Carrying around a threatening gun and being scary overall is even written into their background, so I'd say that's pretty lore-friendly. As for MODs leveraging – the only thing that can save Azzie, in that case, is firing in the enemy gun's longer ranges. It's not a perfect alternative and it is only consistently viable on Feuerbach thanks to its range bands while still likely imposing a -3 for the enemy cover, but it's there. Thankfully, in QK, MODs can be leveraged by plenty of other units like Djanbazan firing through the smoke. Azra'il is best implemented against guys with no visual modifiers of their own. And I also do not think he'll fare all that well against any kind of linked sniper because snipers will never be suffering from negative range MODs specifically. I'm gonna try him out today in an hour and write here about my experiences. I'll be playing against a guy who's known for his 1-group Avatar+Noctifer list so knowing my luck I fully expect him to die to a rocket blast at the beginning.
Just remember to try to take the shot in the 32-40 range band and you will be satisfied (if using the Feuerbach). This is the real strength of it.
BS13 and 4 dice sweeps most things short of a -6 mod imo. Azzy boi is a solid sweeper with a niche that he can absolutely dump on most TAGs and superheavy inf with AP+cont in a way that a standard HMG cannot even when it's on an elite plattform like a Hsien, Omega etc.
Alright, I just wrote the world's messiest Python simulator for just calculating the outcome of a f2f roll, which you can see here. If my code is right (big if there lmao, I don't code at all in my current position, but all of my spot-checking seemed to show it working correctly), in solely terms of outcome, B4 at 14 is roughly even odds to win a f2f against B2 at 16. Outcomes of ARM rolls will obviously be different depending on where the shooting is going, but Azra'il is definitely a "win more" piece when it comes to the things he wants to be shooting.
Unfortunately the Hideous Interim Dice Calculator can't do continuous damage, so this one will have to wait for @toadchild to produce the Actual Dice Calculator. But I have the same intuition as you - continuous on the Azrael won't hurt, but it won't make a big difference. It only kicks in once you've already inflicted one wound. So on occasion, it will take down a multiwound target a little faster, but only in circumstances where it was already wounding them. Which is good, but not game-changing. The Hideous Dice Calculator already does this and also armor saves. The only thing it can't handle is continuous damage. I can post you the code if you like, but be warned, it's very very hideous.
If you have it up in a repository somewhere, I would love to see it. I noticed that you had mentioned it once before and thought about asking about then too.
Repository, hah! It is far too hideous to go in a repository. Apparently I can't attach it directly to the post. Try this google drive link, hopefully it will work although google drive permissions are weird: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19S_JMN1uBSsIb9BNJxn9nQqJ-BwJ8KQ9/view?usp=sharing
just got a question about continuous damage and the weapons; does the ammo type carry over eg ap+da to each successive saving roll or is it just a flat unmodified? the rules aren't clear to me on the wiki.
That's basically how my game went today. Played against WhiteCo. My first QK game in N4 downgraded my IQ by 50 points and I made some terrible blunders, but the Azzie did get to shoot at some stuff with Feuerbach. – He got incredibly lucky by tanking three Guijia saves and moving to cover where he successfully knocked out two wounds off her while she tanked the continuous damage ones. The engineer came up to it and killed it by failing the repair roll. – He shot linked Fusilier in the back from long range and only knocked him into Unconscious. – He killed the 4-manned Haidao sniper right away before we could roll for continuous damage saves. Make of that what you will.
For each failed roll you make another roll against the same success value. So an ARM 4 trooper hit by an AP+DA DAM15 CD hit will make two ARM Rolls looking for a 13+, for every failed roll they make another roll on a 13+.
It feels like a combined arms piece that works best with a hidden hacker that Carbonites the target and then let's Azrail destroy it. I picture combining it with a Tuareq hacker in vanilla.
Same here. In QK, I like the idea of using the Druze Hacker+pitcher (maybe in 3-man core with Leila and Rouhani) to get a crucial target in repeater range, coordinated order carbonite with Al-hawwa, Druze and maybe Ghulam hacker, then strike with Azrail. Order intensive, but looks like a promising way to eliminate even elite, linked HI missile launchers on over-watch duty.
@Brokenwolf has the right idea. It’s tough to evaluate any unit on its own in Haqq, because I think the whole of our army were designed to be greater than the sum of our individual units, more so than any other faction. And I think the new Azra’il is a perfect illustration of this. “Fair fights” in the sense of both-in-cover-both-in-good-range-shooting-on-flat-BS were never our forte, so extra creativity is needed to somehow turn the odds in our favour. Except for the msv2 Mukhtar. Those guys are disgusting.
I will not underestimate the "psychological warfare" aspect of continuous damage. While cold math tells you it will be slightly better than another weapon, your opponent's point of view is damn scary. He can't be sure how much damage his model could suffer after a bad roll... It could enough to make your opponent waste some orders to take a safer route!
The one thing that I think is absolutely worth considering when deciding between the AP HMG and the Fuerbach is that given the potential damage of each individual shot thanks to continuous, I think it is much more valuable to get more hits with less punch than it is to hit with the punchier ammo type. This is one reason I'd always opt for the HMG over the Fuerbach. In a firefight against most big hitter pieces that aren't in a full fireteam, B4 BS13 will likely only be facing one or two shots back which, even at BS15, say, gives you decent odds of winning that engagement. Slipping just one hit through can cause so much more damage (and this is amplified by the increased probability of scoring a critical hit). The other reason that I would almost always take the AP HMG over the Fuerbach is that it can go into suppression fire. If you are able to get the positioning right, the Azra'il presents a very serious threat to any troop that wants to advance past its line of fire, and pending terrain, that could play out to be a massive advantage
Did anyone else notice that the the Azra'il is S5? I'm not sure what they were in N3 but my Azra'il models are on 25mm bases and would look ridiculously tiny on 40mm bases.
