Azra'il The Exterminator

I was really hoping for a Haris option. But I'm not complaining. The FB profile is nice. The standard FB is fun but at 2B it's missing a little something. The +1B is a little something. The continuous damage is something extra.

Being able to Duo a specialist is useful. Still not sure if it's going to be Leila or Rahman.

 

There is absolutely 0 way that Continuous Damage is intentional. 40 points for a 2 wound infantry with Continuous AP+DA damage and B3? That'd be absurd.

I'd be willing to bet that when they changed Djabel to have BS (Continuous Damage) instead of BS (Shock), they mucked something up and accidentally changed it on the Azrail as well, and that the Azrail is supposed to have BS (Shock).

 

If so the end azra has shock, It Will stay ok.
Rof 4 damage 16 AP + shok.

But if It isn't an error, my Azra AP Hmg would be so happy.

 

Confirmed that Azra'il indeed have Continuous Damage. Hail the Angels of Death

 

That will need to be confirmed. The Secortal army list doesn't say Special which is supposed to be the official source. There is also no note in Army. I really hope it does stay Wildcard. Having NCO wildcard is amazing.

 

The real war crime here is they discontinued the models before smacking us with the walking gunboats we deserved. Damn these thing might even make a kriza blush. Mainly that feuerbach, hot damn, my remote destroyer is back in action baby!

 

Their ability to deal damage is impressive and definitely welcome now that sturdy targets can indeed be a problem, but I feel people dubbing them "Kriza killers" and "walking war crime" are a bit overexcited right now. These guys shoot literally like a linked Metro. That means they definitely have their engagement profile, but it's not terribly wide. Just one hammer-shaped tool in the box, albeit very flashy and bangy when it hits something.

On a fun note, some time ago I've managed to unintentionally buy two sets of Azrails instead of one. I guess now would be a good time for me to do something about it if I cared to.

 

- Mehmet, we must blow theodosian wall, bring more gun.
- No worry, Hadid, I bring ALL the gun.

I like the absolutely disgusting firepower but yes, as it's been mentioned, it's balanced out by the fact that this guy is not all that good in FTF rolls. Not bad, by any means, but it's not a full-core Hortlak kind of guy. Just put him in cover and watch a Jotum fear the crit.

 

I have happy that he now fits this fluff and makes a great centerpiece. I am sad that I didn't pick up the AP HMG model when I had the chance. Looking forward to when they come back.

 

A Crit would certianly be nice, but even a simple hit is mortally dangerous: depending on the gun used, take (AP HMG) 1 ARM roll at half ARM, DAM 16, or (Feuerbach) 2 ARM rolls at half ARM, DAM 15, per hit taken. If you fail the roll, roll again to check if oyu've lost another W/STR. Rinse, repeat.

Even a Jotum is not going to like taking such kind of a risk, as it has at best 50% chance of passing it (out of Cover, that is). If an Azra'il does place a hit, it will make the target worry. Well, maybe except for Total Immunity targets, but there aren't many of these among TAGs. Karakuri, werewolves and such, well, that's an another kettle of fish.

 

Yeah, I see that many people are blown away by the destructive potential of both Azzies, naming them even OP, but don't see that winning FtF with BS 13 isn't that easy. They don't have any MSV, any Mimetism, et cetera.
I'm glad they got something to really make their name suitable, they really can be the angels of death, but I think they're far from being overpowered.

It will be definitely more interesting to pick support weapons in armylists. In N3 I usually took Djan HMG, now his even better, but for a point less there's an interesting Zhayedan, who can win some FtF easier. And for few more points we can take AzRa'il, who has such beautiful devastating potential, or Janissaire for higher BS. Nice options.

In N3 I played many games with our fatties - Azzies and Fasids, because I just like those units, and came to a conclusion, that I prefer Fasid HRL over Azzie FB for a low burst good ARO weapon, and Azzie AP HMG vs Fasid HMG for more active killer. And in N4 I think that definitely AzRa'il AP HMG will be my first choice if I'd like some really heavy HMG.
But I'm not so sure if I'd pick Azzie FB over Fasid HRL still. Feuerbach with burst 3 is great, wonderful AntiTAG thing, but for +1 point Fasid gives us burst 3 HRL (also not bad against tougher targets, ignoring cover bonuses for ARM and having continuous damage), SMG for close range, mines with Minelayer, Sixth Sense, better dodging, Veteran, and some better stats. So Azzie can be more devastating for enemies, but Fasid is tougher for sure.


PozdRawiam / Greetings

 

You say it like you wouldn't want to use her to reenact Frazetta's Conan painting.

ed: Now that I think of it, someone's gotta make a conversion of that.

 

I would do it to recreate the N3 human Sphere Haqqislam Section art piece on page 114.

 

they done this with a lot of discontinued units across all armies (NT bolts, clauswis and 1/3 of the sp heroes, for example)

 

Has anyone run the numbers on the Continuous Damage?

My intuition is that:
Against low ARM targets, it won't actually make a difference, because it's essentially just worse shock
Against high ARM / multi-wound targets, it can add an extra 50% (give or take, depending on the target) or so chance to wound again per hit

I think the fact it is BS13 with no mods and no B/BS bonus from linkability means that the Continuous Damage is the only reason it will be threatening -- essentially, it's gambling lower odds on any given shot to get higher payoff if it lands.

Think about it like this. Let's say an Omega/Swiss/some other 50 points unit with a combination of visual mods or linkability spends three orders shooting at your ARO piece (let's say it's like a linked Missile, Sniper, or something -- it doesn't matter all that much, it just needs to have base BS11-13 or so and a DA / EXP weapon). He probably lands about 2 hits an order (3 successes, one cancelled by the opponent's one success), so he probably wounds about once per order. And he's going to do that pretty consistently due to his high BS, and his visual mod making it very difficult for you to him him back. The risk to him is fairly low while shooting due to his visual mod. (If the Mimetism(-6) creates a gap of 6 between your success values, there's a 75% the Omega will win the f2f / hit at least once per order just from rolling in that gap.)

Now look at the Azra'il. His given odds of winning any given f2f are much lower due to his lack of the visual mod, but if he does hit you, your odds of taking multiple wounds is pretty high. On the other hand, the Azra'il is much more likely to take a wound on a f2f because he has less innate protection against losing the f2f.

This is going to make the Azra'il feel much more swingy -- either things will go very well for him and he'll crush the opposition, or he'll be up against something he can't crack and just get chipped to death as he loses f2f rolls in ARO.

 

I'd really like to see the math on it if there's some way to bodge it together.

 

I will say that the longer I play this game, the more I regret not taking more probability courses in my undergrad.