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Harlequins without allies are terrible. Even with allies they're a waste of points that would be better spent on more Eldar or DE. Actually using your special rules would help but it still won't magically make harlequins a playable army on their own.

I wouldn't say spending more on Dark Eldar is any better an idea.

Dark Eldar are also pretty terrible right now.

Harlequins have no anti-air and all of their units (even the Solitaire) are so fragile they die like flies if anything shoots at them.

Harlequins are probably worse than Chaos Space Marines.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

However, if this statement you made had a semblance of truth, they'd still make a good showing at tournaments using Maelstrom. They don't for a reason.

Tournaments are not always a measure of how good something is. Tournament attenders are people too and they also tend to stick to bandwagons which harlequins clearly aren't. But it doesn't mean the codex is "terrible". It's actually pretty decent for what it brings. Harlequins are tricky to play and they're t3 5++ close combat dudes that rely on positioning and psy powers to survive.

I know people who are having pretty decent results even with mono harlequins and i'm not surprised. There are tools to do the job. And the codex is very powerful against grav-spam. Weak against flyrants on their own.

Tournament attendees also mostly are not professional round-the-clock game players, who don't exist.


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They're amateurs. Good ones, but no one has gone to 40K University and gotten a PhD and the fine points of army-building. It's something they do in their spare time.


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Come to think of it,. you can see this on this very forum whenever somebody says "x unit is crap." That's not the kind of thing that experts in a field generally say.

The one other thing worth mentioning is you have a lot of 'dirty tricks' from shadowseers. Phantasmancy and Telepathy can serious screw around with armies' ability to actually fight.

Army requires skill and finesse to play with, therefore it sucks. I love the reasoning of some of the people in this thread

 dusara217 wrote:
Army requires skill and finesse to play with, therefore it sucks. I love the reasoning of some of the people in this thread

Who said that?

If Harlequins were CSM tier then this would not be possible: http://m.imgur.com/a/tk3iD

That list does feature around 500 points of allies, but the Harlies are the ones pulling almost all of the weight. The Autarch certainly helped juke overwatch a couple times and the guardians and Archon were a nice bit of punch, but it was the heroes path and the troupes that handled the wraithknights and Scatterbikes.

Harlequins do have holes in their lineup, so tossing in an ally for like a Hemlock to handle multi wound high toughness infantry and FMCs, or a Raider for some higher capacity transport is good. But that's just enhancing the natural strengths of the harlequins. Id say they're more like skiitari, who are meh until you add drop pods, than they are like MT or CSM.

Wet sock?

Faolchu's Blade disagress with you.

16 S6 AP2 attacks at Ini 6 that hit on 3 and wound on 2 means you will kill an average of 8.8 Marines before they can even strike back.

When I play my Host of the Laughing Wind, people are extra careful and think twice about even stepping in potential charge range.

I took a 1000 pt "casual" tourney with solo-Harlequins. No formations allowed, and people had to either bring CAD or something listed in their codex (such as the Masque Detachment). My final round opponent was chided by one of his friends that he got "Harleq-owned".

Generally speaking, the more elite the enemy's army is, the better Harlequins tend to do. They strike from odd angles, and can get a lot of potential AP2 and leadership shenanigans. The most important part of the Harlequins, for me, are the Solitaire, Shadowseer, and bikes. They do most of the heavy lifting, but you have to be extremely cautious. You really need to try and be extra careful when moving them so as to keep out of Line of Sight, and you need to jumping back and forth.

As with all things I can only comment on my own experiences but my Harlequin set up has seen quite a few games and hasn't done too badly.
3 Troupe squads of 8 with Caresses (this bypasses the toughness issue and massed attacks guarantee multiple AP2 auto wounds/glances)
Each Troupe unit is joined by 2/3 Level 2 shadowseers (this almost guarantees veil of tears going off for defence, 16 rolls on the phantomancy table each causing soo much shenanigans to enemy squads)
2 units of 4 Skyweavers armed with haywire and glaive for ranged anti-tank/ AP2 / horde clearance (4 strength 4 AP 4 blasts do some work)
Finally the list was topped off with a Hero's path formation and voidweaver tax for more Shenanigans

So I had close combat and most often psykic dominance, veil of tears to mitigate shooting and multiple characters to throw into overwatch if needed or split off for objectives...
The major downsides pretty much came down to deepstrikers, first turn alpha strikes, list tailoring (DE player throwing down 21 Strength 3 flamers in deepstriking raiders, terrible against most other lists but he knew what list I was bringing) and psykic phases that took forever and a day to finish…

But saying that Harlequins are the worst codex of them all is a little inaccurate… heck I’m surprised Jimsolo hasn’t graced us with a harlequin centric freakshow list, which they can pull off surprisingly well.

I have only played against them once. I used my Grey Knights, which is the army that I am most familiar with, and tend to win more often than not with. End of turn one, I felt bad for him, as I'd removed a third of his army. End of turn three, I barely had a model left on the table. You probably just need to get their rules figured out so that you aren't missing out on things like furious charge, ws5 etc. I got absolutely drowned in s6 ap2 wounds, and you should be dishing out the same.

Alcibiades wrote:

Come to think of it,. you can see this on this very forum whenever somebody says "x unit is crap." That's not the kind of thing that experts in a field generally say.

WELL, when tournament players start defending Warp Talons en masse, let me know.


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 koooaei wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

However, if this statement you made had a semblance of truth, they'd still make a good showing at tournaments using Maelstrom. They don't for a reason.

Tournaments are not always a measure of how good something is. Tournament attenders are people too and they also tend to stick to bandwagons which harlequins clearly aren't. But it doesn't mean the codex is "terrible". It's actually pretty decent for what it brings. Harlequins are tricky to play and they're t3 5++ close combat dudes that rely on positioning and psy powers to survive.

I know people who are having pretty decent results even with mono harlequins and i'm not surprised. There are tools to do the job. And the codex is very powerful against grav-spam. Weak against flyrants on their own.

"Very powerful" is entirely misleading, and it shouldn't be used. Yes they're wounded less by Grav than other armies (Daemons beat you there), but they aren't replacing their Bolters to grab Grav Guns, and Harlequins are an army that DIES to Bolters: one of the worst weapons in the game.

Also don't use the "bandwagoning" argument either, because it doesn't work. You'd have people making the same argument as you are even if Harlequins Players were 25 base and everyone else got a 15 point price hike.

There sure does seem to be a lot of people talking that have no clue about the harelys actual in games lol

 cosmicsoybean wrote:
There sure does seem to be a lot of people talking that have no clue about the harelys actual in games lol

Please enlighten us oh wise one, for you are the worthy and we are the not so worthy

Rule #1 on Dakka is Be Polite - No more insulting or baiting posts here. Thanks

I've seen them do decent things with access to dark eldar raiders. The main Issue i had with running them as a mono is getting a big group across the table isn't easy.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I've seen them do decent things with access to dark eldar raiders. The main Issue i had with running them as a mono is getting a big group across the table isn't easy.

That's what Star Weavers are for ;-)

You know what? I rescind my earlier statement. Every bloody Harlequin is important. Turbo-Boosting the Star Weavers is critical in that first turn in many situations. However, you need to play the real Eldar tricksy path. Let your opponents expose their positions. Unlike many close combat forces, Harlequins aren't in a mad dash to the enemy's lines. If an enemy castles up, just run around and grab objectives while staying out of their reach. Each time they move, punish them for it. You must be like the wind - impossible to catch.

Most people's first experience with 40K is with Space Marines, the most tactically forgiving army in the entire game system. They're all-purpose in terms of CC and ranged combat, have solid armor saves to make up for tactical errors and have a plethora of options to deal with anything an opponent might throw at it. Some players pick up the tactical nuances and really dominate with SMs, so much so that they challenge themselves with non-MEq armies to test their tactical mettle, armies that punish you for tactical errors as soon as you make them.

On the scale of tactical punishment, Harlequins rank the highest on that list. Tactics that work with SMs, Orks or Tau just don't work with Harlequins. You can't barrel down the middle of the board and expect to get to the other side because you don't have the bodies nor armor save to get there. The vehicles are paper thin. The ranged capabilities require your models to be no farther than 24", so hanging back and waiting for the enemy to close in is not an option. The authors of the codex knew this; there's no mistake giving Harlequins a consistent ability to Run & Charge as no other army needs it more. Unfortunately, some players interpret this ability through a lens of invincibility: "I'll move 6", roll a 6" and roll a 10+" to get into combat, no problem!" Unfortunately, dice don't work that way, even with Fleet to improve your chances of doing so. More often than not the units are stranded in the middle of nowhere and wind up dead before you're next turn rolls around.

I strongly suspect the Harlequin hate stems from this inability to translate MEq tactics to them. Playing a mono-Harlequin army requires more patience than the majority of 40K players are used to employing. To succeed you need to be okay with having a turn that does nothing; no shots fired, no charges declared, just tactical maneuvering to force your opponent to get out of position and expose some bellies you can exploit on your next turn.

As far as the "wet sock" experience, others have commented on the rules that weren't employed properly (WS5+ on all non-vehicle models in the army, Furious Charge). Aside from that, you have every non-vehicle model in the entire army with no fewer than three attacks. Volume attacks for any army--shooting or close combat--is huge. If Harlequins get into close combat it's going to have an impact, even more so if you pay the points to upgrade weaponry.

When I first started playing mono-Harlequins shortly after the codex came out people didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what to expect, to be honest, but I recognized the capability that was there. Opponents new and veteran were shocked how brutal Harlequins were in close combat. When I break out my Harlequin army now every opponent I face have a very healthy respect for what the army can do. I finished sixth in an 18-strong ITC tournament field that included one opponent who had a Ravenwing force that refused to cross the midline for fear of being attacked by me (a game I happened to win) and quarterfinal match against a GK Alpha Strike list that didn't get as close as it wanted to for fear of reprisals if it failed to get off its Nova attacks (which did fail but was a game I lost on Turn 5). The top seeded player in the tournament was happy to hear I lost my quarterfinal match because he feared my list more than any other... and he plays a War Convocation. The worst army in the game wouldn't generate that kind of response.

In no way do I believe Harlequins are the strongest army out there. But the weakest? Definitely not. It just requires such a vastly different tack to use them successfully than you require with any other army in 40K.

 Yarium wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I've seen them do decent things with access to dark eldar raiders. The main Issue i had with running them as a mono is getting a big group across the table isn't easy.

That's what Star Weavers are for ;-)

You know what? I rescind my earlier statement. Every bloody Harlequin is important. Turbo-Boosting the Star Weavers is critical in that first turn in many situations. However, you need to play the real Eldar tricksy path. Let your opponents expose their positions. Unlike many close combat forces, Harlequins aren't in a mad dash to the enemy's lines. If an enemy castles up, just run around and grab objectives while staying out of their reach. Each time they move, punish them for it. You must be like the wind - impossible to catch.

I don't like them in a weaver cause that's 5 with a character. Overwatch murders small units.

 JamesY wrote:
I have only played against them once. I used my Grey Knights, which is the army that I am most familiar with, and tend to win more often than not with. End of turn one, I felt bad for him, as I'd removed a third of his army. End of turn three, I barely had a model left on the table. You probably just need to get their rules figured out so that you aren't missing out on things like furious charge, ws5 etc. I got absolutely drowned in s6 ap2 wounds, and you should be dishing out the same.

Yeah OP -- don't forget on 6's they wound at AP2!! If you missed the other rules, you might have missed that one too, and it makes a huge difference.

Tropic Thunder wrote:
snip

exactly. people see the good speed and damage and just run into a squad then melt to overwatch or multi assault.