Editing Infinity/N4 Tactics/Qapu Khalqi (section)

==Why Play Qapu Khalqi?==
That's a really good question! In an edition of the game filled with fearsome TAGs and incredible Warbands, awesome alien hackers, and deadly invisible ninjas what does Qapu Khalqi offer the interested player? The short answer is: challenge. 

The longer answer requires a very short Infinity history lesson: QK was the first faction to receive the Haris fireteam rule, way back in N2, and as such it had some pretty cool and unique ways to play. However the heydays of N2 are now a distant memory and unfortunately the rules for "The Men of the Gate" have not remained in lock step with more recent developments in the game. Therefore, playing QK can at times be painful and victories hard won. As with all sectorial armies, the unit selection is limited, but it is also old, with some essential profiles OOP, and others that may appear lacklustre compared to more recently designed factions. 

As a Haqqislam player you might look across at your brothers and sisters playing Ramah Task Force and Hassassin Bahram and start to question your life choices, but wait! There is reward on the path less taken, and some uncommon joys.

So who are Qapu Khalqi, and how should you approach playing them?

The background to the faction is that they are the defacto Navy of the Haqqislam nation, primarly tasked with protecting the Silk routes from pirates, ne'er-do-wells and other factions who wish to bypass the Haqqislamite monopoly on the Silk trade. They also protect travellers, or whatever. 

The catch to this otherwise seemingly very lucrative job is that the Sultan likes to keep as much of his wealth to himself, and Haqqislam doesn't have the industrial might of the likes of PanO and Yu Jing, so they hire in mercenaries and pirates, endowing them with the status of privateers, to fight for them. 

On the table this makes QK something of a patchwork faction (often thought of as NA2 before NA2 was a thing) containing a mix of Haqqislam, Nomad, and non-aligned mercenary units. This unique mix, coupled with quite high unit costs for some of the faction staples, make Qapu Khalqi something of an unsolved faction. This means that it is possible to build a list that can competently take on any one opponent, but there is very little in the way of indispensable units that are always useful and effective, and nothing approaching an all-comers type of list that can address any threat.

In this way QK can be whatever you make of it. It's possible to pack the midfield with camo, it's possible to make a list seemingly filled with HI, or with two TAGs, it's possible to take seven AD troopers for a collective total of 15 apparent models dropping in from the side of the table, or via Combat Jump. All these things are possible, and more, but whatever you do you will be forced to make hard choices and leave notable gaps in your setup that you will have to account for - or pay the price.

So why should you play Qapu Khalqi, then? It's a cool, older faction, with some really nice and tricky to find OOP models, it has a variety of ways to play and build lists that will keep you endlessly experimenting, and entertained, but it also has some distinct shortcomings that a good general will have to be aware of, and do their best to mitigate. 

If you like the idea of a rag-tag band of pirates and roughy-toughy marines on speed teaming up to protect the profits of a cadre of unimaginably rich and powerful oligarchs (and who doesn't love that?!) then maybe QK is the faction for you!