Harlequins release in early 2015? - February 3, Skyweaver jetbike rules leaked

Well, according to the BRB, the 25% check happens at the end of the shooting phase.  The DJ check happens during the shooting phase and only needs one casualty as opposed to 25%.  So, my take on it is, yes, they would have to test at the end of the phase per normal rules if they do lose 25% during your shooting phase. The key wording is in the DJ rules which says that its morale check happens "immediately" as soon as they lose one model.

So if the death jester makes a unit flee with his shot, THEN at the end of the phase the unit enemy takes 25% casualties they test again... Or rather they auto flee because they are already fleeing?

If that is the case then I am sold

Yeah, that's how I read it. So far, I don't see anything in the BRB or the DJ rules which suggests otherwise. They don't get to test to regroup until the start of their movement phase, so auto-failing the second test could be devastating.

Not thrilled about the limitations of the formations but I Will stay my frustration until I have Read the rules myself

I just really wanted to bring a solitaire and nothing more, out doing his Thing on his own. Or a single troupe and a few skyweavers who shows up to perform....

colinsherlow wrote:

question about the Death Jester. Guess we will have to wait for the book to come out, but I figured this is worth a mention

Does a unit only have to check Moral once a phase? or could multiple DJ's hit the same unit to cause it to test multiple times?  

"An enemy unit that suffers one or more wounds from the DJ in a shooting phase must immediately take a morale check as though they had taken 25% casualties, at -2 LD. If they fail the test, the DJ chooses in which direction they flee. If they continue to flee in subsequent rounds, they fall back towards their own table edge as usual."

And can you still make an enemy unit take a test at the end of the phase for taking enough causalities?

Sorry don't have the BRB on me to check  

That's the translation from faeit? It's wrong (google translate does not a good translation make). I have just re-read the italian version and specifically says:

"A unit that takes one or more casualties from a death jester's shrieker cannon during the shooting phase must take a moral test at the end of the phase with a -2LD modification like as if they suffered 25% casualties..."

So I believe it would be one test, regardless of how many casualties inflicted by multiple jesters.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: On another note I played a game against a 1000 point harlequin army with my grey knights and suffice to say they get slaughtered by deepstrikers (a large deny the wych pool and psykout grenades helped too). I would imagine a drop pod army would be even more effective against them (my grey knights don't pack flamers, most drop pod armies do). Overwatch is a problem, pinning with their phantasm grenades seems to be their best bet against it.

I think there might be a lot of synenergies with Harlies and DE. Both have access to LD modifiers, and those new WL-traits benefit DE greatly. +3 steal the initiative, modifier to game ending roll and so on...

Erebus wrote:

Panic_Puppet wrote:

*looks at harlequins* Hm.... I'd like to take a troupe and a shadowseer. lolnope, gotta buy another two troupes, a void weaver and two fast attack choices.

Or you could take the Company of Actors and only have a DJ tax.

Cavalier wrote:

I'll probably take formation 4 so long as I can give them a transport.

The Troupe have access to Starweavers as a dedicated transport, so I fully expect you can give them that.

Problem is that if I want to include anything else, I can't without going the full hog. My ideal option would be to take a troupe, a pair of bikes, a character, and a transport (basically, one of everything that they release). I can't do that. I'm either going to have to lose out on the character or the jetbikes, or get two troupes more than I want, plus a box of bikes that I don't want, just to be able to add in the things that I do.

Essentially, GW can't make up their minds what they want the Harlequins to be. They've not given the option to field them as a flexible small ally to Eldar/Dark Eldar, and with the minimum detachment cost before upgrades coming in at 500 points, and some gnarly warlord traits, they seem to be aiming at full codex... which is untenable with a mighty 4 units and 3 characters, not to mention completely counter to fluff. Derp.

You can have a non-dedicated starweaver as a FA, that way, you won't need 2 units of skyweavers.

I kinda like the restricted formations. It prevents a lot of allies shenanigans we usually see. The company of actors is generally an ok entry if you want to ally harlequins. The jet bike one rerolling jink seems fun and easy to include. The one with one of each elite seem like a fun addition too, if nothing else to give infiltrate to a solitaire. The only annoying thing to me is that so many require a void weaver which on paper looks like a lame venom. Can it even shoot all its guns of it moves 12"?

Overall I think the problem is kinda that they are to good as allies so there heavily restricted and not good enough even with great powers/warlord trait/formation bonuses to stand alone. I plan playing them both ways because they look fun. They really don't seem competitive if that's what your looking for. They are likely the best assault army in the game now, but assault sucks right now. We will have to see how they actually play on the table.

Trystis wrote:

They are likely the best assault army in the game now..

Not a chance, expensive,T3 and 5++ just doesn't cut it as an assault unit, sure you have fleet/crescendo/vail of tears to close the gap but after that you are at the mercy when combat finishes (your turn or your opponents). The best way to get two turn combats is to multi charge but then you lose killing power (furious charge and +1 attack). In a game where combat unit can't afford to kill their opponent in the first round of combat, a unit that depends on killing its target before it can strike back in order to survive just doesn't work. Sure against marines with ATSKNF or fearless models harlequins will have a chance, but those don't tend to be the traits of the screening units people will use to block you.

The above is why Grotesques are a more functional assault unit than incubi.

All the Harlequins tricks make them reasonable in assault, but the best assault army? Blood angels, Orks, Grey knights, Space Wolves and now Necrons would probably disagree with you.

They have no HQ, as far as we know until now, but that doesn't mean, that they can't have a modified FOC. The Coven supplement had no troops, and still got its FOC where you can pick what you want, with a few restrictions ofc.

I could imagine something like 1 Elite, 1 Troop, 1 FA as mandatory and a few open slots in everything. Or maybe two FA as mandatory.

The other thing, that I just can't get out of my mind, is: They release the codex this saturday, that's true, but we've seen two new sculpts for characters that aren't released yet. What if they have a great harlequin/high avatar in the codex and ready to be released together with the other two characters? Assuming they go on preorder on sat, there's no problem with other companies. The rules are out, and the model is announced too (with a preview in WD)

What I wanted to say: Formations are nice to have, but unless we have the codex, don't say that's all we get

Also, if you don't get psychic powers up you are pretty much dead.
2 fire warriors (Who are cheaper than 1 'quin with a weapon upgrade)
will do:
4 shots
2 hits
1.667 wounds
1.111 dead 'quin

Add markerlights, or some other Tau cheddar to taste

This army can get tabled in a single turn when out of position, no joke. They are going to be have to be used even more carefully than our own assault units; they are point-for-point probably (too lazy to do the math right now, might do it tomorrow if calculus turns out to be boring) the most damaging assault unit, were it not that you'd probably lose ~1.5 'quin to just the overwatch of 10 bolters...


But at least they look cool doing it

EDIT:

Omega1907 wrote:

The other thing, that I just can't get out of my mind, is: They release the codex this saturday, that's true, but we've seen two new sculpts for characters that aren't released yet. What if they have a great harlequin/high avatar in the codex and ready to be released together with the other two characters? Assuming they go on preorder on sat, there's no problem with other companies. The rules are out, and the model is announced too (with a preview in WD)

What I wanted to say: Formations are nice to have, but unless we have the codex, don't say that's all we get

Then why would they disallow you to take it in the WD detachment? I'm having this badboy ready on speculations whether there's gonna be an HQ

Mushkilla wrote:

Trystis wrote:

They are likely the best assault army in the game now..

Not a chance, expensive,T3 and 5++ just doesn't cut it as an assault unit, sure you have fleet/crescendo/vail of tears to close the gap but after that you are at the mercy when combat finishes (your turn or your opponents). The best way to get two turn combats is to multi charge but then you lose killing power (furious charge and +1 attack). In a game where combat unit can't afford to kill their opponent in the first round of combat, a unit that depends on killing its target before it can strike back in order to survive just doesn't work. Sure against marines with ATSKNF or fearless models harlequins will have a chance, but those don't tend to be the traits of the screening units people will use to block you.

The above is why Grotesques are a more functional assault unit than incubi.

All the Harlequins tricks make them reasonable in assault, but the best assault army? Blood angels, Orks, Grey knights, Space Wolves and now Necrons would probably disagree with you.

I said "likely" not definitively. You're probably right though, but things like hit and run, death jesters and shadow seers will help mitigate that somewhat. They don't seem competitive to me just like a fun option with some unique abilities. They rely super heavily on luck

As a side note harlequins were originally fielded as an army so it's not really all that unfluffy.

Question.

If I take a harlie formation with a character can I make that character my warlord even if my Dark eldar are my primary CAD? And could Dark Eldar with Eldar allies have an eldar character as warlord?

Question.

If I take a harlie formation with a character can I make that character my warlord even if my Dark eldar are my primary CAD?  And could Dark Eldar with Eldar allies have an eldar character as warlord.


Sorry for the double post. Not sure how that happened?...

Your primary detachment will always be the one with your Warlord in it, wether he's HQ or not.
An Allied Detachment can never be your primary detachment, and thus cannot include your Warlord.

Edit: There is nothing preventing your Dark Eldar CAD from being a secondary detachment, so you can easily have Harlequins as Primary, even if you have a DE CAD.

Anterzhul wrote:

Then why would they disallow you to take it in the WD detachment? I'm having this badboy ready on speculations whether there's gonna be an HQ

True point, I stand corrected.

But that doesn't change my hope for a modified FOC (without an HQ)

Also in the hoping department. So far, the army is entirely without unique characters. I don't think it's too far a stretch of imagination to expect at least one unique character at some point, and that may be an HQ unit.

I thought the unique character was the solitaire?

Omega1907 wrote:

They have no HQ, as far as we know until now, but that doesn't mean, that they can't have a modified FOC. The Coven supplement had no troops, and still got its FOC where you can pick what you want, with a few restrictions ofc.

The Harlequin Masque seems to be their modified FOC.

megatrons2nd wrote:

I thought the unique character was the solitaire?

Solitaire is just an Elite, I think

Sigmaril wrote:

megatrons2nd wrote:

I thought the unique character was the solitaire?

Solitaire is just an Elite, I think

@megatrons2nd is correct

Unit type: Infantry character
Unit composition: 1 (Unique)

Can't take multiple, you don't need to be a HQ to be a special character (For example BA brother Corbulo was also an elite, and even an IC)

They wont have an HQ I think.
I cant imagine why there would be no formation including an HQ if they did.

I agree. We've seen so many leaks that it's hard to imagine we've somehow missed an entire unit option who also doesn't appear in any of the formations. I think we've seen pretty much everything we're going to see.

Has anyone seen the point cost for the ss and dj?