One of the things that came up in one of the multitudinous discussions RE: Thrawn in the past few months that I really resonated with is that he is a tactician. So many of the suggestions for Thrawn are just arbitrarily great and require little to no tactical skill to use. For instance, reducing all command dials by 1 is a super strong effect, but all it does it make everything require even less strategy, which then is not in keeping with the theme of the character.

Taking Thrawn as your commander represents having access to his tactical genius. An ability that's just "arbitrarily good" is the perfect representation of Thrawn's tactical skill.

Reduced dials would represent his ability to change tactics on the fly to accommodate a changing battlefield, as well as his ability to predict his enemies responses.

This could work as long as it says something like " can not be used in conjunction with Relentless" because an ISD with only 1 command dial would be ridiculous especially if coupled with a Navigation Officer, Engineering Captain, Wing Commander or Tactical Expert

Also would it apply to all ships in your fleet? That would have to cost at least 40 odd points

It would be a commander, so it would have to apply to all ships in the fleet. I'm not saying it wouldn't be expensive, although it doesn't have any effect on 1 command ships, either (although a perk could be added to not screw them over.)

If a ship had one of those officers, why would they need only 1-2 command? I okay Wing Commander on my ISD, and I wouldn't play Relentless on it, there's no need for that, because I already have flexibility insurance with the officer.

I don't know whether or not the ability would be overpowered with Relentless. I'm not convinced that it would be, but maybe. Balancing that potential issue would likely just have to be worked into the cost of Thrawn.

I also don't think it would cost "40 odd" points. Relentless costs 2, and takes up one of the least valuable slots on the ship. Granted it's unique, but it's also on the best possible ship for it (it's much more advantageous to reduce a 3 command ship to 2, rather than a 2 to a 1.)

So if you remove unique from Relentless, how much is it worth? Less than 10? So running 3 ISDs each with non unique Relentless should cost less than 30.

That's not the only factor, but it's an important one. It should be balanced to factor in like 5 VSDs or something. Which should keep it decently below 40 either way - again, depending on what boon, if any, it gives to 1 command ships.

Sorry my point on the officers was attributed to Relentless + a Thrawn ability that reduces an ISD command down to 1, which could make it OP not just in its command structure but also in its ability to say always have a Concentrate Fire or Engineering command no matter what it decides to do.

That would be rather confronting to come up against.

Yeah, I don't think that would be "OP". It would be pretty good, but not insurmountable. If you don't have initiative then you are still prone to being the target of Slicer Tools, and the dial-fixing officers are even less useful on a 1 command ship than a 3 command ship (where they can help fix errors, and provide some relief from ST, rather than only ST.)

The point is that the Relentless would only be one ship. Impressive, and useful - but not OP.

If Thrawn did reduce your command dials by 1, how would it interact with command tokens? Do you get to hold one less? I think that would be the trade off with Thrawn, and allow you to drop his points into the low 30.

If Thrawn did reduce your command dials by 1, how would it interact with command tokens? Do you get to hold one less? I think that would be the trade off with Thrawn, and allow you to drop his points into the low 30.

Relentless simply allows you to assign one less dial. It doesn't actually adjust the command value

I assume Thrawn would be the same way, otherwise his cost would have to be pretty low.

Thrawn the Dude: 35 points

Each ship with command 2-3 sets one fewer dial each round (whatever wording Relentless used so that you are still command X, rather than command X-1.)

Ships with command 1 may have up to 2 tokens.

One of the things that came up in one of the multitudinous discussions RE: Thrawn in the past few months that I really resonated with is that he is a tactician. So many of the suggestions for Thrawn are just arbitrarily great and require little to no tactical skill to use. For instance, reducing all command dials by 1 is a super strong effect, but all it does it make everything require even less strategy, which then is not in keeping with the theme of the character.

Taking Thrawn as your commander represents having access to his tactical genius. An ability that's just "arbitrarily good" is the perfect representation of Thrawn's tactical skill.

Reduced dials would represent his ability to change tactics on the fly to accommodate a changing battlefield, as well as his ability to predict his enemies responses.

I am diametrically opposed to this line of logic.

The entire idea of having reduce your command stack makes him feel at worst brutish and at best more of a micromanager, not like a tactical genius who is patient and cunning and will allow enemies to make small gains against him to learn about them before they become overconfident and he can reveal his master plan which will ultimately guarantee their utter annihilation.

The command stack represents the flow of communication across the network of a ship and the speed that ship can respond to changes in command. Reducing the stack just means your communications network from Admiral-->Navigator/Gunnery Sergent/Chief Engineer/Flight Coordinator-->"Crew who actually make the adjustments" is better than normal. It flies absolutely in the face of how Thrawn should operate. He is not Admiral Shouty McLoud whose screams ring out above the chaos of the command deck allowing his underlings who are used to receiving the lash for slow response times to make split second decisions. He is not even Admiral Stoic McSteely, some weathered Navy commander who has flown so long with his trusted crew that they can almost anticipate his orders before he gives them. These commanders I could see getting a reduced command stack effect, just juxtapose the cinamatrope over a named star wars character and boom.

Not to say you can't continue to postulate how awesome you think it would be, because at the end of the day all we have are two differing opinions about a board game.

Thrawn the Dude: 35 points

Each ship with command 2-3 sets one fewer dial each round (whatever wording Relentless used so that you are still command X, rather than command X-1.)

Ships with command 1 may have up to 2 tokens.

The extra token for 1 command ships is cool. I mentioned on the previous page giving 1 command ships an extra health as compensation.

I would personally prefer a more "neat" ability myself as well. Honestly, I just hope that he feels balanced. If he's expensive, I want him worth it. I don't ever take Tarkin or Vader because I don't think they're worth their significant (I'm Vader's case double) cost.

I don't agree with your interpretation of how that ability would be perceived, but that's OK. We are looking at it two different ways and certainly don't need to agree, I'm positive that don't actually be good ability anyway, lol.

Thrawn the Dude: 35 points

Each ship with command 2-3 sets one fewer dial each round (whatever wording Relentless used so that you are still command X, rather than command X-1.)

Ships with command 1 may have up to 2 tokens.

The extra token for 1 command ships is cool. I mentioned on the previous page giving 1 command ships an extra health as compensation.

I saw that, and it gave me the idea, actually. I figured I figured I wanted something other than just Motti for small ships, so that came to mind.

That being said, that extra hull point is huge surprisingly often.

Thrawn, officer:

After deployment you may redeploy this ship.

Would this be interesting as an admiral ability, seems kind of Thrawnish ?

"Opponent plays with all dials face up"

I can see there are many suggestions to this, I will have to troll trough all suggestions, when I have a less tired brain (its late now in good old Denmark).

Thrawn has such a high esteem among us, as a tactical as well as strategic genius. So when he does his decisive move, its in such a subtle manner, that his enemies don't realize they have volenterly stuck their head in the noose before its to late.

So far we have the following general categories:

Dial/token manipulation of friendly and/or enemy ships (To show his tactical genius)

Activation manipulation of friendly and/or enemy ships (To show his tactical genius)

Selection of Objectives (To show his Strategic genius)

But are there other options than those?

Such as:

"After deployment you may select another fleet coammander of equal or lower point value that your oppont most use, for the duration of the game"

Any how, keep comming with suggestions.

I would strongly advise against anything that changes the opponent's list. Mislead the enemy, sure. Adapt to the enemy, absolutely. But that changing commanders idea would be majorly un-fun for the opponent.

If you want to do something like that, make it "discard thrawn & choose a new admiral of your own choosing, of lesser cost."

Wonderbread recently came up with that same thing but as an officer for governor price

I think this is getting out of hand myself. I never liked the thrawn fluff because it was all based on the assumption that every imperial other than palpatine and thrawn were complete incompetent chumps who couldnt operate at even the most basic level without some sort of force based mind control or captain obvious telling them what to do.

So sure if he has to be in the game and can be used to widen the game and make it a better experience, being him in, but I don't accept that he should be at any level above Vader, Tarkin or the other Imperials (or Ackbar or Dodonna for contrast).

You may choose to go second and pick Hyperspace Assault as the objective. You can double the number of ships and squadrons coming in from hyperspace, and they can be small, medium or large based.

38 points.

I kind of figured that the keyword for Thrawn is "Subtle" (as used in my last post) and not something that is to obvious powerfull.

So here goes a an idea that I have not seen any other come up with.

After deployment you may select 6x Non-unique ship upgrades that are different from each other and place them face down, next to your commanders card.

Once per turn, before you activate a ship you may allocate one upgrade card to that ship, which effect it may use until the end of the turn. Discard the allocated upgrade card after the end of the turn.

This way ships, in Thrawns command, can suddenly use various upgrade cards that otherwise is not available to them, but you have to use them wisely and in the right time and combination, to get the full benefit of it.

So with the subtle application of various one time use upgrade cards, you can surprise your opponent with the "unexpected".

I kind of figured that the keyword for Thrawn is "Subtle" (as used in my last post) and not something that is to obvious powerfull.

So here goes a an idea that I have not seen any other come up with.

After deployment you may select 6x Non-unique ship upgrades that are different from each other and place them face down, next to your commanders card.

Once per turn, before you activate a ship you may allocate one upgrade card to that ship, which effect it may use until the end of the turn. Discard the allocated upgrade card after the end of the turn.

This way ships, in Thrawns command, can suddenly use various upgrade cards that otherwise is not available to them, but you have to use them wisely and in the right time and combination, to get the full benefit of it.

So with the subtle application of various one time use upgrade cards, you can surprise your opponent with the "unexpected".

6x cluster bombs, who needs a fighter screen.

I kind of figured that the keyword for Thrawn is "Subtle" (as used in my last post) and not something that is to obvious powerfull.

So here goes a an idea that I have not seen any other come up with.

After deployment you may select 6x Non-unique ship upgrades that are different from each other and place them face down, next to your commanders card.

Once per turn, before you activate a ship you may allocate one upgrade card to that ship, which effect it may use until the end of the turn. Discard the allocated upgrade card after the end of the turn.

This way ships, in Thrawns command, can suddenly use various upgrade cards that otherwise is not available to them, but you have to use them wisely and in the right time and combination, to get the full benefit of it.

So with the subtle application of various one time use upgrade cards, you can surprise your opponent with the "unexpected".

6x cluster bombs, who needs a fighter screen.

Someone whose not taking ECMs.

I saw they didn't need to be one you had a slot for, but didn't see the 6 different card bit.

Any new ideas for Thrawn?