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Is the Neuro Disruptor worth 10pts over the Shuriken Pistol?
Which of the Harlequin weapons is the best, is the cost for caress worth it, and is embrace or kiss better?

EDIT: grammar

No, and I tend to use 2x embrace 3x Kiss Power Sword on master for my Starweaver crews.

Neuro disruptor is kinda silly, tbh if any pistol upgrade I give a TM Crescendo. I use 2x fusions for my DE Archon Webway Squad but that's the only pistol i use.

Interesting, other places I looked advised against the embrace : http://twotimestwohobbytime.blogspot.com/2015/03/harlequin-weapon-math-and-exe-wing.html
Is there any reason that you chose to run it?

I had thought that 15 pts for the power sword was a bit much...

I like the PS because the troupe master gets a whole bunch of attacks with it at a decent strength making the AP3 really worth it.

The embrace means I can swing a pretty good attack against the rear armor of a vehicle and also I can use them for both shock-and-awe assaults where I want to sweep low quality infantry, and I can also point them at space marines who I can't sweep and be pretty certain I can kill all/most of a TAC sized squad.


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Also, that thread only calculates vs MEQ opponents...of course the AP2 weapon is gonna work better than the volume of attacks weapon.

I just don't like the Harlequin's Canoodle. 8 points is so weird.

Its 8 points because they worship khorn.

But really I like 1/2 having caress in groups of 12 or 3/4 in vehicles.

Caress is better on the troupe master imo (It has a better damage output at least).

On normal guys the kiss and caress have a fairly similar damage output, so kisses may be the better choice.

Personally I don't feel that the neuro disruptor is worth it. Harlequins already have caress and kisses for dealing with tough models with good toughness and wounds.

If I really wanted a pistol, excluding the crescendo, I would take the melta one to potentially help with tanks. That said, they are both a little expensive.

My problem with the caress I guess is the fact that you have a 2/3 chance of doing anything at all, and if you don't get that six you don't get anything. Whereas if I buy the PS it's basically only 5 pts more (unless you buy 5 embraces it might as well cost 10 pts) and it gives you almost double the unsaveable wounds against MEQ.

Each weapon has different uses and are good for different applications. But there are a few things you need to realize about each weapon. The embrace offers automatic hits and the caress offers automatic wounds. Skipping a to hit or to wound roll greatly increases the damage output, which is something people don't often remember.

Lets look at the math for each weapon, assuming a troupe size of 6 for simplicity.

kisses offer 6 s6 ap2 attacks, of those 4 will hit, of those 3.33 will wound, none of them will be saved, killing about 3.33 MEQs
embraces offer d3 s6 hits (averaging out to 2 s6 hits each) so 12 s6 hits, of those 10 will wound, 3.33 MEQs will fail their armor save, killing about 3.33 MEQs
caresses offer a 1/6 chance of killing a marine, 6 troupes on the charge get 24 attacks, 4 of those will be caresses hits, killing 4 MEQs

But that is just from the special weapon part of the attack. Each harlequin, on the charge, has its normal s4 attacks. Kiss Quins have 3 extra s4 attacks which will kill 2 more MEQs bringing the total to 5.33 kills. Embrace Quins have 4 extra s4 attacks which will kill 2.66 more MEQs bringing the total to 6 kills. And the caresses have a 4 attacks that will hit half the time killing 2 more MEQs bringing the total to 6 MEQs killed.

So on the charge both Embraces and Caresses do more damage to MEQs than Kiss.

It should be said though that:

Kisses are just as good against all armor saves, though get worst when a unit has invul saves. Whats more the kiss damage output varies little between being on the charge or being stuck in combat. Kisses also have a 1 in 6 chance of instant death, which equates to about once every other combat. This is is really only useful against wraithknights.

Embraces do much better as armor saves increase, against demons embraces way outperform kisses. Though if the troupe does not get the charge the weapon is useless. Also they can have trouble against vehicles if they don't hit the right facing.

Caresses are going to be doing just as well against any target, regardless of WS, T, or SV. They do worst against units with invul saves and do 1/4 less damage when not on the charge. But they can take out any vehicle. A troupe of 6 will have no problem taking out a land raider, especially if they have a shadowseer with haywire grenades. You could even put this unit against a titan and it would stand a chance to kill it.


So because of this, I actually think that kisses are the worst weapon option as they have the narrowest use, even though they are the most consistent of the weapons. Caresses have the most, all around us, so I think it is always wise to take one unit of them. Because I run three units of harlequins I run one unit of each weapon. I think it is better for an all comers list. The better option would probably be 1 larger caress unit and two smaller embrace units. Eldar, necrons and demons are probably the best armies right now, and embraces are better against all of them. Next would probably be grey knights/titans, space wolves, tyranids and Tau. Neither kisses or embraces are going up against titans. Embraces are probably better against space wolves because they have a lot of invul saves. Embraces are better against tyranids, especially when trying to kill swarms of gaunts. And it doesn't matter against tau, you are winning combat anyway if you get into combat.

 lambsandlions wrote:
Each weapon has different uses and are good for different applications. But there are a few things you need to realize about each weapon. The embrace offers automatic hits and the caress offers automatic wounds. Skipping a to hit or to wound roll greatly increases the damage output, which is something people don't often remember.

Lets look at the math for each weapon, assuming a troupe size of 6 for simplicity.

kisses offer 6 s6 ap2 attacks, of those 4 will hit, of those 3.33 will wound, none of them will be saved, killing about 3.33 MEQs
embraces offer d3 s6 hits (averaging out to 2 s6 hits each) so 12 s6 hits, of those 10 will wound, 3.33 MEQs will fail their armor save, killing about 3.33 MEQs
caresses offer a 1/6 chance of killing a marine, 6 troupes on the charge get 24 attacks, 4 of those will be caresses hits, killing 4 MEQs

But that is just from the special weapon part of the attack. Each harlequin, on the charge, has its normal s4 attacks. Kiss Quins have 3 extra s4 attacks which will kill 2 more MEQs bringing the total to 5.33 kills. Embrace Quins have 4 extra s4 attacks which will kill 2.66 more MEQs bringing the total to 6 kills. And the caresses have a 4 attacks that will hit half the time killing 2 more MEQs bringing the total to 6 MEQs killed.

So on the charge both Embraces and Caresses do more damage to MEQs than Kiss.

But after the charge won't the kiss be better?

 lambsandlions wrote:
Whats more the kiss damage output varies little between being on the charge or being stuck in combat.

 JP Hatecraft wrote:


But after the charge won't the kiss be better?

Yeah the kisses will be better afterwards but considering the fact that MEQs come in either squads of 5 or 10 you shouldn't be too worried about the second round of combat. I assume you also have a shadowseer who will do one wound per round of combat himself. With your embraces you killed 6 on the charge plus one more from the shadow seer. leaving 3 left. Now in the second round of combat again the shadowseer will kill 1 more leaving you to only kill 2 MEQs. And if you do leave them with only 1 MEQ standing you can always hit and run out of their and let someone else mop them up.

But now lets consider something other than meqs like the new Daemonkin. Is someone takes 20 bloodletters your kiss squad will kill about 7 blood letters while your embrace squad will kill 14. This makes for a huge difference in the swingback from the daemons where the bloodletters will kill about 4 kiss harlequins vs only 1 or 2 embrace harlequins.

Also consider invisible units. The embrace auto-hits meaning you will get your full number of s6 attacks. The caresses only care about 6's on the hit meaning you will get a lot of embrace hits as well. The kisses need to get lucky for that 1 in 6 chance to hit and may not be able to kill anything from an invisible unit.

 Lurker wrote:

 lambsandlions wrote:
Whats more the kiss damage output varies little between being on the charge or being stuck in combat.

The kiss doesn't change much after the charge. But the embrace and caress go down much more.
(All my math is from this site, if there's anything wrong with is please tell me)
http://twotimestwohobbytime.blogspot.com/2015/03/harlequin-weapon-math-and-exe-wing.html


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So should my troupe go with 1 kiss 2 embrace 2 caress TM w/ powersword then?