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After cruising threads about 6th ed bugs, I have seen some disagreement of the integration of Harpies into lists. I am rather new to nids and don't know much about their synergy. I turn to the veterans of nids to discuss they pros and cons of a Harpy.

Well, they're more durable now but still require a taliored list to suit them well. They're not something you can stick in and watch them do work.

I think you need 2 harpies and 2 flyrants to make them work so you have target saturation. A unit of gargoyles running interference would not go amiss either.

As stated it is all about making them fit in a list. I personally find them over priced for what they do and would rather put my points into other monstrous creatures. I think their best advantage is that they are a fire magnet.

yeah, and they rack up in points. 2x dakka flyrant and 3x plain harpy is 1000 points. i still dont think they will be a big hitter

The double dakka flyrant works well if you load up on gargoyles

90 gargoyles (as if anyone has the models) will be about 200 points more expensive but alot more effective. with preferred enemy from flyrants youve got 90 shots re-rolling. better than 3 barbed stanger shots.

The Harpy is, from what I've seen, really only good for one thing offensively- taking out large groups of infantry with a save of 4+ or worse. Now, out of every kind of target imaginable, this tends to be the type that gives nids the least trouble. I just don't see the Harpy as being versatile enough to take it.

What about the fact it can take a S9 blast? Effective against T4 units with FNP. The fact it can move 24" and still fire it is pretty good.

What about a harpy/ymgarl combo? The way reserves are set up now and Hive Commander could be a good synergy.

Ive played a couple games with them in using proxy. And honestly they did amazing. I switched out barbed stranglers for the heavy venom canon. Vector strike+ d3 spore bombs+ str 9 ap 2 blast could reliably take out a squad of marines in a turn. Plus they're hard to hit. In my honest opinion, 1 flyrant plus 2 harpies are more than enough for target saturation, because theres still other ground stuff the enemy has to shoot down in a 2000 point list. For example i was still using some hive guard, a trygon and some genestealers(broodlords with biomancy stuff) in those games i was playing.

darickrp wrote:Ive played a couple games with them in using proxy. And honestly they did amazing. I switched out barbed stranglers for the heavy venom canon. Vector strike+ d3 spore bombs+ str 9 ap 2 blast could reliably take out a squad of marines in a turn. Plus they're hard to hit. In my honest opinion, 1 flyrant plus 2 harpies are more than enough for target saturation, because theres still other ground stuff the enemy has to shoot down in a 2000 point list. For example i was still using some hive guard, a trygon and some genestealers(broodlords with biomancy stuff) in those games i was playing.

Yes, it could, if the HVC were actually AP2. Unfortunately, it's AP4, in addition to the spore bombs being a once-per-game ability.

woops read that wrong then,i guess paying less points for the stranglethorn though is an upside. and i realize that its once a game. Still nice to have, especially with two harpies.

Anyways the fact that they soak up so much fire, and still do a lot of work against infantry is awesome.

The way I see it, a space marine manning an autocannon turret (any torunament army will have one equivalent.) hits a harpy on a 3+, wounds on a 2+, and negates armor. Two turns of that, assuming they're shooting your flying MC with only one gun, and your harpy is dead. If you want spore mines, take biovores. If you want HVCs, take HT, or carnifex.

As it can't bring any ranged weapon better than AP4, the Harpy will be far far more effective against less durable armies like Eldar or Orks and generally ineffective against MEQ's unless they brought alot of light vehicles or Scouts.

A couple of points of note - Vector Strikes are AP3 and melee attacks are AP2, so you can go after MEQ's if necessary - you just need to go in close. The Harpy also has the only viable use of assault grenades in the whole codex. It's best niche use will be in taking out ranged support like entrenched Long Fangs/Devastators or artillery units.
Also you should always pick the Stinger Salvo over Cluster Spines. Unlike the other weapon options it can at least be snap-fired and a lucky S5 hit makes a good follow-up to a vector strike on the rear armour flyer.

At the end of the day, the Harpy is best used to distract the enemy from your Flyrant if you can't squeeze in a 2nd one.

I just don't feel any love for the Harpy at all.
Maybe I'll be proved wrong, I hope so, I mean he should be better for his point cost but I just don't see a use for him.

Persoanlly I'm testing double Flyrant and Gargoyles. Seems to be much more viable and produce better results.

Isn't their flexibility alone worth the points? They can start in reserve to fly in Turn 2/3, they can start Turn 1 being grounded, it has the ability to wreck vehicles, it can eat infantry, it's a really fast denial unit, it has assault grenades, and it looks really fething cool. It's coolest ability is to half units initiative on the charge. Combo that with another unit on the charge and thats some goodness waiting to happen.

I understand how fragile a T5 model can be, but with 4 wounds and FNP (from Catalyst) for a turn to ensure a safe arrival could work out in your favor. Especially when the enemy has ymgarls to worry about around the same time the Harpy shows up.

As I've said before, I've never played nids and may be unreliable tactics. I would play test it anyway before disregarding them.

Hunchkrot wrote:The way I see it, a space marine manning an autocannon turret (any torunament army will have one equivalent.) hits a harpy on a 3+, wounds on a 2+, and negates armor. Two turns of that, assuming they're shooting your flying MC with only one gun, and your harpy is dead. If you want spore mines, take biovores. If you want HVCs, take HT, or carnifex.

You mean a 6+ to hit of course - since it's Swooping.

rigeld2 wrote:

Hunchkrot wrote:The way I see it, a space marine manning an autocannon turret (any torunament army will have one equivalent.) hits a harpy on a 3+, wounds on a 2+, and negates armor. Two turns of that, assuming they're shooting your flying MC with only one gun, and your harpy is dead. If you want spore mines, take biovores. If you want HVCs, take HT, or carnifex.

You mean a 6+ to hit of course - since it's Swooping.

Reasonably certain he means 3+. The quad-gun for the defence line or bastion has skyfire if I remember correctly, so 3+ to hit (with a reroll?) and 2+ to wound, followed by grounding check means you are averaging just over 3 wounds a turn on a 4 wound model. He seems to think they every army will be using at least a couple of skyfire units via flyers, quad-gun or eventually flak missiles.

Carnage43 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

Hunchkrot wrote:The way I see it, a space marine manning an autocannon turret (any torunament army will have one equivalent.) hits a harpy on a 3+, wounds on a 2+, and negates armor. Two turns of that, assuming they're shooting your flying MC with only one gun, and your harpy is dead. If you want spore mines, take biovores. If you want HVCs, take HT, or carnifex.

You mean a 6+ to hit of course - since it's Swooping.

Reasonably certain he means 3+. The quad-gun for the defence line or bastion has skyfire if I remember correctly, so 3+ to hit (with a reroll?) and 2+ to wound, followed by grounding check means you are averaging just over 3 wounds a turn on a 4 wound model. He seems to think they every army will be using at least a couple of skyfire units via flyers, quad-gun or eventually flak missiles.

Rereading it I can see that context, but to me saying "autocannon turret" doesn't imply "quad-gun".

No biggie. But yeah, at first I was all Harpy all the time. Looking through things, however, I'm less sure of that.

Carnage43 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

Hunchkrot wrote:The way I see it, a space marine manning an autocannon turret (any torunament army will have one equivalent.) hits a harpy on a 3+, wounds on a 2+, and negates armor. Two turns of that, assuming they're shooting your flying MC with only one gun, and your harpy is dead. If you want spore mines, take biovores. If you want HVCs, take HT, or carnifex.

You mean a 6+ to hit of course - since it's Swooping.

Reasonably certain he means 3+. The quad-gun for the defence line or bastion has skyfire if I remember correctly, so 3+ to hit (with a reroll?) and 2+ to wound, followed by grounding check means you are averaging just over 3 wounds a turn on a 4 wound model. He seems to think they every army will be using at least a couple of skyfire units via flyers, quad-gun or eventually flak missiles.

You're not factoring in the FMC's ability to dive though.

4 TL Quadgun @ MEQ
3.556 hits
2.963 wounds inflicted without dive
1.975 wounds inflicted with dive
Then you have .333% chance of taking an additional wound from the grounding test.

Of course with catalyst in effect on the harpy, those odds go down of taking wounds.

An army can only have one quad gun mind you (at 1999pts and below), unless you are facing Mech Guard with Hydra Spam...

If you dive, however, you force the Harpy to snap fire. Since non-bs based weapons cannot snap fire, this removes its ability to shoot whichever heavy weapon you gave it, and basically turns it into a nearly 200-pt flying distraction unit.

Not necessarily, it may not be able to shoot, but it can still move, run, assault, deny, or capture (given the mission The Scouring).

rigeld2 wrote:

Carnage43 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

Hunchkrot wrote:The way I see it, a space marine manning an autocannon turret (any torunament army will have one equivalent.) hits a harpy on a 3+, wounds on a 2+, and negates armor. Two turns of that, assuming they're shooting your flying MC with only one gun, and your harpy is dead. If you want spore mines, take biovores. If you want HVCs, take HT, or carnifex.

You mean a 6+ to hit of course - since it's Swooping.

Reasonably certain he means 3+. The quad-gun for the defence line or bastion has skyfire if I remember correctly, so 3+ to hit (with a reroll?) and 2+ to wound, followed by grounding check means you are averaging just over 3 wounds a turn on a 4 wound model. He seems to think they every army will be using at least a couple of skyfire units via flyers, quad-gun or eventually flak missiles.

Rereading it I can see that context, but to me saying "autocannon turret" doesn't imply "quad-gun".

No biggie. But yeah, at first I was all Harpy all the time. Looking through things, however, I'm less sure of that.

Only autocannon turret in the game has skyfire. that's not counting autocannons mounted as turret weapons, like on a tank. And seeing as how any army except Nids has the ability to field hydras, we'll likely see them too.