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Somewhat of an impulse buy for me today, but I feel that these guys can be useful somehow in a Dark Eldar army. They are pretty beast - they ran up and power mashed a trygon today, but unfortunately then got assaulted by tyranid warriors with lash whips. The thing is they are not as good as regular Eldar without the fortune and doom combo, and they don't have power from pain, but they always have furious charge and ignore terrain

I'm not sure if I should always steal a transport for them from another squad, or just run them on foot - which is what i planned to do - behind my advancing raiders and venoms, getting a 4+ cover save, if they even need it at all in conjuction with Veil of Tears.

Currently this is my build:

6 x harlequins, one a Shadowseer, one with a fusion pistol, all with harlequins' kisses.
172 pts

I'm up in the air as regards another fusion pistol, and the troupe master. He can choose a power weapon or a kiss for no extra pts, other than the troupe master upgrade. Which is sometimes good and other times not so, as against most infantry with a power weapon he will kill them on a 4+, but some stuff its better to have the rending weapon.

As regards the Death Jester - i'm not convinced on it. I like the 3 shot S6 cannon, but I don't like him losing an attack in combat, which is where I want them

harlequins have the night fight effect thing working for them, and with a good run roll can move *almost* as fast as a transport. borrowing a raider or venom for them could be a useful idea, and combined with a wych charge can do some nice damage. i would kit them all out for combat, so a power wep fusion gun for maybe sniping someone or popping a transport. ignore the jester if you dont want him, but his ranged support can be useful for softening up the target prior to a charge

whats your opinion on the troupe master?

a power weapon is always useful and with furious charge makes it actually decent at str 4. you have enough rending attacks with the rest of the unit if you take the kiss for each member. for a 6 man foot team i would take kisses on all, a troupe master with power weapon and fusion, and a shadowseer. although personally i would load them into a raider or something to make sure they had at least a turn of *safe* movment (being a 24" flatout move 1st turn)

i only suggest a 10 man squad, because they revert to str 3 after the 1st round following a charge. therefore the more attacks you have the better. plus halequins have a scary rep, so on foot they will be a primary target and night fight or not, inviun or not they will get shot up and run or die if only 6 strong. take more of them to absoarb fire if you need, and a transport to give them a touch of protection for a turn or 2 untill they get stuck in

Most important thing for harlies is to strike at the right time. Don't just rush them up the board, though they will certainly deal some damage, they won't get past retaliation, be it ongoing cc or shooting. They're pretty fragile, so make sure to have them protected from enemy fire or countercharges once they're finished in melee. Some times it's even wiser to move away from an enemy unit to deter and separate elements of their entire army to charge them piecemeal, so you make the most of FC.
Besides that i think Eldar offer better support for harlies with the farsser buffs and Avatar bubble, but should do oka for DE as well when used correctly.
For loadout I'd recommend getting the troupe master not only for the power weapon but also the improved ld on the squad. I used to run mine as 10 man, 6 kisses, master and seer. But i never used them without doom so my advice might not help that much

My only gripe is harlequins compete with trueborn for the elites slot. And blaster born are just too good not to take.

Thanks for your thoughts there guys. Pretty much what I thought, re the loadout and the charges.

I currently run 2 squads of wyches and a 5 man unit of incubi for my assaults. The incubi have sucked terribly, so the Harlequins I bought will be replacing those guys for the forseeable future (folks had already told me incubi suck this time round, but I love the old models!)

Regarding unit size, I want to put the harlies in and basically take up the space used by the incubi, so currently they are not too much more expensive that the Incubi squad I was running - less if i include the incubi's venom - so like to keep it down. I reckon some games will call on me to steal a transport from another squad, as Harlies can;t take their own, but a lot of the time I reckon I can run them 1st turn without being worried about getting shot up, and a good chance of getting a charge 2nd turn

ive had decent luck with incubi. good init and str 4 power wepaons... they arent bad. expensive pts wise, but not bad. when teamed with an archon they make a decent force, but the lack of an invun makes them slightly squishy. the reason i dont use them is ive found blaster born squads to be so much better then anything else in the elite section and use 3 such units in almost every list.

lucky you then dude. I've played 4 games with the current DE codex (played DE a lot before, just been a solid chaos player for a while now) and they have had the charge in every game. First three games, their grand total was about 3 ork boys, 1 death company marine and 1 space wolves terminator. And thats with a klaivex with onslaught!
Yesterday i thought they were gonna redeem themselves, but I found I had to charge a trygon with them to save my wyches after they had ran from it (more bad luck!). I took 4 wounds off it, after it had already been wounded by the wyches, then it killed all of them in one go!

Caranthir987 wrote:lucky you then dude. I've played 4 games with the current DE codex (played DE a lot before, just been a solid chaos player for a while now) and they have had the charge in every game. First three games, their grand total was about 3 ork boys, 1 death company marine and 1 space wolves terminator. And thats with a klaivex with onslaught!
Yesterday i thought they were gonna redeem themselves, but I found I had to charge a trygon with them to save my wyches after they had ran from it (more bad luck!). I took 4 wounds off it, after it had already been wounded by the wyches, then it killed all of them in one go!

That is serious bad luck. And possibly a bad loadout. I don't bother with a klaivex: 35pts for a klaivex and demiklaves? no thanks!
Anyway, math hammer says they kill a marine each on the charge, which is good if you charge the right units. Also, send in a squad of wyches as well, for extra number of attacks.

Send them against the most elite enemy possible, and they will pay back their points. They've never failed me before: you just had bad luck (stupidly bad luck), but you shouldn't let it put you off. Use them alongside harlequins and watch the enemy topple.

and avoid charging MC....of course a trygon will slaughter them. you should be using splinter weapons on it instead. generally i run 4x incubi + archon. it works very well. that is if im not taking trueborn.

I don't use the demiklaives, but I felt that onsalught should do some damage. Obviously not for me!

But yeah, I do appreciate that it has been stupidly bad luck.

As regards the Trygon, didn't really have a choice. The incubi's venom had been wrecked, so was charge or get charged!

Anyways, just had another game and my Harlequins did me proud, slaughtering numerous Orks and being annoying using Hit and Run and hiding in terrain then doing it all again.

Caranthir987 wrote:I don't use the demiklaives, but I felt that onsalught should do some damage. Obviously not for me!

But yeah, I do appreciate that it has been stupidly bad luck.

As regards the Trygon, didn't really have a choice. The incubi's venom had been wrecked, so was charge or get charged!

Anyways, just had another game and my Harlequins did me proud, slaughtering numerous Orks and being annoying using Hit and Run and hiding in terrain then doing it all again.

Like I said, don't bother with a klaivex. Way too many points for not very much, and the extras are overpriced. Also, harlequins do better than incubi against hordes, but you should be thinning them down with splinter fire then charging in wyches, save elites for nobz etc.

I've also seen Harlequins used effectively in conjunction with a haemonculus as a webway portal delivery device. The Shadowseer's ability keeps them pretty safe even if you don't have the first turn. Their speed leaves a bit desired, but you can still get a WWP 18 inches from the board edge with them. Not quite as good as deploying one 26 inches in with a venom and some wracks, but more durable nine times out of ten.

That being said, I keep meaning to make a YMDC thread about whether or not the Shadowseer's psychic power is conferred onto their transport. That would be an oh so fantastic a WWP delivery machine.

Lokas wrote:I've also seen Harlequins used effectively in conjunction with a haemonculus as a webway portal delivery device. The Shadowseer's ability keeps them pretty safe even if you don't have the first turn. Their speed leaves a bit desired, but you can still get a WWP 18 inches from the board edge with them. Not quite as good as deploying one 26 inches in with a venom and some wracks, but more durable nine times out of ten.

That being said, I keep meaning to make a YMDC thread about whether or not the Shadowseer's psychic power is conferred onto their transport. That would be an oh so fantastic a WWP delivery machine.

The Harlies would have to hijack someone elses transport though wouldnt they?

You're right, they would. And they can't embark and disembark in the same movement phase. Scratch that idea.

!) Shadowseer's ability affects its unit, which the transport is not part of. Therefore it has no effect on any vehicle the unit is embarked upon.

2) Even if this worked, you wouldn't be able to embark on someone's transport and disembark to drop the portal on the same turn, which makes a transport for WWP delivery with Harlies useless.

Essentially the bonus of using harlies to deliver WWP is that they are almost immune to first turn shooting, which is a perfect perk for the role. However, they have a number of drawbacks such as DoW deployment when they have to walk on from their table edge, or many other non-standard missions with various restrictions on elite unit deployment.

On the subject of delivering a webway portal, I find it best to have a raider with flickerfields and night shields, at least 5 Incubi and an archon with shadow field. Alongside this, a few ravagers and a raider of warriors just to keep the enemy shooting at other stuff, and the archon and incubi then not only plant the portal, but do a hell of a lot of damage as well.

Also - bringing Harlies through a webway portal is a fantastic way to go.

7-8 Harlequins, with kisses bearing down on something from a portal is pretty lethal.

Otherwise, 7-8 with a shadowseer strolling up the board is generally rather survivable, being immune to fire over 24" away and pretty safe around the 12-18" mark.

My most successful way of running them is simple, I've ran them with my Eldar and Dark Eldar.

(8)
1 Master w/ PW
7 w/ Kisses
1 Shadowseer.

Using them as a counter-assault unit with Eldar, but with Dark Eldar the WWP really opens up the flexibility with the unit.

Colonel Cheesecake II wrote:My most successful way of running them is simple, I've ran them with my Eldar and Dark Eldar.

(8)
1 Master w/ PW
7 w/ Kisses
1 Shadowseer.

Using them as a counter-assault unit with Eldar, but with Dark Eldar the WWP really opens up the flexibility with the unit.

On that note, the eldar should be able to have WWPs as well.
The only problem with them is that they're not entirely needed: Incubi are great against heavily armoured enemies, and wyches and warriors against hordes. The only reasons I've found for taking them are a) survivability against shooting from long range and b) fusion pistoling tanks then assaulting the juicy stuff inside.