Hello everyone, when I get a chance to play, I usually play PanO. But I have been getting a little bored recently with "kill everybody dead, with guns" as a play style. So I thought I'd pick up my red veil Haqq as a second army. My problem is I know nothing about Haqqislam, except for a few fluff bits about doctors and genetic modification. I don't know anything about the units and what they can do, I've also never played against a Haqqislam player. so to help me get started, could you all help me with a few questions I have: Could you explain the play style? Which units should I be looking at for a vanilla force? What are some interesting tactics for winning ITS missions? How it differs from what I'm used to (PanO)? Is there anything else I need to know? How should I expand from red veil?
Salam @Jimneysweep ! Could you explain the play style? Haqq will play VERY different from Pano. With the abundance of Irregulars and Impetous units, your lists will be focused around how to effectively leverage your irregular units. Your tactics will often involve multiple profiles being used to achieve an objective or job, more so than other armies. Haqq does not have good rambo's. Tarik is strong but his is not good at taking hits, and the Asawira, while BS14 only has Armor 3 and Frenzy. Haqq wants to leverage many different angles, and Haqq wants to leverage unit trading. If an 8 point Panzerfaust Daylami can surprise shoot an enemy and kill it, but take a hit in return, thats a good trade. Can your Fiday kill a few units before being gunned down? Thats a good trade. Asymmetric warfare is your new order of the day, and fighting dirty is your bread and butter. Low BS, and Low ARM will mean you lose units. But make sure if they are lost, they are taking more with them. Which units should I be looking at for a vanilla force? Ghazi'Muttawiah of course, Djanbazan (our only MSV option), Ghulam(the bread and butter, especially the Doctor Plus which is almost always an autoinclude), Hunzakuts, and Al'Hawas who are both infiltrating Specialists. Hunzukuts are amazing swiss army units that can expand the hacking network, mine objectives AND do objectives. What are some interesting tactics for winning ITS missions? Focus on the objectives and hamstring your opponent. You will probably not shoot your opponent off the table but you can make it hell for them to push up to the objectives. Fidays can knock out obvious LT's or mission critical specialists, or simply provide chaos on the back line sinking orders in to their destruction. With WIP 14 across the board, doing objectives will not be hard, its simply making it difficult on your opponent that will be winning you the game. How it differs from what I'm used to (PanO)? It is a Light Infantry faction with a LOT of irregular units, some of which are near autoinclude. You will need to learn how to properly leverage irregular and impetuous orders. You will not be gun fighting, you will be playing dirty and asymmetrically. Is there anything else I need to know? Ghazi are you new god. How should I expand from red veil? Ghulam Support Pack, and SWC box Ghazi Box Hunzakut
Haqq has LI and shenanigans, specializing in asymmetric trading. In vanilla, look at Ghazi Muttawi'ah, who are essentially E/M suicide bombers, Ghulam for cheap wip 14 specialists, and the Ayyar for holoprojector fuckery. Haqq has lower Ballistic Skill than pano, so it has to rely on it's higher bs. Beyond RV has good units in it, but they're all order hungry, so I wouldn't use them all at once. You also can't go wrong with a Ghulam swc box.
This may be my favorite post about the basics of Haqqislam. If you look into some of my previous posts/threads, I am a new Haqqislam player, while a very good friend plays PanO. As he has gotten better playing that army, I have had to continuously adapt, discover new ways to trade my pieces for his, and learn how to leverage different angles to boost my advantages. I find this style of game-play extremely rewarding and have fell in love with a few units that I try to include in most my list. As stated above, these are units are often irregular. [I especially love the Hunzakut]. Another fun couple of units I would take a look at are Saladin and the Farzan. The former can only be used in Vanilla right now, but is an absolute joy. Strategos allows for great deployment tricks with units like the Fiday + another major threat. Additionally, Saladin is a repeater and a fairly durable killer. Being your Lt, he is often left aside for other choices, but if you pair him with the Farzan Chain of Command, it can be quite fun to run him up the board. The Farzan is another great infiltrating camo unit who can be a specialist/bring mines to protect the midfield. Multi-purpose tools like these are where Haqqislam shines. My last recommendation is the Hassassin Barid. He is a fantastic Hacker, can be an effective Lt, and has an awesome low cost.
Light infantry's galore! Best medics! More strange guys than anywhere! Think, in short, nomads without hacking. Depends a lot. the "must have" at are Saladin, Djanbanzan, Mutta'Wiah, Red Veil's Haqq side, Beyond Red Veil's Haqq side, and QK starter. Possibly Hassassin starter aswell, since you can use the Farzan and the Daylamis... XD Naffatum are also good units for vanilla, with the Hunzakuts Oh, and the Govads... Veteran N1, Religious MSV1 (so think Morat! Nearly Yaogats XD)... the KHD has a breaker pistol, boarding shotgun and is so good, it costs SWC XD Have more orders and units than the enemy! Make his live a living hell with one or two Fidays, then use your midfield units to score! Basic unit (Ghulam) + 3 pts (Mechanized deployment) = Halqa (or Medic plus in the midfield with a rifle+shotgun!) You don't overwhelm the enemy with quality shooting, but by having the right troop in the right position at the right time to make the enemy's life hell. As they said, asymmetrical trading! The HI are basic ones, the LI are the kings here! Also, basic infantry models here are used and abused. Surely, having 8-9 Fusiliers is not strange, even when you use only up to 5. Here, the humble Ghulam will always be a Doctor with WP 14 who heals at 17! So forget the Trauma of the Doc ;) What I meant is that you will use the 3 basic ghulams always, even if you buy a box of special weapons... and even if you have 3 more ghulams from somewhere! You will change the painting style a lot! Few armor, tons of cloth! Also, Sniper rifles at 0.5 SWC :p Beyond Red Veil gives you immediate quality troops: a Dogged AD troop, a Fiday (no longer in the Hassa starter, I think) and Tarik, who is one of the bests datatrackers in Haqquislam. After that, QK's starter gives you three Hafzas to play with the Holo N1, an Odalisque (not bad troop at all) the GOD of the infiltrated specialists (Hawwa hacker) and a Djanbazan Sniper (MSV2). Hassassin's Starter gives you the Farzan (for Chain of Command) and three Daylami infantry (disposable irregular troops usually chosen with Infiltration 0 and a Panzerfaust), an Ayyar (holo N2 light HI) and the Muyib, which can give you smoke (and speculative grenades...) for example. Once you have all that, the Mutta 'Wiah box is just 5 point each... and are the bane of any HI/TAG. Leyla Sharif is useful, but not a must have, at least in generic (in Hassassin she is, however). EDIT: you don't need the Support Pack here. Vanilla Haqq is not really dependant on remotes, so the engineer is only needed for Classifieds... and the Kaplan (of which you can align 2 in Vanilla) are much more interesting. The medic... well, use Ghulam medics! And for the Servitors, just recycle the Palbots ^^
Most of the time i find myself making my opponent focus on obvious threats like Fiday, Asawira or DJ Bazan, while irregulars are slowly doing damage. Mutts, Zuleyka and Kums, Hunzas, Daylamis and Bashis. Cheap and expendable troops, seen way to many links broken by LGL Hunza, jammed HI or TAGs brought to the ground by Panzerfaust. So i often find myself going with 11-14 regulars and 2-9 irregulars. Trade dem cheap bois a lot. Ghulam box and support pack are good purchase. Also rems, but you could reuse PanO ones. I think that heavy hitters like AzRail HMG, DJB box and Holoprojector bois are worth considering as well.
All about asymetric trades. Hunzakut is just amazing, kusym suicde into a link team, great fun, Az'rail fuerbach holding off a knight link, enjoyable. If you dont like losing models, this isnt the faction for you, we are all about the matyrdom of the cheap irregulars.
Gricks got it on point. Fighting dirty is Haqq’s MO. We don’t do well in “fair” both-in-good-range-shoot-cover-to-cover kind of fights. A great illustration is our famous Tarik, use him like how you would a Swiss/Aquila Guard or similar Rambo and you will be disappointed very quickly. Got to do the extra brain work to work out how best to use Super-jump to outflank and outrange to stack mods in your favour.
