So, we’ve talked a little bit about who Qapu Khalqi are and what their vibe is on the tabletop, so let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. The meat. The reason you’ve bothered to visit this tiny blog in the first place: how do they play?
As mentioned previously, QK are an older sectorial which means some of their optimal plays are… Not old fashioned exactly, but they certainly are classics. Smoke shooting anyone?
First we’ll dive into the main strengths and weaknesses of Qapu Khalqi, then we’ll move on to some different strategies you can employ with the faction.
Strength: Fireteam flexibility and availability. This is a big one. In later posts I will breakdown specific Fireteams and how they can be used, because they are so important to the way QK plays, but it is fair to say it is possible to build many different fireteams with a wide variety of tools to pick from. There are no less than 7 different types of fireteam that can be used and 6 different wildcards to choose from, and the faction gets an additional Haris Fireteam above the usual allotment of 1.
This means that you can build numerous teams all the way from a cheap and cheerful order battery Core Fireteam of Ghulam (still with a wide array of capabilities,) all the way up the price scale to a Janissary Core Fireteam that gives you an Arm 7 (in cover,) 2 wound, HMG or Missile Launcher hitting on 17s, before any other modifiers. Of course that comes with a hefty price tag, but perhaps not as high as you might expect, thanks to the presence of the mighty Hafza. More on them later.
Beyond the wealth of Core fireteam options there are, of course, many ways to build Haris teams, too. The headline here is the Azra’il Fireteam. The Special Deterrence Unit is the faction’s most iconic piece – and for good reason. We will explore the Azra’il in more depth in a later post but, in summary, the incredibly potent combination of an AP HMG or Feuerbach – both at +1 Dam and the Feuerbach at +1 Burst – with Continuous Damage has the ability to delete any unit from the game in a single volley. You don’t have to always take an Azra’il, but you definitely want to, and doing so in a Haris fireteam makes them all the better.
Below is a list of all the fireteams, their possible make up and wildcards. As I have mentioned, and you can see, there are a lot of potential fireteams and capabilities to choose from.
Ghulam Fireteams – Haris, Core
Ghulam 1 min, Hafza (Ghulam) 2 max, Alguaciles 4 max
Qapu Khalqi Fireteams – Duo, Haris, Core
Odalisques* 5 max, Sekban* 5 max, Hafza (Odalisques, Sekban) 2 max
Azra’il Fireteams – Duo, Haris
Azra’il 3 max, Rafiq Remote FTO 1 max
Djanbazan Fireteams – Duo, Haris, Core
Djanbazan 5 max, Hafza (Djanbazan) max 2
Janissary Fireteams – Haris, Core
Janissary 1 min, 5 max, Hafza (Janissary) max 2, Wild Bill
Druze Bayram Security Fireteams – Duo, Haris, Core
Duze 1 min, 5 max, Arslan (Druze)
Kaplans Fireteam – Duo Haris Core
Kaplan 1 min, 5 max, Korsan 2 max, Wild Bill
Wildcards
Hafza 2, Odalisques 2, Sekban 2, Burkut (Sekban) 2, Leila Sharif (Ghulam) , Rouhani
One thing you may notice here is that the Hafza shows up in most teams and when they do they confer composition bonuses, and that they are also wildcards. This means there is not a team they cannot be part of and with Holomask your opponent will never be quite sure which member of the team, if any, is a Hafza.
If Fireteam flexibility is QK’s strong point, then the Hafza is the one piece that makes it work. We will go into more depth on the Hafza at a later date, but needless to say they are a lynchpin piece that you should think very carefully about before removing from a list. In addition to the Hafza, the Odalisques, Sekban, Leila Sharif and Rahman Rouhani all make a significant addition to the possible ways in which you can make, and cheapen, QK fireteams.
Strength: Combined arms. Qapu Khalqi are capable of many different things on the tabletop. There is the full gamut of link possibilities, offering serious firepower and all the benefits that come with fireteams, there are able and efficient skirmishers in the shape of the Al Hawwa, there are a wealth of medium infantry units that offer a wide variety of tools to face every opponent and play style, there are cheap and dangerous Irregular and Airborne Deployment troopers – in the same package! And if you want a TAG you need look no further than the original bad boy – Scarface.
The point here is that QK is a flexible faction with a tool for every occasion.
However… No faction is without weaknesses.
Weakness: Combined arms. Flexibility can be a double edged sword. Because QK has a different piece for every occasion it means that inevitably you will find yourself in matches where if you only had a Korsan in your Kaplan fireteam, or if you had only thought to take a Yuan Yuan on those ITS season 15 exclusion zone missions (why are you not taking Yuan Yuan? You should always be taking Yuan Yuan) then you would have bagged that win/avoided that loss.
QK is often described by those of us with a long standing interest in them as an “unsolved faction”. Because it can do a bit of everything, but no one group of units in a 300 point army list can do all things, you can find yourself caught out in certain match ups or missions.
Unlike other factions in the game you will not see the same QK lists appear over and over again. You will never get tired of seeing Djanbazan, for example, because 1) the faction is not that popular and 2) they just aren’t always the best pick – and almost no unit in the faction is.
Weakness: No apex pieces. Sure, you can achieve very high numbers with fireteams, but that is true of every faction. It is the fate of all Haqqislam factions that they do not contain the very best of the Human Sphere. There are some stand out pieces, of course, but unlike Combined Army, or Aleph, or PanOceania, we humble Haqqislamites cannot rely on unbelievable BS beat sticks, or incredible hackers, or unparalleled CC monsters. We have things that can do all those jobs well, but no one piece that you put down on the table that strikes fear into all and sundry.
If you are looking for a single hero to do all your work then Qapu Khalqi is not the faction for you. But if you like the idea of a ragtag team of the faithful that happen to also be, and employ, pirates, then boy are you in for a treat!
Before we move on it is worth mentioning the phenomenon of what you might call perceived weaknesses. That is to say, there are plenty of voices online (as in all things) that will argue QK units are weak because they do not conform to certain criteria as determined by more recent additions to the game.
To this I say: Take each unit on it’s own merits, in it’s own context. We have already discussed how QK is a faction of mutually supporting pieces. It is true that there are very few units that can stand completely on their own, unlike other factions, but it is up to you as to whether you consider that a feature or a bug.
You might hear it said that the Djanbazan are no good. Too expensive. They have the Medium Infantry Curse (a premium 1 wound unit,) that they die to 1 bad Face 2 Face roll. To this I say: Give to each according to their need. Or to paraphrase someone much smarter than me: If you judge a unit by it’s ability to kill a Jotum in a straight gunfight most units will look like a failure.
Djanbazan (in this example) are a specific tool for a specific target. They are good at leveraging active turn and fireteam Burst advantages to take down mimetism -3 and -6 units at range. They can also be used against “normal” targets with the assistance of smoke to further increase their advantage. Their stats are not the best in the game, but when used in the right setting, with the right support, against the right targets, they can be as devastating as any gunfighter.
The point here is to encourage you to think about units in QK, and Infinity in general, in their context, and not do straight comparisons. I suggest that you will learn more about the game that way and become a better player both on and off the gaming table.
Strategies.
This long article is nearly done, but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least give you a taste of the ways QK can play. If it is not clear by now, they can do anything! But to narrow it down a bit I will give you some of my personal standout approaches.
Guided Missile Spam: The much maligned GML strategy is a very polarising way to play – and rightly so. There are many players who simply do not use it because of the un-interactive nature of the play. I am usually one of those players. However, it is worthy of mention here for two reasons: 1) Every local meta is different and some factions demand the threat that GML poses. If you face a lot of Steel Phalanx, or Nomads, or Combined Army, there can be times when the only way to not get stomped on and have a bad time is to fight fire with fire. 2) It works so damn well in Qapu Khalqi!
For starters it can be trivially easy to do. Take a 4 person Core, and/or Haris Fireteam, with 1 or 2 Druze Hackers or Killer Hackers each. Take a missile bot. If you really want to guarantee you can step on a neck, take a baggage bot, too. Now you have the tools to not only shoot missiles wherever you want, but with the Druze hacker loadout of X-Visor and Pitcher you are well able to fire a Repeater up to 48″ onto the edge of, or even into, the opposing Deployment Zone. In the unlikely event that your 2 shots on 9s fail you can reload from your Baggage bot and do it all over again.
This can be a rather oppressive strategy, so I do not recommend using it on a regular basis, but there are times when it will be exactly the right tool for the job. Being a good Infinity player is working out when those times are and being judicious in its application.
Tower defence: QK can put up some pretty hefty defences, particularly for a Haqqislam Sectorial. Remember the Janissary Core Fireteam? Remember the Hafza? Well you can give yourself a very sturdy, and relatively cheap, BS14, 2W, Sixth Sense, Missile Launcher ARO. You can then supplement it with one or more Djanbazan AP Snipers in a Haris. Maybe you want to take a Kaplan Multi sniper to mix things up a bit? Qapu Khalqi can take 2 Total Reaction bots and has 4 different types of engineers. Yuan Yuan, Beasthunters, Fiddler and Korsan are all very able corner guards, as well as being potent attack pieces of opportunity. There are 2 different Al Hawwa Minelayer profiles and the unit overall has an AVA of 3.
If you like to play defence then QK can do that for you. There are a number of tough and dangerous long range options mixed in with midfield speed bumps and threatening DZ template weapons and CC threats to provide the all important layered defence that Infinity N4 demands.
Combined Arms: Look, by this time it’s clear I’m leaning on this concept pretty hard, but it is one of the greatest strengths of the faction. Why settle for one play style, when you can take a bit of everything? Take an Azra’il haris for TAG/HI threat. Take a Djanbazan HMG for pesky mimetism targets. Take a hard to shift ARO in a cheap 4 person Janissary Core. Take one or two Hawwa to push buttons and threaten midfield hacking. Take some Yuan Yuan for cheap smoke, CC, and an AD threat. With QK you really can do it all. It might not give you the perfect answer to every opponent, but you can have an answer to most problems.
Trickery!: In QK you have unprecedented access to Holomask and Holoecho units. There are no Hidden Deployment units in the faction, but you are able to shape the game through the application of Holomasked units.
You can do obvious things, like pretend your LT is in fact one of your Core team Janissaries. Or present a Ghulam Forward Observer that is in fact a Hafza Heavy Rocket Launcher. That’s easy and in all honesty not that effective, in the case of the latter example.
But you can also telegraph a Djanbazan sniper to close a firelane, when in fact it’s just a Hafza, and spend the points and SWC elsewhere in the list. You can threaten juicy hackable targets, like a Mobile Brigada, Janissary or Burtuk and watch on as your opponent spends orders trying to Isolate them.
You can pack your DZ with CC threats, or dangerous AROs, or just more units than it is possible to take and make your opponent be frozen with indecision or waste orders on targets that are cheap and disposable.
You can pretend you have a Haris fireteam that has no specialists only to reveal a WIP14 Forward Observer and press a button or do a Classified Objective in an area your opponent did not sufficiently defend because they thought you had no chance of scoring points in that area.
That’s all for now. Hopefully I have given you some insights into the things you can do with Qapu Khalqi and the qualities they possess.
Next time we will talk about how you can start collecting QK. What you can buy right now at retail and the things you will have to go onto the second hand market to find.
May Allah the Great and Merciful guide your steps in (tabletop) battle.
Husam Operative Diomedes x
Islamic Space Pirates 
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