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So, my original plans for an army vanished in the face of how blooming cool the Harlies are. So now I've ordered the beginnings of a 1500pt Masque Detachment. A couple of questions, though:

For my elites, am I better off taking four Shadowseers, one with the Mask of Secrets, or am I better off taking three, each with level two mastery?

Also, I'm taking two Death Jesters - should I drop one for another Shadowseer? I keep hearing that the more Shadowseers you have, the better.

Last elite slot is a Cegorach's Rose Solitaire, for what it's worth.

Robin5t wrote:
So, my original plans for an army vanished in the face of how blooming cool the Harlies are. So now I've ordered the beginnings of a 1500pt Masque Detachment. A couple of questions, though:

For my elites, am I better off taking four Shadowseers, one with the Mask of Secrets, or am I better off taking three, each with level two mastery?

Also, I'm taking two Death Jesters - should I drop one for another Shadowseer? I keep hearing that the more Shadowseers you have, the better.

Last elite slot is a Cegorach's Rose Solitaire, for what it's worth.

I think 3 ML2 is better than 4 ML1, but if possible always give a mask of secrets to a Shadowseer, as it is amazing

I am usually underwhelmed by the Rose on a solitaire. It's not bad, but you don't get to use the Shred with the Caress attacks so usually the caress is just as good, and since he comes stock with the Kiss, it's basically 5 points more to give him the Rose. I tend to just stick Haywire grenades on him.

I would run the Solitaire, one DJ, and a Mask of Secrets ML1 Shadowseer in a Heroes Path, then 3 more Shadowseers (1 in each troupe.)

Hadn't considered running the Heroes' Path alongside my Masque Detachment as opposed to simply throwing everything in the Masque! That's a great idea, thanks.

The other major question I had: Is it better to run larger troupes and footslog, or stick smaller groups in Starweavers? Starweavers seem really, really fragile to me.

Well, you'll get conflicting opinions, but I am pretty firmly in the transport camp. I find that the extra move tacked onto your assault phase means you can basically move, disembark, run, then charge for almost 24" of reliable assault range. With that it's pretty dang easy to keep vehicles safe. Plus, they're actually not terrible at surviving thanks to mirage launchers. As long as you avoid any high ROF weapons that will definitely chew up the Starweavers and spit them out, they're generally ok surviving a couple Lascannon shots.

But I have pretty much always played Trukk-based ork lists in 40k so the fragile transport game is really familiar to me. It all comes down to what you like and what you're good at.

On Sunday I finally got a chance to test my "Mostly-Quins" list against a Necron Decurion detachment, which definitely resulted in some lessons learned.

The necron list wasn't the "competitive standard", but was still fairly solid.

He had a minimum Reclamation legion (everything with Gauss) with Nemesor Zandrek at the head, a minimum sized Canoptek Harvest with Whips on the wraiths and a gloom prism on the spyder, and a CAD. The CAD brought in Illuminator Xerath(?) a character I had never seen before with a squad of Immortals in a Scythe, a 5-man squad of Triarch Praetorians and a Triarch Stalker, a Forgeworld Tomb Stalker, a Doom Scythe and a Forgeworld Pylon (non-superheavy flavor).

What I learned is essentially:

1) Harlequin Troupes are pretty dang good at handling decuri-crons. Two troupes will reliably damage then sweep a full unit, and one troupe is just about perfect at removing 2-3 models then staying safe in melee for a round until they can hit and run out. Hit and Run paired with Rising Crescendo let me basically run circles around most of his army, and once the wraiths were ground out I was basically dictating the whole course of the game.

2) Freakshow Tactics are solid, but not amazing vs the crons. LD debuffs were great for helping me sweep in CC, but the usual Death Jester/Psychic Shriek/Archangel of Pain type shenanigans were really blunted by Res Protocols and LD10 base.

3) Don't forget to point a couple shuriken cannons at the scarabs. I wound up completely ignoring those little suckers in favor of trying to grind down the wraiths with pretty much all of my shooting turns 1-2, and 4 scarabs ended up pulling an easy MVP for the necrons, taking out the Voidweaver, most of a full Caress troupe and a Starweaver before I finally got my last shuriken-cannon toting unit around to wipe them out.

4) Wraiths are annoying, but not unstoppable. The best advantage the Harlies have against them is our initiative is high enough to stop their Whip Coils from being effective. The best thing is they don't have any overwatch at all, so your troupes can charge them without worrying about overwatch. Harlequins' Embraces are the magic bullet, if you have them. A 5-man troupe with embraces can deal 3-4 wounds to a squad of Harvest Wraiths before they get to strike, which is a pretty solid finishing blow if you use Shurikens and the like to whittle them down first. If I had been running against 5+ wraiths rather than 3, though, it'd have probably been a different story and I doubt I could've gotten away with not attacking the spyder first.

Overall I would rate Decurion to be a tougher match for the harlequins than Eldar, but not as much of a hard counter as SM obsec spam lists.

Robin5t wrote:
The other major question I had: Is it better to run larger troupes and footslog, or stick smaller groups in Starweavers? Starweavers seem really, really fragile to me.

As the_scotsman stated, this is really up to play style. I'm firmly in the heelequin camp, fielding two 10-strong Troupes. But I do put a third Troupe of 6 in a Starweaver as a backfield minder who can go in either direction. The biggest fear I have fielding an all-Starweaver force comes from template weapons. Not only does the Starweaver get struck, d6 models embarked upon it get hit. Due to the low T and 5++ save it's unfortunately very easy to lose a good portion of your Troupe before you get a chance to do anything with it. In my local meta there is a high number of Grey Knight players who LOVE their Dreadknights. Thanks to Shunt it takes no effort at all to get in range on Turn 1 and toast the entire unit. With larger units of Heelequins I can at least spread out in a way to minimize hits and hang back to force them to come to me.

The other problem I have is losing Veil of Tears and a Player for the privilege to not cast it nor any other blessing/malediction while embarked.

the_scotsman wrote:On Sunday I finally got a chance to test my "Mostly-Quins" list against a Necron Decurion detachment, which definitely resulted in some lessons learned.

The necron list wasn't the "competitive standard", but was still fairly solid.

Good showing! Glad to hear you had some success against Necrons. Regardless what army I play, I found that the key to defeating the Canoptic Harvest is to take out the Spyder as quickly as possible. Dealing with the Wraiths' 3+/3++ is hard enough without the added 4+ FNP on top of it. I had the same experience with the Death Jesters. And the Shurikens against the Scarabs is spot on. If you can't get to the Spyder right away you might as well remove the option to spawn additional bases.

I had a tourney match against a Necron Decurion that had an Obelisk and a full unit of Lychguard w/ a Canoptek, Lord and Overlord deathstar. I was able to wipe out the deathstar save the overlord in two full turns of close combat: two units charging on Turn 2, H&R'ing and charging back in with one of the units + the Solitaire on Turn 3 while the other unit moved on to another unit. I made the mistake of leaving the Obelisk alone and choosing to sic the Solitaire against Immortals and the Caress unit against the Overlord to finish it off. I should've dual charged the Obelisk with the Solitaire and Caress unit, instead. That Obelisk tore me up something fierce...

How do you guys use the Solitaire?
just curious

For those that have played against necrons - how do you hope to deal with the full blown lychguard star?

10 LG with Shields
Zandrek
Obyron
Orikan
Cryptek with solar staff and orb

How on earth can a harlequin force deal with this at all?

Outmaneuvre it. Deal with the rest of his list.

 Massaen wrote:
For those that have played against necrons - how do you hope to deal with the full blown lychguard star?

10 LG with Shields
Zandrek
Obyron
Orikan
Cryptek with solar staff and orb

How on earth can a harlequin force deal with this at all?

ignore it. you are the fastest infantry army in the game, and that is a whole lot of necron points in one slow unit.

How can you ignore it though? yeah you might be the fastest infantry in the game - when charging - but otherwise you are just a 6" move and D6 run while the lych guard can be deployed an inch away via night scythe or deep strike using obyron. They move 6" like you and charge 2d6... if they are close on deployment you will be caught and I cant see any harlequin unit surviving.

Bear in mind the necron army packs DOZENS of weapons that are more than able to deal with any harlequin models and in a well built Decurion - will still be ignoring your combat attacks on a 4+++ - potentially rerolling 1's

Feed them a solitaire? He'll probably tarpit than H&R. Also,you've got transports and other stuff to block the way - he can't jump over.

I am actually also curious about how Harlequin players use their Solitaires now that the codex has been out for a while and the heavy shooting armies like Tau have been updated. We get too few Harlequin players where I play which is a fine shame as they seem like they could be a really powerful army in the right hands.

As others said about the lych star - ignore it and dance around it. At most, he'll have two jumps (veil and obyron) to move it fast. Otherwise, it's quite slow and requires a turn to sit there before it can do any damage.

If you're not set on just using mono-quins, throw in a farseer and a wraithknight. That will take care of the sword & board lychguard fairly well.


The solitaire is an assassin and should be thought of as such. I usually deep strike him, unless I find an optimal place to infiltrate (via heroes path) when the enemy isn't going reserve heavy.
Don't over commit him early in the game, let him do damage turns 3 to the end. Most other quin players I've seen throw him away too early, hoping to rely on the 3++ or 2+ cover. Hide him, be sneaky, and then unleash him when the time is right. He's a great area denial unit as well as a turn 5 objective grabber if need be with his blitz.

Last thing of note, the solitaire is the ultimate anti-warp spider unit. Being I10, he can't be hurt by strength 6 monofilament, so use him as a backfield protector or a spider hunter against eldar. Versus tau, use another unit to soak overwatch, then throw him into combat. Anything not I6 will get auto-swept versus him. Even then, I6 needs to roll a 6 and the solitaire a 1, haha.

Ignore the Lychstar. Other possibilities: throw Invisibility on a solitaire or something and just let him tank for a round.

Or be in a Starweaver and just move 24" away.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
The solitaire I don't tend to use as an assassin, I have troupes and Skyweaver death squads for that (I pair them with an Autarch with Shard of Anaris for instant death challenges).

The solitaire is frequently my tank. He's there to stop things that have low volume of scary attacks that would hurt my troupes too badly.

In my last game, he was in combat with Maulerfiends for 5 full rounds of cc, tying them up until i could finish them off. Previously he has also fought chapter master smasher and a Riptide highly effectively.

Had a game against Tau today with my harlequins (small bit of dark angels allies)
Solitaire with rose spent half the game hit'n running on his Stormsurge, eventually killing it after several turns and a bit of support, along with his Blitz.
He is great at tying up stuff

I have actually multi-charged a Necron Lychstar with moderate success. The volume of close combat attacks wears it down. If one of the charging units is armed with Embraces, all the better. Of course, I run larger Troupe units than most do (two 10-man and one 6-man). If it persists to the end of the opponent's turn, H&R then come back in, either with one or both of the units initially involved or with another fresh unit that's just arriving.

I aim the Solitaire at vehicles or smaller support units to cut them down. He tends to draw attention quickly, so the investment of resources against him pays off as much as the destruction he causes.

As I just assembled my first starweaver I have to ask. Is it better to have a caress, embrace, or kiss troupe in one?

I took 6th place at a GT last weekend running pure Harlies. I tabled Centstar and and Eldar list with scatbikes/warp spiders/Sathkatch. And I beat an Infernal Tetrad list.

I also came close to pulling off an upset against Dark Angel Battle Company.

mercury14 wrote:
I took 6th place at a GT last weekend running pure Harlies. I tabled Centstar and and Eldar list with scatbikes/warp spiders/Sathkatch. And I beat an Infernal Tetrad list.

I also came close to pulling off an upset against Dark Angel Battle Company.

Well done!
What list did you use?

mercury14 wrote:
I took 6th place at a GT last weekend running pure Harlies. I tabled Centstar and and Eldar list with scatbikes/warp spiders/Sathkatch. And I beat an Infernal Tetrad list.

I also came close to pulling off an upset against Dark Angel Battle Company.

Most of those opponents I can believe, but how in Hades did you table the Eldar list? Was the Eldar player unfamiliar with the Harlie rules, or just overall incompetent?

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:

Well done!
What list did you use?

Masque Detachment (primary):

Troupe 6x w/Starweaver
- Master with Caress, Haywire Grenades (Warlord)
- 2x Caresses
- Kiss

Troupe 6x w/Starweaver
- Master with Caress
- 2x Caress

Troupe 6x w/Starweaver
- Master with Caress
- Caress

3x Skyweaver Jetbikes
- 3x Haywire Cannons
- 3x Zephyrglaives

Voidweaver w/Prism Cannon

Masque Detachment (secondary):

Troupe 6x w/Starweaver
- Master with Caress, Haywire Grenades
- 2x Caress

Troupe 5x w/Starweaver
- Master with Caress, Haywire Grenades
- 3x Embrace

Troupe 5x w/Starweaver
- Master with Caress

Voidweaver w/Prism Cannon

Heroes Path Formation:

Solitaire
- Cegorach's Rose
- Haywire Grenades

Shadowseer, ML1
- Mask of Secrets
- Haywire Grenades

Death Jester

 Galef wrote:

Most of those opponents I can believe, but how in Hades did you table the Eldar list? Was the Eldar player unfamiliar with the Harlie rules, or just overall incompetent?

The Eldar player was fine and he personally owned a copy of the Harlequin book. Also he stole initiative against me.

2x Farseers on Jetbikes
4x4 Scatbikes
Aspect Host of 3x units of Dark Reapers nested in elevated ruins
Aspect Host of 3x units of Warp Spiders
Warp Hunter
Sathkatch Wraithknight


(technically I didn't table him, he had a wounded Sathkatch and a Farseer left and conceded)

mercury14 wrote:

 Galef wrote:

Most of those opponents I can believe, but how in Hades did you table the Eldar list? Was the Eldar player unfamiliar with the Harlie rules, or just overall incompetent?

The Eldar player was fine and he personally owned a copy of the Harlequin book. Also he stole initiative against me.

2x Farseers on Jetbikes
4x4 Scatbikes
Aspect Host of 3x units of Dark Reapers nested in elevated ruins
Aspect Host of 3x units of Warp Spiders
Warp Hunter
Sathkatch Wraithknight

ok, so you had plenty of str6 shooting that took out his Scatterbikes, then it was easy to kill his Reapers & Spiders in CC? Nice. he only have 1 vehicle, so yay! Haywire cannons

--

Mostly I just re-deployed to his deployment zone turn one, took some lumps losing half my transports and my Shadowseer...

Then turn two I made seven successful assaults including into all his Aspect Host units except one. My Skyweaver bikes took out his warp Hunter. I got his scatbikes to jink with the S5 AP3 Void Weaver blasts and jester fire. One of his scatbike units fled off the map after losing on model. The key is to spread attacks against them around to make them jink or check morale.

Warp spiders wound off initiative so harlies treat them as lasguns. And the Sathkatch isn't very good against them for the same reason.

Yeah, harlies are a surprisingly good opponent for your usual cheesy Eldar as long as you get the chance to shoot his Scatbikes a bit. If they manage to crack all your transports you're doomed but if you get in his face and force those jinks you can win easier than most armies.

I'm way more impressed that he almost managed to beat a battle company. Army wide Obsec and free rhinos always just demolishes me.

mercury14 wrote:
Mostly I just re-deployed to his deployment zone turn one, took some lumps losing half my transports and my Shadowseer...

You said he stole on you, meaning he had two shooting phases to destroy only 3 of your transports? That's some miserable luck.

Man, that is a nasty looking list
how did the Solitaire do?

And while the Spiders may be rolling 4's to wound, in general, the Sasquatch is wounding on 3''s with a reroll. Even more dangerous when you take into account hiding in a vehicle isn't safe with the extra hits open topped supplies (though here it seems you jumped out in time).

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
Man, that is a nasty looking list
how did the Solitaire do?

Amazing. He only died once the entire tournament and killed a ton of things. His most epic moment was throwing five 6's on caress attacks against an invisible Centstar, then the following round when Calgar had only wound wound left, ending him with the Rose. I've found him to be *much* better in this list compared to Cegorach's Revenge because the six Troupes running interference for him.

Against opponents who aren't running hordes or high-volume ignores cover shooting he can do well without support with that 2+ cover save.

Versus the Dark Angel battle company I sent him off on his own to try to get his inquisitor warlord out of a Rhino but couldn't quite get the timing right to pop the Rhino with shooting then assault him with the Solitaire. So the Solitaire turned tank inside out, then the Inquisitor then kicked guys out of a nearby Razorback so he could get in... then my shooting only put 2 HP on it (argh), and the solitaire had to pop it himself - only to watch the cowardly mon Keigh scurry into *another* Razorback....

 DarknessEternal wrote:

You said he stole on you, meaning he had two shooting phases to destroy only 3 of your transports? That's some miserable luck.

It count have been much worse. Turn one I lost two transports, my Shadowseer, and had a Troupe get shot up a bit. The Scatbikes rolled poorly (and one moved flat out to grab an objective), it was the Reapers that were killing stuff. He deployed his Spiders on the map but held them back.

Turn two half his scatbike units were dead, the other two were snap firing, and since my army had already arrived, he chose to have his spiders shoot Troupes on foot. He also made the decision to shoot some stuff at the solitaire but to no effect.

Goobi2 wrote:
And while the Spiders may be rolling 4's to wound, in general, the Sasquatch is wounding on 3''s with a reroll. Even more dangerous when you take into account hiding in a vehicle isn't safe with the extra hits open topped supplies (though here it seems you jumped out in time).

Ah, I didn't know Sathkathes have shred. Neither did my opponent apparently.