What would you have it do?

Personally, I'm leaning toward having Thrawn be restricted to Epic Ships Only, and giving him a powerful support ability that might have something to do with the maneuvering or activation phase of friendly ships. Here are a few of my ideas:

• Grand Admiral Thrawn

Huge Ship Only. Empire Only.

At the start of the Activation Phase, all friendly ships may treat their Pilot Skill as 0 until the end of the Activation Phase. If one ship activates this way, all friendly ships must treat their Pilot Skill as 0 until the end of the Activation Phase.

No idea about the point cost. Maybe five or six? 2-4?

This would basically be for those turns when you really don't want to get blocked, or seriously need to block a certain enemy ship, or would love to drop mines before your opponent has the chance to move. Having all of your ships activate at the same time is also a nice way to show Thrawn's sense of timing and precision, and opens up a ton of possibilities in your squad. However, this would be at the expense of getting to arc dodge, of course, and would make arc dodging much easier for your opponent. It would be the kind of ability that you may never feel the need to use in an entire match, but the one time you do feel it would help to use it, it could swing the whole game in your favor.

• Grand Admiral Thrawn

Huge Ship Only. Empire Only.

At the start of the Activation Phase, you may look at the chosen maneuvers of all enemy ships at Range 4-5.

Also have no idea how many points this one should cost. Perhaps four to five? 6-7 points?

The range band on this ability is pretty big, but it won't be useful very often once ships get in close. I see this as showing Thrawn sitting back and observing the enemy ships from a distance, predicting what the opponent is going to do before the actual battle starts, as he often does in the novels. The biggest problem with this one would be that I'm wanting to make this Thrawn card for a Heroes of the Aturi Cluster-style campaign. Since the enemy ships don't have dials, and have no way of reacting to the dials set by players, this ability would pretty much be useless in such a campaign.

So, what do you think? Too powerful? Underpowered? And what are some of your guys' ideas?

Edit: Reconsidered the point costs after a good comment from Nitrobenz.

Action: take the nearest poster or painting off the wall by your play area. It is now assigned to your ship. Immediately take up to 4 enemy ships off the board.

80 points.

I think he would work like a Super Intel Agent.

I think he would work like a Super Intel Agent.

That's pretty much what I was thinking with my second idea. Sadly, Int. Agent is pretty useless for the purpose I'm making the card for. If Thrawn was ever released as an Crew card for the actual game, though, I can totally see him being a Super Int. Agent.

Hmm for a super intel agent kind of effect, what if any enemy ship that has one or more stress tokens during the planning phase must place the dial face up instead of face down?

Hmm for a super intel agent kind of effect, what if any enemy ship that has one or more stress tokens during the planning phase must place the dial face up instead of face down?

I considered that idea, but there's a problem with placing dials face up. The other player can just wait to set their dials until all the face up dials have been placed, or the player setting face up dials can wait until the other player has placed all theirs, so that the other player won't gain the advantage of seeing the face up dials during the planning phase.

can just flip them over at the start of the activation phase instead of placing them face up

Grand Admiral Thrawn

You win.

100 points.

Grand Admiral Thrawn

You win.

100 points.

Thrawn had plenty of time where he didn't win though.

But I think an 7 or 8 points, look at up to 3 (or 4) enemy dials at ranges 1-3 would be...Grand.

Grand Admiral Thrawn

at the start of the activation phase you may look at 3 of your opponents ship dials. then you must change 1 of your small or large ship dials. at then end of the activation phase that ship receive 1 stress token.

3 points

hmmm... I really like the character of Thrawn, the way he knows his enemies better than they themselves do and both of these seem along that vein...

The first is using his precision planning, but making you do the foresight part then uninterrupted by your enemies movements, but at the cost of you actually have to be as good of a strategist as the master himself or else you'll have PS1s escaping your arcs, because of that huge trade off I don't think it would demand that high of a cost: you ARE Thrawn making the plans and all the strategy that goes with it, so it's more of a pilot ability situation in my opinion...

On the second setup, it's more like he's actually working for you. He's sitting on the bridge and you turn to him and ask what he thinks is about to happen; much more crew-ish. It's very powerful though with that range band and there's no reason not to use it every turn, so pretty high cost I think. Then you could pair him with intel agents on his ship and you have even more power of prediction. Maybe 6 points? basing that on 1pt per ship times the estimated number of ships I've seen in that rangeband around my huge ships.

'Pick one ship at beginning of game to 'study'. That ship cannot spend focus or evade tokens for the rest of the game (even if this ship is destroyed or this upgrade is discarded).'

6 points? 5 points? Way OP?

7 Points, 2 crew slots

At the start of the activation phase, guess aloud one enemy ship's maneuvre and then reveal it. If you are correct that ship receives one stress token.

Gotta credit that to one of my local buddies, but the ability always felt so Thrawn-like to me I had to post it.

hmmm... I really like the character of Thrawn, the way he knows his enemies better than they themselves do and both of these seem along that vein...

The first is using his precision planning, but making you do the foresight part then uninterrupted by your enemies movements, but at the cost of you actually have to be as good of a strategist as the master himself or else you'll have PS1s escaping your arcs, because of that huge trade off I don't think it would demand that high of a cost: you ARE Thrawn making the plans and all the strategy that goes with it, so it's more of a pilot ability situation in my opinion...

On the second setup, it's more like he's actually working for you. He's sitting on the bridge and you turn to him and ask what he thinks is about to happen; much more crew-ish. It's very powerful though with that range band and there's no reason not to use it every turn, so pretty high cost I think. Then you could pair him with intel agents on his ship and you have even more power of prediction. Maybe 6 points? basing that on 1pt per ship times the estimated number of ships I've seen in that rangeband around my huge ships.

Those are some pretty good points, thanks. I've adjusted the point costs in my original post.

7 Points, 2 crew slots

At the start of the activation phase, guess aloud one enemy ship's maneuvre and then reveal it. If you are correct that ship receives one stress token.

Gotta credit that to one of my local buddies, but the ability always felt so Thrawn-like to me I had to post it.

That's pretty brilliant. Not sure the ability is worth 7 points or 2 crew slots, though, since it'd be rather unreliable. But it definitely punishes your opponent for flying predictably, and is awesome for people who are great at deducing what their foe is doing.

The person that made it in a story league made maybe 2 wrong guesses over the course of 4 sessions of play, some days against multiple opponents due to a lack of players on our side. It was kinda gross to watch.

That being said, it does have a very high skill cap so I can see it being priced down.

Grand Admiral Thrawn

Crew Empire Only

0 points

If Disney owns Star Wars, Thrawn and the ship he is attached to are removed from the game.

7 Points, 2 crew slots

At the start of the activation phase, guess aloud one enemy ship's maneuvre and then reveal it. If you are correct that ship receives one stress token.

Gotta credit that to one of my local buddies, but the ability always felt so Thrawn-like to me I had to post it.

That's pretty brilliant. Not sure the ability is worth 7 points or 2 crew slots, though, since it'd be rather unreliable. But it definitely punishes your opponent for flying predictably, and is awesome for people who are great at deducing what their foe is doing.

I also like this one generally, but that is a high cost for a low to moderate chance of giving out a single stress token and Thrawn doesn't fixate on snubfighters, he watches the whole battle and says something like, "The opposing commander is a Sullustian with a limp, and I can tell because..." (so maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one) My favorite Thrawn scene is in the Outbound Flight novel where he totally pegs the Neimoidians as a race based on the overall design of a Trade Federation Battleship, the initial deployment formation of droid fighters, and the fact that they used droid fighters.

At this cost (points and crew) I think he should guess before reveal against multiple ships (maybe all?) which takes us back to the rangeband. I can see a corner case (I would need to check the FAQ on this detail to be sure) though where even guessing against one ship can be a huge deal, and that is if you guess correctly that they perform a red maneuver and you call it; that stress then keeps them from doing the maneuver and now you get to reset the dial when it is later revealed as a red... Maybe this isn't terribly overcosted after all. Plus, thematically, his art collection would take up an extra crew slot

Msade this one a while back:

7 Points, 2 crew slots

At the start of the activation phase, guess aloud one enemy ship's maneuvre and then reveal it. If you are correct that ship receives one stress token.

Gotta credit that to one of my local buddies, but the ability always felt so Thrawn-like to me I had to post it.

That's pretty brilliant. Not sure the ability is worth 7 points or 2 crew slots, though, since it'd be rather unreliable. But it definitely punishes your opponent for flying predictably, and is awesome for people who are great at deducing what their foe is doing.

It reveals an enemy ship's dial at any range at the start of the activation phase. That's an obscenely good ability on its own; the stress is a very strong bonus.

7 Points, 2 crew slots

At the start of the activation phase, guess aloud one enemy ship's maneuvre and then reveal it. If you are correct that ship receives one stress token.

Gotta credit that to one of my local buddies, but the ability always felt so Thrawn-like to me I had to post it.

That's pretty brilliant. Not sure the ability is worth 7 points or 2 crew slots, though, since it'd be rather unreliable. But it definitely punishes your opponent for flying predictably, and is awesome for people who are great at deducing what their foe is doing.

It reveals an enemy ship's dial at any range at the start of the activation phase. That's an obscenely good ability on its own; the stress is a very strong bonus.

Intel agent reveals an enemy ships dial at the start of the ctivation phase for 1 point. The lack of a range restriction and potential for a stress doesn't make it worth 6 more points and an extra crew slot.

7 Points, 2 crew slots

At the start of the activation phase, guess aloud one enemy ship's maneuvre and then reveal it. If you are correct that ship receives one stress token.

Gotta credit that to one of my local buddies, but the ability always felt so Thrawn-like to me I had to post it.

That's pretty brilliant. Not sure the ability is worth 7 points or 2 crew slots, though, since it'd be rather unreliable. But it definitely punishes your opponent for flying predictably, and is awesome for people who are great at deducing what their foe is doing.

It reveals an enemy ship's dial at any range at the start of the activation phase. That's an obscenely good ability on its own; the stress is a very strong bonus.

That same ability with a range limitation of 1-2 is only a single point. Expand that out to unlimited range and bump it up by a point or two. Then add the fact that it miiiiight deal stress, if you're good at predicting your opponent, and add 1-2 points (Tactician and R3-A2 are far more reliable for dealing stress, and only cost 2 points). So, all together, that should be between 3-5 points. Maybe six if it seems a little too overpowered. For it to be 7 points, and take up two of the extremely valuable crew slow, would be asking too much.

Edit: Ninjas, man. Ninjas.

The first line represents how thoughtful and unique Thrawn's command was compared to other imperial officers. Rather than relying on brute force or fear, he studied his enemies and devised deeper tactics.

The second line represents how the crew members under his command learn from their mistakes and redouble their efforts after a failure.

The third line is his art chamber.

My thrawn would do the following...
"Crew" X points
Treat all friendly ships as Pilot Skill 12. discard this card during the end phase.

(alternatively, cost it higher, and make discard :flip: and add a spiky ability.

"Crew (no points can't be assigned)"
You may discard this card to cancel any number of dice results.

Crew - 6 Points

Action: You may assign each friendly ship at range 1-2 a focus or evade token.

Then, assign a stress token to each ship that took a token.