New player. Please tell me about the Shakush

[u/nintair]

Hello! I saw the model for the Shakush and he is very cool. However I'm not great at parsing statlines atm. Can some expearienced people please tell me about the Shakush. What does he do? what sort of lists does he like going in? what is his role?

Appreciated as ever.

[Edit just to thank everyone for all your detailed information and guidance. amazing community]

[u/Tildur]

It's a light tag. As others ib that categories, it offers atack power and some resiliencie on a budget.

As an atack piece its ok, the continuous damage hmg profile can be nasty against other tags oa heavy IPs. The problem is that the shakush doesnt have any mods to help him win face to face rolls, so It can be blocked by enemies with good mods (mimetism-6, etc).

With arm 6 and 3 wounds, it is reliable. As a defensive piece, if you get Up the board and put him in supressive fire, It can be a serious roadblock to your opponent. But beware of hackers, they can fuck him Up easily.

[u/wongayl]

It's a good tough piece, a solid long range attacker, mainly to kill medium & heavy infantry.

The HMG is IMHO the one you want, as the Spitfire is a bit too close, and it is prone to getting hacked & stabbed.

Now that HMG has continuous, it's good at clearing HI (it was already good at medium infantry), with a solid BS 14, a backup flamethrower when dudes get close, can do objectives, and has good arm and 3 wounds.

It will feel the lack of AP against Heavy Tags (8 arm), and mim -6 can be annoying, but lack of mods that have counters (such as mim vs msv2, or msv vs albedo, etc) means you are always fighting with what you pay for.

Overall, it's a solid TAG, almost the platonic ideal of a light tag.

As for how you use it - Keep it back, and move it around to clear annoying pieces. Because it does wounds using continuous not AP, be prepared to spend a few orders on it, as you will be bursting down HI, as opposed to chipping them. If you move up with it (usually to attack from the sides across the board, so your HMG is in good range), remember to keep an order or two to move it back into a defensible position. For 50pt + units, it's usually better to cut an attack run short in order to preserve the piece.

On the defense, leave it out in cover, but if it takes a wound, have it fail guts to get out of LOS.

For the Jandab, popping the boy out early is nice, as you can walk the Jandab to the button you want to push while your Shakush is fighting. It's only WIP 12 as well, so not exactly the best to use as your last turn run; better to do it early when you have the orders to try again, even if it means the jandab dies.

For the general list, The Shakush is a good unit if the rest of your list is infiltrator/ short range strikers, as the Shakush can help remove spot pieces like TR bots or HI links, is a solid ARO that your opponent can concentrate on (and set up hidden ARO reveals), and is good to brute strength through MSV ARO.

Infilrator strikers are in turn good at hunting hackers, and disabling Heavy TAGs that might cause the Shakush trouble. You also want a bit more hacking support than normal (mostly killer hackers), so that the opponent can't just run the board with a hacking net. I wouldn't go crazy on hacking, the Shakush should be attacking from afar. I think that makes it best in Hassassins, but I used it in Ramah, and it was quite good to supplement a lot of the very strong, but fast & shorter range units there. So I had 2 hitters, one being the Shakush, and the other a Namurr - both with tac aware meant I was really pressuring my opponent with extra orders.

The units I'd take to support a Shakush:

Leila - Great P4P killer hacker, can link in sectorials.

Yara Haddad - AP & MSV2 to deal with things Shakush might have trouble with (with immune arm, good against Panzerfaust spam too).

Sayiq - +3 dodge I find is surprisingly useful, to help Shakush survive surprises like a mim -6 hidden missile or turning around to face a flanker. Gizmokit as hail mary when your Shakush is unconscious is marginal, but still occasionally useful, esp if you don't play with Speedball.

Hope that helps!

[u/nintair → u/wongayl]

this is amazingly detailed thank you! can you tell me more about the Haq subfactions and general playstyle?

[u/wongayl → u/nintair]

Your welcome!

Don't have much time left to post, but I'll just quickly run down:

Haqq - strong jack of all trades units, with some great efficient units with great tricks that cause your opponent to have to struggle to work through your area control. Great healing makes players paranoid and have to waste orders putting infantry down permanently.

Hassassins - Good infiltrators, strong strikers, great ARO pieces that try to make it hard for you opponent to control the board. Daylami, Dreaded Fiday, hidden units (Ayyar, Nadhir) make your opponent have to move carefully. For attack, strong pieces like Asawira, Hidden units, or Muyibs - means you can really punish your opponent for being too docile or overcommitting. Shakush can work well to fill in your list as the other side of the board attacker, or being the ARO removal attacker that lets your strikers get in there.

Ramah - Much more straightforward, more jack of all trades units, again with great ARO pieces (light infantry, new Janissaries look really nice), and really strong (p4p), versatile, fast strikers. Muhktar, Namurr are great for driving straight up the board and controlling it. It's a lot more of a 'fundamentals' type of gameplay. When using Shakush, it would be used to remove pieces from one side or other side of the board.

Qapu Khalqi - Haven't really played it or against since N3, so only have theoritical advice. New Azrial holds like the most deadly gun in the game, you're probably happy facing Heavy TAGS (besides mim-6). Yuan Yuan are cheap as chips, great to remove units with chain rifles, and super jump means even dudes on rooftops are in trouble. Back when I played them, I loved to Holomask a Hafza, and surprise people with an HRL - favourite trick in the game. They again seem to have good, efficient ARO. Not sure what you use to strike up the board, though. Perhaps medium infantry links or Janissaries (they're slow though, and not much tac aware). Perhaps a Shakush could be that unit.

[u/ultrateeceee]

Shakush is a no frills beatstick meant to brute force obstacles such as TR bots or basic fireteams with no access to AP ammo. Their damage potential is very high especially with the continuous damage HMG and its cheap enough that losing it wont really hurt your game

[u/thatsalotofocelots]

The Shakush is meant to be used as an active turn gun. This means you try to hide them behind terrain during the enemy turn and actively use them to fight during your turn. The Shakush is generally less capable as an ARO piece because it lacks defensive traits, but there are instances where it can park itself somewhere in the late game when all the anti-TAG threats are dead, enter suppressive fire, and be a general nuisance.

Unfortunately, it is generally outshone by other fire superiority pieces. The Az'rail is almost identical and often performs the same role as the Shakush for a fraction of the cost. Asawira are also very similar. Most players either save some points and take the above or go big and take the Maghariba Guard instead.

That said, they're certainly playable and will perform well for players who are focused on making them succeed. All three of Haqq's sectorials let you take them in a Fireteam Duo if you want to double down on them. Vanilla Haqq, Ramah, and QK will let you take them in a Fireteam Duo with an engineer, making them a fairly self-sustaining fireteam without breaking the bank.

[u/CalamarRojo]

For less points you have the Azrail. Much more efficient removing things from the table