4 hours ago, LordCola said:

. The only problem is that if my opponent sees that I have this upgrade and has an IQ above that of a piece of toast...

I feel personally attacked by this comment.

Given the amount of people I have locally flying close protect ATN bomber squads.....

The Crit effect is a nice bonus. Even if it never goes off, I’m happy with reds and potentially blacks being thrown at greater than long range. Any damage when someone cannot retaliate is good damage.

Something to consider is we can't evaluate all the ships in there complete context because we don't know all the upgrades. There is a weapons team in the Onager pack that looks like it lets you set a die to any face and then swap it with a die in your attack pool and change that to any face then place it on the card so in essence you always get the crit. I like the starhawk tractor beam, but i really hope it has another on as well for different playstyles.

So we do not think that this is an issue for the health of fleet list variability?
5 red dice with rerolls (eg Vader) at double long range with an arc like that while being able to pivot on the spot.

Seems like power creep to me...

5 minutes ago, RapidReload said:

So we do not think that this is an issue for the health of fleet list variability?

It all depends on the opponents list, like always. He can place the token after his activiation. So as an offensive Raddus I will drop Round 2 right before him. With fast ships I will simply fly away out of his superweapon arc. The SSD is mostly in Range Round 2.

But yeah, you can harass oppponents that are flying a more defense way.

26 minutes ago, spike2109 said:

It all depends on the opponents list, like always. He can place the token after his activiation. So as an offensive Raddus I will drop Round 2 right before him. With fast ships I will simply fly away out of his superweapon arc. The SSD is mostly in Range Round 2.

But yeah, you can harass oppponents that are flying a more defense way.

I agree, I think it will catch some fleets but not others. A Sloane heavy fighter wing will ruin the Onager as would a rebel heavy fighter wing. 11 hull or not, a few B-Wings will wreck it. It has dismal defence tokens and no ECM slot. It does have a support officer slot so it could use Engine techs for speed 4, but it has poor engineering and dismal flak. It needs constant protection.

31 minutes ago, RapidReload said:

So we do not think that this is an issue for the health of fleet list variability?
5 red dice with rerolls (eg Vader) at double long range with an arc like that while being able to pivot on the spot.

Seems like power creep to me...

I am not to sure about that. This depends very much on deployment. The thing is that the particle canon can not attack on turn one. So if you look at a scenario like this one,

https://imgur.com/a/fH8Gx7w

where an enemy ship is approaching with speed 3. The Onager gets off only a single shot uncontested. On turn one the Onager cant shoot. On turn two it can attack with 4 red dice and on turn three the Neb can already shoot back. This is of course pretty much the worst case Szenario for the Onager. If you can get your opponent to deploy in a way that they only moves into long range of the ignition token on turn 2 then you would get in two attacks without them firing back. So deployments might be more important than ever with this ship.

31 minutes ago, spike2109 said:

It all depends on the opponents list, like always. He can place the token after his activiation. So as an offensive Raddus I will drop Round 2 right before him. With fast ships I will simply fly away out of his superweapon arc. The SSD is mostly in Range Round 2.

But yeah, you can harass oppponents that are flying a more defense way.

3 minutes ago, flatpackhamster said:

I agree, I think it will catch some fleets but not others. A Sloane heavy fighter wing will ruin the Onager as would a rebel heavy fighter wing. 11 hull or not, a few B-Wings will wreck it. It has dismal defence tokens and no ECM slot. It does have a support officer slot so it could use Engine techs for speed 4, but it has poor engineering and dismal flak. It needs constant protection.

I dont want to be controverisal or start a fight or anything, but you guys somehow miss the point of my post.

Sure, there are lists that can deal with that just fine, the SSD might not have an issue, an ISD will likely get close (I actually dont think that b-wings will work well as their dedicated carrier will be shot at quite a lot sooner than they will reach the Onager). A Flotilla can be oneshot from half the map away depending on luck, an arq will maybe take two shots (it is easy to anticipate its course), a Radier or Cr90 will have to hope it can jump over the close range bubble or be turned to dust in a single attack, at most two. Sure, you can fly away from the thing... Great.
This is another nail in the coffin of MSU, thus harming the health of fleet list variability - more Large Ships ... yay.

And this ship is the very definition of power creep. That is not necessarily a bad thing for FFG, they will sell it most likely which will keep the game alive, however we are drifting towards dangerous waters where tournament results are most dominantly decided by Rock/Paper/Scissors with respect to the matchups you draw, instead of player skill ( I think at the moment it is already 50/50).

3 minutes ago, RapidReload said:

This is another nail in the coffin of MSU, thus harming the health of fleet list variability - more Large Ships ... yay.

Oh, I have to disagree 100% on this one. I think MSU will be the most effective fleet archetype against the Onager. Don't forget that the Onagers target still has to be in the super weapons firing arc. I think a bunch of CR90 will have a very easy time dancing around that arc. I think it will be almost impossible for this ship to intercept flanking opponents. Which is kind of MSUs biggest strength.

16 minutes ago, RapidReload said:

And this ship is the very definition of power creep.

Very bold claim for a ship you haven't even tried. Personally I am still a little underwhelmed by the ship. I think it will be a little more of a niche ship once the initial introductory period for wave 8 settles down.

28 minutes ago, LordCola said:

Oh, I have to disagree 100% on this one. I think MSU will be the most effective fleet archetype against the Onager. Don't forget that the Onagers target still has to be in the super weapons firing arc. I think a bunch of CR90 will have a very easy time dancing around that arc. I think it will be almost impossible for this ship to intercept flanking opponents. Which is kind of MSUs biggest strength.

Very bold claim for a ship you haven't even tried. Personally I am still a little underwhelmed by the ship. I think it will be a little more of a niche ship once the initial introductory period for wave 8 settles down.

The thing turns on the spot, and it will also not be alone. You can have a fully decked out Onager, Interdictor and Demolisher with 2 Goz for 400 points.

Power Creep is a phenomenon present in any collectible game that uses both old elements and new ones. The idea behind it is that the company has to sell their new products, but everything new they create has to compete with previously existing pieces. To compensate for this, new things end up becoming superior to others to the point of becoming strictly superior.
Would you rather have this or a MC75Ordn or a MC80, or 1.5 Peltas, or 2 Cr90s, or 1.2 Vics or 0.8 ISDs etc etc.

1 hour ago, RapidReload said:

Power Creep is a phenomenon present in any collectible game that uses both old elements and new ones. The idea behind it is that the company has to sell their new products, but everything new they create has to compete with previously existing pieces. To compensate for this, new things end up becoming superior to others to the point of becoming strictly superior.
Would you rather have this or a MC75Ordn or a MC80, or 1.5 Peltas, or 2 Cr90s, or 1.2 Vics or 0.8 ISDs etc etc.

I understand what power creep is and I think we can all agree that so far there has been almost none in armada. I mean look at wave one. Are CR-90s or Demolishers, or Yavaris' less competitive than the latest releases like the SSD or the MC75. Absolutely not. So FFG managed to still ship enough new product without having to make new ones stronger to the point that older releases are obsolete. So I do not think that power creep is a necessity the way yo describe it:

1 hour ago, RapidReload said:

Power Creep is a phenomenon present in any collectible game that uses both old elements and new ones.

Yeah it is difficult to avoid but I think that armada has done a great job avoiding it so far and I don't see any evidence that there is any in the Onager release. You really have not done a great job in pointing out where there would be power creep in this ship. I mean just compare it to the ISD (or even VSD since they are more equally priced). The Onagers super weapon is roughly similarly powerful to the front arc of an ISD or the front arc of a slightly upgraded VSD. Most of the time there will be around 3 turns of combat. In those 3 turns the ISD or VSD usually get to use their front attack more than 3 times. I would say between 4 and 5 times. In order for this ship to get the same amount of damage output as the ISD / VSD it needs to attack with its super weapon the same amount of times as the ISD/VSD attacks with their front arc. So since the Onager can by definition only attack once per turn with its super weapon it has to attack on 1 to 2 turns more than the ISD/VSD and that is exactly what we see this ship being capable of. Now granted the Onager has the advantage that all of those attacks can be against the same target, where as an ISD/VSD needs to distribute its attacks if it wants to utilize its front arc more than once per turn but in return the Onager can barely be upgraded to improve its offensive capabilities and is very squishy with its very bad defense tokens, low side shields, bad flak and lack of defensive retrofit slot. So far I don't see any power creep here and in general I don't like to make balance complaints before I even had the chance to try something out myself (except for the Starhaw. That ship in combination with Raddus seems to strong. 😜 )

49 minutes ago, RapidReload said:

I dont want to be controverisal or start a fight or anything, but you guys somehow miss the point of my post.

Sure, there are lists that can deal with that just fine, the SSD might not have an issue, an ISD will likely get close (I actually dont think that b-wings will work well as their dedicated carrier will be shot at quite a lot sooner than they will reach the Onager). A Flotilla can be oneshot from half the map away depending on luck, an arq will maybe take two shots (it is easy to anticipate its course), a Radier or Cr90 will have to hope it can jump over the close range bubble or be turned to dust in a single attack, at most two. Sure, you can fly away from the thing... Great.
This is another nail in the coffin of MSU, thus harming the health of fleet list variability - more Large Ships ... yay.

And this ship is the very definition of power creep. That is not necessarily a bad thing for FFG, they will sell it most likely which will keep the game alive, however we are drifting towards dangerous waters where tournament results are most dominantly decided by Rock/Paper/Scissors with respect to the matchups you draw, instead of player skill ( I think at the moment it is already 50/50).

If you watched the livestream demo it was pretty clear that this is not the MSU fleet killer you fear it might be. The superlaser on the card shown has 4 red, 3 black. It has two weapon team shots. So it can generate rerolls for red dice only through Veteran Gunners which means it also has to reroll the black dice. The livestream showed this happening twice and on both occasions the die roll was WORSE than it had been with the first roll. Typical long-range damage will be 3.5 before rerolls. Evade it, redirect it, brace it. Admonition would shrug this off. A CR90 would be able to survive an Onager attack using its evade and redirect.

Using the Onager you'll probably get two shots off before that wave of small ships is on you and behind you and doing terrible things to your rear arc.

If anything MSU rebel fleets are more likely than heavy ship fleets to do a number on the Onager.

Given that we've seen one card and less than hour of sample play I don't think histrionics are helpful. Although I appreciate that this the internet.

1 hour ago, RapidReload said:

This is another nail in the coffin of MSU

I get your point but I don't share it. Just try to hold me in your superweapon arc, perhaps you can shoot one ship (without blue dice) and I'm in range. It doens't cripple fleet variability, it is an enhancement to me.

Just try to catch up my MSU CR90 list. It's an expensive trade to just shoot down one CR90 in Round 2.

To me, it is a weapon against big ships where you can shoot 2 times for sure before he comes too close.

I will give on more comment, then I will hold my peace as I do not like to get into forum discussions.

There has been massive power creep in Armada, it has only been retrospectively kept in check by FAQs after the wave was sold (Rieekan, Sloane, Raddus, Profundity, TRCs, Yavaris, Flotilla Life Boats, Avenger, Gallant Haven, Demo+ET, ...). Now I dont like this approach but Im fine with it as it sells copies of the upgrades and keeps the game alive. Raddus will be FAQd with the Starhawk, everything else would be ridiculous.

Your arguments about the Onager are flawed in the sense that you can place the token in such a way that a closing-in enemy will very likely eat 4 red and 3 blacks (add eg krennic, oe for reroll fun) from beyond long range up until he stands right in front of you, while dodging 250 points of other stuff, this with no danger to the ship itself.

15 minutes ago, flatpackhamster said:

If you watched the livestream demo it was pretty clear that this is not the MSU fleet killer you fear it might be. The superlaser on the card shown has 4 red, 3 black. It has two weapon team shots. So it can generate rerolls for red dice only through Veteran Gunners which means it also has to reroll the black dice. The livestream showed this happening twice and on both occasions the die roll was WORSE than it had been with the first roll. Typical long-range damage will be 3.5 before rerolls. Evade it, redirect it, brace it. Admonition would shrug this off. A CR90 would be able to survive an Onager attack using its evade and redirect

Except that you can pack Ordnance Experts, Intensify Firepower (with an ISD as second ship), Krennic (depending on how he interacts with Ignition tokens) and most of all: Commander Vader with the best reroll ability in the game. Veteran Gunners is just a bad card but there are so many other options for a consistent long range attack on the Empire side.

3 minutes ago, RapidReload said:

I will give on more comment, then I will hold my peace as I do not like to get into forum discussions.

There has been massive power creep in Armada, it has only been retrospectively kept in check by FAQs after the wave was sold (Rieekan, Sloane, Raddus, Profundity, TRCs, Yavaris, Flotilla Life Boats, Avenger, Gallant Haven, Demo+ET, ...). Now I dont like this approach but Im fine with it as it sells copies of the upgrades and keeps the game alive. Raddus will be FAQd with the Starhawk, everything else would be ridiculous.

Your arguments about the Onager are flawed in the sense that you can place the token in such a way that a closing-in enemy will very likely eat 4 red and 3 blacks (add eg krennic, oe for reroll fun) from beyond long range up until he stands right in front of you, while dodging 250 points of other stuff, this with no danger to the ship itself.

OK, let's pretend it's 4 red and 3 black and that the Onager gets a good roll - 1.25 per black and .75 per red dice. That's 7 damage. Evade 1 dice, that drops it to 5 or 6 damage. Bren Derlin reduces damage. Expert shield tech does the same. Lando makes your opponent reroll his good roll and potentially get a stinky one.

A large ship could take that attack twice without having anything to worry about. Hit one small ship twice with it, yes, it's in trouble. And you've used 120 points of ship to kill 50 points of ship.

2 minutes ago, Decarior said:

Except that you can pack Ordnance Experts, Intensify Firepower (with an ISD as second ship), Krennic (depending on how he interacts with Ignition tokens) and most of all: Commander Vader with the best reroll ability in the game. Veteran Gunners is just a bad card but there are so many other options for a consistent long range attack on the Empire side.

You are then hanging an awful lot of stuff around the Onager in order to make it work. And you won't get more than 1 or 2 uses out of Vader before you run out of victims to throw out of the airlock.

It's true that there are reroll options but they still don't make the Onager OMGLOLWTF.

And this is different from any other large base or black dice ship in what way? Of course you have to buy upgrades to make your heavy investment more reliable and effecive or how often you see a large ship leave its dock without the obligatory Leading Shots, Electronic Counter Measures, Gunnery teams or Ordnance Experts?

I have a prediction that in 6 months time the Onager will appear in about 1% of fleets. It's too specialised. It can only do one thing and it can be countered in half a dozen different ways. Once people know how to beat it, it'll go the way of the dodo.

3 hours ago, RapidReload said:

I dont want to be controverisal or start a fight or anything, but you guys somehow miss the point of my post.

Sure, there are lists that can deal with that just fine, the SSD might not have an issue, an ISD will likely get close (I actually dont think that b-wings will work well as their dedicated carrier will be shot at quite a lot sooner than they will reach the Onager). A Flotilla can be oneshot from half the map away depending on luck, an arq will maybe take two shots (it is easy to anticipate its course), a Radier or Cr90 will have to hope it can jump over the close range bubble or be turned to dust in a single attack, at most two. Sure, you can fly away from the thing... Great.
This is another nail in the coffin of MSU, thus harming the health of fleet list variability - more Large Ships ... yay.

And this ship is the very definition of power creep. That is not necessarily a bad thing for FFG, they will sell it most likely which will keep the game alive, however we are drifting towards dangerous waters where tournament results are most dominantly decided by Rock/Paper/Scissors with respect to the matchups you draw, instead of player skill ( I think at the moment it is already 50/50).

I would not call it a power creep. Different or special maybe. But not power creep.
A power creep is when something becomes stronger, and make the old obsolete. This will not be (at least i don't think it will) the case with the Onager. He might enforce some different playing, or for sure more carefull playing, but he will not make certain lists or ships worthless. And he is for sure not stronger than anything that is out so far.

For being a power creep the ship is too restriced.

• The superweapon arc is really narrow.
• The dice, beside the superweapon, are not really strong.
• The upgrade slots are bad.
• The defense tokens (not even a contain) and shields are weak.
• The command values are really a pain (3, 1, 3).

This ship is, imo, totally balanced for the price and specials it has. 96+5 (you are not using this ship without the superweapon, unless you can use it without the upgrade) seems ok. I don't know the price of the second ship (i assume it is higher) and the other superweapon upgrades and titels of the ship. They might change a bit, but i doubt it.

It is a nice ship, and can be great, when you can place the weapon well. But it is a point grave, when the opponent can just counter, or worse just ignore, it. It might be even a good counter against flotilla. But for this price? I could think of better counter for these. And it will not be a lifeboat catch (as some were thinking). Every lifeboat should easy stay out of this superweapon.

I think power creep is a legitimate concern, though I’m not convinced yet the Onager represents that. Maybe the Starhawk, but it seems priced accordingly. If FFG can make the SSD without breaking the game, I have faith these new ships are balanced. Now, we’ve certainly seen that players can come up with tactics and combos that threaten the health of the competitive scene. Will the onager be used for something like that? I think we’ll just have to see what emerges.

I think we should wait until Monday and see what the article says. AND possibly wait until the new rules are all out. Remember how big Raid was, and it was gonna be the new Pogs and Beanie Babies? Well, turns out that was right....

1 hour ago, RapidReload said:

I will give on more comment, then I will hold my peace as I do not like to get into forum discussions.

There has been massive power creep in Armada, it has only been retrospectively kept in check by FAQs after the wave was sold (Rieekan, Sloane, Raddus, Profundity, TRCs, Yavaris, Flotilla Life Boats, Avenger, Gallant Haven, Demo+ET, ...). Now I dont like this approach but Im fine with it as it sells copies of the upgrades and keeps the game alive. Raddus will be FAQd with the Starhawk, everything else would be ridiculous.

Your arguments about the Onager are flawed in the sense that you can place the token in such a way that a closing-in enemy will very likely eat 4 red and 3 blacks (add eg krennic, oe for reroll fun) from beyond long range up until he stands right in front of you, while dodging 250 points of other stuff, this with no danger to the ship itself.

• Rieekan: He was from begin really strong (and is, even after 3 nerfs 😉 ). But he was wave 2. At that time he was great, but not this overpowerd. He got quite some boosts from later waves, and had to be adjusted. It was not Rieekan himself who was overpowered, it were the new cards that made him too powerfull.
• Sloane: She was not changed or "kept in check". There is only a clarification for her in the FAQ.
• Raddus: I find him as well really strong (mostly because he bypass some of the fundamentally concepts of the game...), and he will recieve a change with the Starhawk. But he was not changed at all so far.
• Profundity: Only a clarification in the FAQ. Not really too strong. Nasty and annoying, but not overpowered 😊
• TRC: yes, TRC were really strong. I assume they were used too much, and this is why they were nerfed. But they came out in April 2015 and were change in June 2017. This was a long time after it was sold, and once again because of newer cards, not the card itself.
• Yavaris: Was, in special combinations, as well really strong. The nerf happend along with quite a few squadron nerfs, because squadrons were becoming too strong. It was the Relay, Yavaris, Gallant Haven, Biggs. And this FAQ was in April 2018. Wave 1 (Yavaris release) was in May 2015.
• Flotilla Life Boats: These were ridiculous with a Commander. A wonder it took so long that they changed it 😋 . Overpowered? Not really. Only really ridiculous, becauce everyone was suddenly doing it.
• Avenger: It was not this nasty when it came out. Sloane and Boarding Trooper made this titel too nasty and enforced the change.
• Gallant Haven: see Yavaris, it were the powerfull squadrons that enforced the change for it (Biggs especially)
• Demo+ET: Yes, another combination that was really nasty. And i can understand the change. The Demo+ET change is exactly what you are aiming for. Being able to attack something at black range that was out of range for the opponent. But it took them quite some time for this change (over two years after it came out). Maybe because of the external Racks (these came out at the change of the Demo+ET).

Yes, the Onager will be dangerous with the superweapon. And it will for sure do some good hits. And being able to do it with last/first might be really a pain (same as Demo+ET in the past).
But other than this it will not result in a Onager nerf in the next FAQ. And i cannot even think about any card that will need a change because of the Onager (as in making other cards to powerfull).

We will see how well it will perform. But i doubt that it will be an overmighty ship.

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

Yes, the Onager will be dangerous with the superweapon. And it will for sure do some good hits. And being able to do it with last/first might be really a pain (same as Demo+ET in the past).
But other than this it will not result in a Onager nerf in the next FAQ. And i cannot even think about any card that will need a change because of the Onager (as in making other cards to powerfull).

Well thank you for an actually well argued reponse.

You are right that the cards I mentioned on their own dont represent classic power creep but it existed nontheless due to these newer cards/ships that made them overpowerful due to their release as you mentioned.

The Onager is in my mind in a line with Relay and Raddus in that they introduce a significant break with- and improvement over an elemental game mechanic, this is also power creep.

Anyway, while everyone focusses on this aspect, my real concern is with the Rock/Paper/Scissors aspect I mentioned. You play a lot of tournaments, what are your thoughts on the Onager with respect to that?

I think the Onager will have a similar effect on the “meta” as the SSD. It probably won’t be the dominant force, but WILL require a plan to deal with in case you see it.


Fast fleets are probably okay against it.

Raddus will allow you to drop a beastie of a ship close to the Onager between turns 1 and 2.

Ackbar conga lines can spam maneuvers and kite. When they get the Onager to speed up, conga line turns in and lays into it.

Onagers have the opportunity to ruin Hyperspace migration fleets. Like shootng space whales in a barrel. Those fleets will be forced to *gasp* fight instead of playing in the corner like Fish Farm.

I don’t play imperial 2 ship and rarely see it. I’m unsure how it fares.