Hidden gems in Vanilla?

TAK has very poor BTS so anything with a Viral or Breaker weapon is going to wreck them wholesale - Lasiqs are good for this (especially the Lasiq with the Viral Rifle - X Visor and Mimetism makes him a great unit on Suppression), but the Zhayedan MML2 Breaker Rifle profile is very useful.

Include a Rafiq and Fanous - Fanous drops a Sniffer, Rafiq can sensor. This will help a lot with the camo.

Tarik is absolutely amazing. His OP Crit Cannon of doom is great for wrecking pretty much anything. The combination of high mobility and Super Jump means that you can hop up on small buildings, then jump to shoot guys on roof tops who think they're safe in the Reactive Turn.

Ghazis are great for both board control, and attacking Camo forcing them to reveal.



Basically, when playing Vanilla (i.e., no fireteams) against an army with lots of Camo, you have to force them to reveal and give their long-ranged pieces very few targets in the Reactive Turn. This is super important because you won't have easy access to SSL2 to avoid the Surprise Shot modifier. Against Camo, hide on rooftops and block the ladder - Ariadna doesn't really have troopers with both Camo and Climbing Plus so if they Climb, they reveal. An exception to this would be Antipodes - definitely prioritize them since they're a huge threat.

 

Ayyar. Viral and shock ammo are great against Ariadna, they can't hack him either, and with Holoprojector markers you can make it difficult for him offensively (who do you target? Who can react?) and defensively (do you react to shoot? Against who?) very effective trooper who puts people on the back foot.

Combine that with Mutts for using Jammers to intuitive attack and reveal camo markers and you'll be good. Also Daylami! Light shotgun and panzerfaust with inferior infiltration and limited camo are cheap and mean, stick them in his face!

 

I personally love the Hunz with LGL. Starting midfield laying mines, you are going to be in your good range band for threatening those kazaks.

 

I always run kasym beg as my go to tool for killing links. For our heavies I prefer the Az's over the Fasid as they hit harder in active, that said the HRL is a nasty weapon on a strong platform against template adverse opponents

 

What's about the HMG Fasid Djanbazan combi with Smoke and MSV 2?

 

To understand you need to address that SSl2 only applies if you are the target of an attack. Active turn I smoke the link then run kusym into CC with only one member of the link. He can then CC without fear of the rest of the link doing anything he then does nothing and just sits there ready to lay an ARO template when the opponent tries to do anything next turn. By comparison if you used Zu to flamer, the whole link could react, a smart opponent would pull one member out of the link for a shot back and dodge with the rest.

 

Kusym is ALOT more killy in CC

Active Player
80.97% Kasym Beg inflicts 1 or more wounds on Fusiliers (Unconscious)
63.18% Kasym Beg inflicts 2 or more wounds on Fusiliers (Dead)

Failures
10.98% Neither player succeeds
Reactive Player
8.05% Fusiliers inflicts 1 or more wounds on Kasym Beg (Unconscious)

Zul is no where near as good.
Active Player
54.45% Zuleyka Nazarova inflicts 1 or more wounds on Fusiliers (Unconscious)

Failures
35.67% Neither player succeeds
Reactive Player
9.88% Fusiliers inflicts 1 or more wounds on Zuleyka Nazarova (Unconscious)

 

Kasym is a monster and I love him. Zulyeka is only good for her Double Light Flamethrowers and providing an additional burst to Kasym in CC.

I personally love Maggy...but that is just me. Also the Hakim are fun. Khawarij with Spitfire is also good as a cheaper alternative to Tarik.

 

I almost can't play without the Hunzakut. That guy is just amazing. An infiltrating cammo specialist with mines -and- deployable repeaters, for 18 pts, and a great flash pulse-ARO to boot... his main asset really is the repeaters, which are much more reliable than the Barid's pitcher and can dramatically improve your hacking game. But he's an amazing toolbox in general.

Then we have the Bashi Bazouk. Especially the SMG profile is a standout, a great, cheap attack piece who can use her holoechoes to clear mines and crazykoalas better than almost anyone else.

The Hakims are of course stellar, with their WIP 15 and Regeneration and awesome doctor equipment. They can easily get your Fiday back up when he inevitable falls unconscious deep in the enemy half of the table.

The Janissary Akbar doctor has a great synergy with Tarik Mansuri, as he can get Tarik back up to two wounds reliably, because Tarik has a cube, so you can reroll failed doctor checks.

 

I love smoke and djan combo, mutts or fasid, but don't underestimate how useful spec fire is on a BS 13 model (the fasid), in the right range band you are hitting on 10s, and I have ruined things for opponents pretty bad that way. Since they are a well armored potential Rambo unit you can afford to run them up the board first turn so you can get that sweet +3 range band. Even if they won't have as much support as another LGL model might need, they can usually weather the fire if you didn't leave her too exposed.

 

I've been enjoying the Tarik + Farzan CoC combo a lot lately, with a Tuareg doctor or Hakim close by to patch him up whenever he is finally taken down and as mid field objective grabbers. Don't forget Tarik has grenades on all his profiles. Paired with his fantastic mobility you can go prone on roofs and rain down grenades on link teams or suppressive fire troops!

Hunzakuts usually overperform for me, whenever I take them, they always get the job done, be it objective grabbing, area denial or just plain old skirmishing. The (for now) vanilla exclusive Halqa are also a cheap and good way to start with specialists in the mid-field.

Odalisques and their NWI + nanopulsers do pretty well against Ariadna linkteams or camo as long as you're not facing shock or T2 ammo.

 

For me the biggest advantage of Kasym isn't his much better CCW, CC, BS, having Panzerfaust et cetera, but the color of his impetuous symbol ;)
While Zuleyka is Extremely Impetuous and she has to charge into AROing units, Kasym is much more wise and don't have to take the risk. For example ignoring Impetuous move when facing 2 TR drones ;)
That's why I almost always use him, he's one of my favourite units in the game.

And that's also why I'm a bit uncertain of my army for upcoming Polish Mastership, which will start tomorrow. We play with painted miniatures only and I didn't had time to finish Kasym and will play without any Kum or any Ghazi, it's going to be weird.

Back on topic - definitely the named characters are the gems of Vanilla. My favourite LT - Saladin, his much more aggressive replacement - Tarik, or the killer Djabel. They're great.
Also forementioned Hunzakuts, Bashis, Ghazis, Lasiq, and all the combo you can make with the rich options in Haqqislam.
And don't underestimate the power of Zhayedan Breaker Rifle. I used him many times, in some battles he died easily (few times because of very bad luck), but in others he did great. He is a fantastic hunter killer of tough enemies - he can take out TAGs, which isn't that easy. Breaker ammo is superb, and in one battle he destroyed Squalo in one burst (the TAG had 2 STR IRC at that moment), attacking it out of cover.


PozdRawiam / Greetings

 

I play vanilla a lot - in tournaments too. I love the versatility and synergy of units. I have played QK and HB too - I have painted pretty much the entire haqq unit range now (#humblebrag) simply because I love vanilla so much and wanted to try every unit out.

Synergy is the strength of vanilla and it’s an amazing toolbox. I’m just gonna ramble about a few of my personal favourites below. I believe that all of our troops thrive when using all tricks available to us - camo, AD, impersonation, holo projectors, hacking and cheap irregular threats. We have one of the best forces for getting objectives done.

We have incredible infiltrators and objective missions are our speciality. Combined with cheap irregular ARO troops such as daylami and mutts we have excellent ways to cause headaches and bog down the enemy from charging up the field.

I usually take all three - Al Hawwa assault hacker, hunzakut and Farzan as they synergize perfectly. I find them the best way to bash three buttons in one turn and then have all the tricks - boarding shotgun Template with sunrise shot, go on suppressive fire with camo midfield, set up a mine field that slows down the enemy, immobilize that annoying rui shi, lay repeaters along the route that the HI link team is about to go and then recamo so they have to be discovered in the reactive turn. Al Hawwa has immobilized Ajax LT in the top of the first and ruined an SP day. Hunzakut has spec fired a grenade on top of that Kuang Shi link and 4 of the order monkeys have died. Farzan has boarding shotgunned an enemy mine I discovered and the blast has crippled an infiltrator in camo behind it.

HAFZA - capital letters because they are AWESOME. The mind games are what I love about vanilla, my opponents never know what I’m taking. The hafza hides my AD as deploying as something points heavy. It covers a fire line as a Lasiq viral sniper and forces enemy to deploying that Tanky unit on the other side of the table (where my al Hawwa assault hacker is hiding round the corner). It means I have a Jan doc supporting the Azra’il so maybe don’t take on the Azra’il straight away. I have a minelayer muyib and that camo is obviously it’s mine - but in reality it’s actually a real camo trooper. It can hide my LT - two Saladin?? My favourite at the moment is disguising as an Asawira spitfire somewhere a little out of good range for a spitfire and just in reach of that link team if they use 4-5 orders to maneuver to a flank shot. They finally get the angle on my b1 spitfire ARO and they’re all bundled up in the open because they are amazing with their b5 and +3bs and they’re feeling super confident and smug. ‘ARO?’ They greasily ask and the smile fades as you suddenly reveal the HRL hafza and shoot the scrub of the link on a roll of 15 at +3 range in the open with a fire template. They can’t break the link to dodge individually cos it’s their active turn. All I need to do is roll a 15 and everyone of them is gonna BURN! The icing on the cake is revealing the TO Tuareg hacker lurking nearby who will attempt to immobilize the HI leader.

Djan and mutts - smoke and MSV2 HMG through it - what more can be said? Djan Shock marksman rifle is the poor mans HMG but still very good. 24” range means you should be a bit aggressive with his placement. These guys are excellent at destroying enemy war bands, camo units and mimetism annoyances.

Naffatun are my favourite over ghulam! They’re excellent at taking out camo/ myridoms / back line defense from AD. The trick is to move them into template range and then if the opponent declares dodge you can still shoot them with b3 rifles and leave them in place for an ARO flame thrower in the reactive turn. I often use the light flamethrower because saving that extra point can mean the difference elsewhere, but I’m beginning to see the advantages of using the large heavy template as I’m facing more camo, mimetism/odd and tahoa recently. Spec fire flames through smoke on our high WIP 14 is devastating for the opponent dodging at -3.

Kaysim, Kum and the Twins - amazing troops! the speed makes the bikes deadly combined with dogged. Get one into range using the smoke grenades and it can wreak havoc on a back line. Don’t forget to use the mutts impetuous order to smoke first then move the Kum behind that smoke to use smoke launchers to shoot 8-16in smoke to create a smoke wall. The shotgun is really good in this profile as well as the obvious chainrifles. Kaysim has exp cc and does objective bashing, TAG bashing, HI bashing and even I’ve had a Achilles bashing before.

AD ragiks and Bashi are fantastic. Bashi holo projectors clear out mines and deployable koalas etc. ragiks swing the game for me - don’t be scared to use the combat drop to land in the perfect position. With an evo or hacker you land on a 15 which can be worth it. I love the Spitfire and assault hacker option for really smashing a specific target. Take on weak cheerleaders from behind or blast that specialist with b4. Dogged means that you can take a hit and keep going - these guys are not expected to survive, so when you do land make sure you have enough orders left to Rambo until the bitter end. Having a Bashi walk on the side behind enemy lines and turn on suppressive fire is also a nightmare for the bad dudes - especially when his holo projectors come back on next turn.

A few others I love are the Fiday (obvs), Lasiq (sniper and viral rifle), Tuareg, al fasid and the named characters are awesome. A special shout out to the Krakot who is seeming to make my lists more and more recently.

 

If a link Dodges (od Reset) during Active turn, they all make rolls.

 

@Nemo No Name yes - it wasn’t clear above, but I was spectating that they choose the option of shooting the Hafza as their second skill.

It’s a tough choice - if the link dodges they can’t move the 2” in active so they have to stay put - meaning you potentially get another ARO shot again if they stay linked and try to move out of harms way with another order.

Having another unexpected ARO such as the Tuareg is an example to my point about vanilla synergy.

It’s a cheeky ambush and has worked for me a few times

 

So..now that we know Aida Swanson will be in Vanilla..any thoughts on usefulness? I personally REALLY like her. She really fits the asymmetric and/or guerilla play style of Haqq.