So in Haqq, we aren't possessed with guys like the Swiss Guard, Asura and so on. Tough, accurate shooters with loads of BS mods or the ability to ignore them. So in your games, how do you deal with such troops? Do you do things like use Djanbazan with smoke to try and complete at the straight ftf and if so what are your troops of choice, or do you avoid such interactions altogether? After many games recently vs very strong firepower based lists, I'm interested in how other players deal with such.
HMG, because burst is king. Heavy HMG love (preferably Janissaries, Azraili or something similarly tough) for those with MSV2+ and smoke for the rest of the bunch.
In my expirience I don't deal with them... I kill the random troops like 8 point remotes and basic trops with the fiday coz you need "lucky" too kill a ddo or TO with haqqislam. If u wanna kill them go with muttawia you should take 3 or 4 in vanilla and hassasin list, not less. The other thing I do is CC with fidays or just go with tariq mansuri / magariba. (sometimes daylamis with pantherfaust make critk its funny) dont trust HMG so much coz u gonna with any haqqy CD12/13 so u will be -6 every time -3 cover so...
Fidays for days. Maybe not specifically for the swiss guards but to take out the orders supplying them. Also mutts to jam them up can be effective. But if you really wanna kill them in a shooting match I feel like our best bet is to use tarik with fatality level 2 and hope to crit them.
Yeah, that to me is the biggest thing I had to learn while playing vanilla Haqq. We aren't particularly great at both-in-cover-both-in-good-range kind of fair FTF fights. At first, I tried using the good old Djan with smoke, but that tends to be a trap. He's good as spot removal of course, but generally no one is going to leave stuff out for your Djan to shoot that easily. More dangerously though, the Djan HMG makes me want to spend orders on it which i've found fatally distracted me from mission doing. Nowadays, I just tend to avoid these kind of fights if I can. Smoke is so important for us, and I had to train myself to realize (especially in LI where you don't really have multiple Mutts) that tempting that it may be, sometimes it's more important to deploy the Fiday in a good smoke throwing position rather than for it to go take a chance on murder. On the active turn, our best *straight up* gunfighter is Tarik ( TR bot with MML2 comes a close second, and that's saying a lot for the faction..), and even he is not that great in fair fights. There have been some complaints that Fatality L2 is “OP” for Tarik. Frankly, it’s not. For an expensive aggressive piece, he doesn’t have much in the way of defensive mods. A 100% increase in crit chance due to Fatality L2 may seem like a good “defensive” substitute, but not really. Compared to Mimetism, it grants you a slightly higher % to deal a wound against most targets, but the trade off is that the reduced % chance for the enemy to deal you a wound is not as much as if you were using Mimetism. i.e. higher reward, but higher risk especially when combined with a pretty meh ARM 3 on a 55 point unit. Thus, compared to “before Fatality L2”, it doesn’t really change the list of things you should be engaging in a gunfight with Tarik e.g. Avoid shooting things with ODD or TO if you can, especially if they are in cover. Try not to engage link teams in fair fights, etc. His strength is his manoeuvrability, so I would only try to deal with those power house units if I have cover advantage. Otherwise, it's just looking to trade up with Daylamis or Mutts or other infiltrators, but recently I've found that spending orders to hide those units upfield for the opponent to pry out tends to be more effective than pouring orders into them in hopes of them doing damage in the active turn. So generally, I've had to stop myself trying to out shoot those powerhouse units in fair fights, and spend my active turn doing the mission, or hunting cheerleaders. With spare orders spent tucking annoying infiltrators or Mutts in hard to reach places in preparation for the opponent's active. I don't expect them to stop the powerhouse units going on a rampage, but I just hope they can delay the rambos long enough till it's my active again. It's painful to play this way, because you can never have the assurance of a strong tangible defensive line as you can with other factions and their tough units, and death is a foregone conclusion for most of your troops. Instead, you got to rely on a web of interlocking fragile units which is arguably harder to set up, and take trade-up sacrifices when you can. Easier said than done of course, but ah well, that's what I love about Haqq. Got to really assess and position troops differently as compared to other factions.
Why you assume you have to stand up for a fair fight at all? We are not the Steel Phalanx who are so obsessed with personal victory. We're Haqq. A Swiss Guard or Cutter (which are quintessential example of a "high BS, tough, with visibility-mod on them" models) are your problem? apply a Direct Template Weapon: E/Marat or at least a Flamethrower. E/Maulers work fine, too. Hack them Immobile (most of such models are hackable) then just hammer out at them. Adhesive Ammo works, too, we just have little access to it. You can also use a Hacker to put Targetted State upon them. kill their Order Pool from under them. have them engaged in Close Combat (usually less than stellar solution, we don't have many CC experts that could reliably destroy a TAG). E/M Grenade on Speculative Fire mode. Just get behing them up close with a Boarding Shotgun... HMG in good rang,e preferable with AP Ammo and a full Fireteam behind you, and hammer away (rather a desperate move, but hey...) In short, Corregidor has the right approach to the idea of a "fair fight". If after all is said and done oyu're still standing, and the other guy is down on the ground bleedin' out, it was a fair fight. Even if that means you had to kick him in his family jewels and swing a bat at him from behind.
I play Corregidor, used to extensively, and they're pretty good at straight shooting with Intruders and linked Wildcats. With Haqq it feels like you're very much wanting not to rely on a gunfight, but sometimes there is little option but to at least try. I quite like the HI we have for that though, if you fail, you don't lose the trooper most of the time. I guess I'm thinking about how to deal with linked Kamau, Spetz, etc if I need to take them out at range. With Hassassins I do like the linked Govad HMG, QK has Djans and KTS who are good in firefights. Wonder if RTF will be more shooty?
Coordinated Daylami Panzerfausts...if you really have/want to get rid of something. At best you get 3 normal rolls and most of the time 1 hit is enough. And if its just to make them duck for cover.
Straight up firefights aren't Haqqislam's forte. There are some good shooty units like the Maghariba Guard, Asawira, Tarik and various link teams. Best to just trade cheaper units with templates (Mutts, Naffatun, Kum bikers) or panzerfausts or go all tricky with Fidays or remotes. It takes some orders to pull off, but I've had some success with a marksmanship level 2 buffed Rafiq getting close to a HI piece. I used an assault hacker to immobilize the HI and then went hogwild with the Rafiq's shotgun while walking into CC with them (as long as that piece isn't very good at martial arts). Marksman ship level 2 shotgun allows you to easily take down light infantry cheerleaders/linkteams as well. If the table and your opponents' deployment allows it, the Ragik Boarding Shotgun isn't a bad choice either with the new AD rules for this season. Dogged allows them to survive an unlucky crit or templates like nanopulsers. Ayyar with rifle and e/mitter can be pretty decent as well. 2/3rd chance your opponent picks the wrong marker to fire at and surprise shot level 2 helps swing the modifiers in your favor. While you won't always be able to get rid of your opponents' troops, as Haqqislam you sure can make them bleed orders trying to get out nasty situations you've set up.
I agree with solar's point about HI. Plus, remember how that synergizes with our wonderful akbar doctors. Get one to follow a Fasid or Az'rail, or just assign him nasmats to follow the gun fighting, S5, ARM 5, HMG weilding bastard as they mow down troops with the burst advantage Káosz Brigodéros mentioned, amd if they go down you can get them back up and good as new. I love the look on my oppomemts faces when i do that. Trade up is true as well, and i have primarily found that mutts are the answer to HI, but the main thing to consider is that one of our major advantages is how easiky we can get buttons pushed, objectives achieved, and, if you need specialists for these goals, we are loaded there. Hunzakuts say hi with their camo infiltrator FO, for example. Think of ways to "deal with" the model besides directly attacking them. If you have the fasid, spec fire those grenades. Or even just avoid them altogether! No MSV2 on them? SMOKE! So Mutts are great again. I take 3 or 4 every game i play vanilla, like fenrir said, invest in a box!
From an outside perspective here... Honestly, seems like it's a better approach to instead of ALWAYS going for the straight up firefight... a lot of Haqqs ''attack'' pieces ( At least among the HI selection. ) seem like they have a respectable amount of tools for some creative problem solving. Like... look at Fasids. Okay, you are paying 45+ points for a high ARM BS13 HI. But you are ALSO paying for being immune to Isolations, and the first level of Sixth Sense ( Which is pretty useful in preventing Shotgun wielding enemies from sneaking up behind you without consequences. You also pay for mines and the minelayer skill. Use those. They might not kill a very angry Crane barreling down on you, but they will give pause to a Tiger and will at least help make sure the squishier enemies have a harder time getting at you. Use them, they seem pretty useful. Then there's the HMG profiles two different kinds of grenades: which when Speculative fired in your good range band hit on 10s, which for an unlinked Speculative Fire shot is pretty good. Toss in a nice bonus of a Heavy Pistol ( A nice bonus for the HMG profile, and it can still see use on the SMG purely because it's better than it for an ARO outside suppressive fire if you need Shock Ammo. ). It's got a lot of tools to try and creatively solve your problems, I'd suggest making use of them. Ayyars, you get a lot with an Ayyar. You get better Surprise Shot MODs, which will at least allow you to set up -9 MODs before range bands. You also get Holoprojector Lv2, you can use that for mine clearing. And they're also specialists. They got options, basically. What I'm trying to get at here ( Without going on a really long ramble about more and more units. ) is that, from an outside perspective... it seems like Haqq is more or less about creative problem solving first, raw firepower later. And if you ever fail to accomplish your goals by trickery and fire... I mean, you guys do have the best Doctors AND even the fabled Akbar Doctor, so it's not like an important unit of yours will remain unconscious for too long.
