The Al Fasid hasn't been getting much attention from Ramah players, but it might be a solution to your problem. It packs good armor with 2 wounds, and the HMG profile has a +3 to hit in every range band out to 32. The SWC cost can get pretty high, though. You also have to be careful with the core team, especially with the HRL khawarij. It can be tempting to expose him, and that may be the way to go, but if you do, you should expect to lose him. In that case, you should have a sixth potential member for the team ready to join.
Don't be afraid and just roll good enough to win the Initiative ;) :D Seriously though - if you want to play aggressively, with some AROs, there always will be risk of loosing them. But that's the beauty of the game. Some scenarios need you to defend AC2 or similar stuff and you can't just hide. So - if I go second with that list I create full Fireateam with Khawa HRL and Ghulam ML. Two nasty template weapons looking for far shots. The rest is rather hidden, with Mk12 securing shorter lanes. Usually I don't let Tarik be visible at all. In Ramah you have so many options to rebuild the link that loosing Ghulam or even Khawa won't be so devastating, especially if you manage to stop the enemy from advancing, scoring objectives, or at least slow him a bit. I know some people tend to suggest that AROs always die and usually does nothing, but my experience says it can be very different - ARO is important and can even win you a game. And definitely linked Khawarij HRL is a better ARO piece than Fassy. Better hitting, two dices, and winning the FtF is the most important part of firefight. Just last Wednesday I played 200pts FrostByte, went first, killed only one guy. Enemy's Corregidor with linked Mobile Brigada put down my AROs - Ghulam ML, Khawa HRL, Khawa Spit. But spent few orders on this and didn't do anything about the scenario. And even though he looked liked his in better position until 3rd turn, I healed my 2 template guys, went for the scenario with Mukhtar Viral Rifle DataTracker, controlling the center, putting down few guys (Mobile for example), and positioned link to cover the way for the central part of the board, with everyone standing, HRL, ML, Leila and even one rifle Naffatun, only Link Leader hidden. And even though Mobile Brigada was healed, he couldn't go through all the AROs, then few others tried, but HRL+ ML is brutal combination, especially if you know where your enemy will go... And the score was 9:0. PozdRawiam / Greetings
What about both? ARO models often die, but are very important. So still leave them out, but have a plan in place for any or all of them to die. Regarding the Al Fasid, I'm mostly looking at the multiple wounds. There are a lot of factors at play for ARO pieces, but good armor and a second wound can go a long way toward making your opponent spend multiple orders to take out one of your pieces.
Yeah, I agree with your first sentence - ARO can die, but still can mess up enemy's plan and that's the point. And in Ramah we have many options to rebuild the Fireteam, so it shouldn't hurt so bad. About Fassy - yes, he's tough, but IMHO the chance to win the FtF is more important than the chance to roll a good ARM... Here's a comparison of some scary active hunter - Mobile Brigada in full link vs linked Khawa HRL and vs Fassy HRL. I prefer the first one. And don't get me wrong, I like our fatties, I used them a lot in Vanilla and Fassy HRL is a versatile, interesting option, even for AROs. Outside ITS they can be very good, in our meta we play different types of scenarios and it changes the game in some funny ways. Yet in sectorial army the +1 to burst and +3 to BS is IMHO better. And still Khawa is much cheaper - in points and in SWC also (that's one of his big advantages in this rather expensive army). PozdRawiam / Greetings
It looks like we have different ARO philosophies. I assume you prefer the khawarij for its greater chance to kill something? I prefer the Al Fasid for it being less likely to go unconscious in one order. That's probably why I'm looking at the HMG al fasid over the rocket one. Regarding the price, that's probably going to be a dealbreaker in most lists. In a single combat group like was mentioned, you sometimes would have the points to make it work. It wouldn't just be as an ARO piece, though. In my experience, smoke has been very important, but we only have three profiles with it. While we're crunching numbers, don't forget the shihab, which still puts up pretty good numbers, even next to these core teams. Outside of single-group lists, I've been looking into the ghulam sniper. Its numbers aren't as good as the khawarij, but it's significantly cheaper. I was very surprised by the zhayedan sniper, which was just about the best numbers I could get for trading shots at long range. I'm not sure if it justifies the points for the whole team, but it's something.
A Haris with Zhayden sniper, breaker rifle, and boarding shotgun doctor has been doing surprisingly well as acting like a pseudo core team. It makes for a good piece for picking off basic infantry link team filler at long to mid range, has a built-in doctor, and the MML2 basically acts like a +3 to BS. Eager to try out the Core with nimbus grenades just once to shoot through the cloud on 15s.
