The Onager: Kicking Ass

kay so before anyone gets upset/offended at the title it’s a donkey pun, but to get it requires a bit of history. The Onager was a roman catapult it got its name from the wild ass in northern Iran the onager.  It got its name sake from the kick the catapult would deliver when being fired, it remained at least someone of when a wild ass would kick its hind legs thus onager kicking ass, I was also debating the Onager a wild ass time, but we are going to stick with kicking ass.

Okay now with that out of the way, lets dive in. we are going to be talking about the Onager.

No not this Onager

Not this Onager ether

Yes, this Onager!

 Before we jump into anything about this ship we need to understand how its main feature works its ignition attack, we will just cover its basics now and then deep dive into it when we talk about its super weapons.

The basics are fairly simple at the end of your activation you place a targeting token within close range of your ship you can measure range from your token instead of your ship when performing an ignition attack from your ignition battery. Fairly simple, if you are confused don’t worry we'll be diving deeper into this a bit later.

Okay let’s talk about the two variations of the ship and what makes them different, because unlike the Starhawk I feel there is a meaningful and purposeful difference between the two different ship types, let’s start with the testbed.

Okay so the testbed comes in at 96 points pretty cheap for an Imperial large ship. It has ten hull just one less than an ISD Command 3 squadron 1 and engineering 3, a bit low for a large ship. It can go up to speed 3 with a decent nav chart. It has a brace redirect and salvo defense token, basically the same suite as the quasar just add the salvo token. Its upgrade bar is an officer, 2 weapons teams, a support team, and a super weapon slot. Its dice are not super impressive red 2 blue and a black out the front 2 red and a blue out each side and red and blue out the back, however its Ignition battery has 4 reds and 3 blacks. The ignition battery is why you are taking this ship.

Onager Star Destroyer

The first difference I saw was the points 110, this makes it a 14 point difference between ships, this is the largest point gap between ships types currently in the game, but what you get for that? Well one more dice in each arc including the rear making salvo much better on this variation. The ignition battery has the same number of dice but swaps out a red and black for 2 blues, it also gains a blue in addition to its black anti-squadorn dice and its squadron is increased to 2, it also swaps out the support team slot for a turbolaser slot, in addition something that might be overlooked is you becomes a “Star Destroyer” meaning you gain access to the seventh fleet title as well. Basically this is the biggest increase in stats I have seen from variation to variation of any ship in the game.

so I think the point difference is warranted, and I think both variations will see play.

Now one of the first things you should be asking yourself about the Onager is how I am getting my rerolls? Your rerolls will be coming from primarily your weapon team’s slots. Veteran Gunners, Ordnance experts, Weapon battery techs, and the new weapon teams Gunnery Chief V. (we will talk more about her in the wave 8 upgrade write up.) The Onager Star Destroyer has the pleasure of taking a turbolaser as well to help with its Rerolls LTT or TRC+needa are all options for the Onager Star Destroyer.

Another means of rerolls that should not be overlooked is a con-fire token. Officers like Vanto or Wulff makes sure there is no shortage in token supply. IF is again another option, to help get constancy out of your rolls with the Onager. Krennick will not work with an Ignition attack that is made beyond long rang, and that is a pity as he seems like a pretty thematic choice for the Onager, but does not seem to work mechanically with ignition attacks at least ones beyond long rang, who knows maybe he will be clarified that he will work with ignition attacks.

This brings us to another important topic, there is a lot of nuances/questions/confusion about some of the finer points of how ignition attacks work, like can I fire out of my front arc after performing an ignition attack? The stream hinted at no, but the article seams to say yes. Normally I would default to the devs in the stream, but they have gotten things wrong before, but so have the people that write the article. There are many more questions , do I have to measure my ignition attack from the token or can I measure it from my ship if I choose too, if I have an upgrade that gives me ignition at long range do I have to put it in long range or can I put it in medium or close if I choose too. These are questions we just won’t have the answers too until we get the written rules in front of us, because as of right now these questions were not addressed, or have conflicting answers in our two primary sources namely the stream and the article. So we are just going to do the best with what knowledge we have. So with that less look at these superweapons.

Okay so one of the key features of these super weapons is their ignition range. So in order to understand what you are gaining from taking one we need to understand the standard ignition range if we did not take one of these upgrades. So the standard Ignition attack lets up place the targeting token within close range of ourselves this gives us about a 40% range increase.

With the standard Igniton you can just chuck som red dice beyond long range.

Now let’s look at a super weapon.

So this guy extends our ignition range out to medium this gives us about a 60% increase in range.

Something important to note is this is a modification, it also give us a special critical effect we can use on our ignition attacks, it triggers on a Red crit. When it triggers the defender suffers one damage for each red or blue crit icon in our attack pool. It’s important to note this happens one at a time so if you get four crit icons your opponent.  can spread damage across their hull zones how they see fit, if you have other ships with HIE or ACM it can become very difficult to spread damage without taking it to the hull. This card is pretty interesting as not taking upgrades into account has a higher chance to trigger on the testbed, but has a higher damage potential on the Star Destroyer variation.  Once upgrades are considered I do think the Star Destroyer variation likes this card a bit more, but it is not terrible on the testbed.

This is our second superweapon option it gives us long range ignition so a 100% range increase, that is the main reason you take this card over the other. 

It does have a critical effect that is so, so. The critical effect triggers on a red crit and simply deals 2 damage to each ship and 1 damage to each squadron at distance one of the defender. Now it’s important to realize this crit says each and does not distinguish friendly targets from foe, so if you trigger this crit and have squadrons or ships at distance 1 of the defender they will also take damage. This is your artillery upgrade just chuck dice from as far away as you can.

Okay so before we dive into Theorycrafting, and how some of these guys might look on the table we got to talk about the titles. First up is Cataclysm.

So this title provides flexibility and is also the only way to get a shot off round one with your ignition attack, when paired with Hondo or Tarkin.  It in essence lets you reposition your targeting token on rounds 2-6 in the ship phase so you can see where everything is.  It lets you place the targeting token round one if you can get your hands on a con fire token. Really I think this cards main use is that ability to hit ships turn one, I would never just take this card for its flexibility, as it feel more a card that is saying “you made a mistake and placed your ignition token incorrectly here let me fix that.”  Personally I have a problem with cards that feel like they are fixing player mistakes, as you are spending points on something that if you would just stop making mistakes you would not have to have to take and could spend points on other worthwhile upgrades, maybe I am wrong, but my feeling on this card is you take is for its turn one punch or you don’t and you just git gud (I mean this in the most considerate way possible, but I do mean it). Not to mention how valuable a con-fire token can be to this ship with its limited rerolls.

Sunder, okay so this guy is pretty expensive, especially for a one time use card but I think in the right build can be very good. If you build a list around accuracy generation this guy can come in big ripping off ECMs, and if your opponent does not have ECM you could probably strip another fairly curtail upgrade like leading shots, or ordnance experts etc.  If this title become popular enough it could really start to reshape the game, don’t underestimate it. In most cases it will be able to strip an upgrade on turn two before it’s really had any impact. Good by ECMs, good by leading shots you really didn't need that reroll did you? By boosted comms guess your carrier will have to come into the fight after all, you build that ship around QTC im so sorry, looks like you wont be resolving your black critical effects I'm so sorry. Its flexibility from match up to match up make is good. each list you play against you will be able to take out a key part of it before the fight really even starts.

 Rakehell, Okay so this guy is pretty cool you will only take this title if you are taking the long range ignition weapon, but you will park a speed zero and just pivot your guns where they need to be, I think is actually best with the testbed as you can pair this with nav teams and always have a double click speed zero move with just a token.  This is a title to boost your survivability by keeping you out of the fight, while keeping our super weapon in the fight. Again this is a title you really only want to take with the long range ignition upgrade, as you really want to stay out of the fight when you are going speed zero.

Seventh fleet

Okay so this is not a new title but it is a title option for the Star Destroyer variant, and it’s not half bad.  Your opponent is going to have a hard time targeting your sides, because you how far tucked in your los yellow dots are, I think this is to simulate the front prongs blocking side shoots, but it looks like you will almost have to be behind an onager to get shots at is sides so taking shots to your front should be fairly common, put in captain Brunson and you’re a pretty durable ship even before you start touching your defense tokens.  I don’t think this will see a ton of play, but it does help with the onager's fragile nature.

Okay on to theorycrafting how will these guys look on the table well I have a few Ideas.

Onager-Class Testbed (96)

Admiral Ozzel (2)

Veteran Gunners (5)

Ordinance experts (4)

Orbital Bombardment particle Cannon (5)

Cataclysm (5)

Total Points=117

So this guy with Hondo somewhere in your fleet provides you with the longest range shot turn one possible. That is pretty much its one trick, but it will still contribute to the rest of the game, you can take Gunnery Chief V  in place of veteran gunners.

I am not 100% sold on her, but we will talk about her more when we talk about the upgrades that come in this wave.

Onager-Class testbed (96)

Commander Vanto (7)

Veteran Gunners (5)

Ordnance Experts (4)

Nav Team (4)

Orbital Bombardment Particle Cannon (5)

Rakehell (4)

Total Points=125

So with Rakehell, Vanto, and Nav team it’s easy to stay in place confire in more dice and use Vanto for a token to trigger rakehell and nav team to always stay on target, if things start to get spicy jump up to speed one.  It lets you keep your guns on target without consuming your command dial, and the dail is freed up to add more power to your guns, and Vanto can always change the token you need from him on a dime if you really need some other command.

Onager-Class Star Destroyer (110)

Commander Vanto (7)

Fire-Control Team (2)

Weapons Battery Techs (5)

XX-9 Turbolasers (5)

Superheavy Composite Beam Turbolaser (7)

Sunder (10)

Total points =146

A Home for Fire-Control Team? Maybe. You can get sunder to go off with your super heavy composite beam, or do your composite beam and XX-9 Vanto and WBT provide some dice fixing, add in screed or Darth Vader as you commander, and it might be going places who knows.

Onager-Class Star Destroyer (110)

Captain Brunson (5)

Weapon Battery Techs (5)

Gunnery Chief Varnillian (6)

Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)

Superheavy composite beam turbolaser

Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer (5)

A seventh fleet Onager

again can really help mitigate damage even without touching its defense tokens. Also really goes for crits with WBT and GCV, LTT also really helps the reds.

Onager-Class Star Destroyer (110)

Commander Vanto (7)

Sensor Team (5)

Weapons Battery Techs (5)

Quad Turbolaser Cannons (10)

Superheavy Composite beam Turbolaser (7)

Total points= 144

Yes Sensor Team its crazy but because of QTC you are not really losing a die so much as gaining two accuracies, too many accrices well WBT is there to help out and Vanto is always there to give you that single die reroll with a con fire token.

There are plenty more loadouts and build ideas for the Onager, but if I went over all of them we would be here all day. I think the Onager is an interesting ship with a fun roll to play on the empires side, it’s definitely going to see table time, however I do think this ship will require a certain degree of skill to fly well. It will require some more creative fleet building to help with its lack of rerolls.

Its so simple but I love this piece of artwork

With that we have talked about all the ships, again each expiation in the wave comes with 15 upgrades and only 9 from the Onager and 8 from the Starhawk are fully spoiled. One card in the starhawk is basically fully spoiled Heavy fire zone I mean you can read all the text just can’t see the point cost so that’s 9 total for the starthawk. We also know that each pack will have two copies of an upgrade that gives ships a salvo token so that brings the total to 11 for each pack. So each pack has 4 more cards we don’t know about, it’s possible that the Onager has a copy of Heavy fire zone, so we have at least 7 more mystery upgrades in these boxes maybe 8 I mean I hope so I would be 100% fine if Heavy Fire zone only had one copy in the star hawk box as the card looks like utter trash to me.

It’s possible we will get another article about these unknown upgrades especially since sadly it looks like release was pushed back to January. I guess just remember even though we have a lot of information we don’t have all of it just yet so the ships could be better than we think, and the contents of the box could have a bigger effect  then we currently know.

I look forward to these ships coming out unfortunately later than sooner, but still excited, hope we get to know what the upgrades are before release, but if we have to wait I guess I will just be that much more surprised, when stuff finally comes out.  What are some build ideas you have for the Onager, what other upgrades do you think should be in the boxes? Until next time have a great week!