How do you like to Hafza in vanilla? I've read the ideas in the QK sticky thread, but I'm keen to hear more, specifically for vanilla. Having not used them yet, I'm keen to try disguising a Heavy Rocket Hafza as a Daylami with light shotgun and leave him with LOS to their link team for a good ARO. Will this work or will the irregular (or lack thereof) give him away? This could even be fun against a regular opponent, after a game or two you could similarly position an actual 5 point Daylami in a similar spot and watch as they waste orders killing your 5 point model. At the opposite end, disguising a Hafza LT as a missile launcher welding Janissary and putting him to look like he's on ARO duty down a corridor. Which has the added benefit that it would hide additional points/SWC that could be a Ragik. Any other tips that have worked for you?
I've had some luck disguising the HRL Hafza as a Ghulam Hacker. They cost about the same amount of points. I deploy them in such a way that they're overlooking a sidelane which would be out of rifle range, but in the ideal HRL range, luring your opponent into a sense of false security. If you're using Saladin, a Hafza makes a nice body double as well. I usually go for the Forward Observer profile in that case. Makes for a nice backup specialist and you got all rangebands up to 24 inch covered.
For me, these are my 3 options when I try to decide what role my Hafza would play. 1) I want to shoot something If I’m playing against a sectorial and taking second turn, holoprojecting as a Warcor out for AROs tends to be what I do with a Hafza HRL. 2) I want to bluff I have some capability This is my favourite, because it is dependent on how you read the board state every start of a game. Typically, the biggest gun Haqq brings is a Djan HMG, so opponents wisely leave nothing out for you to shoot on your active turn especially if you have smoke throwing Ghazis around. With the Djan’s slower movement speed, you probably aren’t going to be moving around too much to open up shots for him too. As such, many games might see your Djan just sitting there as an expensive cheerleader. Well you can get the same psychological effects for half the price with a cheap Hafza, and the additional points can go towards more active skirmishers for instance. 3) I want to really hide something Either the LT option or doubling Saladin. Honestly though, I don’t take this often because my quartet of cheerleading Naffatuns already do the hiding LT option well, and I rather just take a Farzan COC if I’m playing Saladin.
Too Much Stuff: Exceed your AVA of a given troop type, Exceed the point value allowed. The goal here is to force them to acknowledge that you have fakes on the table, but they have to figure out which ones are the fakes. i.e.g Saladin and a copy. Presumably this will get them to over-commit on attacks and leave you weak spots to exploit. Nothing to See Here: Hide weapons in plain sight. This can be a "gotcha" when you suddenly ARO with a Spitfire or Heavy Rocket Launcher. Especially if they were masquerading as something with completely different range bands. Yasbir as a Halqa is another example. Fig Leaf: When you use Hafza(s) to cover troops by impersonating much more expensive troops and thus they won't expect Hidden Deployment or Air Deploy. Tiny Tim: When you disguise things as something even wimpier. Mostly applicable to the Ayyar. The Bluff: Disguised as something dangerous such as the classic Lasiq sniper. It's out there acting like normal and they may just veer off from challenging it. Taking a Meeting: When you have zero lieutenant options on the table. Again, you want them to know because it makes them second guess. You can combine these. For example: You place 4 Janissary HMG models on the table. The maximum legal limit is 2. If you are deploying first, then they have to figure out their deployment, always wondering if they left troops uncovered if they guess wrong. This is similar to the Farzan minelayer. Which one... The inflated point value also can hide the aforementioned HD and/or AD troops. This could combine Too Much Stuff, Fig Leaf, and The Bluff all at the same time. As a side note, it's practically impossible to correctly disguise between Irregular and Regular troops to an experienced opponent past deployment.
I almost always hide my Ayyar as a single Barid KHD if I am going second. It sometimes baits enemy KHD's into coming for him, or non hackable skirmishers. Either way its a good trap.
once my opponent convinced himself, that my djanbazan sniper is hafza lt. in disguise and that i was trying to trick him... actualy i was trying to trick him there was hafza lt. posing as inocent Kaplan eng. :)
I've thought about hiding the Hafza LT. posing as a ghulam in a defensive link team. If your opponent feels obliged to kill your inconcious ghilim because you have a medic nearby. Also, he costs the same as the medic, so iyou're not giving away any information to him/her.
I sometimes disguise my Hafza as a janissary guarding a corner or a room with an obvious lieutenant in it, in order to make my opponent more cautious about approaching that particular spot. I also frequently use an Hafza to masquerade a a second Barid hacker, as he's bit too obvious of a lieutenant choice. SImilarly, a Hafza as a Saladin copy is a classical tactic. In The Grid (I think...) were Forward Observers are very important, just the sinply ability to conceal the fact that the Hafza is a Forward Observer can be worth it. Likewise, hiding a rocket launcher as a puny Daylami or Ghulam is rather useful at times.
That moment, when you masked the HRL as sniper and then the Template hits two guys who piled up around the corner, behind the linked HMG shooting at you...priceless:-D
I've been enjoying putting the Hafza HRL on the table as Leila Sharif. It creates a bubble of: "don't go here" for enemy hackers, and then when you want to pop up and shoot at something outside of 24" you can surprise them. Here's an example game. I used "Leila" to "protect" a Barid hacker, and then used the Hafza HRL to kill a Q-Drone.
