Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Lurker wrote:
I've looked at the numbers on the three weapons and the caress always just seems to be the most versatile and worth the 30pts extra for 10 men. The fact that all of the caresses power comes from 6s-to-hit makes it seem just as good against 'hard to hit' targets and auto glancing on a six makes it good against tanks as the other two. It's then a great deal better than the others against MC and 2+ targets.

That's the critical word you adroitly singled out in your post: "seems". It's true you can get a high volume of 6s To Hit and do some serious damage. But it's also true you can get far fewer 6s than you statistically should. It's a gamble that can and will disappoint at inopportune times. Not saying it's not worth the gamble--otherwise I wouldn't play with them--but to equip all your Troupes with Caresses transforms your entire army into a major risk.

The Embrace has guaranteed S6 hits at I10 for each model you get into base contact on a charge. It's reliant on the player putting those models in a position on the board to take advantage of it, something any good player can accomplish with patience and anticipation; in other words, the gambling level is significantly lower. The d3 part should be treated as icing. You get 1 S6 per model in base contact; anything more is a bonus. Thanks to Hit & Run, you can leave combat and do it again in your subsequent turn. And having auto-hits against a unit with Invisibility cast upon it is something that can't be underscored enough. There's nothing better than the look on an opponent's face when s/he realizes that what should be an untouchable unit is quite touchable. Can't get that from Caresses.

The Kiss has a one Hit die that is guaranteed to be AP2 should it hit. A unit of 10 Kisses has 10 AP2s in a pool of its own that statistically get through. Compare this to a unit of 10 Caresses where this is nothing guaranteed about it. I've had rolls for my 6-man unit where all of them got off the charge and only one 6 came up. Quite underwhelming. Though I've also had occasions where I had seven 6s come up, those occasions are few and far between. At least with Kisses I know some of my hits will definitely be AP2. The gambling factor is still there but again lower than that of the Caresses.

The other factor you bring up--that it's worth the extra 30pts to field 10 Caresses--does take away from other toys you can field in the unit. I personally like loading out my Caress unit to bear with Neuro Disruptors. Again, this brings the cost of each model to 30+, but having only six in the unit to fit on a Starweaver makes it worth it, as well as less likely to suffer significant losses marching up the field. The 60pts spent on two 10-man Caress units instead went to equipping 6 models with Neuro Disruptors for a very elite unit that hits extremely hard. I seldom fail to get my points out of that unit because my hard hitting unit is almost always cheaper than whatever I direct my Caress Troupe against. If my opponent goes out of his or her way to eliminate it after seeing what it can do--something that happens quite often, actually--then I'm redirecting from my other Troupes that are much harder hitting and the same or more expensive than the Caress Troupe is.

The Caress is great, but the gambling component of it recommends a mix of equipment so you have something you can rely on should you need it.

Tropic Thunder wrote:

Embraces: I always pick my Warlord from this Troupe because there's no point not running and having the Warlord with the Starmist Raiment is tremendously useful. This unit always goes against weaker armor units or low front and side AV vehicles for quick wreckages I can then use as cover before advancing to the next target. It's also tremendously strong against units that have abilities that make it hard to hit the target such as units with Invisibility or perhaps the Culexus Assassin that requires 5+ To Hit due to the automatic setting of WS to 1. The Warlord's Caress and Haywire Grenades provides support against vehicles and 2+ armor, as well.

That's very interesting. Haven't seen embraces being used effectively. Do they have anything over caresses in your experience?

Embraces are excellent against Invisible units as they auto-hit. My highlight moment with them was against a full unit of Warlock jetbikes with a Farseer on a jetbike that cast Invisibility upon itself. My opponent was confused when I didn't try to deny it. On the assault my Embrace Troupe crashed in for a total of 20 S6 HoW hits, of which 18 wounded. By the time he finished his saving rolls only his Farseer was left. It was more than 3" away from my closest Player, so I didn't contribute any additional attacks and his Farseer failed to remove any models on the counter attack. He lost by 6, failed Morale and I swept him off the board. All because of Embraces.

They also do a bang-up job on vehicles. The Run and Charge ability helps you get the HoW attacks on side and sometimes rear armor. That they don't have an AP associated with them also helps avoid vehicle explosions against closed-topped vehicles so you have built-in LoS blocking terrain when you're done.

While Caresses can cause auto-AP2 wounds on a 6 To Hit, Embraces on the charge cause volume armor saves. In my experience they're equal in that regard. But one thing Embraces have over Caresses is you still get your normal attacks at initiative.

***corrected typo to change "to" to "do".

Excellent points about embraces. In fact you have convinced me to give a unit a go. The lack of explosions on vehicles is something I over looked. Nothing sucks more then losing half a squad because a tank just blew up in your face.

As i read it, you still get to resolve normal attacks on caresses.

They say, you get an auto-wound/glance on a 6 to hit. But there's nothing prohibiting you from resolving normal to-wounds.

So, for example, you attack with a caress and need 3+ to hit, get: 1, 5, 6. Emidiately get an ap2 wound and than resolve 2 hits (5 and 6) normally with s3-4. They don't eat up the to-wounds.

Am i getting it right?

 koooaei wrote:
As i read it, you still get to resolve normal attacks on caresses.

They say, you get an auto-wound/glance on a 6 to hit. But there's nothing prohibiting you from resolving normal to-wounds.

So, for example, you attack with a caress and need 3+ to hit, get: 1, 5, 6. Emidiately get an ap2 wound and than resolve 2 hits (5 and 6) normally with s3-4. They don't eat up the to-wounds.

Am i getting it right?

Sorry, I didn't explain that right. Both Embraces and Caresses get the normal attacks at Initiative. The additional advantage Embraces have is the extra d3 auto-hits per model in base contact from Hammer of Wrath. A unit of 10, 9 of which have Embraces, can, if all 9 Embrace models get in base contact on the charge, get a minimum of 9 extra S6 auto-hits and a maximum of 27 extra S6 auto-hits at I10 in addition to their normal rolls To Hit at I6. That's what I meant to convey. Both get their regular To Hit and subsequent To Wound rolls for normal attacks. The Caress' advantage is 6s To Hit avoid the need to roll To Wound.

To summarize for a unit with 9 Players (non-Troupe Master) armed accordingly on the charge against WS4 T4 targets:
Caresses
36 To Hit rolls, of which 24 hit
6 of those Hits are auto-wounds at AP2
18 remaining Hits generate 9 additional Wounds at AP-
Total Wounds to save: 6 AP2 + 9 AP- = 15 saves to make, of which 6 will likely be unsavable due to no invuls.

Embraces
9d3 HoW rolls generates 9-27 auto-Hits at S6 AP-
7-23 HoW Hits force Saving throws
36 normal To Hit rolls, of which 24 hit
12 of those Hits force Saving throws against AP-
Total Wounds to save, statistical worst case: 12 + 7 = 19 saves to make at full armor
Total Wounds to save, statistical best case: 12 + 23 = 35 saves to make at full armor

I took the 1.5 average to be 2 misses To Wound for the HoW as worst standard case and rounded down for the best standard case on the 4.5.

The Embraces against game average units force plenty of saves. If you wonder how often you can get the full unit of models in base contact on the charge, my experience has been positive. I seldom get fewer than 6 models in base contact and often can get more thanks to the Run and Charge with Fleet rerolls.

That's an interesting point. Need to try them out.

The problem is getting 9 guys in base contact for all those extra hits. Gonna need a seer, proper use of run and assault, and a good charge to hope for decent results. Thats the main draw back to embraces next to the other choices. With the others, those sorts of circumstances are much more forgiving.

That's one of the reasons i'm reluctant about HOW. My main are orks and, running footslogas, i find it hardly reliable to get enough models in b2b right away. Well, harlequins have fleet to help them out but it's not guaranteed as well. Transports help in this case, however they're not that resilient.

But Tropic Thunder's example shows that it's viable.

I recently had an opportunity to test my "mostly harlequins" TAC list to take what is widely regarded to be the spookiest comer around these days-the dreaded Scatbike Wraithknight Seerstar Eldar list.

Write up with a few images is here: http://m.imgur.com/a/tk3iD

The changes to my setup I was testing were:

1) swapped Haywire scourges and a Haywire Bike out for the Hemlock Wraithfighter

2) Swapped my Embrace Starweaver troupe out for a Caress troupe.

All in all the plane did...okay, added to my leadership shenanigans and it does give me a defense against FMCs though not Flyers, I do think that I'll be very happy for it the first time I run up against big daddy flyrant though it wasn't a game changer here.

The caresses though...damn. Can't see myself leaving home without those again. They performed out of their minds and while I'd seen them on troupe masters and solitaires before I didn't anticipate just how much hurt a full troupe would put out with them. And they do an excellent job covering the Harlequin weakness vs stuff like Knights and Monsters.

Goobi2 wrote:
The problem is getting 9 guys in base contact for all those extra hits. Gonna need a seer, proper use of run and assault, and a good charge to hope for decent results. Thats the main draw back to embraces next to the other choices. With the others, those sorts of circumstances are much more forgiving.

Just thought I would respond to the counterpoints made one at a time.

Need a Seer
Harlequins need Shadowseers regardless what you arm your men with unless you intend to go with an entirely transported force (which I don't recommend).

Proper Use of Run & Assault
This can be accomplished with appropriate screening and target selection. I like to place my Embrace Troupe as central as terrain and the deployment zone permit. I aim to place them in a terrain feature that has another terrain feature within sponson radius ahead of them 6-10" so I have somewhere to camp should Veil of Tears fail to go off or I get particularly unlucky on my Run roll on Turn 1. Discretion is the better part of valor with Harlequins, but particularly so with the Embrace Troupe. If the safest move is to go backward, go backward. Doing so actually plays into your strategy to maximize impact when you do charge on Turn 2 as the sudden "cowardice" is often interpreted as weakness. The opponent overextends to the point you're free to get a massive charge on the unit your following turn.

As for screening, I will use my Voidweavers as an intermediate road block that the opponent has to deal with first before they can target the unit behind. Dream of Shadows on the Embrace unit gives them a 2+ cover save as the opponent shoots through your Voidweavers, something they're less likely to do if they know what my save is. Instead they focus on the Voidweavers, often at a close enough range to be highly susceptible to my Turn 2 Run & Charge.

A Good Charge
This is mostly covered in the second topic above. Fielding the Embrace unit as centrally as possible gives you many options depending on what your opponent gives you. I've had quite a few occasions where I considered one enemy unit the most likely to go after on Turn 2 only to discover my opponent does something unexpected that provides a better target, such as Gate of Infinity bringing a distant unit much, much closer, or moving a vehicle flat out I didn't think was going to be moved that far. Being centrally positioned provides this flexibility to really get the most out of the Embraces.


Can things go pear-shaped? Certainly, just as any plan can with any unit in any army. I have found these tactics with the Embrace unit to be the most effective to maximizing the output from them.

I took first place in a FLGS tournament (14 players) with this list recently. I tabled Space Wolves w/Knight, Astra Militarium, and won a close one against non-decurion Necrons. Every match was a turn 2 nightmare for my opponents... it was heaps of fun...

1848

MASQUE #1
----------------
6x Players - Caress on Master, 2x kisses
Starweaver

6x Players - Caress on Master, 2x kisses

6x Players - Caress on Master, 2x kisses

Starweaver
Starweaver

Skyweavers x4, 4x zephyrglaive, 2x haywire cannons/2x shuricannons

Voidweaver w/Haywire Cannon

MASQUE #2
----------------
6x Players - Caress on Master, 2x kisses
Starweaver

5x Players - Caress on Master, 2x kisses

5x Players - Caress on Master, 2x kisses

Starweaver
Starweaver

Voidweaver w/Haywire Cannon

HEROES' PATH
---------------------
Death Jester, haywire

Shadowseer (ML1), haywire

Solitaire, haywire

That is a really interesting list. Can you give us a bit of a write up on how each game went?

Congratz on the win

What was the thinking behind all the mixed weapons? Doesn't that make taking use of the Kiss/Caress kind of inefficient?

Why not run tau Skyweaver units so you can fire your haywire at something heavy while not wasting the other two weavers?

I've seen several people sticking haywire on a DJ. What does that give you? Shouldn't the path jester always be deployed somewhere he won't be using an 8" range anti tank weapon?

Sounds like an awesome time. How did you do overall?

No shadowseers and not much special weapons? That's interesting. So, raw s4 killing power? How did you manage to get your bikes into combat?

 koooaei wrote:
No shadowseers and not much special weapons? That's interesting. So, raw s4 killing power? How did you manage to get your bikes into combat?

There was one Shadowseer in the list (she's listed), however she ended up doing little in the tournament, mostly holding objectives with a 2+ save. I rolled Peal, Peal, and Mirror on her powers in three games and didn't get to cast Peal. She put a wound on a Wolf Lord, that's it. But she also survived 2/3 games and was invincible as a deep objective holder with Veil of Tears up.

Getting the bikes into combat is cake, I'm not sure why you're asking that.

the_scotsman wrote:
What was the thinking behind all the mixed weapons? Doesn't that make taking use of the Kiss/Caress kind of inefficient?

Why not run tau Skyweaver units so you can fire your haywire at something heavy while not wasting the other two weavers?

I assume you mean "two", not Tau?

Yeah that might have been better.

And I can see what you mean, I might have caressed something that was going to get ID anyway. It never happened but I can see that being a possibility. Three caresses might be wiser - or possibly specialized units with 3x of the same weapon.

the_scotsman wrote:
I've seen several people sticking haywire on a DJ. What does that give you? Shouldn't the path jester always be deployed somewhere he won't be using an 8" range anti tank weapon?

Sounds like an awesome time. How did you do overall?

Overall I took first place going 3-0.

Haywire on a DJ lets him hurt large vehicles more reliably than his shrieker cannon. Also it lets him be party to wrecking Knights and drop pod dreads, as a BS5 haywire grenade and another one hitting on 3+ in assault is formidable.

Truth be told though, every game I take a HWG on him I have no opportunity to use it. Then when I don't take it I inevitably wish I did.

Congratulations! I thought you said you lost to the 'crons.

I only ask because I've had the habit of not mixing so ingrained into me at this point that it just really threw me to see the opposite all the way thru your list.

I currently run basically the same stuff as you, but split into squads with dedicated roles. A full squad of kisses, with the Starmist raiment and Psword on the master so they kill MEQs even harder. Another troupe with all caresses which has wiped knights and wraithknights with auto-wounds. And a third with all basic swords, 10-man loaded into an allied raider for mowing down hordes.

My thinking has always been that going halfway just means you'll take losses, when I would rather just specialize my squads so they obliterate their intended target and take the risk of them being not as effective against unintended targets. But it seems the opposite works too, and that's awesome! I'd love to hear the specifics of your games if you're the type who likes to write up batreps.

Just getting into Harlequins now, I'm not too familiar with them and am coming from a DE background.

Kisses do seem like a good generalist weapon, but I really like how Embraces and Caresses should be able to take out a 3HP AV12 walker on the charge (using squads coming out of Starweavers), especially with the help of a Troupe Master tossing a Haywire Grenade.

Do you guys think there's any major disadvantage to running all Embraces (perhaps with Caresses or maybe even Power Swords on the Troupe Master to take advantage of their one extra attack) outside of having to worry about the possibility of getting charged? Might be a fun theme running them alongside my DE with their Reavers too, having HoW and Hit & Run left and right. Spamming Caresses is appealing too, though I do like the anti-horde utility of Embraces and worry about that extra point cost.

MHaruspex wrote:
Just getting into Harlequins now, I'm not too familiar with them and am coming from a DE background.

Kisses do seem like a good generalist weapon, but I really like how Embraces and Caresses should be able to take out a 3HP AV12 walker on the charge (using squads coming out of Starweavers), especially with the help of a Troupe Master tossing a Haywire Grenade.

Do you guys think there's any major disadvantage to running all Embraces (perhaps with Caresses or maybe even Power Swords on the Troupe Master to take advantage of their one extra attack) outside of having to worry about the possibility of getting charged? Might be a fun theme running them alongside my DE with their Reavers too, having HoW and Hit & Run left and right. Spamming Caresses is appealing too, though I do like the anti-horde utility of Embraces and worry about that extra point cost.

Personally I tend to run my squads with mixed weaponry with 2 caresses and 2 kisses and a Kiss or the Rose on the troupe master. The kiss on the troupe master will give you a sure way of delivering S6 AP2 in a challenge and will likely kill any sergeant or squad leader with the possibility of the occasional Insta-Kill on a character. The rose makes this even more certain.

I'm confused. How can a squad with embraces wreck an AV12 vehicle?

The squad with Caresses gets 21 attacks on the charge; so yeah on average you get 3.5 sixes. But the Embraces get an average of 10 HoW at S6 that only deals 1.6666 HP. Unless the vehicle is AV10 rear it's not dead.

My bad, was calculating that with Troupe Master with a Caress. That way it comes out to 8HoW = 4/3HP, Troupe Master doing 5/6HP and 25/36 by throwing his grenade. Comes out to 103/36 total.

Kiss with Troupe Masters that way comes out to 71/36. My point is that I'm not really sold on the Kiss even with the chance of Instant Death just because of its narrower range of targets.

How common are all-Caress squads?

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm confused. How can a squad with embraces wreck an AV12 vehicle?

The squad with Caresses gets 21 attacks on the charge; so yeah on average you get 3.5 sixes. But the Embraces get an average of 10 HoW at S6 that only deals 1.6666 HP. Unless the vehicle is AV10 rear it's not dead.

maybe its a mixed weapon squad

2 embraces 2 caresses + haywire on the troupe master.

thrown haywire, 1 haywire attack, 2 embraces HoW and caress attacks.

lets assume the haywire thrown attack hits and glances.

Melee haywire causes .55 glances

4 Embrace HOW hits cause .64 glances

2 caresses cause 1 glance. Possible to kill a walker but pretty iffy. I would rather have 4 caresses against a walker- however average roll with caresses is not much better(less than a whole glance better on average), but the above loadout does give some also anti horde mojo.

Like I said I would rather have the 4 caresses, losing the special ability of the embrace because you get charged is no fun. If the walker charged the embrace/caress unit the results would be much different. Whereas if it got the charge off on a 4 caress unit the 4 caress unit may still kill the walker outright before the walker strikes.

Played a 1000 point game with my harlequins this week (had to proxy some stuff) against some Nurgle daemons. The Solitaire I was using was a total beast, taking down a few plague bearers and his Great Unclean One, which was awesome.
The more I use him, the more I love the Solitaire. The guy is just amazing. Give him the Rose and watch him wreck stuff

I think Cegorach's Revenge is a trap. While it boosts your solitaire's defense nicely and somewhat to vehicles, it makes you put way too many points into Jesters and Seers. You end up fragile and with too few bodies, and that's a recipe for struggling.

Is 3 seer's really too much? I thought they were a 'more the merrier' type of unit

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
Is 3 seer's really too much? I thought they were a 'more the merrier' type of unit

I think it's too much. The reason is they struggle to get enough warp charges to cast what they need to. A WC2 power needs probably five dice to cast somewhat reliably and at that point it's a struggle to get each seer to cast even one power each. If you're using WC1 powers or you have charges coming in from a non-harlequin detachment then it's more doable, but mono-harlies with 2 Shadowseers doesn't seem very good to me.

But shadowseers have pinning nades! Anywayz, for the points you pay for a ML2 shadowseer, hardly any other codex gets what you get. Orks get what...6+ ld7 dude that blows up his own head when can't cast a power.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Besides, an extrashadowseer is a wayto maximize the chance of getting the powers you want. You often want to both get a cance to force snapshots, to ld-slap the foes and to fish for shrowding or invis.

 koooaei wrote:
But shadowseers have pinning nades! Anywayz, for the points you pay for a ML2 shadowseer, hardly any other codex gets what you get. Orks get what...6+ ld7 dude that blows up his own head when can't cast a power.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Besides, an extrashadowseer is a wayto maximize the chance of getting the powers you want. You often want to both get a cance to force snapshots, to ld-slap the foes and to fish for shrowding or invis.

To me it's inexcusable that they have BS4 witchfire. Just awful.

And their power for their points at ML2 seems dubious to me, especially when they can be killed to easily much of the time. Taking three makes the rest of your list too small IMO.

mercury14 wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
But shadowseers have pinning nades! Anywayz, for the points you pay for a ML2 shadowseer, hardly any other codex gets what you get. Orks get what...6+ ld7 dude that blows up his own head when can't cast a power.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Besides, an extrashadowseer is a wayto maximize the chance of getting the powers you want. You often want to both get a cance to force snapshots, to ld-slap the foes and to fish for shrowding or invis.

To me it's inexcusable that they have BS4 witchfire. Just awful.

And their power for their points at ML2 seems dubious to me, especially when they can be killed to easily much of the time. Taking three makes the rest of your list too small IMO.

It's so inexcusable that...look! In your codex! GW must have FAQed them to BS5 while you slept! Amazing!

In all seriousness SS's are above average psychers. Probably on the par of like, inquisition and non-conclave libbie equivalents. They're outperformed by the top tier stuff like Fateweaver, Farseers, conclave libbies but they're solid enough to justify 3 as they have access to the best WC1 power in shriek.

The real trap of Revenge is the three death jesters. You're up against one of those rare armies where everything tends to be fearless like Tyranids, Guard, Daemonkin, Sisters, or where morale is severely mitigated like Space Marines, orks... They're really quite limited. Usually I see one or two things across the table from me where I go "hot diggity dog it's death jester time!" So I take one who can infiltrate so I can always start him threatening that target.

mercury14 wrote:

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
Is 3 seer's really too much? I thought they were a 'more the merrier' type of unit

I think it's too much. The reason is they struggle to get enough warp charges to cast what they need to. A WC2 power needs probably five dice to cast somewhat reliably and at that point it's a struggle to get each seer to cast even one power each. If you're using WC1 powers or you have charges coming in from a non-harlequin detachment then it's more doable, but mono-harlies with 2 Shadowseers doesn't seem very good to me.

I see it as having more places to cast from.
If you have 3 seer, and only enough dice to cast 2 powers, you just have to work out how to get the most from each casting.
Also, redundancy.
Plus the 'nades.