Fireteams are the obvious focal point of sectorial armies. With many of our appealing link options maxing out at BS 12, Haqq can definitely use the 3+ BS bonus to even the playing field with some of the heavy hitters we could encounter. Personally, I think the Hassassin Barham Ghulam link, with Barid, Muyib and Assawira is currently among N4’s hottest new threats. However, if you fill a full core link and a second three-man haris, that accounts for eight of your fifteen tactical window slots. This also means that over 50% of your force must start the game and remain within 8” of your two fireteam leaders at all times, which is pretty restrictive. Also, with the five-man link, you might have a couple troupers in there just filling link slots. At least in Haqqislam, these can be relatively cheap, high WP Ghulam specialists. Considering these tradeoffs, I have a few questions to hopefully motivate some discussion: -How valuable are the 4- and 5-man fireteam bonuses in your games? How many turns do you generally keep them? -Do you get the most out of your link team fillers? In haqq, I feel like these guys are competing for slots with some of our fairly effective irregular troops that can punch about their point cost with alternative attack vectors, bonus impetuous orders, or opponent-frustrating AROs. -Have you considered running two tighter 3 man squads for some added flexibility in you remaining list options? I recently enjoyed making a QK list with two three-man Djanbazan links, each with a sekban to spread out NCO options and a Hafza. Instead of filling out a whole 5 man link with ~20+ point wild cards, I was able to fit Azra’il, a Jannisary doctor with nasmat and fill out my order poor with Yuan Yuans and Fanous flashpulse bots.
I don't think that's the case in HB. We have so many great options to put in the link, there's never a need for filler. Start with two Barids and a Ghulam NCO, probably add Yara, and you've only got one slot left but so many guys who want to fill it. Asawira for punch, Muyib HRL for a long-range gun and extra order, lots of guys with mines of various kinds... basically I don't have any trouble filling the link with 5 useful dudes. I have trouble cutting the options down to 5. When I play SAA, yeah, I have 4 Regulars who are basically just there to give link bonuses to a Bagh-Mari. But Hassassins doesn't work that way IMO.
For HB, I largely agree, and my core links fill up fast here. How many games in N4 have you played with HB and do you have an impression of of how many turns you kept your 5 or 4 man bonuses and how well this indicates your whole-game performance? However, in QK and especially RTF, I think opinions might vary. In HB, all of our best options can wildcard and barids count as ghulam. In RTF, We have Khawari and Namuur which count as Ghulam, which opens some options. But Zhayaden and Janissary core links get pretty expensive. The same can be said of Djanbazan and Jannisarries in QK.
In N3.5 two three-man links could have been a thing, since you could have two flexible teams with at least the +1B, which is the major shift in many cases. But since you always have some cheap troopers available now to fill the link, not only in our sectorials, you don't really spare some orders and more opponents will use the benefits of full links. So it becomes even more important to keep the link at maximum strength.
Rough guess, around 25. It's early days :-) On the whole, I'd say that link likes its bonuses best in the first turn or two when it's tossing out repeaters and smoke. In later turns, the bonuses are mostly just helping Yara fight, and while that's welcome, it rarely makes a huge difference. Yara isn't usually the main attack piece. I also think I need to start splitting the team more. Use the bonuses at the beginning to get the smoke and repeaters down, then send the members on their separate ways: specialists go push buttons, Yara goes into suppression somewhere, etc.
In QK, there is always the sixth guy to fill up the link team. Most of the time, I go for the mixed link teams that can be both offensive or defensive depending on the Lt. roll outcome. Either way, I find this link team option to be very effective: ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 6 JANISSARY Heavy Machine Gun / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 41) JANISSARY Missile Launcher / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 38) HAFZA Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 15) HAFZA Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 15) WILD BILL Contender / MULTI Pistol(+1B), CC Weapon. (0 | 22) ROUHANI Submachine Gun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 21) 3 SWC | 152 Points Open in Infinity Army Since it can go to the midfield or stay in the DZ for the first turn, this fireteam is very flexible. Even if you lose your 5-man link bonuses and are down to 4 or 3 people – if you have Wild Bill around, you'd still be hitting stuff with the 5-man link bonuses thanks to his Marksmanship, and since many mid-games and late-games revolve around completing stuff in the midfield, Bill's inclusion here is well worth it. In other cases, I always try to make it so that my Core link team remains at full capacity, so even something like a Ghulam link has to be with 5-man bonuses in the late-game, which is more easily achieved with Ghulams since they are cheaper. I would agree that we have a lot of useful wildcards now that are not necessarily cheap but are pretty useful to have in the link (Sekbans being one of the newer examples), although if I could fill my link with more of the cheaper non-specialist Hafzas I would have absolutely done that. To me, it's easier to use a link that is focused on doing one thing than a mixed link that can push buttons, defend, and attack. That is because I am fine with losing a cheap Ghulam Core with Odalisque or Sekban Spitfire because such a link is relatively cheap and allows me to include some other means to accomplish my objectives. In QK though, it's not as easily achieved thanks to the 15-models cap. My Ghulam Core used to be a go-to option for my 17-20 model QK lists, but now you have to include some expensive models in your roster to fill that points gap.
Hello, right now, as other said before me, the five member fireteam is "almost" mandatory, at least in "haquislam sectorial". To me, in N4 the question is, "include I that haris or not"? But the five member fireteam is there "always". Most of the times I play haris+core and deploy then in separates zones, later in the game one go to meet the other, so at the end of the match I can have a full member core with the "conscripts" of the others if necessary. True, back in N3, in the case of limited insertion tournaments with "hassasin" I played a list with only a "haris". Right now I haven't yet played with this "extra" in N4, so I can't tell if I will do the same or not.
I'm going to be using Ramah as examples, but the concepts should apply to any sectorial. I think that every team needs, at minimum, a gunfighter and a specialist. With Haqq, the specialist is usually going to be a doctor. Maggie and a Rafiq are the obvious example, but in a lot of games of N3 I took a Mukhtar duo of the red fury and doctor, not bothering with having a haris. The 3-member bonus is primarily defensive. That's because, on your turn, you will usually be going from 3 shots up to 4 or 4 shots up to 5. But, in ARO, you will be going from 1 to 2, which is a much bigger benefit. This distinction holds true for the 4-member bonus (sixth sense is, obviously, more useful in ARO) but not the member bonus. With that in mind, the question to ask is what the 4th and 5th models actually do. Even standing around doing nothing but providing the link bonus and orders might be enough if they only cost 11 points. This depends on your list, as HB and QK can easily hit the 15-model limit this way. At the other extreme is the Janissary core. When I take this team, it usually consists of: Janissary HMG Hortlak AP sniper Hortlak SMG Leila Rouhani At 20 and 21 points, Leila and Rouhani are the two cheapest models I can put in the team, but they are doing more than just filling out the team. By being a doctor and killer hacker, they each help protect the team in different ways, as well as being able to complete mission objectives. The next cheapest model, the Hortlak SMG, opens up short-range gunfighting as an option for the team, though Wild Bill could arguably be better in that role. The other core option that cant have 11-point filler is the Zhayedan. This is probably the team I would be least likely to use at 5 members. Rouhani is helpful, though the gap between him and the Zhayedan doctor is much smaller than with the Janissary, and regeneration fills some of that role already. Leila is again the cheapest model that can be in the team, but doesn't bring much to it. A KHD is much less useful for protection when the only threat from hacking is being targeted. The bonus for having 3 members will often mean the difference between hitting on 1 15 and an 18, but 5 shots from the HMG on a 15 should be winning just about any gunfight already, while anything that can deal with that sniper in a 4-member team can deal with if on a full one. I think this is often going to be the case for premium light infantry like Kaplans and Govads, though Hafzas might swing things back in favor of having cheap filler/cheerleaders.
The gripe I have with 5-man teams is mobility. Often, I find it hard to move effectively and maintain coherency. And by effectively I mean using the full mov value but also avoid bunching and becoming prime target for templates... And there are also the hidden deployed threats. More than once I had a team move with the HMG Djanbazan or HRL Sekbans as team leader ready to engage a major threat, only to have the filler Hafza targeted (or even engaged) by some HDeploy whatever. So yeah, I will use 5 man links in the premise that they'll either stick to long range defensive duty (and 5 ghulam sniper death star of cheese is awesome for that); or I'll go with the idea that it's a team with a shifting role, prepared to leave members behind. With all that said and the increased number of wildcards and evermore flexible teams, I still want to try teams that are planned to incorporate new members as the game advances.
Played a game of Countermeasures last night starring the 5-man link which basically did all the work, scoring 5 classified objectives. Yara, Barid HD, Barid KHD, Ghulam NCO, and Muyib HRL, with a Ghulam doctor as backup 6th member. Turn one, the link moves to the midfield, scores some classifieds, Trinities a hacker, and murders an Evader through smoke. Opponent takes out one of the Barids on his turn. Turn two, I decide not to spend the orders to revive the Barid. The remaining four guys move up, score some classifieds, then get pinned down by a Jaguar. Ragik comes on to kill the Jaguar, but two more link members go down. Turn three, Yara scores another classified, and I spend all my orders moving up the doctor to revive the Muyib who then plants d-charges for the 5th classified. Countermeasures is maybe not a typical mission, since the range of units in the fireteam is particularly useful for scoring. Still, this was a game where I was very happy to have a full core, and to have the full bonuses on turn one fighting the Evader, but didn't mind at all to lose the bonuses in later turns. In all I spent almost my entire order pool on the link, I think literally the only other orders spent were one on the Ragik, and a bunch on the doctor.
What is a 5 ghulam sniper death star of cheese? Is it just 5 snipers because that doesnt Sound very dangerous Anyway i agree on the shifting role for more specialized fire teams and willingness to leave some guys behind can be real good when you have a mixed fire team some who may be really good solos or direct/ indirect aro pieces
Oh not dangerous, just cheesy... It's just that a 5 man core team composed solely of ghulam snipers. While SWC heavy (2.5), I usually have plenty... Sure it's terrain dependent, but it's not unlikely to cover 2/3s of the objectives . Don't get me wrong no one is going to step in there, with an ARO presence of 10 sniper shots. But they'll likely spend a large amount of orders to tediously slice the pie, and engage each sniper individually (not so much of a threat, even linked). Which isn't half bad. Or they're going to avoid that area altogether, which is much better, since you have over 2/3s of your army in other units. I call it a death star because it packs a punch, has very low mobility, glaring vulnerabilities, and is a bad choice overall. It's a funny gimmick, but gets old fast.
