BlueDagger wrote:No offense but Lord Rog obviously has no experience with this kind of list. I field lists similar to this all the time for a giggles list and while it may not be tounie competitive it will bring some serious hurt.
Firstly, everything is
IMHO.
I'm going to agree and disagree with this. The results in the sig are all with harlies, however they require a 215 point delivery system (falcon w
SS,
HF,
EML, VE, SE).
Example list for ref
Eldrad, Yriel, 2 x 5 harles w
TM,
PW, HKx4, fusion pistol x 2, 3 x 3 bikers w warlock embolden (1 spear) and 2 above falcons.
Bikes reserve (
kp's they do laps of the board edge away from the action, objectives they come on and boost before getting the objective t5, 4 bikes can hold 2 obj, I used to triangulate the multiple obj).
Walking harlies won't work as it means the opponent gets to decide when they allow their units to get within charge range. With an appropriate delivery system you get the control. I see people seem to favour
WS's over falcons as 4th to 5th changed nerfed falcons. However, my strategy was to start with the falcons in a position of cover, use the fortune then move the falcons directly towards the main bunch of the opponents army ending in a V formation. This is needed to reduce the chance that the opponent can block the exits, small squads like this only need a small bit of space to disembark. So then the opponents only target choice is the
HF falcons with fortuned 4+ (note tau required a different strategy).
AP 1 is the enemy however with a 75% chance to save, it required 4 penetrates to get through and then you have
HF. I found VE well worth the points as we don't want to be destroyed on a 3 (think
AP 1). This is where the falcon beats the
WS as you need to get really close to the opponent for the joy of the next turn and
WS are just like any other vehicle when charged and
HF really make a difference. If the opponent was going to be really heavy on AP1/melta it would be worthwhile fortuning the harlies instead of the falcon. Now we get the fun. 9/10 games the opponents shooting would stun the falcons and then we get the uber multi-charge that cripples the opponent ending up in a tabled result t4.
As for fusion pistols, I disagree. The abundance of mech means we need the melta to pop those cherries to get at the juicy plebs inside (also handy before charging nob bikers/termies). Yes, you can lose a few on the explosion, however if you make sure the
FP guys are just within 3, and the rest are spread wide within coherency but about 5" away you can mitigate this (for land raiders/large vehicles you need to flank with the 2 squads so you guarantee that you can charge the unit that falls out). Note, the harlies need to be fortuned when they leave the transport until they die (at this time you were allowed to fortune a unit in another transport, changes to this mean a slight change in the tactics, don't drop both harlies down in 1 turn or put a seer in the other falcon instead of Yriel).
The point? Harlies with an appropriate delivery system are one of the best units in the game.
Cool things about harlies;
- they can get AP1 melta, this also helps with wound allocation
- as an elite choice, they do their damage turn 2-4 and then it doesn't really matter
- Hit and run is fantastic, on a regular basis I would end up with 1-2 harlies left after the opponents
CC turn, with wound allocation normally one of these would be a fusion pistol. These can then HnR from the decimated unit and go tank hunting at 10.5"+6".
- terrain? no, we don't mind that because we float
- Troop master with a power weapon. Great
- Doom with rending. Great
- Rerolling
inv save, that gives us a 57% chance to save, utilisation of cover thats 75%
AND, if you get unlucky and you get 55, 56, 65, 66 on the falcons damage early on both falcons, you can turn your game into a cagey obj stealing dance with the turbo boosting bikes at the end.
Kisses on everything except the master is right, unless you want 1 to not have it for wound allocation abuse.
Like some other
CC units, too many harlies CAN be a bad thing as we really want to kill the opponent in the 2nd round of combat (ie their turn). This is obviously situational.
If you want to stick with the walking harlies, I might suggest that the bikes don't fit the list and the guardians might be the better way to go using harlies as counter attack.
Note: The meta has changed since the end of 2008 requirement some modification in tactics
I submit to the greater knowledge of BlueDagger. 
