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Apparently It comes with:

Eldrad Ulthran (Current Rules)
Death’s Companions
Company of the Threefold Stranger
Inriam’s Spector
The Blades of Fate
The Serpents Breath
The Coherian Host Formation

Apart from Eldrad which is old - could anyone describe what the other ones do? (Not in precise terms but generally what they are composed of and if they are good or not) don't give out the actual rules of course.

If you want something tempting, you should always visit Commorragh first.

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t14219p75-more-eldar-love-and-a-place-for-the-eldrad-sprue

Coherian Host asside, they're not formations but unit entries. Big difference.

Eh, im convinced that eldrad is a cursed unit.

Every game i have seen him hit the table in, he sucks and never does anything worth while.

Formation benefits: Eldrad gets EW

Everyone gets an additional 6++ invuln save after they've failed their regular save. Works like FNP, but doesn't care about instant death.

Then each individual unit is a unique version of the standard unit, which has to be fielded with set wargear but gets special rules.

This is a bit painful on the troupes whose wargear is a bit wonky.

You've got one troupe which can run and shoot, one troupe which can run and charge (every turn, and the wording is different from the regular crescendo rule, so you don't need a model with only that rule to do it). A death Jester with Shrouding, a voidweaver with BS5, and a two man squad of skyweavers with rerollable jinks.

The formation is apparently an AU fanfiction version of the conflict presented in the fluff, in which (as it claims on the box) "two armies clash in the 41st millenium."

Of course, in the fluff, it's more like "Space marines murder harlequins like clubbing baby seals, Eldrad does nothing to help then gets one-hit-KO'd by a plasma cannon dreadnought". But by the rules its a fun and exciting matchup, actually, probably the best starter kit setup I've seen!

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Eh, im convinced that eldrad is a cursed unit.

Every game i have seen him hit the table in, he sucks and never does anything worth while.

You should see Abaddon's record. Statistically he's great. In practice he's THE worst thing you can add to a list

 Selym wrote:
You should see Abaddon's record. Statistically he's great. In practice he's THE worst thing you can add to a list

To be fair it's hard for him to use all his killy weapons since he has no arms

 nurgle5 wrote:

 Selym wrote:
You should see Abaddon's record. Statistically he's great. In practice he's THE worst thing you can add to a list

To be fair it's hard for him to use all his killy weapons since he has no arms

Even the Tau will kill such a (h)armless opponent in close combat.

Hey so the pages are on that dark eldar site!

But are both Eldrad AND the Death Jester 1 unit formations? I would love to be able to just add Eldrad to my existing Harlequin army without taking the whole formation which is garbage.

They aren't formations; they lack that symbol on their datasheets. They can, however, be used in place of their generic counterparts in many detachments. (It says all this in the linked images.) The Coherian Host is the only formation.

Inriam's Specter, the Blades of Fate, and the Serpent's Breath are the ones being discussed as best for this, currently.

So if I wanted to add Eldrad to my Harlequin Army I still need to use the allied attachment of 1 HQ + 1 troop + 1 optional HS/Elite/FS?

The Coherian Host formation is garbage. Inriam's Specter seems to be the only useful one.

I'm thinking Inriam's Specter letting the death jester add shrouded and shealth to a 10-man Harlequin Troup walking out in the open with Shadowseer casting some protection physic powers on it if it can.

DorianGray wrote:
So if I wanted to add Eldrad to my Harlequin Army I still need to use the allied attachment of 1 HQ + 1 troop + 1 optional HS/Elite/FS?

The Coherian Host formation is garbage. Inriam's Specter seems to be the only useful one.

I'm thinking Inriam's Specter letting the death jester add shrouded and shealth to a 10-man Harlequin Troup walking out in the open with Shadowseer casting some protection physic powers on it if it can.

I think Garbage is a little bit strong... It just isn't over powered. Were you hoping for something game changing in a pseudo starter set?

I was hoping that the harlies would all get D6 Str D ap D3 attacks in melee.

 Selym wrote:
I was hoping that the harlies would all get D6 Str D ap D3 attacks in melee.

Rerollable?

Garbage? Naw. For a starter box it's surprisingly flexible. You can attack imiriam to the bikes to get a turn of 2+ rerollable jinks, you can run eldrad in front of either troupe to defend with EW and a nearly-2++ save. The only bad thing us the crappy wargear on the clowns and the void Weaver, which...you better get used to...

If the Void Weaver is a problem for a new Harlequin player they're going to have a bad time.

The formation is really not that bad. Also, it adds new options to field the army, which is something that harlies severely lack (and it gets boring to always field the same army).
With a cast of player, it makes a pretty nice 1000pts list.
With a Jest and a hero path, you can go to 1500pts.

I'm just sad that the formation benefits are mostly in the forms of additional rolls (army wide almost-FNP roll, rerollable jink save). But that's more of a complain towards GW's game mechanisms.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Eh, im convinced that eldrad is a cursed unit.

Every game i have seen him hit the table in, he sucks and never does anything worth while.

To be fair in this formation his biggest weakness is nullified. Eternal warrior saves him from Insta death of 6+ weapons and the extra 6++++ not a fnp save that works on everything from str d to stomps is a nice boost.

But in general this formation is nice however the star of this set is the shrouded death jester for +5 pts and two rerolling jink jetbikes (that all get the 6++++ sv in the formation as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:
Garbage? Naw. For a starter box it's surprisingly flexible. You can attack imiriam to the bikes to get a turn of 2+ rerollable jinks, you can run eldrad in front of either troupe to defend with EW and a nearly-2++ save. The only bad thing us the crappy wargear on the clowns and the void Weaver, which...you better get used to...

Even the mixer wargear on clowns are slightly discounted in price along with the free special rules.
Adding up the troupes gives you 11 and 15 free points to the standard unit. This one of those unoptomized weapons is free.
The entire formation is actual decent except for the void weaver.
Also the formation save isn't an invul or fnp as people keep stating its a new type of save that stacks. So eldrad can have his 3++ invul, gain a 5+ fnp somehow and then take this 6++++ save that works on any wound including a 6 result str d and stomps.

The troupes are decent if you play to thier strengths which eldrad gives d3 units scout, then you can move shoot and run or move run and charge. The addition of a shrouded death jester to one of these units makes them even more difficult to kill especially since everything in this formation has another 6++++ sv on top of thier near army wide 5++ invul (except eldrads 3++)The twin jet bikes are also one of the most durable jet bikes ok game with reroll jink and a 6++++. The only poor choice is the void weaver and there is nothing harlies can do about that. At least it's likely to hit something before it blows up. The entire formation is a decent 1000pt formation. You just need to add either an eldar wind rider host or another harlie formation to take it to 1850 and you have a decent army list. It's not game breakin competitve but it's still better then the deathwatch formstions in the box.

gungo wrote:
It's not game breakin competitve but it's still better then the deathwatch formstions in the box.

Yeah, ironically enough every game I've seen with the set so far the Harlequins have won, basically because it usually goes

"Here's muh fancy spess marine melee unit charging your melee troupe with eldrad joined in"

"Ok, so now it's initiative step 'all my stuff.' You take half a dozen AP2/3 wounds."

the_scotsman wrote:

gungo wrote:
It's not game breakin competitve but it's still better then the deathwatch formstions in the box.

Yeah, ironically enough every game I've seen with the set so far the Harlequins have won, basically because it usually goes

"Here's muh fancy spess marine melee unit charging your melee troupe with eldrad joined in"

"Ok, so now it's initiative step 'all my stuff.' You take half a dozen AP2/3 wounds."

To be fair the only good formation/unit in that box is Artemis. The dreadnaut is cool for a normal venerable dreadnaut exchange because it has an invul save however it's still a dreadnaut.
The other units have fairly crappy bonuses and setups and are not cheese builds like every competitve deathwatch unit you can expect to see on the tabletop....basically not spamming frag cannons. The veteran unit is ok for Gmc hunting with its heavy thunder hammers but basic space marine grav cannons are still better. I fully expect to see in competitive play frag cannon spamming alpha kill teams deep striking as allied units and that's it.