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Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/17 10:46:00


Post by: ALEXisAWESOME


Thought it's about time we got this started considering our new prominence

After having a few games with the new Quin's, I personally think they feel fantastic. Extremely fast and mobile, with and without their transports, I found it very easy to get turn 2 charges and even turn 1 charges using things like Twilight Pathway and Skyweavers. Our combat is decent, with each of the special weapons having their role (Kisses more so in Power Level matches more so than points), and gets improved massively by the cheap and surprisingly durable Troupe Master allowing for re-rolls. I prefer the Str 5 AP -2 the best so far on troupes, as they invuls aren't uncommon so I sometimes feel the AP -3 is wasted, and it allowed me to threaten T8 on 5's with re-rolls decently.

The Neurodisruptor pistol seems pretty bad due to str 3, especially when compared to the Fusion pistol which seems by all means fantastic. Shurikan cannons are reliable but nothing spectacular, but we have a fair few of them dotted about the army so we have decent assault firepower.

The Shadowseer is fantastic, any straight -1 modifier in 8th seems very powerful, and -1 to wound is no exception. Heavy flamers wound you on 5's, las-guns/autopistols on 5's, demolisher cannons on 3's. Alongside the 4++ invul means that there are a lot of hoops the opponent needs to jump over to kill a Quin. And as far as I can see it even works against combat attacks, reducing return damage. Her Grenade Launcher is just peachy and Smite damage adds up over the game. Twilight Path seems to have great potential, but I've not used it right I think. After turn 1 it's not really been very useful due to how fast we are naturally, meaning I didn't need the help to make the charges I wanted. Fog of Dreams was useful against an Imperial Knight, but value 7 can be risky without a re-roll. The duel pair of a Shadowseer and a Troupe Master with a troupe of Quins put out amazing damage together and are surprisingly resilient.

Detachment wise I don't see why we wouldn't take the 3 troops 2 HQ one at the least. Command points are great for Quins, re-rolling crucial 4++'s, helping to make sure charges don't fail, I found I was using them like candy. A trick to avoid overwatch from nasty, nasty flamers, make the charge from just over 8'' away to avoid the flamer, then use command re-roll to help ensure the unit gets in. Works best with multiple charging units. Or if you don't want to risk it, 5 wound characters in the Shadowseer aura are good for soaking up some overwatch. As is the Solitaire.

Solitaire....cool. Sad he doesn't benefit from the bonuses, but as a loner he is very fast and willing to snack on support characters if the opponent doesn't propperly bubble wrap. Main target to Twilight Path to move him 24+2d6+charge, he is easily finding those Librarians and Brood Lords to duel.

What do you guys think of them? foot-slog or mech-quins? I personally think we might be a little OP with the 4++ and ridiculous speed, but who am I to complain.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/17 15:41:14


Post by: Robin5t


It's fine, now we get to be hipsters and tell everyone that we were playing Harlequins before it was cool!

I've only been able to play a couple of games, but I'm loving life at the moment. We seem so good at killing MEQ, and there are so many people playing some variant of MEQ that it's starting to feel like I'm bringing a water-type pokemon to the fire-type gym whenever I put my harlies on the table.

I wasn't sold on Skyweavers when I first saw the leaks, but actually using them a couple of times has convinced me they're a useful and surprisingly durable utility unit.

In terms of detachments, I'm going with the 2-detachment idea: I put most of my stuff in a battalion, but one of the Troupe Masters and 3 Voidweavers go in a separate Spearhead to give me an extra command point.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/17 17:00:50


Post by: lambsandlions


So lets have a quick discussion about weapon load-out on harlequins and what is best. I know I am going back and forth between embrace and caress. But really you need to analyze it by toughness. Not for both weapons the difference is usually only a 16% reduction in efficiency so if one weapon would have killed 5 models the other will still be killing 4.

Against T3 embrace is a clear winner. Both weapons wound on 3+ and the extra ap and cheaper cost of the embrace make it the better option.

Against T4 it is actually very even. Against marines caress does just slightly more (like a 5% difference). Against models with invul saves or 5+ armor saves the caress will be better. This is where the majority of units lay so think about it carefully.

Against T5 again it is pretty even. Tau suits are now T5 but they have a 3+ save so cutting the save with the embrace is almost as good as having s5 from the caress. There are a few units that the caress will be better against but otherwise they are not that far off.

Against T6 embrace is a clear winner. Both weapons wound on 5+ and the extra ap and cheaper cost of the embrace make it the better option.

Against T7 embrace is a clear winner. Both weapons wound on 5+ and the extra ap and cheaper cost of the embrace make it the better option.

Against T8 Caress is better. Caress retains its ability to wound on a 5+ and most units with this toughness have invul saves.

Against T9 Caress is better. Caress retains it ability to wound on a 5+ and most units with this toughness have invul saves.

Against T10 Embrace is the clear winner. Both weapons wound on 6+ and the extra ap and cheaper cost of the embrace make ti the better option.

With this all considered I would take a mix of caress and embraces but know the targets that caresses are better against and play accordingly.at 1500 points the difference between 5 caresses and 5 embraces is only 1% of you total points or 15 points. Have a few caresses on hand might be nice but the majority should be embraces.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/17 18:41:59


Post by: rollawaythestone


What do you think about Fusion Pistols? Whats a good ratio of Fusion Pistols on a 5-man Troupe? How many would you pack into a list? Who do you arm with the Fusion Pistols?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/17 19:19:36


Post by: lambsandlions


 rollawaythestone wrote:
What do you think about Fusion Pistols? Whats a good ratio of Fusion Pistols on a 5-man Troupe? How many would you pack into a list? Who do you arm with the Fusion Pistols?
Personally I am all or nothing. Either the whole unit has them or none of them have it. Against a rhino 5 fusion pistols will cause 3.33 hits resulting in 2.22 wounds. The average of 2d6 pick the highest is a little less than 4.5 meaning you will just have killed the rhino. Anything less than 5 fusion and you are only going to damage but not actually kill it. Killing it is important because you want to charge your starweaver into the unit that is coming out. This will force them to fall back the next turn and saves you a turn of small arms shooting. I would only take one, maybe 2 units of fusion pistol harlequins with a troupe master who has a pistol.

The way I would play fusion pistols is comboing a shadowseer with a troupe full of fusion and a shadow seer. Pick the unit you want to go after first, move the shadow seer 8" towards the unit and then put the starweaver within 3" of the shadow seer. You can think twilight pathways the starweaver and move 16" putting you hopefully within 3" of the enemy. If you are starting the shadowseer and starweaver next to each other the shadowseer can move 8" the starweaver can then be 3" ahead so 11" (but keep in mind the starweaver is about 4" long and only the back needs to be within 3" so you are actually about 15" up) then twilight pathways adds another 16" so you will have hopefully moved about 30" giving you an effective 33" range.



Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/18 15:03:34


Post by: Necronomic


 lambsandlions wrote:
 rollawaythestone wrote:
What do you think about Fusion Pistols? Whats a good ratio of Fusion Pistols on a 5-man Troupe? How many would you pack into a list? Who do you arm with the Fusion Pistols?
Personally I am all or nothing. Either the whole unit has them or none of them have it. Against a rhino 5 fusion pistols will cause 3.33 hits resulting in 2.22 wounds. The average of 2d6 pick the highest is a little less than 4.5 meaning you will just have killed the rhino. Anything less than 5 fusion and you are only going to damage but not actually kill it. Killing it is important because you want to charge your starweaver into the unit that is coming out. This will force them to fall back the next turn and saves you a turn of small arms shooting. I would only take one, maybe 2 units of fusion pistol harlequins with a troupe master who has a pistol.

The way I would play fusion pistols is comboing a shadowseer with a troupe full of fusion and a shadow seer. Pick the unit you want to go after first, move the shadow seer 8" towards the unit and then put the starweaver within 3" of the shadow seer. You can think twilight pathways the starweaver and move 16" putting you hopefully within 3" of the enemy. If you are starting the shadowseer and starweaver next to each other the shadowseer can move 8" the starweaver can then be 3" ahead so 11" (but keep in mind the starweaver is about 4" long and only the back needs to be within 3" so you are actually about 15" up) then twilight pathways adds another 16" so you will have hopefully moved about 30" giving you an effective 33" range.



So i should use 1 shadowseer and 2 troupemasters or 2 shadowsees and 1 troupemaster what do yout think?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/18 18:02:48


Post by: lambsandlions


 Necronomic wrote:

So i should use 1 shadowseer and 2 troupemasters or 2 shadowsees and 1 troupemaster what do yout think?
You can only manifest a power once per turn, So if you have 2 shadowseers you can only use twilight pathways from one of them. For that reason I say go with the troupemaster.

Troupemasters are actually pretty amazing. On their own they are a nice threat and with a troupe they are insanely deadly. The only issue I have with them is your harlequins are already so deadly you don't really need then against most things. 5 Harlequins is already going to kill 6 MEQs.



Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/18 20:58:35


Post by: Mchaagen


I'm disappointed by the obviously weak and comparatively over-cost kiss. It's even more a shame because it's the iconic harlequin weapon. Beyond that, most the close combat options are very similar. There should be a bit more variety in the weapon choices for an army that is already lacking in options.

The neuro disrupter is just bad, even if the fusion pistol wasn't an option. How could that escape all the 'play-testing' for this edition. I'm wondering if it had the always wounds on 2+ rule that was somehow omitted in the index. The harlequin's kiss also has me wondering if it originally had an extra special rule of 'if it wounds on 6+ then it counts as ap-4, or additional damage, or causes a mortal wound in addition to any normal damage, etc.'



Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/19 09:58:50


Post by: Amishprn86


Ok, having played a hand full of Harlequin games in 8th, doing much math hammer. I highly enjoy them, here are some things i've learned.

The Bad First:
Kiss and Death Jester are both over costed or under preformed. If either was a bit better or cheaper then they would be fine, but as is, they are both very costly for something so niche in use. They do have there places but its so rare and very army/list based, there wil be games and armies that both of these will literally almost do nothing.

Skyweavers need Str 5 back... as it is now I feel there best roll isnt NOT melee, they are good at shooting, and a great fast moving back up melee unit to splash in extra damage. Take them expecting to do most of the damage from shooting, use there amazing movement and charge only when you need too.

Neuro Pistols are over costed, they can be good, but at the cost they need to be S4, either they need to be cut in 1/2 with points or just S4.

The Good!
Solitaire!, this guy is amazing, just amazing. One of the few areas that the kiss is worth it b.c you have the option to use it and you get 8/10 attacks for the same cost on a Troupe which only gets 4 attacks for it. The Blitz is amazing, always take him.

Fusion guns! Either splash them in a few units or make a unit full of them either way they are great. Making a unit of them in a Starweaver to just move around can be an option too.

Shadowseer are great. If you play with many Troupes you will want 2 Shadowseers for sure, i play with 20-25 Troupes and i have 2 Shadowseers. B.c of this unit i have weather the storm of a Storm Raven and only took 4 wounds splint between 2 unit! -1 to hit and -1 to wound on 4++ guys is just amazing!

Troupe Master is good for that extra damage, i would always take at least 1.

Starweavers and Voidweavers are both good, just dont over do it on these guys.


Some notes:

Caress is better without Re-roll, otherwise Embraces are better against most infantry units. (basically not T8) Mix and Matching weapons is fine, i like to have 1/2/3 in each 5 man, thats 1 Fusion, 2 Caress and 3 Embraces. SOme like to do 3 Caress and 2 Embrace, i find its just 1 wound difference but at a cheaper cost so that i can fit more Troupes/pistols in, example a 2 Caress saves 6 points thats just shy of a Fusion pistol were the extra Caress would do 1 more wound that pistol has potential to do more than 1 wound.


Some Tips

You dont need to charge turn one!
Stay back and shoot for a few turn, make sure you give yourself breathing room to charge and not be gun downed the next turn, you also dont need to charge your full army, tho you can pressure with so much threats sometimes you need to charge you full army.
Charge with Bikes/Vehicles 1st if you are getting hit with large overwatch, never forget about this tactic
"How do you keep them alive after you charge?" A few ways, make sure to position yourself for a good consolidation movement, this is getting back into combat, into cover/outside of LoS. Also with Threat priority, have your Bikes or Vehicles in positions to do extreme amounts of damage next turn to make them want to shoot them over your troops, also the Shadowseer! You did cast Fog of Dreams on a key unit that would shoot them right? yes you did, this plus the -1 to wound roll helps A LOT.
NOTE* Casting Fog of Dreams on a unit that relays on re-rolls and has re-rolls is good if they are going to shoot you, b.c how modifiers work.
Why 2 Shadowseers? B.c 3 reasons, 1) Redundancy with Fog of Dreams and -1 to wound,, if one dies you have a back up. 2) To get all 3 Powers, only need one of each other the others. 3) More Smite! when there are 3/4+ Invul save, Smite hands them well.


My lists

I normally play 2k+ games but here is my normally Starting list, i add more Starweavers/Troupes and Voidweavers if i wanted to keep all Harlequins otherwise if i go up in points i get units like Hemlocks, Dark Reapers etc.. from Eldar (b.c those units are AMAZING!).

Shadowseer
Shadowseer
Troupe Master - Caress, Fusion Pistol
Solitaire
Troupes x5: 1/2/3 Fusion Pistol, Caress, Embrace, Starweaver
Troupes x5: 1/2/3 Fusion Pistol, Caress, Embrace, Starweaver
Troupes x5: 1/2/3 Fusion Pistol, Caress, Embrace, Starweaver
Troupes x5: 1/2/3 Fusion Pistol, Caress, Embrace, Starweaver
Troupes x5: 1/2/3 Fusion Pistol, Caress, Embrace, Starweaver
Skyweavers x3, x3 Shurikens, x3 Glaives
Skyweavers x3, x3 Shurikens, x3 Glaives
Voidweaver
Voidweaver


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/23 02:53:34


Post by: Tokyokasai


I somewhat disagree with most peoples opinions on the death jester, especially for hoard hunting.

See that 20 man unit of orks that you know will cause you a massive headache.

Concentrating most of your firepower in to them. If you manage to get them down to 10 or 12 orks then attack them with the DJ...Bye bye megaclaw...

Marine Bike unit with grav or melta...Concentrate fire, finish with the DJ...Bye bye grav or melta.

This is even more important for us against flamers. Flamers still maim us. 6 D& auto S4 hits will on average kill 6.3 players. So we need a way to get rid of them early. That's the Deathjester...Oh and I sniper killed Abaddon the other day with my three....

Bless

My list for 2000 points with 7 CPs

---Battalion---
Troupe Master (embrace)

Troupe Master (kiss)

Troupe Master (power sword/fusion)


Troupe of Twilight 1 (5 neuro disruptors)

Troupe of Twilight 2 (5 fusion)

Troupe of light (5 Embrace)

Troupe of Night (5 caress, 3 blades)

3 Sky weavers (Zephyr glaives)

3 Sky weavers (Zephyr glaives, Haywire)

3 Star weavers

2 Primatic cannon Voidweavers

---Vanguard---

Shadowseer

3 Deathjesters


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/23 11:35:34


Post by: ALEXisAWESOME


Did the FAQ give us a great buff? That you don't need LOS to chart but you DO need LOS to overwatch. So considering our clowns ignore terrain, it shouldn't be too hard to charge from the other side of the wall, somehow phase through the wall and avoid overwatch. Especially easy with the solitaire. Seems like a big buff, but also a stupid ruling. Any reasonable amount of terrain on the board can ensure that if your opponent isn't careful he might never overwatch at all.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/23 15:44:04


Post by: Robin5t


Makes sense to me. Hugging dense terrain is a dangerous game to play against an army of stabby ninjaclowns whose primary method of getting from A to B can best be described as 'Super Parkour'.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/26 08:35:06


Post by: Necronomic


hey guys can you maybe review my 1500 p Quins list, thanks

battalion detachment

Troupemaster-Fusion,caress
Troupemaster-Fusion,caress
Troupemaster-Fusion,caress

troupe of 5 Quins-All Fusions,all caresses
troupe of 5 Quins-All Fusions,all caresses
troupe of 5 Quins-All Fusions,all caresses

Solitair
Deathjester

Skyweaver of 5-Shuriken Cannon,Glaives

Starweaver
Starweaver
Starweaver




Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/26 16:15:49


Post by: ClutterEater


Drop the caresses and take embraces across the board. They're just better as long as you're under the influence of a Troupe Master (which is easy, since they're characters and you have 3).

I'd drop the Deathjester for.... something else? Another jetbike? He's going to be footslogging, and he's already not very useful.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/26 16:36:31


Post by: chriachrias


I'm looking to support my clowns with some forge world toys from craftworld and/or dark elder. My base is about 1k to 1.3k worth of clowns in cars with upgrades, a solitaire, and a shadowseer. I'm debating between wraithseer and a few Lord's and unit of guard, or hornets, or some combination of a few eldar tanks.

Basically looking to support the clowns with some long range hard hitting, but seems like there are a decent amount of options. Just not sure which direct to swing my toys. What would you guys take?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/26 17:05:07


Post by: Necronomic


 ClutterEater wrote:
Drop the caresses and take embraces across the board. They're just better as long as you're under the influence of a Troupe Master (which is easy, since they're characters and you have 3).

I'd drop the Deathjester for.... something else? Another jetbike? He's going to be footslogging, and he's already not very useful.


i swiched the caresses for embraces but i dont know what to put in for the dj. its the only model that would fit in with the points


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/26 17:47:18


Post by: Bloodshade


Harlequin topic! Was waiting for this, I'm going to camp here, Harleys are by far my favourites.

@Necronomic: I'd probably either switch out a Troupe Master for a Shadowseer or put another bike in (and maybe go 3+3?). But it's your call as you might not have a Shadowseer.


BTW here's my modified 2k points list that I plan to try out for a couple of matches. It's the result of the first playtests, I put in all that has convinced me in the first matches.

Troupe Master Kiss&Fusion
Shadowseer
Shadowseer

Solitaire

Troupe (x5) full fusion, 2 caress, 3 embrace on Starweaver
Troupe (x5) full fusion, 2 caress, 3 embrace on Starweaver
Troupe (x5) full fusion, 2 caress, 2 embrace, 1 normal blade on Starweaver

4 Skyweavers blades
4 Skyweavers blades

Voidweaver Prism
Voidweaver Prism
Voidweaver Prism

I actually think that with full fusion troupes 3 voidweavers are probably not necessary but the versatility of the prism cannon still convinces me more (against mob armies fusions are trash, prisms at least can do D6 hits each for a little bit of chaff killing...)
Another meh could be that many bikes. I kinda like them because they are hard to hit, each offers a shuricannon for the first turns harvesting and they are super fast in taking care of problems. But that S4 is really meh.

I'll try it out, still no ideas of how to take care of 30+30+30 ork boyz. Outmaneuvering and killing the rest, possibly, I'll try.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/26 18:32:42


Post by: Robin5t


 Necronomic wrote:
 ClutterEater wrote:
Drop the caresses and take embraces across the board. They're just better as long as you're under the influence of a Troupe Master (which is easy, since they're characters and you have 3).

I'd drop the Deathjester for.... something else? Another jetbike? He's going to be footslogging, and he's already not very useful.


i swiched the caresses for embraces but i dont know what to put in for the dj. its the only model that would fit in with the points
With the points you've saved from switching out to Embraces you can definitely afford to take either a pair of Skyweavers with Zephyrglaives or a Voidweaver if you want to do just a straight swap-for-swap.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/26 19:33:10


Post by: Necronomic


so my nee reworked list with ur tips
hey guys can you maybe review my 1500 p Quins list, thanks

battalion detachment

Troupemaster-Fusion,embraces
Troupemaster-Fusion,embraces
Troupemaster-Fusion,embraces

troupe of 5 Quins-All Fusions,all embraces
troupe of 5 Quins-All Fusions,all embraces
troupe of 5 Quins-All Fusions,all embraces

Solitair
Deathjester

Skyweaver of 3-Shuriken Cannon,Glaives
Skyweaver of 3-Shuriken Cannon,Glaives

Starweaver
Starweaver
Starweaver



Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/26 21:17:07


Post by: Wyldcarde


chriachrias wrote:
I'm looking to support my clowns with some forge world toys from craftworld and/or dark elder. My base is about 1k to 1.3k worth of clowns in cars with upgrades, a solitaire, and a shadowseer. I'm debating between wraithseer and a few Lord's and unit of guard, or hornets, or some combination of a few eldar tanks.

Basically looking to support the clowns with some long range hard hitting, but seems like there are a decent amount of options. Just not sure which direct to swing my toys. What would you guys take?


Maybe try a hemlock out? Not long range but definitely hard hitting. Gives out a -1 leadership bubble for a bit of synergy with death jesters and shadowseers.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/30 06:33:33


Post by: Robin5t


As a bit of a thought experiment, I decided to try and make a brigade detachment to 1850 points.

Here's what I came up with:

HQ
Shadowseer: Twilight Pathways
Troupe Master: Embrace, Fusion Pistol
Troupe Master: Embrace, Fusion Pistol

Troops:
Troupe x 5: All Embraces, 1 Fusion Pistol
Troupe x 5: All Embraces, 1 Fusion Pistol
Troupe x 5: All Embraces, 1 Fusion Pistol
Troupe x 5: All Embraces, 1 Fusion Pistol
Troupe x 5: All Embraces, 1 Fusion Pistol
Troupe x 5: All Embraces, 1 Fusion Pistol

Elites:
Solitaire
Death Jester
Death Jester

Fast Attack:

Skyweavers x 2: Un-upgraded
Skyweavers x 2: Un-upgraded
Skyweavers x 2: Un-upgraded

Heavy Support:
Voidweaver: Prismatic Cannon
Voidweaver: Prismatic Cannon
Voidweaver: Prismatic Cannon

All this comes to 1849 points. I was legitimately surprised this was possible without taking a ton of players without weapon upgrades. Even then, going for anything more expensive than an Embrace just didn't seem workable.

Anyone else think they can improve on this? I'm curious as to what we can all come up with. I'll be very impressed if anyone manages a decent number of dedicated transports.





Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/30 15:42:21


Post by: ClutterEater


 Robin5t wrote:
As a bit of a thought experiment, I decided to try and make a brigade detachment to 1850 points.

Here's what I came up with:

...

All this comes to 1849 points. I was legitimately surprised this was possible without taking a ton of players without weapon upgrades. Even then, going for anything more expensive than an Embrace just didn't seem workable.

Anyone else think they can improve on this? I'm curious as to what we can all come up with. I'll be very impressed if anyone manages a decent number of dedicated transports.



You need transports so, SO badly. Any respectable army list will mow down your 30 point t3 4++ dudes as they waltz across the board for 2+ turns to make combat (even with shadowseer double moves). You should not be taking fusion pistols on footslogging harlies for this reason. They aren't fast enough/safe enough to get into range to use them. Our transports are easily the MVPs of our book, followed by our troupes, due to their solid durability and high speed, and their ability to serve as firing platforms for fusion pistols while eating overwatch for our dudes. A harlequin list without transports is just asking to get tabled by anyone competent.

At 1850 the core of my list would be 5 starweavers with 5 troupe masters and 5x5 troupes, where every harlequin has an embrace and a fusion pistol. Do whatever you want with the remaining points (probably skyweavers for turn 1 charge potential, but a voidweaver works too). Turn one you advance everyone 22" up the board, and weather a single turn of enemy shooting. Turn two you either disembark to make combat OR fly 16" forward and use your fusion pistols, depending on the matchup and priority targets, and sling your transports into all secondary units to tie them up or use them to eat overwatch on certain units. The game should basically be over one way or the other by turn 3: either you did your job and killed the priority targets, or they popped enough transports and slowed you down too much.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/30 17:18:25


Post by: Robin5t


 ClutterEater wrote:
 Robin5t wrote:
As a bit of a thought experiment, I decided to try and make a brigade detachment to 1850 points.

Here's what I came up with:

...

All this comes to 1849 points. I was legitimately surprised this was possible without taking a ton of players without weapon upgrades. Even then, going for anything more expensive than an Embrace just didn't seem workable.

Anyone else think they can improve on this? I'm curious as to what we can all come up with. I'll be very impressed if anyone manages a decent number of dedicated transports.



You need transports so, SO badly. Any respectable army list will mow down your 30 point t3 4++ dudes as they waltz across the board for 2+ turns to make combat (even with shadowseer double moves). You should not be taking fusion pistols on footslogging harlies for this reason. They aren't fast enough/safe enough to get into range to use them. Our transports are easily the MVPs of our book, followed by our troupes, due to their solid durability and high speed, and their ability to serve as firing platforms for fusion pistols while eating overwatch for our dudes. A harlequin list without transports is just asking to get tabled by anyone competent.

At 1850 the core of my list would be 5 starweavers with 5 troupe masters and 5x5 troupes, where every harlequin has an embrace and a fusion pistol. Do whatever you want with the remaining points (probably skyweavers for turn 1 charge potential, but a voidweaver works too). Turn one you advance everyone 22" up the board, and weather a single turn of enemy shooting. Turn two you either disembark to make combat OR fly 16" forward and use your fusion pistols, depending on the matchup and priority targets, and sling your transports into all secondary units to tie them up or use them to eat overwatch on certain units. The game should basically be over one way or the other by turn 3: either you did your job and killed the priority targets, or they popped enough transports and slowed you down too much.
You're not getting the point - I'm not trying make the best list, I'm trying to make a brigade detachment from our codex at tourney points, just to see if we can. And when you've got to include 3 HQ, 6 troops, 3 elites, 3 fast attack and 3 heavy support, there's not much room left over for dedicated transports, but I'll be very impressed if someone can manage it.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/06/30 22:15:04


Post by: ClutterEater


Whoops! I continually confuse Brigades and Battalions, and so obviously found the whole thing pretty odd. You're right that it's pretty hard to fit everything you would need into a Brigade, and that my advice doesn't really apply there.

Carry on!




Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/01 14:04:57


Post by: Bloodshade


I think your's a good effort, you pretty much have to fit in all those things to fulfil the requirement.
So, no, I think there isn't room for improvement, you already stretched every single choice to the best they could have (in terms of upgrades).

But then, forgive my question: is there any point that I'm missing in deploying such an army, in a tournament even? Do you find having more command points compensate the "not optimal" choices you had to put in the list to fulfil the requirement?

Just asking to improve my knowledge should I've missed something


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/01 17:29:49


Post by: Chancetragedy


 lambsandlions wrote:
 Necronomic wrote:

So i should use 1 shadowseer and 2 troupemasters or 2 shadowsees and 1 troupemaster what do yout think?
You can only manifest a power once per turn, So if you have 2 shadowseers you can only use twilight pathways from one of them. For that reason I say go with the troupemaster.

Troupemasters are actually pretty amazing. On their own they are a nice threat and with a troupe they are insanely deadly. The only issue I have with them is your harlequins are already so deadly you don't really need then against most things. 5 Harlequins is already going to kill 6 MEQs.



I have been using 2 troupe masters with fusion/ caress and a solo shadowseer. I'm really really liking death jesters as well.

To answer the earlier question I am also taking fusion pistols at 2 per squad. I have been running 4 troupes 3 with all embraces and 1 with all caresses.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/01 18:25:19


Post by: lambsandlions


So now that we have a few weeks of games under our belts how are we feeling about fusion pistols? My initial thought was all or nothing either everyone should have a fusion pistols or no one. The reason being 5 fusion pistols are usually necessary to kill the average T7 w7-8 sv 3+ tank. 2 fusion pistols is just not enough to get the job done. But having 2pistols in every troupe means every troupe can threaten a tank, making each troupe less focused and more versitile. So what do you guys think is better? Focused troupes that can be targeted down but can kill a tank, or more versitile troupes that are harder to remove but can't kill a tank in one go?

Also if we have back up like a DE ravagers maybe the 2fusion would be better as the synergize better,. The troupes can take off the first few wounds and the ravagers finishes things off.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/01 20:06:39


Post by: Bloodshade


Look, my first tries were with 5man squads with 1-2-3 FP just to try out the impact each squad had (i'm playing mono harlequins, so no ravagers or similar).
The squad with 3 FP was by far the best performing as I often regretted having the others without that much versatility. So I ended up changing the list to 5man squads with full FP. Reason is I found necessary that each squad can be AMAP independent and I wanted each of them to be able to deal with as many opponent they could, if for whatever reason I should need to divide my forces on the battlefield and maybe "chase down" a particular foe. Worth noting that each Troupe is on Starweaver with either a TM or SS to help them (psychically or with an extra FP).
Doing fairly well so far. This weekend I might have another match, thinking of bringing Harleys again also to test this stuff against other opponents.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/01 20:30:40


Post by: Robin5t


 lambsandlions wrote:
So now that we have a few weeks of games under our belts how are we feeling about fusion pistols? My initial thought was all or nothing either everyone should have a fusion pistols or no one. The reason being 5 fusion pistols are usually necessary to kill the average T7 w7-8 sv 3+ tank. 2 fusion pistols is just not enough to get the job done. But having 2pistols in every troupe means every troupe can threaten a tank, making each troupe less focused and more versitile. So what do you guys think is better? Focused troupes that can be targeted down but can kill a tank, or more versitile troupes that are harder to remove but can't kill a tank in one go?

Also if we have back up like a DE ravagers maybe the 2fusion would be better as the synergize better,. The troupes can take off the first few wounds and the ravagers finishes things off.
I've been running two per troupe and it seems to me that two pistols will often soften up a T7 vehicle enough for your Embraces to then kill it on the charge, especially if a Troupe Master is nearby.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/02 08:30:18


Post by: froper98


How do people feel about having a detachment of Drukari/dark elder as help.




Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/02 10:21:23


Post by: Klowny


froper98 wrote:
How do people feel about having a detachment of Drukari/dark elder as help.




Would also like to know about this, loved drukhari and harli models for a long time and finally close to building my big ol pile.

Do incubi in a venom add anything that harpies don't already have? I like the idea of a CC heavy army and incubi look amazing.

Scourges are an obvious choice, adding the shooting punch from range that isn't commonplace in harlies. Please tell me mandrakes are good!


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/02 12:42:52


Post by: Bloodshade


I don't think CC units like incubi are what harlequins could need. I think more something like Dark Reapers for long range fire that our army really lacks. Or ravagers. Things like that.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/06 07:25:01


Post by: Pseudonym


In the games I've played I've had four troupes, run in two groups side by side. In each of those groups there is a troupe master and a shadowseer, giving each squad the reroll failed to wound ability from the troupe master AND the -1 to be wounded from the shadowseer. Taken together those buffs really make the troupes very hard hitting and durable.

I eventually want to run four troupes of five in four starweavers, each with either a troupe master or shadowseer. These will have a good mix of fusion pistols and embraces or caresses. They are the hard hitting shock troops.

Following behind them will be a larger troupe, armed with basic pistols and close combat weapons, on foot. They will be aided by another troupe master and shadowseer, and they will be meant for volume of attacks; to take out hordes of troops in a second wave attack.

So far the harlequins seems to work well. I look forward to hearing c&c, as well as other people's thoughts on how they play.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/06 08:35:30


Post by: Bloodshade


On paper I was optimistic too about Troupe's resilience. But I've faced the tough reality in the form of ork mobs of 30. That is what you can't afford to charge into. They don't care about second waves and only cost a 180ish of points. Furthermore, there are always a second and third unit of those.
Troupes are like a surgeon's scalpel, as well as our whole army too. It can take down any target, but it needs some shooting to thin out targets like ork mobz and genestealers.

For Troupes I found invaluable the Starweavers. They can bring them where they need to be faster than on foot, provide shooting, can charge targets first to soak up overwatch or nearby units to prevent countercharging or the fall back-shooting manoeuvre.
I wouldn't field Harlequins on foot in this edition, not even in larger groups.


Another point I'm reflecting on is how games are won in this edition. In 40% of the games I played or watched, all was decided on turn 1, for a macroscopical error fo one player, or a well executed alpha strike. A total of 80% of them was over by turn 3, one or both armies were token apart and still the winner was clear. This is the point: we can win by alpha strike but once our opponent knows that trick they will not allow us to do it anymore, so we must find an alternate win condition. I don't believe we can win a mid-game attrition war. So I was thinking about planning carefully for late game and even make use of the last turn (if we have it) to clear objectives and take them. But I need practice on this.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/07 15:31:19


Post by: Mayk0l


Played a couple of games with Harlequins as a big part of my Dark Eldar army. Once painted, I plan to go full Harlequins (been playing DE for so long).

Tried troupes on foot. They just vaporise before reaching combat. Even with buffs and bonuses, anything that gets a shot on them kills them dead.
Finished my first Starweaver but alas it was shot out of the sky turn one, and the troupe inside of it one second later.
I do believe that a serious number of troupes in Starweavers, with more dedication to 'getting in there' is the way to go.
I don't see any point to Troupes on foot. Tried that a couple of games but they were mostly useless all game.

Jester has been absolutely useless. Has done very, very little damage (maybe one or two wounds on infantry units, I played vs Marines and Necrons mostly) even though he survived all games. His cutesy morale ability was useless every time. Sniper was pointless as fishing for 6's is not a good strategy. Up to now I've just used him to soak overwatch before a decent units charges because he's got 5 wounds and a decent save lol. I'm not sure what Jester is trying to accomplish, but he's not doing a decent job so far.

Solitaire has been a beast so far. Today he killed Ahriman, a Hellbrute, and a whole squad of Rubric Marines in one game. Coolest thing was, Ahriman was actually on the other side of the table, but after the Blitz the Solster was right next to him. Wowza. Probably MVP for me (along with Ravagers, but that's another story). Last game the Solitaire killed a librarian and some honor guard. He's made back his points every game - at least.

Shadowseer feels.. I don't know, I feel kind of awkward with him. The minus to hit psychic power is limited in range. The movement bonus power is awkward - maybe it's because I haven't painted any jetbikes yet, seems best for those - because he has to stay close to the unit to cast it, but also to be effective, but once cast, the troupe is gone and the buff the Seer gives is gone as well (as they leave the bubble) or he's not around to join in on the charge.
I feel like there's way more potential in these powers than I am seeing or accomplishing right now. His minus to wound bubble has been awesome though.

Troupe Master looks cool on paper, but haven't been able to really use him because I've had trouble getting harlequins into combat.

I also feel like the army - mind you I haven't really played any Voidweavers yet, but - is light on heavy weaponry. I won all the games I played but it was mostly thanks to the Drukhari Dakka I brought along with the Clowns.

Some totally awesome things I love about harlequin:
I love how they just ignore all terrain. Just flat out ignore. It feels like a 90's shooter /noclip cheat mode. I particularly love charging through a wall to ignore overwatch.
Ignoring intervening models is cool to. You get to charge whatever you want. This has made the Solitaire so, so effective and scary. He basically teleports to right next to the opposing squishy. Awesome.
Invulnerable saves all around the board is awesome. I don't necessarily like them because I roll so many of them, but they totally speed up the game. I just roll four ups, don't care about rend
Fusion Pistols. Haven't tried them yet, but going to. I love how 8th edition has me trying all these new guns instead of always going stock because almost every upgrade is useless.

So yeah, I'll be painting more harlequins but I as I love a TAC kind of list, I doubt harlequins have all the tools to be flexible all around.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/07 17:01:29


Post by: Bloodshade


 Mayk0l wrote:
Played a couple of games with Harlequins as a big part of my Dark Eldar army. Once painted, I plan to go full Harlequins (been playing DE for so long).

Tried troupes on foot. They just vaporise before reaching combat. Even with buffs and bonuses, anything that gets a shot on them kills them dead.
Finished my first Starweaver but alas it was shot out of the sky turn one, and the troupe inside of it one second later.
I do believe that a serious number of troupes in Starweavers, with more dedication to 'getting in there' is the way to go.
I don't see any point to Troupes on foot. Tried that a couple of games but they were mostly useless all game.

100% agree. I tried in my first 8th edition 500pts game harleys on foot and it was clear they need a Starweaver to move. Never fielded them without one, since then,

 Mayk0l wrote:
Jester has been absolutely useless. Has done very, very little damage (maybe one or two wounds on infantry units, I played vs Marines and Necrons mostly) even though he survived all games. His cutesy morale ability was useless every time. Sniper was pointless as fishing for 6's is not a good strategy. Up to now I've just used him to soak overwatch before a decent units charges because he's got 5 wounds and a decent save lol. I'm not sure what Jester is trying to accomplish, but he's not doing a decent job so far.

Again, I agree. I didn't even try him out because it was clear on paper that for 75 points you're basically getting... a shuricannon.
It's sad (well, he'd joke around it anyways!) but he's simply not performant.

 Mayk0l wrote:
Solitaire has been a beast so far. Today he killed Ahriman, a Hellbrute, and a whole squad of Rubric Marines in one game. Coolest thing was, Ahriman was actually on the other side of the table, but after the Blitz the Solster was right next to him. Wowza. Probably MVP for me (along with Ravagers, but that's another story). Last game the Solitaire killed a librarian and some honor guard. He's made back his points every game - at least.

To be fair he's always been a beast. He can charge and maybe kill the key character in enemy's army by turn one, ignoring all screens he has and thus cripple an entire army.
Having played him also in an ynnari army, I think he simply needs rising crescendo, it was unbelievable how much I missed that rule on him.

 Mayk0l wrote:
Shadowseer feels.. I don't know, I feel kind of awkward with him. The minus to hit psychic power is limited in range. The movement bonus power is awkward - maybe it's because I haven't painted any jetbikes yet, seems best for those - because he has to stay close to the unit to cast it, but also to be effective, but once cast, the troupe is gone and the buff the Seer gives is gone as well (as they leave the bubble) or he's not around to join in on the charge.
I feel like there's way more potential in these powers than I am seeing or accomplishing right now. His minus to wound bubble has been awesome though.

Troupe Master looks cool on paper, but haven't been able to really use him because I've had trouble getting harlequins into combat.

About the shadowseer I can assure you he's absolutely nuts IF you get your clowns in to CC. Because sooner or later the enemy will disengage and shoot on them, and you'll need him to protect them, move them and possibly use his mirage launcher which most people forgets about but it's a must-use.
Of course the same applies to the TM. To maximise your Harlequin's efficiency in CC is key.

 Mayk0l wrote:
I also feel like the army - mind you I haven't really played any Voidweavers yet, but - is light on heavy weaponry. I won all the games I played but it was mostly thanks to the Drukhari Dakka I brought along with the Clowns.

Some totally awesome things I love about harlequin:
I love how they just ignore all terrain. Just flat out ignore. It feels like a 90's shooter /noclip cheat mode. I particularly love charging through a wall to ignore overwatch.
Ignoring intervening models is cool to. You get to charge whatever you want. This has made the Solitaire so, so effective and scary. He basically teleports to right next to the opposing squishy. Awesome.
Invulnerable saves all around the board is awesome. I don't necessarily like them because I roll so many of them, but they totally speed up the game. I just roll four ups, don't care about rend
Fusion Pistols. Haven't tried them yet, but going to. I love how 8th edition has me trying all these new guns instead of always going stock because almost every upgrade is useless.

So yeah, I'll be painting more harlequins but I as I love a TAC kind of list, I doubt harlequins have all the tools to be flexible all around.

Yeah. I'm glad that I'm not the only one to have seen manoeuvrability and flexibility as Harlequins' best weapons.
Always move fast (thus always Starweavers), pick your targets and fights, hit the enemy hard when you're ready and when he's not, maybe faking some charges sometimes!
Try out some mono-Harlequins and let us know, I can assure you that a couple of Voidweavers (I use three!) and some Skyweavers add an important emergency button in situations where your troupes alone would fail.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/07 20:30:11


Post by: ClutterEater


I have actually found an incredible amount of power in the Shadowseer's movement ability. Start of turn one I disembark her forward from her transport, and advance her as far up the table towards the enemy as possible. Then I move several starweavers up the board in a formation around her. During the psychic phase, I pick one within 3 inches that didn't advance, and use the "move again" power to slingshot it another 16" up the board towards the enemy.

A few reasons for this:

A. I kit every model possible with a fusion pistol, so more often than not I have a surprise 38" range (a bit longer since you measure open topped shooting range from the vehicle's hull instead of the base) melta alpha strike on an enemy vehicle or monster that almost always nets first blood.Very few things can hide from that, and few people expect it.

B. Puts a threat right in the enemy's face to give them something to deal with.

C. Lets me potentially charge that starweaver into a nearby unit to turn off their shooting.

D. I run the Yncarne in an auxiliary HQ detachment (so that I can keep Rising Crescendo) and more often than not she is summoned onto the table in the center of the enemy after the pop that transport and the guys inside. Through good use of soulbursts and bubble wrap you can typically keep her safe so that she can charge key enemy units next turn when the rest of your forces catch up.

Next turn I can easily repeat the process, and have the shadowseer sling another starweaver after a key target to melta it to death. Or I can just have everyone disembark and charge if the conditions are favorable. Latest that I make combat is turn 3, at which point the game is typically decided. 90% of lists I've played cannot handle this.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/07 23:32:14


Post by: Wyldcarde


I feel like this will be the issue with harlequins. There will be one list composition that works amazingly well and any variation will lead to horrible horrible death.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 00:17:16


Post by: Mayk0l


ClutterEater, thanks for explaining that Shadowseer play to me. I'll try something like that in my coming games. The way you play it sounds like the way it's supposed to go

About the Yncarne and going Ynnari: the Ynnari rules (where units gain Ynnari and SfD but lose their faction rules like rising crescendo) refers to your army as a whole, doesn't matter what detachment your units are in.
Question is however, how Ynnari units are chosen for your army. There are several threads on this. Some say it's all or nothing (your entire army becomes Ynnari regardless of detachments), some think you get to pick the individual units (again detachment doesn't matter).


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 01:22:26


Post by: ClutterEater


Yeah, Wyldcarde pretty much hit it right on the nose. Due to our lack of unit variation and the capabilities of other armies, there are really only a few optimal ways to play.

Mayk0I, I think the wording of the Xenos 1 FAQ is very clear:

" If your army is Battle-forged, Ynnari units can only be included in Detachments in which all units have the Ynnari keyword.’"

The auxiliary support detachment (HQ) is a separate detachment from my Harlequin battalion, and supreme command detachments.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 04:51:28


Post by: lambsandlions


The shadowseer has put in a lot of work for me as well. I run two starweavers (one with shadowseer and the other with a troupe master) I place them opposite anything I want dead turn 1. Turn 2 I disembark the starweaver near my shadowseer, move everything up and use twilight pathways to get the players up in charging distance for turn 2. That one-two punch really does some damage. I also have yvraine in my list (I go ynnari) so I can blitz the solitaire turn 1 and words of the phoenix him across the board (average 38" before charge, assuming an average charge of 7" you have 45" of threat. ) Yvraine also works wonders for players who had their starweavers blown up. You can move 8", twilight pathways 8" and words of the phoenix 8" more. That is usually enough of a surprise to catch your opponent off guard.



Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 05:16:41


Post by: Wyldcarde


Is word of the Phoenix and soulburst worth losing rising crescendo for?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 05:52:10


Post by: lambsandlions


Wyldcarde wrote:
Is word of the Phoenix and soulburst worth losing rising crescendo for?
yes a skyweavers moves 22" with raising crescendo but with wotp you can move 32". Wotp allows for two units to charge in turn 1 which is extremely important. One movement from a soul burst is usually better than raising cresendo. If you can ever shoot twice with fusion pistols it is crazy.

Also because we only have 7 different units ynnari adds a lot of flexibility and avoids monobuilds.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 06:04:07


Post by: Wyldcarde


Yeah can definitely see the advantages of Ynarri. But rising crescendo is really good as well. I feel like the builds will be different depending on which way you go with that.
There are definitely broken things that can be done with both keywords.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 07:33:41


Post by: froper98


I tried Ynarri and I do not feel that it is worth losing rising crescendo.

- Rising crescendo is far more reliable and I find more useful in most situations.
- the lose of a unit especially for Harle's is not good. the extra action is not worth the ability to charge into combat after falling back.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 08:21:54


Post by: Wyldcarde


Soulburst isn't just triggered by your own units dying anymore tho. Wiping an enemy unit does as well.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 09:34:09


Post by: lambsandlions


How often do you fall back with harlequins. I have never had an opponent who wanted more than one round with my harlequins, normally they are the ones falling back. You can fire pistols into combat so even if you get locked in with a vehicle you shouldn't be falling back.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 10:59:11


Post by: Trystis


 lambsandlions wrote:
How often do you fall back with harlequins. I have never had an opponent who wanted more than one round with my harlequins, normally they are the ones falling back. You can fire pistols into combat so even if you get locked in with a vehicle you shouldn't be falling back.


Every one of your movement phases.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 11:08:03


Post by: Mayk0l


 ClutterEater wrote:
Yeah, Wyldcarde pretty much hit it right on the nose. Due to our lack of unit variation and the capabilities of other armies, there are really only a few optimal ways to play.

Mayk0I, I think the wording of the Xenos 1 FAQ is very clear:

" If your army is Battle-forged, Ynnari units can only be included in Detachments in which all units have the Ynnari keyword.’"

The auxiliary support detachment (HQ) is a separate detachment from my Harlequin battalion, and supreme command detachments.



Ahhh my apologies! They FAQd this already!
Amazing.

Now I am seriously considering trying out your Tech


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 11:51:57


Post by: Bloodshade


From my experience, SfD is a very good ability, but for Harlequins (considered as a faction) is more important to have Rising Crescendo, due to how they play.

Also remember you can only cast WotP once per phase and it may not manifest.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 16:32:31


Post by: DanielFM


Trystis wrote:
 lambsandlions wrote:
How often do you fall back with harlequins. I have never had an opponent who wanted more than one round with my harlequins, normally they are the ones falling back. You can fire pistols into combat so even if you get locked in with a vehicle you shouldn't be falling back.


Every one of your movement phases.


And what use does it really have?
Harlequin troupes carry pistols, so they can shoot un combat regardless. They don't get bonuses for charging. The only possible (non-situational) bennefits are letting other units shoot into the combat (not a lot of ranged firepower in Harlequins) or getting to attack first. I guess they are nice free advantages, but do you really need them every turn?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 16:36:58


Post by: Mayk0l


Basically means you always attack first.

How are you guys liking multiassaults?
That 'go first' stratagem seriously screws us over, which is mostly useful when you're charging in multiple units into different combats.

Edit: removed a phone autocorrect typo.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/08 17:16:31


Post by: Bloodshade


Yep. That rule is for going first where you need.

For multiassaulting I usually think in advance (where possible) which one is absolutely key to go first in and maybe avoid charging two units of - say - genestealers. I prefer to charge just one of them and other charges - if needed - go on things that even if they sieze the attack with the stratagem they either do not deal sufficient damage (often this is the case of the Solitaire as he's quite tanky) or it's absolutely worthless to waste 2CP for attacking first with some lootas or similar units.
This follows the general rule I use which is "pick your fights". It's critical for Harlequins to do so, and multiassaults are another reason for it.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/13 12:17:17


Post by: str00dles1


What would be an all around good list for 2k Harleys? I know its not a ton of options but curious what you guys think


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/13 14:34:50


Post by: Bloodshade


Do you still have the list I PM'd you when you asked a couple of weeks ago?

Well, that remains my opinion on the matter


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/14 06:34:48


Post by: ClutterEater


Everything would be mounted, to start.

Mine looks something like:

5 man Troupe (all Fusion/Embraces) + Troupe Master (fusion/embrace) + Starweaver

(repeat the above 3 more times)

5 man Troupe (3 Fusion/embraces instead of 5 are needed to make the points work at 2k, if I recall correctly) + Shadowseer + Starweaver

6 Skyweavers with glaives

Brigade + Supreme Command detachment for 7 CP. Boom.

6 drops. You have 5 fast skimmers loaded with fusion and embraces. A shadowseer to double move a transport or jetbikes each turn. Very nasty melee with all those troupe masters around to buff up the troupes (and a few extra you can use to hold isolated objectives or bubble wrap against deep strike). Jetbikes to tie up enemy shooting units on turn one while you boost transports up the board towards them. You're free to then either disembark and charge on turn 2, or stay mounted and blast some targets with melta pistols instead. Fun, fast, strong, and flexible!


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/14 07:22:02


Post by: Mayk0l


Very small list no?
Wouldn't you be able to get more bodies in if you drop some fusion pistols and troupe masters. You'd have to rely a bit more on specialised fusion units and the masters bubble, but you may be able to get another weaver with dudes in your list. Or some dedicated anti tank
I myself always prefer boys over toys.
Or are you relying on fusions to do all the heavy (anti tank) lifting?
Looks like a very vulnerable list. Every death in your list is horrible.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/14 07:50:48


Post by: ClutterEater


You have to consider how I'm using it. The fusion pistols are serving as anti tank, and they have great synergy with our transports. Harlequins are all about picking and choosing the right battles at the right time, and so I want to wait as long as possible to leave my cushy, fast, hard to hit clown cars. The pistols give me something to do while I wait. The pistols themselves are cheap in the grand scheme of things, and the transports that I'm already paying for give them the range they lack on their own. Rising Crescendo means that I'm always going to be firing them even if I'm charging into/falling back from combat.

If I dropped ALL the fusion pistols in my list I save just short of 250 points. Could I add another clown car? Sure. But now I have no answer to tanks/monsters. Could I add a dedicated anti tank unit? Sure. But now the enemy has an easy target picked out for their big guns. The strength of the list is that each car on its own is a major threat to a variety of units, and the critical mass of fusion pistols (5+ in my experience) is enough to delete most tanks and monsters in one volley.

Instead of giving the enemy a single target to shoot at, you load up on fast, hard hitting transports that are surprisingly tough (-1 to hit and a 4++ goes a LONG way if you position well). Each one is a major threat, and there is no clear priority target.

I nearly always go first. The battle plan is to advance 3-4 of the transports as close as is safe to the enemy (22" in most cases). The shadowseer and 1-2 transports hang back a bit (she actually disembarks forward and advances as far as possible, while her escort positions to discourage sniping her out). The jetbike unit advances 22" and chains back to within 3" of her, depending on how far she was able to advance. Twilight Pathways gives the jetbikes another 22" of movement. 44" plus 2d6" charge range with Fly and HUGE bases means that unless the enemy has a LOT of bubble wrap then you can tie up a large number of their shooting units in close combat with a single charge.

The enemy army now faces 6 jetbikes on top of their biggest guns, and 5 transports loaded with melta clowns bearing down on them. Most armies do not do well in this situation, and my turn two alpha strike cripples them, even if I lose a transport or two (I rarely lose more than one on this turn, especially if I did my job right with the bikes).

In my experience "every death in your list is horrible" translates to "every unit in my list is useful." Very few points are wasted.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/14 08:23:44


Post by: Bloodshade


Agree. Fusions pistols are the best AT we can field, and having the first turn to act (be that positioning or charge) is key.
I honestly prefer to field a Solitaire and having two separate units of bikes, but that's my taste.
"Hit hard, fast and where you want" seem to be our only way out of this edition, and even then there are simply un-winnable match-ups (AM).
Sigh.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/14 08:32:49


Post by: teknoskan


The trick is to be certain you are utilizing your Rising Crescendo and HQ buffs. The moment you realize that getting that 4 attacks x 5 (or more) with a chance to reroll failed wounds during the Fight phase and -1 on wound rolls made against you is going to get you further on turn one than turn two, the better.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/14 11:32:09


Post by: Mayk0l


 ClutterEater wrote:
Fusion Wisdom Yo


Thanks for explaining and clearing up the questions I had. I see what you mean with the high saturation of goodies.
Have you played any games? How did they go?
How are your games versus the horde-like armies of boys or conscripts? Are your tactics any different?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/14 18:11:24


Post by: ClutterEater


I've been playing some variation of that list since the 8th leaks dropped before release. I get about 2-3 games a week. So a solid number at this point. My win ratio is pretty good. I have lost some very close games against Tau, but have not been stomped by anything yet.

Unfortunately I have not yet played Orks, we only have one Ork player around here. But my theory is that it would be a tough but possible matchup. Harlequins are much better at fighting elite/semi-elite armies, but 4 attacks per model does make us decent at clearing chaff infantry. The key would be to NEVER multi charge Troupes into Boy squads, because if they spend 2 CP to interrupt you WILL lose the second Troupe. Focus a single horde at a time, and try to completely cripple it. And utilize mobility/shooting to try to remove buff characters before fighting the hordes directly. Large squads can be somewhat unwieldy, and so using our mobility you can often position in such a way that they cannot bring all their forces to bear on you at once.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/14 21:33:53


Post by: Goobi2


I love taking a full unit or two of the bikes. They are pretty darn resilient vs shooting and they can put out some decent damage with their cannons and still pretty nasty in assault with those Glaives. I would still recommed against multi assaulting, but they are great at jumping over units to hunt down characters, too.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/15 00:15:51


Post by: feltmonkey


I'm very new to Harlequins, and 40K in general, so apologies if this is a stupid question, but what are everyone's thoughts on which weapons to take on Skyweavers? Haywire Cannon or Shurikan Cannon? I'd only have a small unit of them, two or maybe four (due to financial restrictions!) and I certainly won't be playing competitively.

I know haywire cannons are specifically for shooting vehicles, but if you move you get a -1 to hit with them, so does it turn your jetbikes into a stationary anti-vehicle gun platform with quite short range? I lean towards the Shurikan cannon, but does that take away one of the army's few ways of killing vehicles? What about a mix of the two? What role do the bikes really do well?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/15 00:47:52


Post by: rollawaythestone


Yeah, I think the Heavy on the Haywire Cannons makes them not a good option on the Bikes. Especially because you want to be able to Advance with the Bikes - which lets them still fire their Assault weapon Shuriken Cannon before charging a target.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/15 00:52:23


Post by: teknoskan


 feltmonkey wrote:
I'm very new to Harlequins, and 40K in general, so apologies if this is a stupid question, but what are everyone's thoughts on which weapons to take on Skyweavers? Haywire Cannon or Shurikan Cannon? I'd only have a small unit of them, two or maybe four (due to financial restrictions!) and I certainly won't be playing competitively.

I know haywire cannons are specifically for shooting vehicles, but if you move you get a -1 to hit with them, so does it turn your jetbikes into a stationary anti-vehicle gun platform with quite short range? I lean towards the Shurikan cannon, but does that take away one of the army's few ways of killing vehicles? What about a mix of the two? What role do the bikes really do well?


Vehicles are not that difficult to destroy like they were in previous editions, so I go Shuriken Cannon, for two good reasons. First and foremost, it's an Assault weapon, so you can fire it and advanced in the same turn, as opposed to the Haywire which is Heavy. Secondly, Shuriken Cannons are good against infantry and vehicles, where as the Haywire is significantly less deadly to infantry.

Skyweavers are also your dip-in/dip-out hit and run units. You move in to mow down a small squad of infantry with some Shuricannon fire and then charge in to clean up for your Troupe to bounce in before moving on to the next. These make good hit and run units because they take -1 to being shot at, and tend to be more hefty than a Troupe.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/15 08:34:57


Post by: feltmonkey


Thanks for the answers guys.

I think I'll build mine as shurikan cannons and zepherglaves then.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/15 09:09:53


Post by: Wyldcarde


It's worth doing a single bolas for the one grenade attack. Plus when casualties ensue they can die first. Saves 11 points in an army that wants every point it can get


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/15 10:51:16


Post by: feltmonkey


I'll be playing power level more than points, I suspect. I stay well clear of anything resembling competitive play!

If I get another box, in order to make a unit of four, I'll build one with A star bolos though. For the variety if nothing else.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/15 11:12:35


Post by: Bloodshade


I play 4+4 Skyweavers with shuricannon and zephyrglaives.
They entered in the roster on day one and they're still there, for a good reason. Best combination for shooting, free movement and CC efficiency.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/15 14:15:59


Post by: Wyldcarde


Yeah I've had mine pencilled in with haywire cannons but after playing a chunk of non harlequin games and the addition of fusion pistols to a chunk of models I feel they will switch to shuri too.

Have units of 4 been sufficient? I'm not sure if I will run 2 units of them.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/15 15:19:52


Post by: Bloodshade


I like them as 4 instead of 5 or 6 because I can hide them a little bit better from LoS.
Two units because they're not the hard hitters (I still believe Troupers are better in doing so if put in the right situation) but sort of space creators, either by providing blessed shooting, alpha-striking or being the bait-front liners.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/15 21:10:28


Post by: Mayk0l


Hi guys,

Played a game against my friends Imp. Fists. It was my fourth or fifth game in 8th edition, first one I played with a full Harlequin list. It’s a suboptimal list, because I need to paint more Starweavers and all of my Skyweavers. I tried the strategy of going full fusion pistols on everything like mentioned above (because in power games, why not).
It was a very small 50 point game. We both enjoy small games.

This is what I ran:
1 Shadowseer
6 Troupe (embraces/fusion pistols) in Starweaver
6 Troupe (embraces/fusion pistols) in Starweaver
5 Troupe (embraces/fusion pistols) on foot
1 Solitaire
1 Death Jester (this was filler because I didn’t have another Starweaver painted up).
Command points: 3

My opponent ran:
1 SM Captain (relic blade, 4+ inv., amongst others)
1 Tactical Squad (2x5 men) with missile launcher, flamer
1 Razorback with assault cannons (carrying 5 marines)
1 Landraider with TL lascannon, multimelta and all the heavy bolters/stormbolters etc. It can take (carrying 5 marines and the captain).
1 Venerable Dreadnought (TL lascannon)
1 Empty Rhino with stormbolters
Command points: 3

I thought he was bringing Orcs (he said he would, but I has happier to see this list). He thought I was going to bring a Wraithknight, which I didn’t (don’t like big guys in small games).

We played Maelstrom, Spoils of War.
My opponent got first turn. I deployed completely out of sight. He drove around a bit, scoring tactical objectives from the beginning. He got a good run of cards and it was quickly clear I was never going to keep up in objectives, so I had to go for the throat. I moved up but stayed in cover turn 1.

His turn two he managed to get his Dreadnougt in LOS of my Starweaver, whose wing was sticking out of the building he was in. Shot the Lascannon, couldn’t save it and he rolled a 6, killing the Weaver. He also managed to get the empty rhino in sight of my Solitaire (misplay on my part), shooting the stormbolters and taking off three wounds. My second turn I went for the throat because I thought sitting back wasn’t going to go well for all those fusion pistol fragile clowns versus tanks on seemingly all the relevant objectives; moving up my units, double moving the other starweaver with my psychic power and getting in his grill. The fusion pistols from the harlequins inside the weaver immediately blew up the dreadnought and I charged the landraider right next to it. The rest of my army, including Smite from the Shadowseer, put about 10 wounds on the landraider. I rolled high and was able to charge the backside with the starweaver, which did nothing as expected. Both harlequin troupes failed their charges (including the 3” charge from one of them by rolling double one. I couldn’t reroll because I had already used my strategic points, which was a mistake). I decided the Solitaire couldn’t get any cover anywhere close to the enemy, so safest place for him was in combat, and charged him across the board into the landraider as well, taking it down to 5 wounds.

On his turn 3 his landraider was pretty much surrounded save for a small spot on which he disembarked five marines and the captain. He decided to let the landraider stay in combat. The other unit got out of the Razorback. Ten marines shot and almost deleted both the troupes on foot and charged the one that failed their 3” charge later together with the captain, failing to kill the last guy. The lonely Trouper took out 3 marines and then fled due to morale. The other tactical squad charged the solitaire, taking it down to one wound. The solitaire killed four of them in return. Marines passed morale. In the meantime, his empty rhino drove around and grabbed a steady stream of tactical objectives, we both flipped cards that were great for his position, so he took most of mine as well (which is possible in this mission).
My turn three I flipped a bunch of cards that al referred to the tactical objective right in front of his landraider. I couldn’t move there (I was in combat all over) so my only hope was to rearrange my charges and doing some neat consolidation and such. I removed the solitaire from combat and put it next to his captain. I put my shadowseer next to the captain, as well. I think both troupes on foot were already dead at that point. I disembarked the third Troupe and put it next to the razorback. The weaver left combat (he was on the back of the landraider), jumped to the front side of the landraider on top of the tactical objective. The landraider was now no longer tied up in combat. My plan was to charge the landraider with everything in a way that all my units would end up on top of the objective at the end of the turn. Smite took the Captain to 4 wounds. The troupe next to the razorback shot it with fusion pistols and failed to kill it, inflicting nine wounds and taking it to 1, which proved crucial in this game. The starweaver shot the small tactical squad that was with the captain, got lucky and killed both marines. I charged the weaver into the landraider, he overwatched hit with the multimelta and rolled a six on the damage to kill the Weaver. This put my troupe in an awkward position because they’d eat overwatch too. Troupe multi charged the remaining sergeant and the landraider. The landraider killed 3 troupers in overwatch. The troupe managed to kill the sergeant and bring the landraider down to 1 wound, while charging in a way they’d both be right on top of the objective. The solitaire and the shadowseer killed the captain and consolidated onto that vital objective and also getting into combat with the landraider, who attacked and did nothing.

Board right now:
He has a full wound empty rhino, and a razorback and landraider on one wound.

His turn 4 he removed the landraider from CC. He shot the assault cannon into the troupe, but didn’t do anything because of crappy rolling. The stormbolters on the rhino failed to do anything and the landraider couldn’t shoot.
He was way ahead on me in tactical points, so I had to table him if I wanted to win.
My turn four I positioned the troupers to have 2 fusions in range of the landraider and 1 in range of the razorback. Solitaire moved in between both to have a position to kill anything that survived. Shadowseer and Death Jester stayed on the objective. My plan: kill both landraider and razorback, then head for the rhino (which would have been easy with the double move power).
I decided to shoot the landraider first, hit, wounded, destroyed it, he rolled for explosion, rolled a six, and proceeded to kill the troupe, the solitaire and the shadowseer in the explosion. That left me with just the Death Jester.

Next turn he tabled my by killing the Death Jester. He won 12-7 in victory points.


So yeah, pretty cool game. The explosion killing like 300 points worth of models was insane and immediately decided the game then and there. I went from a position of being able to table him, to being all but tabled immediately myself. Of course, it’s super epic when something like this happens and we were both pretty excited, but Harlequins felt a bit cheated (and embarassed as well, isn’t this the kind of way the Jester usually kills people?!). It was a bit anticlimactic, but fun nonetheless. It’s that kind of moment that makes you go ‘owww snap’ but on the other hands it’s another one of those ‘game was decided in one dice roll’ kind of way.
I had a fantastic game and my opponent deserved the win for playing the objective game very well. Maelstrom objectives tend to be swingy but it was great nonetheless.
I got unlucky at certain points, but he rolled a *lot* of misses and I rolled an insane amount of 4+ invulns so I can’t really complain.

I learned a lot from this game:

This I noticed:
- Troupes on foot are basically useless. I didn’t have the third starweaver painted up so decided to go for that troupe with jester and shadowseer backup like in my last couple of games, but they moved up, failed a charge and were deleted.
- The units with the starweavers were much, much scarier, tactically more fun to play, and much better protected versus small arms fire and overwatch. I don’t think I’ll go for troupes on foot again.
- Death Jester is useless as freck. He put one wound on a space marine the entire game. That ups his killstreak to 3 1-wound models in 4 games. The morale thing is pointless. The sniper rule is useless because the characters he targets shrug off AP0 shots. He doesn’t shine versus marines, I am aware of that (I’m sure he’s much better versus Orcs, Tau, Guard or something like that), but I was disappointed in him again. That was the last time I’m bringing him, so all the more reason to paint up more Starweavers. I had no choice in this game though.

- Shadowseer is an allround solid unit. He becomes awkward when you footslug him (because by using his psychic power you effectively remove units from his bubble). I think he’s better either in a Weaver, using the move-move ability more tactically instead of aggressively (for example to take objectives or get to weak characters in the back) and on different units (I’m thinking the power would be awesome for Skyweavers, but I haven’t painted mine yet). His -1 to wound bubble was very strong. Smite was insane. I rolled two 11’s on psychic powers, taking a lot of wounds off of models. But even D3 is pretty strong. In this game, he had nothing to deny with.
- I am now a believer of all-fusion pistol Harlequins. In power games it’s a nobrainer as it doesn’t ‘cost’ anything anyway, but I might do it in points games as well. The clowns become scary as hell and if you manage to decently protect them during the game, they’re straight up lethal.
- Embraces on the units were decent all around versus MEQ. I didn’t need a rerolling Troupe Master (or at least, didn’t miss him). Caress on the Solitaire was awesome. I decided to not use the Kiss in any of his charges, either because it was 6+ to wound vs. a 5+ for the caress ( vs. the landraider) or 4+ to wound AP-1 seemed useless (versus his Captain), or because I didn’t need D3 wounds (on the tactical marines). I have yet to use the Kiss in any game. It’s kind of weird, it’s the most expensive weapon pointswise but it’s a weapon I’m least inclined to use.
- Solitaire was great again. He’s more than earned his points back every game. He’s so scary. And I love it when the opponent says: “you’re not shooting that guy?” and I can give the confusing answer of “Eh no, he has no guns.” Nobody sees the 24 inch movement, 12 inch charge coming.
- Overwatch is an absolutely b*tch. Starweavers taking overwatch for your troupes is awesome, but when they get shot (like mine, during overwatch) it’s really annoying. And I only ran into one flamer, so it could have been a lot worse. I guess, all the more reason to just run more Starweavers. The more games I play (which is still only a few, and I’ve yet to play jetbikes), the more I feel the army is very dependent on Starweavers doing most of the heavy lifting.
- As previously discussed: I didn’t miss a heavy weapons squad like the Voidweaver. Having listened to the advice above and having played this game, saturating your army with fusion pistols is probably a better idea than putting the big guns on one platform that can be shot out of the sky in one shot (like what happened to my Starweavers). This is actually quite a shame because it makes a harlequin unit redundant and we already have so few units, making lists feel even more spammy.

- Play more conservatively with stratagem points. I spent mine turn one and his turn two, because I thought every time I used one it was a crucial roll, but failing that charge later with the troupe (and not being able to completely surround the landraider) was very deadly for me.
- I need a lot more practice with Harlequins. It’s a whole new game coming from Dark Eldar. Positioning, picking fights, deciding what to tie up in combat and what to leave alone, becomes all the more important when playing harlequins. There was little LOS blocking terrain in the middle of the board to help me negate overwatch, but I could’ve positioned the objectives more tactically amongst LOS blocking terrain. That’s one thing to remember.
I misplayed a lot of things, at times harlequins feel awkward to play and can be very unforgiving, but it’s been great playing them again and I’m looking forward to playing again, painting up more Starweavers, Troupes and some Jetbikes, and GIT GUD.

So great game!
Any advice is welcome.

Edit: just realised, typing this, I could've dropped the jester for a troupe master which would've nailed me three more CP, derp


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/16 00:48:08


Post by: lambsandlions


So after a few games I am thinking of dropping my troupe master. It's not that they are not good, they are great, but I just don't need them. At 74pts they only increase the damage of my 150pt troupe by 16-25%. They actually just feel like overkill than anything else and puts the price of the whole unit over the top. I am also playing ynarri so it is awkward to soul burst and leave the troupe master exposed.

With the saved points I am thinking more fusion pistols because those have been gold for me.



Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/16 02:07:58


Post by: Wyldcarde


How did your opponent move his land raider out of combat and still shoot with it?
If the landraider falls back it can't shoot or assault.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/16 02:44:37


Post by: teknoskan


Wyldcarde wrote:
How did your opponent move his land raider out of combat and still shoot with it?
If the landraider falls back it can't shoot or assault.


Does it have Flying?


(Joke btw)


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/16 03:21:22


Post by: Wyldcarde


It should have!
It needs the same as the wraithknight where it can fall back and still shoot. I'm fine with smaller tanks being tied down by close combat but a land raider should not care at all.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/16 06:12:16


Post by: Mayk0l


He didn't shoot the Landraider, he shot the assault cannon on the one wound razorback.
Or did you mean something else? I can't really find the bit where I said the Landraider shot after falling back.

I think big vehicles should be able to fall back and shoot. Fighting vehicles now has become a game of trying to "tag" them either by charging something into them or by sneaky consolidation moves.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/16 08:27:02


Post by: ClutterEater


Got a tournament report for you guys. Just got home. 3 rounds at 2000 points using fairly standard matched play rules, and keeping the RAW "drop first pick first" deployment rule.

I ran...

5 Troupes (Fusion/Embraces) of 5 (1 had only 3 fusion for points)
4 Troupe Masters (Fusion Embraces)
1 Shadowseer
5 Starweavers
1x6 Skyweavers (Zephyr/Shuriken)

1st round got tabled by an airborne krieg list (my housemate) that was... unconventional... He got pretty lucky early and straight up killed 2 transports with a single missile each. I couldn't hide from the fliers, but I couldn't rush at them either because of hammer and anvil deployment (they were so far away!)/all the melta guns inside them/all the death riders/saint celestine below them waiting for me to get close. It was a good counter to my list.

2nd round tabled a Tau gunline with a stormsurge, 2 broadsides, and 2 ghostkeels.

3rd round tabled a Necron gunline with 60 warriors, 9 heavy destroyers, orikan/anrakyr, and a DDA.

Took 6th out of 20 overall, and I was pretty sure I could have beaten half of the top 5 lists based on what I saw of them.

My takeaways:

- I could have dropped 2 Troupe Masters and been fine. Although sometimes the redundancy/cheap overwatch eaters are nice to have.
- Staying in your clown cars is often a very good choice. It lets you fusion things to death and forces them to kill the car. Then you get another round of fusion followed by a charge. This is most useful on turn 2 when you COULD get out after rushing them, but there's a risk that you won't cripple the enemy enough with your alpha strike. The turn 3 disembark worked out well in games 2 and 3 for me.
- 6 jetbikes moving 44" via twilight pathways and then charging can tie up a LOT of shooting units in CC all at once, but you can probably get away with just 3-4 and have mostly the same effect.
- We have a really hard time against armies that are faster than we are (I imagine Dark Eldar would be really hard) and a really easy time against stationary/slow ones.
- If fliers become the metagame, which it looks like is going to happen, then we need to start thinking about how to slot in Craftworld fliers to help out. Crimson hunter or hemlock would be really nice to have. Several of the top 5 lists had more than 1 flyer. I have no idea how I would handle Stormravens (or even the Valk/Vultures I fought round one) without at least one flyer.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/16 08:41:26


Post by: Bloodshade


I think we are going to a point where - due to our very limited choice pool - we'll have soon THE LIST and any variety depends of our personal taste and will of making changes of that version.
And I'm referring to the fact that we all are agreeing on many points: troupes full fusion on starweaver, shadowseer, solitaire, skyweavers.
Let's wait the real book, fine, but I personally think I'll find kind of a definitive list in the next two-three matches (today still Ynnari, but starting from the next match I'll be all Harlequins again).

 lambsandlions wrote:
So after a few games I am thinking of dropping my troupe master. It's not that they are not good, they are great, but I just don't need them. At 74pts they only increase the damage of my 150pt troupe by 16-25%. They actually just feel like overkill than anything else and puts the price of the whole unit over the top. I am also playing ynarri so it is awkward to soul burst and leave the troupe master exposed.

With the saved points I am thinking more fusion pistols because those have been gold for me.


That's an interesting point, let's calculate in detail.
Without Troupmaster
4,4 Wounds on 5+
6,6 Wounds on 4+
8,8 Wounds on 3+

With Troupemaster
5,8 Wounds on 5+ (+24%)
7,7 Wounds on 4+ (+14%)
9,6 Wounds on 3+ (+12,5%)

From that, we get that the Troupemaster has a better chance to have influence when the troupe is wounding on 5+, less on 4+ and a little less more on 3+.

I can see your point, and I'm able to add that it really depends on the weapon you give to the Troupe (the caress easily diminishes the Troupemaster's usefulness, while he improves instead Troupes armed with any other weapon) and the type of targets you want to send them into.
Theoretically it makes perfectly sense to equip a Troupe with full embraces and full fusion pistols without the help of a Troupemaster: they'll have ease to kill in CC stuff with their easier-wounding embraces and they can manage large stuff with fusions.
I still think the TM is worth his points in most cases (those where you're wounding on 5+), because with improving the effectiveness of the Troupe he also adds 5A as well, with a weapon of your choice. So you're basically adding 25% from his 5 attacks (a little more since he hits on 2+) plus the percentage chosen from the calculation above, for a total of 37,5-49% efficiency for about +50% in points. I personally run only one TM with Kiss+Fusion - and two Shadowseers as other HQs - because he has potential on his own and he's not there to re-roll 1s to Wound only.

Cheers


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/16 13:49:13


Post by: Wyldcarde


 Mayk0l wrote:
He didn't shoot the Landraider, he shot the assault cannon on the one wound razorback.
Or did you mean something else? I can't really find the bit where I said the Landraider shot after falling back.

I think big vehicles should be able to fall back and shoot. Fighting vehicles now has become a game of trying to "tag" them either by charging something into them or by sneaky consolidation moves.


Ah sorry my bad I misread it.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/16 23:46:41


Post by: lambsandlions


 Bloodshade wrote:
I think we are going to a point where - due to our very limited choice pool - we'll have soon THE LIST and any variety depends of our personal taste and will of making changes of that version.
And I'm referring to the fact that we all are agreeing on many points: troupes full fusion on starweaver, shadowseer, solitaire, skyweavers.
Let's wait the real book, fine, but I personally think I'll find kind of a definitive list in the next two-three matches (today still Ynnari, but starting from the next match I'll be all Harlequins again).

 lambsandlions wrote:
So after a few games I am thinking of dropping my troupe master. It's not that they are not good, they are great, but I just don't need them. At 74pts they only increase the damage of my 150pt troupe by 16-25%. They actually just feel like overkill than anything else and puts the price of the whole unit over the top. I am also playing ynarri so it is awkward to soul burst and leave the troupe master exposed.

With the saved points I am thinking more fusion pistols because those have been gold for me.


That's an interesting point, let's calculate in detail.
Without Troupmaster
4,4 Wounds on 5+
6,6 Wounds on 4+
8,8 Wounds on 3+

With Troupemaster
5,8 Wounds on 5+ (+24%)
7,7 Wounds on 4+ (+14%)
9,6 Wounds on 3+ (+12,5%)

From that, we get that the Troupemaster has a better chance to have influence when the troupe is wounding on 5+, less on 4+ and a little less more on 3+.

I can see your point, and I'm able to add that it really depends on the weapon you give to the Troupe (the caress easily diminishes the Troupemaster's usefulness, while he improves instead Troupes armed with any other weapon) and the type of targets you want to send them into.
Theoretically it makes perfectly sense to equip a Troupe with full embraces and full fusion pistols without the help of a Troupemaster: they'll have ease to kill in CC stuff with their easier-wounding embraces and they can manage large stuff with fusions.
I still think the TM is worth his points in most cases (those where you're wounding on 5+), because with improving the effectiveness of the Troupe he also adds 5A as well, with a weapon of your choice. So you're basically adding 25% from his 5 attacks (a little more since he hits on 2+) plus the percentage chosen from the calculation above, for a total of 37,5-49% efficiency for about +50% in points. I personally run only one TM with Kiss+Fusion - and two Shadowseers as other HQs - because he has potential on his own and he's not there to re-roll 1s to Wound only.

Cheers
I agree that the TM is worth his points, as far as HQ buffs go his is one of the strongest, much better than that re-roll 1s to hit most HQs have. My issue is that with limited points I think more fusion would be better than the troupe master.

My current list is

Shadow seer
Troupemaster with embrace and fusion
Yvraine

solitaire

2x5 troupes with embrace and fusion in starweaver
2x5 troupes with caress in starweaver

scourge/shining spears/skyweavers (these are all around 130ish points and I switch them out regularly)

Anyway I think I would rather have 4 troupes of 5 players with embrace and fusion. As it is my battle plans can be really messed up if the starweavers with the fusions gets blown up before they have a chance to do their job. and 10 fusion pistols is better than the first troupe master. The more I play with fusion pistols the more I feel they are necessary. They are just so good. If I were to move up in points I could see myself putting more troupe masters in the list.





Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/17 08:29:50


Post by: Bloodshade


Yes, after seeing your list I think you definitely can put another 10 FP to use.
They keyword here is "limited points", if you play 1500 or 1000 (75 or 50 PL), you definitely need to optimise choices and gears.

I'd personally cut a whole troupe in order to have the remaining ones full-geared without having to cut a TM or something else, and spend the remaining points in other choices (new ones or pumping up the existing ones).
But that's just how I'd solve the issue.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 00:16:39


Post by: Draco765


Something I am going to try:

Battalion Detachment

Troupe Master: Harlequin's Caress, Prismatic Grenades, Shuriken Pistol
5x Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Embrace, Prismatic Grenades
Starweaver: 2x Shuriken Cannon

2x
Shadowseer: Hallucinogen Grenade Launcher, Miststave, Shuriken Pistol
5x Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Embrace, Prismatic Grenades
Starweaver: 2x Shuriken Cannon

6x Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Embrace, Prismatic Grenades
Starweaver: 2x Shuriken Cannon

3x Death Jester: Shrieker Cannon
Starweaver: 2x Shuriken Cannon

2x
Skyweaver: Shuriken Cannon, Star Bolas
Skyweaver: Shuriken Cannon, Zephyrglaive
Skyweaver: Shuriken Cannon, Zephyrglaive

Troupes and Death Jesters stay in Starweavers for as long as needed using Fusion Pistols to kill any high W models. Shadowseer can use Hallucinogen Grenade at near by groups.

Death Jesters can harass Characters or spam lots of shots into hordes.

Skyweavers are just for speed harassment and grabbing odd far off objectives.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 06:40:22


Post by: heckler


I've been using 2 shadowseer and 2 troupe masters since 8th has started. Lately I find myself thinking about switching a seer to a 3rd troupe master. Don't get me wrong, the shadowseer is great, but I feel that Twilight Pathways is amazing, but Fog of dreams is just good but situational. This would also free up some points to take several more fusion pistols (I've been running 3 per unit of 5) as I find that with 3 you are almost always just shy of killing a vehicle outright.

Also, after watching a bunch of battle reports and I must admit that skyweaver jetbikes seem to come up short in most every one. I have yet to use them myself, though.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 06:56:06


Post by: Klowny


Are harlies competitive? I can't see 5 troupes being good against flyer spam, or heavy vehicles screened by hordes of chaff?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 07:09:30


Post by: heckler


you will hit fliers on 4's with a ton of fusion pistols. It could potentially work in your favor and down them in short order if you can manage to hit. being able to zoom 16" and be within 3" of fliers is pretty strong when you have multiple copies gunning for their prized units.

I think where harlequins struggle is against hordes of infantry. I'm having a tough time seeing how I could do well against the green tide or nid swarm with the lists I've been using.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 07:15:19


Post by: Wyldcarde


And that will be the issue with masses of fusion pistols. Hordes don't really care about it all that much.
There may be a balance that needs to be reached between having the fusion pistols to make the units nasty but not costing yourselves too many bodies in the process.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 08:55:25


Post by: Bloodshade


Yep, mobs and hordes are the problem with this 8th edition.
The flamer change and the fact that most of them completely ignore Morale where insteas it's been designed to be their weakness is something GW needs to address. Right now for us (and "us" I mean most armies, not only Harlequins) AM and ork mobs are almost untouchable, also because they are insanely cheap (and we aren't) for what they do.
I've been keeping 3 otherwise sub-optimal Voidweavers in the list since 3-4 matches JUST to add a little bit more of anti-infantry weapons, although when you roll a total of 5 on 3D6 shots it's the opposite of hilarious...

GW giff back flamers pls.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 17:06:41


Post by: heckler


yeah, the fact that flamers hit an average of 3-4 models really takes the oomph right out of them. And with traditional AOE weaponry, it seems they got buffed while shooting single targets while getting hosed when firing at mobs. Actual anti infantry seems to be other cheap infantry.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 22:08:11


Post by: Dealer


Hi guys. I thought I would chime in. XD

I played W40k extensively on 1st and 2nd Edition (dark millenium). So that's a long time ago. Used to play Harlequins when you could easily kill Bloodthirsters but gretchings with blunderbusses were your worst nightmare (and the virus grenade ofc XD). I collected a small Deathwatch force during 7th but didnt really play due to... life. Anyway, after a long, long hiatus I decided to come back and jump on the 8th edition bandwagon and having a blast. "New" harlequin miniatures are beautiful.

Some really good tips in this thread. Specially loved the Starweaver + Shadowseer trick by ClutterEater. A few inches can mean a lot for those fusions. I thought I would throw in my 2 cents.

I've played over 10 games with the Harlequins in the last few weeks and they were pretty brutal. I played against Deathguard, Ultramarine Primaris, Blood Angels, Genestealer Cult and Craftworld Eldar. Most of my games were to 1000 points (my army is just starting), except a couple of 2000 games against the Deathguard player.

I have to say they seem pretty good as I managed to give a good fight in every game and in fact won the majority of them, and Im not a very experienced player. I have not played against horde armies like Orks or Tyranids (or the lists people talk so much about: conscripts/cultists spam, Roboute + Friends... ; no one plays those around here), and I believe those may be the bane of the very specialized and expensive Harlequins, so take my conclusions with "a grain of salt".

Troupes are damn good in melee though they tend to die to small arms fire in high numbers, so you have to choose a good target cause after that first charge you will get focused (after the obvious fall back) and lose a good bunch of models. Rising Crescendo is good but not as good as i thought:
The first part of Rising Crecendo lets you advance and charge. That is great but transports pretty much replace this, and its a lot better to disembark, move, shoot and charge.
The second part of Rising Crescendo lets you fall back and stil shoot and charge. Many times you only have 1-2 troupe in melee. There is normally no point in falling back to shoot and charge back in combat as you can shoot pistols in melee and you will go first anyways in the normal melee phase (after charges). You save yourself some overwatch shots. Its ok if you want to leave and charge something else though.
So perhaps playing Ynnari Harlequins may be better, at least playing at 1000-1500 points.

The solitaire, well... Im surprised at the feedback. He has been underwhelming for me. I started using him to hunt enemy characters like psykers but surprisingly enough he didnt excell at killing those (I got killed twice by a Nurgle sorcerer after perhaps some average rolls; he can dish out mortal wounds while manifesting psychic powers and with smite, etc, its pretty deadly). At the moment, I find out that he is best used to cover your units as you advance. The turn you are going in (its not always the first) you blitz up and tie a big, shooty unit. He will inflict some casualties but best of all he will have to fall back on his turn (or fight back) and you will avoid some important shooting on your troupes/vehicles.

The shadowseer rocks. Nothing to add from what has been said. I normally pick Fog of Dreams over Path of Twilight as transports/starweavers are normally enough to get my troupes to combat and a -1 to hit (both in shooting and fight phases) is very powerful combined with -1 to wound.

The deathjester is overcosted. For just 20 more points you get a starweaver that adds a lot more to the army. Morale isnt that of a problem from what I've experienced (almost everyone has some rule against it: TSKNF, Synapse, Ork thingy, etc) so his ability to remove special weapons/sergeants is almost useless. His weapon is not that nice to snipe characters in power armor unless you roll 6s on wounds like a pro.

The MVP of the army is the starweaver. A 5 man troupe + troupe master (all with fusion pistols) on a starweaver is quite disgusting as you will move up 16 inches next to some heavy armored target (very likely within 3 inches) and vaporize it most of the times. I had 2 games in a row with the nurgle player in which I just moved up on both of my first turns and placed a starweaver next to his hellbrute and another beside his plague drone. Both were gone by the end of the turn, both times...! Just sick. People are learning to watch out for it so it will not be as punishing in the future I think. But stil, really really good.

I deploy few units as many are embarked within the transports so I get first turn most of the time. That said, I've found you dont really want to go first always. Many times you wont be able to reach the enemy with fusions on the first turn, so depending on objectives (and if there is enough LoS blocking terrain) I sometimes prefer to go second and let them advance. Then you fly out of your blocking terrain and pick your targets with your fusion pistols. In my experience you dont want to advance and leave your army out in the open turn 1, inflicting very litte casualties and facing heavy fire back. You play the waiting game sometimes.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 22:20:03


Post by: Silentz


Where are you guys getting all these fusion pistols and embraces from? Only 2 of each in a box, which is really annoying me. Bits sites coming up blank too.

Or are you just not playing WYSIWYG?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 22:24:10


Post by: Dealer


 Silentz wrote:
Where are you guys getting all these fusion pistols and embraces from? Only 2 of each in a box, which is really annoying me. Bits sites coming up blank too.

Or are you just not playing WYSIWYG?


In my case, I am not. I just have 2 pistols mounted per troupe but that is not a problem with my local group/store. I just equip the whole squads with the same gear (normally embrace/fusion) so there can be no confusion. Besides, the Harlequin Kiss is the most iconic and beautiful harlequin weapon (imho) so theres no way Im not mounting a couple of those in each squad (even though its pretty bad ingame).


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 22:46:39


Post by: teknoskan


 Dealer wrote:

The first part of Rising Crecendo lets you advance and charge. That is great but transports pretty much replace this, and its a lot better to disembark, move, shoot and charge.
The second part of Rising Crescendo lets you fall back and stil shoot and charge. Many times you only have 1-2 troupe in melee. There is normally no point in falling back to shoot and charge back in combat as you can shoot pistols in melee and you will go first anyways in the normal melee phase (after charges). You save yourself some overwatch shots. Its ok if you want to leave and charge something else though.
So perhaps playing Ynnari Harlequins may be better, at least playing at 1000-1500 points.


As a Harlequin only player, I can see where you are not utilizing Rising Crescendo to its full capability.

First, Rising Crescendo isn't on the Starweaver so it is a moot point to state that using the transport is better. The point is that you can have your footsloggers fly across the field if you have no way to seek transport. That's a-fletching-mazing given that you can have an entire army potentially move 14" and charge in one turn. That can be a game changer.

Secondly, you're not understanding the purpose to falling back and charging. You're not going to want to fall back away from a target, shoot them, and charge back in. Harlequins have flip belts and thus can move through models. You're going to want to fall back towards a higher priority target, shoot the unit you fell back from to clean up the left overs, and then charge your higher priority target. Preferably after something else has charged in to soak overwatch. (Such as a Solitaire)


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 23:19:07


Post by: Celerior


I'm an Astra Militarum player without the Xenos indexes, but I've seen two battle reports with harlies, and think I have a bit to contribute.

Robin5t, would taking an "Aeldari" detachment and subbing out some of your units for cheaper ones from other Aeldari sub-factions help make room (points-wise) for transports without being dead-weight?

A thought on death-jesters: Suppose they shoot my infantry squad and want to force me to remove a lascannon model. That would be a great place for me to use 2 command points to cause my unit to auto-pass morale. At 1850 points, I have 15 command points to play with. When it's really critical, I bet the death-jester's ability won't get through.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/18 23:59:54


Post by: teknoskan


Celerior wrote:
I'm an Astra Militarum player without the Xenos indexes, but I've seen two battle reports with harlies, and think I have a bit to contribute.

Robin5t, would taking an "Aeldari" detachment and subbing out some of your units for cheaper ones from other Aeldari sub-factions help make room (points-wise) for transports without being dead-weight?

You can't take an "Aeldari" detachment, but you can take detachments from other Aeldari factions as they share faction keywords.

Celerior wrote:

A thought on death-jesters: Suppose they shoot my infantry squad and want to force me to remove a lascannon model. That would be a great place for me to use 2 command points to cause my unit to auto-pass morale. At 1850 points, I have 15 command points to play with. When it's really critical, I bet the death-jester's ability won't get through.


This is not how it works. You must fail morale before the Death Jester can choose a model to flee first. You don't reroll morale after he chooses since you have accepted that you failed your check. So if you fail, you then decide to use your command points to auto-pass. If you choose not to auto-pass, then the Death Jester may choose who flees first. You can't go back in order if he picks something you don't want to lose.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 00:31:46


Post by: Wyldcarde


Actually, you can take an aeldari detachment. There is nothing stopping you taking craftworld, harlequins and dark eldar in the same detachment due to the shared keyword. Or you can take a harlequin only detachment and a craftworld only detachment and throw them in the same force, due to the shared keyword.

Also, he never suggested failing his morale test then auto passing. He was saying if he was to fail the test and had taken a hit from the jester then it was obvious that the lascannon was going to be first picked, so better to auto pass than take the chance.

Also, 15 cp is ridiculous at 1850. Is that a brigade and battalion I assume?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 02:19:56


Post by: Amishprn86


For WYSIWYG take the extra Kiss's that you have and just Cut off the Spike and add a bigger object that is circular there.

Personally I cut the kiss's off but didnt add anything

Open Hand = Caress
Close hand = Embrace

I kept 5 Kiss's for "just in case they chance" but as of right now i see 0 point i taking them


I do take DE/Eldar in my Quin army now, E;HQ are lacking in AT, so i've been taking a Flier and 2 Ravagers as dedicated AT, Ravagers are very survival and cheap for 3 Lances, but this might change as I might just take 3 Fliers sense they are a bit more survivable all together (not b.c its the meta thing to do), but so far the 2 Ravagers are doing loads of work.

I've been doing something like

Troupe Master
Shadowseer x2
Troupes x5 (2/3 Caress/Embrace, 2 Fusions) x4
Starweavers x4
Solitaire
Ravager x2
Hemlock (sometimes Bomber)
Skyweavers 2x3

But i'm thinking about take 2 units of Dark Reapers with 1 Warlock as well.

Another thing i've been testing is Ynnari, its not doing to bad, Rising Crescendo seems to be better, but i've only played 4-5 games with Ynnari compare to the 20 games as E;HQ's

Over all i am very happy with Harlequins as my core troops/hq's and Eldar/DE as back up.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 02:36:43


Post by: teknoskan


Wyldcarde wrote:
Actually, you can take an aeldari detachment. There is nothing stopping you taking craftworld, harlequins and dark eldar in the same detachment due to the shared keyword. Or you can take a harlequin only detachment and a craftworld only detachment and throw them in the same force, due to the shared keyword.

Also, he never suggested failing his morale test then auto passing. He was saying if he was to fail the test and had taken a hit from the jester then it was obvious that the lascannon was going to be first picked, so better to auto pass than take the chance.

Also, 15 cp is ridiculous at 1850. Is that a brigade and battalion I assume?


I was told by my local GW that detachments must be from the same factions but you may take multiple detachments as long as they share faction keywords, thus Harlequin can only be in a Harlequin detachment, but you may have a detachment of Harlequin and a detachment Dark Eldar in the same army. So unless they tell their employees the wrong information, then I am going by what a GW official employee stated.

Also, he mentions "and they force me to remove my lascannon" implying that he was intending to reroll after the Death Jester owner made a decision, which is not how the order of operations works. Was answering based on question as written, not question as implied.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 02:46:02


Post by: Amishprn86


No that means DE cant have Wyches and Kabals in the same Detachement, and Craftworld cant have Aspect and Warhost, or Harlequins cant have a Solitaire.... You local has it wrong.

All Aeldari can be in the same Detachment unless stated otherwise (cough cough Ynnari).

Edit: GW even stated this many times that Aeldari (DE, Harlequins and Craftworld) can go into one detachment... its even Stated in the BRB.

Edit 2: Go to page 240 of the BRB and read "FACTIONS" on bottom left.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 02:49:07


Post by: lambsandlions


For fusion pistols look for dark eldar blast pistols.

For embraces cut off the long part on kiss and replace it with anything that is thicker and textured. I have been using the bits from the the voidweaver gun but I was thinking about using the grenade packs from the raider set. Basically the embrace shoots out monofilament then retracts it to cut things. The grenades look like they have already shot out their filament.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 02:50:25


Post by: Amishprn86


 lambsandlions wrote:
For fusion pistols look for dark eldar blast pistols.

For embraces cut off the long part on kiss and replace it with anything that is thicker and textured. I have been using the bits from the the voidweaver gun but I was thinking about using the grenade packs from the raider set. Basically the embrace shoots out monofilament then retracts it to cut things. The grenades look like they have already shot out their filament.


Small DE Hellion/Reavers/Ravagers/Raider Jet Boosters work great FYI. some might think they are slightly to thick tho.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 03:04:36


Post by: teknoskan


 Amishprn86 wrote:
No that means DE cant have Wyches and Kabals in the same Detachement, and Craftworld cant have Aspect and Warhost, or Harlequins cant have a Solitaire.... You local has it wrong.

All Aeldari can be in the same Detachment unless stated otherwise (cough cough Ynnari).

Edit: GW even stated this many times that Aeldari (DE, Harlequins and Craftworld) can go into one detachment... its even Stated in the BRB.

Edit 2: Go to page 240 of the BRB and read "FACTIONS" on bottom left.


Are you serious? Solitaires are elites and can be in detachments with other Harlequin units but cannot be a part of a unit and you may only have one per Army. This is the only restriction in the Xenos 1 index.

Page 214 speaks of Army Factions and that your Army may be compromised of any units that share atleast one Faction keyword. The only exception is that Genestealers may take full detachments of Astra Militarum alongside GSC or Tyranids, but it does not state they can be in the same detachment. When reading on how to organize detachments (the tables showing the different types) it says they must share a Faction, not Faction keyword.

Edit: Page 240 is correct as far as Faction detachment rules go. I will bring this up with my local GW and see if they heard differently from the main HQ. However, there are no rules in the index stating anthing to the understanding of your first sentence.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 03:24:16


Post by: Amishprn86


teknoskan wrote:
 Amishprn86 wrote:
No that means DE cant have Wyches and Kabals in the same Detachement, and Craftworld cant have Aspect and Warhost, or Harlequins cant have a Solitaire.... You local has it wrong.

All Aeldari can be in the same Detachment unless stated otherwise (cough cough Ynnari).

Edit: GW even stated this many times that Aeldari (DE, Harlequins and Craftworld) can go into one detachment... its even Stated in the BRB.

Edit 2: Go to page 240 of the BRB and read "FACTIONS" on bottom left.


Are you serious? Solitaires are elites and can be in detachments with other Harlequin units but cannot be a part of a unit and you may only have one per Army. This is the only restriction in the Xenos 1 index.

Page 214 speaks of Army Factions and that your Army may be compromised of any units that share atleast one Faction keyword. The only exception is that Genestealers may take full detachments of Astra Militarum alongside GSC or Tyranids, but it does not state they can be in the same detachment. When reading on how to organize detachments (the tables showing the different types) it says they must share a Faction, not Faction keyword.




Did you even read the post before? The one that i was commenting on..... here let me post it for you and WHY i said these things


teknoskan wrote:
Wyldcarde wrote:
Actually, you can take an aeldari detachment. There is nothing stopping you taking craftworld, harlequins and dark eldar in the same detachment due to the shared keyword. Or you can take a harlequin only detachment and a craftworld only detachment and throw them in the same force, due to the shared keyword.

Also, he never suggested failing his morale test then auto passing. He was saying if he was to fail the test and had taken a hit from the jester then it was obvious that the lascannon was going to be first picked, so better to auto pass than take the chance.

Also, 15 cp is ridiculous at 1850. Is that a brigade and battalion I assume?


I was told by my local GW that detachments must be from the same factions but you may take multiple detachments as long as they share faction keywords, thus Harlequin can only be in a Harlequin detachment, but you may have a detachment of Harlequin and a detachment Dark Eldar in the same army. So unless they tell their employees the wrong information, then I am going by what a GW official employee stated.

Also, he mentions "and they force me to remove my lascannon" implying that he was intending to reroll after the Death Jester owner made a decision, which is not how the order of operations works. Was answering based on question as written, not question as implied.


If they must have "all" the same factions then no Harlequins can NOT have a Solitaire b.c he doesnt have <Masque> faction like the rest of the army.

Sense he was saying that DE cant go with Harlequins b.c they do not share the same factions i was showing that even within the DE/Eldar/Harlequin Armies they have sub factions.

here are lists of some of the factions (not all of them)
Aeldari, Asuryani, Warhost, Ulthwe, Aspect Warrior
Drukhari, Coven, Incubi, Kabal, Wych
Etc... etc... etc...

He is saying that his Local is only letting some factions in detachments and not all that share a "keyword" they must have both Keywords like Aeldari AND Drukhari and that sense Harlequins dont have have Drukhari they can not be in the same detachment.

Pg 240 "All units must belong to "one" or more of the many Factions"

So i "said" those things to show him how ridiculous his Local rules are and that they are wrong.

Edit: Spelling


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 03:40:43


Post by: lambsandlions


 Amishprn86 wrote:
 lambsandlions wrote:
For fusion pistols look for dark eldar blast pistols.

For embraces cut off the long part on kiss and replace it with anything that is thicker and textured. I have been using the bits from the the voidweaver gun but I was thinking about using the grenade packs from the raider set. Basically the embrace shoots out monofilament then retracts it to cut things. The grenades look like they have already shot out their filament.


Small DE Hellion/Reavers/Ravagers/Raider Jet Boosters work great FYI. some might think they are slightly to thick tho.
I am talking about these.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 03:57:01


Post by: Wyldcarde


Yep they must all share one common faction keyword. Aeldari is a faction keyword. And is common to all asuryani, drukhari and harlequin units.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 04:32:49


Post by: Amishprn86


 lambsandlions wrote:
 Amishprn86 wrote:
 lambsandlions wrote:
For fusion pistols look for dark eldar blast pistols.

For embraces cut off the long part on kiss and replace it with anything that is thicker and textured. I have been using the bits from the the voidweaver gun but I was thinking about using the grenade packs from the raider set. Basically the embrace shoots out monofilament then retracts it to cut things. The grenades look like they have already shot out their filament.


Small DE Hellion/Reavers/Ravagers/Raider Jet Boosters work great FYI. some might think they are slightly to thick tho.
I am talking about these.


Yep, DE has the same things thats what i was talking about too, just saying DE has those bits also if you have those models laying around (DE Raider kits comes with 6 i think and they are for an old upgrade from 5th that no one put on and now they are just for looks)


Edit: @teknoskan, didnt mean to sound rude sorry.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 05:03:28


Post by: teknoskan


 Amishprn86 wrote:

Edit: @teknoskan, didnt mean to sound rude sorry.


You're fine. It's a new edition and everyone is having a grande ol time figuring out RAW and RAI. I do appreciate the help at any rate.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 08:32:51


Post by: Mayk0l


I just don't play WYSIWYG. Makes no sense to me to have a whole harlequins army without a single kiss, especially if any rules update might suddenly make them worthwhile. Starweaver has been my strongest unit as well. Played a lot of venoms in 7th, now I play Starweavers


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 09:50:02


Post by: fresus


 Amishprn86 wrote:
 lambsandlions wrote:
 Amishprn86 wrote:
 lambsandlions wrote:
For fusion pistols look for dark eldar blast pistols.

For embraces cut off the long part on kiss and replace it with anything that is thicker and textured. I have been using the bits from the the voidweaver gun but I was thinking about using the grenade packs from the raider set. Basically the embrace shoots out monofilament then retracts it to cut things. The grenades look like they have already shot out their filament.


Small DE Hellion/Reavers/Ravagers/Raider Jet Boosters work great FYI. some might think they are slightly to thick tho.
I am talking about these.


Yep, DE has the same things thats what i was talking about too, just saying DE has those bits also if you have those models laying around (DE Raider kits comes with 6 i think and they are for an old upgrade from 5th that no one put on and now they are just for looks)


Edit: @teknoskan, didnt mean to sound rude sorry.

These are mirage launchers, and are included in the Skyweaver and Star/Voidweaver kits, but there are no extra.

I also don't play WYSIWYG on my troupes at the moment. The people I play with don't mind, since all my players have the same loadout. If you want to mix/match it becomes harder.

I've also been very disappointed by the solitaire. Last game I played, it failed to kill a Cryptek in two fight phases. I didn't roll very well, but on average a Solitaire barely kills one in a turn (average of 4.4 wounds with the kiss), and it's only a T4 4+ 4W character. A solitaire will actually fail to kill most useful characters in a fight phase.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 11:47:13


Post by: teknoskan


fresus wrote:
 Amishprn86 wrote:
 lambsandlions wrote:
 Amishprn86 wrote:
 lambsandlions wrote:
For fusion pistols look for dark eldar blast pistols.

For embraces cut off the long part on kiss and replace it with anything that is thicker and textured. I have been using the bits from the the voidweaver gun but I was thinking about using the grenade packs from the raider set. Basically the embrace shoots out monofilament then retracts it to cut things. The grenades look like they have already shot out their filament.


Small DE Hellion/Reavers/Ravagers/Raider Jet Boosters work great FYI. some might think they are slightly to thick tho.
I am talking about these.


Yep, DE has the same things thats what i was talking about too, just saying DE has those bits also if you have those models laying around (DE Raider kits comes with 6 i think and they are for an old upgrade from 5th that no one put on and now they are just for looks)


Edit: @teknoskan, didnt mean to sound rude sorry.

These are mirage launchers, and are included in the Skyweaver and Star/Voidweaver kits, but there are no extra.

I also don't play WYSIWYG on my troupes at the moment. The people I play with don't mind, since all my players have the same loadout. If you want to mix/match it becomes harder.

I've also been very disappointed by the solitaire. Last game I played, it failed to kill a Cryptek in two fight phases. I didn't roll very well, but on average a Solitaire barely kills one in a turn (average of 4.4 wounds with the kiss), and it's only a T4 4+ 4W character. A solitaire will actually fail to kill most useful characters in a fight phase.


The Solitaire should be doing very well in melee combat. He has a 3+ Invulnerable save (which shouldn't be an issue against a Cryptek's single attack per turn), 8 attacks per turn, and two melee weapons to pick from, which you should be using the Caress for that 5S vs a Cryptek's 4T so you wound on 3. The Solitaire hits in 2+ so with 8 attacks, 2+ to hit is highly feasible. Then 3+ to wound against the Cryptek's 4 wounds, shouldn't be an issue unless you just have really bad luck.

Edit: It is important to understand that the Kiss is not always the best weapon of choice. You only get 4S, -1AP, and D3 wounds. Sure you have the potential to do more wounds, but the minimum is always 1. Where as the Caress gives you 5S, -2AP, and 1 wound. You get a better chance to wound and lower their armor save by one extra vs the Kiss. Against the Cryptek, that's a 3+ to wound vs a 4+, and it's armor save becomes a 6+ opposed to 5+.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 12:12:22


Post by: Massaen


In this instance (solitaire vs Cryptek)...

8 Attacks, 6.6 hits

Caress is 4.4 wounds
Kiss is 3.3 wounds

The caress does 3.66 unsaved wounds
The kiss does 2.2 unsaved wounds - which become on average 4.4 wounds dealt

The kiss should actually kill the cryptek while the caress has a small chance on average of him surviving... its very small but possible


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 12:43:17


Post by: fresus


 Massaen wrote:
In this instance (solitaire vs Cryptek)...

8 Attacks, 6.6 hits

Caress is 4.4 wounds
Kiss is 3.3 wounds

The caress does 3.66 unsaved wounds
The kiss does 2.2 unsaved wounds - which become on average 4.4 wounds dealt

The kiss should actually kill the cryptek while the caress has a small chance on average of him surviving... its very small but possible

Yes, the kiss is usually better against multi-wound models with bad armor (or very good invul), while the caress tends to be better against 2+ armor.
A Cryptek has 4 wounds, so it has way more than a small chance of surviving.

But still, a solitaire barely kills a Cryptek in one round, and usually need at least a couple rounds to kill stronger characters. In many cases, a troupe master with a fusion pistol is better than a solitaire at killing characters, but also provides buffs.
The solitaire's real advantage is its mobility, and ability to engage many things turn 1, but I find it lacking in terms of hitting power.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 13:30:33


Post by: Amishprn86


The Kiss is IMO best against Invul save and/or multi wound guys,especially multi-wound low saves

I killed Dante with my Solitaire on a Blitz using Kiss attacks.
4 got through and a re-roll of one of my damage rolls killed him.

I've charge Venomthropes with the Solitaire and used the Kiss there too, very effective.

My favorite thing to do with him is keep it out of LoS for turns 1-2 and just use him as a cannons to go clear out a unit in cover, with the shadowseer for me (turn 2-3) finally on the table i can cast movement buff if i cant make it with a blitz.

I have been able to move 45" with him b.c of placement/shadowseer power and charge from across the table.

The solitaire is by far one of my favorites.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 13:55:02


Post by: Wyldcarde


I thought you couldn't cast twilight pathways on a solitaire that has blitzed? I'm pretty sure it specifically states it.

Sorry misread it and you said can't reach with blitz.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 14:03:47


Post by: fresus


Wyldcarde wrote:
I thought you couldn't cast twilight pathways on a solitaire that has blitzed? I'm pretty sure it specifically states it.

Sorry misread it and you said can't reach with blitz.

The blitz rule says you can't blitz if your solitaire was targeted by twilight pathways during the previous psychic phase. But you can blitz then use twilight pathways.
I suppose they messed up when writing the rules, because the other way around would make a lot more sense, but that's how things are currently.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 14:07:09


Post by: lambsandlions


Solitaire has been middle of the road for me. Not bad enough that I want to lick him of the team but also not good enough that I am singing his praise. He is a harraser not a killer which means his value changes game to game and may not be asking clear as the value of other units.


I play Yvraine so turn 1 blitz +words of the Phoenix puts him anywhere I need him. Those 10 attacks may kill something but again him stopping shooting is better than anything else. He is also good to charge into units to tank overwatch.

He is kinda like skyweavers. They are not all that killy but they do a good job just harrasing.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 15:07:02


Post by: str00dles1


Got a list I may try this weekend. Any thoughts?

7CP - 1983PTS

Battalion Detachment

HQ:
Shadowseer
ShadowSeer

Troop:
5 Player - 5 Embrace 3 Fusion
5 Player - 5 Embrace 3 Fusion
5 Player - 5 Embrace 3 Fusion

Elite:
Solitiare

Fast Attack:
6 Skyweavers - 6 Zephyrglaive

Heavy:
9 Dark Reapers 1 Exarch - 10 Reaper Launcher

Dedicated Transports
4 Starweaver Transport

Sup Command Detachment
4 Troop Master - 4 Embrace 4 Fusion

One transport has 3 Masters in it. Others have a HQ and 5 Troops

Dark Reapers rain hell on most killy thing they have turn 1 so there hopefully wont be any issues getting into CC. Sky Weavers go after any troops not in transports, easily do a turn 1 charge if needed to harassing them with all the shooting. Second turn all the charges. Starweavers charge the targets first so they take the brunt of the overwatch. Biggest thing to watch for psykers and try to kill them ASAP or have vehicles be the closest model as mortal wounds crushes the army. (And shadowseers help stop it)


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 19:14:58


Post by: heckler


To get more fusion pistols, I clipped the tip of the nerual shredder off and attached the tip from the starweaver/voidweaver prismatic cannon which looks just like a fusion pistol tip. Seeing as I have 5 starweavers, it added several.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/19 21:35:25


Post by: lambsandlions


str00dles1 wrote:


Sup Command Detachment
4 Troop Master - 4 Embrace 4 Fusion

One transport has 3 Masters in it. Others have a HQ and 5 Troops

Dark Reapers rain hell on most killy thing they have turn 1 so there hopefully wont be any issues getting into CC. Sky Weavers go after any troops not in transports, easily do a turn 1 charge if needed to harassing them with all the shooting. Second turn all the charges. Starweavers charge the targets first so they take the brunt of the overwatch. Biggest thing to watch for psykers and try to kill them ASAP or have vehicles be the closest model as mortal wounds crushes the army. (And shadowseers help stop it)

So I am curious how survivable the reapers are. For 360 pts they area juicy target and kinda easy to kill. How do they compare to two ravagers which are 50pts less but more survivable?. The reapers are better vs infantry and flyers but the ravagers are better against vehicles and monstrous creatures.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/20 03:50:51


Post by: Amishprn86


Dark Reapers are amazing, Take a warlock to conceal them or place in cover giving them 2+ saves.

They pump out insane fire power.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/20 06:05:12


Post by: Massaen


Put them in a Bastion - squad of 10. Profit!


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/20 12:02:02


Post by: str00dles1


 lambsandlions wrote:
str00dles1 wrote:


Sup Command Detachment
4 Troop Master - 4 Embrace 4 Fusion

One transport has 3 Masters in it. Others have a HQ and 5 Troops

Dark Reapers rain hell on most killy thing they have turn 1 so there hopefully wont be any issues getting into CC. Sky Weavers go after any troops not in transports, easily do a turn 1 charge if needed to harassing them with all the shooting. Second turn all the charges. Starweavers charge the targets first so they take the brunt of the overwatch. Biggest thing to watch for psykers and try to kill them ASAP or have vehicles be the closest model as mortal wounds crushes the army. (And shadowseers help stop it)

So I am curious how survivable the reapers are. For 360 pts they area juicy target and kinda easy to kill. How do they compare to two ravagers which are 50pts less but more survivable?. The reapers are better vs infantry and flyers but the ravagers are better against vehicles and monstrous creatures.


2+ save in cover, which they always will be in cause of terrain. I moved some points around. Grabbed a Farseer. They will sit near dark reapers. They can give them reroll all hits and give them luck, so 5+ Feel no pain. That with a 2+ armor should make it very hard to get rid of them. Think my last list was invalid.over 2k anyways, as Battlescribe is having issues giving me correct points for more then 3 dark reapers. So to this one, I lost 2 Reapers, 2 Bikes, 1 Troop Master. Gained a Farseer. Not sold on Solitaire yet. Can easily get rid of him for 2 more dark reapers, which I honestly think is better. Also could fit in more fusion pistols.

7CP - 1994PTS

Battalion Detachment

HQ:
Shadowseer
ShadowSeer
Farseer Luck Guide

Troop:
5 Player - 5 Embrace 3 Fusion
5 Player - 5 Embrace 3 Fusion
5 Player - 5 Embrace 3 Fusion

Elite:
Solitiare

Fast Attack:
4 Skyweavers - 4 Zephyrglaive

Heavy:
7 Dark Reapers 1 Exarch - 8 Reaper Launcher

Dedicated Transports
4 Starweaver Transport

Sup Command Detachment
3 Troop Master - 3 Embrace 3 Fusion


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/20 13:20:18


Post by: Wyldcarde


Ravagers not rangers.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/20 16:05:43


Post by: Bloodshade


Do not underestimate the Solitaire. He can do work that no other unit can do, it isn't an easy targetable unit like Reapers are and he can hit targets that they cannot fire on (characters? Hidden units?).

I wouldn't field DR with Harlequins neither, both because of personal taste (i play 100% Harlequins) and for army balance reasons. They are slow and on foot where the rest of the army is fast and mounted on vehicles. Maybe a squad of 4-5, but they're good against things that Harlequins already manage well, what we're lacking is anti-horde weapons. Reapers don't help in that sense (and I field 2x5 of them in Ynnari, so I'm not underestimating them).


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/20 16:56:31


Post by: str00dles1


Wyldcarde wrote:Ravagers not rangers.


That's what I get for posting so early. thanks, fixed my post. Neeevermind ha.

Bloodshade wrote:Do not underestimate the Solitaire. He can do work that no other unit can do, it isn't an easy targetable unit like Reapers are and he can hit targets that they cannot fire on (characters? Hidden units?).

I wouldn't field DR with Harlequins neither, both because of personal taste (i play 100% Harlequins) and for army balance reasons. They are slow and on foot where the rest of the army is fast and mounted on vehicles. Maybe a squad of 4-5, but they're good against things that Harlequins already manage well, what we're lacking is anti-horde weapons. Reapers don't help in that sense (and I field 2x5 of them in Ynnari, so I'm not underestimating them).


Hows he going to do the work that a troop cant do though? Not saying hes bad, just he isn't as killy as id have hoped. Im sure he could rip though a tac squad or the like, but on other characters he doesent do much as they are more survivable.

That's the point of taking them though in Harley army. They can sit at the table edge and be able to shoot just about everything. They shoot the things that could pop our transports before they get to where they need to be. They never need to move so I don't think that's an issue.

Unless super close, Harley has a huge issues with armor. Fusion helps but you need a lot to get there and light it up, and a lot of shots. I dunno what armies you fight, but hordes isn't much of a problem since the amount of attacks the squad gets. Plus we have a lot of mid to low STR shooting to thin them out first. Reaper also help out switching to 2 shot mode.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/20 17:57:58


Post by: Bloodshade


str00dles1 wrote:
Hows he going to do the work that a troop cant do though? Not saying hes bad, just he isn't as killy as id have hoped. Im sure he could rip though a tac squad or the like, but on other characters he doesent do much as they are more survivable.

It's not the tough kill that the Solitaire allows you to do, but the strategic one, due to him being such a small fast dude that ignores any intervening thing on the board. You can aim with him to kill the (usually) fragile, bonus-giver character that you could NEVER touch otherwise.
Other that being good on his own, dunno if you expected him to be like Hulk or something, but in my universe 8 (10 once in a game) Attacks hitting on 2+ with either caress or kiss are worth considering and having in the list.


str00dles1 wrote:
That's the point of taking them though in Harley army. They can sit at the table edge and be able to shoot just about everything. They shoot the things that could pop our transports before they get to where they need to be. They never need to move so I don't think that's an issue.

Giving your enemy a static, obvious threat where the rest of the army is lightning fast, easy to hide and reposition is the point of taking them?
Reapers are good, probably the only busted eldar unit, but having them flashing at the table edge waiting for the enemy to target them is not my vision of how harlequins should work.
You're praying the enemy to feed on them without the protection they get instead with Eldar or Ynnari armies.

str00dles1 wrote:
Unless super close, Harley has a huge issues with armor. Fusion helps but you need a lot to get there and light it up, and a lot of shots. I dunno what armies you fight, but hordes isn't much of a problem since the amount of attacks the squad gets. Plus we have a lot of mid to low STR shooting to thin them out first. Reaper also help out switching to 2 shot mode.

Go tell that to ork mobs. Or some IG infantry. They take your hits, without crumbling, kill some in return, then disengage and blast you with other units (or kill you outright if orks, you probably don't know how many attacks have each).
Harlequins have zero chances to win against that type of troop, the horde one. I have 60+ S6 hits between skyweavers, starweavers and voidweavers, I have kept the 3 void in list just for the D6 "AI" shots, but I still have to go even close to get the Ork list I'm facing the most, not the mention AM's 100 conscripts lists and similar, which are currently the most powerful in the meta.
I'm glad you normally face elite armies and have a good time fighting those due to Harley's strengths. But the strongest lists are currently those spamming hordes, it's wise to tech against them.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/20 18:06:28


Post by: lambsandlions


One reason I was thinking ravagers over dark reapers is because with everything in starweavers the reapers are a little exposed to anti infantry shooting that normally wouldn't bother you. The reapers do work with Yvraine (stronger than a farseer for sure). Wish the reapers had a open top transport. Maybe a wave serpeant to keep them safe and redeploy them.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/21 04:40:35


Post by: str00dles1


 Bloodshade wrote:
str00dles1 wrote:
Hows he going to do the work that a troop cant do though? Not saying hes bad, just he isn't as killy as id have hoped. Im sure he could rip though a tac squad or the like, but on other characters he doesent do much as they are more survivable.

It's not the tough kill that the Solitaire allows you to do, but the strategic one, due to him being such a small fast dude that ignores any intervening thing on the board. You can aim with him to kill the (usually) fragile, bonus-giver character that you could NEVER touch otherwise.
Other that being good on his own, dunno if you expected him to be like Hulk or something, but in my universe 8 (10 once in a game) Attacks hitting on 2+ with either caress or kiss are worth considering and having in the list.


str00dles1 wrote:
That's the point of taking them though in Harley army. They can sit at the table edge and be able to shoot just about everything. They shoot the things that could pop our transports before they get to where they need to be. They never need to move so I don't think that's an issue.

Giving your enemy a static, obvious threat where the rest of the army is lightning fast, easy to hide and reposition is the point of taking them?
Reapers are good, probably the only busted eldar unit, but having them flashing at the table edge waiting for the enemy to target them is not my vision of how harlequins should work.
You're praying the enemy to feed on them without the protection they get instead with Eldar or Ynnari armies.

str00dles1 wrote:
Unless super close, Harley has a huge issues with armor. Fusion helps but you need a lot to get there and light it up, and a lot of shots. I dunno what armies you fight, but hordes isn't much of a problem since the amount of attacks the squad gets. Plus we have a lot of mid to low STR shooting to thin them out first. Reaper also help out switching to 2 shot mode.

Go tell that to ork mobs. Or some IG infantry. They take your hits, without crumbling, kill some in return, then disengage and blast you with other units (or kill you outright if orks, you probably don't know how many attacks have each).
Harlequins have zero chances to win against that type of troop, the horde one. I have 60+ S6 hits between skyweavers, starweavers and voidweavers, I have kept the 3 void in list just for the D6 "AI" shots, but I still have to go even close to get the Ork list I'm facing the most, not the mention AM's 100 conscripts lists and similar, which are currently the most powerful in the meta.
I'm glad you normally face elite armies and have a good time fighting those due to Harley's strengths. But the strongest lists are currently those spamming hordes, it's wise to tech against them.


Yea they are static, but that's the idea. they have the farseer, so they get a 5+ FNP and 2+ armor so they are pretty safe. If the enemy wants to attack them, then that's fine. Isnt the army all about misdirection/phantasims/illusions Please attack my well defended guys as all my crazy clowns run up the board free and clean.

End of the day though, its a different play style.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/22 22:05:23


Post by: The Shadow


Only just had a chance to go over all the 8th stuff...

One clear benefit I see is that, with Troupe Masters as HQ, it's really easy to fit in the extra Detachments for the +1 CP.

Is it me or are Death Jesters not that great anymore? Choosing one model to flee first is no where near as good as making a whole unit flee off the side of the board... If so, that's a great shame because, as I mentioned, 2 DJs and a Solitaire (who seems excellent) would be great in the Elites Detachment.

I know Harlies don't have much choice, but does anyone have any units they recommend as must-haves? What about support units from Eldar/Dark Eldar? I've seen Hemlocks mentioned...


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/23 05:25:40


Post by: rollawaythestone


The must-haves seem to be running your Troupes in Starweavers. Starweavers are definitely a must-have.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/23 10:28:57


Post by: SarisKhan


 The Shadow wrote:
Only just had a chance to go over all the 8th stuff...

One clear benefit I see is that, with Troupe Masters as HQ, it's really easy to fit in the extra Detachments for the +1 CP.

Is it me or are Death Jesters not that great anymore? Choosing one model to flee first is no where near as good as making a whole unit flee off the side of the board... If so, that's a great shame because, as I mentioned, 2 DJs and a Solitaire (who seems excellent) would be great in the Elites Detachment.

I know Harlies don't have much choice, but does anyone have any units they recommend as must-haves? What about support units from Eldar/Dark Eldar? I've seen Hemlocks mentioned...


I recommend adding DL Ravagers and/or Razorwing Jetfighters for long-range fire support to a bunch of Troupes in Starweavers.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/23 17:23:41


Post by: PUFNSTUF


Solitaire has Masque now, so can board transports with squads.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/23 19:25:33


Post by: SarisKhan


PUFNSTUF wrote:
Solitaire has Masque now, so can board transports with squads.


Can also benefit from Troupe Master and Shadowseer auras. Neat.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/23 19:34:50


Post by: rollawaythestone


This is a big buff for the Solitaire. Riding in a Transport is great (but unneeded at the end of the day). However, it lets us place 1 less unit-drop during deployment, which is awesome.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/23 20:59:46


Post by: lambsandlions


Being able to ride in a starweaver is a pretty nice buff. Not only can it add 3" to the solitaire first turn movement but it actually addas more because you are less likely to have to place him somewhere behind your other units. We have a pretty low unit could t to begin with and this does help us go first. Since he is riding with the starweaver he can act as an overwatch sponge.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/24 13:57:53


Post by: Cult of My Boy Blue


Dark Reapers have one really really important ability. They always hit on a 3+ no matter what. So you can start them hiding behind something and then move them out to shoot. I put them with a Warlock and Yvraine. Soul Bursting them allows for a ton of shots at 48"

The exarch with a Tempest Launcher looks really good 2d6 shot, I just keep rolling 5 shots for it... stupid dice.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/24 15:32:13


Post by: Aren73


So the Solitaire receives a buff but the Death Jester is just perfectly fine as it is? Hopefully he'll receive some form of buff in the future.

I'm looking for ideas for making foot Harlequins survivable/viable. I don't think starweavers should be mandatory and with the range of options from the Shadowseer (more difficult to wound, more difficult to hit, much faster) as well as a good amount of LOS blocking cover it may be possible.

The benefits of foot Harlequins would mean that we can take care of hordes a bit better, as a squad of 12 Harlies with Embraces can sure blend guardsmen and Orks - 25.3 wounds on average on Guardsmen and 19.1 on Orks (that's shuri pistols included)

The reasons we don't take those squads is because they are squishy, can't be put into a starweaver and are somewhat expensive.

Any ideas on keeping them alive and getting them there? Considered distractions with other units but distractions are temporary, as soon as you play the army once you know what to hit first.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/24 15:35:05


Post by: teknoskan


The Solitaire got a word change that clearly was missing in the index. I wouldn't necessarily consider it a buff.

Death Jester, as bad as he is, is the only unit who can shoot a Character instead of the nearest unit. No other Harlequin unit has this. I would say that's a pretty good perk.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/24 17:16:48


Post by: Cult of My Boy Blue


We just need more models in general for the Harlequin army.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/24 17:17:57


Post by: Aren73


teknoskan wrote:
The Solitaire got a word change that clearly was missing in the index. I wouldn't necessarily consider it a buff.

Death Jester, as bad as he is, is the only unit who can shoot a Character instead of the nearest unit. No other Harlequin unit has this. I would say that's a pretty good perk.


Actually I think the Solitaire made sense without the keyword. In the codex it says they don't belong to a masque but travel from one to another - makes perfect sense for them not to have the keyword and pushes their loner theme. So I don't think it was an oversight but a fully intentional change and the keyword added is a straight up buff, it let's him do more.


The death jester would for me benefit from either giving -1 ld to target or making target take a ld check even if they are fearless (using 7th terminology but you get what I mean).


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/24 18:19:39


Post by: str00dles1


The Shadow wrote:Only just had a chance to go over all the 8th stuff...

One clear benefit I see is that, with Troupe Masters as HQ, it's really easy to fit in the extra Detachments for the +1 CP.

Is it me or are Death Jesters not that great anymore? Choosing one model to flee first is no where near as good as making a whole unit flee off the side of the board... If so, that's a great shame because, as I mentioned, 2 DJs and a Solitaire (who seems excellent) would be great in the Elites Detachment.

I know Harlies don't have much choice, but does anyone have any units they recommend as must-haves? What about support units from Eldar/Dark Eldar? I've seen Hemlocks mentioned...


Well the army only really builds one way with very minor variations. As for non Harley, id always take Dark Reapers personally. In a 2k list, I also got a farseer. she sits by them, gives them rerolls to hit and 5+ feel no pain roll. Very good backfield support to take some heat off your star weavers full of murder clowns

Aren73 wrote:So the Solitaire receives a buff but the Death Jester is just perfectly fine as it is? Hopefully he'll receive some form of buff in the future.

I'm looking for ideas for making foot Harlequins survivable/viable. I don't think starweavers should be mandatory and with the range of options from the Shadowseer (more difficult to wound, more difficult to hit, much faster) as well as a good amount of LOS blocking cover it may be possible.

The benefits of foot Harlequins would mean that we can take care of hordes a bit better, as a squad of 12 Harlies with Embraces can sure blend guardsmen and Orks - 25.3 wounds on average on Guardsmen and 19.1 on Orks (that's shuri pistols included)

The reasons we don't take those squads is because they are squishy, can't be put into a starweaver and are somewhat expensive.

Any ideas on keeping them alive and getting them there? Considered distractions with other units but distractions are temporary, as soon as you play the army once you know what to hit first.


Don't think you can really. that's just now how they play, or the elder in general. Like the normal elf stereotype, they are fast and deadly, but very fragile. As is, not a low of options.

Also the talk on the Deathjester, hes never worth taking. Even if he can target characters, if you badly want that, take 5 Rangers. They can at least do the same, with farther guns and cause mortal wounds with more shots and only 25 more points. The faction over all has enough to play, but it really needs a solid 6 more units to really give it options. Just like the Talons of the Emp faction. You have 3 nuns with guns, 2 custodies, contemptor, land raider, and rhino and that's it. We are in the same boat.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/24 18:21:00


Post by: DanielFM


I think people overlooks that a Deathjester can shoot from a Starweaver with no penalty, functionally giving you a triple Shuriken cannon gunship, with one of them hitting on 2's and giving extra shenanigans.
Not that bad, right?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/24 18:50:30


Post by: Aren73


str00dles1 wrote:
The Shadow wrote:Only just had a chance to go over all the 8th stuff...

One clear benefit I see is that, with Troupe Masters as HQ, it's really easy to fit in the extra Detachments for the +1 CP.

Is it me or are Death Jesters not that great anymore? Choosing one model to flee first is no where near as good as making a whole unit flee off the side of the board... If so, that's a great shame because, as I mentioned, 2 DJs and a Solitaire (who seems excellent) would be great in the Elites Detachment.

I know Harlies don't have much choice, but does anyone have any units they recommend as must-haves? What about support units from Eldar/Dark Eldar? I've seen Hemlocks mentioned...


Well the army only really builds one way with very minor variations. As for non Harley, id always take Dark Reapers personally. In a 2k list, I also got a farseer. she sits by them, gives them rerolls to hit and 5+ feel no pain roll. Very good backfield support to take some heat off your star weavers full of murder clowns

Aren73 wrote:So the Solitaire receives a buff but the Death Jester is just perfectly fine as it is? Hopefully he'll receive some form of buff in the future.

I'm looking for ideas for making foot Harlequins survivable/viable. I don't think starweavers should be mandatory and with the range of options from the Shadowseer (more difficult to wound, more difficult to hit, much faster) as well as a good amount of LOS blocking cover it may be possible.

The benefits of foot Harlequins would mean that we can take care of hordes a bit better, as a squad of 12 Harlies with Embraces can sure blend guardsmen and Orks - 25.3 wounds on average on Guardsmen and 19.1 on Orks (that's shuri pistols included)

The reasons we don't take those squads is because they are squishy, can't be put into a starweaver and are somewhat expensive.

Any ideas on keeping them alive and getting them there? Considered distractions with other units but distractions are temporary, as soon as you play the army once you know what to hit first.


Don't think you can really. that's just now how they play, or the elder in general. Like the normal elf stereotype, they are fast and deadly, but very fragile. As is, not a low of options.

Also the talk on the Deathjester, hes never worth taking. Even if he can target characters, if you badly want that, take 5 Rangers. They can at least do the same, with farther guns and cause mortal wounds with more shots and only 25 more points. The faction over all has enough to play, but it really needs a solid 6 more units to really give it options. Just like the Talons of the Emp faction. You have 3 nuns with guns, 2 custodies, contemptor, land raider, and rhino and that's it. We are in the same boat.


Personally I think the whole point of the shadowseer is to make troupes worth taking on foot. It can't really keep up with starweavers, unless inside one of course. It has two abilities aimed at keeping things alive and another one at making them go faster. I think with the right support troupes on foot can be fast enough to get into combat and maybe not be durable but survive until they get there.

Question is of course to find the right things to support them.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/24 20:20:18


Post by: Gangrel767


 DanielFM wrote:
I think people overlooks that a Deathjester can shoot from a Starweaver with no penalty, functionally giving you a triple Shuriken cannon gunship, with one of them hitting on 2's and giving extra shenanigans.
Not that bad, right?


I ran him this way before. Actually two of them in two separate starweavers. It worked out ok... but 150 points was a lot to sink into that. Especially when I could take another starweaver, and still have points left over.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/25 11:51:44


Post by: str00dles1


Aren73 wrote:
str00dles1 wrote:
The Shadow wrote:Only just had a chance to go over all the 8th stuff...

One clear benefit I see is that, with Troupe Masters as HQ, it's really easy to fit in the extra Detachments for the +1 CP.

Is it me or are Death Jesters not that great anymore? Choosing one model to flee first is no where near as good as making a whole unit flee off the side of the board... If so, that's a great shame because, as I mentioned, 2 DJs and a Solitaire (who seems excellent) would be great in the Elites Detachment.

I know Harlies don't have much choice, but does anyone have any units they recommend as must-haves? What about support units from Eldar/Dark Eldar? I've seen Hemlocks mentioned...


Well the army only really builds one way with very minor variations. As for non Harley, id always take Dark Reapers personally. In a 2k list, I also got a farseer. she sits by them, gives them rerolls to hit and 5+ feel no pain roll. Very good backfield support to take some heat off your star weavers full of murder clowns

Aren73 wrote:So the Solitaire receives a buff but the Death Jester is just perfectly fine as it is? Hopefully he'll receive some form of buff in the future.

I'm looking for ideas for making foot Harlequins survivable/viable. I don't think starweavers should be mandatory and with the range of options from the Shadowseer (more difficult to wound, more difficult to hit, much faster) as well as a good amount of LOS blocking cover it may be possible.

The benefits of foot Harlequins would mean that we can take care of hordes a bit better, as a squad of 12 Harlies with Embraces can sure blend guardsmen and Orks - 25.3 wounds on average on Guardsmen and 19.1 on Orks (that's shuri pistols included)

The reasons we don't take those squads is because they are squishy, can't be put into a starweaver and are somewhat expensive.

Any ideas on keeping them alive and getting them there? Considered distractions with other units but distractions are temporary, as soon as you play the army once you know what to hit first.


Don't think you can really. that's just now how they play, or the elder in general. Like the normal elf stereotype, they are fast and deadly, but very fragile. As is, not a low of options.

Also the talk on the Deathjester, hes never worth taking. Even if he can target characters, if you badly want that, take 5 Rangers. They can at least do the same, with farther guns and cause mortal wounds with more shots and only 25 more points. The faction over all has enough to play, but it really needs a solid 6 more units to really give it options. Just like the Talons of the Emp faction. You have 3 nuns with guns, 2 custodies, contemptor, land raider, and rhino and that's it. We are in the same boat.


Personally I think the whole point of the shadowseer is to make troupes worth taking on foot. It can't really keep up with starweavers, unless inside one of course. It has two abilities aimed at keeping things alive and another one at making them go faster. I think with the right support troupes on foot can be fast enough to get into combat and maybe not be durable but survive until they get there.

Question is of course to find the right things to support them.


Is worth it when she jumps out of a transport and effects your troop master and like 2 units of troupes yea. I mean feel free to try them on foot, but I think you will end up disappointed. They can get chewed up simple bolter fire since them being in cover has 0 benefit or a vindicare can snipe the shadowseer and ruin your -1 to wound. They are a precision strike force, so you need to pick your battles. The transports lets you get where ever you really need turn 1, then turn 2 assault to where you need. Marching up the board will get you less guys there and they will control the battlefield on where you charge


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 08:37:56


Post by: Aren73


@str00dles1 - fair enough. I'll try to make it work but I see your point. I guess I wish there was more than one list that we could field and more than one way to play our army.

I always liked the fluff of Harlequins running up the battlefield at impossible speeds, with death jesters providing supporting fire in such a way that the troupes could get nice and personal.

Whereas with that we play like any other eldar - load up the close combat guys in a skimmer, zoom up there and jump out and slaughter. It almost feels like I'm playing Dark Eldar and not Harleuins, but there we go. I suppose all Eldar are essentially the same with minor taste differences.

On another note, the Solitaire close to a troupe Master now does 4.6 wounds average to a captain in gravis armour/ Necron Overlord - enough that with only a little fire support they should die in a single turn. So yay - aside from the most heavily armoured characters the solitaire can reliably drop them. But it needs supporting.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 12:07:56


Post by: wuestenfux


A consensus here seems to be that ''Rising crescendo'' is the better mark than ''Ynnari''. I'll integrate one detachment with 2 HQs and 3 Troupe units in Starweavers into my Craftworld/Ynnari army. Any experience there?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 12:14:17


Post by: Xenomancers


 wuestenfux wrote:
A consensus here seems to be that ''Rising crescendo'' is the better mark than ''Ynnari''. I'll integrate one detachment with 2 HQs and 3 Troupe units in Starweavers into my Craftworld/Ynnari army. Any experience there?

I have a lot of experience being annihilated by Quinns due to Rising crescendo - does that count?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 12:48:07


Post by: wuestenfux


 Xenomancers wrote:
 wuestenfux wrote:
A consensus here seems to be that ''Rising crescendo'' is the better mark than ''Ynnari''. I'll integrate one detachment with 2 HQs and 3 Troupe units in Starweavers into my Craftworld/Ynnari army. Any experience there?

I have a lot of experience being annihilated by Quinns due to Rising crescendo - does that count?

I'm not looking for a full flushed ''Rising crescendo'' army but only for a detachment.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 13:32:37


Post by: Gangrel767


I have been running fusion pistol harlies with SfD and loving it. I played against my first horde army last night, and found that even though on paper i didn't have the tools to win... I did just fine. I did lose th game, but only because i made some bonehead decision at the end.

Also, we were playing Nova missions.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 13:44:38


Post by: wuestenfux


I have been running fusion pistol harlies with SfD and loving it.

This is the kind of answer I'd like to hear. But details of army list are missing...


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 14:24:46


Post by: Gangrel767


https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/733945.page

It's not a super tight honed list, but it has done well.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 15:12:48


Post by: lambsandlions


I personally feel that SfD is better than raising crescendo. Both are amazing abilities but the way I play I don't feel I need raising crescendo. The only unit that I wish had raising crescendo that doesn't is the skyweavers, they are the only unit that really needs it.

My list
Spoiler:

yvraine
shadowseer
solitaire
4xstarweavers 5 troupes with fusion and embrace
starweavers/shiningspears/scourge (I switch this slot up a lot)

This is my typical match:

Turn 1: Everything is in a starweaver. I get yvraine and the shadowseer out, move everything up the board. I might blitz my solitaire this turn if I am planning on targeting it with words of the phoenix. In the physic phase I cast twilight pathways on a starweaver and words of the phoenix on the solitare or jetbikes/scourge. This means I can turn 1, move a starweaver 32" and the jetbikes 32" or the solitaire 24" + 2x2d6 or just shoot twice with the scourge. No need for raising crescendo this turn. It would be nice on the skyweavers but again I don't always take them. On the other hand SfD allows for a double movement/double shot which is very strong. Now that the solitaire fits in a starweaver I only have 5 units to place so I usually go first.

Turn 2:
I have one unit of harlequins that is 32" up the board and three units that are 16". Getting out of a starweaver and moving 8" usually puts me in charge range. I still have the shadowseer to move one unit twice and yvraine can make another unit soul burst to move twice. This turn raising crescendo would be nice but words of the phoenix to move twice or shoot twice with fusion pistols or what ever is more powerful. I am already in the enemies back line so an extra 6d inches matters very little. Most of the charges I make are from point blank range.

Turn 3:
Raising crescendo would be nice if I was stuck in combat and wanted to get out and charge something else. But most things fear staying in combat with us so they usually fall back on their turn, leaving us exposed to fire from the rest of the army. I rarely find myself in combat at the start of my turn. The only exception is when someone tried to tank shock my troupes to slow them down. But that is not a big deal as fusion pistols fire into combat and you can soul burst after killing the tank.

Obviously not every game plays out the same but for the most part I feel soul burst does more than raising crescendo.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 16:57:46


Post by: Massaen


The problem is casting is not reliable. You can fail to cast or be dispelled - sometimes easily depending on who you are facing.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 17:09:48


Post by: Aren73


Also Yinnari are dirty. Why side with an upstart God of death when you can be with Cegorach?

Edit: deleted double post


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 20:03:20


Post by: lambsandlions


 Massaen wrote:
The problem is casting is not reliable. You can fail to cast or be dispelled - sometimes easily depending on who you are facing.
on the same note advancing is not reliable, except for skyweavers. You should be using twilight pathways regardless if you are ynnari or not. so it is really about words of the Phoenix which has a 18" range and a +1 to casting roll making it hard dispell.

I am not saying raising cresendo is bad, rather SfD if you ever get to trigger it is better.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/26 23:00:03


Post by: Lurker


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vgk-lA12FBk

Can't you have two detachments? I thought the FAQ said it was OK. You can put the best SFD stuff in Ynarri and RC in Harlquins.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/27 04:22:13


Post by: lambsandlions


 Lurker wrote:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vgk-lA12FBk

Can't you have two detachments? I thought the FAQ said it was OK. You can put the best SFD stuff in Ynarri and RC in Harlquins.
So the only unit I think that benefits from raising crescendo is skyweavers but I am not sure 1) that they are good enough to deserve a stop on the list 2)that strength from death is not better for 32" movements.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/27 04:55:04


Post by: Massaen


I think SfD is no where near as good as you make out. Its great - awesome in fact for craftworlds - but the opportunity effects crescendo present and the lack of required trigger mean its way more reliable and you get it for every unit, every turn.

As an example, every harlie can use crescendo T1 with no issue while SfD will likely involve you losing a unit to trigger it on another T1 without casting Word.

It might just be a difference in how we play but I see little to no value in making Harlies into Ynnari - crescendo is, IMO, to good to lose.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/27 10:26:25


Post by: wuestenfux


 Massaen wrote:
I think SfD is no where near as good as you make out. Its great - awesome in fact for craftworlds - but the opportunity effects crescendo present and the lack of required trigger mean its way more reliable and you get it for every unit, every turn.

As an example, every harlie can use crescendo T1 with no issue while SfD will likely involve you losing a unit to trigger it on another T1 without casting Word.

It might just be a difference in how we play but I see little to no value in making Harlies into Ynnari - crescendo is, IMO, to good to lose.

Well, I can see that RC is too good to give up when playing a pure Harlie army.
When you come from Craftworlds, you have no good cc unit and then Harlies are a decent add-on. Then the question, Ynnari or not, is vital.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/27 10:31:47


Post by: froper98


Ynnari is not good for Harlies as your units are already small, so this means that most opponents just weaken off a unit to 1-2 models with shooting and then focus on something else.

rising crescendo is amazing especially at reaching back field units quickly.

however I use dark elder outrider detachment for extra units, not pure harlies, so going Ynnari is really not an option as power from pain is too good to lose.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/27 10:42:04


Post by: wuestenfux


froper98 wrote:
Ynnari is not good for Harlies as your units are already small, so this means that most opponents just weaken off a unit to 1-2 models with shooting and then focus on something else.

rising crescendo is amazing especially at reaching back field units quickly.

however I use dark elder outrider detachment for extra units, not pure harlies, so going Ynnari is really not an option as power from pain is too good to lose.

Depends on how you play the game.
First turn charge of a Harlie army may work or may not work. If you are up against a shooty army, this can be beneficial. However, against a cc oriented army, a first turn charge can be suicide.
My Craftworlds army is more shooty oriented and lacks proper cc units. Here some add-on cc units can be icing on the cake. Hang back with the Harlies and let the enemy at your terms is one way to play the game.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/27 15:13:23


Post by: lambsandlions


 Massaen wrote:
I think SfD is no where near as good as you make out. Its great - awesome in fact for craftworlds - but the opportunity effects crescendo present and the lack of required trigger mean its way more reliable and you get it for every unit, every turn.

As an example, every harlie can use crescendo T1 with no issue while SfD will likely involve you losing a unit to trigger it on another T1 without casting Word.

It might just be a difference in how we play but I see little to no value in making Harlies into Ynnari - crescendo is, IMO, to good to lose.

Do you play with starweavers? Do your players have fusion pistols? It seems most people play 5 players with embrace and fusion pistols in a starweaver. If this is the case then T1 your harlequins COULD use crescendo but they are in a starweaver so they won't. T2 is probably the turn you want to get out of your starweavers and advance. Does your opponent have a vehicle? You can not advance and shoot your fusion pistols. So what do you do, advance and charge or not advance and shoot with your pistols you payed 9pts for? A full troupe with fusion pistols have a good chance at taking down a rhino, if you shoot it and have SfD you can then move forward with soulburst to charge the marines that will be coming out of it. After T3 you should be far enough in the enemies back line that the extra movement doesn't mean much and you would probably want to use your pistols more.


froper98 wrote:
Ynnari is not good for Harlies as your units are already small, so this means that most opponents just weaken off a unit to 1-2 models with shooting and then focus on something else.

rising crescendo is amazing especially at reaching back field units quickly.

however I use dark elder outrider detachment for extra units, not pure harlies, so going Ynnari is really not an option as power from pain is too good to lose.

I don't plan on using my own units for soul burst triggers. I think that is the wrong way to play Ynnari in general. Instead I play soul burst as an extra effect I get for killing something. Kill a transport? Okay now move closer to the enemy so you can insure your charge. Killed a unit? Lets fire our fusion pistols at the Captain that was standing right behind them. Its those little effects with the addition of words of the phoenix (one, if not the, best power in the game) that make strength from death so powerful.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/07/27 15:36:56


Post by: wuestenfux


It seems most people play 5 players with embrace and fusion pistols in a starweaver.

Seems to be the standard loadout. As said with SfD it can have some benefit in the same turn. Destroy a tank with fusion guns and then charge some unit nearby.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/08/07 09:31:26


Post by: Amishprn86


After playing Ynnari Harlequins can i can say its not as good as RC (from my objective view point in playing 8th).

The Ability to shut units down, fallback, move, advance and shoot and still charge is just really good. I dont turn 1 charge unless i play with Skyweavers and then they are the only ones that charge turn 1.

Yes Fusion is good and the idea of shooting 5-6 Fusion guns x2 is neat, it just doesnt work in many parts of the game. From my experience the Caress/embraces in melee just does way more damage (i still play with a couple fusions per unit for sure just not 5 man units of them).


If you are in range of shooting fusion you are in range to charge


My best E:HQ games have been with RC, Ynnari E:HQ is a niche army that will work amazing sometimes but RC works amazing all the time.

just my 0.2c


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/08/07 11:06:19


Post by: wuestenfux


After playing Ynnari Harlequins can i can say its not as good as RC (from my objective view point in playing 8th).

A pure Harlie army should be played as a Harlie army, not as a Ynnari army.
The situation changes if you play Harlies (together with CW or DE) as part of a Ynnari army.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/08/07 12:23:55


Post by: Amishprn86


 wuestenfux wrote:
After playing Ynnari Harlequins can i can say its not as good as RC (from my objective view point in playing 8th).

A pure Harlie army should be played as a Harlie army, not as a Ynnari army.
The situation changes if you play Harlies (together with CW or DE) as part of a Ynnari army.


I normally done play Pure Harlequins anymore, having units like Dark Reapers, Ravagers etc.. just helps them extremely well.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/08/08 10:47:00


Post by: wuestenfux


 Amishprn86 wrote:
 wuestenfux wrote:
After playing Ynnari Harlequins can i can say its not as good as RC (from my objective view point in playing 8th).

A pure Harlie army should be played as a Harlie army, not as a Ynnari army.
The situation changes if you play Harlies (together with CW or DE) as part of a Ynnari army.


I normally done play Pure Harlequins anymore, having units like Dark Reapers, Ravagers etc.. just helps them extremely well.

As a Ynnari army or as a conglomerate of CW, DE, and Harlies?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2017/08/09 10:00:04


Post by: Amishprn86


As conglomerate,, Eldar and DE are 99% the time just vehicles so i dont care to be Ynnari for a few vehicles.

My best games so far has been 3 DE or Eldar vehicles (eitehr Bombers/Ravagers or Hemlocks/Hunters), 4 units of Troupes, 2 Shadowseers, 2 Troupe Masters and a Solitaire.

I've fought against Dante Vehicle spam (he had 3 fliers and 4? Razorbacks, he wanted to save points for some of the Sang Guard for a Melee punch), I had 0 problems, we actually fought a few times for hi to try to figure out how to beat it.

I was playing with 8 drops, now i will be playing with 7 due to Solitaire changes.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/01/22 16:04:07


Post by: beltenebros


This thread has been a great read, thank you all!

I'm coming from Iyanden wraith heavy and looking to expand with some Harlequins. The below list is intended to be fun and semi-competitive:

++ Vanguard Detachment +1CP (Aeldari - Harlequins) [37 PL, 677pts] ++

+ Dedicated Transport +

Starweaver [5 PL, 99pts]: 2x Shuriken Cannon

+ HQ +

Shadowseer [7 PL, 134pts]: 1. Twilight Pathways, Shuriken Pistol

Troupe Master [4 PL, 74pts]: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Embrace, The Mask of Secrets

+ Elites +

Death Jester [4 PL, 60pts]

Death Jester [4 PL, 60pts]

Solitaire [6 PL, 110pts]: Harlequin's Caress, Harlequin's Kiss

+ Troops +

Troupe [7 PL, 140pts]
. Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Embrace
. Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Embrace
. Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Embrace
. Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Blade
. Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Blade

++ Vanguard Detachment +1CP (Aeldari - Craftworlds) [47 PL, 823pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Craftworld Attribute: Iyanden: Stoic Endurance

+ Dedicated Transport +

Wave Serpent [9 PL, 129pts]: Twin Shuriken Cannon, Twin Shuriken Catapult

Wave Serpent [9 PL, 129pts]: Twin Shuriken Cannon, Twin Shuriken Catapult

+ HQ +

Spiritseer [3 PL, 45pts]: 1. Conceal/Reveal, Iyanden: Enduring Resolve, Psytronome of Iyanden, Shuriken Pistol, Warlord

+ Elites +

Bonesinger [4 PL, 70pts]

Wraithguard [11 PL, 225pts]: D-scythe, 5x Wraithguard

Wraithguard [11 PL, 225pts]: D-scythe, 5x Wraithguard

++ Total: [84 PL, 1500pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe

The death jesters and bonesinger are to help fill out detachments for CP, and I want to see how DJ performs for me. I've also picked up triumvirate so may test rising crescendo vs. SfD for my playstyle.

I hear mixed results for solitaire as well, if neither perform well I'll likely drop Harlie detachment to patrol and fit in more troupes in starweavers.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/01/23 08:41:46


Post by: fresus


Death Jesters look cool, but even with the point drop they're bad. You pay 60pts for a BS2+ shuriken cannon. A Starweaver (50pts per BS3+ shuricannon) nets almost as many hits per points, but can transport stuff.
The Solitaire always disappointed me. It's not that bad, but it's not the character killer I hoped it would be. It can often blitz and charge an isolated character, but it doesn't have the punch to kill it in one phase. It's still decent against weak units, especially heavy weapon teams of some sort, but it's not the star player it could have been.

It's hard for me to give you specific advice since you're not trying to build the most competitive list (DJ and Solitaires look so cool it's hard not to include them). But I think you don't have enough models, and have too many characters overall. You also lack ranged anti-tank. By droping a Death jester and trying to find a few more points somewhere else (which isn't very easy given your detachment structure), you could try to fit a Voidweaver, or another unit of players. These players could take caresses and use the deep-strike stratagem to drop with the shadowseer (then you use twilight pathway to put them 1" away from the enemy, for a drop-in charge). But that would also eat away most of your CPs.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/22 06:23:10


Post by: Amishprn86


https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/03/22/breaking-news-major-revealsgw-homepage-post-1/


As for now, i think we should keep using this forum but when the codex drops, make a new topic.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/22 08:20:23


Post by: fresus


It's good news, but there isn't much to discuss sadly. The only information is that we'll get Masque rules, but that was a given.

Haywire cannons need a huge rework, and I hope we'll be able to gather some info about an upcoming change from the DE codex. If Haywire blasters change a lot (I would love if they dropped the MWs for hits that always wound on a fixed number against vehicles), that could be an indication of similar changes for Harlies.
Apart from that, I think any discussion is mostly wishlisting.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/22 13:09:38


Post by: the_scotsman


As for a Haywire rework - I'd love to see it become more like what "melta" is to lascannons/dark lances for something like an autocannon/shuriken cannon. An anti-light vehicle weapon that is mid-strength, low AP, but causes lots of wounds against lower toughness and save vehicles.

I'd probably make it a fairly short range rapidfire weapon (Probably the current 18" range) with something like S7, AP-1, D3 damage, auto hit like a flamer. Make it a high risk/high reward for getting the half range, and make it a viable anti-flyer weapon as well. Because it's a lightning weapon!

Dark Eldar/Harlequins already have plenty of "super penetrative goes right through the armor" weapons.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/22 13:12:11


Post by: Amishprn86


The point of Haywire is guaranteed (or more likely) wounds on vehicles. The MW's is fine. Haywire just needs to be always D3 wound and a 6 is always 3 wounds.

As for HWC's, they and Prismatic Cannons just needs to be assault weapons.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/22 14:45:51


Post by: the_scotsman


 Amishprn86 wrote:
The point of Haywire is guaranteed (or more likely) wounds on vehicles. The MW's is fine. Haywire just needs to be always D3 wound and a 6 is always 3 wounds.

As for HWC's, they and Prismatic Cannons just needs to be assault weapons.


The problem in 8th is that the old distinction (Haywire auto-glancing vehicles out with lots of wounds rather than fishing for explodes results like Darklight weaponry) doesn't exist in 8th. They're directly doing the same thing fusion/darklight does, so one is always just going to do more consistent damage than the other.

Might as well come up with a new role for it. Heck, we already took the three harlequin melee weapons and swapped their roles around for no reason.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/22 15:12:15


Post by: Amishprn86


i never said anything about keeping it the same from 7th to 8th, sadly tho they will not change haywire. Its in to many codex's at this point.

If we could completely re do the rule and not faq the damage (I think GW will faq the damage thats why i said to up the damage).

But a full rewrite, i would make it effect vehicles and deal damage, example "If Haywire would deal an unsave wound, that vehicle now moves at 1/2 speed and can not advance", or something like that.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/27 19:12:13


Post by: mokoshkana


If the Drukhari spoilers are anything to go on, the Harlequin codex may breathe some competitive spirit into the army. I hope they add an extra unit or three to flesh out the force. Also, Death Jesters need to not be completely useless offensively.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/27 20:42:14


Post by: fresus


 mokoshkana wrote:
If the Drukhari spoilers are anything to go on, the Harlequin codex may breathe some competitive spirit into the army. I hope they add an extra unit or three to flesh out the force. Also, Death Jesters need to not be completely useless offensively.

So far it seems like they put a lot of thoughts in the DE codex, but sadly it doesn't mean it will be the same for the Harlequins.
I'm not very optimistic for new Harlequin units. I guess something like a troupe master on Skyweaver would be a possibility, as it's an easy conversion and would give some use to the many troupe master most of us have laying around, but even that is a far stretch.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/27 21:03:37


Post by: Amishprn86


Yes, i dont think Harlequins will get anywhere near as much love, but thats mostly b.c we are a small army wheres DE have nearly 10x the units.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/30 16:37:27


Post by: beltenebros


 Amishprn86 wrote:
Yes, i dont think Harlequins will get anywhere near as much love, but thats mostly b.c we are a small army wheres DE have nearly 10x the units.


which is unfortunate. i don't think harlequins would need more than a couple units to give it that much more of a punch. if the codex is not coupled with some new model releases, what can we expect? masque's, some stratagems ... is that all?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/30 18:17:34


Post by: fresus


 beltenebros wrote:
 Amishprn86 wrote:
Yes, i dont think Harlequins will get anywhere near as much love, but thats mostly b.c we are a small army wheres DE have nearly 10x the units.


which is unfortunate. i don't think harlequins would need more than a couple units to give it that much more of a punch. if the codex is not coupled with some new model releases, what can we expect? masque's, some stratagems ... is that all?

Pretty much what most other factions got.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/30 19:06:00


Post by: Dew


So I don't know much about the Harlequins and I'm just starting to do research. I'm not really an Eldar guy but I like the uniqueness and story of the Harlequins. Plus they are very opposite what I paint and play now which is Necrons and Nurgle. Colorful, fast, hit hard in combat, fragile. Opposite what I'm used to and it might be fun to try something totally different.
The DE reveals are a fantastic mix of unique and seemingly effective rules that are also fluffy which makes me keep an eye on the clowns for their book.
I'm not really interested in going full Eldar, I would just like to dip my toe in an exclusive Harley list. Even if it's a smaller 1k points.

Long story short, can the Harlequins stand on their own or are they pretty much just added bonuses to other existing Eldar armies.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/03/30 19:51:04


Post by: Weidekuh


As an Index army, they struggle. They have a hard time against hordes and mass weak shooting. They are good against elite units and high powered shooting.
Just wait 2 more weeks, the codex might change that.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/06 15:07:34


Post by: TopperHarley


I play pure Harlies, but purely for the enjoyment factor, rather than any hope of racking up significant wins.

Gotta be honest - the Codex armies tend to kick my backside all the way to the circus. That being said, it was often surprisingly competitive for a few turns if the opponent had no real knowledge/experience of playing Harlies. Against a Codex army I tend to enjoy "showing off" the various neat and fun things Harlequins can do (ignoring models/terrain, first turn charges thanks to RC, the buffs from Troupe Masters and Shadowseers and of course blitzing a Solitaire across the board to mangle an elite unit or a character) to try and rack up kills and spread chaos than focus outright on winning games where i'm overmatched.

I still find them pretty competitive against Index armies (Genestealer cults, orks, tau and necrons although i know the latter two have just had codexes hit) and you can get a good game.

I suppose the main problem is just eight units. Two of which arent particularly useful (Voidweaver and Death Jester) and one of which you can only take one of (Solitaire). As has been mentioned previously, the 2 CP interrupt strategem is an absolute chip-pisser when it looks like you're all set to mangle a bunch of units.

I definitely rack up more losses than wins these days, but they're still immensely fun to play.


EDIT - just like to say I too would really like to see the Harlequin's Kiss get a buff, it's the iconic Harlie weapon and it just seems a poor third choice to the Embrace and Caress


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/06 17:13:57


Post by: Amishprn86


TopperHarley wrote:
I play pure Harlies, but purely for the enjoyment factor, rather than any hope of racking up significant wins.

Gotta be honest - the Codex armies tend to kick my backside all the way to the circus. That being said, it was often surprisingly competitive for a few turns if the opponent had no real knowledge/experience of playing Harlies. Against a Codex army I tend to enjoy "showing off" the various neat and fun things Harlequins can do (ignoring models/terrain, first turn charges thanks to RC, the buffs from Troupe Masters and Shadowseers and of course blitzing a Solitaire across the board to mangle an elite unit or a character) to try and rack up kills and spread chaos than focus outright on winning games where i'm overmatched.

I still find them pretty competitive against Index armies (Genestealer cults, orks, tau and necrons although i know the latter two have just had codexes hit) and you can get a good game.

I suppose the main problem is just eight units. Two of which arent particularly useful (Voidweaver and Death Jester) and one of which you can only take one of (Solitaire). As has been mentioned previously, the 2 CP interrupt strategem is an absolute chip-pisser when it looks like you're all set to mangle a bunch of units.

I definitely rack up more losses than wins these days, but they're still immensely fun to play.


EDIT - just like to say I too would really like to see the Harlequin's Kiss get a buff, it's the iconic Harlie weapon and it just seems a poor third choice to the Embrace and Caress


I think your problem also is only 8 units as well, i normally play with 15-17 units and have 0 problems, win most my games and the ones i lose is due to random objectives or just player error on my part.

I dont play with a lot of Troupes only 3 units of them (5man x5 Caress/FP), i do play with lots of Starweavers (6), Voidweavers (3), and now Skyweavers (4), Solitaire, and 2 Shadowseers. The 4 man Skyweaver with its already -1 to hit and hoping to get them to advance for another -1 to hit, they are my Anvil, everything else just fly's in circles for 2 turns. Shadowseers gets out and cast powers, solitair and skyweavers charging turn 1 if able (and you know fallback>shoot>charge again).


For my Harlequins are just so much fun, i've been playing DE lately now due to codex dropping, and even with the codex for DE, i still find harlequins more fun.



Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/06 18:37:57


Post by: Dew


 Amishprn86 wrote:


I think your problem also is only 8 units as well, i normally play with 15-17 units and have 0 problems, win most my games and the ones i lose is due to random objectives or just player error on my part.

I dont play with a lot of Troupes only 3 units of them (5man x5 Caress/FP), i do play with lots of Starweavers (6), Voidweavers (3), and now Skyweavers (4), Solitaire, and 2 Shadowseers. The 4 man Skyweaver with its already -1 to hit and hoping to get them to advance for another -1 to hit, they are my Anvil, everything else just fly's in circles for 2 turns. Shadowseers gets out and cast powers, solitair and skyweavers charging turn 1 if able (and you know fallback>shoot>charge again).


For my Harlequins are just so much fun, i've been playing DE lately now due to codex dropping, and even with the codex for DE, i still find harlequins more fun.



You don't use any troupe masters?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/06 20:09:59


Post by: fresus


 Amishprn86 wrote:
I think your problem also is only 8 units as well, i normally play with 15-17 units and have 0 problems, win most my games and the ones i lose is due to random objectives or just player error on my part.

I think he/she means 8 available units in the index, not 8 units on the table.
The 4 man Skyweaver with its already -1 to hit and hoping to get them to advance for another -1 to hit, they are my Anvil, everything else just fly's in circles for 2 turns.

What do you mean -2 to hit?

I always find Skyweavers to be very weak. They don't pack any punch, because 3 shots and 3 attacks will never amount to much. They're very scary for people who don't know much about Harlies, and useful to charge units and prevent them to shoot (but that doesn't work against properly screened or flying armies), but opponents who don't mind being charged by a weak unit will just ignore them and focus the Starweavers.

Harlies are still pretty decent for an index army, but they're very dependent on the match-up. Lots of troupes with fusion pistols can wreck monster/vehicle lists, but not much can be done against hordes.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/06 20:19:32


Post by: Amishprn86


fresus wrote:
 Amishprn86 wrote:
I think your problem also is only 8 units as well, i normally play with 15-17 units and have 0 problems, win most my games and the ones i lose is due to random objectives or just player error on my part.

I think he/she means 8 available units in the index, not 8 units on the table.
The 4 man Skyweaver with its already -1 to hit and hoping to get them to advance for another -1 to hit, they are my Anvil, everything else just fly's in circles for 2 turns.

What do you mean -2 to hit?

I always find Skyweavers to be very weak. They don't pack any punch, because 3 shots and 3 attacks will never amount to much. They're very scary for people who don't know much about Harlies, and useful to charge units and prevent them to shoot (but that doesn't work against properly screened or flying armies), but opponents who don't mind being charged by a weak unit will just ignore them and focus the Starweavers.

Harlies are still pretty decent for an index army, but they're very dependent on the match-up. Lots of troupes with fusion pistols can wreck monster/vehicle lists, but not much can be done against hordes.


Mirage Launchers, powers for another -1 for "1 enemy unit'' (but against a key unit), easy to get a unit of Skyweavers alive once you take your turn.

Edit: To add:

Troupes are good, but if you take to many of them you over saturate them and they are high value targets to be shot at, so taking 4-5 units of them means you have 4-5 hard targets that the opponent wants to kill and wants to kill them fast our of fear. if you like troupes IMO you need a couple Dedicated shooting (FP's) and a couple dedicated melee, to make them cheaper and less of a threat, then you can also have more units on the table, 10 less FP's and 10 less melee weapons sounds bad, but that 150pts more you have now, thats nothing Troupe unit, and if 1 unit dies instead of 150pts dying you only lost 100pts.

You can go from 4 Troupes to 6 Troupes for the same points, they are slightly less killy, but they will go much farther in your games.


I Instead i have my Anvil unit of Skyweavers, 4-6 (depends how i want to play), i can get -2 to hit, 3++ (the -2 is against the key unit to shoot them, like 30 Devourer Gants, a Storm Raven, etc...) but even if other units like 5mna/10mans hoot them -1 and 3++ is amazing strong, sure 1 guy might die but you got 3-5 more, and once they are in melel its go over for your opponent


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/06 23:52:36


Post by: TopperHarley


Yes, apologies for the confusion I meant 8 unit types to choose from, rather than me just owning 8 units!

I think Skyweavers are a pretty useful unit, I always give them the Zephyrglaives if I have the points. Their main asset (as with many Harlequin units) is their blinding speed. I do try to take Troupe Masters where possible, I think they're one of the better units Value-For-Points-wise, with a good number of attacks and that re-roll wounds aura.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/07 01:43:25


Post by: Amishprn86


Oh i forgot to talk about TM. I like them a lot, but i dont at the same time, I personalty just like the Shadowseers so much more, 2 of the powers are too good not to take (at least for me), i take them both with the same to powers and smite , this is just in case 1 dies. Their weapon isnt that bad either its a better Kiss. The -1 to wound and -1 to hit power, and even the HGL all together i just get much more use out of them than a TM. Sure its like 50pts more, but for me they always do way more work.

I also dont charge with more than 1 Troupe unit a turn, and since i play with 3 Troupe units its different for me.

I think if i was playing 4-5 units of Troupes, yeah i would take 1,


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/07 12:55:10


Post by: Jonke


 Amishprn86 wrote:

Mirage Launchers, powers for another -1 for "1 enemy unit'' (but against a key unit), easy to get a unit of Skyweavers alive once you take your turn.



You mean Fog of dreams psychic power? It only gives -1 to hit when firing at infantry.

I find skyweavers over priced. They need either a points drop increase in attacks or strength and the ability to fire both the bike weapon and star bolas in the same turn. I'm thinking of taking voidweavers instead of skyweavers. Better shooting damage output, better toughness för a little less points.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/07 13:01:37


Post by: fresus


Ok, you mean -1 to hit from Fog of Dreams? It doesn't affect Skyweavers, it only affects Infantry units.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/08 01:31:48


Post by: Amishprn86


fresus wrote:
Ok, you mean -1 to hit from Fog of Dreams? It doesn't affect Skyweavers, it only affects Infantry units.


You are 100% right, i forgot (been a bit since i play quins) I guess its just the -1 and 3++, either way, they have never died.

I thought i gave them -1 to hit tho, just memory mix up, playing 3 Aeldari armies will do that i guess, especially when you can get up to -3 on some units.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/10 20:03:02


Post by: mokoshkana


 Amishprn86 wrote:
I Instead i have my Anvil unit of Skyweavers, 4-6 (depends how i want to play), i can get -2 to hit, 3++ (the -2 is against the key unit to shoot them, like 30 Devourer Gants, a Storm Raven, etc...) but even if other units like 5mna/10mans hoot them -1 and 3++ is amazing strong, sure 1 guy might die but you got 3-5 more, and once they are in melel its go over for your opponent

Uhh I'm not sure about that statement. Skyweavers have 3 attacks apiece at WS3. On average they are hitting twice and against MEQ you are only wounding once. They do 2D, which is nice, but unless its primaris, 1D is wasted on that MEQ. After saving throws, your unit of 6 bikes kills an average of 4 marines on the charge...


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/10 20:24:38


Post by: Amishprn86


I do care about their melee damage, just like the everything in my army, its shoot, melee, and stopping other things from hurting me. My 4-6 bikes are charging things that would be shooting units.

Move+Advance. Shoot unit (like Havocs) charge them, get a wound in or 2, my next turn repeat to a different unit.

Or like Razorback spam, or IG tank spam, charge as many tanks as i can.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/11 07:03:29


Post by: fresus


Did all of you guys see the leak about the webway portal model: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/754328.page ? It's a very solid rumor, as the guys gave perfect info on the previous codex (they clearly had the time to read it carefully).
I've watched the part of the video where they discuss the new model, and they're a bit elusive on what it does exactly (they compare it to the new necron pylon, but I don't know its rules). I don't know how many units will be able to be brought from the webway with this, but it seems interesting.
Really not what I was expecting, and I'm glad to see a new model come in (we'll see if it's Harlequin specific or not).


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/11 08:46:02


Post by: Amishprn86


I did not will look now tho


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/11 11:50:00


Post by: willow


fresus wrote:
Did all of you guys see the leak about the webway portal model: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/754328.page ? It's a very solid rumor, as the guys gave perfect info on the previous codex (they clearly had the time to read it carefully).
I've watched the part of the video where they discuss the new model, and they're a bit elusive on what it does exactly (they compare it to the new necron pylon, but I don't know its rules). I don't know how many units will be able to be brought from the webway with this, but it seems interesting.
Really not what I was expecting, and I'm glad to see a new model come in (we'll see if it's Harlequin specific or not).


Ehh... If there's one thing harlequins don't really need it's another deepstrike method of deployment. That is, assuming our stratagems and transports/skyweavers remain the same.

And if it's akin to the Monolith rules... well. There's a reason why Necron players don't run them.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/11 12:22:58


Post by: fresus


Normal deepstrike isn't that great for Harlequins, because it leaves players vulnerable, unless you can twilight pathways the deep-striked unit.
From the video and monolith rules, I understand the deployment rules would be something like: when you set up the portal, you can also set up as many harlequin units as you want in the webway for free (infantry, probably bikers, probably not vehicles/monsters). Then, at the beginning of each of your movement phase, a single unit that was setup in the webway can be placed within 3" of the portal, and is allowed to move afterwards (so much better than normal DS). If the portal is destroyed before all the units were deployed, you can pay a CP to deploy them with normal DS rules.

Also, in the video one of the two guys said the first codex will be Harlies, while the other said it will be DW. So who knows.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/11 14:16:33


Post by: willow


fresus wrote:
Normal deepstrike isn't that great for Harlequins, because it leaves players vulnerable, unless you can twilight pathways the deep-striked unit.
From the video and monolith rules, I understand the deployment rules would be something like: when you set up the portal, you can also set up as many harlequin units as you want in the webway for free (infantry, probably bikers, probably not vehicles/monsters). Then, at the beginning of each of your movement phase, a single unit that was setup in the webway can be placed within 3" of the portal, and is allowed to move afterwards (so much better than normal DS). If the portal is destroyed before all the units were deployed, you can pay a CP to deploy them with normal DS rules.

Also, in the video one of the two guys said the first codex will be Harlies, while the other said it will be DW. So who knows.


Well it seems like a bit of the DW codex has been leaked, maybe they're first.

Yeah, like I said, there's a reason Necron players don't really use the monolith's deployment; you don't actually get to move thereafter. Granted, I didn't watch the video, but if they said it's the same as the Monolith, then it's a resounding meh. We already have great ways of closing in on the enemy.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/11 14:26:11


Post by: fresus


willow wrote:
Yeah, like I said, there's a reason Necron players don't really use the monolith's deployment; you don't actually get to move thereafter. Granted, I didn't watch the video, but if they said it's the same as the Monolith, then it's a resounding meh. We already have great ways of closing in on the enemy.

They only mentioned the Monolith in regards to the stratagem that allows you to bring units even if the monolith was destroyed.
But yeah, since you have to set up the portal 12" away from enemies, and you can disembark up to 3" away, it matches the typical 9" distance you get from DS rules, which is a good indication that maybe we won't be able to move after deepstriking.
If that's the case, it's pretty useless for Harlequins. A lone troupe 9" away from enemy is just asking to get shot to death, especially when good transports exist.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/12 14:55:13


Post by: Weidekuh


I watched the french video and one of the dudes said the codex is going to be one of the worst ones. The other said it's not that bad. And then the discussion more or less went on like: "as a standalone codex?" "no, it's not good as a pure army, but I can see some uses as a soup addition to other Eldar."

I hope they are wrong...


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/12 15:43:58


Post by: Amishprn86


Weidekuh wrote:
I watched the french video and one of the dudes said the codex is going to be one of the worst ones. The other said it's not that bad. And then the discussion more or less went on like: "as a standalone codex?" "no, it's not good as a pure army, but I can see some uses as a soup addition to other Eldar."

I hope they are wrong...


Its going to get the GK treatment "for now", honestly the Harlequin index isnt bad at all, some stratagems, relics, and a few traits will really help. If anything gets cheaper it will help a lot.
Harlequins will still have some weakness, but every codex honestly should. and for us fighting against mass attacks is just that lol.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/12 16:53:14


Post by: willow


 Amishprn86 wrote:
Weidekuh wrote:
I watched the french video and one of the dudes said the codex is going to be one of the worst ones. The other said it's not that bad. And then the discussion more or less went on like: "as a standalone codex?" "no, it's not good as a pure army, but I can see some uses as a soup addition to other Eldar."

I hope they are wrong...


Its going to get the GK treatment "for now", honestly the Harlequin index isnt bad at all, some stratagems, relics, and a few traits will really help. If anything gets cheaper it will help a lot.
Harlequins will still have some weakness, but every codex honestly should. and for us fighting against mass attacks is just that lol.


If worse means unchanged from the index, I could live with that. They're relatively viable as a standalone, you're just facing an uphill battle because they're so fragile.

There aren't many armies that can cover a table width in T1 and lock in multiple units, and we should try and exploit that as much as possible.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/12 17:21:15


Post by: fresus


The GK codex might be worse than the index, so they're always a risk.
Fusion pistols are pretty cheap for what they are, especially when you can have 6 in an open-topped vehicle. If the codex nerf them, but doesn't give anything very good in exchange, the codex could be awful. But since there was no nerf in CA, I suppose it's unlikely we'll see one.

At the very least we should get proper Masque tactics, so we'll get a much needed variety.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/12 17:26:29


Post by: Amishprn86


fresus wrote:
The GK codex might be worse than the index, so they're always a risk.
Fusion pistols are pretty cheap for what they are, especially when you can have 6 in an open-topped vehicle. If the codex nerf them, but doesn't give anything very good in exchange, the codex could be awful. But since there was no nerf in CA, I suppose it's unlikely we'll see one.

At the very least we should get proper Masque tactics, so we'll get a much needed variety.


I only said the GK codex b.c i meant how little was added, we are not going to get a Tyranids or DE type of release for sure. Fusion Pistols will stay the same, its the same in CWE, its the same for all Imperial Inferno pistols. There are something like 9 or 10 codei that have 9pt "metla" pistols.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/12 19:23:08


Post by: Weidekuh


Well Harlequin is probably the worst selling faction with a very small and non vocal playgroup so I can understand that they don't put as much effort into it. I just hope they get some cool tricks and are decent enough to not feel powerless.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/13 00:15:10


Post by: Goobi2


Harlies have a world of potential with the codex. Just imagine if they worked it out as per the last Codex Warlord Traits. 6 or so Troupe choices, Light/Twilight/Dark variations of each set of rules.... It could potentially be amazing.

Even a dex with limited datasheets can get a big boost with lots of options. I will keep my hopes up for the Harlies release, I still love that they arrived at all!


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/13 20:00:25


Post by: Porphyrius


Hello all! I'm starting a Harlequin force in anticipation of the upcoming codex, and I'm hoping you wonderful people can give me some advice. At the moment I have a Starweaver, 2 boxes of Troupes, and 6 metal harlequins from the 4th edition release. I plan to turn those into 4 troupes of 5 (converting some of the crew from the Starweaver into more infantry) and a Troupe Master. I'm holding off on building the Troupes until we start to hear what changes might be in store with the codex, and I know that I'll need some more Starweavers to transport all those bodies. Other than that, what would you all suggest? What should my next purchases be? I like the idea of playing a mono-Harlequin list, but what allies work well with Harlequins? I've always liked Craftworld, though I have no interest whatsoever in finecast which makes their range more limited. Do wraith units work well with Harlequins? I'm not looking to be curb-stomping competitive, but at the same time I don't want to immediately lose because of my list building.

Any advice you all can give me would be great!


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/13 20:46:13


Post by: Nivoglibina


Best ally of large harlequin squards are Craftworld Spiritseers. The possible buffs they give are all awesome for Harlequins. <<-This is wrong, I ddidn't notice that. Thanks Bharring!


Swooping Hawks also work well, they have the mobility to play the same fast game and are strong versus large T3 units, something you prefer not to engage with Quins.
Biggest enemy of Harlequins is lots of low quality attacks or shots. Guardsmen, Gants, Bolters etc. You want stuff that is either another target for those enemies (extra bodies) or something that is effective at killing those enemies.

Multiple Troupe Masters are good too, their buff is OP good. The new codex might change stuff that is good though.

Wraiths make great allies thematically and visually, but I don't think they really add something that Harlequins need. But they are not crap so you can make them work.
If you go for Wraithguard I would certainly take multiple Spiritseers/Warlocks as well. The extra move from quicken is a must have IMO.

You can also take one large, no transport squad of Harlequins. This is more efficient for buffs from psykers and Troupe Masters, and you don't have to pay the transport tax. You can keep it safe turn one by deep striking them in.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/13 20:49:10


Post by: Bharring


Check the keywords carefully before mixing and matching buffs across subfactions, though.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/13 20:54:58


Post by: Weidekuh


I have a wraith and Harlequin army and they don't really complement each other well. You will have too few units and nothing to camp objektives.
Craftworld Dire Avengers are plastic or some Fire Prism for longe range firepower. Most other good options aren't in plastic. A doom / Executioner Farseer Skyrunner or a Skyrunner Autarch with Laserlance and the no overwatch warlord trait work also well with harlies.
I'm pretty sure that the Drukhari codex has some good stuff for Harlequins, but I don't know much about them.

Anyway, I would wait untill the codex drops. I'm predicting preorders for one of the next two saturdays.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/13 21:00:32


Post by: Bharring


My DAs have complimented my Harlies and Banshees very well. You might not think it, but when your expensive CC units charge in, it can be useful to charge in with the DAs, too. This way, the enemy typically has to split their attacks between your glass cannon Harlies and your not quite as glass or cannon DAs. I'd rather lose an Avenger in CC than a Harley. Beyond points, the DAs have done most of the work they're going to do already, so chumping some of the attacks on them is quite a plus.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/13 21:01:30


Post by: Lithanial


I'm in a similar situation with just starting out a small Harlequin force to ally with other Aeldari. It seems you need to set out with clarity on what you want your Troupe squads to do since their damage numbers seem to steer them to either MEQ smashing, or jumping over screens and hunting down T7 Vehicles and Monsters.

Currently aiming for a force of 2 Troupe loaded Starweavers, one with Troupe Master, one with Shadowseer to be the meat of the force. Then unit of 3 Skyweavers to run interference for them.

A third Troupe feels a bit overkill for an allied force so i'm not quite sure how I am going to get command points out of that lot. Fingers crossed Death Jesters get a price drop and some usefulness so I can go Solitaire & 2 Jesters to make a Vanguard.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/16 15:00:46


Post by: dan2026


I'm guessing most Harley guns and melee weapons are going to change stats in the new codex.

Very difficult to tell what will be useful atm.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/16 16:31:24


Post by: fresus


 dan2026 wrote:
I'm guessing most Harley guns and melee weapons are going to change stats in the new codex.

I don't think any codex had major stat changes from their index counterpart.
The DE codex got a few changes like number of shots on haywire, or number of damage on blasters, or the wraithguards/blades/lords got +1T in the CWE codex, but they all function the same.
The neuro-disruptor and haywire cannons are the most likely to get stat changes, but I'm not sure embraces/caresse/kisses will (although I would welcome a change that makes them more different).


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/16 22:16:35


Post by: dan2026


fresus wrote:
 dan2026 wrote:
I'm guessing most Harley guns and melee weapons are going to change stats in the new codex.

I don't think any codex had major stat changes from their index counterpart.
The DE codex got a few changes like number of shots on haywire, or number of damage on blasters, or the wraithguards/blades/lords got +1T in the CWE codex, but they all function the same.
The neuro-disruptor and haywire cannons are the most likely to get stat changes, but I'm not sure embraces/caresse/kisses will (although I would welcome a change that makes them more different).


I expect/hope the Prismatic Cannon will be buffed.
It needs more shots to be viable.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/27 15:37:52


Post by: dan2026


Nice little portal.
Hope its rules are solid.

On a different note. Does anyone think we might get a Start Collecting Harlequins box to go along with the codex?
Am I right in thinking Harlequins haven't had one before?


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/27 15:53:56


Post by: abyrn


 dan2026 wrote:
Nice little portal.
Hope its rules are solid.

On a different note. Does anyone think we might get a Start Collecting Harlequins box to go along with the codex?
Am I right in thinking Harlequins haven't had one before?


I would love a Harlequin start collecting box, there is almost no way to make a bad one. If you go the simplest route of 1 large model, 1 troop, and 1 HQ, that is filled with just a troupe box and voidweaver/starweaver, which at $82 is less than the cost of the SC boxes at $85.

Realistically, almost any model added to that set would never get bought by itself again. The only Harlequin model besides the troupe and transport I could see you needing multiple of would be starweavers, which would make it incredibly cheap to create a Harlequin force.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/27 16:11:40


Post by: fresus


The rules for the portal are mostly known. 120pts, 14W with 3+ 5++. You can set it up more than 12" away from enemy units, and more than 3" from an objective. Then each turn a unit can get out of it (at deployment you have to choose which units are held in the webway and will get out of it), and stay more than 9" away from enemies. So very similar to the necron monolith.
The only thing we don't know is the keyword restriction on units. Given the size, it's not impossible we'll be able to DS starweavers or even wraithlords wraithknights


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/27 16:35:13


Post by: Amishprn86


fresus wrote:
The rules for the portal are mostly known. 120pts, 14W with 3+ 5++. You can set it up more than 12" away from enemy units, and more than 3" from an objective. Then each turn a unit can get out of it (at deployment you have to choose which units are held in the webway and will get out of it), and stay more than 9" away from enemies. So very similar to the necron monolith.
The only thing we don't know is the keyword restriction on units. Given the size, it's not impossible we'll be able to DS starweavers or even wraithlords wraithknights


But... the Monolith can move, staying away more than 9 will be terrible for us with that thing, the opponent just needs to move around it with a couple unit.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/04/30 16:50:54


Post by: Weidekuh


Yay, soon!
Preorder 12. May
Webway gate one week later.


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/05/01 13:06:27


Post by: Lithanial


For only 351 points, i'm coming around to including a Craftworlds Supreme Command detachment of 1x Farseer Skyrunner and 2x Autarch Skyrunners with Laser Lance. Doom compliments Haywire too well to really ignore the option once Voidweavers get a good buff, and the Autarchs put out some serious pain for their points, adding some needed punch to Skyweaver squads.

It would also open up the option of some Elites, potentially a squad of Scorpions acting as turn 2 support by going Biel-tan and using Court of the Young King to improve your charge odds. It may take 3CP in total to get them in reliably using a re-roll, but feels like it could be worthwhile for the points.



Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/05/01 16:08:23


Post by: Weidekuh


I would take Farseer Skyrunner with Doom / Executioner, Warlock Skyrunner with Jinx / Protect, Autarch Skyrunner with Laser Lance and the Shimmerplume of Idontremember (-1 hit).

Seer Council stratagem and Jinx are really worth it. Because Jinx also reduces invulnerable saves!


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/05/14 15:37:09


Post by: Lithanial


Well I massively lucked out. I've been painting up my Harlequins as Soaring Spite in preparation for the new book arriving and I managed to score exactly the Masque form I want out of the 6.

*Happy 'Quin*


Cegorarch's feast halls - Harlequin tactics discussion @ 2018/05/14 15:59:52


Post by: Amishprn86


I like the idea of a new thread for the codex if we dont mind. The game has changed so much and points, etc.. this thread will be almost fully outdated soon.

Please go to new Codex topic.