I have been looking over lists from LVO and well Empire was popular, and also did very well. 10 of the 16 that made the day two cut were Imperial players. So I wanted to find out why this might be the case. So I noticed a few trends that I thought were interesting.
Most Imperial lists seemed to be fairly light on squadrons with a few exceptions. So I thought that maybe that was what made the imperials really dominate. The idea that squadrons are not as valuable as they used to be and the imperials could adapt better to a meta with fewer squadrons made sense. Though some lists with a lot of squadrons did place fairly high so I was not convinced on this one. However, I was a bit surprised as only I believe only 2 of the 10 Imperial lists that made the cut had the dreaded Maarek and Jendon duo and was thinking this might be a factor into why imperials placed well but that did not appear to be the case.
The next thing I noticed was the Onagers and that is probably a surprise to no one. 5 of the ten Imperial lists that made the cut to the top 16 had Onagers in them. In addition to this, the majority of the onagers were clustered at the top standings at the end of day one with one exception. At the end of day 2 the Onagers again tended to be toward the top with 3 of the 5 onagers in the top five. The Onagers seemed to be the reason that the Empire performed so well.
That probably comes as no surprise to a lot of people, but I had hope that it would be a bit more spread out, and have a bit more diversity in the top seeds other than a cluster of Onager lists. To be fair there were some interesting lists like the Imperial MSU that did really well and one of my personal favorite archetypes Agate Paragon placing first at the end of day one. I don't think this should be blown out of proportion it is one tournament, and yes the Onager does seem like the best way for the empire to win these days, and even if that is a problem I think it is less an Onager problem and more an Orbital Bombardment Particle Cannon problem.
Why do you think the Empire did so well or was it such a popular choice at LVO? Do you think something needs to be done about the Onager? What were some of your favorite Imperial lists? Until next time have a great week!
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