I sometimes find myself locked down by powerful enemy ARO pieces. In my other army, Combined, I can always try to throw a buffed Q-drone at the problem, but in Haqq, I seldom feel like I can justify running all the support network that such a remote demands (EVO + engineer). Which leaves me struggling with what to do with that irksome 24"+ range band. I feel like Haqq has an abundance of great spitfires, red furys and marksman rifles, but HMG, not so much. The Zhaeydan and Djanbazan both seems like they could perform very well if they're lucky, but they have a critical vulnerability against DA ammo, which always makes me hesitant to take them as Multi-snipers are one of their most common targets. Which HMG profiles do you tend to use in Haqqislam, and why?
My favourite HMG unit is the Fiday :-) Seriously though, snipers are definitely a weakness of Haqq, and a Fiday is often our best tool to deal with them. Either by killing the sniper, or by killing its fireteam to reduce its bonuses. Or by placing a mine to hit the sniper when it AROs. Where a Fiday won't work, I'll try to get within 24", often with the help of smoke. Mostly I haven't been taking HMGs at all, as I'd rather play to Haqq's strengths. When I have, it's been the Shakush. But I'm playing HB which is even lighter on HMG options. In vanilla I would give the Azrail some thought.
While we now have some more HMGs (We now have three BS 14 HMGs in N4 versus the one in N3), we still cannot brute force many hard AROs. I use the Djanbazan HMG to pick off weak stuff with minetism. For hard AROs, I rely on the Fiday, infiltrators, and smoke.
I favour the shakush or azrail, but always paired with a Mukhtar to engage anything with visual Mods.
I think that this is an interesting topic, I thought about it some time ago and even wrote something in the forums, IIRC. In N3 my go-to HMG was Djanbazan, mostly because of his great synergy with my favourite impetuous guy - Kasym Beg. MSV2, nice BS, good ARM, in army with smoke he was great. I never felt like Haqq lacked the firepower, we simply had to play a bit differently, softening enemy before hitting him hard. In N4 Djan still is great, especially with the new regeneration, but I like to use the sniper now (with AP+Shock), leaving HMG Djan at home. Especially that I think that N4 gave us more interesting options and it's great. For example - Zhayedan. He lacks MSV, but gains against non-camo units and also has Shock on his weapon. I think he has a big potential, sadly I had a bad luck testing him (just like when testing Breaker in N3 - only sniper had good results in most of my games). I will definitely try Zhay HMG more and see how he'll manage. And if you want to get something tougher and a bit more expensive there are some Heavy Infantry guys that want to be tested - the fearsome AzRa'il, tough and with a brutal damage potential, or the upraded Janissary HMG. First of them is a HMG platform made to hunt high-ARM enemies - he may have some problems to outshoot them, but paired with a hacker he can be devastating. The Janissary has better chances to win FtF rolls and also better chances to survive a hit from bio-ammo or hacking attack, so they both have some ups and downs. Then, there's also the multiToolBox Fasid - but for me it's hard to justify taking him. Better use few more points and take the Shakush - better BS, mobility, ARM and 3 STR. The trio of HMGs that I used already in N4 and plan to test more are Djanbazan (against all those mimetism guys, but for now I'll propably use more Djan sniper), Zhayedan HMG as an all-roung HMG and AzRa'il AP HMG for TAG-hunting. PozdRawiam / Greetings
Two shihabs backing each other up ain't bad... and then put'em on either side of an EVO Kameel. It's ~70pts. but those bots will crush anything that tries to get within 32" of them...
I mean if they have a helper bot or engineer hanging out behind them they've got a genuinely good chance of fending off attacks with disposable elements and forcing enemy TAGs and alpha gunfighters to waste enough time stop them short of a full assault on the DZ, while still being recoverable in subsequent turns. ...man, I need to run TR REMs a little more this edition. They don't win gunfights that often but the remote presence + rules for cancelling unconscious also cancelling prone are so useful for them.
Every time I think about trying them, I decide a Daylami or three will do the job better. Also, when I run a TR bot I feel punked by the Q-Drone. They're good at what they do, though, especially being now able to go prone through some sort of impossible-to-visualize robotic contortions. AROs aside, the thread asks about HMGs in the active turn and the TR bot doesn't exactly shine in that department. Even with Assisted Fire it's only as good as a Janissary or Shakush, with none of the resilience.
I've actually gotten some decent results out of a TR bot with assisted fire in active turn, but such a TR bot demands a whole support network of EVO + engineer, that I seldom feel like investing in with Haqqislam, unless I also bring Maggie. Plus, in that case, I'd rather run a Rafiq with Red Fury. So I wanted to explore what alternatives there might be.
Knauf is among the most solid long-range shooters in haqq with the burst 3, double action ammunition. Comfortably outperforms a Zhayedan against most targets, and packs AP ammunition for the heavier armour. Might not look like much but the mimetism, msv1, and +1 burst make him incredibly reliable. He is (according to the dice calculator) about the best option you can take, and one of the cheapest too. Seriously struggle to not run him at the moment. Just keep him hidden in your opponent's turn!
Well I don't know about disappointing, but it is strange design. In a good deal of factions (excluding PanO), he is the best long-range gunfighter you can take for the price. A lot of HMG users come close if you take a quick look, but once you factor in Knauf's ability to choose AP ammunition (if you need it), and his better range-bands, it's not even close. It doesn't really bother me that much though. Something has to be the best long-range piece, so why not him? He is outperformed by other choices in the more technologically advanced factions.
I believe there's also a mention of his ties to Hunzakut in the manga, so I'm fairly happy to field him regularly in Haqqislam.