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I am adding a Catachan squad to my IG as vets. I want to use Harkus as the seargeant, How does he help or hinder a unit?

Actually he is called Harker

He doesnt hinder anything, except for the points cost.

You can take him infiltrating with some defensive vets, to get a better position and react on the enemies reaction. Most appreciated with plasmaguns and AC/LC. Deploy them in cover and they will be well safe. If you need that, Harker is a good choice. If you dont, spend the points for something better.

You can also take him if you want to outflank some neat troop unit. Give them a chimera and assault weapon loadout and go for it. Getting a scoring chim over the flank to the enemies back is always fun.

But remember a few things: The heavy bolter is just fun stuff, it does not do real damage. But it can be fine to stun a chim shooting its side or so. FNP is given only to Harker himself. It should be used only in situations you need any surviving man. Together with a cover save it is quite solid, but if it fails, the squad loses 1 point of LD wich can be important.

He is nice as a cheap Al'Rahem. Put him with a vet squad with 3x melta and a chimera and outflank it. Voila, you've got a killy scoring unit in a nice position. Your opponent must always keep the unit in mind with his movements, which means he will probably stay away from the table-egde with high value targets.

Exactly, Harker is Al'Rahem, except for vets.

Of course, why you'd spend so much to ouflank a single 10-man squad seems dubious. At least with Al'Rahem you can suddenly show up with 163 angry, angry guardsmen.

If you're otherwise going to be outflanking with other stuff, that's fine. Otherwise, a single harker vet squad will be a pleasant surprise, but it will also be a suicide squad. A very expensive suicide squad.

Harker may be the one time I would propogate the use of snipers in a Vet squad. Harker, and autocannon and three snipers could sit on an objective all game from Turn 1 and lay down a pretty nice curtain of fire.

I wouldn't outflank him. A single Chimera won't stand up to much arriving on its own. It does have a use for tank-shocking/contesting your enemy's home objectve though, but only if it arrives on...say..Turn 4. Seems a rather large ponts sink for not a whole lot of return to me...

L. Wrex

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:Harker may be the one time I would propogate the use of snipers in a Vet squad. Harker, and autocannon and three snipers could sit on an objective all game from Turn 1 and lay down a pretty nice curtain of fire.

Funny, I typically say the exact same thing except with a second heavy bolter. I like to infiltrate him as far away from the rest of my guys and make people decide if they want to go out of their way to deal with him.

I use Harker, 3 Flamers, and give the lot the demolitions doctrine.

A 155 point suicide squad that makes excellent use of cover, slaughters enemy units, can infiltrate or outflank and Harker effectively only costs 15-20 points(take 10 points off of him for the HB, 25-30 points for the forward sentries doctrine; possibly discounted due to the lack of defensive grenades).

Harker, sadly, is pretty typical of a lot of IG upgrades: he gives your unit something they can't get anywhere else, but you pay full price for it.

Half of harkers rules are either contradictory or only of limited us: S4 (but no power weapon). Relentless, but only a heavy bolter. Feel no pain, but only one wound. As a leader, all of his stuff is worth something, but it all boils down to simply having a move and shoot heavy bolter. A weapon that is, at best, mediocre.

what he does give you are three useful rules: stealth (+1 cover save) Move through cover, and infiltrate. The IG book does not have a lot of infiltrators, and coupled with stealth Harker turns your IG veterans into S/T3 SM scouts, with BS4. Enjoy a 3+ cover save while pelting the enemy with HB, AC, and either sniper or Plasma fire, all for 150-180pts. They're more durable, and can deploy forward or outflank.

Here's my big problem: he's pretty expensive. For the cost of making your vets infiltrate, you could nearly buy Marbo, or a well equipt scout sentinel. I think there are, in general, better ways to do what he does.

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:Harker may be the one time I would propogate the use of snipers in a Vet squad. Harker, and autocannon and three snipers could sit on an objective all game from Turn 1 and lay down a pretty nice curtain of fire.

Problem with this is that your not making use of Harker's relentless (This is right character right? I don't play IG)

Even on the move, 3 BS4 S5 shots aren't worth building a 150+pt squad around.

Think of it this way: you can take scout sentinels with similar armament for 35pts, and you still don't see a ton of those.

lets not forget that the model itself if kick ass! *back to the rules*

i think you basically have two effective choices with him.

1) you take another heavy bolter and 3 snipers and use them to claim an objective or occupy some juicy terrain off in an empty corner in cover (3+ cover save) while taking heavy weapon pot shots at weakened units.

2) you use them with assault weapons only and take meltas/flamers/demo upgrades and outflank. move through cover combined with outflank (especially if you've got a the command squad reroll boost) and a horde of template or melta weapons can be quite dangerous.

just like with pretty much everything else in the guard codex, you have to specialize to get use out of it. if you start mixing the two together, you're just going to get an expensive unit that half the time is not utilizing it's full abilities.

THanks Guys..I think i will build the unit with only Harker having the Hvy Weapon and a few other weapons, to have fun with that they can move and shoot with, that way im aloways moving if i have to..

Polonius and others are right here. You spend a lot of points to take a couple crappy sniper rifles and an autocannon with +1 cover. The amount of damage they put down most games really doesn't justify the price.

The only useful rules are infiltrate or outflank and move through cover. That way they can get up close real quick-like and deliver some surprise BS4 carnage (like with a demo charge, for example). Of course, this is still rather expensive for what it will actually do in any given game.

...which is why you don't see a lot of lists with harker. Even in his best capacity, the damage:cost ratio isn't in his favor.

That and his skills do seriously conflict. He gets +1 to cover saves, and then gets an ability that lets him move out of cover better...

Yeah his problem is:

If you take him on his own, he is too weak to defend himself. If you buy him some support (Stormtroopers, Penal legions, Scout sentinels) he can be a very efficient unit. But he needs that stuff, and if you are not intending to buy it, leave Harker at home. He is just too expensive then.

In other more simple words: In order to be effective, you must build your army around Harker if you want to outflank him.

For infiltration purposes he would be too expensive for me. As IG you have enough longrange fire, you dont need more expensive long range fire...

Of course, why you'd spend so much to ouflank a single 10-man squad seems dubious. At least with Al'Rahem you can suddenly show up with 163 angry, angry guardsmen.

Because Al'Raheem forces you to outflank with those 163 angry men and may be countered by lets say 90 angry boyz?
There are many games, where you wont outflank because the enemy is too strong at the flanks and Al'Raheem denies this possibility. Thats why I personally dont like him.

-Nazdreg- wrote:you must build your army around Harker if you want to outflank him

I actually hold this true for all special characters. The problem is that with harker, you don't get as much out of him.

-Nazdreg- wrote:There are many games, where you wont outflank because the enemy is too strong at the flanks and Al'Raheem denies this possibility. Thats why I personally dont like him.

163 guardsmen... with flamers... who can charge straight of the board edge? the boyz don't stand a chance.