Dealing with a Jack Ass (Onager)

If you don't know the Onager ship is named after a Roman catapult witch in turn was named after a type of donkey because of how it kicked when it shot projectiles. There is your quick fun history lesson. My love for Shrek as a kid has made it obligatory in my adult life to make donkey puns any time I am able so hence this week's title.

The Onager is a ship seen quite a lot in all forms of play both competitive and casual games. It also can be extremely frustrating to deal with, new or old players its not fun to play against an Onager as it makes the game feel “unfair.” However while the Onager is annoying to deal with and is probably not going anywhere for a while it is possible to take it down while still maintaining a decent margin of victory.

First it may seam fairly obvious, but the Onager is weak to both small dice pools of consistent damage, and large pools with accuracies. Without an evade the small damage can be a killer for the Onager, and no access to ECMs can make big shoots deadly. However killing the Onager is not the battle most people are fighting its surviving to kill the Onager.

By far the most common Onager is the testbed with 4 red and 3 black in its ignition arc. Put simply you want to be aware of where close range is of the ignition token at all times and stay out of it. Ships with evade are very powerful against Onagers at extreme range and if you can keep that extreme range dice pool to 4 dice you are going to have a very high degree of survivability, particularly for ships with evade.

A viable, but risky option is to “tank” the Onager Shots. Now this seams crazy, and it kind of is but understanding how you use this tactic can work wonders for you. First an Onager almost always only gets its ignition shot and if that is the only shot you take every round you are never going to burn through your defense tokens. So if you have a big brawler with a mean double arc you will almost always outlast an onager if you can keep other sources of damage away from this guy. Its not always possible but I have used it to great effect, and Raddus is a great admiral for a tactic like this. Here are a few ship builds suitable to the task.

ISD Kuat Refit (112) • Intel Officer (7) • Ordnance Experts (4) • High-Capacity Ion Turbines (8) • External Racks (4) = 135 Points

MC75 Ordnance Cruiser (100) • Intel Officer (7) • Ordnance Experts (4) • Expanded Launchers (13) • External Racks (4) • Aspiration (3) = 131 Points

Starhawk Battleship Mark I (140) • Caitken and Shollan (6) • High-Capacity Ion Turbines (8) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) • Amity (6) = 167 Points

Consider the position of the Onager, this is really important is it in the center of the table to toward one of the 3' edges? I have found Onagers closer to the 3' edges are easier to isolate as you can run down that edge and all the other players ships will for the most part have to turn and re-position to face you, this will buy you a turn or two of the Onager being in isolation. If you use this tactic it is important that you go fast to really reap the rewards of this tactic.

Accuracy generation, is another thing that will really help you burn thorough an Onager. The Onager only has one token to keep damage off it that is the brace and without taking tua its unable to really work around accuracies. MC-30s with H-9s are an Onagers nightmare, imperial Raiders also work fairly well with this, but need a way to make sure they get an accuracy, Jonus works best, but I have also had success with Veteran Gunners with beck for a con fire re-roll for any additional dice needed dice fixing, a Harrow Vic also works, but is a bit pricy and with no evades could be considered less durable.

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63) • Ordnance Experts (4) • External Racks (4) • H9 Turbolasers (8) • Foresight (8) = 87 Points

Raider I (44) • Commander Beck (3) • Veteran Gunners (5) • External Racks (4) = 56 Points

Victory I (73)

• Ordnance Experts (4)

• H9 Turbolasers (8)

• External Racks (4)

• Harrow (3)

• Engine Techs (8)

= 100 Points

Alternatively simply using Intel officer is another fine strategy, if you have two big incoming attacks.

Small dice pools also helps get around brace as consistent bits of 2-3 damage makes it hard to justify spending a brace to just cancel one damage. Because of this fighters are very good against Onagers and ships like CR-90s and Arquitens are as well. These ships are a little fragile, however if you can stay out of close range of the ignition token with your evades you will do just fine.

Salvo is something else to look out for particularly with small ships. It can sometimes create a false sense of security when you get into the Onagers flank and you think you are fine, but once you factor in salvo small ships still wont last that long with sustained firepower. So when possible I would recommend small ships to stay at long-range to help minimize the effects of salvo. Obstruction is also very nice for this and is why Cracken is one of the best Commanders in the game right now is due to his power against salvo.

The last tip is to simply arc dodge. This is easier said then done, but remember how far the Onagers arc extends while you don't want to be in close range of the ignition token the closer you get to the Onager the more narrow its ignition arc becomes, relative to you. making it easier for you to avoid the ignition arc.

There are many ways to deal Onagers they are not unbeatable, and you can still beat them with solid margins as well. You might have other tactics that you have used to successfully help you combat an Onager so feel free to share them. Until next time have a great week.