Best way to include Starweavers in a DE main force?

One of the Harlequin units that I particularly liked the look of was the Starweaver. It's twin shuriken cannons and slightly expanded transport capacity make it very similar to a Venom that can actually address light vehicle spam.

However, the Harlequin detachment and formations seem quite restrictive. O, for a conventional allied detachment...

Hence my question. What are the best ways to ally a Starweaver or two to my main DE army, without finding myself running Harlequins with some DE allies instead?

That is an awesome idea and something I never thought about!
In fact the more I think about it the more complex my answer here becomes, but here it goes;

The first problem, like you said, is that it's quasi impossible to take a large amount of starweavers without a massive investment in other units. The regular detachment requires 3 troupes, and then only allows for two fast attack slots. At a glance, the other formations don't do much to improve this issue.

But if you plan on running more harlequins anyways then maybe you welcome the opportunity to include more stuff. In this case, you can either get two from the detachment, or three from THE SERPENT’S BROOD (never thought I would be mentioning that one, so I will relish this for a bit).

I'll be honest, my first thought when reading your post was "why go through so much trouble for a transport that is frankly the same as the venom." Then I realised the extra transport capacity could be  useful for dark eldar in that it allows you to wwp a squad of blasterborn with an archon, presumably from an allied detachment or a CAD if you are using the formation.

This provides solid anti tank, which harlequins cannot have enough of, and keeps the transport viable as a gunboat, which is not the case with the raider.

So far that's one thing the extra capacity can be used for, I'm sure others here can find out more stuff.

Cast of players is the way to go for me.

I run them in Freakshow lists as they do contain a Deathjester and a Shadowseer (Mask).
I tend to put them in a FA Raider (together wit an Armor of misery Succubus) and keep their dedicated Starweaver solo.

Is it possible to embark a unit onto another unit's dedicated transport?

Yes, but you may not start the game embarked.

Go unbound? Is there much of an advantage to DE trying to stick to Battleforged?

Unbound is not everyones cup of tea and a lot of people do not want to go against unbound.
Especially if it is just to get a bit more power out of your units.

Unbound is not really my cup of tea.

It looks like the cast of players is the way to go, so I'll try that I guess. Thanks for the feedback. Maybe the Serpent's brood is a half:half DE/Harly army kind of thing?

I have vague ideas of embarking 3 grotesques into the starweaver on turn 1 to be a surprise threat later, though since there is no room for a character they would have to be from a covenite detachment.

It's all well and good taking the moral high ground and not choosing unbound but when you're having to face the possibility of the new super formations and all their shiny bonuses surely limiting yourself to the woeful formation makeup that is the DE is just shooting yourself in the foot?

you're problem is trying to figure out how to add those units (I'll assume they're good because I've not read their rules) into your list when the crappy formations available are making it difficult. It's pretty easy for Eldar/Marines/Necrons to get all their cool toys into a list without worrying about crappy formations getting in the way. The issue is that you're dealing with crappy formation restrictions that handicap the DE (and make it hard for you to take the Harlie allies you want). Instead of pulling your hair out over how to add more of those units to your force why don't you just add more units to your force? It's no more cheesy than throwing Imperial Knights onto the table or throwing out an unkillable Decurion or a Gladius with 600pts of free stuff. You're most numerous opponents are being given free stuff left and right, and are being rewarded for taking what they would take anyway (Aspect Host). It's time for DE player to abandon battleforged unless they're getting specific rules advantages they want/need (objective secured for those who play with that or 6 FA slots if you wanna spam something).

You're struggling because the rules are working against you. Just drop them, it's the logical thing to do. the game is going to move away from the force org chart soon enough anyway. It's going to become a game of formations/dataslates instead. May as well get used to it now by abandoning what it is that's holding you back.

Or not, you gotta make your own choice I'm just trying to give you a different perspective ont he game.

You could try to get your group to let you use this, which would then let you take Harlequins in a 'normal' FOC rather than the weirdly limiting/too expensive formations from their codex.

Quote :

You're struggling because the rules are working against you. Just drop them, it's the logical thing to do.

Actually no. It is not. Not in life and not in gaming. You can try to convince a majority that some rules are bullshit and need a change but you are not gonna say "This works against me so im dropping it, eat it"

I've got a question about this allied transport thing. From what I've heard and seen posted here in the past I was under the impression that an allied unit/formation (let's say the harlequin cast of players) can not begin the game embarked on an allied dark eldar raider, however they can embark during the first turn of the game. This was all well and good until I began seeing individuals in my local club bringing their new skitarii in space marine allied drop pods which begin the game in reserve and therefor begin the game embarked in an allied transport. Am I missing something? If this is true I don't see why I wouldn't be able to pull the same maneuver. I could really use some feedback before I finically invest in this tactic!

They cannot start the game on an allied dedicated transport, but any other kind is fine. (Drop pods, like Raiders, are FA choices, too.)

They cannot start the game on an allied dedicated transport, but any other kind is fine. (Drop pods, like Raiders, are FA choices, too.) wrote:

Awesome, thanks for the clarification! I've been toying with the idea of adding some harlequins into my current list but was struggling to find an effective way considering how restrictive and taxing most of the formations are. Cast of players seemed to be a good fit but I couldn't find an effective way to get them across the board due to the minimum 7 man squad size and the limited carrying capacity of the starweaver.

Your friendly neighborhood Eldar-family taxi service, based locally in Commorragh, has all your transportation needs covered, with extended-body Raiders for those extra large parties.

I want to say that unbound is a slippery slope to introduce to your gaming group. I once was asked to play against someone's tournament list which was 3 knights and a titan. They said just bring something unbound. So I did...

His titan died before even moving.

I deployed nothing but a 2+ rerollable cover save autarch (old book) because he had first turn and then when my army showed up turn 2 I just walked on. My army was a bunch of trueborn Lance squads with a shadowseer in every squad. Thanks to veil of tears he couldn't shoot anything as long as I was 25" away and was unlikely to shoot over 14". I DS a raider full of fire dragons and removed the titan in one round. I tabled him on Turn 3. Unbound (plus a little tailoring yes, but at the urging of my opponent) will make you feel like a bad person even against, that guy lol.

Fluff wise it was a perfectly executed strike I suppose.

Lol, I agree. I ran forty ur ghuls (one man units) in a 750 list once. Brutal.