Simple be a main character.

Force-nullifying creatures not withstanding, the Force itself is something he admits to not fully comprehending so that could also be used against him

Other alternatives include a surprise purrgil attack, the Force and politics. I'm not brave enough for politics.

Thrawn's major weakness is also his strength. He analyzes everything. This can be manipulated. It's how he ended up dying in the EU. Since Noghri were the best assassins/bodyguards in the galaxy, he naturally would have one for his own defense, but the Noghri killed him in the end. Applying that to the new continuity, the proper method is to co-opt someone with talent enough to get close to Thrawn and then simply bide your time until he takes his shot. It may even be possible to use Noghri again, as there are still many similarities between the EU and this new Disney alternate reality.

Having extra thick plot armor helps in defeating Thrawn.

*how would you stop Thrawn?* Easy, I’d defect to the Empire.

Thrawn reminds me of Batman, specifically the saying "Batman can defeat any enemy with enough prep time". Consequently, I think the best defense against Thrawn is a good offense. Thrawn is unstoppable with the initiative, so you can not give it to him. The Republic had the superior numbers during the Thrawn campaign, and so they should have attacked his shipyards and planets before Thrawn could attack theirs. Force Thrawn to respond to you and not the other way around, and don't let up. This is by no means a perfect strategy, and it will lead to more casualties as it will soon become a war of attrition. However, that war of attrition should be your goal against Thrawn. Look to the American Civil War. The South, despite being outnumbered most of the time, would win battles due to superior officers such as Lee and Jackson. The North however had a much larger population and industry, and thus could sustain heavier losses. Grant played to these strengths, and while it led to a high death toll, he won the war. Thrawn is also only one man/Chiss, so attack on multiple fronts so that he can only respond to one attack at a time. Thrawn will outsmart you, and he will probably decimate several of your forces, but the goal is to not let him recover his losses. He only has so many Star Destroyers, and not many at that, so strike hard, strike fast, strike often, and strike everywhere. And if all else fails, offer a large bounty and clemency to any Imperial who offs him.

The most important step when facing Thrawn is to accurately assess how dangerous he is. Obviously, that's important to do with any foe, but it's especially crucial here. Underestimating Thrawn is obviously a serious danger, but overestimating him is risky as well. Thrawn's strategies are as dependent on grand gestures and a long series of bets paying off in a row, resulting in truly epic finales designed as much to intimidate and amaze as they are to actually win. When his bets don't pay off, they generally don't cause him much harm, and so don't get noticed very often. The end result is the appearance of Thrawn as an unstoppable god of strategy - a reputation he is intentionally cultivating to intimidate opponents and make them second-guess themselves. When Thrawn makes a mistake (as occasionally happens), his foes often don't exploit it because they fear that he is merely pretending to make a mistake, and that's it is actually another trap. Fighting Thrawn as the (very competent) man he is, rather than the god he is not, is the best way to survive.

"But it was so artistically done..."

"How to defeat thrawn" Easy, never become a fan of art.

I think we can apply the same reasoning on Canon-Thrawn: - In battle of Atollon, he could have crush both Massassi & Phoenix group and strike a deadly hit at the Rebelion, but he didn't expect Clan Wren's reinforcement and Bendu's help - Likewise, during Lothal's liberation, Thrawn didn't planned on Ezra having a surprise ally

I know this would be difficult, but can you breakdown what is by far the largest space battle in the whole franchise? *The* *Battle* *of* *Yuuzhan'tar!* I have made this request: twenty-one times.

Have a space whale army at your disposal.

It sounds like he’d be vulnerable to misinformation. He relies so heavily on understanding his opponent that if he were to encounter an enemy commander that isn’t who he was expecting to face he’d be put off balance. He catch on pretty fast probably, but it would give a force a fighting chance.

He’s like the embodiment of Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”

"...facing off against an angry Thrawn." I'd die. That's what I would do. You don't defeat an angry Thrawn.

I saw the title and went “IMPOSSIBLE!” But listening to your video, you make sense. Also another weakness that Thrawn might have is when he might encountering a species for a first time. He wouldn’t know their culture or battle tactics, which could be a decisive advantage against him.

If I were to defeat Thrawn, I would not try to do so in battle, rather, I would try to assassinate him. Either by infiltrating saboteurs and assassins in his ship, or by putting a bounty on his head. Although, I wouldn't want to kill him, I think he would be more useful captured alive.

I feel like the takeaway here is that Thrawn is specifically vulnerable to several elements of *his own strategy.* He destabilises his enemies behind the lines and makes use of seemingly unrelated details, but every time he's on the receiving end he falls apart. Once he stole Lando's mole miners, *that was it.* Lando was no longer a concern, that was in the past now and unrelated to his shipyard raid. His interactions with Talen Carde almost certainly raised red flags, but at Bilbringi, Carde wasn't the issue. He gave the Noghri every reason to turn against him if they ever found out what he'd done, but *why would they find out?* And if they did, of course he'd be able to deal with them in due course. And moving over to Rebels: why would Konstantin go against orders? His repeated humiliation carrying out previous orders that had been designed to fail *had no bearing* on the assault on Atollon. Thrawn always thinks about the big picture, but in battle he does so with tunnel vision - focusing on how to get the greatest benefit out of the particular enemy in front of him. Allies, subjects, subordinates, third parties, and enemies bearing no immediate relation to the matter at hand are all of no concern.

Thrawn's biggest weakness I think... is his tunnel vision when he's in a protracted campaign. Get him to focus his attention entirely on one enemy... whether one species, one elite unit, one commander he can see as a true rival... and use them as much as possible against him so that they get his attention... and then pull out your surprises at just the right moment.

"I see your defeat, like many arms surrounding you in a cold embrace."

Have eckharts ladder as your fleet commander and all is fine.

How to defeat Thrawn? Jackson Pollock paintings. He'll take one look at the chaos and turn tail. You'll know it's working because his eye will start twitching when it's presented as "art". Well, that or he'll Base Delta Zero the planet of origin...

I think a novel strat for beating thrawn would be “Chance Cubes” basically don’t do things that are expected... be irrational and erratic to the point of frustration. Use random number machines and dice to dictate battle plans. More over just not having a plan and being disorganized to a degree would help because the main foes he defeated were all super organized and tactical.

Hey Eckhart just wanted to say that I absolutely love your content, I watch you everyday and KZfaq wouldn’t be the same for me without you. Keep it up!! 👍

Everything you mentioned goes back to the Timothy Zahn novels of the early 90s...I love it!!

Honestly one of his state goes could be used against him, the Thrawn Pincer. Think of it, if he uses the gravity wells and interdictors to halt a retreat and launch his forces you could do the same but behind him, have him attack your forces that you already have in the battle and then get his coordinates and have the rest of your fleet jump in from a certain angle, this mean you have now not only ambushed him but you have used his mind against him, something Thrawn would certainly be take aback from also since your secondary force would come in close to the interdict or, you would be able to immediately attack them meaning he would lose his ability to halt your retreat if you lose the battle but it also doesn’t buy him time if he needs to escape and he will be caught in a pincer attack himself.

You've got a couple of really good ideas there, and since he's an information specialist, I whole heartedly agree with the tactic of denying your enemy valuable information. I would study and analyze his tactics from previous engagements, basically, not only deny him the information he needs to be effective, but return to him in kind a bit of the information specialist strategy. I also agree that you should absolutely keep forces in reserve, standard forces that he MAY believe that you have, but also, as you suggest, mercenaries and pirates that he knows nothing about. Finally, you need to develop specific battle plans to deal with him, on the surface, it looks like your typical battle plan, but hides feints, distractions, false-feints, micro-jumps assisted by grav-mines, etc. especially if your normal battle tactics do not include such maneuvers. Start dismantling his fleet by stripping away his starfighter coverage. Then eliminate his corvettes, then the frigates, and all the time work your way from his smallest ships to his biggest ships, because it's expected that you work from the biggest ships to the smallest ships. However, in star wars, having many smaller ships is an advantage in combat. So, strip that advantage away as quickly as possible. Leave him with as few hulls as possible if he either manages to defeat you anyway, or manages to retreat. That's the last thing you really need to do as well, manage your own fleet's order of battle. You need starfighters primarily, and corvettes and frigates that are equipped with capital scale guns. It matters less how many of those guns that each ship has, more that you have more platforms that have a small number of those guns. combine that with an insane number of starfighters, and you've got Thrawn in the bag. Regardless of anything else, he is still an imperial tactician, hindered by the doctrines of the Empire, and this too can be used against him. Star Destroyers will happily chew other capital ships up, they are woefully ineffective against starfighters. Star Destroyers may have a fairly easy time destroying Corellian Gunships, but when there's 50 gunships against 10 Star Destroyers, your star destroyer is going to lose. This is essentially Hitler's tactic in the North Atlantic, he failed with it because he started the war with too few subs, and production was never high enough to cover the battle tactic. If he had managed to start the war with the wolfpacks, his admirals were right, they would have utterly dominated the Atlantic. Even the Dreadnoughts of Katana Fleet were already following Imperial Doctrine of "Bigger is better" and it's just not true in Star Wars, and only rarely so in real life. That's a weakness in his order of battle, and that weakness needs to be exploited, largely by fielding ten times as many starfighters as you normally do.

Thrawn is basically a Deus ex machina. He would predicte your ways of combating his tactics, observe your behavior and adapt accordingly to stomp you under his heel

Do one of these on how to siege an important planet

I know Star Wars Rebels is canon while the Thrawn Trilogy is legends, but I like to think that Thrawn's struggles with the mystical (Bendu and Purrgil) in the former influenced his actions in the latter (Joruus C'baoth and Ysalamiri). At least pre-Endor, a major blind-spot for Thrawn was anything that didn't fall under conventional warfare. He doesn't really get the force.

Thrawn vs Ender from Enders Game would be interesting. I'd be interested to see who'd be a better tactician assuming they had equally sized fleets and had to face off.

Constant baits and switches, have forces look like thry are trying to distract so he realizes this and foucses on somehing you are "trying" to hide. Meanwhile the previous bait, the distraction becomes the main thrrat and is foucsed on again. Allowing another bait to move forward and another switch prepared. This way he wouls have to split up his forces evenly across the board, while you can hammer spots randomly and repeatedly.

One interesting thing about Thrawn is that he made his enemies believe he wouldn't accept surrenders until he had them backed against a wall with overwhelming force.

Great video man I didn't get to see all the new ones since I was busy but now I can take a break and watch a good video

I don't recall any time he was put on the defensive (if it happened in the newish animated series's then that would be news to me) so I think a guerilla campaign organized/run by people of different cultures that in and of themselves go against the grain of their own cultures would have a fair chance. Loose outline: Hit his logistical infrastructure for a bit to get him to increase his resource allocation towards protecting it (repeat at random, be aware of artificial slackening). Hit manufacturing facilities (small group in and out, not big hammer smash attempts. A blown power system or two on say, Kuat, could have been crippling). Mine primary access corridors to his key facilities. When in a large scale fight, focus down 2-3 key ships and withdraw. Assassinate moderately competent commanders when able, occasionally eliminating very competent ones (leave the idiots alone, they're a bigger benefit to his opponents alive). Don't get tied down in one place. Try and stay on moderately good terms with a cartel or two who have a vested interest in Thrawn failing (they can be a good source of intel), but be aware that their interest could shift and be ready to adjust if/when it does. Training facilities and, if discovered, cloning facilities need to be neutralized as rapidly as possible and repeatedly as they pop back up. In short, anything the New Republic couldn't/wouldn't do due to its size, obligations and being the 'good guy' faction.

Dark Helmet Vs Darth Vader (come on man, im losing count)

Git Gud

How to defeat Thrawn: "Pray to whatever deity you may worship. If there are any atheists among us, you may pray to science."

Just call some space whales when taking him down

I love Thrawn. He's actually one of my favorite characters of all time. But during his campaign against the New republic, you didn't mention that he had a direct listening device inside the Senate. I think that kind of added to his almost mythical ability to predict New Republic plans and strategies at that time. But I still agree that he's a tactical genius I just think that is and was a big factor in his early victories.

EMPIRE OF THE HAND RETURNS! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qJ9nmK2IndXPf40.html

Thrawn is a mastermind of long-term planning and will almost always find a way to twist the scenario to his advantage in the long run. However, he is a little less adept at anticipating how smaller actions will affect his plan, and his slight oversight of things happening in the moment makes it difficult. He cannot react to attack as well as other commanders.

Love your Star Wars content. Very fun watching it 👍

1. Choose several plans. Divide those plans into several choices per step. 2. Use random number generator. 3. Use result to determine plan. You can't predict an enemy who can't even predict themselves.

How to fight Thrawn: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

I love your outro! Made my day.

First you identify if thran is in fact commanding his fleet. Then you break your own pattern, or if you like being unpredictable you use a conventional tactic. You don’t allow him time to think what you are doing. Thank you for the awesome content. Keep it up!

You can't defeat thrawn in conventional warfare even with these stats they are not truly given to work the best way to defeat thrawn is to use his own mind again him

please do versus between an A wing and a Viper mk 2 (BSG)

knowing thrawn and how he thinks would be the key to defeating him such knowledge would lead to using third parties or unknown suprizes and other tatics he wouldn't expect.

Great vid! Don’t forget his ability to keep his cool, not geting personal and not making decitions based on emotions, pride or seeking approval of others.

How to defeat Grand Admiral Thrawn: Lock him into an art museum and throw away the key.

Round of Applause for all the Clever folks who commented something about Space Whales.

Wow.…. Insightful and informative. Good job, I like this clip....

Thanks for another great vid

You can’t beat thrawn, but you can beat his forces

Take up the job as his bodyguard xD

Great video!

I would love to see more battle breakdowns where Thrawn was involved; hes probably my favorite Star Wars Extended Universe character that I know about.

4:44 How are you supposed to anticipate what you're not supposed to anticipate? If you say that's a validate tactic against him then just say that any kind of conspiracy against him would win 😔

Friendly comment: it's pronounced "infallible", not "infalleable"

First, great video as always. You have the best Star Wars content on KZfaq. I agree with your theory to take down Thrawn but there are a few problems. Thrawn was very familiar with the smugglers. Had Rukh not assassinated him, I don't think the New Republic or the smugglers would have made it out of Bilbringi even if it meant destroying the ship carrying the crystal gravfield trap. I also don't think he underestimated the Noghri as a species either. If I remember correctly from either the comic or novel of The Last Command he had planned to deal with them and C'baoth on Wayland but only after he crushed the NR at that battle. The other problem is information. The only thing Thrawn cherished as much if not more than art was information. In order to defeat him it would have to be with a force that was totally unknown to him. The smuggler groups wouldn't have worked because he knew them too well. Remember when Mazzic and his allies blew up a Star Destroyer at Bilbringi and he knew it was them immediately? It would have to be a force he has no knowledge of whatsoever and they have to remain as unpredictable as possible as long as possible otherwise it won't work.

Amazing video I love Grand Admiral thrawn you should do a canonical version as well

Make a Death Star 3

Thrawn looks for patterns. Be formless like water, have no pattern to discern and you will beat him.

That end card gets me every time. 10/10 would pet again...

I would also add that it would be a good idea to act counter intuitively to your natural inclinations because he will be planning for those and you may catch him off guard

I think even more so than third parties, he is overtrusting in second parties. This is particularly relevant given that he is usually surrounded by idiots. They should just be exploited.

I always wished that Star Wars had a character able to face Thrawn one-on-one in at least a competitive match (even if Thrawn still had an advantage). Not so much by making another supergenius tactician on the opposing side (that would be boring), but by making a Ulysses S. Grant/Duke of Wellington/Scipio Africanus sort to counter Thrawn's Robert E. Lee/Napoleon/Hannibal characterization.

To quote Count Dooku,”Use the unorthodox.” I would do what I normally do, but then call in my largest warships mid battle to turn things up.

Thrawn's biggest weakness is what most people consider to be easy to deal with, which is why it took so long for him to be defeated.

Only chance is to have battle meditation on your side

What about Grand Admiral Thrawn vs Erwin Rommel

And also with you. May the force be with you always.

Little late to this and dont really know to much of how thrawn commands. I've really only seen him in rebels, though even in that he seems like a tactical genius on to be beaten by our heroes and yet is able to thwart and see through most other rebel commanders. To answer ecks question I would say to try and be unpredictable and use different tactics than normal. From what eck explains thrawn analysis on culture background and tendency,, it's safe to assume this would be the same in the case of facing a rival commander. If I were to try go again st thrawn and safely assume he knows my general tactics and maneuvers I would try to either switch them around or embrace new tactics and maneuvers. Obviously this would probably delay the inevitable, but it maybe a strategy that just might work.

Well, I do have an interesting and uniquely designed flagship under my command. I designed it to be the ultimate cross-universe kitbash vessel. For the base hull design I've adapted a Federation Excelsior-Refit class starship. I've found out that I can put a large amount of Star Wars technology in this ship design. I've already swapped out the phasers for turbolasers. I've also installed a hyperdrive alongside the Warp core. One design I've not quite decided on is what to swap the photon torpedoes with. I'm still torn between proton torpedoes and ion cannons. Although I am leaning more towards ion cannons since I have a lot of fighters which already have proton torpedoes. But still think I have the perfect balance of technology. With my weapons I have the ability to compare my firepower more reliably. My ship is much faster and more maneuverable at sub-light speeds. Also, thanks to my warp drive I can easily get away from a situation should I need to. Also with my different shield technology I can easily escape from a tractor beam by just remodulating my shields. Although interdictor ship would still be a bit of a problem, as those gravity well generators would work just as well in warp speed as they would in hyperspace. Do you think my ship would stand a chance in this situation? If I need more help, please suggest what ships I should bring to make up an attack fleet. Thanks! And let me know what you think of my ship.

How to defeat Thrawn? Stack plot armor of course! The only thing the Rebellion knew how to do.

i agree alot with what you said Ech, i would try to single thrawn out alone and try using my own forces as a distraction and then attacking thrawns bridge with third party or ramming his bridge with an A-WING or something similar to the death of ludo kresh

Great video I love them and can u pls do a republic vs separatist. They r my fav

#anothergreatvideo

I really hope Ezra convinced Thrawn to join the Reasistence think about it. Thrawn and Asokha talking about Anikan. Thrawn trying to earn the Ghost Crew trust especially Hera's. Kallus working under Thrawn again, but in the Reasistence this time around. The Chiss Accendency helping the Reasistence after the collapse of the New Republic. And Thrawn building a bound with Jecen and telling stories about his Father. That would be cool and interesting. 🙄

Would not have been surprised if it was just the video of that weatherman going "You don't survive this, unless you're very very lucky. Oh, and your kids die too" followed by nothing for 7 minutes. Also, please consider covering Thrawn's tactics at the battle of Scrim Island when he used tsunamis he created with ISD turbo lasers.

If I were to face Thrawn in a battle, I would assume that he already knows how I think and in turn think of what could happen at any stage of my battle plans and prepare my ships and formations to counter Super Star destroyers, Interdictors, TIE Defenders, and/or Starwing Gunboats. Also, for TIE Phantoms, I'd have several flak guns and turbolasers pointed at where I believe they would most likely attempt to strike my fleet. Last but not least, I would want to pick my battleground and prepare it for Trawn's arrival.

Wait this is even possible to do

How to win against thrawn?BE ACKBAR!

overwhelming numbers is always a good factor. the bst strategy is nothing if there is no army to follow it. as you said, thrawn had very limited resources, that something you can work with. so by being on the offensive and dont letting him regroup, you can keep him on his toes. numerical superiority also gives you the advantage of attacking a larger front.

You have a really interesting way of saying "infallible"

The best way to defeat Thrawn is to use something he couldn't predict. Like in Rebels how could he predict that force space squids would appear. Or in the Thrawn books, how could he see that his bodyguard would betray him.

Eckhart: He may be the greatest mind in the Star Wars universe but Grand Admiral Thrawn is not infallible. Me: How 'bout no.

This will be great when I have to fight thrawn next week

Played the mod today, it's excellent I can confirm

#GrandAdmiralThrawnIsInvincible

bo yeah, maybe I'm actually first?

Thrawn uses the initial engagement to figure out what species his enemy is so he can counter them. If you intentionally use an opening tactic that he would associate with a different species it could be a good way to catch him off guard since he would most likely expect a poor defense for that species or a specific offensive strategy to prepare for.

I also think another weakness is that he has a hard time predicting leadership of two armies acting independently at once. As with the A-Wing dash being a success for he did not account for two different leaders leading two positions of the New Republic leaders at once. So having multiple commanders working their own strategies with their own fleets at once would overwhelm Thrawn. As much of his strategies depend on beating one commander at the time, or predicting what the overall leader would do. Having too many players would make him question so may different strategies it would overwhelm him until the forces eventually unite and if all goes well, it be too late. But it is a very risky strategy that could get people killed and would only use against Thrawn.

how to defeat him just sent and a ship on hyperspace in a colision rute with his ship bum you win and its cannon. damn disney

Replicators vs a Unified Star Wars universe (247th try now, *_I._** WILL NEEEEVER EEEVER GIVE UP!!!)*

As a rebel/new republic commander I would attempt to engage in a rather defencive engagement with a regular force with tactics normally attributed to me. In reserve I'd keep Mandalorian mercenaries, whose fighting style seems to include ship boarding tactics and have them come out of hyperspace. They would then target the Chimera and I'd allow someone else take command so as to give my forces extra unpredictability.

An idea that would be interesting to see but probably not practical: multiple commanders in charge of a fleet that are in charge of the fleet in random time intervals. It would formulate a strategy that one could probably not anticipate very well, but the forces being commanded may collapse in certain ways depending on the frequency and variety of the orders given by the different commanders.