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 |
Cheers!
dulydude
