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With access to lots of special and heavy weapons, the Death Denied card, and 2 wound models, SM have some incredibly strong builds. Some of the factions (Heretic Astartes, I’m looking at you) are laughably bad. We’ll see how it all shakes out once all of them get their box with the special cards, but I’d have to say the game, at this point, isn’t very balanced at all.

I think plague marines are looking good. Their fighters have access to a scythe thing which turns their 2 attacks into 2d3 attacks. They have FNP and they have access to cheap pox walkers which can be used to obscure the marines. Lots of weapons which let 1e be re rolled.

 vonjankmon wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
there is VERY LITTLE official GW terrain that completely blocks line of sight. .

That's pure imagination. Nearly all the terrain that comes with any Kill Team box completely blocks LoS. Look at any of the pictures in the rule book.

Umm...do you actually own that terrain? I mean the corners block LOS but for the most part the rest of the terrain is full of gaps and holes. The corners could block LOS fairly well from the correct orientation but that is about it.

I have to be honest here, you are literally the only person claiming Harlequins are "OMG Over powered!" and it makes me wonder how many games you have really played against or with them.

plenty of terrain blocks LoS from the main box. You have all of one model to hide behind something. The pillars all can block a model, not to mention you can hide an entire team behind a wall

stratigo wrote:

 vonjankmon wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
there is VERY LITTLE official GW terrain that completely blocks line of sight. .

That's pure imagination. Nearly all the terrain that comes with any Kill Team box completely blocks LoS. Look at any of the pictures in the rule book.

Umm...do you actually own that terrain? I mean the corners block LOS but for the most part the rest of the terrain is full of gaps and holes. The corners could block LOS fairly well from the correct orientation but that is about it.

I have to be honest here, you are literally the only person claiming Harlequins are "OMG Over powered!" and it makes me wonder how many games you have really played against or with them.

plenty of terrain blocks LoS from the main box. You have all of one model to hide behind something. The pillars all can block a model, not to mention you can hide an entire team behind a wall

the columns are not that big. Big enough to give some obscurity, for sure, but to block an entire model? That's a pretty tiny miniature!

Only played one game so far, but deathwatch cleaned up against my friends tau, to a degree that surprised even me. I had six guys, only lost one and managed to kill all my opponents models by the end of the game.

Are Grey knights so far down I disagree

Was surprised not to see more Astartes teams in the top 10 at Nova. Was also surprised to see how weak the Astartes lists I took a look at were though, so perhaps that explains it.

 Weboflies wrote:
Was surprised not to see more Astartes teams in the top 10 at Nova. Was also surprised to see how weak the Astartes lists I took a look at were though, so perhaps that explains it.

Oh, can you share the teams of the Top 10 ? I'm curious to see what's up in tournaments in KT.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Only played one game so far, but deathwatch cleaned up against my friends tau, to a degree that surprised even me. I had six guys, only lost one and managed to kill all my opponents models by the end of the game.

From what I've seen in our campaign, it's T'au who are wiping the floor with DW so far. Lots of variables !

 Weboflies wrote:
With access to lots of special and heavy weapons, the Death Denied card, and 2 wound models, SM have some incredibly strong builds. Some of the factions (Heretic Astartes, I’m looking at you) are laughably bad. We’ll see how it all shakes out once all of them get their box with the special cards, but I’d have to say the game, at this point, isn’t very balanced at all.

Heretic Astartes were in the Nova Open finals. The trick is to play cultist hordes with few marines, if any.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
And how do you defeat Harlequins who will never get shot at?

Apparently people can, not a single Harlequin team in top 10 at Nova

But it seems like no one played them. Maybe their weaknesses are easily exploitable.

Yeah, I've played against harlequins 4 times and as them twice and so far I'm not crazy impressed.

just recently as my Deathwatch I played against Harlequins and it was a total stomp, didn't lose a single model against them. I had a Reiver sarge with carbine and knife, a Frag cannon, a stormshield/power maul, a shotgun, and a Primaris marine with aux grenade launcher.

"you don't get shot unless you want to" is complete nonsense. Harlequins do hide out of los a lot, but they do occasionally "win" movement initiative, and then after they move, you move so you can see them. It's not always impossible, particularly playing with terrain setups out of the book which don't often feature a ton of pure LOS block.

First harlequin died to intercessor and Reiver sarge getting LOS to him and hitting him with 2+ to wound bolts and 30" range frag grenade, second died to a frag cannon getting within 12 and using the Shell profile for a 2-damage injury roll, frag cannon then got charged but used Tactical Retreat to jump back 6", blocking most of the counter-charge attempts. One harlequin jumped out at the reiver sarge to try and fusion pistol him, he whiffed the hit even with a reroll (definitely unlucky) then died to a bunch of bolt fire.

Then two clowns got in, one took a FW from the frag cannon on overwatch, then FW'd the cannon, second charged the storm shield because he was the only available target, didn't do anything to him then died to the swing back. Cannon fell back, everyone else shot that harlequin, opponent conceded with one model left having done a total of 2 flesh wounds the whole game.

its not that I think Harlequins are bad, it's just that I think it's pretty easy to beat them thru a combination of trading cheaper models for them and smart use of Retreat.

the_scotsman wrote:

"you don't get shot unless you want to" is complete nonsense. Harlequins do hide out of los a lot, but they do occasionally "win" movement initiative, and then after they move, you move so you can see them.

It's a stupid player who would move a Harlequin in any way except to charge.

If they aren't starting the game out of LoS on in assault, they've failed.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

"you don't get shot unless you want to" is complete nonsense. Harlequins do hide out of los a lot, but they do occasionally "win" movement initiative, and then after they move, you move so you can see them.

It's a stupid player who would move a Harlequin in any way except to charge.

If they aren't starting the game out of LoS on in assault, they've failed.

you're either playing on some crazy boards or you're completely fabricating the number of actual in-person games you've played if you think it is a reality that you can hide 6 models out of LOS from an entire enemy kill team.

my opponent didn't move except to charge most of the time (he had one sword/fusion harlequin who did a regular move) but still, even if your charge target is out of LOS, which is admittedly very easy to do, it's tough to be out of LOS from both him AND the intercessor with a 30" range grenade launcher sitting on top of a building in the opponents deployment zone.

Your argument doesn't square here. Your argument is essentially "i am better than the entire top 10 players at the NOVA kill team tournament, and if I had been there I would have won first place" because NONE of those guys were playing Harlequins, and apparently according to you all the people who did play harlequins must have been "stupid".

either that, or, you CAN play harlequins intelligently and you CAN make good out of LOS charges the way you describe, but you still can't magically manufacture a situation where all your models are out of LOS at all times from all members of the enemy team AND you can make charge moves with those guys to get into combat AND they all make it AND your opponent can't move such that any of their models can see you.

That is bonkers.

Don't bother, DarknessEternal probably only plays on boards who look like this:


So far every argument he made in favour of Harlequins was that if you lose with Harlequins you're stupid.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
None. Harlequins have no weakness.

You can guarantee 2 guys charge on turn 1 with Forward Sentries (there's no way to counter this as Harlequins will use the move to get out of LoS and then just charge though whatever is breaking LoS), and a third with 1 CP on a Veteran.

Your other 3 guys will also have consequence free charges, as they'll just attempt to charge from out of LoS so there's no Overwatch penalty.

After that, you are in combat the entire rest of the game and will never be shot.

Every shooting or balanced Kill Team automatically loses to Harlequins.

Only all melee Kill Teams even have a chance, and they have to actually be better than Harlequins at it, so maybe Tyranid Warriors or something. And they'll still probably lose. And of course, they aren't nearly as good at beating any shooting Kill Team they run up against.

Maybe it's too early to say, but Harlequins break the game.

Their only weakness is the intelligence of their players it seems, otherwise they break the game with the flesh wound they can inflict with 4 attacks to be then killed because their target fell back.

the_scotsman wrote:
Your argument is essentially "i am better than the entire top 10 players at the NOVA kill team tournament, and if I had been there I would have won first place" because NONE of those guys were playing Harlequins, and apparently according to you all the people who did play harlequins must have been "stupid".

If you had seen the games I had, you too would be flabergasted no one else knows how Harlequins actually can play.

It's trivial for them to never be shot at. Even the worst player I know is capable of doing this in 100% of games with Harlequins. If this is not your experience, fine, but to claim it's not possible is just incorrect. It happens every single game.

It's so easy that I can't even comprehend how the rest of you are playing that you don't see this.

It's like you're trying to tell me that Guard can't generate a dozen command points in 40k.

If you never see this happen, good. I'm glad you never have to experience something so degenerate. But it exists.

Daetya wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
And how do you defeat Harlequins who will never get shot at?

Apparently people can, not a single Harlequin team in top 10 at Nova

But it seems like no one played them. Maybe their weaknesses are easily exploitable.

I actually played them at nova. I went 3-0 in my pod and won it. Unfortunately due to the timing of he Sunday morning pod I couldn’t play in the finals against the other winners. According to the event organizers I was the only one who played them all weekend.

I played against genestealer cult, t’au, and death watch.

I'm assuming he wasn't able to stay out of LOS for 100% of the game?

 DarknessEternal wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Your argument is essentially "i am better than the entire top 10 players at the NOVA kill team tournament, and if I had been there I would have won first place" because NONE of those guys were playing Harlequins, and apparently according to you all the people who did play harlequins must have been "stupid".

If you had seen the games I had, you too would be flabergasted no one else knows how Harlequins actually can play.

It's trivial for them to never be shot at. Even the worst player I know is capable of doing this in 100% of games with Harlequins. If this is not your experience, fine, but to claim it's not possible is just incorrect. It happens every single game.
.

I mean, once you go into CaC, dont kill the model you charged (is not that unlikely, tbh) they can just fall back and shoot you to death. There's no way to avoid it. You won't always kill the guy you charged, you know.

cav0011 wrote:

Daetya wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
And how do you defeat Harlequins who will never get shot at?

Apparently people can, not a single Harlequin team in top 10 at Nova

But it seems like no one played them. Maybe their weaknesses are easily exploitable.

I actually played them at nova. I went 3-0 in my pod and won it. Unfortunately due to the timing of he Sunday morning pod I couldn’t play in the finals against the other winners. According to the event organizers I was the only one who played them all weekend.

I played against genestealer cult, t’au, and death watch.

That's great news. I think they are very good, but DarknessEternal is exaggerating it a bit. How did you play them?

 DarknessEternal wrote:
If you had seen the games I had, you too would be flabergasted no one else knows how Harlequins actually can play.

It's trivial for them to never be shot at. Even the worst player I know is capable of doing this in 100% of games with Harlequins. If this is not your experience, fine, but to claim it's not possible is just incorrect. It happens every single game.

Still waiting for pics of this. Show us how you do it. Otherwise I have very little reason to believe you and you are the only person I am seeing who is claiming this.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Your argument is essentially "i am better than the entire top 10 players at the NOVA kill team tournament, and if I had been there I would have won first place" because NONE of those guys were playing Harlequins, and apparently according to you all the people who did play harlequins must have been "stupid".

If you had seen the games I had, you too would be flabergasted no one else knows how Harlequins actually can play.

It's trivial for them to never be shot at. Even the worst player I know is capable of doing this in 100% of games with Harlequins. If this is not your experience, fine, but to claim it's not possible is just incorrect. It happens every single game.

It's so easy that I can't even comprehend how the rest of you are playing that you don't see this.

It's like you're trying to tell me that Guard can't generate a dozen command points in 40k.

If you never see this happen, good. I'm glad you never have to experience something so degenerate. But it exists.

It's because we're playing by the rules, as mentioned before. If you can see any part of the model, you have LOS. That's what the rules say. Hiding 5-6 dancing murder clowns using setups as recommended in the missions just doesn't typically work. Having enough LOS blocking terrain to completely hide that many figures from every single opposing model is hard.

Or maybe we are all bad at hiding things maybe what we need to see is your setup, to show us how it's done.

Daetya wrote:

I mean, once you go into CaC, dont kill the model you charged (is not that unlikely, tbh) they can just fall back and shoot you to death. There's no way to avoid it. You won't always kill the guy you charged, you know.

They just charge again before you can shoot.

Look, I'll stop arguing this. I can't change your mind. But I know what I see with actual evidence.

No more posts from me on this matter. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'm actually interested, lol. If you charge a model and it survives the charge, i don't get how you are going to "charge again". If you have initiative in the next turn, your harlequin(s) will be stuck in combat and the enemy can choose to fall back when it's his time to move, and then shoot your harlequins exposed. To prevent this you would need to have a out of combat harlequin ready to charge the model who survives to prevent him from falling back. I guess this is what you mean with "charge again"?

Btw, RAW, if your opponent falls back, the model from which it fell back from cannot charge, even if it activates later.

“When you pick a model to move, if that model started the Movement phase within 1" of an enemy model, it cannot make a normal move”.

I believe this was confirmed at NOVA.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

They just charge again before you can shoot.

Look, I'll stop arguing this. I can't change your mind. But I know what I see with actual evidence..

Ah, so there's the problem: you're not playing the game correctly and it's making melee impossibly overpowered.

Please see p.22, "Fall Back". Per the other poster above, if your model began the Movement phase within 1" of an enemy model, then you can only remain stationary or Fall Back.

No charging allowed.

It's a huge check and balance on melee factions and it makes the game way more interesting to play.

Try playing the rules as written and you'll see, melee and Harlies are not the be-all, end-all

That's a real interesting point!

Now - if you were in melee, the opponent fell back (leaving you to either fall back or remain stationary), could you ready? Readying is "instead of a normal move", so does "you cannot make a normal move" mean it's still an option, or that it is not allowed?

I've played Harlies quite a lot. They're indeed pretty good, but they do have weaknesses.

As mentioned above, if you don't kill the model you charged, you usually get destroyed in the following turn. So against elite armies you can try to charge each model with a couple players to increase your chances to kill, but the dice gods are flickery.
This is especially true against Primaris/DG, because you often fail to kill them, and they can kill you when they hit back (especially reivers).

When you have the initiative and charge a few models, the other player can then charge your harlies that are already in melee. Many times I successfully charged, only to have my model killed before attacking because of a counter charge.
The 2CP tactic to hit before any other model in the combat phase is also pretty annoying for the same reason.

The psychic phase is after the movement one. So against GK you'll eat a MW per turn, without cover. There aren't many psychic KTs, but GK really is a bad matchup.

Terrain setup also plays an important role. I played a few times on tables that had plenty of LOS-blocking terrain, but also had pretty big open areas. If you hide on one side, and the opponent on the other, you quickly end up with needing >10" charge rolls. With 3D6 you often make some of them, but then you take the risk of having your KT split in half. You can't gang up on tough models anymore, and your Harlies end up vastly outnumbered in melee.

fresus wrote:
I've played Harlies quite a lot. They're indeed pretty good, but they do have weaknesses.

As mentioned above, if you don't kill the model you charged, you usually get destroyed in the following turn. So against elite armies you can try to charge each model with a couple players to increase your chances to kill, but the dice gods are flickery.
This is especially true against Primaris/DG, because you often fail to kill them, and they can kill you when they hit back (especially reivers).

When you have the initiative and charge a few models, the other player can then charge your harlies that are already in melee. Many times I successfully charged, only to have my model killed before attacking because of a counter charge.
The 2CP tactic to hit before any other model in the combat phase is also pretty annoying for the same reason.

The psychic phase is after the movement one. So against GK you'll eat a MW per turn, without cover. There aren't many psychic KTs, but GK really is a bad matchup.

Terrain setup also plays an important role. I played a few times on tables that had plenty of LOS-blocking terrain, but also had pretty big open areas. If you hide on one side, and the opponent on the other, you quickly end up with needing >10" charge rolls. With 3D6 you often make some of them, but then you take the risk of having your KT split in half. You can't gang up on tough models anymore, and your Harlies end up vastly outnumbered in melee.

This is the situation I often see.

The Harlequins are largely out of line of sight, but then when they make their charges, it's a 12" or higher charge, and only 2-3 of the team ends up getting into combat and the rest have to choose between advancing up the board or staying out of los.

hvg3akaek wrote:
That's a real interesting point!

Now - if you were in melee, the opponent fell back (leaving you to either fall back or remain stationary), could you ready? Readying is "instead of a normal move", so does "you cannot make a normal move" mean it's still an option, or that it is not allowed?

It seems quite clear that Fall Back's wording means that "normal moves" are expressly not allowed, and since "Readying" is something you do in lieu of a normal move, it's not an option. The only options are remain stationary and Fall Back.

With that said, nothing prevents the model that remained stationary from having the option of shooting, so long as the other conditions for shooting are fulfilled.

That's great news. I think they are very good, but DarknessEternal is exaggerating it a bit. How did you play them?

What are the kill teams that did well in that big tournament?