20160721

Infinity Operation Red Veil; Haqqislam



Red Veil comes with two factions; in Icestorm it was PanO and Nomads while in Red Veil it’s Yu Jing and Haqqislam. The faction choice for the first box came down to Red vs Blue, so it looks like that this time round we’re going down the “Yellow-Green” vs “Yellow-Orange” path!

Haqqislam is also a faction that I’m not really into. I don’t know much of the tactics or play style of the faction bar impersonators, lots of good doctors and a lot of mercenaries in one sectorial too (so Mr Yuan Yuan can technically join them). It’s nice though to properly own both sides of a demo set for demo purposes!

As with all packs this one comes with three basic line troopers, the Ghulams. Compared to the Nomad Alguaciles they have 1 extra point of WIP, which is their main faction boost. This makes them rather good specialist. On top of that they don’t have a paramedic option like the other factions have in their basic line trooper, but instead they have a full on doctor with doctor plus, so they have that going for them. Unlike most factions though their base weapon is a rifle + light shogun. This gives them an interesting edge within 8”. The rifle + light shotgun is a common theme for this faction too.

Ghulam Top notch was a pain to put together
Female Ghulam was pretty easy
Knife Ghulam is homage to the "Solid Snake" Ghulam from N2
Interestingly, this is the third set of sculpts for the Ghulams, the Fusiliers and Alguaciles only went through two sculpts


We then have the TO sniper the Tuareg; infiltration, TO camo, multiterrain, sniper rifle and mines. Since Haqqislam is a bit lower tech than the other factions they don’t have too many multi weapons, so she misses out on the brutal multi sniper; however, it does use shock ammo so nothing to sneeze at. She’s good at AROs and using mines to cover her flanks.

Another interesting unit I know little about, the Zhayedan. It has decent stats, an automed-kit and veteran L1 (so it cares not for retreat) and is armed with a breaker rifle + light shotgun and has marksman L2. Firstly, the breaker rifle uses your BTS instead of ARM for damage and halves it, so most units aren’t going to fair well against it, add to that this guy ignores the -3MOD to you being in cover and adds shock ammo to the weapon and a BS of 12 means that this guy is most likely putting you down quickly. So a rather useful piece who can also be your Lt. Not bad!

Finally, in regards to what will be released as the Haqqislam starter pack we have the Khawarijs super solider with a rifle + light shotgun. Along with being another Lt option (so 5 Lt options in a starter, not bad), bioimmunity, super jump, religious, and poison (which is a CC boost), you have a fairly scary unit. Sure it’s ARM isn’t amazing so it can go down quickly, it can very quickly get into a decent spot through jumping around. In saying all of this they are a cheaper and watered down Tarik, the original Khawirij, but for 27 points they are pretty good attack piece.

Zhayedan, Khawarij and Tuareg
That Zhayedan is hand down the best sculpt in the whole box, and I love Yu Jing!!!

Since this is Red Veil that we are talking about here there is an extra unit in the pack, and that’s the redesigned Ahl Fassed now called Al Fasid. This beast has an HMG + light grenade launcher with normal and smoke ammo, a heavy pistol, mines, sicth sense L1 and veteran L1. Since this is a totally new unit I have no idea how it will fair, however based on the stats and the load out his about locking down an area and providing cover fire to allow other to advance…and sneaky camo hacking in his ZoC won’t as powerful.

Big boy Al Fasid
Sadly the only tactical rock of the Haqqislam side of the box


And as a shout out to Penemue and their blog here's unpacked minis.



Cheers!
dulydude

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