Topic: Harlequins VS Iron Hands (1500)

[Wyldhunt]

Hey, everyone! Just thought I’d share how my first game using the new harlequin codex went. 
My list:
Masque Detachment

Dark Troupers X 5: 2 fusion pistols and 2 kisses; Troupe Master has haywires and a power sword
Light Troupers X 5: Equipped as per the dark squad, but with their own dedicated Starweaver.
Twilight Troupers X 10: 4 embraces, 1 kiss, 2 caresses, 1 fusion pistol, 1 neuro disruptor; TM with haywires and a kiss.
Skyweavers X 3: 3 glaives and 3 haywire cannons
A Fast Attack Star Weaver for the dark troupe to ride in and to satisfy the masque’s two FA requirement.
1 Void Weaver with haywire cannon
Solitaire with haywires and Cegorach’s Rose
Shadowseer: ML2, Haywires, Neurodisruptor
2 Shadowseers with ML1 and haywires
2 Death Jesters with haywires

I didn’t realize until after the game started that I should have split off some of those characters to be part of the Heroe’s Path. Ah well. Live and learn.

His list from memory:
Librarian
Centurians
Tons of iron priests plus a Master of the Forge
3 razorbacks filled with tacs
2 thunderfire cannons
1 rhino with 10 tacs

We played the scouring with hammer and anvil deployment. For my warlord trait, I rolled on the Twilight table (for the twilight squad leader of course) and ended up with the Laughing God’s Luck. Meh.

DEPLOYMENT
I deployed first and positioned my stuff aggressively with my vehicles slightly behind my skyweavers and infantry.  A death jester hopped inside either transport, the lead shadowseer and one of his underlings joined the twilight squad while the other underling hugged the board edge of my left flank so that he could hide behind the building and grab one of my objectives late game. My opponent set his thunderfires up In cover, and lined up his transports to shoot or advance. Thinking that the Solitaire had infiltrate even when not in the Hero’s Path formation, I deployed him behind a gas tank near my opponent’s board edge. Oops. Double oops as he then proceeded to seize the initiative.

TURN 1
He unloads the ten man squad of marines from the rhino. With the aid of their rhino’s trusty storm bolter, they just manage to kill the Solitaire for first blood. Aww. His thunderfires kill one skyweaver and wound another, but I’m otherwise unscathed.
Everything pretty much just zips forward.  Thanks to the deployment type, I’ve got a lot of ground to cover. My ML 1 shadowseer breaks off of Twilight squad to hold the 3 point objective on the right flank of my deployment zone. Between the void weaver and the skyweavers, I manage to wreck one of his razorbacks, but a skyweaver foolishly (badum tish!) manages to take off his last wing when I assault move him into some nearby ruins. 

TURN 2
Having finished reducing my solitaire to Swiss cheese, the 10 man squad hops back in their rhino and advances.  The rest of his stuff advances too save the thunderfires as he realizes that all the good objectives are in the middle of the table or on my side.  At least he’ll be forced to come to me this game!  He shoots down one of my clown cars, though it holds out for an admirable amount of time thanks to its mirage launchers.
My last sky weaver gets shot up, and I take minor casualties and hull point damage here and there. I’m still not feeling too beaten up at this point. Oh, and his librarian gets a migraine casting some powers.
Springing nimbly from the wreckage of their clown car, my light squad sprints towards the nearby centurions, hoping to silence their hurricane weapons. The death jester breaks off and chuckles as he begins lobbing haywires at the nearby razorback. With impressive accuracy, he manages to stun it! He then proceeds to take off a second hull point in assault. The lightsquad, meanwhile, fails to impress in melee, though they do manage to wound a centurion. 
My right flank (the Twilight and Dark squads) keep moving forward. The dark star weaver fires a few shots at a razorback which easily shakes them off thanks to the Blessings of the Omnissiah boosting the cover it’s in.

TURN 3
This turn started to hurt.  Thunderfires kill off my voidweaver and reduce the Twilight squad to three bodies with the help of a couple tac squads.  Light squad’s death jester holds out against a salvo of tac marine shooting long enough to shove one last haywire into a razorback’s tailpipe. 
He bludgeons light squad in the assault phase, just barely managing to kill them all thanks to prescience. Drat! At least they make up for the previous turn’s lackluster performance by killing the librarian and all but one centurion.
At least I swing back a bit. Dark squad starts messing up guys in close combat while their DJ starts bullying a rhino.  I shoot the tac squad my twilight clowns were going to assault a little too well, and they fall back behind line of sight. :\


TURN 4
My light squad DJ gets gunned down, and thunderfires shake my dark squad’s (now empty) star weaver. Dark squad retaliates by *just* managing to finish off the marines they’re engaged with. He also tried to ram my starweaver with a razorback to no effect.
The survivors of Twilight squad leap nimbly into the ruins hiding his run away tac marines and one of his thunderfire cannons. However, the shadowseer’s Laugh of Sorrows trudges up some hard memories for the thunderfire operator thus removing him from the game.  So Twilight reverses direction by running (or backflipping) down a level of ruins and proceeds to tagteam the razorback that rammed my starweaver.  A pair of haywire grenades and some embraces just manage to finish the vehicle off.
The aforementioned starweaver flies up and backwards to take the 4 point objective in the middle of my right flank. 
Dark squad avenges light squad’s death jester by chopping up the tac squad that shot them.

TURN 5
My left flank shadow seer finally comes into range of  the 10 man tac squad. The tac squad’s rhino starts hoofing it towards my star weaver.  As we could not find a rule preventing it from doing so, the rhino moved up a level to steal objective 4 from my (Fast Attack) star weaver with objective secured. Twilight squad finally bites the dust, having used their shadow seer’s psychic powers in the previous turn to kill the thunderfire rather than cast defensive spells.  I think this is the point at which he guns down dark squad too.

With only a star weaver and a shadow seer left on the table, I throw veil of tears on the weaver which tries furiously to shoot up the rhino.

TURN 6
Not much happens. I fail to finish off his rhino, and he moves stuff around to claim all but the 3 point objective my surviving shadowseer is standing on. The game ends. He has 14 points including slay the warlord, first blood, and linebreaker to my 3 points.

“Perfect!” cried the Dusk Walker. “If you’re trying to perform the Waltz of the Greenskins.  I remind you, however, that we are rehearsing the Eclipse of Eldaneesh. Dark squad, you’re supposed to engage with the heavily armored mon-keigh and their pretender to Vaul.  Twilight!  You’re supposed to vanish and reappear with me near the human’s cannon. Now let’s take it again from the top…”

 THOUGHTS
It was a big loss but a fun game.  The deployment made it really hard to bring my Twilight squad to bear, though my defensive powers helped keep them alive until turn 2 when my psychic phase just sort of fizzled.  I was hoping to roll the warlord trait that would let them move 24”, but it just didn’t happen. I’m contemplating having one or both of the ML 1 shadowseers fish for Gate of Inifnity. Even if they don’t get it, some of the other Sanctic powers could still be really useful to the squad.
The skyweavers died fast, but they were great while they lasted. I think haywire cannons are really the way to go with them.  Their zephyrglaives would have made a big difference had they survived an extra turn to use them. 

The voidweaver was fine but a bit hard to keep alive.  I think the way to use them is to engage with them turn 1 or 2, do what damage you can, use mirage launchers as soon as they got shot at (unless nightfighting is in effect maybe), and then keep pummeling the enemy until they get shot down.  Maybe Faolochu’s Blade will change my opinion of them, but they just don’t seem survivable enough to pull off much real finesse.  They’re not bad! It’s just that skyweavers put out more shots for the points and seem more flexible.

The shadowseer powers were pretty great when they worked, but two of the three times I tried to use a WC2 power failed. Mostly just bad luck there, but I think it might be helpful to emphasize the inclusion of more seers over more jesters at higher points.

The death jesters did fine.  They made some marines run away, which was hilarious if not terribly helpful. They managed to beat up vehicles a bit.  I think I like having them in the clown cars with my 5 man squads as they can break off when I disembark to add an extra haywire shot to a vehicle or soften up an enemy. Plus, they’re one more target my opponent has to think about.  For their points though, I’m wondering if more shadowseers would be more useful as they can still sling haywires but can also probably do more to soften up enemy squads with debuff powers or Laugh of Sorrows.

I’m looking forward to running a similar list again but breaking off some of the characters to be part of the Hero’s Path. 

All in all, fun game. I really look forward to using these tricky, hard-hitting glass cannons more in the future!

[Skyleap]

Thank you for the batrep. Great to see others using them in an exclusive Harlequin list.

At first I thought arming the Solitaire with a Haywire Grenade wasn't prudent, but when you threw the HG with the Death Jester I realized what good can come of the Solitaire's amazingly high BS. dropping 9" from the scatter can really maximize placements that manage to hit two units (ideally vehicles) at once. I'll need to keep that in mind for future list builds, though the impetus to Run and Charge would negate that particular benefit. Still, good to have in the arsenal should the occasion arise.

Any particular reason you chose to run your other two SSs as ML1 instead of ML2? The extra levels really expand the repertoire of your magic phase and give you critical dice to your Warp Pool that might minimize the chance of having poor Psychic Phases.

Were you able to fire your SS's Neuro-disruptor at all? If the unit kept running and charging, you can save those points and reinvest elsewhere.

Did the Skyweaver that ran afoul of the ruin during Assault move already have a wound on it, or was that the first wound it suffered before dying to fire the following opponent's turn? Not clear how that went down.

A shame you didn't get to experience the full power of the Solitaire. I'm torn whether to DS it every game and place it in a safe location to avoid exposure to mass fire, or to field it safely on Turn 1, advance it 12" + d6" to a safe point and get into assault on Turn 2, which it most assuredly can accomplish against most any army setup. I think I'll give fielding him Turn 1 a try next game and see how it goes.

I'm a strong proponent of fielding at least two Voidweavers in a squadron, if not three. You'll be amazed how distracting they are, especially when they turbo-boost into a threatening position that both obscures LoS and jeopardizes any unit they might have on their side of the board. Might be worthwhile to give it a shot.

Did you find it worthwhile putting the DJs in the transports with the Dark and Light Troupes? Spreading those eggs among multiple baskets seems like a worthwhile approach for me to try next time.

Aside from creating a Heroes' Path, what else do you intend to mix up with your next list?

[Wyldhunt]

Thanks for the reply, Skyleap!  You've asked a lot of questions, and I'll try to answer them all.

I didn't go ML2 on two of my shadowseers purely because I was tight on points.  Having lots of haywires, glaives on the skyweavers, and a pair of death jesters for the sake of trying them out sort of took precedence over the extra mastery levels.  Going forward, I'll definitely consider upping the mastery levels (especially if I'm fishing for powers on sanctic as there's really only one power on that table I generally won't want to get), but having a few spare bodies that can be guaranteed access to veil of tears is pretty handy in its own rightt.  The sheer number of ICs harlequins can bring means that my squads can "unfurl" into a greater number of units (and haywire grenades/overwatch eaters) as necessary.

Sadly, I didn't get to fire the neuro disruptor.  My forward shadowseer spent the whole game running and lobbing haywire grenades at vehicles.  On paper, I suspect I'll wind up favoring them over fusion pistols due to their greater range, lower cost, and my history of losing harlequins to explosions. Granted, those explosions are usually my own vehicles...

I look forward to seeing my Solitaire's first succesful game.  The issue I have with deepstriking him is that it seems too easy to scatter out of cover and leave him exposed to enemy fire.  deepstrikin gives his blitz attack time to charge up, but so does outflanking him if you use the heroe's path formation.  In my head, the ideal situation if you're deploying/going first is to infiltrate him behind some innocuous LOS blocking cover, then using his natural speed (not the blitz kind; that only gives you better average results starting on turn 4)to get a turn 2 assault off against a solid target.  Putting him in an allied raider or venom is awfully tempting too though. 

Voidweavers don't seem bad, but I didn't have the points for more than one this game.  My issue with them is that they're close-ranged and have no real way of avoiding harm the following turn other than to give themselves a 4+ cover or invul save.  Which is fine, but I think I will wind up preferring skyweavers for their assault move and increased number of haywire shots per point. 

The deathjesters did fine but not great.  I get the impression that they'll shine more against non-marines where making the enemy fall back matters more and their bioexplosive shot has more utility.  In this game, I probably would have been better off with more shadow seers, but the death jesters certainly pulled their weight.  I think it's easier to push forward with shadowseers thanks to their offensive punch and defensive abilities that let you make it upfield, but death jesters could shine defensively when you're trying to kite that mob of orkz approaching you. A stealth+shrouded one as part of the hero's path also seems appealing as he can stay out of range of the worst of the small arms fire while also giving my opponent an annoying thing to worry about.

It's hard to say about my next list. It will depend on the points I end up playing at.  I'll miss having the ability to run and charge the solitaire by sticking him in a hero's path, but the extra survivability and the ability to run my shadowseer out of line of sight after using witchfires will be well worth it.  I think there are a lot of solid ways to play harlies, but they require some figuring out. I'd like to try using more bikes, but I don't have the models for them at the moment.  at some point, I want to try mixing in allies and doing webway + harlequin relic mask + armor of misery + terrorfex and harlequine lite spam.  -4 leadership to the enemies I just dropped in behind plus a ton of leadership-based wounds? Yes please!

[Calindor]

Intersting battle and great to see a pure harlequins force, even if it was a loss.

[Wyldhunt]

Intersting battle and great to see a pure harlequins force, even if it was a loss.

Thanks, and don't worry about the loss. My clowns got their revenge against some orks and grey knights that same week.

[Calindor]

That sounds great. Hope you will write more battlereports