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Best Squad for Beskar Mode in Zero Company

A squad for the ironman setting, where you cannot reload past a bad battle — built to lose slowly rather than to win fast.

Theorycraft
Confidence
Theorycraft
Verified
27 August 2026
Version
Pre-release evidence, plus retail launch-build observations (August 2026)

Build summary

Players running Beskar Mode, where a lost Operator cannot be undone by loading an earlier save.

Campaign phase
any
Difficulty
Any difficulty, Beskar Mode and permadeath enabled
Game version
Pre-release evidence, plus retail launch-build observations (August 2026)
Strong against
mixed

This build has not been tested

Every mechanic cited below is confirmed and all of them exist in the retail build. The combination of them is our reasoning rather than anything played: this squad has not yet been tested by Zero Company Builds. It will be re-labelled when it has.

Loadout

The four bays

Weapon choices below are role-based. Damage and Action Point costs are in the database from launch-build reporting; accuracy is not, and no squad here has been tested end to end — so treat these as reasoned starting points rather than optimised picks.

  1. Bay 1

    Hawks

    Medicpistol

    The only Operator confirmed to be unable to permanently die, in the one mode where that is the whole game. Building the undying Operator as the healer puts the squad's recovery on the slot that cannot be removed from it.

  2. Bay 2

    Custom Operator

    Heavyrepeater

    The taunt is the only confirmed way to choose who gets shot at. On Beskar Mode that choice is the difference between a bad turn and an unrecoverable one, because the alternative is the enemy choosing for you.

  3. Bay 3

    Custom Operator

    Scoutpistol

    Advantage generation, and a marking effect that raises the squad's hit chance against a priority target. A missed shot on Beskar is a turn the enemy gets for free, so accuracy is survivability here.

  4. Bay 4

    Custom Operator

    Soldierrifle

    Damage that needs no upgrade ranks to function, which matters in a mode where an early loss cannot be rewound. A Rifle opens at 10 damage for 1 AP and leaves two points for retreat.

Reasoning

Why it works

Mechanic by mechanic. Anything stated as confirmed traces to a source listed at the bottom of this page.

  • It optimises for the failure case rather than the success case. Beskar Mode does not make enemies stronger; it removes the reload, so the correct squad is the one whose worst turn is survivable rather than the one whose best turn is largest.
  • It puts recovery on the Operator who cannot be lost. Every other slot can be permanently removed from the campaign; Hawks cannot, so the ability the squad most needs to still have in hour forty belongs on him.
  • It has one Operator whose job is to be shot at and one whose job is to make shots land. Those two answer the two ways a turn goes wrong — the wrong Operator taking fire, and an attack missing.
  • Every Utility charge refreshes at the start of every battle, including consecutive battles inside one story mission. On a mode with no reload, a grenade or health pack carried out of a fight unused is a resource that was free and was wasted, and this squad should finish encounters empty.
  • It spreads capability across four slots instead of concentrating it. A squad whose plan depends on one Operator has one point of campaign failure once permadeath and Beskar Mode are both on.

Interactions

Synergies in this squad

Found by running these four Operators through the same engine the Squad Builder uses, so this page cannot claim a pairing the builder would not report.

Execution

Example opening turn

An AP and Advantage plan. Costs are unpublished, so the order matters more than the exact budget.

  1. Step 1

    Turn 1 — Scout: attack to mark and to start the Advantage pool, from cover rather than from the best firing position.

  2. Step 2

    Turn 1 — Heavy: take the exposed ground and taunt, deliberately, before the enemy picks a target itself.

  3. Step 3

    Turn 1 — Soldier: one Rifle shot at 1 AP, then hold the remaining two points rather than spending them on a second shot at 2.

  4. Step 4

    Turn 1 — Hawks: do nothing that costs Action Points unless somebody is hurt. The unspent turn is the point.

  5. Step 5

    Any turn — spend Utility charges freely. They come back next battle whatever happens in this one.

Strengths

  • Survivability on three of four slots, with the fourth unable to die permanently.
  • No dependency on any authored Operator except the mandatory one, so a permanent loss is replaceable from the roster.
  • Available from the first mission — nothing here waits on a campaign unlock, which matters when a run cannot be restarted cheaply.
  • The plan degrades rather than breaks: losing any single Operator leaves a squad that still functions.

Weaknesses

  • Low damage by design, so fights last longer, and a longer fight is more turns in which something can go wrong. This is a genuine tension in the build rather than an oversight.
  • Nobody here has played Beskar Mode. It is an ironman setting whose consequences are described in one sentence by one outlet, and the squad is reasoned from that sentence.
  • No displacement, which means no answer to Droidekas beyond Overwatch cones and no way to strip entrenched cover.
  • What actually happens when a whole squad is lost on Beskar Mode is unpublished. This build assumes the campaign continues without them, and that assumption is not evidenced.

Alternatives

Safer and more aggressive versions

Including what to do when an authored Operator in this squad is permanently lost.

Safer
Replace the Soldier with a second Medic-adjacent slot and accept that fights take longer still. Reasonable if Injuries are accruing faster than they are being prevented.
More aggressive
Replace the Heavy with a Scoundrel to end fights faster, on the argument that fewer enemy turns is itself survivability. It is a real argument and it is the opposite bet from this build.
If Tel-Rea Vokoss is available
She replaces the Soldier and brings displacement, deflection and a way to kill by pushing enemies off the map — which costs no accuracy roll at all. Her Noble Stance turns a held turn into reflected damage, which suits a squad that holds Action Points.

What still needs testing

Play a Beskar Mode campaign to the first Operator loss, recording difficulty, version and what actually happened — specifically whether a squad wipe ends the run, costs the roster, or only fails the mission. That single observation is worth more than the squad on this page, and it is currently unpublished anywhere.

Mechanics this build depends on

Other builds

Sources

  • Star Wars Zero Company: A New Hope for Turn-Based Tactics

    Xbox Wire · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 19 August 2026

    Supports: Difficulty — the writer played on Hard, "third highest out of four difficulties", and "the cutely named Beskar mode is this game's equivalent for XCOM's Ironman, with no reloading previous saves". That line was the basis of this site's difficulty record from 2026-08-19 and was missing from this locator until 2026-08-27; a cited claim whose location is not recorded is a claim nobody can re-check. Combat and squad sections — Advantage accumulating when a squad member successfully deals damage, and capping at 10; respeccing Hawks from Scoundrel into Gunslinger to exploit a Weapon Mod that applied an accumulating Burn status on every attack; unique-specialisation recruits being unable to respec the same way; an astromech with no basic attack, carrying three different Utility items with two uses each; a Concussion Grenade knocking enemies clean out of the combat space. 15-hour preview build.

  • Complete Star Wars Zero Company Trophy List — How to Get All Achievements & Trophies

    Insider Gaming · Tier 2 — Achievement list · accessed 19 August 2026

    Supports: Full trophy table — Very High Bond as a named relationship threshold, and the named pairings reaching it, including two astromechs and two Custom Operators; completing a mission with four astromechs; equipping four Weapon Mods to one weapon (“Fully Geared”); applying a Focus Point; using Force Push or Pull to knock one enemy into another; knocking an enemy out of the combat space; defeating enemies from higher elevation; landing a shot at 10% or lower Chance-to-Hit and missing at 90% or greater; the difficulty tiers Story, Normal, Hard and Expert, and Expert with Beskar Mode. Published 2026-08-17

  • Star Wars Zero Company Tips for Tactics Padawans

    Xbox Wire · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 27 August 2026

    Supports: "Fit Check" — "utility items like grenades and health packs are refreshed at the start of every battle (even when you have multiple battles in sequence as part of a larger story mission)", and "you'll likely be shifting your best equipment around between different operators as you field different teams". "Action Economy Is King" — "The limit of 3 action points per turn only applies to how many they can hold at any given moment", a free assist available every turn, and abilities that grant additional actions to teammates. Opening paragraph — four difficulty settings, changeable in the menu at any time between missions. Autosave on the first round of a battle, then at cycle start. Bylined Will Fulton, Xbox Wire Editor. Published 2026-08-26

  • Answering the Internet's Biggest Questions about Star Wars Zero Company

    Electronic Arts · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 6 August 2026

    Supports: Squad limit of 4, with additional characters controllable in certain missions; roster starting at 7 and capped at 20, raised by Den upgrades, story progression and authored Operators joining; no species or faction weapon-proficiency advantage; Clone Trooper and astromech recruitment; permadeath default and toggleable; Hawks required on story missions. The headline itself is the evidence for the game's abbreviation: "Answering the Internet’s Biggest Questions about SWZC"

  • Lead Zero Company To Victory on August 27

    Electronic Arts · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 6 August 2026

    Supports: Operator introductions; 3 Action Points per turn; Advantage caps at 10; the eight Specializations; Bonds in the Personnel Facility; Hawks' species options