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8th had base melee weapon in the first 8pg core rules.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
8th had base melee weapon in the first 8pg core rules.

Please re-read my post, then read the original printed rules, then read the errata.

I will say Harlequin Blades should be chainswords though.

Yes it should be a Chainsword. I've sent them (40kfaq) email about it a couple times. But it doesn't matter at this point they won't change it sadly.

Just another thing to show no Xeno love.

That would just make the weapons even more over-costed - or, even worse, they'd drop the attacks down 1 and then add it back via the chainsword. It's pretty clear they didn't want 11 point troop models to have 5 attacks base.

It's weird and inconsistent, but it's better to have that extra attack on the base profile than on the weapon, so I'm happy it's done that way.

It comes down to when 8th first came out, Melee was consider "strong" they took away almost all melee buffs, +1atk from 2 CCW, +1atk for charge, fighting first every combat, and many others.

Troupes when 8th first came out was dedicated melee units just completely outright destroyed anything not dedicated melee. So giving Marines (1 attack) a weapon to give them +1atk was fine, doing so for quins would have been seen scary for hordes (which was what people played till codex's came out).

So i understand why. I just don't like having a worthless weapon. Even nids gets re-roll 1's for a basic weapon. That would have been fine for us too.

They're A3 base anyway aren't they?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
They're A3 base anyway aren't they?

Who are they? Troupes? No they are 4, Space Marines are 1, Primaris are 2, Genestealers are 3 (but they have 2 weapons for free and free Power swords every 4 models).

1W 4A is an extremely rare profile - troupes are the only thing with it in the game AFAIK. So I think it's pretty clear the +1 attack from a chainsword/whatever was built into the base profile, which makes it a better because you don't give it up when upgrading to a better weapon.

The amount of base attacks a troupe gets is not one of their problems.

Never heard a Harlequins player complain about Harlequins Blade when it is 0 points. It's just a default weapon, well except now a TM can upgrade one to the fancy new relic.

 bullyboy wrote:
Never heard a Harlequins player complain about Harlequins Blade when it is 0 points. It's just a default weapon, well except now a TM can upgrade one to the fancy new relic.

B.c many other units with 3 attacks 0ap weapon gets re-rolls. We have 0 re-rolls to hit, even in melee. We also have 0 ways to get +to hit. We are one of the only armies in the game with lack of re-rolls. We get 1 re-roll wound for melee, thats it.

It should Re-roll wounds of 1 at the very least.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
Never heard a Harlequins player complain about Harlequins Blade when it is 0 points. It's just a default weapon, well except now a TM can upgrade one to the fancy new relic.

B.c many other units with 3 attacks 0ap weapon gets re-rolls. We have 0 re-rolls to hit, even in melee. We also have 0 ways to get +to hit. We are one of the only armies in the game with lack of re-rolls. We get 1 re-roll wound for melee, thats it.

yeah, the lack of rerolls to hit is weird

The reroll to wound is much better for the S3-5 profile though

It's not that great, but you can get to hit rerolls via the great harlequin stratagem... 2CP to give one TM an aura to reroll hit rolls of 1 to units within 6"

Adding rerolls to a SUser 0ap weapon isn't really going to do anything.

The lack of hit rerolls on quins is an issue but the solution isn't to put it on a weapon that doesn't kill anything but trash anyway.

The basic problem is there aren't enough HQ units in the list - just like there aren't enough units period. The two existing HQ units already have excellent auras, and with only two, there's just not any room for a hit reroll aura. Great Harlequin is a bit of a joke at 2CP, but there's no obvious solution without a lieutenant-level HQ choice.

The biggest missed opportunity in the codex IMO is a chaplain-like character with "lines" or "songs" or "plays" he can recite that give chaplain-style buffs. It fits the fluff perfectly and fills one of the big gaps in the roster. And it would be a natural place to put a 6" reroll hit aura, just like it is in the SM roster. Call him a Shadowsinger or something like that. You could even use pivotal roles for the extra songs, with the base song being a reroll hits aura, which you could swap out for 3 other choices or it plus one of the others for the extra CP.

Or at least a Psychic power that could be cast on a unit to reroll 1s to hit.
Great Harlequin is awful for the fact that it's 2CP, only rerolls 1s, and only in the Fight Phase. That's bonkers awful.

Yes, I have no idea why it is 2cp not 1. I can see why they didn't want to give full hit and wound rerolls on a single model - that was a disaster on Guilliman - but it doesn't make any sense to charge 2cp for something so anemic.

Since Death Jester's are our "shooty" characters, I wished one of the non-Humbling Cruelty Pivotal Roles had been some kind of re-roll to hit aura.

So what are people's best picks for relics? I'm considering splurging on 3 but spoilt for choice now.

I'm thinking the solitaire still needs the rose, and then 2 from;

Cegorachs lament
Suit of hidden knives
Twilight fang
Shadowstone
Domino shroud

Probably leaning towards the lament and the fang atm.

I'm not very experienced in the game but I feel that harlequins have the tools they need to kill quite a lot.

If frozen stars and within the TM aura, a troupe of 12 players or a unit of 6 skyweavers with zephyrglaives hit very hard... they'll force 30 and 12 saves at dmg 1 and -2 dmg 2 respectively assuming they wound on 4+. If necessary, the damage of their melee weapons can be increased by one via stratagem.

Add the possibility of fighting twice, giving the players S5 weapons, increasing their save to 3++, giving them +1 to wound, hitting & running without retaliation with the curtain falls, charging without being overwatched thanks to the new DJ ability... not to mention flip belts and rising crescendo

I feel that 12-player frozen stars troupes could deal with meta units such as possessed bomb, GK paladins, IH infantry near Feirros and with 5+++, etc

 bullyboy wrote:
Never heard a Harlequins player complain about Harlequins Blade when it is 0 points. It's just a default weapon, well except now a TM can upgrade one to the fancy new relic.

Its useful if you think about ablative wounds in a Troupe.

So I was thinking about what meta lists we've improved against and which ones we're still going to struggle with.

I think we've improved against a lot of gunline/shooty lists to include Tau, Shooty Orks, Guard, Ad Mech, IK, and non-flying vehicle SM gunlines:

I think mon-Quins will still have a hard matchup against things like 5++/5+++ Intercessor spam, Paladin bombs, new Dark Angels, multiple Sanginuary Guard bombs, and Implusor spam, which can just sit in the middle of the board being hard to remove due to lots of wounds, have good invlunerable saves with the otpion to get FNP with certain buffs, have very accurate high volume of strengh 4/5 shooting, can hit hard in combat, and can win the war of attrition better due to having a lot more bodies.

I think allying in CWE or DE helps deal with some of the problems these builds can present, however.

Of course this is all just theory at this point. It could turn out that things such as new Tau Farsight Enclave and upcoming Admech, IK, etc., will drive some of these builds out of the meta which would be ultimately be a net win for us.

Nobody should struggle with Dark and Blood Angels

I'm in a bit of a dichotomy at the moment as my current quins are mostly Soaring Spite based, and with the recent points drops....not even close to a full force. I have 3 boats filled with 3 fusion/caress, kiss, embrace. 6 skyweavers, 1 voidweaver (lol), and characters. I have 2x5 troupe and 2 boats still on sprues.
However, I'm seeing the usefulness of large foot units (which many people said could never work), but Soaring Spite for them is pointless. Frozen Stars is obvious, although Midnight Sorrow for movement shenanigans and trapping seems like a good deal too. Downside to mixed Masques is the auras though, meaning I have to double up on each character (no big deal really). Either that, or I just bottle up and stick with one masque and try out the various ones until I find the one that I like the playstyle.

As for previous comments on relics, I'm currently leaning toward Lament, fang and Domino Shroud on Solitaire to try out the new ones, but don't completely want to give up on the Rose (so good) and Starmist (in case you lose the Jester).

The Rose stays at the top of the relics list IMO not because it's the best in the abstract, but because without it a Solitaire struggles to actually do anything in combat. If I was going to seriously plan around not taking the Rose for most matches, I would probably just drop the Solitaire from my list entirely, because at that point the only thing he's really good for is scaring people who don't realize how gimp he actually is without the relic.

The Stone is the other relic that stands out as almost always being super useful and that will probably see play in most games. A 9" bubble is more than double the size of a 6" bubble, and the extra range on every psychic power is also extremely useful on basically all the powers you regularly take, and even makes mirror of minds arguably useful in some match-ups, since it becomes 27" range and therefore becomes one of the only psychic powers in the game that can do mortal wounds to another psyker outside that psyker's deny range.

Starmist I am still going to be taking in some comps, but probably less than half the time now that a DJ can also mitigate overwatch.

Domino Shroud seems extremely cool and I would definitely like to mess around with it if quins had unlimited 1CP relics, but it feels a big ask to give up the more powerful relics for something that is more nifty than anything else. Someone will probably come up with some great combo for it.

The Lament, and Fang fall into the same category as Curtainfall IMO - very good, but not good enough to displace the others, so unlikely to see a lot of play unless you're facing a match-up where one of your standard relics is wasted (e.g. the Rose against a pure knights list). They'd see play if we could take relics for 1CP, but I don't think paying 2CP is worth it most of the time.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Nobody should struggle with Dark and Blood Angels

Post-PA, Dark Angels can run a mass of -1 to hit, 4++/5++FNP Intercessors and Aggressors kicking out upwards of 200 AP-1 bolter shots from Turns 2-3 on with full re-rolls to hit. Additionally, they can deepstrike 10 Deathwing Knights with TH/SS six inches away that can deliver 55 TH attacks that hit on 2's and re-roll 1's with the right character support. And this squad can be Transhumaned with an additional -1 to wound AND still have a 5+++ FNP. And iin a 2000 point list a player could bring 2 of these and still have plenty of room for the shooty stuff.

Transhuman and -1 to wound doesn't stack.

Dark Angels are definitely better now than people give credit for, though. And Warded deserves a mention too as it is pretty clearly the best warlord trait in the whole game by some distance.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Transhuman and -1 to wound doesn't stack.

Dark Angels are definitely better now than people give credit for, though. And Warded deserves a mention too as it is pretty clearly the best warlord trait in the whole game by some distance.

Ah, thanks for clarifying.

Is Warded their auto-deny one psychic power once per game?

I got the name wrong, it's Watched. But yes, unlimited range once a game automatic deny. The only limitation is you can't use it on a power that's been cast with that strat that doesn't allow it to be denied, but otherwise it just works, period.

They also have that bonkers psychic power that gives rerolls of all hits *and* wounds in melee on a unit.

There's a couple things like that in Dark Angels that would probably not be ok in any other book but that they got away with because the codex was so weak overall.

Yeah, that's insanely good. I think once quarantine is over and people start playing again, Dark Angels are going to catch a lot of people by surprise. Particularly in ITC missions where controlling the mid-board is so critical.