Spoiler alert in the title right? I took my foot harlequins off for another run at a recent tournament – Soldiers of Fortune, hosted by the Toy Soldier Cartel. 3 Games, 1 day, 2000 points, 2 and a half hour rounds. The list remains essentially unchanged from the previous post (check that out HERE) save for 2 things. I opted to spend 2cp pregame on the Great Harlequin stratagem and swapped player of light to player of twilight for the warlord trait. In retrospect I should have also changed the warlord from the troupe master to the buff shadow seer but that’s future learning. On to the games!
Game 1 vs Deathguard.
Daemon Prince, 3 Plasma Deredeo Dreads, 3 Plague Burst Crawlers, 2×3 Blight haulers. The Prince had the 4++ aura relic while the dreads all got contaminated monstrosity to give them disgustingly resilient for the game.
Deathguard secondaries – Grind them down, Engage on all fronts, Assassinate
Harlequin secondaries – Engage on all fronts, Deploy scramblers, Bring it down
Mission – Retrieval Mission, Harlequins deploy first and go first.
So a wall of T7 and T8 vehicles and me with no fusion and limited haywire… great. I used heroes path to push the SS/DJ/Sol into position to help with mortal wounds and early charges along side the bike units while the rest of the force advanced looking for T2 charges. Despite 8d3 in mortals being delivered I managed a mere 9 wounds total from that! I did kill 1 crawler and damage the second (clearing it in the assault phase) but then lose the DJ and SS plus 2 units of bikes in response. The second turn saw the wave hit and the scrum being. The solitaire decided that after me trashing him for so many games he would turn it on, charged the price and after saves did 16 damage! Even resilient couldn’t save the prince and my solitaire claimed his first (of several) character kills for the weekend. He even tanked 2 deredeo worth of guns before he died. As the game wore on I couldn’t kill the super tough vehicles fast enough so was thankful that I had maxed the primary and 2 of my secondaries by the time we got to the end of the command phase T4. I hung in combats wrapping what I could and being Obsec while he was not to deny him scoring. It wasn’t until after the game that my opponent realised he could have been shooting into combat with the dreads in several cases! While that likely means he scores more points in the final turn, it would still not be enough to stop me winning.
Final score – Harlequins (81) win vs Deathguard (52)
Game 2 vs Ravenguard
Shrike, Phobos Lieutenant, Primaris Chaplain, Judiciar, 2×5 incursurs, 5 infiltrators, 10 intercessors, 5 Boltstorm aggressors, 4 servitors, 5 Bolter inceptors, 2×3 Primaris outriders, 3×3 Eradicators
Ravenguard secondaries – Engage on all fronts, Deploy scramblers, Surround them
Harlequin secondaries – Engage on all fronts, Deploy scramblers, Assassinate
Mission – Surround and Destroy, Harlequins deploy first and go first.
So we go from a wall of armour to a wall of bodies. That’s a heck of a lot of marines! They are also sneaky tricksy marines who can keep up with my shenanigans. My opponent readily stated he had ever played harlequins before and we took some time to explain each of the units. I was able to bait out some of the deployments using the heroes path trio to force the ravenguard to spread out their frontage. This allowed me to use the LoS blocker in the mid table to screen my force from a lot of the fire. In the end the bulk of my force hit and rolled down the right flank while my trio of heroes held the left alone. The DJ was sneaking cheeky mortals while the shadowseer just died when the aggressors shot their boltfists at him. The solitaire though… he tanked the aggressor fire from their grenades, got charged, survived their fists and killed 2 and then went on to kill the lieutenant and the servitors and live! Amazing. This game highlighted the speed of even foot harlequins and just how well they do when they can pick at you a piece at a time. I don’t think I would get away with it again against this player to this degree but for now, it’s a win.
Final score – Harlequins (81) win vs Ravenguard (37)
Game 3 vs Aeldari
Red Grief Drukhari – Succubus, 5 Wyches, Venom, 8 Reavers, 6 Reavers. Soaring spite harlequins – Shadowseer, 6 shuriken cannon skyweavers, 2×4 haywire skyweavers. Custom Craftworld (master crafted and hunter of relics) – Farseer skyrunner, Warlock Skyrunner, 8 Shining Spears, 2 Vypers.
Aeldari secondaries – Engage on all fronts, Overrun, Mental Interrogation
Harlequin secondaries – Engage on all fronts, Deploy scramblers, Overrun
Mission – Overrun, Harlequins deploy first and go first.
Sly Dave and I have a history. We played a lot through 3rd and 4th ed and when he came back in 8th we picked that right back up. In tournaments we are about 50/50 win rate against each other. We both knew turn 1 would be crucial and had to count. I was super aggressive with the bikes and a single unit of harlequins who got twilight pathway to get a T1 charge on the shining spears. More CP was applied for extra damage and mods to the wound roll and when the dust settled, all 8 shining spears were dead. This was critical for me since they are such a tool box of damage that needed to be dealt with fast. Daves return attacks didn’t do enough in reply and I was able to snowball the pressure into T2 and beyond. By the time Daves T4 rolled around he had just the venom left (in combat with the solitaire!). The solitaire again proved his worth killing the enemy shadowseer then being charged by the venom and the farseer. I only had 1cp at the time so Dave elected to fight elsewhere first and had to spend a cp to try and make a difference. My player of twilight clutch rolled the 1 I needed to gain a cp – which was then spent to interrupt and kill the farseer with the solitaire! Just magic.
Final score – Harlequins (84) win vs Aeldari (18)
Wrapping Up
With a total BP score of 246 (out of a possible 270) I managed to win the event! My max score for each game was actually 85 rather than 90 thanks to deploy scramblers only being worth 10 (rather than 15) so I really only dropped 9 points for the whole day of what I had available to me. The tweaks to the list for the great harlequin and player of twilight were both good calls and apart from moving who was my warlord for future games, I will stick to the list as is for now.
A special mention has to cover the Solitaire. Anyone who has followed us for any time knows my frustration with this model on the table. This event has seen me take a fresh look at how he is used and what he can achieve. He was a whirlwind of damage for this event and made some crucial kills when they mattered most. I still don’t think its worth giving him the relic harlequins kiss but I’m now feeling less like he is a waste to include. Watch this space for future games.
One of the real challenges with Harlequins is knowing when and what stratagems to play. Its crucial to not get stuck into a mentality of ‘I must use prismatic blur every turn’ or similar – its so crucial that you have the points on hand to do things other armies simply cant do. It’s a way of playing an entirely different game and needs to be leveraged as much as possible.
Now I just have to get it all painted!