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It's not that difficult. 3 inches forward for disembarking from a transport before it moves, 12 + 3d6 (10 average) move. Plus Average 7 inch charge range. First turn charge range averages out to 32 inches. If you need more you can Twilight Pathways him potentially too though with the blitz move that's not always easy as he might be too far away. He's not going to kill everything he touches, he's not supposed to be killing Primarchs or Daemon Princes or anything like that, but he can easily handle support characters that your opponent is relying on, farseers/warlocks, haemonculi, SM lieutenants, librarians, ethereals etc.
I think of him as sort of a guided missile psyker hunter, he runs in, kills a character that is usually a little more expensive than he is and maybe consolidates into something else then takes a disproportionate amount of attention from the enemy and dies. Pair him up with a Soaring Spite TM and they are incredibly disruptive, often giving your Drive-bys and Skyweavers an extra turn to work.

If you read the fluff the Solitaire should be invincible and kill everything, which is misleading; if you actually have realistic expectations then he is a reasonably efficient character with a specific job to do.

And how is your Solitaire getting shot first turn before doing anything? He has character protection. Maybe read up some on character positioning and buffering, most decent 40k blogs like Brown Magic or Frontline have articles on it.

Also dont forget the Solitaire is a character so you cant shoot it if behind other units on turn 1, i normally dont charge mine turn one personally.

SpaceElfCircus wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:
The solitaire is amazing. With the rose he is a character killer. Put him in a transport and he has a move range of 15" plus 3d6 on turn 1 with the use of blitz. Then you get 2d6 to charge, which means you can get into combat with whatever you'd like. His specialty is speed and the ability to wipe out a support character before they can do anything. You TM isn't granting you that on turn 1.

How can you accomplish this? Remember that Solitaire can't disembark from transport on the turn 1 if the transport has moved - so no blitzing on turn 1. It's true that even without transport Solitaire is fast, and depending on deployment can reach enemy units on turn 1. However, in practice this doesn't work out so well. Either you don't get the first turn, in which case Solitaire usually gets shot before doing anything, or you fail both blitz and charge rolls and solitaire still gets shot without accomplishing anything. Sometimes you do get to the enemy units on turn 1, but unless you're facing really squishy characters Solitaire isn't going to take them down, not even with Cegorach's Rose. Spending ~100 pts and a relic slot for this is wasteful.

The solitaire disembarks before the transport moves. If they blow it up before he gets to disembark, you just put the squad in front of him. Also, with the relic, he is statistically going to kill a primaris captain in the first round of combat. He can also be used to charge tanks, making them have to fall back and be unable to fire. He's worth his points for sure. If you wanted to call anything out as being too expensive, I'd look at the DJ.

Disembark before transport moves = 3" + base width ~= 4,5"
12" move
2d6 Blitz
1d6 advance
2d6" charge
= average 34" CC threat
Ignores terrain and models

He's like a cruise missile. The Harlequin "shield breaker"-stratagem. Is he worth it? Not always. Blut he is a ton of fun.

And by the way, you don't have to charge T1. You can hide and with and threaten your opponent into doing mistakes by his looming threat potential.

 Creeping Dementia wrote:
And how is your Solitaire getting shot first turn before doing anything?

this happens most of times when people try turn 1 charge with him... to hold back from charging with solitaire turn 1 is more often wise than not

 Creeping Dementia wrote:


And how is your Solitaire getting shot first turn before doing anything? He has character protection. Maybe read up some on character positioning and buffering, most decent 40k blogs like Brown Magic or Frontline have articles on it.

Character protection doesn't help much if Solitaire ends up being closest model to the enemy units, which is quite probable if you fail either blitz or charge roll. I personally use Solitaire(when I use him at all) with Webway Assault stratagem, deep-striking him on turn 1 to somewhere that is close to enemy but in complete LOS blockage. In this way you simply can't fail to bring him to strike range at round 2, buuuut....in practice this has never yielded anything useful in my games. Then again, I admit that the reason might be simply that my regular opponents field characters who are simply beyond Solitaire's ability to kill(GK Grandmasters in babycarriers, Demon Princes, Hive Tyrants...basically anything with T5+ seems to be too hard for Solitaire to take down in one round).

jifel wrote:If you're using allies as well, Haemonculus covens do fantastic against sisters, as they are higher than T4 for weight of fire and have a 4++ for the meltas. Other than that, Dark Reapers are great vehicle busters. Try adding a farseer and warlock to get Doom and Jinx going as well. From there, Skyweavers are your best ranged anti tank. Even 8 with doom stand a good chance of killing a transport a turn.

I've been thinking about doing the soup with some DE but i guess i'll go for the reapers, the linked fire tech is very interesting tho

mokoshkana wrote:Which masque are you using?

to this day i had tested 3 masques:

Soaring spite: cool for skyweaver spam but since i only got 6/8 skies it didn't add too much value to my lists

Dreaming shadow: the sombre sentinels has helped me quite a bit but i cant make use of the death jester's relic a lot because of all the "enemy infantry been inside tanks" thing xD

Silent Shroud: i like this one a lot mostly because of the stratagem that prevents overwatch



Thanks for the tips c:

It took me some time to figure out the best use for the Solitaire. Learned the hard way not to charge a Demon Prince or a smash captain but hitting a unit of Scouts... or a juicy support character is always fun. 10 swings, hitting on 2's wounding mostly on 4's and rerolling all wounds will kill some stuff.

Question for the Harlie players, I am trying something new for a list, running a 12 man squad of Harlies with a split of Kisses and Embraces and no fusion, using the Frozen stars masque, but as a Ynnari detachment. Try to hide them best I can and power them up to avoid losing any, then on my first turn, Move - Advance- (keep them in range of my Yvraine and Shadowseer., then either Soulburst and move, or cast power from Shadowseer to move again, Advance again and then attack, I have 12 guys all moving close to 22 inches and then charging, cast the strat to make the unit ignore overwatch, then wrap something up, I would declare EVERYTHING within 12 inches to charge so once in combat I can bust 3 command points to fight again or/and Soulburst if I did not have to cast that earlier..... First turn I think I can freeze up a army pretty good. Command point heavy I know but aren't harlies always a command point drain?

The main thing that makes the solitaire worth it to me is that everyone and their brother is taking a company commander with Kurovs Aquilla + Grand Strategist. The solitaire can straight up murder that guy which in terms of points is a bad trade but turning off infinite CP for my opponent is a good thing to do.

 Cult of My Boy Blue wrote:
Question for the Harlie players, I am trying something new for a list, running a 12 man squad of Harlies with a split of Kisses and Embraces and no fusion, using the Frozen stars masque, but as a Ynnari detachment. Try to hide them best I can and power them up to avoid losing any, then on my first turn, Move - Advance- (keep them in range of my Yvraine and Shadowseer., then either Soulburst and move, or cast power from Shadowseer to move again, Advance again and then attack, I have 12 guys all moving close to 22 inches and then charging, cast the strat to make the unit ignore overwatch, then wrap something up, I would declare EVERYTHING within 12 inches to charge so once in combat I can bust 3 command points to fight again or/and Soulburst if I did not have to cast that earlier..... First turn I think I can freeze up a army pretty good. Command point heavy I know but aren't harlies always a command point drain?

The Overwatch stratagem is restricted to The Silent Shroud Masque (It's called "The Silken Knife" for 2 CP), but the Masque you choose will not matter since Ynnari do not retain any of the Harlequin, CWE, or DE benefits from their original codex. So your Harlequins will lose all Masque benefits and Rising Crescendo, which means no +1A or the ability to advance and charge. In order to do what you want, you'd only be able to do a normal move, a second move with Twilight Pathways in the psychic phase, and a third move from Word of the Phoenix. This still gives you 24 inches of movement in the first turn plus an additional 2d6" charge. If you are dead set on running the full 12 Player squad, I think your weapon selection is less than ideal. As you have no way to support that unit of 12 with a TM on the turn it charges, that means of the 48 base attacks, you will hit 32 times and wound an average of 16 against MEQ. Swapping out the embraces for caresses will net you an average of 1.333 more hits, and it is always better to make your opponent roll more saves (they can't fail what they don't have to roll). Additionally, it gives you the ability to go after Plague Marines and other T5 entities with a bit more damage potential.

You would like probably be better off skipping the Ynnari part and just trying to use a shadowseer with Twilight pathways to pull that off. If you need a bunch of CP, take a cheap Black Heart detachment alongside it with two archons, three 5 man kabalite units with blasters and a few venoms, then give your archon the labyrinthine cunning warlord trait.

Curious as to whether you are a fellow Fables fan, btw; based on your screen name, I would guess you are. Check out my avatar.

What is the optimal troupe size in your opinion? Thus far I've always gone with 3 x 5 player troupes, as you can fit them inside Starweavers with TM or Shadowseer, but have been thinking lately on getting one 12 -player troupe and making them deepstrike with the stratagem. The idea here would be that I would first get the warlord with the Player of Light -trait close to enemy, then deepstrike 12 -strong troupe close to him and get re-rolls to assault. Any thoughts or experiences?

Come the Apocalypse GT:



DakkaKon GT:



I spoilered two lists that were primary Harlequins that won two smaller GTs this past weekend in the US. Might be good to look at, but it seems that Harlequin bikes are by far the most popular add to an Eldar soup list.

I'm thinking of starting a harlequin army but I am a bit worried about the state of the harlequin troop choice.

Why are there no harlequin troupes being taken in competitive play? Are they still too expensive for what they do? Or do they lack a good target in the current meta?

I feel like the troupe is supposed to be a "glass hammer" but it currently does not have enough damage potential to justify its cost.

Has anyone had good success with a harlequin list running mostly troupes, preferably without spamming fusion pistols?

Look at the current meta of imperial soup consisting of IG with loads of small arms fire. That shows you why troupes are ignored.

Harlequin troupes are t3 single wound. Putting a shadowseer next to them just makes them T4 essentially, which does not protect them for their price tag. Adding fusion pistols and extra melee weapons does not at all make them tougher, and their transports are fairly expensive. Unfortunately they have a rule that requires them to get close with the enemy, and they are not tough enough to survive contact that they don't initiate.

I never take more than 3 Troupe units when i play them (I almost always play them mono). Against Meta IG/Knights its a hard win, very hard, but against anything else its not to hard, you just need to play the movement/target priory game more so than other armies.

Mass attack is what does it in for them, T3/4 with a 4++ isnt very good against 30 S3/4 guys, you cant kill enough and you cant live long enough for equal points, your vehicles/bikes needs to do a lot of the work. Currently i'm in the belief that you either go FP and no Melee, or Melee and no FP to keep them cheap as you can, again IG/Ork/Chaos (hordes) Melee and super cheap, against DE and alike, FP's.

I normally take (in pure) 3 Voidweavers, 6 Skyweavers, and 6 Starweavers (I want more Skyweavers tho, i just dont have them i would replace 2 Starweavers 1 voidweaver for another unit of 6). It does really well against a lot of things. I completely relay on my vehicles and bikes tho, going Soaring Spite so i can move full speed is important to me winning, i just try to out move and position to win. Blow small holes where i can and then get troupes in to deal damage/tie up units.

It wouldnt work well at a GT currently, but its great for local/semi-comp.

 jifel wrote:
Come the Apocalypse GT:

Spoiler:

DakkaKon GT:

Spoiler:

I spoilered two lists that were primary Harlequins that won two smaller GTs this past weekend in the US. Might be good to look at, but it seems that Harlequin bikes are by far the most popular add to an Eldar soup list.

I wouldn't call either of those list Primary Harelquin. In the first list they are the largest list by a point, and in the second, they are largest by 39 points. Those are just soup lists.

What a brutal bunch of changes for Harlequins.
- Flip belt now only works in movement phase, so no more jumping over enemies in the charge or fight phase
- The +1 Save Turn 2 Stratagem is effectively worthless. It will only affect vehicles (which have a 4+/4++) , but most things shooting at our vehicles will be AP-1 or better anyway

The only positive is that Harlequins now have the BEST command point farm ability as we can get more than 1 CP a turn with a little luck.

Yeah the stratagem should have been +1 to all saves. Troupes got hit hard because of the flip belt nerf.

Weidekuh wrote:
Yeah the stratagem should have been +1 to all saves. Troupes got hit hard because of the flip belt nerf.

+1 to all saves may be a bit too powerful. Perhaps an option of getting the current cover bonus or the ability to get a 6++ would allow all armies to benefit in some manner. The game is too diverse for a one size fits all fix.

 mokoshkana wrote:

Weidekuh wrote:
Yeah the stratagem should have been +1 to all saves. Troupes got hit hard because of the flip belt nerf.

+1 to all saves may be a bit too powerful. Perhaps an option of getting the current cover bonus or the ability to get a 6++ would allow all armies to benefit in some manner. The game is too diverse for a one size fits all fix.

Yep, +1 to all saves would give Custodes a 2+/4++ equal to a 1+/3++, sure.... LOL

But on to us, Quins got shafted for sure, I normally play with 3 Troupes and now idk if i even want to play them at all anymore...

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:

Weidekuh wrote:
Yeah the stratagem should have been +1 to all saves. Troupes got hit hard because of the flip belt nerf.

+1 to all saves may be a bit too powerful. Perhaps an option of getting the current cover bonus or the ability to get a 6++ would allow all armies to benefit in some manner. The game is too diverse for a one size fits all fix.

Yep, +1 to all saves would give Custodes a 2+/4++ equal to a 1+/3++, sure.... LOL

But on to us, Quins got shafted for sure, I normally play with 3 Troupes and now idk if i even want to play them at all anymore...

I think waiting for Chapter Approved before final judgements on Troupes is probably a prudent idea. It is sort of weird that Troupes got hit and our best unit (Skyweavers), didn't get singled out (except the whole fly thing).

In reality, there isn't too much change to what I usually take, Soaring Spite drive by Troupes and a bunch of Skyweavers. We'll see what CA does in a couple months

They effectively made Soaring Spite the only masque worth taking now. Bikes by and large should be fine as they can move/advance 22" inches with fly allowing them to get into proper position for a charge, but Troupes going to be incredibly ineffective now. Screens will stop them in their tracks, and then they will get shot off of the table.

your thoughts on Twighlight pathways and Fire&Fade post FAQ - does belt work on those? both have "as if it was Movement phase" in wording, so my working assumption it does...

 elk@work wrote:
your thoughts on Twighlight pathways and Fire&Fade post FAQ - does belt work on those? both have "as if it was Movement phase" in wording, so my working assumption it does...

Fly will allow you to ignore terrain and models there because its treated as if it were the movement phase.

Hello!

I am thinking about taking up a Harlequin army for a slow grow campaign: start off at 250pts, end on 2000pts, add 250pts to the army each month.

I'd like to ask a few questions about the army before I commit:

1. Do you get much variety in army comp with only 8 units? Even my Custodes have more variety than that!

2. What are the opportunities for converting models? My World Eaters army is fully converted and so is my Custodes army. This might not be a deal breaker but I do like to give armies a personal touch.

3. If I were to start a Harlequin army, what would you suggest getting? Is there anything out of the aforementioned 8 units that I should stay away from?

4. Is this army dead in the ground or might it see some new releases in the next 100 years?


Cheers!

 mrhappyface wrote:
1. Do you get much variety in army comp with only 8 units? Even my Custodes have more variety than that!

There isn't too terribly much unity variety, but you can play around with different masque variations to break up painting monotony and give different units different options. For instance, Frozen Stars units can be kitted out for maximum melee punch, while Soaring Sprite can be used to get fusion pistols into your opponents face. Research the masques and what they do. This will help inspire your vision.

 mrhappyface wrote:
2. What are the opportunities for converting models? My World Eaters army is fully converted and so is my Custodes army. This might not be a deal breaker but I do like to give armies a personal touch.

You can do some awesome conversions. There are a set number of poses/arm options, but they can be slightly tweaked to give each model a little subtle difference. Here is a pronounced back bend that is not standard for one of my players:

And here is a conversion I did for a Troupe Master using a voidweaver gunner:
An example of the actual gunner:

And my Troupe Master:

 mrhappyface wrote:
3. If I were to start a Harlequin army, what would you suggest getting? Is there anything out of the aforementioned 8 units that I should stay away from?

I think this depends on your ultimate play style. Bikes are really good, and your best anti-tank/knight. However It is not practical to fit them in at 250. I would likely aim for a Troupe and a Shadowseer. This is 190 points stock and that gives you 60pts to upgrade your pistols/weapons. I'd try to stick to 5 players as that would allow you to add a transport in month 2, which could hold the Troupe and Shadowseer. If you can find a build for month 1 that is only 248, then after the Starweaver, you'd have enough for 3 bikes with glaives and haywire cannons.

 mrhappyface wrote:
4. Is this army dead in the ground or might it see some new releases in the next 100 years?

This army is likely complete barring any surprises that may come from a Ynnari release, which is a good thing in my opinion. This means that once you are done with your ideal 2k points, you will actually have a complete army.

 mrhappyface wrote:
.

3. If I were to start a Harlequin army, what would you suggest getting? Is there anything out of the aforementioned 8 units that I should stay away from?

4. Is this army dead in the ground or might it see some new releases in the next 100 years?


Cheers!

3. I personally don't think Death Jesters are generally worth it, unless you build a whole detachment around them. I'm also not a huge fan of Voidweavers, but technically they aren't terrible.
Your 'Core' is going to be some Troupes, Skyweavers, and a Shadowseer or two.

4. I think there could be some new releases eventually, (Mimes? maybe). I doubt they'll jump into the whole 'bigger and bigger units! Yay!' thing that is going on right now though. Nice thing about them also is they are sort of a good gateway drug to getting into the other Eldar factions too. They also incorporate well into the other Eldar factions and complement each other nicely.

Right now they are a good spoiler army though, field enough Skyweavers and they can basically take out any knight you want per turn. I just hate knights and baneblade type units and how lazy and 'point and click' they are, so any time I can flush them and make the other player pay for that choice is a bonus for me.

So I've caved, I managed to get a Shadowseer, 2 troupe masters, a death jester, a solitare, 10 players, a webway portal and the Ynnarri trio for pretty cheap.

I'm thinking of grabbing another unit of Troupe and two Starweavers to bring me to a 1000pt pure Harlequin list. Does that seem like a good start? And what can I do with the Ynnarri stuff?