Last week I talked about the extremely likely possibility of getting Death Troopers soon, and this week I'd like to continue the speculation of the "leaked" Worlds prize art characters with a brief talk on Thrawn.
In my opinion, it should be rather obvious that Thrawn should be a support character if he shows up in this game. The rather awkward problem with this is that the Empire already has a ton of support characters.
The most obvious of these might be the ones that came with the Core Box, Officers that allow for strategic movement and even extra attacks.
The Empire also gets some movement boons from General Weiss (probably too expensive to be considered much of a "support character", though- at least, a not particularly viable one).
Then, of course, more extra attacks come with Kayn Somos.
Agent Blaise gave the Empire some options for more strategic deployment.
And the new addition of the Emperor gave the Imperial player a ton of new support-centered goodies to play around with.
That's not even considering the various Guardian classes and such, that can increase the chances of survival of your units.
So right off the bat, I think we should rule out Thrawn granting any extra movement or attacks to other units- the Empire already has a lot of options for that, and more would be redundant at best and game-breaking at worst.
Instead, I'd suggest we could take a look at another support unit for inspiration: the illustrious Jabba the Hutt.
A few interesting things there. I'm not sure something like Bully would fit- Thrawn is certainly a capable physical threat, but his theming would be far better focusing on him as a strategic threat. We also already know Executive Order should be out, since the Empire can already get free attacks pretty easily. Financial Incentive is pretty cool, but I don't really see Thrawn as a figure that could give out healing, though maybe simply handing out Focus tokens could work for him.
To be honest, the two best Thrawn options here are, in my opinion, Plot and Hutt Syndicate. I love both, because they play on Thrawn's strategic side, particularly his long game. And yes, we do see some Threat acquisition with the Empire already with Blaise, but I think the game could still benefit from having Thrawn gain threat via an action, rather than by spending a surge. That seems varied enough.
Rather than Hutt Syndicate, I might like to see something like this:
Playing the Long Game: If you are on the map at the end of the mission the Imperial player may gain 1 influence. Then, when drawing Agenda cards at the end of the mission, draw an additional card for each unspent Threat point, to a maximum of 6.
I really like that, because it actually encourages the Empire for once to not necessarily spend all its threat if it doesn't have to. Obviously, the max of 6 could be adjusted for balance as needed, that's just a placeholder for now.
For a final support ability, I wouldn't mind seeing Thrawn be able to hand out ability tokens to a couple of units as an action- either Surge tokens or surge cancel tokens, for flavor.
Finally, for Thrawn's attacks, I'd want to see him based off of his sparring scene rather than something like this:
I think that making his attacks melee based would encourage playing him as a support character, but a strong melee attack could also discourage Rebels from rushing him.
Personally, I'd love for him to have a YY attack with a plethora of strong surge abilities. A few added damage here and there, Stun, Bleed, and of course the ability to add a Focus on himself. Maybe even let him gain some threat by spending a surge, too.
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on what I could see Thrawn bringing to Imperial Assault. Let me know in the comments what your opinions are! Thanks for reading!
May the Force be with you!
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