As many of you know, over on https://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2021/01/15-conjecture-on-ship-points-changes.html they "rate" ships based on their opinion of them. With the regard to the Onager the latest update is:
Onager-class Testbed 96 points to 106 points (+10 points)
Turns out being able to attack from two range rulers away is pretty good and as part of the playtest team for wave 8 I'd like to officially apologize because the Onager is stupid. Onager-class Star Destroyer is on probation but likely deserves a nerf batting to a lesser degree.
Having expressed similar opinions in the past I wonder about you guys's opinions and how you would "fix" it.
Cheers
I Idont think we saw any multi onager lists get very far in vwc? Is that because people avoided using them?
What about the recent Italian tourney?
Good point there duck bird... Onager made speed 2 ships useless. They wil not be able to close in before they are shoot to pices. The new Gar and Sep expansions will likely decrese its impact on the new factions but still its to cheap for what it dose.
I played a 300 pts turnament with a sep fleet and runed into a Starhawk... was able to kill off his flotilla and squadrons giving me a 6 to 5 win but i didn't even bother to shoot at the Starhawk😀
Only good thing that Onagers are weak against rebel
Yeaahhhh.... we goofed on this. I think the Hawk/Agate and Onager being tested against each other skewed our perception a bit. The onager didn't feel that oppressive when shooting the tankiest ship in the game, and the tankiest ship in the game didn't feel that tough getting blasted by onagers.
I do truly hate the onager now, but I don't think the SD variant is in a terrible place. I think the biggest issue is that the testbed variant is so incredibly cheap and can be run so upgrade-light and still be potentially strong. I see a lot of minimalist builds coming in around the 105-115 point window. No other large ship can be run that light and have such presence on the board. The possibility of tossing around 9 dice with romodi from beyond the longest range is wild. Most ships get steadily more dangerous the closer you get, but the onager projects that ISD-close-front-arc dice pool out beyond red range.
My biggest gripe is that slow ships/squads aren't really viable in a meta with onagers in it. Taking a Victory right now is simply a bad idea. Which is a real shame because so many of the new upgrades would really breathe life into that ship.
I really think the testbed needs to be jacked up in price significantly.
I don’t know why anyone expects the Clone Wars factions to have any kind of parity or balance with the long-established Rebel and Imperial factions yet. They JUST released, and with only two ships, and four total ship cards for their entire factions, they absolutely shouldn’t be competitive with factions that have a dozen ships and two-score ship cards available to them (yet).
I’m personally viewing Clone Wars Armada and Galactic Civil War Armada as two separate games at the moment. If there’s a competitive Clone Wars fleet that can hang with the OG factions, that probably means it’s got elements that are relatively overpowered... or that they’ve seriously front-loaded the power of the Clone Wars factions.
Just checked the Armada Italia tournament. #1-#5 Onager fleets (most 2xOnager), #6-#8 two Starhawk, one Imp squadron fleet.
Yay Onagers...😒
What about proxy mines against the Oni? Just popped into my mind. One could plant a few in its way. IT won't flak them if it wants to use its ignition. Seems like a decent idea to me, though haven't really elaborated on that yet.
And what about the CW factions? I'm afraid a bit for them regarding the onager. They don't have such a ship palette to chose from, even with wave 10 dropping in a month (fingers crossed). So I feel like munis and acclamators will be roasted because of their maneuverability. They are either slow or fly like a brick (looking at you Clam). The providence-class and the venator-class are large based, so they will be targets too. The pelta has low speed but excellent defense token suite, so idk... The recusant is a large but has good maneuverability. The charger is lightning fast and has a super chart, but very fragile. So it feels like none of them counters it? Maybe the recusant and charger can do this, with flanking tactics and sacrificial lamb? Any thoughts on this?
You're not the only one!
This has nothing to do with game mechanics or the role of the Onager in the game... but I would have loved to see a fleet of Onagers (Super Onagers?) in Ep 9, rather than Xystons. Oh well, missed opportunity!
I'm reconsidering QBTs instead of LTTs on my SSD build if I ever go back to it. I already have Vader for rerolls anyway.
MMJ whats that?? :) Well Onager is good against Starhawk and speed 2 ships but MSU list will eat it for lunch:)
never too early to start complaining @Bertie Wooster.
also from what ive been told, start re-including QBTs on things?
Is it too soon to turn our complaints against Cracken or Assault Frigates instead of Onagers? :D
M(M)J is the only really effective Empire multi-role combo. It should be in (almost) every Empire list. Onager or not doesn't affect that.
So this is a nerf MMJ thread now?
@RapidReload Good to see some analysis, even with such a small dataset.
In terms of MMJ, seems about to be expected. Cap or no cap, they have roughly the base damage of an ISD. Add that to the Onager's ability to get an initial shot off on something and your opponent's likely in some degree of trouble, especially if they're slow and/or squadless.
Do you happen to know how much Squall popped up? It's a no-brainer pick for Moralo, but I'm more interested in Onager+MMJ appearances.
So I made a smallish stat sheet for the Pod round of the VWC that just finished.
I separated fleet submissions and the lists that made it through based on if they ran:
1+ Onagers with M(M)J, 1+ Onagers without MMJ, Other lists with M(M)J, 1 or 2 MC30s, MC30 with Starhaws, Starhawks without MC30s, SSDs, Moralo, or something else.
Now before I go into what I learned: Many of the lists that were played were pretty funky, so the results are somewhat skewed for sure.
Things I learned: Onagers with MMJ ruled, without MMJ not so much. Both Moralo players got through. 6 of 8 MC30s got through - thats more then I would have expected, however the people that played them are among the best players there are. Only 2 of 6 SH made it and 1 of 3 SSDs. MMJ is still insanely good.
I’m still just kind of scratching my head about the sheer hatred for the Onager. My experiences with it have been largely positive. Mostly, I find that you can’t even really get the faster small ships in arc with it, and when you do, Evade just chucks most of your hard work out the window. And that was BEFORE the 1.5 Evade rules.
If I have any complaint at all about the Onager, it’s that the slow small ships do get beat up by it... Peltas and Nebulon-B Frigates (Peltas because they top out at 2, the Neb-B’s because the weak side shields and lack of Redirect mean they’re forced to charge the opponent or chance an untimely disintegration). But honestly, I was always wary about running those ships even before the advent of the Onager. Because they both have those fairly serious, if not crippling, weaknesses.
One of the tricks my group found to flying against Onagers was to use deployment to help bait them into poor positions. Offering up a possibly sacrificial lamb in order to bait out the Onager, then flanking it with an MC-30, can be a great way to trade up. Even if you can’t out-deploy the opponent, flying loosely can force the Onager to focus on one target, leaving it a sitting duck for your other ships. If I send an MC-30 and a Neb-B at your Onager, who do you face? You’re very likely not going to kill the MC-30, meaning that if you choose to face it, my Nebulon can flank you. If you choose to attack the Nebulon-B, you probably WILL kill it, but now you’re getting high-speed flanked by the most dangerous small base in the game.
Try some new tactics. If you set up directly across from the thing with Peltas and try and joust, then you’re gonna lose, or at least you’re in for a tough fight. And maybe that’s not at all what you’re doing, but I’m just not sure the thing is that scary if you’re fighting smart. If the bullseye arc is what’s killing you, stay out of it. That turns the Onager into an overpriced and underpowered ship.
Couple of thoughts on 'fixing' the Onager then:
1 - Points increase for Testbed to, say, 104.
2 - Remove salvo token from Testbed leaving it with Brace and Redirect (it's an experimental vehicle, after all)
3 - Only Rakehell title available for Testbed, and all 3 available for the Star Destroyer variant.
Yeah, the speed is my main issue with it honestly. It REAAALLY is a design fail that it is speed 3. It should have VSD movement for sure, especially the single tic (at one, or at 2) to nerf it's maneuverability. I do think it is a little undercosted (the testbed version, as I think the full one is... "ok" points-wise). Honestly it having salvo annoys me more than it's points. Reducing it's maneuverability helps a lot with it's overall balance, switch out salvo for a redirect or contain (or even a second brace). It is a cool concept, and I don't have an issue with it's firepower actually, but I do have an issue with it's flexibility.