You know what might be interesting? Have Thrawn as like a 10 point Commander or whatever and have him have no abilities, no special help. You want him to be strategic and cunning in his plans - guess what you're gonna need to be! Put him in a mandatory ISD or something and make him 5 points only. Or put the Chimera as a special ISD title that when packaged with Thrawn makes it cost -5 points to keep Thrawn at 10. Then the WHOLE game is how good you are, basically. I'd be intrigued by THAT playtest.

8 minutes ago, geek19 said:

You know what might be interesting? Have Thrawn as like a 10 point Commander or whatever and have him have no abilities, no special help. You want him to be strategic and cunning in his plans - guess what you're gonna need to be! Put him in a mandatory ISD or something and make him 5 points only. Or put the Chimera as a special ISD title that when packaged with Thrawn makes it cost -5 points to keep Thrawn at 10. Then the WHOLE game is how good you are, basically. I'd be intrigued by THAT playtest.

"Grand Admiral Thrawn, 10 points. Get gud."

You run for the hills, as you will need to, he will crush you regardless of your plans

I really like the idea of him negating the opposition commander. Should be around 25-27 points - about half the range between the cheapest and most expensive commanders.

In this way, taking him is a decision by the player based on knowledge of their opponents play style, the metagame and a prediction of what your opponent is likely to do before the match. The reward for getting it right should be good enough to be able to cause a minor advantage and some trollz, but not game breaking. The punishment for getting it wrong should be a minor disadvantage in points.

5 hours ago, geek19 said:

You know what might be interesting? Have Thrawn as like a 10 point Commander or whatever and have him have no abilities, no special help. You want him to be strategic and cunning in his plans - guess what you're gonna need to be! Put him in a mandatory ISD or something and make him 5 points only. Or put the Chimera as a special ISD title that when packaged with Thrawn makes it cost -5 points to keep Thrawn at 10. Then the WHOLE game is how good you are, basically. I'd be intrigued by THAT playtest.

That would be funny if he only cost a point. That would be 20 points additional to list build.

1 hour ago, D503 said:

I really like the idea of him negating the opposition commander. Should be around 25-27 points - about half the range between the cheapest and most expensive commanders.

In this way, taking him is a decision by the player based on knowledge of their opponents play style, the metagame and a prediction of what your opponent is likely to do before the match. The reward for getting it right should be good enough to be able to cause a minor advantage and some trollz, but not game breaking. The punishment for getting it wrong should be a minor disadvantage in points.

As much as I like this idea, it would be a no-brainer. This would immediately harm every Rebel commander immensely, as many of them give significant offensive and defensive bonuses. Rieekan would be come unplayable, Sato would be several ships worth of meaningless points investment.

Too many fleets are based around offensive and defensive synergies that are only possible due to their commander abilities. Sato is an excellent example: if you put Ordnance Experts on a red die ship, you've lost not just Sato but all the points spent to use his ability.

I'm a big fan of a deployment or pre-deployment abilities, such as the ability to effect mission objectives or re-deploy a ship. The ability to change the battle to better suit your needs is more how I've always envisioned Thrawn, out-thinking and out-planning his opponents.

When Thrawn arrives....it will be death for the Rebels

58 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

As much as I like this idea, it would be a no-brainer. This would immediately harm every Rebel commander immensely, as many of them give significant offensive and defensive bonuses. Rieekan would be come unplayable, Sato would be several ships worth of meaningless points investment.

Too many fleets are based around offensive and defensive synergies that are only possible due to their commander abilities. Sato is an excellent example: if you put Ordnance Experts on a red die ship, you've lost not just Sato but all the points spent to use his ability.

I'm a big fan of a deployment or pre-deployment abilities, such as the ability to effect mission objectives or re-deploy a ship. The ability to change the battle to better suit your needs is more how I've always envisioned Thrawn, out-thinking and out-planning his opponents.

Yep, couldn't agree more. Nullification abilities are helpful on a small and limited use scale where their effects do not outright cause denial of the normal playing of the game. Game theory would seem to force the meta to always be thrawn vs dodonna. Why play anything more expensive if it can just be nullified?

Plus, as others have noted, it's just not fun to come up with a cool build centered around your admiral and then have the opponent tell you that you've wasted your time.

How about this: Once in every turn you may exhaust his card instead of activating a ship, or if you activated a ship you kay exhaust the card to activate another one immediately.

It's flexible and gives a great strategic advantage without breaking the enemy fleet's synergy.

Double post....

I have no idea why it sent three times...

For everything I like, this whole "activation" thing would actually be a great way to mess around with him.

Thrawn always succeeded because he was, as the guys at TVTropes like to say, "genre savvy." He understands that the standard rules of gloating and evil plans are nothing in the face of solid tactical decisions and playing to the advantage.

What Thrawn does is he looks at the board, sees all the pieces, and notes that the question isn't "first vs second" so much as "where can i break the game to give me a decided advantage." Thrawn is the epitomy of "fighting fair is fighting to lose" so for him, the way to play the game is to utterly break a core rule in his favor, something that could be relied upon entirely being subverted to his will. That's really the whole point of the Interdictor, for example. In Star Wars, hyperspace is an invulnerable and indefensible form of travel. To Thrawn the solution wasn't to pack more guns and armor into his ships, it was to simply stop the enemy at a time and place of his choosing and engage them there, or to bait out an action that tips the enemy hand.

Some solid options I've suggested previously that work for Thrawn:

It's Thrawn's galaxy and we're just living in it. For example, as second player make the opponent replace an objective or Thrawn plays his own objectives - with him as first player of course.

or

Thrawn waits for he enemy to react. At the start of your activation, Exhaust Thrawn instead of activating a ship. Want to know what this combos amazingly well with? Hint hint: Thrawn's favorite EU Legends ship.

or

Thrawn has been studying his opponents and found a critical weakness. When your ships attack enemy ships, you may spend one accuracy to spend one enemy defense token.

Has canon Thrawn actually won many victories?

He has been outmaneuvered at every turn. He lost his captured spy. Hera has escaped him time and again. Even his final "masterstroke" failed to bag the core of the Lothal rebel cell.

In the books Thrawn was especially skilled in using interdictors to do the Thrawn Pincer. He also micromanaged squadrons to great effect, leaning heavy on his squadrons to win battles. Perhaps allow the player with Thrawn to always be the second player during hyperspace assault when this mission is chosen. In addition, give him a squadron bonus. For example reactivating squadrons (like colonel Jendon) or some movement bonus (maybe repositioning squadrons up to distance 1-2 at the end of the turn, even if engaged?)

Allowing the Imperial player to pass on activation would be a nice bonus as well, allowing the Imp player to force the rebel swarm to activate all their ships first

2 minutes ago, Democratus said:

Has canon Thrawn actually won many victories?

He has been outmaneuvered at every turn. He lost his captured spy. Hera has escaped him time and again. Even his final "masterstroke" failed to bag the core of the Lothal rebel cell.

Show for kids, rebels must win. The books are what makes Thrawn, well Thrawn.

Just now, Lord Tareq said:

Show for kids, rebels must win. The books are what makes Thrawn, well Thrawn.

Is he in any canon books other than "Thrawn"?

He is in 3 other books. All by Timothy Zahn.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Thrawn_Trilogy

3 minutes ago, Lord Tareq said:

He is in 3 other books. All by Timothy Zahn.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Thrawn_Trilogy

Those aren't canon.

26 fleet points cost -> at the start of the first, third and last ship phase choose an enemy ship in game, remove that ship from the game inmidiately, throw it to the floor and crush it, then look to your opponent in the eye and talk some logic verbiage.

FAQ: this card should also read: you are also prevented from refounding that enemy ship to your opponent.

17 minutes ago, Democratus said:

Those aren't canon.

For some of us Disneyverse doesn't exist

What if... Thrawn was Jendon for Ships?

3 minutes ago, Lyraeus said:

What if... Thrawn was Jendon for Ships?

Just now, Democratus said:

"At the start of the Ship Phase you may nominate a ship you control. That ship may fire an arc an additional time following all rules for shooting applied to that ship. "

Something like that where suddenly you NEVER EVER EVEN CONSIDER Advanced Gunnery becuase suddenly a Triple Tapping ISD 2 is SCARY!

Or Demolisher suddenly getting another shot (harder to pull off for this one though) etc.

There are a few other ways to word it as well. It could allows a ship to exhaust all of its Defense tokens to make an additional attack even if it has attacked that ship this activation.

Thrawn could also allow a ship to activate twice... It would have to be worded so that it only worked on a ship with a Command dial remaining (so no Gozanti double Activation)

Maybe we've been looking at this the wrong way....

Thrawn, if anything, is a leader. His strategies are passed through orders...

Maybe his effects should be less specific and more wide...

He's a guy focused on the big picture after all...

It would also allow player to use Thrawn how they see fit not narrowing his skill to s specific gimmick

these may be OP, or his cost may need increased, but I think this may be the best way to go about Thrawn...

10 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Maybe we've been looking at this the wrong way....

Thrawn, if anything, is a leader. His strategies are passed through orders...

Maybe his effects should be less specific and more wide...

He's a guy focused on the big picture after all...

It would also allow player to use Thrawn how they see fit not narrowing his skill to s specific gimmick

these may be OP, or his cost may need increased, but I think this may be the best way to go about Thrawn...

Yeah that's game breakingly good. That should cost 60 IMO