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My list:

Harlequin Masque Detachment

Troupes:

1x five man troupe with 2x embraces 3x kisses

2x 6 man troupes no special weapons

Fast Attack

3x Skyweavers with zephyrglaives

1x Starweaver

Elites

2x Death Jesters
3x Shadowseers one of which has Mask of Secrets

HS

Voidweaver with Prismatic Cannon

Very experimental list limited by my only managing to pick up one Starweaver kit. I hadn't tried the Skyweaver Shuriken or Glaive option yet so I figured I'd give it a go. I'm playing in an escalation league at my local club and the 1000 point bracket is an awkward one for the clowns. If I had the kits Id have dropped the jesters and extra clowns for more Starweavers. Footslogging seers went for Phantasmancy and the transported seer went for Telepathy.


I ended up against this tyranid list (sorry for in exact counts)

2x hormagaunt blobs
1x Gargoyle blob
1x Venomthrope
1x Dakka flyrant
1x Dakka Fex
1x Tervigon
2x Malanthrope
1x shooty warrior min squad with large blast weapon

Seeing all the fearless and my 0 Anti-air capacity I figured this was a straight loss but I'd have a go at it anyway and see what I could do. We played EW mission 1, dawn of war deployment, and he won initiative.

My warlord trait was the strategic +1 to initiative steal which turned out to be quite handy as I did roll a 5 (I have yet to find a leak of the harlequin traits). My Phantasmancy psykers both rolled Mirror of Minds, and my telepathy psyker rolled Something Not Called Invisibility and psychic shriek.

Deployment: he set up the Fex and Tyrant in the center, the warriors, a Malanthrope and hormagaunt swarm on my right and the Tervigon, a Malanthrope, and the hormagaunts and gargoyles on the right. I set up a troupe on either side, the bikes on the right as I was hoping to punch through there and try to hold an objective, and the star and Voidweaver roughly center behind some good terrain. Most of my valuable models managed to be out of LOS but I stole initiative thanks to my warlord trait so it didn't matter.

Turn 1: I figured the best targets I could try and focus on turn 1 were the big shooting threats I could destroy reasonably, the malanthropes and Carnifex. I moved up the Starweaver to try and Shriek the Fex, the Voidweaver to hammer on one Malanthrope and the bikes to hit the other. I failed spectacularly to do that.

The Voidweaver and Starweaver managed to land one wound on a Malanthrope, while the other saved seven wounds vs the bikes. The Carnifex denied 3 successes on the Shriek. The other two Shadowseers did manage to get Veil of Tears up however, and the death jesters both used their exploding shot option to take a good chunk out of the hormagaunts, about half of them gone.

Both Dakka creatures accounted for one of the vehicles despite their 4++ saves (unsurprising) but at least the Starweaver was not exploded so the troupe disembarked into a nearby building and didn't take any pain. Veil of Tears denied the Warriors, Gargoyles, and Tervigon. Mamma Tervigon popped out an obnoxious 16 gribblies but doubled herself out.

Turn 2: I didn't really feel like letting the Dakka critters just blow me to smithereens so this turn I just said "screw it I'm just going to see how much I can kill"

Using the Run+charge special rule for the harlequins, all three troupes headed upfield. The bikes took out a Malanthrope in shooting, but my Shriek psyker failed to get her power off again. Luckily the left foot troupe got Mirror of Minds off on the Venomthrope and popped him. One less thing to worry about.

In the assault phase, one squad took on the Termagaunts, one squad disorganized charged a Malanthrope and gargoyles, and one attacked the right side hormagaunts.

Both gaunt squads were knocked down to 2 models and hit'n'ran out into relative safety, and the third wiped the Malanthrope and gargoyles and consolidated almost to his board edge behind a ruin.

On his turn, the flyrant took down the entire right flank troupe with a single volley, and the Tervigon turned to beat on the special weapons troupe causing 2 casualties with his shooting. The remaining hormagaunt and Termagaunts teamed up to charge at the remaining troupe. The warriors brought down one bike in shooting, leaving two still alive. The dakkafex moved into position against the remaining foot troupe but whiffed due to Veil of Tears.

The assault phase was an incredibly lucky slaughter in my favor. The three Kisses rolled two Instant Deaths to whack the Tervigon, and there were no Gaunts alive to strike after the harlies were done with them.

Turn 3: the Telepathy Seer finally managed to get her shriek on against the dakkafex, taking him out, and the rest of the remaining troupes huddled behind LOS blocking terrain. The bikers shot and charged the Warriors, bringing them down with 1 biker remaining. At this point the remaining survivors are a full foot troupe, three harlequins, 1 Skyweaver Jetbike and 1 solo Shadowseer. Everything but the Flyrant was dead on the opposing side of the table. Flyrant had to spend a turn gliding to get into position so did not have LOS this turn.

Turns 4 and 5: flyrant killed lone Shadowseer and the 3 remaining members of the special weapon toting troupe. Game ended turn 5 with me holding two objectives with linebreaker and him with First Blood and Slay the Warlord. If he'd had one more turn to take out a unit and get to their objective he would have won.


Overall the Harlequins performed a lot better than I expected at the beginning of the matchup and I'm really pleased with their "glass cannon" feel. The shenanigans I was able to pull with their terrain-ignoring was awesome with regards to denying LOS and engaging and disengaging, and I'm actually looking at the expanded possibilities of the footslogging troupes. At least in this game, Veil of Tears proved to be MUCH better protection than the transport. Next week for the 1250 bracket I may just try moving up to a Grand Masque sticking another DJ and the solitaire in there along with more kisses for the squads and maybe 1 more Skyweaver and see how I do with those invuln save re-rolls.

Final Verdict: Harlequins can perform adequately even in heavily unfavorable matchups and footslogging troupes may be more usable than they may initially seem thanks to the power of Rising Crescendo and Flip Belts

Flyrant is OP. Everything else in Tyranid Codex, UP. Which makes this army extremely one-dimensional and boring to play with. Good to see you are beating them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, you know, if you had got Wave Serpents from Eldar allies, those Shrouding units would have been wiped out easily. Keep that in mind.

Thats hardly a one dimensional, spammy, or power gaming nids list. One dimensional and boring to play with or against would be something like 3x Flyrants, a malanthrope and min troops

bibotot wrote:
Flyrant is OP. Everything else in Tyranid Codex, UP. Which makes this army extremely one-dimensional and boring to play with. Good to see you are beating them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, you know, if you had got Wave Serpents from Eldar allies, those Shrouding units would have been wiped out easily. Keep that in mind.

Yeah, I'm probably going to get Dark Eldar Allies. I really dislike the Eldar models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 astro_nomicon wrote:
Thats hardly a one dimensional, spammy, or power gaming nids list. One dimensional and boring to play with or against would be something like 3x Flyrants, a malanthrope and min troops

I'm really not accusing anything of being OP, I just didn't have any anti air in my army (or entire codex) so I figured I'd lose

Hey that was a great read and unexpected! I thought you were gonna get wiped.

VOT and shriek earnin their salt...

bibotot wrote:
Flyrant is OP. Everything else in Tyranid Codex, UP. Which makes this army extremely one-dimensional and boring to play with. Good to see you are beating them.

Yea no.


Well played OP, good to see you holding your ground.