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Infinity Faction Focus: Hassassin Bahram
Playstyle
Hassassin Bahram troopers (courtesy of Musterkrux)Attacking: Surprise and Scalpels, HB doesn’t like to lean into a far Face-to-Face roll, it has lots of tricks for picking individual, weaker elements of your opponent’s list and giving them a cheeky shiv in the back. HB doesn’t meet its enemy’s strongest pieces head-on, it chips away at the edges, makes an opening and then exploits it. You’ve got Fidays, Ragiks and Bohktar dropping in, as well as McMurrough jumping from rooftop to rooftop. You don’t always have the best F2F roll going around but you do have a great deal of influence in deciding which of your opponent’s models will be making those AROs.
Defence: We’ll discuss this more in depth when we cover the Irregular units in HB but a key aspect of defence is in delaying your opponent with well timed/positioned low-cost troops that carry a significant risk of absolutely stomping on the brakes of your opponent’s push into your territory. Your Daylami panzerfausts and Mutt Jammers won’t win every F2F roll but each time they declare ARO they pose a catastrophic risk to your opponent. Knowing when to trigger those AROs is a big part of HB’s gameplan. After this, we are also exploring the HB-Ambush defence. Sweet, sweet Hidden Deployment AROs with Panzerfausts or Flammenspears is a great way to turn a ‘favored’ F2F roll against a Daylami into a coin-flip. The cruellest ARO is asking your opponent if they want to Reset against your Mutt’s Jammer or do something to contest the incoming Shujae Flammenspear. The art of reading the table and setting up these traps is a foundational skill for the successful Hassassin. Finally, no discussion of defence in HB can be considered complete if we don’t briefly mention the Sunduqbut (I’m sure there’s a pronunciation guide out there but I say ‘Some-Duck-Butt’ even though this is categorically incorrect). The Sunduqbut is incredibly expensive for what it is but it’s ability to transform your Fog of War from an inconvenience into a looming mental breakdown for your opponent should never be understated. No camo marker is safe for the enemies of HB.
Scoring: HB does a pretty good job of giving you multiple ways to deliver Specialists to objectives. You’ve got Farzans for the classic Camouflage approach, a few KHDs can Cybermask and wander into zones, you’ve even got Ragiks, Asawira Doctors and Bokhtar Parachutists who can rush into a zone, push buttons and even bully people out of them. Being Haqqislam, we’ve also got Doctors scattered all over the place. If anything, Haqq’s weakest Specialist offering is Engineers with just the generic Najjarun as well as a slightly more combat effective Govad for an extra 10 points (but no mobility or defensive tech). In a pinch, HB can even have their Shujae or Nadhir drop out of Hidden Deployment and push buttons.
Notable Units and Capabilities
Lasiqs, Leila Shariff and a Barid (courtesy of Musterkrux)Fiday Fridays: This is a misnomer, because everyday is a Fiday. If you’re going to name a sectorial after Hassassins, then I think it’s pretty fair to say that Hassassin Fidays are a core element of the HB experience. AVA 2, 3 if you count Al-Djabel (fondly nicknamed Jelly Belly for reasons best described as apocryphal), Fidays are excellent attack pieces. You don’t have to spend orders walking them up the field, you’ve got a 2-layer marker state protecting you from being discovered before you get to swing, and they have just enough Close Combat and Martial Arts to reliably bonk someone on the head with their DA CCWs. I wouldn’t send them in to reliably kill HI, TAGs or other close combat monsters but if you can identify a weak link in your opponent’s list that only has one wound, your Fiday is more than happy to trade their (cubeless) life away for the glory of their nation. The trick here is to make sure that your 23+ point trading piece is, indeed, trading up. Whatever you hit needs to be both weak enough to reliably pop but also important enough that its absence harms your opponent more than the loss of the Fiday to you. Critical specialists in some scenarios can be worth trading for, along with Hackers that are locking down of threatening your own hackers, or even obvious Lts tucked into the corners of DZs are all viable choices. On the topic of deploying into your opponent’s DZ, while WIP 15 gives you a 75% chance to land it, just remember that it also means 1-in-4 games your Fiday will whiff the roll, and deploy exposed in your DZ. I don’t really recommend this often, as your Impersonation state, with two layers, gives you 1-2 uncontested Move-Move orders from outside the DZ to burrow into your opponent’s DZ and find your target. Roll the dice ad push your luck when walking into melee with your target is functionally impossible or you have 2-3 Fiday ready to go, so you can just try again with the next one if you fail.
When it comes to managing counterplay, consider the following: 1. Put your Fidays ito Reserve where you can, you want to see as much of your opponent’s models as possible before committing them and you want to minimise your opponent’s ability to counter-deploy your Fiday. 2. Be careful about surrounding terrain and models when deploying your Fiday, it might only take one model (normally two, a classic anti-Fiday Reserve drop is a Minelayer profile) to box your Fiday in and prevent them from moving without breaking Impersonation. Be sure to give yourself enough clearance around walls and other terrain where possible.
Team Ambush: We’re mostly talking about the Shujae Minelayer(2) but I’ll include the Nadir here as another cheeky Hidden Deployment piece. The ability to stack the threat of Hidden Deployment AROs with Disposable weapons on top of defences such as Infiltrating Daylamis, E/M mines, as well as Mutts with Jammers can really keep your opponent off-balance during their early game plays. The Shujae dropping two E/M Mines and threatening to pop out with a Flammenspear and just say: ‘Absolutely The Fahq Not' to whatever your opponent is pushing forwards is a beautiful thing. As a specialist with Mim-6, BS-13 and some serviceable guns, the Shujae can then break out of its ARO/defensive role and either score you some points or hunt down some squishy targets. Brilliant. The Nadhir is a Diet-Shujae, with similar capabilities so you can go ham on the Ambush gameplan but you have to be careful with how many Hidden Deployment orders you leave off the table during your first turn of the game.
Ayyar LMAO: After a few editions languishing in the ‘Cute but Not Good’ pile, the Hassassin Ayyar had a glow-up. Between a cost adjustment, a few choice skill tweaks (Triangulated Fire, Surprise Attack -6, and Specialist on all profiles), and some great weapon selections the Ayyar can do a lot of work for you. I’m not even sure which profile I like the most. Surprise Attacking someone with a Triangulated Fire Burst 4 Breaker Pistol seems hilarious, however there are also profiles with Disco Ballers or Drop Bears to tinker with. The only downsides to the Ayyar is that they have very limited defensive tech to keep them safe once they make their big play (Holoprojector will only take you so far) and being Arm/BTS 3 they don’t love it when they are forced to take saves against attacks.
Cheap and Effective Hacking: Haqqislam is top an apex predator when it comes to building for the Hacking game. However, we can put together a very solid Hacking capability a lot cheaper than some other factions. Barids are the Hyundais of Hacking and Leila Shariff is a KHD that also just happens to have Carbonite and Firewall (-3), because reasons. That's pretty OK.
Muyib Fireteam (photo couretesy of Musterkrux)Keeping yourself Irregular: HB has a great selection of Irregular troops. Ranging from your bargain-basement defensive pieces, like the Ghazi Muttawi’ah (Mutts) and Daylami Infiltrators, through to the Rapid Offence Unit (ROU), McMurrough (sometimes known as McMurder). It’s very tempting to throw 4-5 Mutts and Daylami into your list as an incredibly cost-effective bubblewrap defence for your more expensive units. The downside is that there’s a tipping point where you’ve traded away too many Regular orders (and the flexibility and reach they give you) for excessive Irregular Bubblewrap. I usually will run one Irregular model for every 5 models in a list (for 3 out of 15 models for a standard game) without question but when I start looking at that 4th Irregular model I feel like that’s where I need to commit resources to offsetting that with either additional Command Tokens (ie. The Ghulam Lt) or Tactical Awareness orders to help my other Regular models push a bit further during the active turn. Mutts are great, they can usually bring at least 2 of the following 3 capabilities for rock bottom prices: A Direct-Template Weapon (corner/close-in defence), Smoke Grenades, or a Jammer. So, the question may often be which capability are you going to forfeit when taking a Mutt? My answer is usually, at 8points the BSG with Smoke and Jammer gives you the closest run at getting all three capabilities. Wisdom used to be to take the cheapest Mutt but I find that modern HB can absolutely afford to splurge on 2-3 premium Mutts and barely even notice it when building the rest of the list.
Daylami are easier to unpack: Take the Camouflage Infiltrator with Panzerfaust. Maybe even take two of them. I can’t really recommend any of the other profiles. I especially cannot recommend taking 4x Grenade Launcher Daylami in your primary combat group and then blowing all of your Command Tokens in Round One coordinating 4-person Speculative Fire shots on obvious Lieutenants. Don’t ask me how I know this is a bad idea. McMurder is an extremely cost-effective attack piece. He’s fast (6-4, with Super-Jump goes a long distance), cheap as chips (23 points) and swings hard (CC 23 with MA2, a Burst 2 Chainrifle, as well as the option to Spec-Fire Grenades on incredibly good numbers (PH 13 within 8”) means that he’s a terrifying threat to your opponent. His only downside (which is shared by the other Irregulars) but if you take him, that’s another Daylami or Mutt you’re not taking. Vision Control: HB has easy access to both Smoke and Discoballs. Not so much on the MSV2 front unless you’re going to lean into Yara Haddad (mixed feelings, an AP-Marksman Rifle is…fine but also 24 points and needs a Ghulam escort for the cheapest possible Duo-bonus if you want to de-risk her accidentally losing a F2F roll. However, Up the Guts, Lots of Smoke absolutely works for delivering your forces up the table regardless of your access to MSV.
Fireteams
An Asawira leading a Ghulam Fireteam with a Farzan nearby (Photo courtesy of Musterkrux)HB gets the usual 1x Core, 1x Haris and as many Duos as you want Fireteam configuration. This is fine, HB has enough solo operators that you don’t really need additional Harises (Harisii? What’s the plural here?*).
Ghulam (Haris, Core): You can do something cute with a Ghulam Haris (or 3-person Core), such as: Take 2 Ghulam to escort an Asawira, with one as a Doctor, or take a Smoke-LGL NCO Ghulam with 2x Barid (the extra dice to hit when shooting Pitchers will be very cute) for a very competent hacking base. Leila Shariff can sub-in here as a Ghulam-coded Wildcard but I think she does better in a Bahram Duo.
Hassassin Bahram (Duo, Haris, Core): The Bahram keyword is quite permissive here, so I think your best bet is going to be taking cute Duos here. As noted above, Leila Shariff is an excellent way of duct-taping a Specialist onto a Bahram active piece like a Muyib Spitfire or Govad HMG (even if the HMG profile is very pricey for a single wound, no Mimetism piece). Otherwise, you’ve got a Muyib Duo (Take the HRL or Spitfire for Tactical Awareness, and then whatever Specialist you’re keen on, Leila remains an option) for a well-priced team that has a little bit of everything. Alternatively, and this is my secret jank, the Lasiq duo is crazy good. It’s pretty easy to get that Viral Sniper Rifle a Special Die with either the FO Lasiq or Leila, and a BS 12 Viral Sniper with Mimetism and Marksmanship shooting someone from outside of their comfort-zone (ie More than 32” away for most units) is an existential threat to almost any target. If you can’t spare the points somehow, the X-visor means the other two Lasiq profiles can really rough up your opponent from long range, as well. Don’t La-sleep on the Lasiq, friends.
Shakush (Duo): I’m on the record (repeatedly at this stage) saying that TAG duos aren’t amazing. If you really want to, attach a Sayiq to a Shakush so that you have a cheap specialist running behind your TAG. If you’re deadly keen, you might consider Avicenna stapled to a Shakush and use her to take ugly corners against DTWs like Mines (because she can heal herself and is Immune: Arm, saving the Shakush from taking damage that is otherwise avoidable) but this is a really inefficient module and I’m stretching hard to find something to say about TAG Duos that isn’t: Don’t.
Wildcards: HB’s Wildcards are an interesting bunch. I mostly break them down into three categories: ‘Leila as a cheap support specialist’, ‘Asawira as a front-man attackpiece’, and ‘The Other Two’. Yasbir is fine but a bit expensive. He’s like a Hassassin Fiday who trades Impersonation (including the deployment options) for the ability to be embedded into a Fireteam. You do get Drop Bears, which is nice I guess, but I feel like he’s extremely missable. Yara Haddad is your only MSV2 in HB, so it’s very easy to decide if you’re going to put her into a list or not. In an emerging meta that might see Vehicles (often with Mimetism -6) see more play, maybe an MSV2 is an important capability you need to consider.
Command Options
Lieutenants: Being a Haqqislam sectorial, HB has a pretty solid range of command options: Ghulams, Barid, Muyibs, Yara Haddad, Asawira, and Bokhtar. My top picks for HB Lieutenants are: Ghulam (Native WIP 14 and access to ‘free’ Smoke grenades via NCO), Barid (a Lieutenant Hacker is cute, even if it exposes you to a mild risk of being KHD’ed into LOL), and the Bokhtar, who is an absolute gun (but you’ll need to de-risk your Rambo-Bohktar with Chain of Command, I suspect).Chain of Command: You get the Farzan and you’ll be happy with it. Which is fair, as a relatively well-priced Camouflage specialist, your Farzan is happy either rpulling Cheerleader duty or tapping Buttons every now and then.
NCO: The Ghulam with a Smoke LGL is an excellent way to spend an otherwise idle Lt order. That is all.
Sample Lists
The HB contents of the Operation: Blackwind collection (photo courtesy of Corvus Belli)The following lists should be taken as conceptual starting points for lists that you can later refine and adapt to your own personal style or scenario pack for an upcoming event. Goonhammer takes no responsibility for any tournament outcomes that result from consuming these sample Army Lists (unless you win, in which case you’re welcome you Net-listing goofball). If the urge to shave your head, ">tattoo a barcode on your neck and then menacingly stalk people in stolen disguises persists, please consult your Akbar Doctor**
This list is about giving you a strong mid-field presence between the Daylami and Shujae, while also giving you a variety of offensive options ranging from the Lasiq Sniper, Muyib Spitfire and the Fidays. You've got a cheap and cheerful hacking presence between the Barid and Leila, you can slap the Barid into the Fireteam Core if you want a Special Die on those Pitcher shots, as well.
This list throws a bit more meat down the field, you've still got 2x Fidays and your Hacking game but you're also sending McMurder down range and supporting his advance with an Asawira leading a Fireteam and a rambo Bokhtar Lt (covered by your CoC Farzan). Some secret sauce here is the Ghulam with Dep-Rep and E/M mines. They follow behind the Asaria and any time you have a quiet moment in the mid-field you can drop one of those somewhere inconvenient for your opponent. Please ask me what Lasiq is, I need a win.
Final Thoughts
Hassassin Bahram is a great faction, it’s received several quality of life upgrades over the years to keep it very competitive. It’s fun to play, with a variety of mechanics and toolboxes to cause your opponent endless grief with. It’s got some weaknesses but nothing that makes the sectorial unplayable. I’d be so bold as to suggest that of Haqqislam’s three sectorials, Hassassin Bahram is the most competitive one (I won’t say ‘best’ though, because that is reserved for any Sectorial that contains Scarface, the TAG pilot who is literally too angry to die.).*A brief search (full disclosure, AI-assisted) indicates that the common plural of the Arabic word Haris (which itself means guardian or watchman) is Ḥurrās. So there you go, you learned something today. You’re welcome. **It’s an older reference, sir, but it checks out.
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