I am a TAK player, and as my title states, I am having trouble playing against one of my friends Haqqislam QK lists. He is usually running 2 Azra’il and 3-4 Janissaries, plus a couple of other pieces. I’m looking for advice on how to deal with a list like this. Thanks in advance.
It would help if you describe your typical issues with them and what kind of scenarios you play. Typically, shooting to bits anything that sticks out, pushing necessary buttons with your midfielders and watching now sub-LI opponent imploding onto himself should do the trick using something very generic from TAK repertoire. There's hardly anything special about them.
When I played against an HI list, the observations that I had were that dam13 and b2 were not enough. You need enough damage to get through the armor and enough burst to put out 2 wounds. That means rely less on rifles, chain rifles, and mines and even marksmanship shock and lean on boarding shotguns, tankhunters, and hmgs. The scout with emaulers can be pretty scary for these lists as well.
Tbh if you have to rely on b3 or less, then you are most likely either trying to kill something very soft with AD/infiltrator, or that's some desperate / lategame shooting on your part in the absence of a decent active piece. For the most part. 2 dam difference isn't that noticeable.
2 dam is not really noticeable. TAK bring T2 and AP like madmen. That breaks the only real advantage HIs have - ARM and 2W. And the ARM advantage is *very* questionable, since it is usually pretty overpriced. TAK has the tools to dismantle anything that the enemy has set up. Use your Ariadnan Hacking devices ( AP HMG ) to dislodge stuff, and close in with camo shotguns. Even on the defensive, the eventual Tank Hunter missile launcher can mess up any link in the game. Especially since you can have so much camo in the table that discovery is actually a waste of orders.
Streloks work well for soaking up orders on HI lists, because they tend to spend orders trying to discover all of your markers. And when on the offense they pack landmines and AP SMGs or AP boarding shotguns in hit mode. So place a landmine while out of LoS, then next order peak around the cover with your SMG. And as @Wyrmnax has said, T2 all over the place should make them scared to lose that F2F roll.
The Azrails should be relatively easy to kill since they aren't going to be in a fireteam. TAK has lots of high-burst AP weapons that can put a hurt on HI, especially those only throwing one dice in ARO, and especially when they don't have Sixth Sense (surprise shot). Linked Vet Kazak APHMG is excellent for brute forcing literally any target, but you will also get a lot of mileage with the Tankhunter AP HMG especially against non-linked threats. Don't forget that we also have access to great CC options for killing HI. McManus can tear apart a Jannissary link singlehandedly if you can use smoke to close the distance and protect him against their shotguns. Antipodes are also excellent for killing pieces that are somewhat isolated (i.e., not mutually supported by other units). If you can bait that HI link into the midfield, you have tons of options for killing it, and it doesn't have any efficient way to deal with your camo threats. Caveat - if your opponent brought a Sneaky Rafiqi, you will want to kill that first since it is a source of Sensor.
AP HMG Vet Kazak with 5-man link bonuses peels armor like crazy. The Mimetism really helps them excel versus opponents of similar Ballistic Skill. Alternately, an opposing list like that is going to have very few orders and very little midfield support. Let it advance up the table, then simply storm it with an antipode pack or anything with T2 to kill off one or two key members, then mop up from there. TAK is one of the game's best forces for tackling hardened targets.
Well, they do have great damage potential which is mostly wasted in the game where everything has 1-2 wounds. Statistically, on the active turn pretty much any shooting piece of comparable caliber (Spetsnaz HMG, Tankhunter AP HMG, Veteran AP HMG, even unlinked) has strictly better odds against aforementioned Azrails, and I'm pretty sure against anything else, than Tankhunters AC, whereas on the reactive it is minimally better than Tankhunter ML against TAGs but loses template which may be much more important against anything else. Well, I guess it's still provides you with some flexibility for 5 ponits.
I’ve taken out hi and tags using the ap hmg in a link team. Pretty effective. And hi still don’t want to walk through minefields or get caught on a bad aro. T2, explosive weapons, ap. All the fun toys