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Unless the rules for the Shadowseer, Death Jester, Masque and Enigmas turn out to be some level of absolutely absurd, that is.

If you bring Harlequins, you need your opponent to have:

-No high toughness Death Star units (wraith guards, spawn, Bikers, Grotesques, whatever) and no Monstrous creatures (wraithknights, Riptides, Dreadknights) because everything's gotta be REALLY scared of S3/4 AP - melee attacks.

-NO Superheavies, because harlies rely on some incredibly piddly anti tank options in terms of volume of fire. A IK would probably take three turns to shoot down with a full 2000pt harlequin army

-No flyers, because anti-air options don't exist. Or flying MCs for that matter. That's okay those aren't common.

-No ignores cover. Because all the vehicles foot infantry and bikes rely pretty heavily on cover saves.

-No invisibility, because it makes your uber high WS pointless. But nobody takes that power anyway.

They just seem like an army of everything that is the absolute worst stuff to take in the game right now. I get that you're supposed to make up their weaknesses with Eldar and DE, but in what situation would I not just want Dire Avengers in a WS or Kabalites in a Raider over harlequins? The only armies I can think of that wouldn't have to specifically try to construct a list for the harlies to stand a chance against are guard and sisters.

Sometimes I wonder, when they come out with the Necron rules and the Harlequin rules back to back, does anyone at GW play test anything? Or even talk to each other?

You're missing the point of the Harlie dex. It's not to make a competent force, it's to force Eldar players to buy the Harlie dex if they want to field Harlequins in their army when the new Eldar codex hits.

Its a cool army, with nice wargear and quirky rules. Along with beautiful models. No it isnt uber competitive, but its cool.

- Dont the Kisses have rending?

- I'm pretty sure there's a lot of fusion pistols the Harlies can pack.

- true

- I'm pretty sure the flip belts give inv. saves, though crappy ones.

- invisibility is at most cast on 1 deathstar unit every 1500+ points army in general.

IMO harlies are no worse off than Codex: LotD or Codex: Militarum Tempestus

-They have one single decent strength AP2 attack. So you're going to charge your 20 point apiece models into an opponent that will absolutely slaughter them to land five attacks that have a 50% chance of wounding?

The trouble is, any time you take their "quirky" wargear, you're always going to be wasting A) your basic S3 attacks or B) your 1-2 super special awesome attacks.

Even the uber powerful super awesome death assassin model throws S4 AP- attacks unless he rolls sixes. The back cover of the magazine shows him leaping out at a Riptide-a model it would take him approximately five rounds in melee to kill.

-Fusion pistols make for a 25 pt T3 model with a 5++. They have half the range of a real melta gun for the same price.

Tiny bit of mathammer: a base harlequin and a space marine with a bolter are identical in points. On the charge, the space marine causes almost twice the amount of wounds on average than the harlequin causes to the space marine.

They don't even have the little things either. They can't take CAD formations: no HQs. We don't even know if they get objective secured. The only model halfway durable enough to be a decent warlord A) can't be joined by any other model and B) Gets NO warlord trait if he's chosen. So your opponent gets free slay the warlord to go with his first blood from any of your 10/10/10 open topped HP2 vehicles.

Not only did they not bother to give harlequins any anti air, anti MCs, anti high T, or anti horde options...they didn't bother to give them an HQ.

as others have said, they are meant to ally.

Play them alone in games of 1000 points or less and they will be a blast.

 Melcavuk wrote:
Its a cool army, with nice wargear and quirky rules. Along with beautiful models. No it isnt uber competitive, but its cool.

"Uber competitive"

Unless your opponent is walking power armored infantry down the field at you (drop pods would pretty much be a death sentence, a melta TAC squad with a Stormwind in the pod would blow away a Starweaver and the troupe inside with no trouble) you don't stand any chance.

It's not even like it can't handle the top tier armies. It can't handle basic armies that have been out of the competitive meta forever. It can't handle green tide. It can't handle wyches in venoms. It can't handle Tacs in drop pods OR rhinos. It can't handle any kind of daemons, hilariously, because army wide fearless and invuln saves leaves their special rules and weapons worthless (which I find hilarious, as they're supposed to be the anti-daemon Eldar).

Maybe they're for fun rather than winning?

Curious if you're fielding the army with only with harlequins on foot with no transports?

An actual Harlequin army, with what we know, has their bikes to deal with MC's, high toughness deathstars, and/or medium/heavy vehicles (depending on the equipment). The transport for harlies does a bang up job against any infantry of any toughness with any armor save(thanks Shuriken Cannons). The infantry itself is going to be able to pick it's combats. Generally speaking you throw 1-2 caress into a unit and maybe 1-2 pistols and call it a day. And then you gear the heavy support for what you're lacking.

Granted, it's a limited codex so it's going to have limited options. But it does have options and that's before you add in the two main character models that are likely a solid support for the army.

TL;DR - It's to early to tell but they have a lot of the tools they need. Also, it's really meant as an allied codex similar to LoTD and Militarum Tempestus and to a lesser extent Grey Knights.

I'm gonna hold off judgment until I've seen the codex, but so far they look laughably bad.

It will be interesting to see how the Death Jester comes out. I hope he has some sort of Skyfire option. I agree the army needs anti-air.

FYI - if you roll 1 6 on the to wound roll for a Harlequin's Kiss, you will insta-gib that Wraithknight/Riptide/Carnifex. And a unit of Harlequins packing 5 embraces will do 5D3 S6 auto-hitting HoW hits to an invisible unit. So some of these concerns are only concerns if you take the Harlequins stock with no wargear.

I agree the Fusion Pistols are... not good, but they could have some limited potential if Harlequins get access to a webway portal for no-scatter deep striking.

Also, keep in mind that it appears the Shadowseer can roll on Sanctic. Hopefully, she will suffer no extra perils a la Grey Knights. Sanctic includes a number of powers (gate of infinite, sanctuary, hammerhand) which are particularly useful to Harlequins. It remains to be seen if the Shadowseer will be any good, but it is probably not a good idea to write them off without seeing her stats.

Nah, I was thinking they'd be fielded with Overpriced Venoms (tm).

Their poor bikes and voidweavers have to handle every vehicle , MC, and any units with T > 4, while the harlies fight...

What can a unit of harlies with 1-2 special weapons and maybe a neuron pistol or two fight? Maybe a five man TAC squad? Ten might be pushing their combat capability. 10 man guardsman squad? They might be able to handle fire warriors but if they brough kroots, I wouldn't bet on them. You're going to lose 1-2 of your 6 models to overwatch against anything but gretchins, so you're left with roughly a dozen S3 attacks and 2 S6 attacks on the charge maybe? That'll cause around two unsaved wounds to a tactical squad.

I see it as the same as the Militarium Tempestus codex. It's not ment to be a stand alone army, but gives you the option to play it that way if you want to.

 SilverDevilfish wrote:
You're missing the point of the Harlie dex. It's not to make a competent force, it's to force Eldar players to buy the Harlie dex if they want to field Harlequins in their army when the new Eldar codex hits.

They didn't do it with Tempestus, I would be VERY surprised if they did it with Eldar/Harlequin.

It always has bugged me that the so called much more advanced technology of the eldar is never really show on table top. Armour is worse, fusion guns are worse, plasma weapons are worse, bright lance is 90% of the times worse than a las cannon, ccw are worse, flyesr are worse, and my personal favorite, SM can easily get 3++ inv and the best the "advanced" eldar are able to give to their wraith constructs is a 5++.

I think if you're equipping your Harlies with 1-2 special weapons you're doing it wrong. I can see the justification for 1-2 cheap Harlies to eat overwatch, but everything else should be packing upgraded CC weapons. Pistol upgrades can be skipped entirely.

 Thud wrote:
I'm gonna hold off judgment until I've seen the codex, but so far they look laughably bad.

Key word laughably, they are clowns.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 SilverDevilfish wrote:
You're missing the point of the Harlie dex. It's not to make a competent force, it's to force Eldar players to buy the Harlie dex if they want to field Harlequins in their army when the new Eldar codex hits.

They didn't do it with Tempestus, I would be VERY surprised if they did it with Eldar/Harlequin.

Yes but they did do it with Inquisition and Assassins. Also notice the lack of Harlequins in the new DE codex?

the_scotsman wrote:
Unless the rules for the Shadowseer, Death Jester, Masque and Enigmas turn out to be some level of absolutely absurd, that is.

If you bring Harlequins, you need your opponent to have:

-No high toughness Death Star units (wraith guards, spawn, Bikers, Grotesques, whatever) and no Monstrous creatures (wraithknights, Riptides, Dreadknights) because everything's gotta be REALLY scared of S3/4 AP - melee attacks. Str 3/4 attacks? Have you read there rules??? A unit of Harlequins puts out more strength 6 attacks then most things in the game! D3 HOW hits each at Str 6, or a single Str 6 AP 2 attack each, or simply hitting on 6's is an insta-kill. If your running your Harlquins naked, then I'm afraid your doing something very wrong

-NO Superheavies, because harlies rely on some incredibly piddly anti tank options in terms of volume of fire. A IK would probably take three turns to shoot down with a full 2000pt harlequin army. Dark Eldar have no supper heavies and handle Knights the best in the game. Also, considering Harlequins rely on Invulnerable Saves/Cover saves, I'd say they can survive a knight better then most. Then consider ALL their Anti-Tank is either Melta (And they WILL have access to Webway Portals), Haywire or Lance, your point is not very well thought out.

-No flyers, because anti-air options don't exist. Or flying MCs for that matter. That's okay those aren't common.

-No ignores cover. Because all the vehicles foot infantry and bikes rely pretty heavily on cover saves. GASP! No ignores cover in a close range/assault orientated force? Whatever will you do??? Oh, i forgot, assault the fethers!

-No invisibility, because it makes your uber high WS pointless. But nobody takes that power anyway. Shadowseers can take Telepathy. So yeah...You can have it to. Also, due to HOW Harlequins handle this better then most.

They just seem like an army of everything that is the absolute worst stuff to take in the game right now. I get that you're supposed to make up their weaknesses with Eldar and DE, but in what situation would I not just want Dire Avengers in a WS or Kabalites in a Raider over harlequins? When you don't want to be a meta-gaming douche and spam Wave Serpents and Splinterboats? The only armies I can think of that wouldn't have to specifically try to construct a list for the harlies to stand a chance against are guard and sisters.

Sometimes I wonder, when they come out with the Necron rules and the Harlequin rules back to back, does anyone at GW play test anything? Or even talk to each other?

I think you'll find many of your points aren't all that well considered.

Really need to see the codex before we can make some solid judgments.

 Sasori wrote:
Really need to see the codex before we can make some solid judgments.

When has the lack of evidence and testing ever gotten in the way of a whiny conclusion here at Dakka?

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Unless the rules for the Shadowseer, Death Jester, Masque and Enigmas turn out to be some level of absolutely absurd, that is.

If you bring Harlequins, you need your opponent to have:

-No high toughness Death Star units (wraith guards, spawn, Bikers, Grotesques, whatever) and no Monstrous creatures (wraithknights, Riptides, Dreadknights) because everything's gotta be REALLY scared of S3/4 AP - melee attacks. Str 3/4 attacks? Have you read there rules??? A unit of Harlequins puts out more strength 6 attacks then most things in the game! D3 HOW hits each at Str 6, or a single Str 6 AP 2 attack each, or simply hitting on 6's is an insta-kill. If your running your Harlquins naked, then I'm afraid your doing something very wrong

-NO Superheavies, because harlies rely on some incredibly piddly anti tank options in terms of volume of fire. A IK would probably take three turns to shoot down with a full 2000pt harlequin army. Dark Eldar have no supper heavies and handle Knights the best in the game. Also, considering Harlequins rely on Invulnerable Saves/Cover saves, I'd say they can survive a knight better then most. Then consider ALL their Anti-Tank is either Melta (And they WILL have access to Webway Portals), Haywire or Lance, your point is not very well thought out.

-No flyers, because anti-air options don't exist. Or flying MCs for that matter. That's okay those aren't common.

-No ignores cover. Because all the vehicles foot infantry and bikes rely pretty heavily on cover saves. GASP! No ignores cover in a close range/assault orientated force? Whatever will you do??? Oh, i forgot, assault the fethers!

-No invisibility, because it makes your uber high WS pointless. But nobody takes that power anyway. Shadowseers can take Telepathy. So yeah...

They just seem like an army of everything that is the absolute worst stuff to take in the game right now. I get that you're supposed to make up their weaknesses with Eldar and DE, but in what situation would I not just want Dire Avengers in a WS or Kabalites in a Raider over harlequins? When you don't want to be a meta-gaming douche and spam Wave Serpents and Splinterboats? The only armies I can think of that wouldn't have to specifically try to construct a list for the harlies to stand a chance against are guard and sisters.

Sometimes I wonder, when they come out with the Necron rules and the Harlequin rules back to back, does anyone at GW play test anything? Or even talk to each other?

I think you'll find many of your points aren't all that well considered.

Exalted

 SilverDevilfish wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 SilverDevilfish wrote:
You're missing the point of the Harlie dex. It's not to make a competent force, it's to force Eldar players to buy the Harlie dex if they want to field Harlequins in their army when the new Eldar codex hits.

They didn't do it with Tempestus, I would be VERY surprised if they did it with Eldar/Harlequin.

Yes but they did do it with Inquisition and Assassins. Also notice the lack of Harlequins in the new DE codex?

Notice the inclusion of Tempestus in the Guard codex?

And really, Assassins and Inquisition shouldn't have been part of Codex: Grey Knights to begin with. They should have been parted out long before.

After their removal from the Dark Eldar book, I wouldnt expect to see harlies in the craftworld book.

Regardlessx this thread is all about needless doom and gloom. Harlies arent supposed to be competitive, this is a fluff product to help us forge the narrative or whatever. It amazes me how many people clamored for these sorts of minibooks, and now that GW is finally producing them you bitch and moan about them. Deal with it, the Harlequins afent an army, theyre a band of circus performers that have the means to kick some ass.

Not sure if serious or OP started this as a joke? Now don't take this the wrong way but, I mean no offense by it, but did you actually read the rules for them? Firstly I think it's important to see them for what they are intended to be, an allied force to bring along with your primary detachment. Think similar to the militarum tempestus dex. I wouldn't expect them to be able to do everything amazingly well but I would expect them to do some things good. Secondly, remember they are an elite glass cannon force, play them smart and you'll make your points back. I'm sorry you cant just throw these guys face first at the enemy, have them soak up withering amounts of fire that would normally destroy a titan then have them smash everything your opponent has to bits, infantry and vehicles alike. So on to what I know:

Melee is their focus it seems. for their points cost you are getting 2 attacks base, 1 for dual ccw, and 3 base attacks on the master, ld 9/10 on the master. Ignores initiative penalty for charging through difficult terrain, initiative 6/7 and ws 5/6. They come stock with fleet, furious charge, hit and run and fear. 5++ save is situational at best but it's better than the standard elder 5+. For the cost of three melta bombs a model? that's very respectable, the weapons are where it's at though.

Harlequin's kiss: One attack from each model equipped is a kiss attack, s6 ap2 and ID on a 6 to wound. Not super reliable but will be quite deadly against elite infantry and has a 50/50 chance to hurt most MC, it's not terribly expensive either. Use them as elite infantry killers with this or tie up that riptide and tear him down with it.

Harlequin's embrace: D3 HoW hits resolved at s6. On a troupe of 5 that's 5-15 guaranteed strength 6 hits over and above your normal attacks that will likely be going before your opponent anyways. This is good for horde or forcing saves on MC, keep in mind s6 (if you charge the rear, because HoW ruling) is still a decent strength to bring against vehicles, short of monoliths and LR most vehicles don't have great rear armour so massed s6 attacks stand a fair chance of hurting them. Hit and Run jives nicely with this weapon.

Harlequin's Caress: Any TO HIT roll of 6 is an automatic wound at ap2 or glancing hit on a vehicle. From a troupe of 5 that's like 21 attacks on the charge isn't it? How many sixes you think you can roll on that? Someone else can do the mathahmmer.

Now ranged weapons:

Shuriken pistol: it's what we've seen before on eldar. Bladestorm is the big thing here, its not bad for a free weapon.

Fusion pistol: s8 ap1 6" melta, its decent anti tank but super short ranged, not terrible on a unit that thrives in assault anyways though.

Neuro-disruptor: s1 ap2 fleshbane. Umm yeah another MC killer or elite infantry.

All this on just the troop choice. I'd say that's a respectable entry. I've seen the transport rules too and it looks pretty solid so I'm not worried about getting these guys into the fight. The jetibikes can have haywire cannons and coupled with the fact they are elder jetbikes so they can move in the assault phase means they can move/shoot/move back into cover or behind LoS blocking terrain. Only bad part is that they are blast weapons so they cant fire when they jink but really how reliable is that anyways?

I really think the solitaire is fairly priced for what he brings to the table as well. And he doesn't have to be your warlord either so that's not a big deal, even if he was he can always roll on the BRB traits and some of them are quite nice.

Things we haven't seen yet are: The enigmas, these relics could be pretty sweet,largely disappointing or (gasp) fairly priced and solid pieces of gear let's reserve our opinions on them until after we've seen them eh? Same goes for the death jester and shadowseer, though I did see a leak of one of the shadowseer powers and its the primaris I think that grants stealth and shrouded. As for the FoC GW seems to be in love with formations and Detachments right now so based on that I'm going to say they will probably get their own formations/detachments/allied rules that for all intents and purposes you'll count as battle forged but you'll gain a different special rule instead of obsec, they will likely get their own warlord traits table too. Without seeing the rules I think we can just wait patiently and reserve judgement on that too eh?

In conclusion I feel your judgement on them is far too critical with far too little knowledge available at the moment. I concede they don't seem to have much AA but really they wouldn't be the first (SoB). They seem like an army to be played with mobility, positioning and applying the right units/gear to it's designated task. You know... tactics? As a force designed to be used as allies I think it's quite forgivable to be lacking some areas of expertise as long as they make up for it in other areas. I'm also not convinced on your comparison of 1 naked harlie vs one bolter marine. Ignoring shooting attacks and overwatch I don't think the odds are as skewed in the marines favor as you would have us believe. I'd say they'd be even at worst.

At the end of the day however if you still think they are garbage, no one is forcing you to buy and field them.

3 units and an hq is not an army, regardless of what GW wants to call it.

Not everyone who plays this game is a hyper-competitive Power Gamer OP

Some people do enjoy playing fluffy armies

xxvaderxx wrote:
3 units and an hq is not an army, regardless of what GW wants to call it.

We're actually at 6 units at the moment:

Death Jester
Shadowseer
Voidweaver
Skyweaver
Troupe
Solitaire


Excluding Forge World, Imperial Knights is an army of 1 unit, with a codex that has a whole 6 pages of non-fluff.

As to competitiveness, everyone seems to judge armies as weak if they aren't powerful long range shooty types -- but that assumes a board that is sparse on meaningful terrain. Play a board like Sector Imperialis and put a couple of buildings on every piece (the 3-4 story ones, or add in heavy forest/mountain/hills that obscure LOS, and suddenly 72" range firing is no longer a factor. Add alleyways that are only 35cm wide, and suddenly, assassin-type units are extremely dangerous. Instead of making the whole a shooting range, put some thought into map design and create interesting choke points and locations worth controlling. It all makes for better, more interesting games.

I feel sad when I go into FLGS and see people playing on maps with just a few pieces of felt and a couple of hills

Isn't really meant to be more of a Ally than a stand alone?

pm713 wrote:
Maybe they're for fun rather than winning?

I question the fun to be had from watching your army get kerbstomped as it fails to live up to its background fluff.

In general, I'd be inclined to withhold judgement until the rules are all out there, but the immediate prognosis is that there's no point pretending that Harlequins by themselves will be able to provide a worthwhile match to 'proper' 40k armies; they're just a dataslate for Eldar and Deldar.