What would your special unit be able to do?

[Ja Karta]

The only example I've seen in this thread that I think would be *interesting* & *fun* is the "vortex" one. Most of these ideas are either tactically valid, but bland (e.g. boosting, snipers, or super sight) or undermine important bidirectional gameplay concepts (e.g. insta-teleport, burrowing, & also super sight).
[Regarding the second point: a unit has to not only be fun to play, but fun to play against. Units that operate in a way where your opponent is denied information and thus interesting counters make for boring play. And in the case of invisibility or insta-teleport tend to make tactical calculations unreasonable, thus 'randomizing' the game.]

Not putting anyone down, just trying to offer some design-oriented feedback.

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Actually, the DoT could be interesting if played with.
In another thread someone suggested something about a disease affect.
That could lead to interesting play.

e.g. Any unit damaging or damaged by a diseased unit spreads disease to the other unit. Diseased units lose one health per turn. The disease special unit can also attack friendly units.

Bam. Plenty of balance issues to be worked out, but what happens is predictable (and calculateable; units are as visible as ever). The special can be used multiple ways: attacking enemies directly, or creating diseased friendlies. The tactical considerations become complex, because it's a sword that cuts both ways; though the special containing player can decide when exchanges occur thus gaining advantage. I could riff on the concept (and it's not originally mine I think), but I think that's an example of an interesting special. [And obviously you can play with variants; like all adjacent units are infected at the end of every turn--> that makes disease more dangerous, but drastically affects how the special's units needs to be arranged since they can't be adjacent to the special most turns. It fundamentally affects how combat plays out. Simple rules. Complex effects.]