Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I like both units, I even like Scorpions - but they just are not effective in 5th edition. With Banshees I like their power weapons, but with their 4 up saves and S3 even with getting first swing, will they do enough killing to stop the oponent from giving the hurt back? I am not sure. Where as the Harlequins, if you give them kisses, add the shadowseer with kiss, a troope master with power sword have a slight advantage IMO. Why? Well because if they get the charge with furious charge they have S4 I7 (not as good as banshees but damn good), they have more chances to wound on T4 creatures on a 4,5,6 instead of 5 or 6 for banshees. True they are not all power weapons, but with sixes they are rending which is becomes AP1. I like both choices, but in my hands playing both squads multiple times in multiple battles, I have found harlequins more effective than Banshees, but I am very interested in everyone else opinions or experiences. I know they compete for an important slot with Fire Dragons, please do not post any comments about Fire Dragons or not choosing the Banshees or Harlies because of them as this is not really a forum for that discussion. Thank you and look forward to everyone's postings. Cheers.

They are pretty even, which is to say that they are both quite bad. Eldar just dont do CC well. Persoannly though I would go with the Banshees if having to chose, but Id rather just take more Fire Dragons.

Also, rolling a 6 to wound does not make the attack AP 1, it makes it negate armour, there is a difference, no +1 to the damage chart.

Really depends on what flavor list you are running. Banshees are going to be better in a mech list simply because they can take a dedicated transport.

With banshees you don't have to deal with stealing a serpent from guardian defenders, or putting a close combat unit in a falcon to catapult your harlequins forward.

Initiative 10 power weapon attacks are good, and they get dirt cheap counter attack and you never know when you'll need that.

Harlies of course are better on foot because of the shadow seer. You can basically safeguard the squad from enemy shooting and use them to counter assault for an advancing Gunline.

Both squads are going to need doom, and possibly fortune to really punch out their opponents.

So really what it comes down to is what flavor list are you thinking of running. Banshees are going to get pasted in a foot list since they can be targeted and have weak armor. Whereas Harlequins are going to give you a hard time finding them a ride in a mechanized list.

Of course the elephant in the room isn't Fire Dragons, its Jetbike Warlocks. No matter how you look at it you are going to pay a bunch of points for close combat, and jetlocks offer so much more, 3+ armor, 4+ invulnerable, witchblades shred troops and vehicles, and they have an 18 inch assault range and don't need a wave serpent. A good multi charge from a jetseer council can turn an entire parking lot into rubble, something harlies and banshees wish they can do.

True and I do love jetbike seer councils, but again in CC they do not negate armor saves so with marines they will get tarpitted, esp against Termies. I grant you against vehicles, seer council on bikes is the bomb, but unless you have an autarch with your seer council, do not plan on killing things fast unless they have a crappy armor save.... so maybe orks and IG, but against Dark Eldar and SM I don't think so.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
sorry on the ap 1 was thinking about eldar sniper rifles... With rending on a 6 they get an extra D3 for armor penetration.

A lot of it depends on the meta of your local scene.

I face a lot of FNP MEQ, so the power weapon with every strike on the banshees works better for me. I also find the banshees benefit considerably from doom.

I played with my casual 2000 point banshee + warp spider list on Tuesday and I was happy with both squads.

Focus Fire then Charging works pretty well for Eldar. Doom + Storm Guardian Flamer volley followed up by a Banshee charge saw Vulcan and 7 Assault Terminators go down and only losing 4 Banshees in return, and the Autarch + Spiders finished off a Chaplain in close combat (after focus fire brought down his Assault Marine Body guard). Hilariously he made 4 invulnerable saves against the Autarch and Exarch's power weapon attacks but failed an armor save against a regular spider and went down.

Eldar close combat isn't *bad*... its just not good. And in a world where great close combat units are so plentiful... Eldar really start to drop the ball. Softening up your opponents units is as crucially important as ever, but Eldar can still deliver the killing blow in close combat.

I think doom works pretty well for both Banshees and Harlequins. I like the invuln save, the flip belts. It sucks that they don't get a ride, hopefully this will change in next addition. I like banshees too, just in my hands and at my club, they do not seem to work as well. Now, against T3 opponents, I think the banshees are the gak. But since most of the opponents at my club are Space Marines, they do not work as well for me. I agree we are not horrible at CC, just not great. That being said, I was just in a tournement last month, where you teamed up with someone 1000pts each and one FOC. I played 1 squad of seer council on bikes and a farseer with a squad of Harlequins and 5 Dire Avengers, my team mate who played IG took 3 Russes and 4 Veterans in Chimeras. We took 3rd place. Many people underestimated what the Harlequins could do and they were my MVPs for killing, in the 3 games taking out a squad of Scarabs, 2 Necron Warrior Squads, a Chimera and Veteran Squad, as well as a 5 man Terminator squad with Thunderhammers and Storm Sheilds and 2 Tactical Squads. My Seer council did alright, but in games 2 and 3 got tarpitted, so did not kill a lot but kept some squads occupied most of the game. Cheers.

For me there is no contest, Harlies are much better than Banshees. Not because they are better as an assault unit (the Harlies are actually slightly better there anyway with WS5, Furious Charge, ability to assault into cover, ability to hurt vehicles and Hit and Run to dodge combats they don't want to be in), because in practice neither unit is actually impressive in that regard, Banshees are stuck with a terrible transport to try and assault from and Harlies are walking (which doesn't really work in a Mech list).

The main reason Harlies are usable in Mech lists is because they get access to melta weaponry. Sure its only 2 shots from point blank range, but 2 melta shots has a very good chance of killing a light transport (i.e the most commonly seen vehicle in the game by a long long way). If you get them a Serpent to jump in first turn (which is easy when you can just take DAVU and put them in a Falcon) then I've found them to be very effective as quasi Fire Dragons. 5 melta shots is often overkill on light armour and in exchange the Harlies offer a massive increase in combat punch (which for starters bypasses the common tactic of assaulting Serpents and clipping infantry to stay in combat) and can Hit and Run out of combats to keep hunting vehicles. Certainly they don't completely replace Dragons (since you need to be able to kill Land Raiders etc if they show up) but they are very viable if you can get around the minor inconvenience of getting them a transport.

I agree that you can easily give a DA unit a transport or I have even bought a serpeant for 6 man Dragon squad and put the dragons in a Falcon and let the harlies have the transport, I just wish Falcons were BS 4, at BS 3 they are not reliable tanks for shooting and killing things. I agree the WS 5 and hit and run as well as Furious charge is very helpful, I usually try to run in the opponents assault, so that I can furious charge again on my turn without worrying about being shot. Cheers

I voted for banshees for 2 reasons. The first is the look. Banshees are one of the aspects (the thing that makes eldar cool to me) and look cool. Harlequins are clowns and everyone hates clowns. I also don't like how riotus the color scheme for harlies is.
The second is that whenever you need rending to go off, it never does. If you really really need a marine to die, and you failt to rend, you come out with one of those crazy stories of one marine saving 8 attacks. I know its the same with the hit and wound rolls, but any time I can take luck out of the equation I like to. Power weapons takes luck right out of the armor save department.

I voted for "even", but what I truly mean is: "It depends on the situation". Sure, you asked for "overall", but you'll always have to consider (local) metagame. If assume that you'll meet all possible kind of armies in all possible frequencies then I'd say it doesn't matter which one you pick - thus my "even" vote.

Cool thank you for everyone with opinions and voting, I want to hear what everyone's opinion is on them.

I used to love Banshees and NEVER take Harlies, however as time went on and experience in my hands as armies, I have better luck with my Harlequins, than my Banshees.

It is true I do not like clowns, I always think they are hiding something. Maybe that is why I like Halrequins so much, they do seem like they are hiding something and are devious. Something about them always makes me think about the Comedian from the Watchmen. Everytning is a cosmic joke. Cheers all

Other: Striking Scorpions.

Honestly, I'm not sure where the thought that Scorps are ineffective in the current edition comes from. I've seen them used to great success against pretty much every opponent out there.

OK a little bit of mathhammer shows the Harlies have a slight edge in close combat. Assuming they charge Marines and not powers active.

10 Banshee assault 10 Tact Marines.

They will kill 5 on the Charge, and the Marines will in turn kill 1 Banshee.

10 Harlies with Kisses assault 10 Tact Marines.

They will kill 7 on the Charge and the Marines will in turn kill 1 Harlie.

So you can kill 2 more marines on the charge, but the difference of everything is close.

Harlies are better in almost each situation, while Banshees are very situational. I keep my Banshees on the shelf while my Harlies go often out and bring back their points.

Well, I think that Harlequins are the way to go because multiple reasons.
1) When you upgrade a harlequin to a shadow seer and veil of tears the harlequins come much more effective.

2) Harlequins kiss's make the harlequins them selves much better and only 4pts per model is amazing!

3) furious charge is also a great point. +1 to strength means that your wounding marines on a +4 and rending on a +6.

But I prefer harlequins than banshee's mainly for the fluff.

Banshees in a Mechdar list.
Harlies in a Footdar list.

Since I mostly play Mechdar, I vote Banshees all the way - but they must be used correctly against targets they can succeed against (Power Armor Marines).

I use them with their own dedicated Doomseer as a troop assault unit and you will find (mathammer or roll some dice) that they are more effective at wiping out a 10 man tactical squad (and definitely a 6 man razorback'd squad) for better points cost than kiss equipped harlies.

Banshees in the wave serpent threaten much more of the board than Harlies do and with practice you should always be able to assault what you want as long you work in concert with other aspects of the Eldar army.

chaos0xomega wrote:Other: Striking Scorpions.

Honestly, I'm not sure where the thought that Scorps are ineffective in the current edition comes from. I've seen them used to great success against pretty much every opponent out there.

Now these are some of my opinions but,

I am sorry, I love the look and fluff of scorpions, but what opponents are you playing that scorps are better at killing troops than Halries or Banshees. I am sorry but this I do not agree with. With no armor modifiers, I think that marines and esp Termies will save more and thus kill more scorpions back. Sure you can take the scorpion claw, but it is I1 so everything else has hit from the enemy or is hitting at the same time.

As for Banshees and Harlies.. People talk about Doom with a Farseer with Banshees, I frequently run a Farseer with or nearby to my harlies to fortune and doom the squad they are attacking, I do not see that banshees receiving the same benefits give them an edge over Harlies. I think it is fairly easy to give Harlies a ride (serpeant) so I do not see this as an issue with mechdar list. I is easy to buy a serpent for a fire dragon squad or dire avenger squad of 5-6, stick them in a falcon and in turn 1 the harlies go in the serpent..

Thanks for everyone's opinions... I think they are great and I am glad to hear everyones ideas... Keep them coming.

banshees gain more from a farseer than harlies do, i think the question should be changed instead of the answer.

A banshee squad sort of needs a farseer to the point that it becomes "standard wargear" for the banshee squad.

Harlies do not require this and thus do not normally have it included when they are talked about.

A banshee squad with a farseer is far better than a harli squad with no far seer.

Now since a banshee gains so much more from a farseer than harlies do it makes sense to buff that squad more than it would to buff a harlie squad. If for instance you were going to take both.

Now with the farseer every weaknes that the banshees have is now fixed, they are tougher, and they hit harder, and they can now easily kill vehicles and dreadnaughts as well as murdering any squad without an invuln or high invuln saves. they are soo awesome for taking out terminators and FNP. And Why did someone say you cant assault into cover with banshees? they have a specific rule that states that banshees ALWAYS go first and codex specific rules override bigbook rules every time.

Harlies are quite fragile compared to the banshee for a few reasons: A - they dont usualy get a farseer for above mentioned reasons. B - they dont get a transport

Harlies are also not nearly as consistent as banshees, their attacks are normal armor saves which means if you encounter something like a carnafex or similar you are screwed. they require sixes in order to have a chance at no armor saves and it costs more points. The squad has to be heavily upgraded with shadow seer and troupe master in order to make it equivalent to the banshees and this makes their total unit cost far greater.

Now with all that said, the fact is that these two squads are not similar, they have two separate and distinct jobs, the banshees are for taking out things like carnafexes monsters or things with low normal armor saves specifically terminators and other tough units.

the harlequins are better suited to takeing out smaller squads of medium armor targets ork nobs, space marines, ETC

Take the squad that you need when you need it, or take both like i do.

Overall I'd opt for Harlies for their versatility, but I do think it also depends on the rest of your list.

Fully Decked out Harli's = 292 pts

Fully decked out Banshees = 192 pts

IMO, Banshees seem alot better for pts per model as they could simply kill 1 unit of space marines and come damn close to making value. Harli's are faced with the one thing eldar don't do well, survive.

IMO the only reason Harli's do so well is because they are "higher class" than most things they strike against but are likely to almost always to be kiilled something else after. If popping a landraider doesn't make the points back for a squad you may have invested too heavily. Not always true but it is something to think about.

as far as All comers, I would say Harli's are the better choice to survive but not the fundamentally correct choice. alot of my friends who play eldar complain about the fact eldar are some of the worst assualters out there. I rebuttal with "okay given, but then why are you trying to make a squad that can handle me in assault?"

I understand not wanting to pigeon-holed as flying mechdar or gunlines but ....

30 orks, Nob with power klaw, boss pole, and evay armor is 225 ... the harliquins will bring pain to this unit but they will ultimately die to a basic troop of the orks (or at least should)

So armies just can't create an "all comers" list for CC easily just like some armies can't do that with guns (*Points to orks again*given we have lots of firepower but nothing like spamable meltas, or scatter lasers, or star cannons, or night spinners.)

Just some food for thought!

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Fully Decked out Harli's = 292 pts

Fully decked out Banshees = 192 pts

Your missing the ~125pts the Banshees need to get a transport. Without one you have to be facing a slowed opponent to let them hit combat at all (not that its much easier with the Serpent, you get close enough to assault safely but its still very hard to actually get into assault against a good player). Harlies can work effectively without transports (and would clearly come in cheaper if you were putting them in a transport as you could cut the Shadowseer).

I do not agree that you do not take farseers with Harlequins commonly. I know quite a few that do. Myself included. I think with furious charge most things are going to fall to Harlies on the charge better than against banshees. Also, when any power weapon hits your banshees, they are just DEAD, it does not matter if they are fortuned or not. Now with Harlequins, it does not matter what hits them, they always get their save, because it is an invuln one, and if fortuned mores the better. I grant you that it is a 5up vs a 4up, but with the invuln, I will take the trade out. In addition- the Harlies have more attacks on the charge or not, they have a higher WS. True Banshees will go first due to their masks. I can think of one Tyranid squad that makes everything I1 in cc and the Banshees would still have their I10 with their mask. In this case they would be the better choice, but then in an all comers list, how often will you face them and if I did, I would try to shoot them and not CC them. Cheers

If you were planning on blatantly disregarding the information presented to you in your thread why did you even bother posting?

harlies cost 100 more points for a squad and are slightly marginally MAYBE better in certain situations. Also, id rather have a 4+ normal save and no invuln than no normal save and a 5+ invuln. If you are charging squads that are going to kill your bansees you are doing it wrong and i would advise you to try and learn how to play the game before blaming the units.

And to the idiot that mentioned about forgetting the cost of a wave serpent, the wave serpent is NOT a banshee squad, it has nothing to do with the banshee squad besides moving it from 1 side to the other it is a separate entity that it self acts and thus you cannot include its cost. and EVEN if you did include its cost.. great.. now we have two equal costing squads where 1 is very slightly maybe marginally better than the other except it also includes A fething TANK.

Some times i wonder about people

Powerguy wrote:

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Fully Decked out Harli's = 292 pts

Fully decked out Banshees = 192 pts

Your missing the ~125pts the Banshees need to get a transport. Without one you have to be facing a slowed opponent to let them hit combat at all (not that its much easier with the Serpent, you get close enough to assault safely but its still very hard to actually get into assault against a good player). Harlies can work effectively without transports (and would clearly come in cheaper if you were putting them in a transport as you could cut the Shadowseer).

true, but considering the title is purely CC i figure not looking into transports (as it has already been covered) it comes down to the actual CC. But yeah obviously it does help the Banshee's get a transport and means you'd need to spend even more for a harli squad.

clidefr0g wrote:If you were planning on blatantly disregarding the information presented to you in your thread why did you even bother posting?

harlies cost 100 more points for a squad and are slightly marginally MAYBE better in certain situations. Also, id rather have a 4+ normal save and no invuln than no normal save and a 5+ invuln. If you are charging squads that are going to kill your bansees you are doing it wrong and i would advise you to try and learn how to play the game before blaming the units.

And to the idiot that mentioned about forgetting the cost of a wave serpent, the wave serpent is NOT a banshee squad, it has nothing to do with the banshee squad besides moving it from 1 side to the other it is a separate entity that it self acts and thus you cannot include its cost. and EVEN if you did include its cost.. great.. now we have two equal costing squads where 1 is very slightly maybe marginally better than the other except it also includes A fething TANK.

Some times i wonder about people

I am not blatantly disregarding information. I want to hear peoples opinions, it does not mean I am not going to respond to them, that is what gets a good discussion going. However, what we do not need is people like you calling people idiots or getting angry at people who do not agree with you. Remember there are 2 sides to a coin and multiple sides to a die. If you can not give constructive criticism, DO NOT leave it in the first place. Also clean up your language or the moderator will get involved.

LOL OH NO NOT THE MODERATORS!!! WHAT WILL THEY DO TO ME AFTER CALLING SOMEONE AN IDIOT. Since you bother coming here, I assume you wish to keep posting. If not, keep doing what you are doing. MT11

er...

anyway...

I still like Banshees better. Look at it this way, its not power armor that scares me, power armor has never scared me. Power armor goes down just fine to scatter lasers, Bladestorms, and 3 flamer storm guardians. If you can put a lot of dice into your marine opponent's hands you'll kill power armor just fine.

What DOES scare me is things like power armor w/ FNP, and 2+ saves (potentially also with FNP).

This is why I take Banshees in my casual lists. They provide a bandaid, with doom support of course. A unit that I can charge into armored / FNP units and do a lot of damage.

It doesn't really matter to me that Harlequins are going to do more damage against Space Marines, Ork Boyz or even Bikers and MCs. They aren't as effectively providing an answer to FNP! Sure you can doom and re roll everything that isn't a 6. But that's not really ideal. I would rather have 1/3 with re rolls than 1/6 with re rolls!

Basically while Harlies are a better over all close combat unit, they share too much of an overlap with the Small Arms fire Eldar are so effective at bringing to the table to justify being taken over Banshees, which are able to engage a different array of targets better- a set of targets that Eldar inherently have a lot of trouble with- and to me that makes them more valuable to Harlequins in a mechanized list.

at least someone has a brain, thank you akaean.

clidefr0g wrote:If you were planning on blatantly disregarding the information presented to you in your thread why did you even bother posting?

harlies cost 100 more points for a squad and are slightly marginally MAYBE better in certain situations. Also, id rather have a 4+ normal save and no invuln than no normal save and a 5+ invuln. If you are charging squads that are going to kill your bansees you are doing it wrong and i would advise you to try and learn how to play the game before blaming the units.

And to the idiot that mentioned about forgetting the cost of a wave serpent, the wave serpent is NOT a banshee squad, it has nothing to do with the banshee squad besides moving it from 1 side to the other it is a separate entity that it self acts and thus you cannot include its cost. and EVEN if you did include its cost.. great.. now we have two equal costing squads where 1 is very slightly maybe marginally better than the other except it also includes A fething TANK.

Some times i wonder about people

First up I suggest you calm down a tad and/or stop baiting, this post is borderline and the second is just flat out disruptive and completely ignores the forum rules.

Anyway, have you ever tried running T3 4+ save models across the board? You can't ever look at units in a vacuum like you seem to be trying to, you always have to take into account how a unit is being used and other various practical implications beyond just stats/Mathhammer. Banshees are completely useless without a Serpent, sure they cost less than Harlies to start with but its a ~170pt squad which is going to achieve nothing. Harlies on the other hand are perfectly capable of running around on foot thanks to Veil of Tears.

@akean. The problem is that Harlies still kill heavy infantry better than Banshees, so saying they overlap with standard Eldar anti infantry isn't quite right, I can't find any combination of circumstances where the Banshees come out with more kills. Against MEQ with FNP (Blood Angels being the obvious case), Terminators or even Terminators with FNP (absolute worst case scenario) mathhammer always has the Harlies slightly ahead (even if its less than a wound). The extra attack, S and WS make a big difference. Strangely enough Harlies are actually better on the defensive against heavy infantry as well, the 5++ is far more helpful than the Banshees 4+ armour when you are planning to send them up against Terminators and other heavy hitters who tend to have power weapons.

This is really a moot point in any case, in a competitive list none of the Eldar assault units really work. The only reason I suggest Harlies were better was because they are decent quasi melta hunter units.