Now... trying to be constructive... There's psychology on both sides of the issue. An ARO piece needs to be daunting, or the opponent will just not care and it won't effect much of anything. For example, missile launchers are scary because no matter how crappy of a shot they are, they _might_ just blow you up entirely. _I_ want my piece to hit and kill stuff because that's why it's out there. At least once, you know, before it dies. At any rate, I may have gone through the same sequence that many players seem to have. I started with the Djanbazan because SMOKE! (also bad-ass sculpt) Gotta shoot through smoke! Then people stopped running out in the open and his BS 12 + 3 became BS... 12. Then they started shooting back and BS 12 just didn't cut the mustard. Then I moved on to the Kaplan and Lasiq. I figured they were way more deadly and that would get people to at least veer off some rather than risk it. So they shot back harder. ;) Again an effective BS of 12 didn't seem daunting enough. I don't think going into the Taureg would change much since the falling-down point appeared to be my ability to hit enemy models. So I've finally "settled" on the Zheyadan sniper. For some reason this seems more comfortable with the ability to ignore the cover penalty and thus confidently being able to hit someone in ARO 75% of the time. Only camo can reduce that and camo should just walk right past me anyhow. So here's a two part question for people to ponder and hopefully respond to. 1) At what point are you worried about an ARO? When does it rise to the occasion where you just won't risk it, you have to eliminate it? 2) How are you comfortable with an ARO piece that will miss upwards of 40% of the time even if the enemy does _nothing_ to survive?
I don’t have enough experience to answer part one, but for part 2, 40% is still a pretty good chance, and even if I miss, it didn’t cost me anything. If my opponent forces an ftf roll, he’s wasting a short skill he could have used productively. I don’t see AROs like a tool to kill my opponents troops, but more as an opportunity to waste his orders and deny areas of the board to him. This is why I think one of the better things about Haqq is the 0.5 swc sniper Ghulam and panzerfaust Daylami you can have lots of cheap long range area denial pieces that you don’t mind losing.
Well sure. But why would I waste an order if you're not a credible threat? (credible mileage my vary).
If you want to threaten, then your best option is the Shihab. But you can also pick whatever ARO piece you want and support him with a panzerfaust daylami, don't you?
I think AROs work a little differently in Haqq compared to other factions, there aren't any really stand out amazing pieces that will shut down a lane by themselves. Like a swiss guard or noctifer ML. Haqq just lacks that combination of hard to remove and likely to kill you if you mess up. Regular snipers are just way less threatening than Multi's. Same for Rockets vs Missles. That's at the start of the game, if you wait til the enemy link is smaller or the HMG is dead, the lasiq can dominate a board by herself. I feel like the best way to play Haqq in reactive is to play a zone denial game using templates. Ghazi, Naffatun, mines are really good at wasting multiple orders or making someone reconsider an attack. Placing something like a fiday down also asks your opponent a hard question; do they spend a chunk of their turn getting rid of it, or do they ignore it knowing it will be threatening anything that moves past it? And we have a lot of pieces that are good if they get a chance to go into suppressive, like the lasiq. My favourite way to use snipers and the shihab is to counter enemy impetuous. they dont get cover, have short range, and can be easily manipulated into running into bad trades. Enemy impetuous also tend to be really good against our impetuous and infiltrators, so trading a lasiq for a bike or some morlocks can make the ghazi and camo that much stronger. Other than that I like the infiltrating Daylami PZ, he can be really annoying and even if he fails he isn't useless. For question one: I mostly use smoke to ignore enemy AROs. If its on the board or predictable i might drop a fiday on it. It would have to have a really dominating position to waste time shooting at it. For 2: Templates cant miss. Other than that I have learned to accept that if I leave someone out they are pretty much dead, at that point its just a trade-off. Is the model being dead worth wasting their time/ is the model its protecting that much more important? If the lasiq is covering just the roof the fiday is on it might take an entire turn to get rid of both. The actual killing of enemy models is just a bonus for me.
Best ARO piece SMGs in suppressive fire. Colse second HMGs in SF. (Because SMG loadout is much cheaper.)
1, I'm cautious about eating multiple ARO's with my fireteam, especially it's leader. No matter what they are they might crit and that's that for the fireteam. 2, Depending on cost 60% is just fine odds. Out of all ARO pieces I like most the Ghulam snipers and missiles since they're inexpensive filler models anyway, ditto for forward observers. I always try to have 3 forward observers, nobody likes eating that flash pulse at wip 14. Yesterday I started thinking about a Djan with shock marksman rifle, not in a fireteam but as an alternative sniper. I rarely see any use in the extreme range of the sniper rifle and would rather have the option to suppressive fire. And he wouldn't be a pure reactive model.
Why pure reactive model? With FD1 he'd make a great hunter that ends on Suppression. Particularly if he's got a pair of Mutts / Kum supporting him. I'm a big fan of expendable MSV2 models. Not T1 AROs, but T2 AROs: get work out of them T1 and leave them on ARO as a threat that needs to be dealt with.
I try to make my ARO pieces a threat to my opponents by trying to a.) block routes so he has to spend orders to avoid getting shot and b.) to make sure that my opponent will have a hard time in a firefight. Best thing in every faction is the total reaction HMG REM, at best supported with Marksman lvl1. Second is a Missile/Rocketlauncher/Sniper/MultiSniper in a 5man Link team (I play Ikari Company with a mixed Keisotzu (1 ML)/Tanko (Flammenspeer)/Brawler MSV 2 MultiSniperRifle - absolute Killer AROs). When facing a lone Sniper, I will most of the time take his single shot and try to dodge it or shoot back if the modifiers are in my favor.
