A combat stick was a type of handheld melee weapon. Soft-coat sticks were a type of combat stick and, while they maintained the same weight and balance as real combat sticks, were mainly used for training and sparring purposes. Between 39 BBY and 37 BBY, the Chiss cadets Mitth'raw'nuruodo, core name "Thrawn," and Irizi'ar'alani, core name "Ziara," sparred with soft-coat sticks at a dojo on the Chiss Ascendancy planet of Naporar.
In 2 BBY, the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader and Thrawn, who had since become a Grand Admiral of the Galactic Empire, visited a cantina in Black Spire Outpost on the planet Batuu. While in the cantina, several Darshi warriors passed tan-colored combat sticks among themselves before they used them to attack the pair. The Sith Lord and the Chiss quickly defeated the Darshi, killing and neutralizing them.
Combat sticks first appeared in the 2018 novel Thrawn: Alliances, the second installment in Timothy Zahn's Star Wars: Thrawn series. The sticks were first pictured in the first issue of the 2024 comic miniseries Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances adapting the book's events. The issue was written by Zahn and Jody Houser, illustrated by Pat Olliffe and Andrea Di Vito, and published by Marvel Comics on January 24, 2024. The series' first issue, as well as its second issue—written by Zahn and Houser, illustrated by Olliffe and Di Vito, and published by Marvel on February 28, 2024—depict Thrawn using a combat stick against the Darshi, while the novel establishes Thrawn used a combat baton. This article follows the original novel's events.
Combat sticks first appeared in the 2018 novel Thrawn: Alliances, the second installment in Timothy Zahn's Star Wars: Thrawn series. The sticks were first pictured in the first issue of the 2024 comic miniseries Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances adapting the book's events. The issue was written by Zahn and Jody Houser, illustrated by Pat Olliffe and Andrea Di Vito, and published by Marvel Comics on January 24, 2024. The series' first issue, as well as its second issue—written by Zahn and Houser, illustrated by Olliffe and Di Vito, and published by Marvel on February 28, 2024—depict Thrawn using a combat stick against the Darshi, while the novel establishes Thrawn used a combat baton. This article follows the original novel's events.