When interested or getting into Hassassin Bahram Sectorial from another army or even from playing Vanilla Haqqislam you will get a lot of advice like “play Vanilla Haqqislam. They can Hassassin better than the Sectorial” and you would give reasons why Hassassin Bahram was not “good”. Since the release of Human Sphere N3, the sectorial has gotten an incredible amount of changes in regards to their Fireteam option that it can be a little daunting at first glance. This is to give a quick overview of all the Fireteam options for each unit that can be a CORE, HARIS or DUO:
The Linkable Units.
Hassassin Bahram has five Fireteam unit options available to them. Ghulam, Govad, Muyib, Lasiq and Asawira. Of these 5, only two of them can innately be a full 5 man Fireteam:CORE.
Muyibs are regarded as the premier unit for Hassassin and with just cause. Muyibs are a versatile unit that has a Fireteam:CORE and Fireteam:Haris option.
Govads are the other 5 man option with very strong defensive capabilities and can be an anchor for you army with their special rules. In addition to have the Fireteam:CORE rule they also have a Fireteam:HARIS options
Ghulam can become a 5 man link if you add the Spec-ops to the list but I’m going to not look at the spec-ops in this article. Cheap specialist option are the main reason Ghulam are run in Hassassin Bahram
Lasiq can from a Fireteam:CORE but have an AVA of 4 but can be used extremely effectively.
Asawira are the last option for fireteam. A Multi wound heavy Infantry unit that has regeneration and extremely high BTS. They have Fireteam:DUO on all their profiles and have a Fireteam:HARIS option. In addition to having the HARIS option, there is a rule that states the Asawira can have up to 2 Muyibs in the team.
Now, let's see what the Fireteam bonuses for a 5 man link:
3 Man Link - Active Turn - Add 1 Burst to the Link Leader's weapon; Reactive - Add 1 Burst to all members of the team.
4 Man Link - Active Turn - Grants the unit Sixth Sense L2 and +3 to WIP for Discover Rolls; Reactive - All member of the team Gain Sixth Sense L2 and gain +3 to WIP for Discover Rolls.
5 Man Link - Active Turn - Add +3 to BS for BS attacks or to PH when using a Thrown Weapon to the Link Leader; Reactive - All Members of the team receive +3 to BS for BS attacks or to PH when using a Thrown Weapon
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lasiq have two profiles and do not have specialist. The Viral Sniper profile is the most popular as a great ARO solo. The second profile is a Viral Rifle + Light Shotgun. This profile is cheaper and cost no SWC but the range band on the Viral Rifle and Light Shotgun is not as good at glance. The Lasiq come equipped with an X-Visor. This changes the range band to allow the lasiq shot the light shotgun from 16-24 with a 0 MOD and the Viral Rifle from 32-48 with a -3 MOD. That makes a huge difference. Climbing Plus allow this unit to move wherever they want to be making the fireteam bonus. In addition, burst 3 Light shotgun shots on the active turn with a 0 MOD from 24 inches away is something your opponent needs to pay close attention to. The Lasiq are a very unique but powerful
Link to upcoming Lasiq write up Soon™
Ghulam have a ton of options available to them. In Hassassin, they are primarily used as cheap specialist. They have Hacker, Doctor Plus, Forward Observer and Lieutenant options. As a 4 man link they can move toward objectives efficiently and when needed, you can break the link for the specialist to grab objectives. You can run the Ghulam as a defensive fireteam, with HMG, Missile Launcher and Sniper Rifle. Additionally there is a Lieutenant Option for the HMG and Missile Launcher. Not a bad deal for the Defensive team. The lack of a built-in 5th member means you are missing the +3 BS but as a defensive fireteam, the Govad are a much better option. I will be going over all the unit in my review in the link below to help give more definition of the Ghulam in Hassassin Bahram.
Link to upcoming Lasiq write up Soon™
Now, here is the fun part. The Number 4 and Camo
The number 4 in term of fireteams is a magic number and grants the team Sixth Sense L2. Gaining Sixth Sense L2 is a massive boost and in my opinion a better buff to a team then +3BS from a 5 man link. The details of Sixth Sense L2 need to be look at first:
Requirements:
In order to use Sixth Sense L2, the user must be the target of an Attack.
Effects:
1. Allows the user to respond with a Face to Face Roll to attack directed at him by any model that if out of line of sight regardless of facing
2. When the user is a target of a Surprise Attack, the user ignore all negative MOD to his rolls
3. The user can respond to attack against him through Zero-Visibility Zones ignoring negative MODs
4. When attacked with a template weapon from outside his Line of Fire, he can dodge without the -3 MOD
So much goodness. With Sixth Sense L2, the effectiveness of TO: Camo and Camo and infiltrators is severely hindered against a Fireteam. This forces the opponent to bring the Camo model out safely and since most Camo'd and infiltrating models are the specialist, they will be forced into lose-lose situation if the hold the model in hiding too late into the game. Also, Stealth does not work on models with Sixth Sense L2. This forces your opponent to face the link team head on to reduce their effectiveness. Defensive Fireteam suddenly become safe to field against AD: Combat Jump unit and flankers.
Command Tokens and Simultaneous “Fireteams”?
While Vanilla armies can always find a use for Command Tokens, Sectorial find them as an added bonus to the army. As you are limited to options in a Sectorial, you get better built-in efficiency with Fireteams. Hassassin Bahram is a little special, they have the Fireteam option and in addition all Paramedics are Doctor Plus. This means most of the Doctor Rolls are rolling at 17s and 18s for a success. Hassassin Bahram has a single engineer option, Najjarun, and with a WIP of 14, he’s alright by himself.
With reliable Doctor and Engineer roll all taken care of, this leaves a lot of room for additional Coordinated Order. This makes the 4 man fireteam option even more effective. With the open Command Tokens to spare you can do some nice tricks. Say, for instance, you run list that have a 4 man fireteam of Lasiq with Viral Rifle + Light Shotgun in group 1 and four Ghulam Specialist in group 2. You can start the game with the Lasiq as the fireteam, you can move them up the field and into good position, break the link and Coordinate suppressive fire on the Viral Rifle. You can then spend an additional command token to make the Ghulams a link team that can move around the board safe.
Having the AVA 4 restriction is not really a restriction at all, it is a design choice to force players to use Command Tokens more efficiently. If the units were AVA 5, most people would run two possible 5 man fireteams and find a reason to use more than 1 command token. With the Hassassin Bahram, it is built into the design of the sectorial itself. It is a good design choice and very well thought out. It gives Hassassin Bahram a unique feel of a corporate espionage army with so much coordination being needed to play the army.
I just thought I would post my thoughts and shed some light on something that is not an issue with the sectorial. Let me know what you think and if I got anything wrong (spelling, grammar, rules). I am also working on an updated to the Hassassin Fireteam: Govads post that will help people understand how to use this unit and various options received from Human Sphere N3.
