deserves more of your attention than it usually gets.
The Child, and not draining
Shoot enough orbits and The Child lights; collect it at either orbit. The award is genuinely random — it deals out five awards, one per letter of C-H-I-L-D, and you get whichever letter the ball leaves on. Specials, extra balls, bonus multipliers, Beskar, points.
The award to hope for is Heal, because Heal returns a ball that drains down an outlane, and you can move which outlane is lit with the flipper buttons. That is a saved ball, which on a machine with three separate lists to advance is worth more than any single jackpot.
One catch worth knowing: if you drain with Heal lit, it does not carry to the next ball. Use it or lose it.
There are three routes to an extra ball here — starting enough missions, trading Beskar at the Foundry, or a lucky Child award — which is another reason to keep all three lists moving rather than specialising.
Pro cabinets shoot differently
The rules are the same across editions, but a Pro does not have the right scoop. Wherever a mission asks for the right scoop — Deceive the Magistrate's Ahsoka sequence and Infiltrate the Freighter both do — the Pro substitutes the right U-turn.
It is the same instruction with a different target, but if you have learned the machine on one edition and then stand at the other, that is the shot that will not be where you left it.
The Pro also lacks the upper playfield used during Jetpack Multiball to add a ball and build the super jackpot value, so Jetpack is a shorter, simpler mode there.
Where this came from
Silverball wrote this, but not from scratch: it was compiled against the published rules below and checked against them, rather than written up from one person’s games. None of the wording is theirs. Machines get code updates that move the right shot, so a guide has a date on it for a reason.
- Stern Pinball, The Mandalorian How-To-Play and Rule Guide, v0.97.00
