New custom Thrawn Commander Card

By >kkj, in Star Wars: Armada

2 minutes ago, >kkj said:

Maybe i have to word it:

"Each round, at the end of the command phase your opponent must guess the top command dial S of each of your ships."

It was intended that your opponent has to guess the dial for each ship individually.

sorry my fault

I dont see there being a big problem with this mechanic aside from the rare case where your opponent allows you to acticate 8 squadrons with your ISD, but then again thats totally his fault then.

Regarding the 6 point officers, yeah you can change your command dial but the doubling-the effect bonus only affects the command that your opponent has checked and seen. If your opponent guessed squadrons, you had a CF command planned and then changed your dial to squadrons Thrawns effect does not trigger. It would only double the CF Command.

Any further feedback or reasoning why you think this mechanic wouldnt work? I think it needs some playtesting to see how it actually affects the gameplay.

Edited by >kkj
On 7/8/2018 at 9:22 AM, Coldhands said:

I assume youd run a squadronless list with this most of the times. If you have a carrier, opponent just spams squadron command guesses, and its not gonna push squads...

Yeah but then your Command Arquitens or Gladiator might activate 4 squadrons while your Quasar II spams CF with Gunneryteam and that huge frontarc. See where this leads? Very different but still powerful playstyle.

Edited by >kkj

As others have stated, this may allow the opponent to have a bit too much power to neuter you on critical turns. It is often fairly straight forward when you need to pull a maneuver or squadron. To have any chance at using this ability you really need to hide your intentions and design your fleet to be unpredictable.

I would like to test it before making any proclamations one way or another. I think perhaps a similar idea but less impactful both for good and bad would likely find more traction. Thematic is fun, though competitive admirals need a more consistent ability that is both less swingy and less affected by enemies.

It does feel fairly like EU Thrawn, congrats. I think Thrawn would be less vulnerable to his enemies though!

1 minute ago, TheBigLev said:

As others have stated, this may allow the opponent to have a bit too much power to neuter you on critical turns. It is often fairly straight forward when you need to pull a maneuver or squadron. To have any chance at using this ability you really need to hide your intentions and design your fleet to be unpredictable.

Thats the fun in it, isn't it? I find many imperial ships to be able to use different commands at all times with the huge boost Thrawn provides to all commands. Arquitens can really pretty much benefit from every command now. 6 engineering points? 4 squadrons? Mega Nav? 2 more Dice? Seems all pretty strong to me and its not like you cant influence the situation by flying your ships a certain way. And we all know the ISD is the king of multirole purposes.

6 minutes ago, TheBigLev said:

I think Thrawn would be less vulnerable  to his enemies though!

Well only if Thrawn plays by standard rules and tactics or if the opponent gets lucky and actually predicts Thrawns absurd, unconventional approach. So i think its a fair compromise.

Actually with liasons it become ridiculous.

Both guessing and discarding happens before revealing command dials step so you are save from being blocked. Just assign whatever and change to the chosen (the good) one.

You can build a fleet where a single quasar command 10 squadrons while a Cymoon roll 9 dice out of the front at long range.

On 7/8/2018 at 2:25 AM, >kkj said:

"Each round, at the end of the command phase your opponent must guess the top command dial of each of your ships. Your opponent may then check the top dial of each     of your ships. If your opponent guessed wrong, double the effect of that command dial.  "

I could change the effect to this. I removed the penalty when your opponent guessed correctly. Would this make the effect more balanced?

Edited by >kkj
1 minute ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Actually with liasons it become ridiculous.

Both guessing and discarding happens before revealing command dials step so you are save from being blocked. Just assign whatever and change to the chosen (the good) one.

You can build a fleet where a single quasar command 10 squadrons while a Cymoon roll 9 dice out of the front at long range.

No you cant, same goes for the 6 point officers. Thrawn only boosts the command that your opponent has checked and seen.

4 minutes ago, >kkj said:

No you cant, same goes for the 6 point officers. Thrawn only boosts the command that your opponent has checked and seen.

ah ok... i see now. The effect is really awful. I mean if the idea is to make it thematic in some way it makes your fleet really unflexible. No command fixers, your opponent determining you command selection, all for the chance of boosting the last command you wanted to resolve. It looks more like an effect for Ozzel...

23 minutes ago, >kkj said:

"Each round, at the end of the command phase your   opponent must guess the top command dial of each of your  ships. Your opponent may then check the top dial of each     of your ships. If your opponent guessed wrong, double the effect of that command dial.  "

Take a look at this revised version. Contray to what you said it does NOT make your fleet unflexible. Your Fleet has to to BE flexible in order to benefit from this Thrawn. You cant just apply a typical modern meta fleettype and try to make it work with this Thrawn. It won't.

Edited by >kkj
1 hour ago, >kkj said:

Take a look at this revised version. Contray to what you said it does NOT make your fleet unflexible. Your Fleet has to to BE flexible in order to benefit from this Thrawn. You cant just apply a typical modern meta fleettype and try to make it work with this Thrawn. It won't.

Now that is far different not allowing your opponent to prevent you one command per ship.

With that version your opponent actually want to be right, while in the previous one he just want to block one command on each ship.

But it still feel weird. I mean, at the end what you do here is to reward an unpredictable play (nothing wrong with it). Maybe an effect that make you unpredictable would be easier and better.

But maybe the reason cause I dislike it more is that this reward surprise just for surprise. It ends with two possible effects. I gues we agree about there is an optimal choice at any given time. That's all command mechanic is about with higher command values, tokens effect and other things.

1) If you assign all your commands in order to get the boost then it encourages suboptimal choices just for getting a boost. It doesn't fix poor choices, it encourages them. It ask you for being wrong to get the benefit. One of the hardest things to do with command 3 ships is to guess correctly the best command for the best time. This way you ask for poor choices in order to get a benefit.

2) If you assign all your commands in order to get the optimal command resolution, then it, at least, fixes your poor play making the poor choice a bit better. "So I wish I had squadron command but I failed so at least I have a super cf, so not that bad"... but still not the best.

1 hour ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Now that is far different not allowing your opponent to prevent you one command per ship.

With that version your opponent actually want to be right, while in the previous one he just want to block one command on each ship.

But it still feel weird. I mean, at the end what you do here is to reward an unpredictable play (nothing wrong with it). Maybe an effect that make you unpredictable would be easier and better.

But maybe the reason cause I dislike it more is that this reward surprise just for surprise. It ends with two possible effects. I gues we agree about there is an optimal choice at any given time. That's all command mechanic is about with higher command values, tokens effect and other things.

1) If you assign all your commands in order to get the boost then it encourages suboptimal choices just for getting a boost. It doesn't fix poor choices, it encourages them. It ask you for being wrong to get the benefit. One of the hardest things to do with command 3 ships is to guess correctly the best command for the best time. This way you ask for poor choices in order to get a benefit.

2) If you assign all your commands in order to get the optimal command resolution, then it, at least, fixes your poor play making the poor choice a bit better. "So I wish I had squadron command but I failed so at least I have a super cf, so not that bad"... but still not the best.

Not to mention that it either forces you to place/play your ships suboptimally, or make your command choice really easy to guess. Take the Quasar with CF with the arc and glad command squads: Either all these ships are in close formation, or the squads may not be close enough to be commanded by the quasar, making it obvious that it isn't doing a squadron command. This commander just isn't useful 90% of the time, and that 10% probably isn't worth the points.

Well Thrawn already exists in the game...

One can be current canon Thrawn and one can be original Zahn Thrawn.