Lasiqs in Bahram

It's a pretty good reaction piece. It has decent defense with mimetism and ARM 3, great rangebands and a very very deadly weapon. Climbing plus allows it to start in a safe position and climb up to a building or sniper post easily on the second turn when your opponent is already a little battered.

Stacking AROs is always good - nobody wants to take a free viral sniper shot!

 

It's both.

On the active turn it has unique mobility thanks to climbing+, and can stack modifiers on most common weapons to ensure a favourable exchange (-3 for mimetism, - 3 for cover, and -3/6 for range) in addition to having one of the most powerful ranged weapons in HB's arsenal.

Once you've cleared the main threats (HMGs, Feueueurerebachs, forward deployed Spitfires, etc) it becomes a reactive piece, locking down objectives or firelanes and making it hard for your opponent to manoeuvre.

 

Yep. More likely than not a competent opponent will just slowly slice the pie and take them down one by one, but that’s exactly the job those relatively disposable ARO pieces are meant to do - waste orders from your opponent. Orders spent dealing with them are orders not spent dealing with your Fidays and/or Djab, and everyone’s favourite unit - Ghazis.

 

I can say I have only used a sniper twice and she got blown away both times. I have never really run them as other units in the army have much more synergy. Linked Missiles or Rockets for example.

 

I've had the same problem, but it was mitigated as soon as I stacked AROs. Then the Lasiq took out about of 100 points in models over the course of the game.

 

Placing several ARO pieces so they support each other is the way to exponentially grow the enemy's amount of orders needed to clean... unless Smoke & MSV2-3 are involved, that is. Even a humble Warcor can double the chances of the true ARO piece, nobody likes their Rambo to be blinded!

 

Lasiq VSR was my favourite ARO piece till everyone learned how dangerous he is to 1W profiles, so later every time he showed up on the board he had giant "obliterate me" sign above him. Good aro option, working well in active turn aswell thanks to climbing plus. Nowadays, i prefer ghulams with ML as ARO so he is not seeing many action. Xvisir on him is kind of a waste, yet gives him better chances in close quaters.

VR profileon the other hand is kinda situational. Hitting on 0s/-3s with cover above 16 is acceptable, abd SF is tempting, yet i would never link them. The lack Lt profiles IMO.

 

My Lasiq Sniper has done nothing if not less for me this edition but I know evaluating the piece based on my experience would be a bad case of personal bias. She is getting killed by Combi Rifles and failing to hit things that are out in the open at good range... The dice are just not with me when it comes to the Lasiq, except apparently when I manage an ARO with her pistol against an AD trooper...

 

Yep, as a part of a massive ARO strategy they work well, but I plan to use them in a core Link with two Rifles and one Sniper. On paper they offer a lot of damage output, and even TAGs, save for the ones with BTS 9, have to be careful when deciding where to end their turn.

 

I run Hassassins VERY offensively, and do not use many ARO pieces.

 

Hassassin Bahram
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GROUP 1 10
GHULAM Doctor Plus (MediKit) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)
GHULAM Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 17)
GHULAM HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 20)
GHULAM Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
LEILA SHARIF Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Shock Marksman Rifle, D-Charges / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)
GOVAD HMG / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)
GOVAD (Fireteam: Haris) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22)
GOVAD Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 23)
FIDAY Boarding Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 29)
FIDAY Boarding Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 29)

GROUP 2 2 6 4
FARZAN (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
FARZAN (Forward Observer) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
MUTTAWI'AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
MUTTAWI'AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
MUTTAWI'AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
MUTTAWI'AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
DAYLAMI (CH: Limited Camouflage, Inferior Infiltration) Light Shotgun, Panzerfaust / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 8)
DAYLAMI (CH: Limited Camouflage, Inferior Infiltration) Light Shotgun, Panzerfaust / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 8)

6 SWC | 299 Points

Open in Infinity Army

Gives sacrificial Daylami as the ARO threats, I can keep my ML Ghulam standing as an aro threat at the beginning as well, then go offensive with the HMG (I do this a lot and it works great more often than not, even if she dies, the doc will get her back. Its rare at extreme range shes getting hit a lot). The two Fidays with shotguns hunt link teams. The Govads hunt everything else, and use the KHD as a sepcialists for missions. The Farzans present a infil specialist, and a minelayer to work as a team to drop three camo tokens in an area..

 

Well, that's if your opponent is in a hurry and doesn't want to chew through your AROs one by one. It's tough to setup a situation when he doesn't have that option.

And if he chooses to do it, it's generally doesn't matter whether it's a 7/0.5 model or 25/1.5 model (TAG-deleting, range-* and cover-ignoring guns of Onyx don't care), so I find it hard to justify more expensive ARO options, at least in most matchups you have to face in my immediate meta.

* - effectively, of course. They nicely cover all rangebands they need.

 

Irrelevant, the target is to make the enemy to waste MORE orders that the standard two ;)

Let's say I have a Total Reaction, with an Overclock-enhanced Tsyklon Feuerbach and a Flashpulse bot (also overclocked!). You now have to look for the approach vector that let's you hunt them one at a time... with the troop that can do that. So I might have just forced you to spend 3-4 orders to take down the first one, plus another one (at least) to make sure I can't just go with my Clockmaker and bring the bot back online.
That, in itself, means the enemy has to either redefine his battle plan... or look for another approach vector. The idea here is to flush the enemy into the routes you want him to come: a tough place here, a softer target there... and an ARO from a TO that drops a repeated in the way of your happily advancing TAG, now facing 2-4 ARO on at least 2 orders XD

 

What about the Core Fireteam option? Has anyone ever tried that in a game to see how it would go?
Hassassin Bahram
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4
LASIQ Viral Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
LASIQ Viral Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
LASIQ Viral Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
LASIQ Viral Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 25)

1.5 SWC | 100 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

@xagroth
Well, we are talking about HB. They don't have these fancy TO guys and TR bot is hardly a to-go piece there.

Positioning like you described is universal for pretty much every assortment of ARO bumps, you can do that with a lot of things, not necessarily expensive ones.

Not to say that VSR's rangebands aren't handy to stack obstacles for your opponent, it's just that most active turn pieces I'd face don't really care about differences between Daylami, Lasiqs and linked Ghulam snipers. In these cases I'd bet on Farzan, while being cheaper in points and SWC, consuming more enemy orders than Lasiq can, even though they do it differently.

Thinking about it, that's probably the reason I don't typically include Lasiqs rather than considering them bad.

On a related note, it's funny how CHA players swear by Caterans whereas Lasiq snipers (who basically just trade limited camo for mimetism and one kind of screw you ammo for another) are often called useless, outclassed etc.

 

Being irregular does that, turns a "valuable" expensive cherleeader on ARO duty into an expendable piece you don't care for its demise and that you use on Active turn.
I'd say that is the main difference: usually the Cateran makes a Surprise Shot, is "expended" on the first active turn of use, and everything else is perceived as a bonus. While the Lasiq is always there, and it's survival means an extra regular order.

Perception of pieces, and opportunity cost.

 

Back in 2ed? I did, though usually with 2 VSRs and 2 Rifles. As a typical defenisve / ARO setup.
And it wasn't worth it.
Sure, Viral hits like a brick (unless you ran into something with BTS 9+...), but proper multi-ARO coverage requires you to have flexible deployment - and a Fireteam is limited to staying within 8" of the Team Leader. And finidng a good position for them all was a big problem.

For Core Fireteam in Bahram, they have to compete against:

• Ghilim (with Leila Sharif or generic Ghulam Husam Spec Op - if permitted - for 5th member)
• Muyibs
• Govads

All of those have 5 model Fireteam capability and Specialists available, both of which do outclass the Lasiq Core entirely IMO.
They also have a wide variety of loadouts available, and their bag of tricks is thus way more flexible.

What can Lasiqs do? Well, they Climb Plus, they don't get penalties over long distances, and they can set up a mean Supression Fire with those Viral Rifles, but that's about it.

And that is not enough, IMO.

 

@Errhile Thank you for answering my question. Now I know why they aren't taken at all as a linkteam.