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Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






NOT RUMORS/LEAKS JUST SOMETHING ONE GUY WOULD LIKE TO SEE:
Harlequin's Blade: Chainsword bonus attack. Why do we pay 1 point to give our model no stats again? Current rule is literally S user AP- D1, 1 point....what?

Harlequin's Kiss: S4, AP-3, 3 Damage, wielder may make only one attack with this weapon. 3-4 pts

Harlequin's Embrace: S+3, Ap-, 1 damage, wielder may make D3 additional attacks with this weapon on a turn in which they charged. 7-8 pts

Harlequin's Caress: S User, AP-1, 1 damage, wound rolls of 6+ cause a mortal wound in addition to normal damage. 7-8 pts


Aren73 wrote:
I like the idea, they just need some tweaking.

For example no one would take the caress over the embrace then, getting more strength on harlequins is major.

I like the kiss but with one use it's a bit limited. But if you let all attacks be that then it's brutal. How about s4, ap-2, 1dmg but on a 6 to hit it's ap-3, 3 dmg?

Represents that should the kiss hit a critical spot it's vicious.

But yeah, the troupe needs to be amazing in combat, as there aren't dedicated close combat elites in the army. Or rather the troupe is, but it's also your basic infantry.


The caress would be designed around the fact that Harlequins have an easy source of a total re-roll to wound, which makes the fish for sixes mechanic more effective against the kind of enemy you'd be hunting with the weapon at S3 where you'd usually wound on 5s or 6s.

For example, vs terminators, a current Caress deals an average of .88 wounds, a Scotsman Caress deals .8 total. However, with a reroll from a Troupe master, the current Caress deals 1.15 wounds vs 1.36 with the S!caress. versus a normal T7+ 3+ vehicle, a normal caress deals .591 wounds without a TM and .99 with, and a S!caress deals .66 without and 1.26 with.

S!Embrace deals .48 wounds to terminators, .44 wounds to vehicles without troupe master rerolls. It's solidly better against targets with lower saves, which is how it's intended to operate.

For the kiss, I would not want to see it competing with the Embrace and Caress but rather with the sword. 6 swords and 6 kisses come in the box vs 2 caresses and embraces, which to me means I'd like to see the former be basic weapons and the latter be upgrades which you pay more points for.

Remember that in the case of the one-use kiss attack, you still get your other three S3 AP- attacks on top of it. In every other iteration of the game, the Harlequin's kiss has granted one super scary attack and left the rest of your attacks the same, and in the oldest editions where weapons were not hand-dependent (you could freely take two melee weapons or two pistols, and there were models made for that) it was common to pair the Kiss with another melee weapon, which is why the Solitaire is modeled with a caress and a kiss as a nod to that. So, my goal going in was to go back to that idea, but set it up as purposefully weaker than the caress and embrace, where it would be more in the range of 3-4 points vs about 8 for the "upgrade" weapons.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in gb
Ancient Space Wolves Venerable Dreadnought





The kiss at AP-3 is weird. It’s a blunt hollow tube powered by elf-punches, not a power sword. Similarly the Caress at only -1 is off too; it’s a phase weapon, it literally ignores armour. And the Embrace is basically an ultra-short ranged deathspinner; why doesn’t it have the deathspinner rule?

Harlequin’s Kiss: S:U | AP:– | D:* | Special: Always wounds on a 2+ against non-VEHICLES. Deals Damage equal to the number rolled to-wound. Casualties inflicted by this weapon count double for Morale purposes.

Harlequin’s Embrace: S:5 | AP:– | D:1 | Special: Roll two dice to hit for each attack made with this weapon. On a roll of a 6+ to Wound the hit is inflicted with AP: -4 instead.

Harlequin’s Caress: S:U | AP:– | D:2 | Special: Add +1 to Wound rolls made for attacks with this weapon. No Armour saves may be taken against wounds inflicted by this weapon.

There you go. If only GW believed it’s 40k customers could handle more than one special rule per weapon….

"Three months? I'm going to go crazy …and I'm taking you with me!"
— Vala Mal Doran
 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 Mr_Rose wrote:
The kiss at AP-3 is weird. It’s a blunt hollow tube powered by elf-punches, not a power sword. Similarly the Caress at only -1 is off too; it’s a phase weapon, it literally ignores armour. And the Embrace is basically an ultra-short ranged deathspinner; why doesn’t it have the deathspinner rule?

Harlequin’s Kiss: S:U | AP:– | D:* | Special: Always wounds on a 2+ against non-VEHICLES. Deals Damage equal to the number rolled to-wound. Casualties inflicted by this weapon count double for Morale purposes.

Harlequin’s Embrace: S:5 | AP:– | D:1 | Special: Roll two dice to hit for each attack made with this weapon. On a roll of a 6+ to Wound the hit is inflicted with AP: -4 instead.

Harlequin’s Caress: S:U | AP:– | D:2 | Special: Add +1 to Wound rolls made for attacks with this weapon. No Armour saves may be taken against wounds inflicted by this weapon.

There you go. If only GW believed it’s 40k customers could handle more than one special rule per weapon….


I started from the previous iteration of the melee weapon rules:

Kiss: 1 bonus attack at S6 AP2, instant death if it wounds on a 6. All other melee attacks at base stats.
Embrace: D3 S6 AP- hammer of wrath attacks on the charge, otherwise base stats.
Caress: Hit rolls of a 6 cause AP2 wounds with no wound roll, other hit rolls use base stats.

The harlequin's kiss has been a single, armor penetrating attack for several editions now, but your version does seem in line with the 2nd ed version, where it would hit automatically but with no AP value, and if the save were failed, it would cause instant death. I like it, but my only problem with it is that it directly competes with the sword rather than offering a new niche, and it directly competes with and is totally inferior to the Embrace.

Your embrace would need to be *incredibly* expensive in relation to the sword and kiss to allow either of them to be a viable choice. a R!embrace deals 3.625 wounds to GEQ vs 1.48 on a kiss and .9 on a sword. 8 attacks at S5 is a lot of attacks, adding in Rend and it gets pretty bonkers. But maybe not as bonkers as

your caress deals 1.79 damage per unbuffed harlequin to a vehicle, up from .89 on the current caress, and 2.96 with a Troupe Master buff vs 1.18. it is only 133% as effective vs MEQ but is also over doubly effective against Terminators.

My only hesitation with the latter two is that I wouldn't want to see Harlequin troupes turning into the standard MSU formula of a couple really important special weapons guys you kill everyone to protect, and then the rest naked chaff bodies. you would likely see troupes becoming 3 naked troupers, 2 fusion pistol/caress troupers or something similar with the new Embraces. Both those options would likely be costed at the level of something like a thunder hammer, as an unbuffed caress trouper would be about 150% as good at killing vehicles as a thunder hammer terminator.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in gb
Ancient Space Wolves Venerable Dreadnought





Thing is, I reckon that a low-count, low durability close combat army like Harlequins needs some major surprises once in combat to actually achieve anything.
But I can see crazybonkers OP-ness going sideways with the ally rules to provide chaff and distraction… so limit them all to one attack each (but increase the hit rolls on the embrace to three like other “stomp” attacks). That way you can point them well enough to want multiples without breaking the bank.

"Three months? I'm going to go crazy …and I'm taking you with me!"
— Vala Mal Doran
 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 Mr_Rose wrote:
Thing is, I reckon that a low-count, low durability close combat army like Harlequins needs some major surprises once in combat to actually achieve anything.
But I can see crazybonkers OP-ness going sideways with the ally rules to provide chaff and distraction… so limit them all to one attack each (but increase the hit rolls on the embrace to three like other “stomp” attacks). That way you can point them well enough to want multiples without breaking the bank.


I'm not saying they're overpowered, you just didn't provide pricing. I'm just looking in perspective to other weapons and what other models pay for them, as well as what we pay for currently with our own weaponry.

we do need major tricks, but we also don't operate as much under the "bunch of crap guys+one or two guys with good gear" paradigm of most units. Ideally because our options are a model-by-model basis, we would have lower cost weapon options relatively speaking.

That's why I like your Kiss concept the best out of the three you've proposed here. It's a good twist on the basic melee weapon, worth a couple points, provides a strong, unique utility against infantry. The problem comes from the second special rule - the damage being equal to the damage roll. An unbuffed Harlequin attacking a vehicle that he only wounds on 6s with your kiss deals an average of .96 damage, and a harlequin in the Troupe Master aura deals 1.8 - because every successful wound, though there will be few of them, will be chunking 50% of the HP off a leman russ. compare that to our current best anti-vehicle option priced right now at I think 6 points, the Embrace, which deals .74 unbuffed and 1.2 buffed.

And that's why GW (or most game designers) rarely put two special rules on a weapon in a game, or if they do, they try to keep them very compatible. You'll be paying both for your ability to spook chaff units and your ability to slam a leman russ in the tailpipe when it fails a 3+ save.


"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Brutally I don't see how you make 4 weapons viable - especially if you are going to have 4 weapons, rather than say swords/kisses on everyone & only 2 embraces/caresses.

There are not 4 distinct targets in 40k. As has been painfully gone over time and time again, anything that cuts of guard (or kabals/fire warriors) will even more efficiently chop up marines. Anything which chops up a Leman Russ will be as optimal as it gets versus a Hive Tyrant and so on. You might be able to tweak things with special rules - but not with basic weapon stats.

I like the observation that in the box you can go all sword or all kisses - and, while GW won't do it, I think the best way would be to have "Sword Harlequins" become a new unit (Mimes?) with some suitable special rules to make them distinct from harlequins, who could then all be armed with kisses. You could then model a "kiss Harlequin" to get an acceptable points return in close combat versus a generic enemy (and the same for swords).

The other two options could then be special weapons that could be expensive, but very efficient for their cost.

The thing to consider for Harlequins I think is that you can take Wyches who are much the same, and can easily get 4 S4 attacks for half the points of a harlequin. Masque rules need to be revealed - but the idea its worth paying double the cost to get a 4++ versus shooting is silly. It suggests to me - and while I think wyches are better than they have possibly ever been, they are still not top tier - that base harlequins can be worth no more than 10~ points.

Maybe I am mathing it out wrong, but as I see it your caress is better in all situations than your embrace, and the kiss is pretty useless except when faced with big multi wound targets (for instance its still worse versus say 2 wound Primaris). That seems very specialised for a generic weapon. Also what it brings home is how rubbish sword harlequins are - hence the need for a very low points cost.
   
Made in gb
Ancient Space Wolves Venerable Dreadnought





the_scotsman wrote:
 Mr_Rose wrote:
Thing is, I reckon that a low-count, low durability close combat army like Harlequins needs some major surprises once in combat to actually achieve anything.
But I can see crazybonkers OP-ness going sideways with the ally rules to provide chaff and distraction… so limit them all to one attack each (but increase the hit rolls on the embrace to three like other “stomp” attacks). That way you can point them well enough to want multiples without breaking the bank.


I'm not saying they're overpowered, you just didn't provide pricing. I'm just looking in perspective to other weapons and what other models pay for them, as well as what we pay for currently with our own weaponry.

My points assignment philosophy is this: if you have to ask, you can’t afford it; that is to say, if there’s any doubt in your head that the correct price would be too high, it will be. In other words, nail down the power and function before trying to set the price.
the_scotsman wrote:
we do need major tricks, but we also don't operate as much under the "bunch of crap guys+one or two guys with good gear" paradigm of most units. Ideally because our options are a model-by-model basis, we would have lower cost weapon options relatively speaking.

That’s why I said to limit them to 1A each; that way they can be cheap enough to take in multiples rather than costing the equivalent of another trouper each.
the_scotsman wrote:
That's why I like your Kiss concept the best out of the three you've proposed here. It's a good twist on the basic melee weapon, worth a couple points, provides a strong, unique utility against infantry. The problem comes from the second special rule - the damage being equal to the damage roll. An unbuffed Harlequin attacking a vehicle that he only wounds on 6s with your kiss deals an average of .96 damage, and a harlequin in the Troupe Master aura deals 1.8 - because every successful wound, though there will be few of them, will be chunking 50% of the HP off a leman russ. compare that to our current best anti-vehicle option priced right now at I think 6 points, the Embrace, which deals .74 unbuffed and 1.2 buffed.

You kinda called it with the 2nd edition comment; my harlequins hark back to when the Kiss was their only unique weapon and it was a monster if, and only if, you rolled well. Vs. Vehicles it used to be that you rolled 1d6e6 to penetrate vs. a typical AV of 15-18 for various locations on a decent tank. Then if you got through, there was a table with results between slicing up a single crewman to soupifying the entire crew, killing the tank instantly. I just went for a compressed version of that.

the_scotsman wrote:
And that's why GW (or most game designers) rarely put two special rules on a weapon in a game, or if they do, they try to keep them very compatible. You'll be paying both for your ability to spook chaff units and your ability to slam a leman russ in the tailpipe when it fails a 3+ save.

What you do then is figure out how much each ability would cost on its own then price it as 60% the combined cost. Opposed abilities are ones you don’t use when you are using the other so they are effectively half abilities. Then you add a bit for the extra flexibility.
Even though I know GW would normally price it as if you had both all the time as then add extra for “flexibility”, they are wrong. That sort of thing is best for synergistic abilities.

"Three months? I'm going to go crazy …and I'm taking you with me!"
— Vala Mal Doran
 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






Tyel wrote:
Brutally I don't see how you make 4 weapons viable - especially if you are going to have 4 weapons, rather than say swords/kisses on everyone & only 2 embraces/caresses.

There are not 4 distinct targets in 40k. As has been painfully gone over time and time again, anything that cuts of guard (or kabals/fire warriors) will even more efficiently chop up marines. Anything which chops up a Leman Russ will be as optimal as it gets versus a Hive Tyrant and so on. You might be able to tweak things with special rules - but not with basic weapon stats.

I like the observation that in the box you can go all sword or all kisses - and, while GW won't do it, I think the best way would be to have "Sword Harlequins" become a new unit (Mimes?) with some suitable special rules to make them distinct from harlequins, who could then all be armed with kisses. You could then model a "kiss Harlequin" to get an acceptable points return in close combat versus a generic enemy (and the same for swords).

The other two options could then be special weapons that could be expensive, but very efficient for their cost.

The thing to consider for Harlequins I think is that you can take Wyches who are much the same, and can easily get 4 S4 attacks for half the points of a harlequin. Masque rules need to be revealed - but the idea its worth paying double the cost to get a 4++ versus shooting is silly. It suggests to me - and while I think wyches are better than they have possibly ever been, they are still not top tier - that base harlequins can be worth no more than 10~ points.

Maybe I am mathing it out wrong, but as I see it your caress is better in all situations than your embrace, and the kiss is pretty useless except when faced with big multi wound targets (for instance its still worse versus say 2 wound Primaris). That seems very specialised for a generic weapon. Also what it brings home is how rubbish sword harlequins are - hence the need for a very low points cost.


My caress does a total of 1.22 unsaved wounds vs a GEQ target, and my embrace does 2.21 on the charge. it's also nearly equivalent vs Vehicles if the caress is unbuffed and the embrace is on the charge. There may not be four distinct targets, but there are at least three in my eyes:

1) Armor-only models
2) Models with invulns (AP does not return value/returns limited value)
3) Multiwound models (multiple damage does not return limited value)

MEQ and GEQ are pretty similar now, because of the progressive AP scale. In earlier editions with all-or-nothing AP, yeah, you had to choose vastly different weapons for these targets. Now theyre both single wound armor-only models, so besides quirks in the to-wound rolls, yeah..they're going to be on the similar scale.

You can make more weapon options viable by adding additional dimensions, which is the goal of the conditional on the Embrace (strength scales with "are you charging") and the caress (are you in a Troupe Master aura?).

My kiss is actually better than the caress unbuffed or the embrace on the charge against any standard vehicle target. it's worse than the caress but better than the Embrace vs TEQ or as you said Primaris marines, but not by a whole lot - which is good, because it's intended to be cheaper than either than them. it's designed to be a spike in power vs armored targets as compared to the sword, which is primarily what you're paying a couple points more for, but weaker against elites than the caress and against infantry than the embrace, which is the reason to take the latter two. Sword is actually completely identical to Kiss against GEQ (out to the fifth decimal ) and the kiss provides an extra .2 damage against MEQ as compared to the sword.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




You are right - I was missing the extra 2 attacks (on average) for charging with the embrace. It does make the embrace better vs GEQ and similar.

Still not convinced an embrace Harlequin would be worth more than 18~ points - so the model kind of need a core points reduction I think. I guess I'd like kisses to be more exciting than a one-swing, low strength thunder hammer hit.

One thing is that that most multi-wound targets with an invul tend to have solid toughness/armour save/multiple wounds as well. There is some interesting interplay with certain units, for example Ravagers vs Predators, and basic Harlequins are an obvious exception - but barring an excellent codex I don't expect them to be defining the meta.

Hopefully we shall see what GW do next week.

To cut a story short I have a troupe on my desk and I am trying to work out how to model them. I kind of want to go kisses - but I also don't want that to be a fairly terrible take as I feel it currently is.
   
 
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