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Theorycraft

How to compose a Zero Company squad

Four slots, four jobs: someone who is shot at, someone who fills the Advantage pool, someone who stops an Injury becoming a death, and someone who answers cover. Almost every strong squad is a different way of covering those four, and the two compositions the developers warn against are the two that skip one.

Reasoning, not measurement

Zero Company released on 27 August 2026 and no squad on this site has been played end to end and recorded. Every rule below is sourced and dated; assembling them into a composition is our reasoning, so this page is theorycraft and stays labelled that way. What it is not is invented — the four jobs are four confirmed mechanics, and the two warnings are the developers’ own.

Why composition is a different question from class ranking

The class tier list asks whether a Specialization is worth a quarter of the squad. That is the right question for one bay and the wrong one for four, because the second-best class at a job you have already covered is worth less than the fourth-best class at a job you have not. A squad of four excellent attackers is a worse squad than three good ones and a Scout.

Four is the standard limit, though EA say certain missions let you control additional characters — plan as four and treat the extras as a bonus. The roster runs to twenty, and Bonds are what make a wide bench expensive: relationships build between a settled pair, so an Operator you recruit and rarely field earns you nothing.

The four jobs

What every squad has to cover

Several classes can fill each one, which is exactly why this is a composition question and not a ranking.

1

Someone who is shot at

Decide who takes the return fire, rather than letting the enemy decide. The Heavy's taunt rides on its primary attack, so choosing the target costs no separate action.

Filled by
Heavy, or Cly Kullervo's +3 Defense on an Operator already in front
If nobody does
The enemy picks, and it will pick whoever is cheapest to kill. With permadeath on, that is how a campaign loses an Operator and every Bond they held.
2

Someone who fills the Advantage pool

Advantage is earned one point at a time by damaging enemies, caps at ten, and starts every fight empty. Every Specialization has an Ultimate priced in it.

Filled by
Scout, deliberately. Any frequent attacker, incidentally
If nobody does
The squad's best abilities arrive in the third turn or not at all. A squad of expensive Ultimates with no generator owns them on paper.
3

Someone who stops an Injury becoming a death

An Operator reduced to zero health takes an Injury, and three Injuries mean permanent death on standard difficulty. Healing a wound in a standard Medbay bed costs a campaign cycle.

Filled by
Medic, or Medkits on anyone if you are willing to spend the slot
If nobody does
Injuries accumulate and the campaign pays for them in cycles, which is time, which is expired missions and Operations.
4

Someone who answers cover

Cover reduces chance to hit and some of it is destructible. Displacement removes the enemy from it instead, which no hit-chance roll can refuse.

Filled by
Tel-Rea Vokoss, Cly Kullervo, Kabb Uppercut, the Assault, or Concussion Grenades
If nobody does
Entrenched enemies become a stalemate and Droidekas — which deflect ordinary attacks but drop the shield while moving — have no clean answer.

Named by the developers

Two compositions to avoid

Not our inference. Both are stated in official material or developer interviews.

  • Four long-range Operators. The developers state that line of sight and mission structure limit pure sniper strategies, and a squad that all fights at one range has no answer when the engagement distance changes.
  • Overcommitting the shared Advantage pool. It holds ten for the whole squad, so four Operators whose Ultimates total more than ten cannot fire them in the same turn — and the pool starts every fight at zero regardless.

Worked examples

Squads that cover the four differently

Each of these is the same four jobs solved for a different campaign. None has been tested.

Starting squad hypothesis

Best for Permadeath-safe · Survivability · Sustain and healing

Core synergy

Combat Stim multi-shot scaling

An untested first-campaign squad, built only from confirmed mechanics — the reasoning is ours, and it has not yet been played in the retail build.

Theorycraftearly campaign
Open in Squad BuilderRead the build

Expert difficulty squad

Best for Permadeath-safe · Survivability · Sustain and healing

Core synergy

A dedicated Advantage generator

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.

TheorycraftAny campaign phase
Open in Squad BuilderRead the build

Beskar Mode squad

Best for Permadeath-safe · Survivability · Sustain and healing

Core synergy

A dedicated Advantage generator

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

TheorycraftAny campaign phase
Open in Squad BuilderRead the build

Anti-Droid Ion Squad

Best for Permadeath-safe · Sustain and healing · Anti-droid

Core synergy

Combat Stim multi-shot scaling

Developers specifically recommend Ion weapons against Separatist droids — build the squad around that counter.

TheorycraftAny campaign phase
Open in Squad BuilderRead the build