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I did a search, but didn't come up with much so, I could have just missed it. Has any one crunched the number on Harlequins VS Howling Banshees? Harlequins have the Rending and FC and HAR so they have major power, but are the mass power weapons and a better base save take the cake over all and you looking at 22 point vs the 16 points. Your get alot for the extra 6 points but I'm just unsure.....and when I'm unsure I post here.

Thanks for your time and help.
Anarchyman99

i dont think this is a math problem - there's more to each than just power weapons vs rending. You have things like:

masks
flip belts
hit and run
veil of tears

all clouding the equation.

As for the comparison without that, just PW vs rending...rending is good, strength 3 is not good is the normal way I think people look at it. For example, against MEQs, without a charge:

11 banshees:

22 attacks, 11 hits, 11/3 wounds or if they hit on 3s due to failed LD check 16.5 hits, 5.5 wounds.

8 harlequins:

24 attacks, 16 hits, 4 rends, 4 non-rending wounds, 16/3 total wounds (5 1/3)

Of course, this is just against T4 and a 3+ save. Against something tougher the rends get better, since the rends are already better (4 instead of 11/3) right out of the box and won't change when it's harder to wound.

The power weapons are better against things that are both T3 and 2+ save, which isn't very common to say the least.

The banshee exarch makes this closer but still in terms of offensive punch, rending puts the harlequins over the top in 4th edition.

Neither are particularly resilient and it's kind of complicated and situational to compare a 4+ armor save to a 5+ invulnerable save+veil of tears

The issue with dealing with hand to hand units is that your target really makes a difference in how effective you are. Here are some numbers for you though. One point of note is that I don't remember off hand if quins are WS 4 or WS 5, if someone could remind me, I would appreciate it. I'll assume they are WS 5 for now and fix things later if someone tells me I'm wrong.

So, with the disclaimer aside, lets look at 11 banshees (176 points) vs 8 harlequins with kisses (176 points)

VS MEQ's
Banshee = 5.5 kills on the charge / 3.7 with no charge
Quins = 8 kills on the charge / 5.3 with no charge

VS Terminators
Banshee = 3.66 kills on the charge / 2.4 with no charge
Quins = 4.8 kills on the charge / 3.3 with no charge

VS Gaurdsmen
Banshees = 11 kills on the charge / 7.3 with no charge
Quins = 12.4 kills on the charge / 8 with no charge

VS Dakka Fex (T6, 3+ save)
Banshees = 3.6 wounds on the charge / 2.4 with no charge
Quins = 6.2 wounds on the charge / 4.7 with no charge

So on average the quins out perform the banshees in every situation I have presented. Now there are a few differences to note. The first is the the inclusion of an exarch in the banshee squad can significantly affect their damage. Another thing to conisder is that adding the ubiquitous shadowseer to the harlequin squad is expensive. Defensively the two units work quite a bit differently as well. Banshees, with their 4+ armor, stand up to small arms fire a lot better than quins do, but quins with their veil of tears tend to get shot at less. Qunis stand up better to heavy bolter fire and power weapon attacks while banshees are much more resilient to massed attacks against them (both due to their better basic armor and their superior numbers). Banshees can travel in a wave serpent while quins have to either move on foot or stay at a max squad size of 6 so they can fit in a falcon.

So all in all, I think both are viable hand to hand units, but if you are looking for raw damage output per point spent, quins are the way to go.

Posted something that was incorrect here, please ignore it.

banshees are ws4, harles are ws5

also the max size you can go with for banshees is 10..

i have used both a lot. against MEQ's, i do not like banshees. the 4+ save means they will get killed quickly if they leave and guys around, wounding on a 5+ is not effective enough to reliably lay some wounds on a squad.

10 banshees (no exarch) on the charge vs. MEQ's

30 attacks, 15 hit, 4.95 wound

6 harlequins on the charge vs. MEQ's

24 attacks, 4 dead from rends, 11.84 str4 hits, 3.9 more dead.

now theyare about the same points for 10 banshees with no exarch and 6x harles with shadowseer. (2 pt difference), but the harles are up by almost 2 wounds. with on average 4 dying from rending alone.

adding the exarch to the banshees helps, but with mirror blades it only adds about .5 more kills a turn, and with the +2 str weapon it adds only .75 more kills that just 10 banshees. either way, exarch or no, in a slug fest harles deal more dmg.

if you bring doom into the equation thats a lot different. doom makes banshees more effective against 3-5T models, but banshees can do almost nothing against most MC's still.

all in all i use harles. the rending is worth it, ive killed land raiders, more termies than is funny and whole messes of Meq's when my banshees were only O.K. when i used them.

YMMV



mirror blades kill

huge_eldar wrote:banshees are ws4, harles are ws5

Excellent, then my calculations above are correct

also the max size you can go with for banshees is 10..

I know but if you want an equal point comparison, looking at 11 banshees and 8 quins gives you equaly priced squads. Perhaps I should redo it for a squad of bansees with exectuioner exarch vs quins with shadow seer, just to make things proper.

Howling Banshees are sadly best at killing...Harlequins. lol

The two situations not covered above, however, are:

You can run 10 banshees in a mech list, while you're limited to 6 harlies. The banshees win against harlequins head-to-head, even when charged. The banshees are dropping about half, maybe more, of the harlequins before the harlies swing. The banshees do better against charges from stealers too, for the same reason.

The shadowseer is a near-mandatory upgrade due to the grenades at the very least, while the exarch is roughly the same price, but adds to the killing power of the unit.

Still, harlies win because of the versatility. The ability to carry fusion pistols gives them game against heavy armour as well as compensating for some of the dice factor when going after MCs. But, if harlies don't fit your army theme, banshees aren't a horrible choice.

I think I'll just run one of each.....best of both worlds.
Thanks for your imput, as always DakkaDakka helps.

Also keep in mind that Banshees can not hurt enhanced toughness 'fexes, while Harliquins can. S3 bounces off T7, so if your meta game has a lot of Zilla lists, Harlies are the better buy.

If we are talking about going to the store and buying/painting something new, then it might be useful to understand how the two units will compare in july....

Someone feel like doing that math?

Some non-math related changes....

Harlies in wave serpents

not being able to allocate attacks to units that charge you when you are already locked

outnumbering not being a factor in leadership modifiers

wounds caused being a factor in leadership modifiers

wounds being able to be taken from locked models, but attacks still only being generated by engaged models

Plus the math... if someone is bored..

All in all, buying and painting one of each is by far the most intelligent thing you can do.

Shep, I would draw a different conclusion from your premises. If the goal is not to waste money, then the most intelligent thing to do is buy neither until one is sure of what the rules will be.

Don't forget the possible changes to Rending. The numbers change if Rending ignores armour on a roll of 6 to wound.

Nurglitch wrote:Don't forget the possible changes to Rending. The numbers change if Rending ignores armour on a roll of 6 to wound.

True enough...That cuts down on the number of wounds the quins cause by about 1/3 or so. But I hate to count chickens before they hatch.

Shep wrote:

Harlies in wave serpents

Ok, that means:
1. leaving your transport stationary in the deployment area for one turn.
2. Starting the game with harlies huddled around it.
3. Having the room to disembark the unit that is already inside in the 2" zone.

At best it delays your mech harlie attack by a full turn, often more if you want to huddle in a tight corner behind terrain while you do the switcheroo. Otherwise its a juicy target to exploit. In effect its like always going second with eldar skimmers, not good.

Now admittedly this is based on unconfirmed rules, but I see no cause as to how or why embarking and disembarking rules thermselves will be changed.

Dont Eldar have that "Doom-thingy" that allows to reroll to wounds?

6 Harlequins charging with doom today: 4 rends on average.

6 Harlequins charging with doom next edition: 24 attacks, 2/3 hits (vs WS4), 1/6 rend on wounding + 1/6x5/6 rerolling = 24x2/3x(1/6 +1/6x5/6) = 4,8 rends on average.

Overall Harlequins will be slightly worse with the roumored upcoming rending nerf, but Harlequins will almost get doubled benefits from doom which makes them even better under the right circumstances.

I refuse to run Harlies in my Swordwind mainlty because they are unfluffy and because I hate the idea of Eldar clowns. I run a medium size Banshee squad with an Exarch carrying an Executioner (S5 really adds more to the body count) - I also use Jain Zar as my principle HQ choice. I just had a 1000pt game against nids and the Banshees did fine - Carnifex down in one charge - mopped up a unit of Warrior without them getting to attack... and basically that was it - the rest of the Swordwind dealt with the other bugs.

I'd vote for banshees in any circumstance (as an Eldar player you should only require them to kill heavy infantry as the rest of the army should have all other areas of the battle covered. IMO the executioner makes a big difference, and it should always be included.

i dont know if i just have good rending dice or what, but it is funny that i can get 3-6 rends on the charge with my harle's but when i run banshees, i cant hit a 5+ for the life of me....


also, banshees against a t6 or t7 carnifex is a bad idea IMO, on the charge, 30 att, 20 hit and maybe 2-3 natural 6's mean alive carnifex. the executioner helps in this situation, whereas 6 harle's can on average lay 4 rends on the charge.

but i 100% understand about them not being "fluffy" in your army. its your army after all i personally dont care about them being fluffy or not because my craftword takes all the help it can get

3-6 rends is not an unusual result. The average is 4.

Banshees vs fex is ok by me. They're not very efficient at killing it, but they'll get it eventually, and if the stealers have been dealt with, it's better to kill a fex on your opponent's turn than yours.

Orlanth wrote:

Shep wrote:
Harlies in wave serpents

Ok, that means:
1. leaving your transport stationary in the deployment area for one turn.
2. Starting the game with harlies huddled around it.
3. Having the room to disembark the unit that is already inside in the 2" zone.

No actually it doesn't

1) First off, you can embark on a transport either before or after it has moved. You can also embark on a transport either before or after the squad has moved. So there is no need to have a stationary transport in your deployment area ever.

2) The harlies can start wherever they like within the rules of deployment. All the transport has to do is get to where they are by the end of the first turn so that they can embark. It could mean that you start the transport right next to the quins so that they embark before the transport moves. It could also mean that you start them off near the transport so that they move to the transport and then embark on it and then the transport moves. Or another option would be to move the quins and then move the transport to where they are and then have them embark on it. All 3 options are viable.

3) A unit that buys a transport does not have to begin play embarked (although I vaguely remember something about having to deploy near by, but that might be an old 3rd edition rule kicking around in my head...not sure). You could just as easily deploy the unit outside of its transport so that the quins will have an easy time of getting in.

So all in all, it will be no where near as difficult as you seem to think it is.

Theory hammer aside I have run both and at equal points however you equip them the Harlies come out on top IMO. The problem I see with them is it almost makes a Falcon mandatory to get them were they are most needed.

Harlies kill equal or more vs. almost every possible matchup, assuming equal point values. The only real advantage banshees have is numbers.