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I'm not looking to start an opinion war or anything... just looking for actual info.

I recently started looking into Harlequins, and love the fluff, look, theme, etc. On the other hand, I'm very much a newb to this game/hobby, so while I can't find any serious faults regarding the units and stats (apart from a severe lack of variety, which isn't necessarily a bad thing), I think it's generally understood that they're a sub-par army, and really only viable as allies to Eldar or Dark Eldar.

Why is that?

(Again, I'm not disagreeing with the general opinion. I'm admitting I lack information to form a more solid opinion than my first - generally positive - opinion.)

The Harlequins aren't sub par, they are simply a limited in unit composition. My harlis have beaten necrons, skitarii, spacewolves, astra militarum, and space marines (including the formation that gave him 340 points of free vehicles in a 1500 point list)

They are very difficult to play however, I would not ever recommend them for a newer player. Their damage potential relies on speed, psychic abilities, and melee from very fragile units. Their primary weaknesses are big walkers, and flyers.

Hope that helps

That does help, thanks. Regarding Walkers as a weakness... Doesn't Haywire help significantly with that?

These days anything that doesn't have a big friendly special rule that says "build your army this way and you automagically win" is considered subpar.

Harlequins can't bring a 2500 point list to a 2000 point game, they don't have rerollable 2++ saves, they don't have no scatter deep strike template D weapons and they don't have 300 point gargantuan creatures. Therefore, bottom tier.

Really it boils down to their gimmick being too easy to flat out ignore. They love morale shenanigans. Here's a list of factions that are really good at ignoring morale: practically all of them. The big bane of harlies is gak like Ministorum Priests: 25 points to flat out ignore stuff that you've probably paid 400 points across all your units to have.

That's why I've started running a Vindicare Assassin with my harlies. He just sits in the back (so who cares about One Eye Open) and every turn he plugs a Priest, or an Ethereal, or helps crack open a transport.

The other problem of the harlequins is an abundance of "tax" units in their formation. Cegorach's Revenge? Who wants to field 3 frickin Death Jesters? Voidweavers in everything? blech. Mandatory Death Jester in Cast of Players preventing you from using a Starweaver? Yuck. They have a solid detachment in the Masque with really good rules for them, and a solid formation in Heroes Path...but that's about it.

So basically if you're willing to supplement with a tiny bit of allies for a larger army (I LOVE the Dark Eldar and what they let my clowns do) Snd you don't mind limited variation in your lists, Harlequins are find.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Toniork wrote:
That does help, thanks. Regarding Walkers as a weakness... Doesn't Haywire help significantly with that?

Toniork wrote:
That does help, thanks. Regarding Walkers as a weakness... Doesn't Haywire help significantly with that?

Yep. Which is why my Harlequins run a crap ton of anti tank. 6 haywire bikes, a unit of haywire scourges and 1 of my troupes webway portals in with an archon, so they bring melta and more haywire.

Don't listen to these guys Toniork!

Well, sort of do. They're absolutely correct that from a competitive standpoint, Harlequins are "sub-par" - but that's competitive! And if you're playing competitive, 99% of all units in the game are sub-par.

However, in anything buy competitive, Harlequins are a ton of fun, and can pull of some surprising wins too! The main problem with them is the lack of units in the codex. However, it's very easy to ally up some Dark Eldar or Craftworld Eldar with your Harlequins to make varied and exciting builds.

Harlequins attack enemies in unique ways. Generally speaking, Harlequins do poorly against massed Vehicles, because while they have the tools to take on a few vehicles very well (Fusion Pistols, Haywire Cannon/Grenades, and Harlequin's Caress), their fragile nature means you're unlikely to continue using these units over the extended period of time of a regular game.

Good luck, and I hope you enjoy kicking butt with the psycho death clowns from space!

I was thinking of running the whole Execution force with a Masque in games of 1850 or more.

Seems like the mass distraction and pressure the Assassins could provide would mesh well with the aggressive nature of the Harlis.

Their ability to hide and be rather difficult to wipe out in a turn (Callidus and Culexus especially) would help open up some near null deploy options if needed too.

Plus Murder Clowns and Assassins sounds like an enjoyable theme.

I'm actually working on an Ork army at the moment ("working on" as in "I've bought all the models, and am veeeery slowly painting them"), so I don't think I'll start on Harlequins any time soon.

Kinda odd those two are my favorites... they're pretty much opposites in every way (except mebbe both like CC), both fluff and crunch wise.

I'm even trying to come up with a way to justify having Harlequins allied to my main Ork force, hehe. =)


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the_scotsman wrote:
These days anything that doesn't have a big friendly special rule that says "build your army this way and you automagically win" is considered subpar.

Harlequins can't bring a 2500 point list to a 2000 point game, they don't have rerollable 2++ saves, they don't have no scatter deep strike template D weapons and they don't have 300 point gargantuan creatures. Therefore, bottom tier.

Ok, so as bottom tier as Orks?

(Except maybe Green Tide, which I don't think I'll ever do, mostly because I don't think I have the patience to paint 100 Boyz... but I do hear it does well competitively.)

(That's not a loaded question, btw... asking honestly.)

Probably on about the same level as something like a good non-green tide Ork list, like a Blitz Brigade or Stompa list. You can show up to the tourney, and battle it out with the big boys and you may win a few but you're unlikely to win a lot.

A more close combat focused 8th edition would do wonders for them, make no mistake.


As to the fellow who said he was bringing the execution force, I gotta disagree. Harlequins suffer heavily from being REALLY good at a few things-killing infantry in close combat-and not having options to handle other things (massed tanks and planes, fearless swarms). I take the Vindy because he's explicitly good at covering several key harlequin weaknesses. All the other three except in some cases the Culexus are all just more of what the harlequins are already strong and don't need help with.

The two obvious allies choices are DE and Eldar. Eldar, being a top tier army, are great for brute-forcing away many of the Harlequins weaknesses with their strong S6 spam, durable units and solid anti air. The DE are a power multiplier with a few key options the harlequins lack, thanks to their LD focused shenanigans and deep strike capabilities.

The Assassin Force might perform okay, but I think it'll cause you to just win harder when you have a good matchup and lose just the same to a bad one.

They are incredibly mediocre.

As a stand alone army they are forced to play a MSU game, in a meta which included marine lists with 10+ free transports.

Simply put, the harlequin codex is interesting and includes lots of tricks to help you try and get ahead, but at its moment of release it was already a dated book when compared to the necron codex came out with its new decurion thing around the same time.

Toniork wrote:
I'm not looking to start an opinion war or anything... just looking for actual info.

I recently started looking into Harlequins, and love the fluff, look, theme, etc. On the other hand, I'm very much a newb to this game/hobby, so while I can't find any serious faults regarding the units and stats (apart from a severe lack of variety, which isn't necessarily a bad thing), I think it's generally understood that they're a sub-par army, and really only viable as allies to Eldar or Dark Eldar.

Why is that?

Primarily because they're really only a partial army., They've got a very small number of models and units, filling a relatively small number of roles, with a relatively limited set of capabilities. They're a specialist faction that, in general, operate much like Dark Eldar, with many of the same advantages and weaknesses, and, much like Dark Eldar, they tend to often do very well against relatively elite opponents and fail miserably against opponents that work through weight of numbers. They'll murder something like Grey Knights or masses of MC's, but an IG tank swarm is generally going to be something you aren't even going to want to bother playing.

They're slightly less gimped than DE against hordes, but more so against mechanized tactics. DE has more flex-anti armor, harlequins have more flex antihorde. Unless you play DE wytches, in which case you're just worthless against everything and good against basically nothing.

 Eldarain wrote:
I was thinking of running the whole Execution force with a Masque in games of 1850 or more.

Seems like the mass distraction and pressure the Assassins could provide would mesh well with the aggressive nature of the Harlis.

Their ability to hide and be rather difficult to wipe out in a turn (Callidus and Culexus especially) would help open up some near null deploy options if needed too.

Plus Murder Clowns and Assassins sounds like an enjoyable theme.

That sounds sexy as feth. Was thinking of getting hold of some Harlequins at some point and allying them with Guard. Might have to reconsider slightly now.

Harlequins are gak tier. Don;t let anyone tell you otherwise.

DorianGray wrote:
Harlequins are gak tier. Don;t let anyone tell you otherwise.

That's the spirit!

Harlequins aren't sub-par. They just aren't a point-and-win army. They have a steeper learning curve than some armies, which leads to the impression that they aren't as good as armies that are easier to master.

Here's a series that focuses primarily on the morale shenanigans that Harlequins do so well at. (Contrary to popular misconception, most armies aren't immune to the bulk of these effects.)