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scorpions really annoying to enemy

I'd say it depends on how you plan to use them, and what armies you face on a regular basis with this list. If you face Ork Horde lists or similar, then Scorpions are without a doubt the best of the three close combat units. They have the armor save to survive hits, and the attacks to put out damage. Especially since these opponents come to you, the relatively limited mobility of the Scorpions is less important. Even against Space Marines, they're not horrible as weight of numbers can be telling.

If you face small, elite armies like space marines, then Banshees become more possible. When supported by Doom, there's not a SM player who doesn't fear a unit of power weapons. Always striking first is also a great advantage, but they're fairly fragile so protecting them is important.

If you face armies like Nidzilla, Plague Marines, or Ork Nobs (note all popular tournament armies), or something similar with high toughness, good save units, then Harlequins become much more interesting. Rending allows them to hurt just about anything, again especially with Doom. They're also probably about as good as Banshees against MEQ and such. Their 5++ save is not always good enough, but they shouldn't get shot too much with the Shadowseer, and with a good number of attacks there's a good chance they'll do a number on an opponent, even with the rending "nerf" of 5e. They are best used in a counter-assault role now, as wiping out one's opponent quickly is the goal of such units. However, they are expensive point-wise.

jamunition wrote:HOWLING BANSHEES people

Every Aspect have their role

Incidentally, has anyone figured out what jamunition's role is?

I'm a fan of Scorpions, but that goes back to 3rd ed. when all I ever wanted was a pure SS Biel-Tan army. Funny how now we get Autarchs (for a scorpion-esque HQ) but no Craftworlds...

That aside, I always talk down harlequins, and this is no exception. Eldar armies tend to be small enough as it is.

It largely depends on your army. If you have many slow, durable units such as an Iyanden list, Harlequins are a better fit because they're more mobile and do things that Wraithguard can't. In a static list with nothing that will get to the enemy's deployment zone, the Scorpions are invaluable for being able to flank or infiltrate.

Again, it depends on the army list, especially with Eldar. It's not a matter of "dis kills wots much betta than that," but what the army requires of its assault unit. Both units have tons of attacks at high initiative, but Scorpions are better in a long combat whereas Harlequins can eliminate something smaller in one turn (and can't survive attrition casualties).

SuperCow, your best approach will follow Phoenix's advice, with Winterman's application to your specific army. Your Fearless guardian horde will be an advancing foot army that slowly closes with the enemy, or stands and shoots. You need a counter-charge unit more than a go-getter. Thus you will do best with Harlies. If you have to go get something, you will be shooting it up first anyways.

Folkls, we need to remember to make our recommendations for the OP's army, not our own (or a theoretical vacuum).

SuperCow, you do not need an anvil other than the fearless Guardian units. You need a threat to closing enemies, or something that will survive a march in with your other troops to become a threat. Harlies might get rapid-fired, but that will get the enemy close enough that your avatar and Wraithlord (assuming they survived the march in) can hit them. You still have the vulnerabilities of any advancing foot army, but with more credible CC threats (you have 3) than they usually do.

This excludes Banshees for a reason- we're talking about the OP's foot gunline Gaurdian-based army. Howling Banshees and Harlies have very similar function. The difference is that the Banshees do not have the Veil. The Veil makes the Harlies safer (-er) until they are needed. Foot banshees can't be that safe, and mounted Banshees will either overextend or waste points on a protective shell (vehicle) that gets shot down (being the only vehicle target on the board) before the enemy closes.

I find that Harlequins are only really useful in large units since you are relying on that roll of a six for rending (at least I always give my harlequins the kiss and because I like throwing lots of dice). Especially since most armies I generally face are MEQs, the rending isn't wasted on something silly like guardsmen. Additionally, I always run the harlequins up the side of the table when I use them. But I always use them in conjunction with something else. I will almost always try to whittle down the intended assault target with shooting beforehand or try to assault with a unit of Banshees at the same time. That's a lot of initiative "I go first" attacks with "you have no armor save" wounds. And I almost always stick a farseer with doom in the banshee squad because they need it with S3 power weapons. I've had my fair amount of successes and failure with both units, but most involve the banshee wagon getting shot out of the sky by a lucky plasma pistol shot or me misjudging something.

I haven't used scorpions too often simply because I view them as being primarily for taking on light infantry like tau or guard. They throw a lot of normal strength attacks that will wound those types of troops on 3s instead of the 4s I need for Orks, Marines, and Necrons. Although I did have a 6 man squard walk through the right flank of a marine army once summarily executing anyone they came into contact with.

It really depends on what your up against. I just wanted to share with you a battle I had that ended 2 hours ago, to help you with your decision. It was a 4 way fight with the table split into quaters with a central objective. I had necrons on the left and orks on the right. I had 9 scorps in a wave serpent and as the boyz were headed towards my rangers I aranged for my scorps to intercept. Eldrad doomed the boyz and fortuned the scorps. I got the charge and took out 18 of them followed by a sweeping advance. Then being orkish he zipped up biker boyz and rattled off 27 dakka shots, wounding 11 times. Due to the fortune I saved them all, remember 3+ saves. Then he charged me, having the initiative I killed all but 2 again. He killed two and then died. This, of course, is not usual,but is proof that scorps can be very resilient. The Harlies would have died much sooner and would have not accomlished as much in this kind of fight.

Neither. Maybe if Harlequins had Firepikes.

WC_Brian wrote:
Neither. Maybe if Harlequins had Firepikes.

Just like you want the monolith to have AV 15, not going to happen, that makes for power gamers and broken lists

Harlis all the way

Im still liking this idea of combining a core section of troops -pathfinder rangers, infiltrating with a bunch of scorps. Grab some anti-tank and lets go!

no not howling banshees harlies there so much cooler then a bunch of girls and so much harder to kill, my sternguard kill my friends howling banshees so easy but when i have to shoot the harlies so much harder.

Ok, i've skimmed the previous responses, and my appologies if this has been mentioned beforehand, so without further ado:

As with all Eldar, make sure whichever way you go, you compliment them with the right unit to make full use of their capabilities and deal that killing blow before focusing on another target.

Scorpions are very useful with or without infiltrating them. You will get more mileage out of them if you place them in a foot slogging army and move them up the board with the main force. Their ideal setting is therefore in a foot slogger Beil Tann force, generally coupled with Dire Avengers, an Avatar, Wraithlords and either an Autarch or Farseer (the latter is generally more beneficial if the Avatar is in play, for obvious support powers such as Doom and Fortune). Scorpions excel when put with a foot based shooty all rounder unit like Avengers (if keeping a BT theme), as they can lend much need counter assault punch after a bladestorm. Just make sure to keep the Seer nearby to doom on-coming threats and fortune their 3+ armour bolstering resistance.

Placing Scorpions in an infiltration mode can have its benefits and has proven effective, yet requires timing, which with the reserves dice (and the dodgy gods associated with them) you may find them popping at the most inopportune moments. If you get the right situation turn up on the battlefield and roll your dice right, it will be tears of joy. If the dice go bad and that opportunity hasn't presented itself, make damn sure you have supporting units very close by as you may have just wasted multiple turns waiting for them to come on the board, missing your mark in making that glorious cinematic moment a reality... hence tears of woe and wasted points.

Harlequins are more suited to hybrid Eldar forces such as Semi-Mech, Full-Mech and Alaitoc units where forces are spread out more and their speed (while not the best option) can get them where they are needed to support other more vulnerable units or out of fire-lanes. They are more versatile in their role, hence good for counter assaults and lending a killing blow (much like Shining Spears), however are not full frontal assault units (such as Scorpions) as they will falter under attrition damage.

Hope this helps make your decision a little easier.

Cheers,
Dave

Morachi wrote:
Placing Scorpions in an infiltration mode can have its benefits and has proven effective, yet requires timing, which with the reserves dice (and the dodgy gods associated with them) you may find them popping at the most inopportune moments. If you get the right situation turn up on the battlefield and roll your dice right, it will be tears of joy. If the dice go bad and that opportunity hasn't presented itself, make damn sure you have supporting units very close by as you may have just wasted multiple turns waiting for them to come on the board, missing your mark in making that glorious cinematic moment a reality... hence tears of woe and wasted points.

Whats wrong with simply infiltrating them rather than using the outflank rule?

Absolutely nothing, yet if its a solo squad of Scorpions, then deploying them too far forward without close support will more often than not render them vulnerable to being taken out piecemeal. Note my reference to scorpions being deployed with an army was done so on the proviso of their use in a foot slogging Biel Tann force, hence my aforementioned reasoning (see previous post). Splitting any unit away from the army's center of gravity (for too long) is risky, however, if done properly can yield benefits (although the dice gods may have other ideas). Hope this clears up my train of thought and alleviates any confusion.

True, fair point.

But if you drag and drop the point for the centre of gravity from the centre mass of your army block to somwhere ahead, it may give you a more accurate idea of what im suggesting.

Even a lone (full) squad of scorps can be quite useful by infiltrating then getting into CC, if your lucky with the gods, on turn two. Then this engaged squad causes concern and will either get things to gravitate towards it, or just be left to be butchered. Either way the scorps are either living free of massed-ranged fire or causing everything to graviatate towards them, while your main bloc charges up the field to assist the beleaguered scorps.

Can also be a useful unit to go after that lone basilisk at the back of that IG gunline but now im just waffling on about possible uses not generalised tactics.

Indeed shifting the center of gravity is inevitible geographically speaking, however im focusing more on the shift of power in the core army body itself. I agree that there are uses in employing a bait and hook strategy (which is what you're implying by your shift in CoG train of thought), however if you strike a more formidable tactician, he will undo that strategy by simply treating it as a roadblock focusing fire on it for a turn (or use the full weight of his CoG to overwhelm them) whilst your foot units are making their move in a bid to "form up" with the Infiltrated Scorpions.

This can naturally be avoided by making VERY good use of cover or keeping them back just far enough that it allows your units to meet them in the first round (Seer + Fortune will make this move even more effective), whilst making the enemy fearful of advancing too soon... however with the run rule these days things can get very messy in an all too fast for my liking manner. Should the enemy grow a pair and decide to meet you head on, throw down Fortune on the Scorps and Doom his most prized unit... which in itself will be enough to cast a look of horror on his face.

I do like your idea of tapping on a Bassy's back door with a Scorpions Claw... just plain rude lol. Similarly a squad of War Walkers can be used the same way (with longer range firepower), opening up opportunities to create mid game fire lanes (kinda like using a Bishop and Rook in chess to corner an opponent on his side of the board). Kudos to you Raz for provoking some interesting discussion, should be more of it rather than "out-do-the-other-guy" psycho babble so common on forums

As a suggestion - a scorpains claw is good against vechicles @ str 6, especially against infantry as its a power weapon but if you really want stomp on vechiles, go for the (in additon to the claw) biting blade, if your lucky with your WS5, you can get higher str attacks & its quite cheap too.

As for the whole infiltrating thing, allows you mobility & ownership of the table more than your standard DZ buut somtimes its nice to outflank as game progesses you might already have somthing engaged or another target has become priority.. also theres that scary threat zone around the board egde!

Scorps also get kandaras.. whom is just mean.. though lack of an invunerable means those 3 wounds wont last long vs power attacks. Harlies specail characters form part of the squad so thats a plus.

Razerous wrote:True, fair point.

But if you drag and drop the point for the centre of gravity from the centre mass of your army block to somwhere ahead, it may give you a more accurate idea of what im suggesting.

Even a lone (full) squad of scorps can be quite useful by infiltrating then getting into CC, if your lucky with the gods, on turn two. Then this engaged squad causes concern and will either get things to gravitate towards it, or just be left to be butchered. Either way the scorps are either living free of massed-ranged fire or causing everything to graviatate towards them, while your main bloc charges up the field to assist the beleaguered scorps.

In general, a lone infiltrating hand to hand unit is a dead unit. Infiltration puts you way too close to the enemy too soon in the game. You end up in a situation where your hand to hand unit is in range to a large portion of the enemy shooting, and nothing else is. So naturally, the enemy shoots at your infiltrators with a very large amount of fire power. This might be useful if all that shooting was pouring into them rather than at more valuable targets, but at that point in the game, there is often nothing else for those units to shoot at so you are just providing a target of opportunity to the enemy and not really getting anything out of it.

Phoenix wrote:

Razerous wrote:True, fair point.

But if you drag and drop the point for the centre of gravity from the centre mass of your army block to somwhere ahead, it may give you a more accurate idea of what im suggesting.

Even a lone (full) squad of scorps can be quite useful by infiltrating then getting into CC, if your lucky with the gods, on turn two. Then this engaged squad causes concern and will either get things to gravitate towards it, or just be left to be butchered. Either way the scorps are either living free of massed-ranged fire or causing everything to graviatate towards them, while your main bloc charges up the field to assist the beleaguered scorps.

In general, a lone infiltrating hand to hand unit is a dead unit. Infiltration puts you way too close to the enemy too soon in the game. You end up in a situation where your hand to hand unit is in range to a large portion of the enemy shooting, and nothing else is. So naturally, the enemy shoots at your infiltrators with a very large amount of fire power. This might be useful if all that shooting was pouring into them rather than at more valuable targets, but at that point in the game, there is often nothing else for those units to shoot at so you are just providing a target of opportunity to the enemy and not really getting anything out of it.

Yeah, I guess.. Im used to playing at smaller point games where there isnt that much firepower to swing round (although TLOS & Terrain can help as is positioning units fairly far away but at a different angle to your main force) except with a tau force.. ive seen a full 10man tac squad get wiped when he foolishly podded right in the middle (not behind or before) of a tau force. We had pint glasses of D6's lol.
Basically I am probably a tad off with this so pay attention to the good mr. Phoenix!