The Onager, a double-edged sword

 

No, not THAT kind of Onager

It is the Age of the Onager. Forget the promise of a fair fight and range limitations, for FFG's game designers had a collective breakdown making wave 8, and all that remains is the laughter of thirsting dice gods.

Everybody and their granny is flying one - sometimes more than one. There are good reasons why everyone running Imps has to have one (or more). And reasons why ppl might switch over to Imps just bc this ship exists. I've certainly done my fair share of soul-crushing flying with the Onager, with Romodi and with Sloane both. 

The Onager is a moderately priced, even when fully tricked out bc most upgrades it wants are low-cost, one-trick large-base ship. But WHAT A TRICK!!! Shooting, not only beyond long range, but SO WAY BEYOND long range IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY, with a TON OF DICE, all of them rerollable if you've built and set up right, from TURN 1 if you can be bothered. Did you try to hide behind an obstacle? Sorry, but get MOAH dice if u do. Each element taken separately might be ok, but the ease of which it can all be leveraged together? FFG, what were you thinking???

This kind of Onager - the CATACLYSM is coming!

The Onager isn't impossible to defeat. It quite squishy, doesn't handle squads well at all (nor any kind of concentrated attack really), and once you're outside the special firing arc you can generally just laugh at it (the SD version not so much). Like all single powerful attacks, it needs a follow-up, or the impact will be lessened. So maybe another Onager? Or squads? Both are good options, since they too can strike at what's effectively extreme range.

This article isn't about how to build an Onager fleet, nor how to counter it. It's not a discussion about whether or not the Onager is OP, NPE, or just really overrated. What I do want to get across is how much the Onager impacts the meta.

I do appreciate the design intent: to open up the meta by punishing the kind of builds that seek to hang back and harvest points without really fighting.

But is that best accomplished by creating a ship with unprecedented range? Demolisher is another ship with unprecedented range and striking power, and we've 5 years in and it's still being nerfed...

If flotillas are a problem, then the problem could better have been fixed by revising flotillas than trying to fix it indirectly. You don't have to agree with me, but flotillas have been hard capped and don't count vs tabling for a reason. Before they were nerfed, they were warping the meta badly. The CW factions aren't getting any flotillas at all, which pretty much underscores my point. SW: Armada is a game of capital ships, supported by fighters, that go pew pew, boom boom, not a game about little transports shuffling tokens and trying to NOT fight.

Things go boom

I digress. The Onager seeks to change the meta for the better, but the fact is that it just warps it hard in another direction. It's not just flotillas that run into trouble. It also happens to punish any ship of any size and ships that aren't fast. The SSD in particular hurts badly, but it's not alone - try running a Vic or anything without ECM against it. Don't think the Muni will like meeting Onagers much. Too bad ECM got nerfed, eh? It was a good change, absolutely, but FFG, did you forget about wave 8? Onager? Or that Agate lady that hands out super-ECM to the flag?

Fast, small ships are better off. They can quickly get out of that special arc (they key is closing fast - which the rest of the Onager fleet is probably built to counter) and they've got evades. Or do they? The Onager is one of the few ships that can leverage Sensor Team - and Varnillian. Double evade ships fare a little better, but I've seen too many Onager SDs with Quad Turbos to feel very secure (incidentally a real SSD killer). On the other hand, if the enemy Onager is trying so hard to murder your smalls, it's almost a victory, since he's using his most powerful weapon to hunt scraps.

Second fiddle

But on to the heart of the matter:

It is my claim that the Onager is a real meta-defining factor ATM. I'm willing to conceded that's it not an auto-win, nor an auto-included. But every fleet ABSOLUTELY MUST be built with enemy Onagers in mind, in a way that doesn't apply to any other platform in the game. You don't build specifically to counter Assault Frigates... but you do for the Onager. 

The very first question you must ask is: can my fleet handle Cataclysm? How about dual Onager? Triple Vader-Onager I find to be suboptimal, but maybe it's a thing where you play. Cataclysm-Rakehell-Dictor? Cataclysm and squad ball? If the answer is no, you can scrap that fleet, bc you WILL MEET ONAGERS.

This warps your choices a bit: bringing your own Romodi-Onager is one solution. Just be sure YOUR build is the one to come out on top. Or a Sloane-Onager build which uses squads and Onager in combination to overload/destroy key enemy ships. Just be sure your carrier isn't the kind to be popped by opposing Onager. IMO Romodi-Onager is superior, even with squads, but Sloane isn't bad. 

Agate is another choice as she ensures your flag sticks around while the rest of your fleet works its magic.  Cracken/Mothma with 1+ MC30s should be a thing going forward. Speed, evasion, and close in firepower. Things the Onager hates.

Hello there!

 CW factions I don't think can handle Onagers yet. Maybe when we finally get the wave 10 ships (they've been somewhat delayed and split into 2 batches - really FFG? again?)

Objective choices are influenced by the existence of the Onager. Contested Outpost is far less interesting now, since you really don't want to go slow in the back anymore. Station Assault got the final blow - the Onager can pop both stations in short order from the other side of the table. Hiding behind obstacles is suddenly no fun at all - thanks Romodi. Except dust fields - their value should go up, but I've yet to see many players recognize this or try to leverage them.

Speaking of obstacles. Onager fleets, especially Romodi-based ones, handle both1st and 2nd player exceptionally well. They are typically built to leverage 2nd player and obstacle placement, but giving Cataclysm 1st player isn't such a great option. This is something all fleets strive for, but few do it as well as Romodi-Onager.

A final observation: the Starhawk COULD have been a good Onager-counter. And in a sense it still is, but the choice to make it BOTH speed 2 AND not have a defensive retro, means it's reserved for niche Agate builds. Those fleets are out there, and moderately popular, but not what I'd call good counters to Onagers in general.

Going forward I'm looking forward to the Vassal World Cup: I expect many Onager builds there, and some new as-yet-unseen counter-Onager builds. Further down the line I wonder how wave 10 CW factions will stand up to the Imperial menace.