Topic: Harlequins Vs Necrons 2000pts

[Lord of Winter and War]

Played a game against my buddy Fred the other day.

I brought my Harlequins (Battalion and Supreme command Detachment)

Troupe Master (x3)
Shadowseer x2
Death Jester x3
Solitare
x3 5 man troupes
x2 Skyweaver squads
x3 star weavers
x1 unit of two Void Weavers

He had a similar set up (I think)

Orikan the diviner
Cryptek
Overlord
Nightbringer
x20 warriors
x10 immortals
x10 immortals
x2 doomsday arcs
x3 heavy destroyers
x3 Wraiths
big 'ol unit of scarabs.

The mission we rolled, was the Relic!

We are playing ITC Format, so there is a roll for first turn, but the player who finished deploying first gets +1 to the roll.

So, we both had 12 drops, and I started deploying first, so I ended first. I won the roll for first turn, but was seized on (lol).

He deployed his characters in the middle, with immortals behind the warriors.

I set up the troupes and troop masters in transports, with everything else behind those.



T1

So, Necrons won the first turn. Most of the units advanced towards the objective (warriors getting there T1). His shooting was pretty brutal. The Heavy Destroyers took down two Star Weavers and brought one void weaver to 1 hull point.

Harlequins

My Turn 1 was a bit silly.

First, solitaire Blitzed, and moved 25" right next to Orikan the Diviner and the Night Bringer.

All the troupes disembarked from the star weavers and everything else basically moved forwards.

Death Jesters (as they have the sniper rule), plugged all but 3 wounds off Orikan.

My main issue, was his (to me) right flank was screened by his scarabs, so the rest of my shooting went to thing their numbers.

Harlequins have a funny rule called 'Flip Belts', which means they ignore terrain and models when moving. So, Charging was a bit of a fun game.

First, I sent in the last star weaver into the Unit of Warriors, and the Void Weavers into the unit of scarabs and a unit of immortals.

Next, is taking advantage of the multi-charge rule. A unit can charge any unit you declare against, so all my units declared charges against a far away (and hopeful target) as well as a close safe target, so that if my charge rolls were high, I could just leap over the necron warriors into the Immortals in the back. This does mean my units suffer twice as much overwatch, but the vehicles getting into combat first took most of that away.

Solitaire charged both Orikan and the Night Bringer (along with a single surviving trouper). After all was said and done, I charged pretty much everything but one unit of immortals, the vehicles and heavy destroyers. This is key, as this means that none of those units can shoot in his next turn, even if he retreats.

I took the Night Bringer to 4 wounds, killed the Scarabs, killed Orikan and took down a bunch of warriors and Immortals.



T2

Necrons

Pretty much all the Immortals and Warriors came back to life

As expected, he retreated with everything but the warriors. My last starweaver and one void weaver bit the dust, and I lost a few wounds on some characters, and my poor troupes were reduced to a handful of models. Nightbringer shoots a nasty Mortal Wound shot at the solitare and kills him off (he suffered some wounds in the previous combat).



Harlequins T2

So, my main priority was to kill his last Cryptek. One shadowseer and unit of Skyweavers divert to charge them. Otherwise, I shoot the crap out of the immortal squads.

Charging in, I managed to wipe out both Immortals and the Warrior squads (mostly due to the Morale Phase helping out), and the last cryptek and C'tan bite the dust.

At this point, I'm down to pretty much just a half dead voidweaver and my characters (and a few bikes).

T3 Necrons

Nothing to reanimate. Heavy Destroyers and Doomsday Arcs make short work of most of the bikes. Wraiths hop onto the relic.



T3 Harlequins

So, I've basically run out of good options for the doomsday arcs (unfortunately).

I kill off the Lord, Wraiths and Heavy destroyers through a variety of shooting and melee.

T4 Necrons

Doomsday Arcs start rolling in and trying to kill off my characters (I think they kill off a few troupe masters).



Harlequins 4

Well, Gotta get ride of the Doomsday Arcs, or they will quickly kill off all my remaining units. I charge a troupe master, bike and shadowseer into one Doomsday Arc, and take down a bunch of wounds.

Necrons 5

Doomsday Arc pops out of combat, keeps shooting (like a jerk), killing a shadowseer and the bike. The other doomsday Arc charged my death jesters, but thankfully doesn't do much.

Harlequins 5

I kill the wounded arc in melee, but the explosion kills off all the units that charged it. I'm left with two death jesters (lol) fighting one Doomsday Arc (and hoping the game ends).

Necrons 6

Well, the Last Doomsday Arc has one more turn of blasting Death Jesters, but thankfully only kills one.

Harlequins 6

I make sure one of the Jesters is on the Relic, and hope the game doesn't end.

Necrons 7

No jesters killed, thank goodness!

Harlequins 7

Huddle on the relic lol.



Game ends (barely) in a Harlequin Major Victory.




Things I learned!

1)Deployment is super critical. It was good I was able to charge him, before he was able to start moving the Relic, but I lost a lot of models T1, I probably should have deployed further back, and I wouldn't have lost as much right away. Being seized on also sort of hurt a bit.

2)Charging is super tricksy. It's sort of like a mix of 7th edition and Age of Sigmar. Besides taking extra overwatch, there is no reason not to declare as many charge targets as you want, and then moving into whichever unit you rolled high enough to charge.

Using transports to charge first (durability, speed, and large footprint), they can take the overwatch for 1-2 units with their charge, leaving the infantry safe to go into whichever unit you want.

This is especially good for Harlequins, as their flipbelts let them move over enemy units, so I can just charge over other units heads!

The only thing to keep in mind, is that you're not allowed to move within 1" of any models you didn't declare a charge on, but that's not too big a deal (declare against them all!)

3) Character Sniping weapons are awesome! The Death Jesters were MVP's this game. They killed the Necron Lord, and took enough wounds off the Nightbringer and Orikan that my other units could kill them in melee. Them all being characters made them super durable too. Their gun is also really good, so that helped a lot.

4) Multiple damage weapons really hurt. The Doomsday Arcs just wrecked my fliers pretty quick. d3 shots each was absolutely deadly along with wounding all my transports on 2's and doing D6 damage. I had no real answer for them, as my army is so short ranged, and their overwatch is deadly. The Heavy Destroyers were super easy to eliminate, but the vehicles last forever.

5) Reanimation Protocol is really good. More so then ever before, you really need to kill whole necron squads at once, or they will just keep getting back up. Killing the crypteks is vital to this.

6) The Game is super quick. We were in each other's face T1, and by the 3rd turn, we had token forces left on the board. After a while, it was just a game to see if the Ghost Arc could kill my last three death jesters before the game ended. The whole game lasted no more then an hour and a half ha ha.

7) Characters are really tough, units are squishy. I think all my non character infantry was dead by turn 3. Definitely needed larger units.

[Blazinghand]

Not sure if the problem is on my end or not, but the images are not loading for me and look like this:



using Chrome Browser from USA

[Wyddr]

I can see them fine, incidentally.

Handy assault trick with the multi-assaults. I think this will be particularly nasty for large assault units like ork mobs, assuming they're close enough to get enough targets.

[Blazinghand]

I can see them fine, now. Maybe some kind of problem on my end that cleared up. The multi-charge + flip belts seems like a very strong combination.

The game being "over" ish by Turn 3 mirrors a lot of my experiences with orks. interesting to see it happening elsewhere as well.

[Lord of Winter and War]

I can see them fine, incidentally.

Handy assault trick with the multi-assaults. I think this will be particularly nasty for large assault units like ork mobs, assuming they're close enough to get enough targets.

Yeah, it's really useful. Especially as any unit can multi-charge, event single model units.

The game being "over" ish by Turn 3 mirrors a lot of my experiences with orks. interesting to see it happening elsewhere as well.

I find that until in 7th, the action really starts turn 1, with first turn charges being something to expect. Turns 3+, tend to be a mopping up part of the game. This has been how a lot of my games have gone, where both armies basically explode the first two turns.

[Cavalier]

Hey KS great bat-rep. Thanks for the awesome pics too.

What a great game, total bloodbath. Loved your army list and loved the way you played. Those DJ's were great this game. I'm in love with my Rangers and Illic Nightspear. They've been so critical in my games.

Unbelievable how fast Harlies are. I've got to get a small contingent for my Eldar. Just sick how they charge T1.

Also I hear you on the multicharges. I picked up that trick this saturday with my Scorpions. I did that same thing where I wanted to charge a character and 2 other units. I was within 2" of the closest unit, so its really not that much of a gamble to try and grab more distant targets especially if you can guarantee making contact with a super close unit.

Fantastic stuff. Do keep bat-repping KS I really like them. Fast, detailed and insightful. Thanks bud and loved watching you on Skaredcast. Keep rocking bro!

[Irisado]

That was a nail biter of a game.  I thought that the Necrons were going to pull off a victory, but it just goes to show that it's imperative to keep playing until the end.  Congratulations on a hard earned victory.

The point that stands out the most for me from your findings is unit sizes.  Small low toughness units don't look all that viable in eighth to me.  The game seems to move too quickly and have too many early engagements for small squads to maintain their numbers of long enough to remain effective.

[Lord of Winter and War]

Hey KS great bat-rep. Thanks for the awesome pics too.

What a great game, total bloodbath. Loved your army list and loved the way you played. Those DJ's were great this game. I'm in love with my Rangers and Illic Nightspear. They've been so critical in my games.

Unbelievable how fast Harlies are. I've got to get a small contingent for my Eldar. Just sick how they charge T1.

Also I hear you on the multicharges. I picked up that trick this saturday with my Scorpions. I did that same thing where I wanted to charge a character and 2 other units. I was within 2" of the closest unit, so its really not that much of a gamble to try and grab more distant targets especially if you can guarantee making contact with a super close unit.

Fantastic stuff. Do keep bat-repping KS I really like them. Fast, detailed and insightful. Thanks bud and loved watching you on Skaredcast. Keep rocking bro!

lol, yeah I had a pretty rough first-ish game of 8th agasint Skari with my Chaos.

It took be a few games to really wrap my head around the charging mechanics, but yeah, it's super powerful. Going to play some more games this week, so I'll let you folks know how it goes. Going against either AM or Dark Angels.

That was a nail biter of a game.  I thought that the Necrons were going to pull off a victory, but it just goes to show that it's imperative to keep playing until the end.  Congratulations on a hard earned victory.

The point that stands out the most for me from your findings is unit sizes.  Small low toughness units don't look all that viable in eighth to me.  The game seems to move too quickly and have too many early engagements for small squads to maintain their numbers of long enough to remain effective.

In Maelstrom of War games, with the cards, it can be really hard to pull out a win when you're far behind, but in the Eternal War missions, with objectives, you can be in it until the end. I was surprised how bloody the game was too.

I agree about the life-span of small units, but (in my case especially), Harlequins hit really, really hard. Each Trouper I had was around 24-30pts, so it's more of a glass hammer sort of situation. They need to survive their way to the enemy, but they will kill whatever they touch. doesn't help that the transports have a small unit capacity (just 6 models) . Everything in 8th can die super quick though, it's sort of like AoS in that regard, is which a nice change from 7th edition deathstars.

Ideally, I want to have twice as many 5 man squads in transports, just to help overwhelm folks.

I think with small squads, delivery of them is really important.