The Journey Back Home, Back to Vanilla

Starting this blog actually came at a good time because I have recently made the decision to return back to the roots of Haqqislam to play vanilla after playing Qapu Khalqi for about a year now. I sing the praises of QK as loud as I can, it is my favorite Sectorial, my bread and butter that I can go back to whenever I need to for some comfort but I knew if I wanted to master Haqqislam in it's entirety that it was time to move on so I return back to the roots of the faction, it's time to tackle vanilla Haqqislam!

Which is why for the first post on this blog, I wanted to cover my experience of switching from playing a Sectorial for so long and what's it like to return to vanilla after relying so long on those awesome mechanics that playing a Sectorial provides. Honestly, when I first decided this I was actually a bit nervous when I made this decision because the thought of losing the benefits of Sectorials; being able to move multiple models with a single order, and all the bonuses that fireteams get, was a bit intimidating. I will admit that in the year that I played QK that I became a little too dependent on those mechanics that make Sectorials worth taking that I wanted to challenge myself which is why I chose to go back to vanilla instead of moving onto Hassassin Bahram right away. It felt almost like a return to basics. Also, Red Veil hit this year which contains a lot of units only available in vanilla. They will be available eventually in the Ramah Taskforce but we don't know when that will be released so for now, you want to rock an Al Fasid or Zhayeden, you will be playing vanilla Haqqislam.  

My anxiety turned to excitement as I re-discovered why it is worth taking vanilla over a Sectorial. I have been having a lot of fun playing vanilla lists lately and any anxiety I have had, completely gone. I think the benefits of vanilla are sometimes overlooked because of the obvious benefits that the Sectorials have. Here are just a few things that I have enjoyed over the past 2 months of playing vanilla. 

 Toolbox of Choices:

The first thing I noticed when I went back to vanilla was the choices and this is the most obvious benefit but I didn't realize how much I missed having access to all the units in Haqqislam. It has been really refreshing, there are so many units I missed using. List building has been more fun and interesting as I have all my toys to play with than just a certain selection of them, one of these toys being my favorite model in the whole entire game: the indomitable Maghariba Guard, liked the old model but I am completely in love with the new one but more on him later. Here is just a sampling of things that I love having access to in vanilla.  

The most striking thing that hit me was the camouflage infiltrators that Haqqislam gets which is a lot more than you might expect. Haqqislam may only have a few but they are ones that will make your list consistently. Other factions may have Forward Observer and Hacker ones but Haqqislam is the only one with a Chain of Command Infilitrator in the Hassassin Farzan, helpful in Capture and Protect but also has a WIP 15 Doctor Plus Infilitrator in the Tuareg, a model I use quite frequently to not only press buttons but to get units that have been taken down midfield. Not only does it save on orders but it also helps to have TO when trying to heal soliders. Also, the Tuaregs have mines which means, after pressing that button, lay down a little surprise to discourage your opponent from going after that objective. The Al Hawwa was already a frequent flyer in my lists, a specialist plus D-charges that can start close to what you want blown up is a huge advantage for Classifieds and QK does have the advantage of being able to take three but with all the other camo infilitrators that can come join the party, I don't actually notice. The last camo infilitrator which ends up in my lists a lot is the Hunzakut and I know a lot of people hesitate with this unit because it may come cheap at 18 points but that Irregular order sometimes scares people off. The thing is as long as you are using the unit every turn, that Irregular order doesn't matter and the Hunzakut is a unit you will be using especially the Forward Observer one because of not only being a specialist but the ability to drop mines and deployable repeaters to help have board control either dealing with light infantry (mines) or heavy infantry (deployable repeaters), the Hunzakut can take on a lot of jobs for just being 18 points along with the other profiles. You might not have the vast amount of camo infiltrators that Ariadna does but the ones you do have are quite useful and should be taken. 

Saladin is the another unit that can only be taken in vanilla and even though he is planned to show up in Ramah Taskforce, he really shines in vanilla because the amount of unit combinations that compliment the use of Saladin that can only really be done in vanilla. When you take Saladin, you are going to take him as your LT, the unfortunate side effect of this is that your opponent will know who your LT is at that point because of Strategos Level 3 because you will have an extra regular order in the pool he is in but more importantly, you will force your opponent to put down all their units and you get to hold back 2 in the deployment phase. This is already a power effect when partnered with units like the Fiday and Al Djabel allowing you to put those units where they can do the most damage but now your opponent knows who the kill to put you into loss of lieutenant. Fortunately, there are ways in vanilla to help discourage and prevent this from happening. The first one is the double Saladin trick because vanilla has access to a unit from my favored Sectorial of QK: the Hafza. With the power of Holoprojector Level 1, the Hafza can disguise himself as Saladin and force your opponent to play the shell game about which the right Saladin is if they want to go LT hunting which will force them to waste orders into this endeavor which might be enough to discourage them from doing it at all. The other way of protecting against this is the use of our friend the Hassassin Farzan, that lovely camo infilitrator mentioned above. If used in conjunction with the Hafza even if your opponent does guess correctly, they will be lamenting it once they realize that you aren't going into LoL after all. Saladin is well worth his 36 point price tag and the ways to protect him that actually don't cost that many additional points but can only be done in vanilla since the Hafza is QK and the Farzan is HB. 

For our third and final highlight for this article is as you might have guessed the Maghariba Guard. It is another unit that will be in the Ramah Taskforce but is currently exclusive to vanilla. Not only do I like the new re-design of this unit but honestly, to me it's one of the best for it's cost TAGs in Infinity which is saying a lot when we are in an ITS season that is promoting the use of TAGs. I have never used the 360 visor version of the Maghariba Guard, I will admit. To me paying 20 points for access to it is a little steep so I keep mostly to the 78 point version. The only downside to the unit really is the size, it has the biggest silhouette in the game since it is the only S8 unit currently available but that is something that you can mitigate through proper placement of the unit which comes with practice. Other than that for 78 points, you get a ARM 8 BTS 6 STR6 with BS 14 firing a MULTI HMG, to call the Maghariba Guard a tank is an under statement. It's a pain to try and take it down but at the same time, your opponent will pay if they ignore it. The Maghariba Guard is a unit that would make me start playing Haqqislam if I wasn't already so there might be a little bias there. Still, a solid unit and well worth taking a vanilla list for even before ITS switched to try and get people to play TAGs. I could understand why people didn't take TAGs except for a hand full of ones that were cheap and effective, the Maghariba Guard being one of these.

Adaptability, Versatility and Splitting Up Your Power Base

An often overlooked advantage of vanilla is the ability to make more versatile and adatable lists. Now every faction has strengths and weaknesses otherwise there wouldn't be a reason to take to take different factions but these strengths and weaknesses are more prominent in Sectorials because Sectorials are a specialized part of that faction. QK and HB both might be Haqqislam but their strengths and weaknesses are lessened or heightened in certain aspects of the spectrum within the faction to make them differ and be unique. When playing Sectorials you have to be more conscious of how to use the strenghts of the Sectorial while making up with more glaring weaknesses. Taking vanilla might mean that you don't have certain strengths accentuated but it gives you a lot more tools to help cover your weaknesses more effectively. This allows for a more diverse list selection and it also means that if you constantly play the same people, it will allow you to change things up on them a lot easier than when playing a Sectorial since you are so limited on the units you can take in a Sectorial. Preparing for certain missions won't pigeon hole you into a certain strategy and you can try multiple ways to solve a problem. One thing I absolutely love about vanilla lists is that I can effectively prepare for certain ITS missions but make lists to take on certain armies. For example, I might make two lists that are great for Direct Action missions but one list might be for armies that like to take camo, or have mimetism/ODD while another list would be better for a more heavy infantry army. The tools are there and I will get more into vanilla list building with future articles because there are many different ways you can use vanilla Haqqislam that would make this a lot longer in an already long blog post. 

Another advantage that I didn't notice until my opponent said something was splitting up your power base, something that I did without intention in an attempt to cover fire lanes. When taking fireteams, you are putting your power base in one place to take advantage of every benefit that a fireteam gives (the exception being Steel Phalanx and Tohaa since they can take multiple fireteams but this is for Haqqislam so this argument stands for them at least) even if you take both a Core and Haris, you are still putting your two power bases for your opponent to attack in order to help dismantle your strategy essentially painting targets on their backs. This isn't something that vanilla has to worry about too much if you have deployed in an effective manner. You spread out your heavy hitters with your specialists which forces your opponent you make a choice about which they want to go after and you want to always make it the wrong choice. With an evenly spread power base, it make your opponent's job to dismantle your strategy that much harder because you have taken away their focus. 

My One Dislike

Even with being head over heels for vanilla currently, there is one glaring thing I don't like: the tendency to use the same profile of a certain unit as well as some units getting overshadowed by other units thus making them unappealing to take in vanilla. The former is a little harder to mitigate than the latter because its sometimes the result of people overlooking the advantages of certain units. This is actually a subject I wish to cover in later posts, there are some who think what's the point of taking a Govad when you have Djanbazans or what's the point of the Azra'il when you have the Al Faid? Well, those units do have a lot of advantages over the ones that overshadow them but as I said, that's for another time, probably soon. 

This leaves the fact that when I take a certain unit, I usually am only using that unit for a certain profile. Take the Djanbazan who has not only two kinds of specialists, a hacker and a doctor but also HMG, sniper rifle, and shock marksmanship rifle. If I am playing QK, I will more than likely use all those profiles in a Djanbazan fireteam but vanilla, not so much. In vanilla with orders needing to be used in a more efficient manner, I am not going to spend the points a Djanbazan Doctor or Hacker when I have a lot better choices for the same amount or even less points (Like Tuareg for example) but what I will take a Djanbazan in vanilla for is their HMG, sniper rifle or shock marksmanshipe rifle. With access to tons of smoke and the Djanbazan MSV 2, it makes the Djanbazan a hunter especially for problem units that are using camo or ODD. If I take a Kaplan in my vanilla list, it won't be for anything else except for the Kaplan Engineer and maybe the spitfire. With only having AVA 2 in vanilla, I am going to be more selective with which Kaplan I take and the Kaplan Engineer is one of the best Engineers in the game while the Kaplan MULTI Sniper isn't as attractive to use as say the Lasiq Sniper is. That isn't to say that you can't find uses for the other profiles but some units just have more attractive profiles for certain things than others, a better use for the points that you would spend on them. This is a minor chink in the vanilla armor but I thought it should be noted anyway. I mean, it's good that you are using the unit but it just won't show up in all the flavors like it would in a Sectorial. 

 The Final Say

I really could go on and on about this subject but that would make for quite a long article. I am going to break down more of the nuances of playing vanilla Haqqislam, this was just an overview of my experience so far, one that Haqqislam players and other faction players can take as a reason why to play vanilla if they haven't ever considered it. I do urge any new players to Infinity, whether they are a Haqqislamite citizen or not, to try vanilla of the faction that you want before delving into the Sectorials especially if you like a certain faction but don't know which Sectorial you would want. I started in vanilla Haqqislam when I first started and it helped me decide that QK was the Sectorial I wanted to try first before HB because it was the one that fit my play style the most right off the bat coming from 40k. This return back to vanilla does feel like a return home, one that has been really fun. I hope I have inspired others to try out vanilla Haqqislam but I don't think that many need much persuasion with Red Veil and the Maghariba Guard coming out this past year but for those stubborn QK and HB players or stubborn Sectorial players in general, it might be worth coming and party with the whole family. You might be surprised by how much fun you can have. Until next time, my friends, seek knowledge and wisdom on your path to happiness.