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Since I have fallen in love with Harlequins, I have decided to use them as an allied detachment with my renegade SW, I figured out how this would work, with the help of the fine folks here at DakkaDakka.
I do have another question concerning them though, are they worth it, as in bringing them at all. I have seen some Eldar players complain about them, but I don't know the specific reasons why.
And enlightenment about this topic would help.

I love the background and the models but also curious if they're useful. Will be watching this thread with interest.

Send in the clowns, eh?

So we want to make the Harlequins work in today's game? Well first we have to realize what they are good at and what they aren't:

Pros:
-Looking badass
-Punching things with a boatload of attacks
-Flips 'n' **** (not slowed by terrain)
-High Initiative
-Special Rules: Fleet, Furious Charge, Hit & Run
-Veil of Tears (w/ Shadowseer)
-You can get rending!

Cons:
-Space Sissies, T3
-Piss-Poor Saves (5++)
-Infantry (very slow to get anywhere)
-Veil of Tears is now a pyschic power
-They cost... WWAAAAT?!?
-You gotta pay for rending!
-No 'Nades, No Bueno

So brass tacks is you may or may not want the troup master. He's an additional 4 guardsmen as an UPGRADE for one more attack and Ld10. Oh, and a free power sword.

No, thanks.

The Shadowseer is a requirement... maybe. We'll get to that. At cost of 6 guardsmen, she's an expensive date. However, Veil of Tears is required on foot to protect your fragile clowns from crying and it gives them what they lack: 'friggen grenades (STOP DOING THIS GW!)

So a unit of 5 with kisses is 110pts. Not bad, but not scary. A unit of 10 with kisses is 220 pts. Maybe a bit much?

Here's the thing, we need an HQ and we need troops to go along with them, though.

HQ, I see three choices:

*Laughing Autarch* or "The Solitaire":
Autarch w/ Jetbike, Fusion Gun, Laser Lance, Mantle of the Laughing God, maybe a pheonix gem. Costs about 1.5 Thunderfire Cannons. He's a one man deathwish unit with incredible durability with a rerollable 2+ cover save! Always! That's beefy! And he has Hit & Run, so No Combat? No Problemo! The downside? What DOESN'T ignore cover these days is the downside. Stacking wounds on a T4, 3+ armor save means your little guy is gonna be a few shots away from a laughing smear. Fluffy, but situational.

Karandras:
Wait, what's the Scorpion King doing here? Well, let's just say he's here because it all depends on how you read a rule. If your local meta plays it such that a single IC having Infiltrate gives the unit he's attached to infiltrate, then I got a gift for you! (Many big tourneys are allowing it, but some still call it Infil-cheating...). For the low cost of 2.3 Thunderfire Cannons... erm.. "low" you can give your unit infiltrate, stealth, GRENADES, Ld10, an Eternal Warrior wound sink, an Init 7 Power Fist (ZOMG?!), Fearless, Monster Hunter... Lots. Lots n lots, but you pay the points for that. He IS slowed by difficult terrain, but has move through cover to keep pace with the squad. Smart tactics would move the squad through cover while keeping your HQ out of LOS, but watch out for focus firing! Look Out, Sir can still apply, though.

Regular Autarch
Yep, boring old Autarch. Grenade dispenser, mandatory HQ, what's more to like? Give him the Shard of Anaris, Swooping Hawk Wings for movement, Fusion gun for melta fun and a banshee mask. Cheaper than your Laughing Autarch, mobile enough to keep up, can pop tanks, makes the unit fearless, gives them grenades, and lowers all initiatives by -5. Congrats, you are now guaranteed to go first. And your Autarch looks so ridiculous, it'll fit right in!

Now your troops? You could go cheeseball and grab those Jetbikes, but I don't think that fits. We need something to offset our crap tier movement on the Clowns. Let us first grab some Guardian Defenders. Cheap bodies to hold an objective, man a quad gun, or add a heavy weapon for the *pew* *pew*. You could get Dire Avengers for a cheaper solution, your call. You want either so you can grab...

THE WAVE SERPENT!

Now we aren't going for the *pew* *pew* Wave Serpent. We want a solid transport that will get us there. So grab a naked Serpent, bolt on Scatter Lasers (hey, they are too cheap to pass up!), holo-fields, ghost walk matrices, and star engines (last is optional). It's an expensive vehicle, for certain, but you can now hide in a terrain piece thanks to the ghost walk matrix, get a 3+ cover save thanks to holo-fields, and the star engines let you flat out another 6" for a total single turn movement of 36".

So here's the concept:

Regular Autarch

10 Harlequins w/ Kisses

10 Guardians w/ Brightlance
- Wave Serpent kitted out

Total: 635 Pts

Yea, not cheap. You deploy the Guardians somewhere and shoot the *pew**pew* while the Harlequins + Autarch jack their ride turn one. Proceed to Turbo-Boost into position of threat (or perceived threat). Turn 2, fart them out... then Turn 3 assault. Yea, slow on the charge too. You may want to add the Shadowseer at this point to help make sure they aren't shot to pieces when the pop out.

Harlequins got bad. They aren't points effective for what they do in the least and require a costly upgrade to make them survivable and do what they are designed to do: assault. They have no means of getting across the board in any sort of quick fashion. Veil of Tears is now a power, so you have to hide them well if you aren't going first, or you'll see them vaporized. Your addition of guardians and a wave serpent are both solid, so those will do heavy lifting.

Toy around with what I've given you. It's not the end all, be all, but it's what I formulated on how I'd make Harleys work. When in doubt, Infil-cheat, IMO.


Two other options:

Infilcheat:
Karandras

10 Harleys w/ Shadowseer

3x Eldar Jetbikes

Total: 531 Pts.

OLD SKEWL:
Regular Autarch w/ just Fusion Gun, Power Sword, Mask

5 Harleys

3x Eldar Jetbikes

Falcon (Holofields, Ghost-Walk, Star Engines)

Total: 431 (bonus points for nostalgia, but the Falcon sucks so bad...)

Thanks for that, that looks like it took some time.

I have found a way to make the force cheaper, and go along more with the fluff of them actually being there.

H.Q
I am bring Illic Nightspear because I am really lacking some sniper support in my army. ( I could use scouts, but I think they would be wasted on such a task) Plus he just looks and acts badass.

Troop
I am thinking about using rangers and upgrading them to pathfinders, just to fill in the space for troops, I still am still going with the theme of snipers for this one.

HARLEQUINS
I can see your point about the troup master and such, but I also want to have them all as painting fodder, they would be so much fun. Plus I do not mind his point cost, this is under 600 points for all of it.


This is not to say that I will not think of using the Striking Scorpion Phoenix Lord, that infiltrating trick would work wonders, but I would need a way for the fluff to work out with all of the other things, Guardians and Autarch, otherwise I might just play ELdar as a second army and use that as the main body.

Just realize that by going second, with no adequate protection, you could have your Harlequins leveled off table.

Illic may also Infil-cheat your Harleys and give them shrouded, this is a plus, but remember that there is a great deal of ignores cover out there. The new IG book didn't help with this given that they now have orders to ignore cover AND the Wyvern will absolutely mince Harlequins out in the open.

Fluffy is fine, just expect the be more dead weight or a liability than an asset, sadly.

Thanks again,
If push comes to shove, they could just be a really hard unit to get off my objective, but since my SW are nicely kitted out in their Rhinos, I hope they will be worrying about the other threats.

Go for it! I love Harlequins from fluffy and model part... but cant find way how to functionally stick them to my IG... there simply isnt role they could fulfill without spinning whole army around them

But I share your sentiment!

Any advice on DE harlequins? Assuming no Eldar allies. Being that the DE book is not quite as powerful all round as the CWE one, is there possible uses for them there at all?

For fluff reasons, I'd say to add Illic and his Rangers as HQ and Troops.
They are wanderers like Harlies, and there's no reason I know of that they don't travel together.