One Spirit - One Song, One Deadly Dance

I forgot my paints! And my plastic glue. So time to write a small query to you denizens.

For my harlequins I am considering three different options for the 500pts.

Option number one is a heroes path formation and a jest.
Option two is a cast of players and a jest
Option three is a fleshed out jest to come to 500 pts I like the option with the heroes because I really want the solitaire in there.

Skari wrote:

I forgot my paints! And my plastic glue. So time to write a small query to you denizens.

For my harlequins I am considering three different options for the 500pts.

Option number one is a heroes path formation and a jest.
Option two is a cast of players and a jest
Option three is a fleshed out jest to come to 500 pts I like the option with the heroes because I really want the solitaire in there.

I can understand why you'd want to fit in the solitaire. There's nothing quite like moving 5d6 across the table and swinging in with 12 attacks from one model. Wow. If you can keep him alive for a few turns he becomes quite a beast.

I think that option two is probably the 'best', but I would pick option one every time because reasons.

I'd pick option 2.

I like Cast of Players myself. You get 2/3 of the Hero's Path and a whole unit of Harlies to protect them, plus all the CC they bring to the table. Plus I think it'd look awesome alongside your army

I am leaning towards option two as well, but that does not leave a lot of points for upgrades and what not.

I was thinking a few harlie kisses here and there, or some haywire grenades... I like the kisses, cheap, and deadly. But then, on what unit, the cast of players, or the troupe in the jest?

Skari wrote:

I am leaning towards option two as well, but that does not leave a lot of points for upgrades and what not.

That's a good point actually. And, speaking personally, I really wouldn't want most of my Harlequins bare (not to mention only having a Lv1 Shadowseer probably with no Mask of Secrets).

I was about to suggest that it might be better to just field a Masque detachment... then I realised that that was an even bigger embuggerance in terms of mandatory units (I think the minimum cost is exactly 500pts). Incidentally, I've remembered why I could never be bothered to even proxy Harlequin allies.

The honest answer then is that I really don't know. Expanding on the Jest formation might be the most logical, but losing out on all the nice heroes - especially the Shadowseer and Death Jester - really hurts.

I don't suppose you'd care to revise your idea to 2 750pt lists?  

Oh, one other thing - unless Battlescribe is wrong, the minimum cost for option 1 (Hero's Path and Jest) is 535pts. So, I fear that option is also out.

Yes option one is illegal in the 500pts so yes at that point value it's hard to work with.
I like the expansion of the jest but I am really excited about having the characters, both gameplay wise and hobby wise as well.

There is also the Pale Courts option in IA:11 where you can take a single unit of Harlies... you could then take the Mask of Secrets on your Prince. But sadly you wont have access to the Shadowseer, DJ or Solitaire which are the most fun parts of the book. Yet it'll get you some Harlies at under 500pts and open up the IA:11 auxiliary formations

Skari wrote:

Yes option one is illegal in the 500pts so yes at that point value it's hard to work with.
I like the expansion of the jest but I am really excited about having the characters, both gameplay wise and hobby wise as well.

What about expanding the Cast of Players to 500pts instead of the Jest? Is that possible?

It would be but that's alotnof points into one single unit . Not something I'm fond of.

I cannot like the Cast of Players. 300 points in a Raider: I simply get scared to play something like that!

Too expensive. Too fragile. And no psyonic value (2 dice? Really?..)

WAY better the three heroes! Played a lot of times, just learn to keep theme alive and they are amazing. And you give the save LD trick (jester-mask seer), working better.
Try it, it's an amazing annoying formation.

Cerve wrote:

WAY better the three heroes! Played a lot of times, just learn to keep theme alive and they are amazing. And you give the save LD trick (jester-mask seer), working better.
Try it, it's an amazing annoying formation.

Until you meet anyone with a decent amount of Ignores Cover shooting. A Tau army would absolutely love you to field some expensive T3 models that cannot join units and rely on a cover save to protect them.

Even without Ignores Cover, it seems like those heroes are pretty easy to torrent to death with Scatter Lasers, Multilasers and such. 'Okay, you have a 2+ cover save... but you're dead the first time you fail it.'

That said, I don't especially like the Cast of Players either (too many points in a single unit for my tastes), it just seems like the best of a bad bunch.

The Shredder wrote:

Even without Ignores Cover, it seems like those heroes are pretty easy to torrent to death with Scatter Lasers, Multilasers and such. 'Okay, you have a 2+ cover save... but you're dead the first time you fail it.'

True. Even a minimum sized unit of Scatbikes is pretty much guaranteed to kill one of the Heroes Path models every time it fires unless they can't get LOS.

Honestly, I find the Harlequin formations far too pernickety. All I want is some heroes that I can play around with and put where I want, but no - they have to either be on their own for the entire game, or else spend the entire game in ze designated unit!!!

The Shredder wrote:

Honestly, I find the Harlequin formations far too pernickety. All I want is some heroes that I can play around with and put where I want, but no - they have to either be on their own for the entire game, or else spend the entire game in ze designated unit!!!

Off topic but I totally agree. I would love to have included a single Troupe and a couple of characters but I don't want the characters to be stuck in that unit all game. I'd also like to be able to take more than one Shadowseer but I don't want to be forced to take 1000 points of Harlequins to do so. And I don't want any Voidweavers. Ever. So please stop putting them into pretty much every formation or detachment as a compulsory purchase!

[/rant]

I played a game with harlies the other night, took about 600 points of them, a cast of players and a jest, both troupes armed with kisses and haywires on the characters, the seer I took level 2 but never used his powers.
They ended up helping me get into combat with a huge imperial guard armoured column of leman russes and really went to town ! It was pretty fun having them in support of my kabalite Warriors and venoms, I did not take any grotesques because they are geared for combat and I did not miss the grots for the game. At the end of the game all my harlies were dead but i had won the battle against 8 leman russes!

Count Adhemar wrote:

Cerve wrote:

WAY better the three heroes! Played a lot of times, just learn to keep theme alive and they are amazing. And you give the save LD trick (jester-mask seer), working better.
Try it, it's an amazing annoying formation.

Until you meet anyone with a decent amount of Ignores Cover shooting. A Tau army would absolutely love you to field some expensive T3 models that cannot join units and rely on a cover save to protect them.

Yes, a Cast of Player instead will be hard as rock against Tau...


C'mon guys, at least you can hide pretty well 3 foot-size models. No way that u can hide a Raider in the same way.


AND another thing: any unit of Tau that shoot against a single Hero, will be overpowering it. So the Hero become a perfect distraction.
And they are three-separate-units.

What about 300+ points of a single-players-unit?



In fact, Heroes feel's bad only vs no-sight shoot. Against no-cover shoot they become a great annoyind distraction.
And is so easy cover these 3 guys (i mean completely, no los on theme).

Even against a shooty list, the Path of Heroes is way better than Cast of Players.

Cerve wrote:

C'mon guys, at least you can hide pretty well 3 foot-size models. No way that u can hide a Raider in the same way.

AND another thing: any unit of Tau that shoot against a single Hero, will be overpowering it. So the Hero become a perfect distraction.

Firstly, the Tau have SMS, which not only ignore cover but also LOS. So good luck hiding your models anywhere from those!

Secondly, Tau have Target Locks, which means they just fire one model at your Death Jester, another at your Solitaire, another at the Shadowseer and the rest at whatever else they want to destroy, so you're not really giving them much of a distraction.

I'd agree that Heroes' Path is probably better than Cast of Players but neither is particularly appealing in the current meta of overwhelming firepower.

Cerve wrote:

C'mon guys, at least you can hide pretty well 3 foot-size models.

Sure. And whilst they're hiding they're accomplishing... what exactly? The Shadowseer has, what, one power that doesn't need LoS to an enemy? Two if you count the one that only affects him.

The Death Jester will be doing absolutely bugger all, because his gun requires LoS and that's his only trick.

The Solitaire is a melee beast, though I guess she could be waiting for her moment or somesuch.

Just seems like a massive waste of points to me.

Cerve wrote:

In fact, Heroes feel's bad only vs no-sight shoot. Against no-cover shoot they become a great annoyind distraction.

???

Cerve wrote:

Even against a shooty list, the Path of Heroes is way better than Cast of Players.

Why? Because it's easier to hide them behind a wall for the entire game?

Because u can hide theme pushing the enemy to a bad surrond for go for theme.
U can sneak to harrass your opponet if you know how to use the board.

But that's called tactics, just use your head.

Seriously? Try playing Heroes' Path vs a competent, or even mildly sentient, Tau player. I guarantee that they will be dead or achieve absolutely nothing (barring obscene luck with invulnerable saves).

Cerve wrote:

Because u can hide theme pushing the enemy to a bad surrond for go for theme.

Oh I see. I didn't realise we'd moved onto the 'my opponent's will have the tactical capability of a boiled egg' fallacy.

Cerve wrote:

U can sneak to harrass your opponet if you know how to use the board.

You'll harass him without ever moving into sight to cast your powers or shoot your weapons.

Perhaps our definitions of 'harass' differ. But then again my dictionary doesn't seem to have a definition for 'harrass', so who knows.

Cerve wrote:

But that's called tactics

Squirting out random gibberish that requires your opponent to have all the tactical acumen of a stuffed iguana does not equal tactics.

Cerve wrote:

just use your head.

While we're talking about things to use, there's this wonderful thing called a spell-checker. Please consider using one.

Against Tau, I WANT that...

Anayway, always better than a Cast odmf Players

Fine. I'm not here to convince no one I had play that Formations, and I had never lost no Hero without repaying his cost.
That's all.