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I think this is were maybe other units can come into play?

Jet bikes have huge speed and can possibly be used to tie up potential units that could fire on your victorious squad?

Hollismason wrote:
I think optimally you'd probably really only want like 20 to 25 points of upgrades really.

I agree, that's why I like the Embrace and the Kiss the best. It's only 25 points to upgrade the whole troupe with either weapon (or 30 if you are adding a 6th Harlie instead of a character), and they are both pretty useful. Too bad there are only 2 embraces on the sprue. Le sigh.

At 15ppm the Harlequins are not exactly cheap at all.

7 w/ 4 upgrades 125 which isn't that bad. 190 if you stick them in a Raider..

I think Id probably just hose the 20 crons with a squad of skyweavers. 3 haywire cannon blasts and 3 star bola blasts would take a chunk out of them, then you can charge what's left.

Just gonna leave some math hammer here for you guys.

Vs. MEQ

New Harlequins, 4x players 1x master, Caress: 5.25 wounds 0.039 wounds per point
New Harlequins, 4x players 1x master, Kiss: 4.56 wounds 0.038 wounds per point
New Harlequins, 4x players 1x master, Embrace: 6.11 wounds 0.051 wounds per point (Assuming all models get in base contact.)

 Lynchbread wrote:
Just gonna leave some math hammer here for you guys.

Vs. MEQ

New Harlequins, 4x players 1x master, Caress: 5.25 wounds 0.039 wounds per point
New Harlequins, 4x players 1x master, Kiss: 4.56 wounds 0.038 wounds per point
New Harlequins, 4x players 1x master, Embrace: 6.11 wounds 0.051 wounds per point (Assuming all models get in base contact.)

So its almost always better to go with the Embrace. Unless against special targets like monsters or vehicles (even some vehicles aren't safe I guess) but then again thats what support can help out with.

I have seen this mentioned a few times now - running kabalite warriors in a venom with a death jester...

You all know that you can't do that right? The Venom has a capacity of 5, not 6 and the minimum kabalite unit is 5 models...

On the topic of the weapons - I actually think the embrace is the worst of the 3 as it lacks the versatility of the others and does nothing outside of base contact on the charge. 1 or 2 per unit would be ok but I cant see myself ever doing more than that.

The HKiss is my go to option for reliable high strength, low AP attacks. I would go so far as to say that the harlies are just 20ppm and everyone gets a HKiss as a minimum.

The caress is also fantastic but a touch too expensive for everyone to get one. On the troupe leader I could see it being stellar

On another topic - if you are going the LD shenanigans route, consider allies from Iyanden/elder. The wraithfighter makes the DJ rule even better while generating warp charges and adding additional LD penalties from its own power. Multiple spirit seers can provide more charges along with telepathy and runes of battle - which make harlies even better in almost all cases. A single unit of 3 wind rider jet bikes can complete the required troops for mobile fast scoring but a unit of rangers with pinning weapons when combined with all the LD debuffs could ensure harlequin charges easily enough.

I think the kiss is probably the most meh one. But the kiss is also cheaper than the caress and doesnt rely on the charge.

Personally id say go all kisses, or all embrace and then have 1 or 2 of the caress if you lack some heavy stuff.

The army really is the definition of glass hammer, so I would rather go with the D3 ST6 hits.

subbed

Hollismason wrote:
The army really is the definition of glass hammer, so I would rather go with the D3 ST6 hits.

Agreed.

Hammer of wrath hurts vehicles doesn't it?

On every harlequin? I doubt very much you will get every harlie into BtB contact on the charge move enough to justify the embrace on everyone.

Even maxed out its questionable...

9 harlies (no troupe leader - he should have a PS IMO so his numbers are identical regardless of the rest of the troupe)

Vs Meq on the charge

Kiss - 5 kills from the kiss of death and 3 more kills from the regular attacks after 3+ saves

Caress - 6 kills from the to hit rolls and 3 more kills from the regular attacks after 3+ saves

Embrace (assuming all in BtB and 2's on the D3) - 5 kills after saves from HoW and 4 more kills after saves from the regular attacks

So the kiss does 8 wounds, the caress has 9 and the embrace has 9 - all very close! As the enemy save gets better (ie 2+) the caress and the kiss get more reliable. If the embrace unit does not get everyone into BtB on the charge the numbers drop and it really flags behind against 2+ saves. The only time I can see it outperforming the others regularly is against invisible units but with no AP, its no good against the proper deathstars as despite the hits, the majority will just bounce off.

I am really struggling to see why I would ever consider more than 1 or 2 embrace in a large unit and in small ones - I doubt I would bother at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yes - HoW hurts vehicles as well but so do the other options!

Assuming you need the S6 to hurt the vehicle (AV11 or more), it moved (so 3+ to hit) and again with the same break up as per the wounds vs MEQ

The 9 Kiss attacks get 6 hits and then generate 1 glance and 1 pen vs Av11, 1 glance vs av12 and nothing for any target more heavily armoured.

The 18 HoW hits generate 3 glance and 3 pens vs Av11, 3 glance vs Av12 and nothing for any armour higher

The 36 caress attacks generate 6 glances against ANY AV in the game.

Easy to see who wins this comparison...

With only 6 Harlequins you could easily get them touching base to base. Especially with fleet etc. Combine with the open topped transport and the ability to run and charge etc its probably hard not to get them all in base contact.

Its also way cheaper than the caress which is why its a better option for large numbers (in my opinion) of Harlequins.

The kiss is meh, I think most people would see it as only needed against some opponents.

Yea that sells it for me. The HoW is superior for price compared to the caress and for damage inflicted in most situations compared to the kiss.

The caress is better but more expensive, the kiss is a bit more useless but less situational.

6 harlies does not change the fact its no more effective than the other weapons against the majority of targets even if you get them all into BtB and its less flexible (if you get charged or in 2nd and subsequent rounds of combat - maybe you fail H&R!)

The caress is 3 points more for a reason - the roll of a 6 to hit bypasses 2 whole sections of random dice generation and just says - take this many AP2 wounds. That's massive! Those 36 attacks from the 9 caress troupe kills a wraithknight on the charge with a single sent of dice rolled! Infact, in standard 40k and baring some of the really powerful super heavies - there will be very few single models who will survive this simple 1 dice roll mechanic

I think it is compared to the kiss, I would love to go caress but 8 points is a lot when you add it up.

Well actually, its like 10 points more in a 6 man squad. Which isnt as bad as I was thinking...

I guess caress is better, but the embrace is also a top contender I think.

Im still not that sold on the kiss.

Yeah I don't think you'll have difficulty with the new Harlequins getting into btb, seriously they have Fleet and two if the formations allow to just straight up start charging gak on the 2nd turn even if you fleet.

Also I don't mean in terms of equip the whole squad, just like 2 or 3 guys with that, then 2 with the 6s to hit weapon.

With Dark Eldar Allies you can take a Scalpel Squadron who are Battle Brothers and get that combo off. No deployment on the first turn drop the Scalpel Squadron keep the Solitair on the board, with the formation he's a 3++ reroll 1s then come on in on with everything else shooting. Pop all your Mirrage stuff to jink , next turn get out fleet and then charge things.

I've just been looking at the Shadowseer and Psychic phase in general.

Farseers rolling Prescience seems good, although moreso with a set of Harlequin caresses; equally Fortune for the obvious reasons.

I know a lot of people seem excited about the Telepathy discipline and all the negative modifiers for Psychic Shriek, but I think that Daemonlogy and Phantasmancy seem better suited.

Daemonology's primaris is a bit lacklustre, but:
Gate to Infinity = transport large groups around without raiders
Hammerhead = Strength 6 on the charge
Sanctuary = +5inv base, detachment rule (re-roll 1s), +1 for Sanctuary = not quite 3++ for the squad.

Equally, rolling on the Phantasmancy gives you:
Veil of Tears = roughly 14" exclusion zone from being shot at (average of two dice rolled is 7)
Dance of Shadows = Any kind of cover will be 3+
Shards of Light = Blind will be great against hordes or Orks, Necrons and Tyranids
Mind war variants = good too, but I'm looking mainly at protection

The embrace looks better than it is.

It's great against low armor save, and comparable to the kiss and caress on MEQ, but only if you get all models with it into base to base. While In a small squad that isn't to hard, but won't always happen. iI will be rough in larger ones.

Another reason it's not as good though is that it only does anything on the turn you charge. Since you want to hit and run at the end of the enemies turn, to avoid being out in the open in their turn, you will end up going through a round of combat in which you didn't charge. During this round you only have CCW if you are using embraces.

If you have a kiss or caress you will kill more of the enemy which also means you take less hits back.

I have to say I'm not fussed about the Embrace either. I'll be taking troupes of 6 in starweavers and need each member to deal damage, potentially for more than one phase, so can't rely on HoW. There is an argue to include one Embrace maybe to cause damage first so there might be less coming back your way, and could be the guy to take the wound first...

It's a split between Caresses and Kisses for me. Troupe Master gets Caress and Neuro disruptor. Either that or power sword. Can't decide.

Obviously you go with embrace as basic loadout - it's worse against 2+ (really - dreadknights only), equal against MEQ and much better against unarmored ones (lot of - guardsmen, orcs, tyranids, necrons ets). And obviously you have to aim for one round nukes (with, maybe, 1-2 enemy models remaining for a second round as shooting protection), because T3 5++ is terrible.

Dread knights only??? Rip tides? Any of the major Tyranid MC...

My preferred ally is corsairs, they bring strong flyers, a LOT of long range shooting, and with the corsair prince, I get to deep strike any 3 corsair units. That's a lot of deployment options. Basic troops with las blasters is a win, and the falcon tank/ corsair venom as dedicated transports give them a whole lotta punch. I plan on mixing melee and ranged weapons in each unit, and a 3 man death jester team with a shadowseer with the LD rebuff relic scooting around taking out high priority models in style.

 Massaen wrote:
Dread knights only??? Rip tides? Any of the major Tyranid MC...

Tyranids in general are going to be a tough matchup - army made up of FMCs vs. army with no native anti-air. The Kiss is clearly the best weapon against Tyranid MCs, as they lack invuln saves and can be easily instant deathed with a single 6. You're going to be leaning very heavily on bladestorm weapons in this matchup. This issue, though, is sort of why I think you need different squads with different loadouts in the same army. The Kiss squad can go after the Mawloc while the Embrace squad kills the Gargoyles/Hormagaunts.

For the Dreadknight problem, you probably don't want to be charging that thing anyway. It's going to toast any Harlies that charge it with its Heavy Incinerator. Kill it with Star Bolas and Shuriken Cannons instead. Or mess with it using a Shadowseer.

I just realized that Dreadknights teleporting into your backfield is a great opportunity to use the rear cannon on the Voidweaver!

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
My preferred ally is corsairs, they bring strong flyers, a LOT of long range shooting, and with the corsair prince, I get to deep strike any 3 corsair units. That's a lot of deployment options. Basic troops with las blasters is a win, and the falcon tank/ corsair venom as dedicated transports give them a whole lotta punch. I plan on mixing melee and ranged weapons in each unit, and a 3 man death jester team with a shadowseer with the LD rebuff relic scooting around taking out high priority models in style.

Lordy. 200+ points of T3 5++ models in a venom? I'd be too scared to get with 24" with them.

Out of curiosity are corsairs just FW or are they a supplement?

Just FW at the mo.

This is a post I made in the News and Rumors thread. Lynchbread made a similar point earlier.



TL: DR- All the options put out similar damage on regular Harlies. Caress and Embrace slightly outpace the Kiss, but not by a lot. However, Caress doesn't do nearly enough damage to justify it's increased cost, and even one model not making it into base to base puts embrace way under kiss.

Kiss should be the default option always, with no more than 2-3 Embraces' if you want to use those (any more than that and you run a very high risk of losing attacks). Solitaire is the only model that has high enough attacks for the caress to generate more AP2 wounds than a kiss would anyway. Power Sword on the troupe master is always the most damage, but point for point to expensive for what it does. Still stick with a kiss.

All of the options are pretty comparable damage wise, but the increased risk of the embrace and cost of caress make Kiss the most reliable weapon.

I think Harlequins will be awesome fun in Kill Team games!

Thanks Dash, I remember seeing that when you first posted it. Very helpful mathhammer.

Now that we have more information, I think we may need to reconsider a couple assumptions in your math. First, we now know the transport only takes 6 models. Thus, 10 man troupes may not be viable (unless you're allying with DE for a Raider). Second, we now know that Harlequins in a Masque and in some formations can move-run-charge after turn 1. I think those two pieces of info swing the pendulum back toward the Embrace, as it's much easier to make base-to-base with only six models and with the additional movement move-run-charge gives you.

6 Harlies in a Starweaver - 6" move on the vehicle, deploy 6", average 4" fleeted run, then average 8" fleeted charge = reliably charge anything within 24" of the Starweaver's starting position. If your target is less than 24" away, you can probably count on making base-to-base with the whole Troupe (barring terrain features such as buildings/impassable terrain). Also keep in mind that the preferred targets of Embraces (Necron Wraiths, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Ork mobs, Khorne dogs, gaunts) tend to come to you.

I'm not saying the Kiss is a bad choice - just that you might want one unit of each so you have the versatility to deal with different kinds of threats.

Edit: more math

Assume 6 Harlequins vs. 20 Ork Boyz. Due to their WS and I, Harlies always strike first and need a 3+ to hit.

6 CCW: Harlies attack 25 times
16 hits, 8 wounds, 1 save. 7 dead orks.
14 Orks attack back, 28 attacks, 14 hits, roughly 9 wounds. Harlies are wiped out.

6 Kiss: Harlies attack 25 times
19 regular attacks, 12 hits, 6 wounds, 5 dead orks
6 kiss attacks, 4 hits, 3-4 wounds, no saves allowed, so 3 or 4 more dead orks.
11 Orks attack back, 22 attacks, 11 hits, roughly 7 wounds. 5 Harlequins die, maybe the Troupe Master survives.
Harlies win combat by 3, but the squad is probably done for the game. If the Orks don't break, they will finish them off next turn.

6 Caress: Harlies attack 25 times
16 hits, 4 of which are auto-wounds at AP2, the other 12 hits turn into 6 wounds. 1 is saved, so 9 dead orks.
11 Orks attack back, same results as above.

6 Embrace: Harlies attack 37 times if they can make base-to-base with all models. Let's say 35 though, assuming 1 model doesn't make it in.
10 S6 HoW hits, 8 wounds, 1 is saved. 6 dead orks.
Harlequins pile in, attack 25 more times. This is just like the CCW example above. 7 more Orks die.
7 Orks are left. They attack back 14 times, hit 7 times. ~4 wounds, conservatively 1 is saved. 3 Harlequins go down.
Harlequins win combat by 10 wounds.

 Asmodas wrote:
Thanks Dash, I remember seeing that when you first posted it. Very helpful mathhammer.

Now that we have more information, I think we may need to reconsider a couple assumptions in your math. First, we now know the transport only takes 6 models. Thus, 10 man troupes may not be viable (unless you're allying with DE for a Raider). Second, we now know that Harlequins in a Masque and in some formations can move-run-charge after turn 1. I think those two pieces of info swing the pendulum back toward the Embrace, as it's much easier to make base-to-base with only six models and with the additional movement move-run-charge gives you.

6 Harlies in a Starweaver - 6" move on the vehicle, deploy 6", average 4" fleeted run, then average 8" fleeted charge = reliably charge anything within 24" of the Starweaver's starting position. If your target is less than 24" away, you can probably count on making base-to-base with the whole Troupe (barring terrain features such as buildings/impassable terrain). Also keep in mind that the preferred targets of Embraces (Necron Wraiths, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Ork mobs, Khorne dogs, gaunts) tend to come to you.

I'm not saying the Kiss is a bad choice - just that you might want one unit of each so you have the versatility to deal with different kinds of threats.

I don't really think the extra run move before the charge changes much. The size of the squad at 6 actually brings the dmg vs MEQ's even closer, with the Embrace still only avg .7 more unsaved wounds. While you do, definitely, have a good chance of getting everyone in B2B, you also need to keep in mind just how badly missing one HoW attack affects your outcome. One miss over one game makes the kiss better in any squad. Not to mention that you're getting no use out of it past the charge, where the Kiss still works.

That being said, this is actually one of the few times in 40k where mixing and matching weapons isn't a bad idea. 2 Embraces are almost always guaranteed to hit, except in the longest of Hail-Mary charges. Embraces actually do have an advantage over kisses when it comes to armor penning (multiple S6 attacks vs. one), as well as assaulting the ever present "Invis-star" (I use reavers for the exact same purpose).

So you can pretty safely include 2 possibly 3 Embraces' per squad and not see any real detriment, but more than that and you start risking losing a lot of dmg output. Or put another way, you're subjecting yourself to a moderate risk/low reward scenario (missing HoW vs marginal dmg increase), vs the pretty autopilot kiss. I'm still pretty adamant that the increased cost of the Caress makes it not worth taking on anyone for whom it's an option (already on the solitaire). The Power Sword on the troupe master is also definitely out, given that nearly the same number of points gets you another body instead (which far outweighs the small increase in dmg from the sword).

*Edit response to your edit*
Volume attacks >>>> quality attacks vs. hordes (orks, gaunts, etc). No question. MEQ's are the more common scenario however, and for any TAC list that's what you tend to plan around. A shadowseer or two actually deals with horde units quite well, as all of the offensive spells are either high volume or Vs. Ld. Both attributes are great against horde type units.

Ok so in a squad of 6 (for the purposes of transportation) what would be the ideal load out?

I still feel in most scenarios its better to go for the embrace, but when you add well armored infantry or monsters it starts to change things.