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Decided to enter another tournament in a few months time, so I have plenty of time to buy, paint and test an army.
However, I'm bored of the usual competitive options like Eldar, crons, tau etc, so I wanted to go for something drastically better.

The idea is to pick a run down badly rated army and see how high up the rankings I can push it.


The 2 armies I've come down to are Scions or harlequins.
Main rule of the tournament is no mixing and matching armies, with the exception of assassins being allowed.


I know both armies will struggle alot here, more so in a competitive environment, but I want this to be as challenging as possible.
I could easily run a netlist top tier army and push my way up the rankings by spamming the usual stuff, but it's no fun at all.




So, need some help in making my decisions.

The Scions are completely new to me and have never used them in my life.
I plan on throwing a Culexus with them if I choose them as it atleast provides some psychic support to remove farseers and daemon armies.

Other option is harlequins.
Not as new to me as I have used them a fair bit and love how they play.


However, both armies would have to be pure, so no mixing factions in with them (assassins excluded)

So, any thoughts or tips please?
Currently leaning towards harlequins due to the sheer speed and massed AP2 they can throw around.





As a side note: No, I won't be running another army, its between these 2 and I've settled on that.
Just trying to decide between them.

Well, first army that came to mind when I saw "Challenging" was the Electropriest Cult, but seeing as it's between Scions and Harlequins, I'd say Scions.
You've got the advantage of a Start Collecting box for them now, so easy enough to build it up (if you haven't already), and if things to go tits-up, easy enough to supplement with IG.

The cost isn't much of an issue (bonus from work) so that side of its covered.

The main issues I can see is anti air for both armies and wraith knights.

Harlequins can mass enough shots to bring down a flyer (not great, but works)
After checking Scions I can see I'll have access to valks, which would be more reliable.

Wraith knights however, I'm at a loss.
Hoping a solitare can hold one up a turn or two towards the end.

But with Scions I'm not so sure.
Maybe relying on the sniper order to put wounds on it?



I know a few of the players that are going and at 1,850, I know I'm going to see double wraith knight, triptide with a surge etc and atleast 1 supremacy suit.

Will have time for maybe 5-6 games as a practice before hand though, so hoping I can pull a few tricks.

The primaris power from shadowseers will help, but not in transports.

I don't play either of them but Harlequins seem to be more interesting as an army. I can see how harlequins are an army. They have some major weaknesses and lacking combat roles but they seem to be an army. Scions on the other hand seem to be just one unit. You could still make it a cool army with allied in guard armour formations, but pure scions seem to be really monotone.

Not taking allies is going to be really hard as both of them are designed to be allies. Pure MT and pure clowns can work but they have very limited toolboxes so its quite possible to not have the right options to handle certain threats.

That said MT are a kind of "Go big or go home" style army that relies on "multiple, simultaneous, and devastating defensive deep strikes" (best defense is balls to the wall offense for MT). Lots of deep strike special weapons and use your Taurox Primes for ground control and ranged fire support. Danger close deep strikes are a must and they are an army that does greatly benefit from at the very least some support allies such as an Inquisitor with servo skulls and having some sort of coms relay to more reliably have your deep strike reserves come in.

The clowns are probably more capable as they have a lot of tricks and tools to take down bigger targets but I think they suffer a lot against mechanized or MSU lists as getting caught out in the open is almost certain doom for them. Not too familiar with them but I've seen how good a harle troupe can be in CC but also how squishy they are to shooting.

Personally I like the MT better as they are really the playmaker army that drop in guns blazing and try to take out critical targets before getting evaporated and the game starts to boil down to how well you can trade down with the enemy and hopefully cripple the enemy more than the loses your taking. Every model and every placement are of critical importance which demands a lot of tactical thinking and strategic foresight.

Cheers guys.
Running through some ideas now to see what I can come up with.

Main thing I'm at a wall with is the taurox.
Never used or played against one in my life, so not sure what to expect from them or weather to avoid them and run valks instead for anti air.

If the taurox isn't half bad then I may grab 2 start collecting boxes to start on while building a list.

The Taurox Prime has decent dakka and with it being a fast vehicle it can be mobile and still shoot decently hard. Auto Cannon + Missiles seem like the best way to go with them as it has lots of long range anti vehicle/MC shooting. Its made of cardboard so it won't stand up to much shooting but its not terrible. Honestly I wouldn't actually put your infantry inside the vehicles and instead have them operate as separate units. Being dedicated transports of a troop in a CAD (unless your running the formation or the soon to be released start collecting formation) they are ob sec which is nice for grabbing objectives around the board.

Valks might be good and the formation for them seems alright (twin linked the turn the infantry disembarks I believe) but they lack board presence. I wouldn't use valks in small points game but for something 1500 and up they seem to be potentially useful to have.

I'd do scions because stormtroopers in SPEHS!

Ahem, on a serious note, they have good fliers, good models, and that's about it. They're army is practically an army of higher price melta vets.

I say Scions simply because the new Start Collecting! box is just too delicious to pass up (something like 67 dollars in savings. You're basically getting the Commissar at a 7 dollar discount and the Taurox free).

However if you want fun shenanigans, Harlequins. Nothing like having your Solitare teleport across the battlefield to punch out enemies DBZ style.

I'd make the decision based on your painting preference. My harlequin army has sat bare grey for over a year as I can't bring myself to paint it or commit the finances to a decent commission painter.

Cheers guys.


Painting wise I'm happy either way.
Painted a few units of harlies a while back for a friend and I found them like the old bretonnian knights.
Great fun and I can go mad with the painting.

Scions are far more uniformed and blended in, which again really doesn't bother me.




Currently leaning towards harlies as in the area 2+ is far more common than it should be, so AP2 is needed by the bucket load.
They seem pretty solid for shock and awe style play aswell.

Just need to be careful kitting them out as they get pricey quickly.

Harlequins can eat wraithknights pretty easily. Fleshbane ap2 pistols, harlequins kiss you D's on a 6 but would do d3 wounds when it does. Rolling 6s on the caress means you don't care what their toughness is. Not to mention that deathjesters run as msu does significant work against drop pod marines and jet bikes because you get to pick where they run to and only need to kill one to do it.

THEN you so get telepathy and phantasmancy to muck up the opponent's ability to much of anything and you should be golden. The harli's two weaknesses are hordes and flyers. You already knew about the second one, so at least you're prepared. Beware of Tyranids.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I added the flyer formation for nightwing interceptors from forgeworld and took care of my flyer problem pretty easily.