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 ClutterEater wrote:
Fusion Wisdom Yo

Thanks for explaining and clearing up the questions I had. I see what you mean with the high saturation of goodies.
Have you played any games? How did they go?
How are your games versus the horde-like armies of boys or conscripts? Are your tactics any different?

I've been playing some variation of that list since the 8th leaks dropped before release. I get about 2-3 games a week. So a solid number at this point. My win ratio is pretty good. I have lost some very close games against Tau, but have not been stomped by anything yet.

Unfortunately I have not yet played Orks, we only have one Ork player around here. But my theory is that it would be a tough but possible matchup. Harlequins are much better at fighting elite/semi-elite armies, but 4 attacks per model does make us decent at clearing chaff infantry. The key would be to NEVER multi charge Troupes into Boy squads, because if they spend 2 CP to interrupt you WILL lose the second Troupe. Focus a single horde at a time, and try to completely cripple it. And utilize mobility/shooting to try to remove buff characters before fighting the hordes directly. Large squads can be somewhat unwieldy, and so using our mobility you can often position in such a way that they cannot bring all their forces to bear on you at once.

I love taking a full unit or two of the bikes. They are pretty darn resilient vs shooting and they can put out some decent damage with their cannons and still pretty nasty in assault with those Glaives. I would still recommed against multi assaulting, but they are great at jumping over units to hunt down characters, too.

I'm very new to Harlequins, and 40K in general, so apologies if this is a stupid question, but what are everyone's thoughts on which weapons to take on Skyweavers? Haywire Cannon or Shurikan Cannon? I'd only have a small unit of them, two or maybe four (due to financial restrictions!) and I certainly won't be playing competitively.

I know haywire cannons are specifically for shooting vehicles, but if you move you get a -1 to hit with them, so does it turn your jetbikes into a stationary anti-vehicle gun platform with quite short range? I lean towards the Shurikan cannon, but does that take away one of the army's few ways of killing vehicles? What about a mix of the two? What role do the bikes really do well?

Yeah, I think the Heavy on the Haywire Cannons makes them not a good option on the Bikes. Especially because you want to be able to Advance with the Bikes - which lets them still fire their Assault weapon Shuriken Cannon before charging a target.

 feltmonkey wrote:
I'm very new to Harlequins, and 40K in general, so apologies if this is a stupid question, but what are everyone's thoughts on which weapons to take on Skyweavers? Haywire Cannon or Shurikan Cannon? I'd only have a small unit of them, two or maybe four (due to financial restrictions!) and I certainly won't be playing competitively.

I know haywire cannons are specifically for shooting vehicles, but if you move you get a -1 to hit with them, so does it turn your jetbikes into a stationary anti-vehicle gun platform with quite short range? I lean towards the Shurikan cannon, but does that take away one of the army's few ways of killing vehicles? What about a mix of the two? What role do the bikes really do well?

Vehicles are not that difficult to destroy like they were in previous editions, so I go Shuriken Cannon, for two good reasons. First and foremost, it's an Assault weapon, so you can fire it and advanced in the same turn, as opposed to the Haywire which is Heavy. Secondly, Shuriken Cannons are good against infantry and vehicles, where as the Haywire is significantly less deadly to infantry.

Skyweavers are also your dip-in/dip-out hit and run units. You move in to mow down a small squad of infantry with some Shuricannon fire and then charge in to clean up for your Troupe to bounce in before moving on to the next. These make good hit and run units because they take -1 to being shot at, and tend to be more hefty than a Troupe.

Thanks for the answers guys.

I think I'll build mine as shurikan cannons and zepherglaves then.

It's worth doing a single bolas for the one grenade attack. Plus when casualties ensue they can die first. Saves 11 points in an army that wants every point it can get

I'll be playing power level more than points, I suspect. I stay well clear of anything resembling competitive play!

If I get another box, in order to make a unit of four, I'll build one with A star bolos though. For the variety if nothing else.

I play 4+4 Skyweavers with shuricannon and zephyrglaives.
They entered in the roster on day one and they're still there, for a good reason. Best combination for shooting, free movement and CC efficiency.

Yeah I've had mine pencilled in with haywire cannons but after playing a chunk of non harlequin games and the addition of fusion pistols to a chunk of models I feel they will switch to shuri too.

Have units of 4 been sufficient? I'm not sure if I will run 2 units of them.

I like them as 4 instead of 5 or 6 because I can hide them a little bit better from LoS.
Two units because they're not the hard hitters (I still believe Troupers are better in doing so if put in the right situation) but sort of space creators, either by providing blessed shooting, alpha-striking or being the bait-front liners.

Hi guys,

Played a game against my friends Imp. Fists. It was my fourth or fifth game in 8th edition, first one I played with a full Harlequin list. It’s a suboptimal list, because I need to paint more Starweavers and all of my Skyweavers. I tried the strategy of going full fusion pistols on everything like mentioned above (because in power games, why not).
It was a very small 50 point game. We both enjoy small games.

This is what I ran:
1 Shadowseer
6 Troupe (embraces/fusion pistols) in Starweaver
6 Troupe (embraces/fusion pistols) in Starweaver
5 Troupe (embraces/fusion pistols) on foot
1 Solitaire
1 Death Jester (this was filler because I didn’t have another Starweaver painted up).
Command points: 3

My opponent ran:
1 SM Captain (relic blade, 4+ inv., amongst others)
1 Tactical Squad (2x5 men) with missile launcher, flamer
1 Razorback with assault cannons (carrying 5 marines)
1 Landraider with TL lascannon, multimelta and all the heavy bolters/stormbolters etc. It can take (carrying 5 marines and the captain).
1 Venerable Dreadnought (TL lascannon)
1 Empty Rhino with stormbolters
Command points: 3

I thought he was bringing Orcs (he said he would, but I has happier to see this list). He thought I was going to bring a Wraithknight, which I didn’t (don’t like big guys in small games).

We played Maelstrom, Spoils of War.
My opponent got first turn. I deployed completely out of sight. He drove around a bit, scoring tactical objectives from the beginning. He got a good run of cards and it was quickly clear I was never going to keep up in objectives, so I had to go for the throat. I moved up but stayed in cover turn 1.

His turn two he managed to get his Dreadnougt in LOS of my Starweaver, whose wing was sticking out of the building he was in. Shot the Lascannon, couldn’t save it and he rolled a 6, killing the Weaver. He also managed to get the empty rhino in sight of my Solitaire (misplay on my part), shooting the stormbolters and taking off three wounds. My second turn I went for the throat because I thought sitting back wasn’t going to go well for all those fusion pistol fragile clowns versus tanks on seemingly all the relevant objectives; moving up my units, double moving the other starweaver with my psychic power and getting in his grill. The fusion pistols from the harlequins inside the weaver immediately blew up the dreadnought and I charged the landraider right next to it. The rest of my army, including Smite from the Shadowseer, put about 10 wounds on the landraider. I rolled high and was able to charge the backside with the starweaver, which did nothing as expected. Both harlequin troupes failed their charges (including the 3” charge from one of them by rolling double one. I couldn’t reroll because I had already used my strategic points, which was a mistake). I decided the Solitaire couldn’t get any cover anywhere close to the enemy, so safest place for him was in combat, and charged him across the board into the landraider as well, taking it down to 5 wounds.

On his turn 3 his landraider was pretty much surrounded save for a small spot on which he disembarked five marines and the captain. He decided to let the landraider stay in combat. The other unit got out of the Razorback. Ten marines shot and almost deleted both the troupes on foot and charged the one that failed their 3” charge later together with the captain, failing to kill the last guy. The lonely Trouper took out 3 marines and then fled due to morale. The other tactical squad charged the solitaire, taking it down to one wound. The solitaire killed four of them in return. Marines passed morale. In the meantime, his empty rhino drove around and grabbed a steady stream of tactical objectives, we both flipped cards that were great for his position, so he took most of mine as well (which is possible in this mission).
My turn three I flipped a bunch of cards that al referred to the tactical objective right in front of his landraider. I couldn’t move there (I was in combat all over) so my only hope was to rearrange my charges and doing some neat consolidation and such. I removed the solitaire from combat and put it next to his captain. I put my shadowseer next to the captain, as well. I think both troupes on foot were already dead at that point. I disembarked the third Troupe and put it next to the razorback. The weaver left combat (he was on the back of the landraider), jumped to the front side of the landraider on top of the tactical objective. The landraider was now no longer tied up in combat. My plan was to charge the landraider with everything in a way that all my units would end up on top of the objective at the end of the turn. Smite took the Captain to 4 wounds. The troupe next to the razorback shot it with fusion pistols and failed to kill it, inflicting nine wounds and taking it to 1, which proved crucial in this game. The starweaver shot the small tactical squad that was with the captain, got lucky and killed both marines. I charged the weaver into the landraider, he overwatched hit with the multimelta and rolled a six on the damage to kill the Weaver. This put my troupe in an awkward position because they’d eat overwatch too. Troupe multi charged the remaining sergeant and the landraider. The landraider killed 3 troupers in overwatch. The troupe managed to kill the sergeant and bring the landraider down to 1 wound, while charging in a way they’d both be right on top of the objective. The solitaire and the shadowseer killed the captain and consolidated onto that vital objective and also getting into combat with the landraider, who attacked and did nothing.

Board right now:
He has a full wound empty rhino, and a razorback and landraider on one wound.

His turn 4 he removed the landraider from CC. He shot the assault cannon into the troupe, but didn’t do anything because of crappy rolling. The stormbolters on the rhino failed to do anything and the landraider couldn’t shoot.
He was way ahead on me in tactical points, so I had to table him if I wanted to win.
My turn four I positioned the troupers to have 2 fusions in range of the landraider and 1 in range of the razorback. Solitaire moved in between both to have a position to kill anything that survived. Shadowseer and Death Jester stayed on the objective. My plan: kill both landraider and razorback, then head for the rhino (which would have been easy with the double move power).
I decided to shoot the landraider first, hit, wounded, destroyed it, he rolled for explosion, rolled a six, and proceeded to kill the troupe, the solitaire and the shadowseer in the explosion. That left me with just the Death Jester.

Next turn he tabled my by killing the Death Jester. He won 12-7 in victory points.


So yeah, pretty cool game. The explosion killing like 300 points worth of models was insane and immediately decided the game then and there. I went from a position of being able to table him, to being all but tabled immediately myself. Of course, it’s super epic when something like this happens and we were both pretty excited, but Harlequins felt a bit cheated (and embarassed as well, isn’t this the kind of way the Jester usually kills people?!). It was a bit anticlimactic, but fun nonetheless. It’s that kind of moment that makes you go ‘owww snap’ but on the other hands it’s another one of those ‘game was decided in one dice roll’ kind of way.
I had a fantastic game and my opponent deserved the win for playing the objective game very well. Maelstrom objectives tend to be swingy but it was great nonetheless.
I got unlucky at certain points, but he rolled a *lot* of misses and I rolled an insane amount of 4+ invulns so I can’t really complain.

I learned a lot from this game:

This I noticed:
- Troupes on foot are basically useless. I didn’t have the third starweaver painted up so decided to go for that troupe with jester and shadowseer backup like in my last couple of games, but they moved up, failed a charge and were deleted.
- The units with the starweavers were much, much scarier, tactically more fun to play, and much better protected versus small arms fire and overwatch. I don’t think I’ll go for troupes on foot again.
- Death Jester is useless as freck. He put one wound on a space marine the entire game. That ups his killstreak to 3 1-wound models in 4 games. The morale thing is pointless. The sniper rule is useless because the characters he targets shrug off AP0 shots. He doesn’t shine versus marines, I am aware of that (I’m sure he’s much better versus Orcs, Tau, Guard or something like that), but I was disappointed in him again. That was the last time I’m bringing him, so all the more reason to paint up more Starweavers. I had no choice in this game though.

- Shadowseer is an allround solid unit. He becomes awkward when you footslug him (because by using his psychic power you effectively remove units from his bubble). I think he’s better either in a Weaver, using the move-move ability more tactically instead of aggressively (for example to take objectives or get to weak characters in the back) and on different units (I’m thinking the power would be awesome for Skyweavers, but I haven’t painted mine yet). His -1 to wound bubble was very strong. Smite was insane. I rolled two 11’s on psychic powers, taking a lot of wounds off of models. But even D3 is pretty strong. In this game, he had nothing to deny with.
- I am now a believer of all-fusion pistol Harlequins. In power games it’s a nobrainer as it doesn’t ‘cost’ anything anyway, but I might do it in points games as well. The clowns become scary as hell and if you manage to decently protect them during the game, they’re straight up lethal.
- Embraces on the units were decent all around versus MEQ. I didn’t need a rerolling Troupe Master (or at least, didn’t miss him). Caress on the Solitaire was awesome. I decided to not use the Kiss in any of his charges, either because it was 6+ to wound vs. a 5+ for the caress ( vs. the landraider) or 4+ to wound AP-1 seemed useless (versus his Captain), or because I didn’t need D3 wounds (on the tactical marines). I have yet to use the Kiss in any game. It’s kind of weird, it’s the most expensive weapon pointswise but it’s a weapon I’m least inclined to use.
- Solitaire was great again. He’s more than earned his points back every game. He’s so scary. And I love it when the opponent says: “you’re not shooting that guy?” and I can give the confusing answer of “Eh no, he has no guns.” Nobody sees the 24 inch movement, 12 inch charge coming.
- Overwatch is an absolutely b*tch. Starweavers taking overwatch for your troupes is awesome, but when they get shot (like mine, during overwatch) it’s really annoying. And I only ran into one flamer, so it could have been a lot worse. I guess, all the more reason to just run more Starweavers. The more games I play (which is still only a few, and I’ve yet to play jetbikes), the more I feel the army is very dependent on Starweavers doing most of the heavy lifting.
- As previously discussed: I didn’t miss a heavy weapons squad like the Voidweaver. Having listened to the advice above and having played this game, saturating your army with fusion pistols is probably a better idea than putting the big guns on one platform that can be shot out of the sky in one shot (like what happened to my Starweavers). This is actually quite a shame because it makes a harlequin unit redundant and we already have so few units, making lists feel even more spammy.

- Play more conservatively with stratagem points. I spent mine turn one and his turn two, because I thought every time I used one it was a crucial roll, but failing that charge later with the troupe (and not being able to completely surround the landraider) was very deadly for me.
- I need a lot more practice with Harlequins. It’s a whole new game coming from Dark Eldar. Positioning, picking fights, deciding what to tie up in combat and what to leave alone, becomes all the more important when playing harlequins. There was little LOS blocking terrain in the middle of the board to help me negate overwatch, but I could’ve positioned the objectives more tactically amongst LOS blocking terrain. That’s one thing to remember.
I misplayed a lot of things, at times harlequins feel awkward to play and can be very unforgiving, but it’s been great playing them again and I’m looking forward to playing again, painting up more Starweavers, Troupes and some Jetbikes, and GIT GUD.

So great game!
Any advice is welcome.

Edit: just realised, typing this, I could've dropped the jester for a troupe master which would've nailed me three more CP, derp

So after a few games I am thinking of dropping my troupe master. It's not that they are not good, they are great, but I just don't need them. At 74pts they only increase the damage of my 150pt troupe by 16-25%. They actually just feel like overkill than anything else and puts the price of the whole unit over the top. I am also playing ynarri so it is awkward to soul burst and leave the troupe master exposed.

With the saved points I am thinking more fusion pistols because those have been gold for me.

How did your opponent move his land raider out of combat and still shoot with it?
If the landraider falls back it can't shoot or assault.

Wyldcarde wrote:
How did your opponent move his land raider out of combat and still shoot with it?
If the landraider falls back it can't shoot or assault.

Does it have Flying?


(Joke btw)

It should have!
It needs the same as the wraithknight where it can fall back and still shoot. I'm fine with smaller tanks being tied down by close combat but a land raider should not care at all.

He didn't shoot the Landraider, he shot the assault cannon on the one wound razorback.
Or did you mean something else? I can't really find the bit where I said the Landraider shot after falling back.

I think big vehicles should be able to fall back and shoot. Fighting vehicles now has become a game of trying to "tag" them either by charging something into them or by sneaky consolidation moves.

Got a tournament report for you guys. Just got home. 3 rounds at 2000 points using fairly standard matched play rules, and keeping the RAW "drop first pick first" deployment rule.

I ran...

5 Troupes (Fusion/Embraces) of 5 (1 had only 3 fusion for points)
4 Troupe Masters (Fusion Embraces)
1 Shadowseer
5 Starweavers
1x6 Skyweavers (Zephyr/Shuriken)

1st round got tabled by an airborne krieg list (my housemate) that was... unconventional... He got pretty lucky early and straight up killed 2 transports with a single missile each. I couldn't hide from the fliers, but I couldn't rush at them either because of hammer and anvil deployment (they were so far away!)/all the melta guns inside them/all the death riders/saint celestine below them waiting for me to get close. It was a good counter to my list.

2nd round tabled a Tau gunline with a stormsurge, 2 broadsides, and 2 ghostkeels.

3rd round tabled a Necron gunline with 60 warriors, 9 heavy destroyers, orikan/anrakyr, and a DDA.

Took 6th out of 20 overall, and I was pretty sure I could have beaten half of the top 5 lists based on what I saw of them.

My takeaways:

- I could have dropped 2 Troupe Masters and been fine. Although sometimes the redundancy/cheap overwatch eaters are nice to have.
- Staying in your clown cars is often a very good choice. It lets you fusion things to death and forces them to kill the car. Then you get another round of fusion followed by a charge. This is most useful on turn 2 when you COULD get out after rushing them, but there's a risk that you won't cripple the enemy enough with your alpha strike. The turn 3 disembark worked out well in games 2 and 3 for me.
- 6 jetbikes moving 44" via twilight pathways and then charging can tie up a LOT of shooting units in CC all at once, but you can probably get away with just 3-4 and have mostly the same effect.
- We have a really hard time against armies that are faster than we are (I imagine Dark Eldar would be really hard) and a really easy time against stationary/slow ones.
- If fliers become the metagame, which it looks like is going to happen, then we need to start thinking about how to slot in Craftworld fliers to help out. Crimson hunter or hemlock would be really nice to have. Several of the top 5 lists had more than 1 flyer. I have no idea how I would handle Stormravens (or even the Valk/Vultures I fought round one) without at least one flyer.

I think we are going to a point where - due to our very limited choice pool - we'll have soon THE LIST and any variety depends of our personal taste and will of making changes of that version.
And I'm referring to the fact that we all are agreeing on many points: troupes full fusion on starweaver, shadowseer, solitaire, skyweavers.
Let's wait the real book, fine, but I personally think I'll find kind of a definitive list in the next two-three matches (today still Ynnari, but starting from the next match I'll be all Harlequins again).

 lambsandlions wrote:
So after a few games I am thinking of dropping my troupe master. It's not that they are not good, they are great, but I just don't need them. At 74pts they only increase the damage of my 150pt troupe by 16-25%. They actually just feel like overkill than anything else and puts the price of the whole unit over the top. I am also playing ynarri so it is awkward to soul burst and leave the troupe master exposed.

With the saved points I am thinking more fusion pistols because those have been gold for me.

That's an interesting point, let's calculate in detail.
Without Troupmaster
4,4 Wounds on 5+
6,6 Wounds on 4+
8,8 Wounds on 3+

With Troupemaster
5,8 Wounds on 5+ (+24%)
7,7 Wounds on 4+ (+14%)
9,6 Wounds on 3+ (+12,5%)

From that, we get that the Troupemaster has a better chance to have influence when the troupe is wounding on 5+, less on 4+ and a little less more on 3+.

I can see your point, and I'm able to add that it really depends on the weapon you give to the Troupe (the caress easily diminishes the Troupemaster's usefulness, while he improves instead Troupes armed with any other weapon) and the type of targets you want to send them into.
Theoretically it makes perfectly sense to equip a Troupe with full embraces and full fusion pistols without the help of a Troupemaster: they'll have ease to kill in CC stuff with their easier-wounding embraces and they can manage large stuff with fusions.
I still think the TM is worth his points in most cases (those where you're wounding on 5+), because with improving the effectiveness of the Troupe he also adds 5A as well, with a weapon of your choice. So you're basically adding 25% from his 5 attacks (a little more since he hits on 2+) plus the percentage chosen from the calculation above, for a total of 37,5-49% efficiency for about +50% in points. I personally run only one TM with Kiss+Fusion - and two Shadowseers as other HQs - because he has potential on his own and he's not there to re-roll 1s to Wound only.

Cheers

 Mayk0l wrote:
He didn't shoot the Landraider, he shot the assault cannon on the one wound razorback.
Or did you mean something else? I can't really find the bit where I said the Landraider shot after falling back.

I think big vehicles should be able to fall back and shoot. Fighting vehicles now has become a game of trying to "tag" them either by charging something into them or by sneaky consolidation moves.

Ah sorry my bad I misread it.

 Bloodshade wrote:
I think we are going to a point where - due to our very limited choice pool - we'll have soon THE LIST and any variety depends of our personal taste and will of making changes of that version.
And I'm referring to the fact that we all are agreeing on many points: troupes full fusion on starweaver, shadowseer, solitaire, skyweavers.
Let's wait the real book, fine, but I personally think I'll find kind of a definitive list in the next two-three matches (today still Ynnari, but starting from the next match I'll be all Harlequins again).

 lambsandlions wrote:
So after a few games I am thinking of dropping my troupe master. It's not that they are not good, they are great, but I just don't need them. At 74pts they only increase the damage of my 150pt troupe by 16-25%. They actually just feel like overkill than anything else and puts the price of the whole unit over the top. I am also playing ynarri so it is awkward to soul burst and leave the troupe master exposed.

With the saved points I am thinking more fusion pistols because those have been gold for me.

That's an interesting point, let's calculate in detail.
Without Troupmaster
4,4 Wounds on 5+
6,6 Wounds on 4+
8,8 Wounds on 3+

With Troupemaster
5,8 Wounds on 5+ (+24%)
7,7 Wounds on 4+ (+14%)
9,6 Wounds on 3+ (+12,5%)

From that, we get that the Troupemaster has a better chance to have influence when the troupe is wounding on 5+, less on 4+ and a little less more on 3+.

I can see your point, and I'm able to add that it really depends on the weapon you give to the Troupe (the caress easily diminishes the Troupemaster's usefulness, while he improves instead Troupes armed with any other weapon) and the type of targets you want to send them into.
Theoretically it makes perfectly sense to equip a Troupe with full embraces and full fusion pistols without the help of a Troupemaster: they'll have ease to kill in CC stuff with their easier-wounding embraces and they can manage large stuff with fusions.
I still think the TM is worth his points in most cases (those where you're wounding on 5+), because with improving the effectiveness of the Troupe he also adds 5A as well, with a weapon of your choice. So you're basically adding 25% from his 5 attacks (a little more since he hits on 2+) plus the percentage chosen from the calculation above, for a total of 37,5-49% efficiency for about +50% in points. I personally run only one TM with Kiss+Fusion - and two Shadowseers as other HQs - because he has potential on his own and he's not there to re-roll 1s to Wound only.

Cheers

I agree that the TM is worth his points, as far as HQ buffs go his is one of the strongest, much better than that re-roll 1s to hit most HQs have. My issue is that with limited points I think more fusion would be better than the troupe master.

My current list is

Shadow seer
Troupemaster with embrace and fusion
Yvraine

solitaire

2x5 troupes with embrace and fusion in starweaver
2x5 troupes with caress in starweaver

scourge/shining spears/skyweavers (these are all around 130ish points and I switch them out regularly)

Anyway I think I would rather have 4 troupes of 5 players with embrace and fusion. As it is my battle plans can be really messed up if the starweavers with the fusions gets blown up before they have a chance to do their job. and 10 fusion pistols is better than the first troupe master. The more I play with fusion pistols the more I feel they are necessary. They are just so good. If I were to move up in points I could see myself putting more troupe masters in the list.

Yes, after seeing your list I think you definitely can put another 10 FP to use.
They keyword here is "limited points", if you play 1500 or 1000 (75 or 50 PL), you definitely need to optimise choices and gears.

I'd personally cut a whole troupe in order to have the remaining ones full-geared without having to cut a TM or something else, and spend the remaining points in other choices (new ones or pumping up the existing ones).
But that's just how I'd solve the issue.

Something I am going to try:

Battalion Detachment

Troupe Master: Harlequin's Caress, Prismatic Grenades, Shuriken Pistol
5x Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Embrace, Prismatic Grenades
Starweaver: 2x Shuriken Cannon

2x
Shadowseer: Hallucinogen Grenade Launcher, Miststave, Shuriken Pistol
5x Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Embrace, Prismatic Grenades
Starweaver: 2x Shuriken Cannon

6x Player: Fusion Pistol, Harlequin's Embrace, Prismatic Grenades
Starweaver: 2x Shuriken Cannon

3x Death Jester: Shrieker Cannon
Starweaver: 2x Shuriken Cannon

2x
Skyweaver: Shuriken Cannon, Star Bolas
Skyweaver: Shuriken Cannon, Zephyrglaive
Skyweaver: Shuriken Cannon, Zephyrglaive

Troupes and Death Jesters stay in Starweavers for as long as needed using Fusion Pistols to kill any high W models. Shadowseer can use Hallucinogen Grenade at near by groups.

Death Jesters can harass Characters or spam lots of shots into hordes.

Skyweavers are just for speed harassment and grabbing odd far off objectives.

I've been using 2 shadowseer and 2 troupe masters since 8th has started. Lately I find myself thinking about switching a seer to a 3rd troupe master. Don't get me wrong, the shadowseer is great, but I feel that Twilight Pathways is amazing, but Fog of dreams is just good but situational. This would also free up some points to take several more fusion pistols (I've been running 3 per unit of 5) as I find that with 3 you are almost always just shy of killing a vehicle outright.

Also, after watching a bunch of battle reports and I must admit that skyweaver jetbikes seem to come up short in most every one. I have yet to use them myself, though.

Are harlies competitive? I can't see 5 troupes being good against flyer spam, or heavy vehicles screened by hordes of chaff?

you will hit fliers on 4's with a ton of fusion pistols. It could potentially work in your favor and down them in short order if you can manage to hit. being able to zoom 16" and be within 3" of fliers is pretty strong when you have multiple copies gunning for their prized units.

I think where harlequins struggle is against hordes of infantry. I'm having a tough time seeing how I could do well against the green tide or nid swarm with the lists I've been using.

And that will be the issue with masses of fusion pistols. Hordes don't really care about it all that much.
There may be a balance that needs to be reached between having the fusion pistols to make the units nasty but not costing yourselves too many bodies in the process.

Yep, mobs and hordes are the problem with this 8th edition.
The flamer change and the fact that most of them completely ignore Morale where insteas it's been designed to be their weakness is something GW needs to address. Right now for us (and "us" I mean most armies, not only Harlequins) AM and ork mobs are almost untouchable, also because they are insanely cheap (and we aren't) for what they do.
I've been keeping 3 otherwise sub-optimal Voidweavers in the list since 3-4 matches JUST to add a little bit more of anti-infantry weapons, although when you roll a total of 5 on 3D6 shots it's the opposite of hilarious...

GW giff back flamers pls.

yeah, the fact that flamers hit an average of 3-4 models really takes the oomph right out of them. And with traditional AOE weaponry, it seems they got buffed while shooting single targets while getting hosed when firing at mobs. Actual anti infantry seems to be other cheap infantry.