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My gut says every single one of them, as that reduces the need for reliance on voidweavers. With an embrace it doubles the cost of a harlequin but I think increases their power to a greater degree. 45pts for a unit of 5 is a cheap upgrade in the world of melta.

Downside of course it seems unfluffy to have that many and leave out the shuriken pistol. If thats the case, what is the minimum? Im thinking 2 plus one on troupe master. With 4 units that would save 108 pts which is the cost of a single voidweaver. Seems crazy to remove 12 fusion guns for a single voidweaver. I guess I will see how my local group turns up the power over the next few months. Ill paint up 8 total for now and see from there.

Thoughts?

You want to concentrate them, because it takes quite a few melta shots to put a dent in more durable monsters and vehicles. However, you don't necessarily need to have every squad kitted with fusion unless you're expecting to constantly run into vehicle armies.

With 4 units, half with full fusion pistols and half without sounds like a good balance to me. The fusion-less squads can still pile the hurt on against tough targets in melee if needs be.

To be honest, I think going all fusion will be a mistake. I have a feeling we are going to have real problems with hordes, and horde armies look quite strong this edition. I am actually going the other direction - more bodies on the board, and more specialized. Playing with a bunch of 30 point t3 4+ save guys is going to leave you really vulnerable against armies like IG conscript spam, orks and gaunt blobs. Nids and irks were tougher matchups last edition, and we used to be able to run units down. Also, I don't really see any reason to hate the void weaver any more. It is a very solid gun platform at a very reasonable price.

With regards to going with all Fusion Pistols:

I faced Harlequins yesterday. They brought entirely fusion pistols. I lost a total of about ten conscripts, and tabled them entirely.

You need rapid-fire guns somewhere in your list, otherwise you're going to be plinking away guys one at a time.

Against hordes, a shurican pistol isn't going to help you either. Mounted harlies are the way to go IMHO and using speed and assault weapons to focus on one side of the line. Harlies have very little options outside of the shurican cannon, with the prism cannon being the only other one of use. I don't think foot harlies can really do much of anything useful. I also don't see charging down the middle as a good tactic either (which shows up on many battle reports).

I'm surprised that Harlies on the charge can't be effective against Horde? They should put a ton of wounds on blobs of weak models, no? If you really need to cripple a big blob, you can throw two or more squads at it.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
With regards to going with all Fusion Pistols:

I faced Harlequins yesterday. They brought entirely fusion pistols. I lost a total of about ten conscripts, and tabled them entirely.

You need rapid-fire guns somewhere in your list, otherwise you're going to be plinking away guys one at a time.

This is exactly what concerns me. You need to bring a good number of skyweavers as well as the usual starweaver cannons so you can blow away the cannon fodder before you charge. Even if you kill ten conscripts on the charge, your 150 point Harlequin squad will be blown away when they fall back and the rest of the army fires on them. Trading a 150 point squad for 30 points of conscripts is a trade an IG player is going to make all day erry day.

The current 2000 pt list I am toying with has 5 shuricannon bikes, 3 starweavers, 3 tooled up troupes in the 'weavers and a 10 man troupe with cc weapons and shuriken pistols that runs on foot with a shadowseer for protection. I also have a single unit of swooping hawks with a Sunrifle Exarch who have the illustrious job of dropping in just so they can rapid fire their S3 guns into blobs and then blind the mob for the -1 to hit on the turn the Harlies charge. On top of that I am running 2 death jesters and a Solitaire just for killing support characters. I am _that_ concerned about hordes


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 rollawaythestone wrote:
I'm surprised that Harlies on the charge can't be effective against Horde? They should put a ton of wounds on blobs of weak models, no - and if you really need to cripple a big blob, you can throw two or more squads at it.

Think about the mathhammer.

5 Harlies on the charge have 15 attacks, hitting on 3s. So about ten hits. Against a T3 opponent, they will get about 6-7 wounds. Even assuming the guardsmen get no save, you are only taking out six guys, then they hit you back with about 10-15 attacks, hitting on 5s. Not great, but you are T3, so they are going to kill a model or two. In a 5 man troupe, a model or two is 20-40% of your damage output. Then the commisar blams a guy and they fall back, "get back in the fight" and the remaining 30 or so guys pump 60 rapid fire lasgun shots into your 3 or 4 30ppm T3 4+ save guys. Guess what happens to them?

5 harlies have 20 attacks. 15 hits. 10 wounds (more if you have a Troupe Master to re-roll wounds).

Dogpiling a big blob doesn't seem like an issue - and that Commisar? He sounds like a goner with how easy it us for Harlequins to jump over units and assassinate characters. To be fair, I haven't yet fielded my Harlequins...

I stand corrected (shows you that I haven't played a game yet, lol).


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Even so, the result is still a pretty good trade for the IG player so long as he can mitigate the morale losses.



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If the IG player is smart, he puts the commissar in the middle of the conscript unit, so you can't physically place a model next to him without being within 1" of the conscripts.

Asmodas wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
With regards to going with all Fusion Pistols:

I faced Harlequins yesterday. They brought entirely fusion pistols. I lost a total of about ten conscripts, and tabled them entirely.

You need rapid-fire guns somewhere in your list, otherwise you're going to be plinking away guys one at a time.

This is exactly what concerns me. You need to bring a good number of skyweavers as well as the usual starweaver cannons so you can blow away the cannon fodder before you charge. Even if you kill ten conscripts on the charge, your 150 point Harlequin squad will be blown away when they fall back and the rest of the army fires on them. Trading a 150 point squad for 30 points of conscripts is a trade an IG player is going to make all day erry day.

The current 2000 pt list I am toying with has 5 shuricannon bikes, 3 starweavers, 3 tooled up troupes in the 'weavers and a 10 man troupe with cc weapons and shuriken pistols that runs on foot with a shadowseer for protection. I also have a single unit of swooping hawks with a Sunrifle Exarch who have the illustrious job of dropping in just so they can rapid fire their S3 guns into blobs and then blind the mob for the -1 to hit on the turn the Harlies charge. On top of that I am running 2 death jesters and a Solitaire just for killing support characters. I am _that_ concerned about hordes

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 rollawaythestone wrote:
I'm surprised that Harlies on the charge can't be effective against Horde? They should put a ton of wounds on blobs of weak models, no - and if you really need to cripple a big blob, you can throw two or more squads at it.

Think about the mathhammer.

5 Harlies on the charge have 15 attacks, hitting on 3s. So about ten hits. Against a T3 opponent, they will get about 6-7 wounds. Even assuming the guardsmen get no save, you are only taking out six guys, then they hit you back with about 10-15 attacks, hitting on 5s. Not great, but you are T3, so they are going to kill a model or two. In a 5 man troupe, a model or two is 20-40% of your damage output. Then the commisar blams a guy and they fall back, "get back in the fight" and the remaining 30 or so guys pump 60 rapid fire lasgun shots into your 3 or 4 30ppm T3 4+ save guys. Guess what happens to them?

This basically. I killed his transports with my Lasguns, killing some of the guys who were riding inside as well. He did get a two rounds of shooting and a charge off, but it all totaled up to maybe a ten guys killed, and a single wound stripped from my Manticore. Then he was staring down a huge blob of guys plus an Wyvern, and ceased to exist.

Do you have any good anti-horde options at all?


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 Asmodas wrote:
I stand corrected (shows you that I haven't played a game yet, lol).

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Even so, the result is still a pretty good trade for the IG player so long as he can mitigate the morale losses.

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If the IG player is smart, he puts the commissar in the middle of the conscript unit, so you can't physically place a model next to him without being within 1" of the conscripts.

My Commissar and CC were on the other side of the field. He made a bad misplay there and went after the artillery and away from the Commissar and Company Commander, who were also protected by another infantry unit over there. The conscripts basically occupied my entire deployment zone, and while I was only able to get about 2/3 of them into play at best, it was enough because his army was tiny and fragile and not very killy.

He said he should have brought a sniper to kill the commissar, but I'm not sure he could have. My Commissar was hiding in a pit, behind a wyvern and more than 12" worth of conscripts and infantry, and a big LoS blocking piece of terrain.

Though, for what it's worth, if the Commissar[s] does die, things go downhill very fast. Always have more than 1!

Admittedly, I think I also threw him for a loop. I had previously been running an IG List that consisted entirely of varieties of Leman Russ and Immo-Dominions, so he might have been list-tailoring with all the fusion pistols.

Either way, Fusions Pistols won't be killing guardsmen at any appreciable rate, and definitely not with a commissar there.

Maybe try having Shruiken Cannon things, or bringing along normal Eldar?

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


My Commissar and CC were on the other side of the field. He made a bad misplay there and went after the artillery and away from the Commissar and Company Commander, who were also protected by another infantry unit over there. The conscripts basically occupied my entire deployment zone, and while I was only able to get about 2/3 of them into play at best, it was enough because his army was tiny and fragile and not very killy.

He said he should have brought a sniper to kill the commissar, but I'm not sure he could have. My Commissar was hiding in a pit, behind a wyvern and more than 12" worth of conscripts and infantry, and a big LoS blocking piece of terrain.

Though, for what it's worth, if the Commissar[s] does die, things go downhill very fast. Always have more than 1!

Yeah, that would be tricky to deal with. That's what the Swooping hawks are for in my list (at least in theory). It would allow me to deep strike behind your line if I needed to and put the hurt on squishy support characters. The Death Jesters also have the sniper rule, so they can freely target characters, assuming they can see them, of course.

Your opponent made a big mistake going all fusion. If they hadn't done that, they could have had about 50% more bodies on the field, and that would have made a significant difference. I do like the fusion pistol, but I think I'm going to limit myself to 6 or 7 in the army on the theory that I'd rather not auto-lose to horde IG.

 Asmodas wrote:


Yeah, that would be tricky to deal with. That's what the Swooping hawks are for in my list (at least in theory). It would allow me to deep strike behind your line if I needed to and put the hurt on squishy support characters. The Death Jesters also have the sniper rule, so they can freely target characters, assuming they can see them, of course.

Your opponent made a big mistake going all fusion. If they hadn't done that, they could have had about 50% more bodies on the field, and that would have made a significant difference. I do like the fusion pistol, but I think I'm going to limit myself to 6 or 7 in the army on the theory that I'd rather not auto-lose to horde IG.

Allying in Eldar does seem to be the trick probably. Maybe try things with flamers, or artillery units? Rate of fire is where it's at.

I think you probably want on the order of no less than 1/3 and no more than 1/2 of your list to be in antitank weapons.

All things considered though, I think he had tried to list-tailor against me and been caught by a non-standard list. I had been running Immo-Dominions and an IG list consisting entirely of Leman Russ Tanks earlier and over the weekend.

Haha, that's what you get for trying to tailor

If wanting to ally for hordes, I'd take DE warriors in dual splinter cannon venoms, plus maybe some scourges with splinter cannons.

 bullyboy wrote:
If wanting to ally for hordes, I'd take DE warriors in dual splinter cannon venoms, plus maybe some scourges with splinter cannons.

Yeah, that would probably work. In my case, I don't have any DE in my collection, so I am trying to work with what I have, which is CWE.

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
You want to concentrate them, because it takes quite a few melta shots to put a dent in more durable monsters and vehicles. However, you don't necessarily need to have every squad kitted with fusion unless you're expecting to constantly run into vehicle armies.

With 4 units, half with full fusion pistols and half without sounds like a good balance to me. The fusion-less squads can still pile the hurt on against tough targets in melee if needs be.

Sounds right but spendy.
Use these to murder dreadnoughts and tanks.
Use dire avengers or guardians and rangers and vauls batteries.

Load-out for Players is also my quandary. I've been sucked back down the 40k rabbit hole after not having played since 2nd edition.
Thanks for the info in this thread.