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Best Squad for Expert Difficulty in Zero Company

A squad assembled for the hardest of the four difficulty settings, built around the two things a harder fight actually takes away: Action Points and margin for a missed shot.

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

Build summary

Players starting a campaign on Expert, or moving up to it between missions.

Campaign phase
any
Difficulty
Expert, 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

    Scoundrelrifle

    Mandatory on story missions and the only Operator who cannot permanently die, which is worth more here than anywhere else. As a Scoundrel he ignores four points of enemy Defense and hands out a guaranteed critical, and his AP grant at 3 Advantage is the single most valuable action in the squad.

  2. Bay 2

    Custom Operator

    Scoutpistol

    The Advantage battery. Everything expensive in this squad is priced in a shared pool of ten that starts every fight empty, and the Scout is the only class that refills it deliberately. Spotted also removes distance and smoke penalties from a marked target, which is the squad's answer to a difficulty that may be taxing accuracy.

  3. Bay 3

    Custom Operator

    Heavyrepeater

    Somebody has to be shot at, and on Expert the question is only whether it is the Operator built for it. The taunt rides on the primary attack, so a Heavy pulls fire onto the squad member with the most Defense rather than onto the Scout.

  4. Bay 4

    Custom Operator

    Medicrifle

    Injury prevention rather than healing. Three Injuries mean permanent death on standard difficulty and nothing states that the threshold is the same on Expert — so the Medic is here to keep the count from starting, not to reset it.

Reasoning

Why it works

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

  • It answers the action economy first. A harder difficulty is felt as fights lasting longer, and the only confirmed ways to act more are Hawks' Advantage-funded AP grant, the free assist available every turn, and cheap attacks. This squad has all three, and the three-AP cap is a limit on what an Operator holds rather than what they spend.
  • It funds itself. Advantage is earned one point at a time by damaging enemies and starts every fight at zero, so a squad of expensive Ultimates on Expert spends the first two turns unable to use any of them. The Scout is the only published answer to that.
  • Rifles on two slots is a deliberate action-economy choice rather than a damage one. A Rifle opens at 10 damage for 1 AP — the best rate in the game for a first shot — which leaves two points for a reposition or a second attack, and repositioning is what a harder difficulty punishes you for skipping.
  • The Scoundrel's four points of armour penetration matter more here than at any other setting. Defense is flat reduction subtracted per hit; if Expert raises enemy Defense at all, it taxes every attack in the squad, and armour penetration is the only confirmed counter.
  • Nothing in it is late-campaign. Every Specialization is one of the eight, so the squad is available from the first mission of an Expert run rather than being something to aim at.

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 a priority target and start filling the Advantage pool. Spotted removes the range penalty for everyone else.

  2. Step 2

    Turn 1 — Heavy: advance into the open and taunt. This is the turn the squad decides who absorbs the return fire.

  3. Step 3

    Turn 1 — Hawks: Identify Weakness on the marked target, then a Rifle shot at 1 AP.

  4. Step 4

    Turn 1 — Medic: hold position and keep Action Points free rather than spending into a fight that has not started badly yet.

  5. Step 5

    Turn 2 onward — spend 3 Advantage on Hawks' AP grant the moment a second attack from one Operator is worth more than an Ultimate nobody can afford.

Strengths

  • Every slot is available from the first mission, with no unlock or campaign-phase requirement.
  • It generates Advantage rather than only spending it, which is the difference between a squad that uses its abilities and one that owns them.
  • It carries the only confirmed counter to flat Defense.
  • Hawks cannot permanently die, so the mandatory slot is also the safest one.

Weaknesses

  • This has not been played on Expert, or on anything else. Nothing published states what Expert actually changes, so the squad is built against a plausible model of a harder fight rather than against a measured one.
  • No displacement. Entrenched enemies and Droidekas are a real gap, and the fix costs one of these four slots.
  • Two Rifles means two Operators who cannot both move and fire twice, which is a genuine constraint on a difficulty where positioning matters more.
  • If Expert raises enemy accuracy rather than health, the Heavy's taunt becomes a liability rather than a shield and the squad should trade toward mitigation.

Alternatives

Safer and more aggressive versions

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

Safer
Swap the Scoundrel for a second sustain option if Injuries are accruing faster than the Medic can prevent them. It costs the armour penetration, which is the price of finding out that survivability was the binding constraint.
More aggressive
Replace the Medic with a Gunslinger and accept that the squad's Injury count only goes one way. Reasonable if Expert turns out to lengthen fights rather than sharpen them.
If you have Tel-Rea Vokoss or Cly Kullervo
Either replaces the Heavy and brings the displacement this squad lacks. Both are exotic classes, so neither takes a Specialization here — see their own build pages.

What still needs testing

Play a full campaign opening on Expert with permadeath enabled, recording the version and platform, and compare against the same squad on Normal. The specific thing to measure is what the tier actually changes — enemy health, accuracy, count, or the Injury threshold — because every choice above is reasoning from a model of Expert rather than from a published one. Publishing that measurement matters more than publishing the squad.

Mechanics this build depends on

Other builds

Sources

  • 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

  • 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: How Some of the Greatest Minds in Tactics Games are Pushing the Genre, Again

    Xbox Wire · Tier 2 — Developer interview · accessed 6 August 2026

    Supports: Greg Foertsch and James Brawley on the eight Specializations, Combat Stim + Gunslinger synergy, Advantage, and Specialization changes on authored characters

  • 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

  • PC Review — 'Star Wars Zero Company'

    WorthPlaying · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 27 August 2026

    Supports: Weapons — "Regardless of specialization, operators can use any of the game's four ranged weapon types: blaster pistols, blaster rifles, longarms (sniper rifles), and repeaters (machine guns)", and "Blaster pistols deal the least damage but always cost one AP to fire. Blaster rifles cost one AP for the first shot and two for the second, using all three AP an operator starts with each turn. Longarms always cost two AP but offer the longest range." No cost is given for the Repeater. Progression — "Focus points can be completely reset and reallocated at any time, so you're never stuck with a bad build." Bonds — "Reaching a new bond level lets you choose one of three permanent buffs for both operators, including increased health, ranged accuracy, movement range, or additional Focus points." Published 2026-08-26