It's always very enjoyable to read the continuing exploits of your Harlequins. They are the ultimate glass cannon in my opinion. It's great to see an old school style army competing in this era dominated by heavy armour, flying things, and other large models.
Those things do a good job in hurting me lol. I have no way to deal with fliers, except by snap firing shurkien cannons at them ha ha.
I played another game with my friend last night. We are both practicing our Adepticon Armies.
1850pts
In case I never posted it yet, this is the list I've been running.
Ceogorachs Revenge Formation
3 Death Jesters
3 Shadowseers, All Master Level 2, one with the Mask of Secrets. (Mask is a great relic!)
2 units of skyweaver Bikes, 3 models, 2 haywire cannons, 2 zeypherblades, 1 Shurkien Cannon, 1 star bolas
1 unit of Void Weavers, 2 vehicles with haywire cannons
Solitare
Troupe w/ 9 models. 1 caress, 5 kisses, troupe master with Kiss, starweaver
Troupe w/ 9 models. 1 caress, 5 kisses, troupe master with Caress and Starmist Raiment, Warlord, starweaver (starmist is good, with the formation I basically always have a 3++ save re-rolling 1's. Makes the model very durable.
Troupe w/ 6 models. 2 caress, 3 kisses, troupe master with Caress, starweaver (deploys inside)
Basically, I normally stick a death jester and the solitare in the empty starweavers and the other two death jesters either hold back and hold objectives, or advance with the army. Shadowseers go into the 9 man troupes. Mask shadowseer and normal shadowseer go into warlord unit to give it fearless. Mask Shadowseer often rolls on Sanctic (all powers are nice, except for purge soul). Other two shadowseers are rolling on Harlequin powers to give my squads viel, and I hope to get Dance of Shadows, or Fog of Dreams if I'm lucky. Fog of Dreams is clutch if I roll it.
My opponent was running an Astra Militarium CAD
Pask in Punisher w/ Executioner russ
Company command squad
Priest
Infantry platoon with a couple of sqauads (2-3 I don't know), lascannon heavy weapon squad and platoon command squad
Two vet squads in Chimera's with meltaguns
Vendetta
Hellhammer Super Heavy
He rolled on Tactical for his warlord trait and got the +1 to seize and Re-roll reserves and I got +4 to seize (lol).
Mission was the Adepticon Primer mission 'Meat Grinder'. Two objectives in the middle which you gain 2pts at the top of your player turn if you control those objectives (each turn), and one objective in each corner for end of game objective grabbing. Your objectives were worth 4vp's each and your opponents are 8pts each. Deployment is hammer and Anvil.
I won lost the roll to go first, but my opponent gave me the first turn, as I could automatically seize the Initiative (+4 due to my warlord trait from the Light Table and +1 as he had a super heavy). So, as I was going first anyway, he wanted to deploy second.
He had a +1 to seize, so I deployed a bit cautiously. There was a fair amount of ruin cover and LoS blocking, so I took advantage of that. Voidweavers on my right with the bikes, starweavers on the left and the troupes in the middle. Two Death Jesters hide behind terrain to control my home objectives.
He deployed his infantry in the middle, chimeras on my right, Pask on my left and the hellhammer in the middle.
Powers I rolled were
Viel
Laugh of Sorrows
Shards of Light
Viel
Mind of Mirrors
Peil of Discord
Banishment
Sanctuary
Purge Soul
So, overall I was only really going to cast Viel and Sanctuary the whole game lol. Terrible powers.
We both roll for night fight and get it. He does not seize (thanks Ceogorach!)
Turn 1
I boost up most of my starweavers. I get two in between buildings in the table center, controlling the left meat grinder objective, while I had a starweaver squad to the same on the right. Voidweavers and one of the bike squads took out one of the chimeras with haywire and pinned the vet squad.
Otherwise, I am just getting models into position.
His turn, he creeps his tanks and infantry up a bit. Hilariously, his shooting is pretty bad. I was rocking 3+ jink's with stealth, so against the one skyweaver squad and two starweavers he shot (his whole army at) he managed to kill one bike and put a hull point on one of the starweavers. Pretty good turn!
Turn 1
Harlequins 1pt (first blood) Guard 0pts
Turn 2
I gain 4pts, for controlling both middle objectives. Solitare and the 6man troupe disembark and prepaire to charge the blob squad (which is fearless, so unless I kill them all, I stay in combat with them). Voidweavers and skyweavers kill the other Chimera (he was in ruins, so I needed to finish off the last hullpoint by charging my 2 man unit of bikes in. Solitare and troupe charge the infantry squad, kills all but the priest and maybe two guys. However, the solitare is too far away to make it back into combat, so is stuck in the open next to pask. Uh oh.
This last picture, is the cowering solitare lol.
My opponent sees his vendetta come in. Pask vaporises the solitare (16 wounds I needed to save against...ouch..) He also manages to wreck both the solitare and troupes's starweavers. The vets and other shooting finished off the two man squad of bikes.
Hellhammer fires it's big gun at the other bike squad, killing one and a few troupers as well. Otherwise, minimal damage.
The priest and the rest of the infantry squads suffer horrible (and humiliating) deaths in revenge of the solitare.
End of turn
Harlequins 5pts... Guard 0
Turn 3
Well, basically, I am in a tough sitation here. The hellhammer is right in the middle of the table and is in a good range to start messing me up. I could charge it with almost everything and might be able to kill it. If I do, I gain 3 more points, which would be nice. So, I say beslubber it, I might as well go for it.
My last bike squad hides next to an objective, while the deathjesters ride goes onto the other one. Voidweavers skirt up the right side to try and get some damage on the thing. Shooting sees two hull points removed from the hellhammer from the voidweavers and the charge of my two 9 man troupes sees the other 7 hull points taken off almost exculsivly from the caress attacks. The tank's explosion reaches only of my troupers, who take S5 hits. However, the tank is removed and leaves my two squads bunched up in front of the guard gun line..uh oh. The 6 man troupe charges pask and the other tank, but all my luck is syphoned into the hellhammer combat and the troupers totally wiff. I do only one hullpoint to the executioner.
Unsurprisingly, my opponents shooting phase sees all three troupes eliminated except for the shadowseer with laugh of sorrows and two troupers from his squad. I loose all the rest of the three troupes. Ouch. The Vendetta also snipes one of my death jesters with it's lascannons.
Harlequins 8pts Guard 1 (warlord)
Turn 4
I gain 2 VP's for controlling one middle objective.
So, the Shadowseer and his two bud's go to assault one vet squad. Bikes and the deathjesters starweaver aim for his warlord (company command squad). Voidweavers keep skirting up the right flank (try to claim his one objective). Voidweavers kill almost all of one of the vet squads with their haywire and shurken cannons. My opponents squad goes to ground for a 4+ cover and fails nearly all of his saves (ouch). Shadoweer and chums charge the other vet squad and have no trouble killing them all. They consolidate out of line of sight behind some window frames ha ha. His company command squad get mowed down pretty well.
The executioner tries to drive into a ruin, but crashes and immobilises it's self. Lascannons fire at the voidweavers ignoring cover, but the voidweavers shrug off the shots with little trouble (double 5's!) Executioner finishes off the bikes. Pask moves up onto one middle objective.
Vendetta moves to threaten the second deathjester in my back lines.
Harlequins 11vps Guard 1
Turn 5
Voidweavers move onto one of my opponents objectives, shadowseer and his friend stay where they are, and the third death jester in his starweaver chase the vendetta (worse case claim one of my two back objectives if the game continues). Shadoweer casts laugh of sorrows on the lascannon squad. They pass their Leadship test when they needed to, but when it came to 'suffer wounds by how much you pass by' he rolled double 1's, so five wounds suffered outright. Voidweavers finish off the last of the vet's. Starweaver and Deathjester shoot at the Vendetta, but do nothing.
My opponent gets 2 vps for controlling a middle objective, but otherwise is so far behind he calls the game. I would not be stopped in gaining 8 more Vp's for controlling his backfield objective, while his vendetta couldn't stop me from controlling both of my back field objectives.
Points at the end of turn 5
Harlequins 11 + 8 for his backfield + 1 for linebreaker
Guard 1 +1 for linebreaker + 4 for controlling one home objective
20 to 6
What really helped me this game was the cumulative objectives and getting his hellhammer killed. His army shot me to death (I ended the game with my voidweavers, two death jesters, one starweaver, one shadowseer and one trouoper) He had left one lascannon team, platoon command squad, vendetta, Pask and the immobile Executioner.
I was able to keep him back, as if he got too close, he would loose something, but I think he should have been far more aggressive in taking the middle. The assault against the Hellhammer was a huge gamble, but that thing would start wrecking me if it was able to survive. If the game was kill points, I would be in deep trouble. One of the missions for Adepticon has objectives, but also kill points are 2vps' each. That is a mission I'll have a lot of trouble with (my friend and I played that mission and the score was much the same at the end, but reversed).
I'm as happy with my list as I think I'll be able to. I would love to fit some more harlequins caresses into it, but it's hard to find the points as they are an odd number (not a multiple of 5). Voidweavers were the MVP's. They shrugged off a lot of shooting and made their impact felt each turn. I was rather surprised, they are kinda terrible.
That was quite wordy, and I'll hopefully get in another game or two next week.