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I've got my eldar army more or less where I want it, but the final touch will no doubt be a squad of the new harlequins.  My question to you all is how have you used your harlequins?  What configurations do you use (# of kisses, squad size, leadership choices)?  How do you use them in concert with the rest of your forces?  What is the best way to use them in a Mech Force?

I like five with the Shadowseer in a Falcon along with an autarch kitted for maximum killy.

- Greenie

I wonder if they are more vulnerable in a falcon (where the shadow seer doesn't help) or out in the open?

I play terrain heavy boards so I like a larger squad (10) with shadowseer and 8 kisses (you have to assume you will lose a few models).

Opponents are dreadfully afraid of them. The amount of fire they draw is almost comical. While the rest of my army is shooting the heck out of my opponents, they are usually attempting to avoid the harlies.

ender502

6 in a falcon with shadowseer (for the plasma grenades) and all with kisses.

After experimenting, it became clear pretty fast that the troupe master with power weapon is not worth it. The theory is that the power weapon guarantees some kills in turns when the rending whiffs, but in practice the type of target that the harlies take on are not going to be seriously threatened by a str3/4 power weapon.

Their best targets are
-High-toughness, low-save, no invulnerable (wraithlord, talos, wraithguard, plague marines, TMCs etc.)
-Terminators (small squad size makes termies vulnerable in spite of the invulnerable save)
-Independent characters (if they can get in base, they can pull down most anybody in a single round before he gets to attack).
-bloodletters and plaguebearers

The 6-clown squad can put the hurt on a marine squad, but they do better if accompanied by another assault squad. I use scorpions, but shining spears, warp spiders or a biketarch would do just as well. Banshees don't work so well with harlies because (1) the banshees strike first, so casualties removal can deprive the harlies of attacks and (2) they tend to overkill the target unit. The advantage of scorpions is that you can bounce the harlies out of close combat after the first round (if you're safe from shooting) and the scorpions have the durability to hold up for a round on their own.

I haven't tried the larger, walking squad yet, but I've seen other players use them effectively and heard good things about them.

Oh, and to address your question, Ender, they are nearly invulnerable in a falcon as long as the falcon has stones, holofield and vectored engines.

I have yet to lose a single harlequin that was riding in a falcon (they don't die until they get out and start fighting). In contrast, the one time that I did try a walking harlequin squad, they were wiped out in one turn by a lucky deepstriking terminator unit.

I was thinking about running 2 10 man squads with a bikeseer or normal farseer attached to each squad in order to benefit from the shadowseer and fortune the whole gang as they move forward, and should be charging no later than turn three.

That way, with 20 fortuned harlies, you should be garaunteed to get a lot of them to the target. Plus, those two units will demand a lot of your opponants attention as they will be able to hurt (if not totally destroy) anything they cahrge.

The only problem is if i should give the bikeseer / farseer doom as well, but with that many harlies, it may be overkill. And, casting doom before chargin will slow the entire squad down as they would have to forgo fleeting, or the seer would have to detach from the squad, making him pretty much a dead man the next turn due to being targetable.

I like the idea of using two units though, that makes sense and allows the harlies to really use their abilities to maximum effect.

Er, i mean using two different assault units, i nrefference to Flavius' ideas.

How would harlies do against wytches?? ( ive still havent looked at a eldar codex yet and have yet played against any eldar since the last codex)

10 man unit on foot. No point to the shadowseer at all if you are in a falcon.
Take as many kisses as possible and also the two models with the inferno pistol (or whatever its called). Take the jester and shadowseer. Shoot the unit you want to charge with all that clean them up in cc and hopefully consolidate to the next unit.
I would be very happy if i could have a farseer and warlock unit nearby to toss in the guide/doom on the unit the harlequin charge.
Other than that i want them around to see where they will be fitting in the DE army.

The shadowsser is essential in or out of a transport, as it is the only way to get plasma grenades for the squad.  Jesters realistically wont be used as the unit has to fleet and the gun is pretty crappy for the cost.

As far as toughness 3 models go harequins are pretty expensive pointswise. Give them what they need to make it into hand-to-hand and stay there and nothing else. A shadowseer keeps the squad as a fire magnet, but it also keeps them alive. Give the squad as many kisses as possible. The worste thing that can happen is to have them take return hits. If the squad is walking, take the maximum amount.

I have found that one of the perfect matches for harlequins is Prince Yeirl. The shadowseer keeps Yeirl hidden and Yeirl helps them mop-up in one round.

5th Element: no offense, but it's amazing that I totally believe the exact opposite of absolutely everything your post said after "10 man unit on foot." That's never happened to me before. We must play in really different enviroments.

One issue with attaching a farseer/autarch is that they lose hit and run, as well as the ignore cover.

I've tried the big foot squad (250 points) with a seer and the 6 w/shadowseer in a falcon, and found the 6 in the falcon work better. All it takes is the wrong squad getting a lucky roll to target them or podding next to them and they are toast.

Thats because its wrong.

No one in their right mind would put them on foot. The shadowseer is false protection, and relying on it will get the squad killed.

Fast transports with troops -> drive up, double tap, squad dies (fire warriors, dire avengers, sisters, marines)
Fast gunships -> drive up, shoot, squad dies (tornados anyone?)
Indirect Fire Platforms -> boom, squad dies (basilisk, defiler)
Deep Stikers -> enemy appears, harlies disappear (terminators, dreadnoughts, drop troops)

Just think about how many armies have at least one, if not many, of these in their standard lists.

I won my local league recently using the ten harlies on foot squad. Shadowseer, TL with PW, 8 kisses. Attached a walking Farseer with stones, Fortune and Doom.

Fast transports with troops= not so common in SM lists anymore. My local Eldar opponents aren't making real use of the DA gunship yet, and thankfully my local environment doesn't include a lot of mech tau. Sisters are uncomon, and I can pop their rides with lots of S6 shooting anyway.

Tornados aren't a problem because I have enough s6 multi-shot firepower in the army to annihilate them. My opponent could just hide them behind terrain in his DZ and wait for me to get close, but then he's losing the game on objectives. My harlies can control the center of the table until he moves forward.

Indirect isn't a problem because the Seer means you need to be close to TARGET them (not to see them) so indirect weapons, which are usually hiding behind terrain as far from my army as possible, have virtually no chance to shoot at the harlies.

Deep Strikers = don't have enough firepower to make a substantial dent when I have Fortune up. A Dread would have to land right next to the squad to maximize the heavy flamer template. A single AC is not scary. The Harlies will eat the dread in close combat and keep going. The Farseer's Witchblade is just extra insurance. A termie squad will likely do substantial damage, but won't wipe out the squad, and I will kill the whole termie squad (equally costly) in return. There's also always the chance that a bad scatter will take him out range to easily make the targeting roll.

The squad is certainly somewhat vulnerable to these things, but not excessively so. Just enough to make for a tactical game.

I also advocate a 10 man harlequin squad on foot. I had one game against guard I was running a 10 man squad of harlequins, 2 10 man squads of banshees and eldrad leading the crew. The rest of my army was jetbikes, wraithlrods and fire prisms, and it was a recon mission at Omega level. My opponent was guard. He had 5 vehicles, (a russ, 2 chimera, 2 hellhounds) and over 125 infantry. I let him go first, after Eldrad redeployed everyone (I rolled a 3, so 4 units redeployed) so his turn 1 shooting was ineffective. I charged up along a flank, turn 2 he got his reserves... I cried as I lost a banshee squad to a hellhound, turn 2 I got some combat going, but failed all my reserve rolls. Turn 3 he flamed half a banshee unit, but the harlequins had moved so far from the hellhounds that they were safe (and in combat) My turn 3 I got my wraithlrods and a jetbike (um great!, (where's my fire prism!)) anyhow before turn 4 began the harlequins and what was left of the banshees had killed 55 guardsmen! The game did go to turn 7 but my oppoenent conceeded. By turn 6 I was looking at killing the last 16 guardsmen on the table. A particular hightlight was watching eldrad fail his perils of the warp test for the 5th time in the game, watching the ghosthelm fail on his last wound, and then the demons rolled a 1 failing towound him. On the same turn he eldritch stormed the front end of the leman russ, turn it around 180 and charged the back end of the tank and blowing it up, the very next turn he marched over to 2 chimera, eldritch stormed both of them and killed both (one by storm and one by h2h) Just amazing. The harlequins were busy killing geq's. The rest of my army that had been stuck in reserves killed less than 10guardsmen the entire game. Clowns all the way.

Just from me reading the codex and running scenarios on paper etc I think harlies could work either way, just depends on what else you are running.  Redundancy would be the key, having enough CC threats for your enemy to worry about.  I know once I get my harlies and a second wave serpent and I start dropping harlies on foot, banshees in a WS, and DA in s WS my opponents will get flustered trying to decide which to hit first.  So I think harlies can work either way, as long as they are more to worry about and not the only thing to worry about.
Aztralwolf

6 Harlies with a Shadowseer (for the Grenades) in a Falcon kitted out is about the no brainer way to use them.

No real thought even required to use them either, just drive up in a near unkillable tank and then next turn deliver the clowns. Near Zero your opponent can do to counter it.

6 Harlies kill 6 MEQ's on the charge. They'll annihilate so bloody much it's sick. Bigger squads will kill anything, you want some casualties so they stay locked in assault. Hell even if you do kill what you assault and can't consolidate into another unit you still have the VOT to protect them.

Wait, I thought Fire Dragons in the Falcon was the no brainer?


I've been missing out with Harlequins as I don't have the models yet (and I won't proxy them). Can't wait for next month to finally join in on the fun.