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Generally, I like to have my debuffs spread around a little, to keep my eggs in multiple baskets.

A Shadowseer and Cast of Players in one Raider, plus a DE HQ with the Armor in another, is a nice way to go. If the DE HQ hitched a ride with a Covens Raider, there's your -5 Ld right there, meaning Mirror of Minds kills any one model once successfully cast. Even against other psychic powers it's still pretty dope. A Psychic Shriek will do 5.5 wounds on average under such circumstances. So would a Mind War.

Glad to see people talking about it though! If anyone wants advice on trouble shooting lists, feel free to PM me, by the way.

What models should I take if I want a legal Eldar and Harlequin list and my objective is to make Psychic Shriek most effective and run units off the board?

I lack both codexes at the moment but if I get this list I wanna buy it all in one swoop

Well, primarily what you want will be a bunch of Farseers (each most effective on a bike buried in a small group of Windriders). A Wraithfighter will help lower that leadership, too.

The cheapest way to bring the Harlies to the table is the Heroes' Path, but absent any open-topped vehicles (you could take a Starweaver for each if you really wanted), you'd be better off with a Cast of Players detachment. They can't even take the Starweaver, though, so they're stuck on foot or in a vehicle they can't shoot out of. (The Shadowseer is what you really want, but the Death Jester is a nice bonus, too.)

A very small number of Dark Eldar, if only to unlock their vehicles, is a highly recommended strategy.

Nonetheless, if you want to run without them, I sent you a PM for some more info.

Ironically i was rhinking of some of these combos before i read this forumn. I would suggest including potential allies of conveinence. Just a thought. Thanks for the great write up.

This is an awesome tactica! While I am not an Eldar player myself, my Space Marines will probably be snagging some Harlequinn/Eldar allies to try a variant on this idea out. MASSED TELEPATHY LIBRARIANS, AWAY!

Made a "Freakshow" list. Looking for critique. Heres the link.

Hmmm. I'd love to continue this series, but I'm curious if there are areas that people would like to see an article on? Any nuances of this that deserve their own, more extensive write-up?

 Jimsolo wrote:
Hmmm. I'd love to continue this series, but I'm curious if there are areas that people would like to see an article on? Any nuances of this that deserve their own, more extensive write-up?

If supply of models is not a problem, what would you do if you're only allowed 2 formations/detachments?
Between Harliquins (shadow seer), Dark Eldar (armor of misery and open transports), Coven (-1 Ld detachments) and Eldar (farseers and hemlocks), how would you build a list if you can only get 2.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Hmmm. I'd love to continue this series, but I'm curious if there are areas that people would like to see an article on? Any nuances of this that deserve their own, more extensive write-up?

I know for tournaments many people make whats essentially a flow chart for everything they need to remember and expedite their turns. I want to be able to field a freakshow style list from time to time but the learning curve in remembering order of operations seems potentially daunting. Factoring in the fact that myself and potentially others haven't fully utilized the wide world of allies as much it can seem like a lot.

Possibly a "So you want to be scary as hell: Starting your road to being a freak" type primer or a flowchart for how you generally operate your turns? I appreciate all you've put into this so far!

 FearPeteySodes wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Hmmm. I'd love to continue this series, but I'm curious if there are areas that people would like to see an article on? Any nuances of this that deserve their own, more extensive write-up?

I know for tournaments many people make whats essentially a flow chart for everything they need to remember and expedite their turns. I want to be able to field a freakshow style list from time to time but the learning curve in remembering order of operations seems potentially daunting. Factoring in the fact that myself and potentially others haven't fully utilized the wide world of allies as much it can seem like a lot.

Possibly a "So you want to be scary as hell: Starting your road to being a freak" type primer or a flowchart for how you generally operate your turns? I appreciate all you've put into this so far!

+1 to this.
perhaps writing 3 sample lists that utilize the Ld based attacks and how to go about making it work. I'd also love to see a video batrep in the future with this type of list. definitely one of themost refreshing articles I've read on this forum in a while.

I just put up an experimental list in the "sample build" post of this series. Let me know what you think!

Snap Shot a Psychic Shriek into a Harridan. It was in 6 of Armor of Misery + it was Horrified from Runes of Battle.
LD 10 - 5 = 5
Rolled a 16
11 Wounds. It fell from the sky. 1/3 the gargoyles inside died.
Epic Kill.

Your group requires rolls for Psychic shriek to hit? Ouch.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Your group requires rolls for Psychic shriek to hit? Ouch.

Isn't that the widely accepted thing to do for witchfire powers?
(not trying to start a debate, just curious)

 Nivoglibina wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Your group requires rolls for Psychic shriek to hit? Ouch.

Isn't that the widely accepted thing to do for witchfire powers?
(not trying to start a debate, just curious)

It is in my meta too...
1) manifest shriek
2) roll to hit
3) if not denied, proceed as normal

If rolling to hit isn't required, holy-bat-fart, psychic shriek would be overpowered in a Psyhic heavy list.

No...Psychic Shriek doesn't have a weapon profile. (So how many shots does it get? Is it assault, heavy, or what?) I've literally never seen anyone do it that way. All the people I know subscribe to the theory that Psychic Shriek tells you how to resolve it: if it manifests, roll 3d6-Ld, allocate wounds.

Still glad to see Freakshows flourishing under those conditions!

 Jimsolo wrote:
No...Psychic Shriek doesn't have a weapon profile. (So how many shots does it get? Is it assault, heavy, or what?) I've literally never seen anyone do it that way. All the people I know subscribe to the theory that Psychic Shriek tells you how to resolve it: if it manifests, roll 3d6-Ld, allocate wounds.

Let me just say that I enjoy the DE/E discussions and I don't want to derail this thread too much.

But, I've played in numerous different tournaments (including the Las Vegas Open) and in my meta, witchfire required "roll to hit" for shrieks...

:shrugs:

I wished we didn't have to (where I play), because spamming shrieks w/o rolling to hit is freak'n powerful. Throw in your freakshow tactics... whoa momma!

w/o rolling to hit, man, I'd start building a Dark Angels' Librarius Conclave Formation, and go hog wild with shrieks! (I may still do that!).

Also... intestingly enough, I keep going back to that Hemlock Fighter... man it seems powerful.

No, it's definitlely on topic. I've actually wondered if clubs that do it your way would make Freakshows too weak. (Although given the BS of the characters involved, I didn't think its be that big an issue.)

All Witchfires roll to hit, check out the Witchfire description in the BRB under Psychic powers: "Witchfires are shooting attacks... a Psyker must be able to see the target unit (or target point) and cannot be locked in combat if he wishes to manifest a witchfire power. Similarly, a Psyker must roll to Hit..."

So yes, you have to manifest it, they get to deny it, then you roll to hit. But Farseers have BS5, so its not that big of a deal.

Another thing I noticed is that the Wraithfighter used to be a -2 to leadership. Now its -2 when taking morale, fear and pinning tests, so its not quite as useful as a straight -2 modifier that would come into play for shrieks.

And I definitely echo the statements of others here; a freakshow list sounds so so good because it bypasses a lot of defenses and can make whole units leave the board, but man the combos would be hard to remember! Any tips on making them easier to run would be greatly appreciated.

Again, how many shots does it roll? What type of shooting attack is it? We need to know these things to resolve it as a shooting attack. (Having now summed up the two sides of the argument, btw, we can leave the question to the rules forums at this point.)

True about the Wraithfighter, but at least in this edition your opponent can't try to argue that you don't get Psychic Shriek on it.

I will definitely put together a checklist! Sounds like a great idea.

This is fantastically detailed, and builds nicely on something I've been piecing together since the newest de dex came out, looking at getting an archon with archangel, haemy with misery armour, and farseer in bubbled up with the cast of players harly formation. Wwp them in the middle of as many bunched up units as possible, deepstrike in raiders with tgl's, warriors (+ sybarite with pgl) in nearby and literally blitz everything. Defence line with comm link to increase chances of reserves when you want them of course. Hadn't given much thought to the corsairs, and knew nothing of the spectres, so will definitely be doing some more research. Thanks!

This is fantastic i can't wait to try out my newly inspired terror list

I think you should highlight the fact that harlequin's shadowseer's mask of secret only affects models. Which can make it's usage problematic against squads.

That's true.

There is also a grey area for Psychic Shriek and do you use highest or majority leadership as it's not a Leadership test because guess what, the rules don't cover it!

Holy thread Necro, Batman!

Not that I'm complaining--just surprised!

It's interesting that you should bring up the Mask of Secrets issue AND the Psychic Shriek issue, since I think they are relevant to one another.

(First off, when it comes to Shriek, I've never run into anyone who thought it should be played as the highest--every player I've ever seen, once reading the rules, has agreed that majority should be the correct method.)

However, even if someone wanted to do it the other way, that's fine. In a tournament, I'd ask the TO for a call, but in a friendly game I'd just let it slide.

In any event, so long as the Mask covers the majority of the squad, (including the guy with the highest LD if possible) you should be fine.

So glad people are getting some use out of this! I've had trouble working on the concept more, since I've been politely asked by my local gaming group to stop running Freakshow lists.

I actually took a freakshow list to my state championships and while I didn't place highly I ended up going toe to toe with some of the best players in the country. Was pretty cool.

Do you feel like your games were close, or that you just got swept?

Mega close, a couple of times I made a huge mistake which I put down to not really testing the list properly.

I underestimated soulfright on Necrons and put a squad of immortals I wanted to charge down to one, and accidentally killed it with pistols in combat. I killed more daemons in combat from daemonic instability wounds than wounds I caused in one round.

I also think Australia comps a bit stronger than other places so a wider variety of stuff is more viable.

I'm interested in maybe adding in some dirty eldar tricks to my slaaneshi csm mainly to magnify the power of my blast masters pinning. Anyone got any suggestions

What about an alliance with SM 1-st company taskforce that adds another -2 ld penalty if there are 3 or more units within a certain distance? Drop pods count in too.