Quins info begins

Codex: Harlequins – Masque Forms

Holy Ld bombs Batman.

I can see Soaring Spite working very well alongside Flayed Skull.

I'm gutted that my 'Quins are painted as Frozen Stars, because Silent Shroud looks like much more fun and could really bring the Freakshow back.

Soaring spite are awesome, Fusion starweaver has 28" effective range (more in fact since we mesure the distance form the hull and move with the socle). Skyweaver and Voidweaver will benefit a lot from this rule too.

Soaring Spite and Sorrow are my two favourites

I'm excited for harlequins for the first time, maybe I'll get a squad and a solitaire in a transport to "count as" bloodbrides

I consider the Harlequins my main army, so I am verrrrry pleased with what I'm seeing!

Eh not blown away by any of these, but I actually don't feel harlies are in a bad spot from the index anyways so not really an issue.  Think the 3 winners are soaring spite, silent shroud and Frozen star, which makes it for bikes w/ glaives and generally being useful.  Sorrow and shadow are I guess ok, sorrow just for being generally annoying, makes it pretty good for tying up non melee type units, such as vehicles, or tau infantry, and sorrow while I am not a huge fan of it, I won't rule out on death effects after seeing ynnari.  These 2 specifically I think have to be used in games to get a true feeling of usefulness, they are just both a bit abstract.  The veiled path one is absolutely terrible though, not sure why they thought that was good, veiled path better have an amazing strategem or relic, othewise they are useless.  Its essentially a 33% chance to be useless (and only in the fight phase) rerolling to weight towards the bad result.  About 55% of the time you will get a 1 or 2 as your lowest result.  If this applied to shooting phase too it would be understandable but.... bleh... its just soooo sooo bad.

Midnight Sorrow and Soaring Spite are my two winners. Note I'm speaking in terms of pure Harlie lists, with no help from CWE or Drukhari, and from a non-competitive, no-mathhammer standpoint, which is what I play.

The former allows easier, and much faster, access to the squishy goodies lurking in the midst of the enemy's backline (without DS), as well as providing a bit of tactical flexibility on the off chance I need to redistribute a unit elsewhere. Fits my play-style just right. The latter makes many Harlies better on the move, since Harlies struggle a bit at range. Extra accuracy is always welcome in my book. It also provides a functional speed increase for my Starweavers, as I'm often changing speed based on how much I can kill with fusion shots.

Veiled Path is so flavourful, and makes the prankster in me giggle - much in the way the Shardnet does for Wyches now. Is it good? It can be! Is it competitive? Oh Cegorach, no! But I don't play competitively, and I think it's a funny fluff option.

Frozen Stars just makes everything a bit better. It's fairly boring, but just like the article says, it's simple and effective. I think much of it's power (like anything) will depend on any potential changes to the melee weapons and their points cost. +1 from me.

The Dreaming Shadow feels like it could be good to me, but the longer I think about the application, it falls behind the other Forms. Great for big 12-man units of Players, but they'd need to be in cc anyhow to get any benefit. Really does depend I guess.

Finally, Silent Shroud. Man, Silent Shroud. I like it, but it's unlikely I'll ever use this. I simply don't like mixing armies, fluffy as it is. So far, on it's own it is, to me, the one I like least.

Looks like there's been a leak of points values and some stratagems. Lots of stuff going down in value (e.g., Death Jesters are only 45 points now, basic players 13).

Ooh do you have a link to any of that Burnage?

PartZebra wrote:

Ooh do you have a link to any of that Burnage?

Yep, here. None of the stratagems jumped out at me except for Dreaming Shadow's, until I realised it was just in the Shooting Phase... Still, there may be some use for it, especially with a Fusion Pistol or Shadowseer.

Ta muchly! I'll give those a browse

Some of these Stratagems are so much fun!!! Not sure if this is the right thread for a discussion on it though :S

Veiled Path is aggressively terrible. Running the numbers so nobody else has to.

Unmodified WS
WS 2+: 83.33%
WS 3+: 66.67%
WS 4+: 50.00%
WS 5+: 33.33%
WS 6+: 16.67%
WS with Veiled Path
WS 2+: 71.76%
WS 3+: 59.26%
WS 4+: 45.83%
WS 5+: 31.48%
WS 6+: 16.20%

Friends don't let friends run Veiled Path.

Can someone sell me on the Webway portal? With the restrictions on one unit per turn and deploying within 3" of it, it is incredibly easy to tie up so units can't deploy out of it, even if it is roughly 12" wide. Sure, you can deep strike a unit of 3 Talos but that is a lot to risk if you don't get turn one

Seems the webway gate is only going to be viable if you've got a Harlequin detachment. You need both those stratagems for it to function properly. Still though, with it being unable to be deployed within 12" of the enemy deployment zone, I'm not sure I see the point.

Sky stride to engage new units (like our red grief Wyches), followed by Cegorach’s laugh when they fall back seems pretty fun. The new costs are low enough that two battalions is easy to pull off.

Count Adhemar wrote:

I'm gutted that my 'Quins are painted as Frozen Stars, because Silent Shroud looks like much more fun and could really bring the Freakshow back.

Another -1 and rolling an extra die on morale checks doesn’t seem particularly good. You’re already bringing a Craftworld detachment for hemlocks, throw some shadow specters in there for a much better support unit for Coven. With their character having a similar but differently-named ability, and just the hemlock and Drukhari abilities, you can already force them to Ld-8 roll three dice pick the highest and an extra model flees upon battleshock failure.

Frozen Stars seems better just for the extra damage output since you should be charging every turn.

I've been waiting for the codex to drop to see how I would want to paint my Harlies. Midnight Sorrow, Frozen Stars, Soaring Spite and Silent Shroud all look fun and useful to me. I guess it's time to come up with a custom Masque and colour scheme so I can switch between them whenever I want.

I have to agree with 1-2 previous comments that the Masque rules are a mixed bag.

I am happy with the points reductions that we can see but puzzled by the jump in cost for the Troupe Master. Not sure how this is justified? Interesting to see how much the Kiss has come down in points cost since the Xenos 1 codex, however it will probably still not feature in my lists. At least it drops the cost of the Soliataire even more!

I think the real winner here are the Skyweavers.

Skyweavers with zephryglaives are still not exactly “cheap”.

We haven’t seen relics, warlord traits and possibly changes to the Troupe Master aura that could justify his points increase.

The Haywire Cannon actually went up. Give it costs almost twice what a Haywire Blaster costs I hope it becomes a D6 shot version of that weapon now.

I take your point hekatrixxy, I was looking at the total points drop for both the Skyweaver itself & zephryglaives. Still not "cheap" but perhaps a bit more competative?

If Toupe Masters do get or give extra/wider "buffs" then as you say the points increase may be justified. Not long to find out

I feel like Skyweavers are quite good now.
What I really like about Skyweavers and Shining Spears is that they seem to have different preferred targets, which opens nice synergy when using both units as a fast force pushing up a flank.

9 Spears + 6 Skyweavers + Doomseer + Warlock (jinx/protect) looks like a nasty and fun way to fly around the battlefield.

withershadow wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

I'm gutted that my 'Quins are painted as Frozen Stars, because Silent Shroud looks like much more fun and could really bring the Freakshow back.

Another -1 and rolling an extra die on morale checks doesn’t seem particularly good. You’re already bringing a Craftworld detachment for hemlocks, throw some shadow specters in there for a much better support unit for Coven. With their character having a similar but differently-named ability, and just the hemlock and Drukhari abilities, you can already force them to Ld-8 roll three dice pick the highest and an extra model flees upon battleshock failure.

Frozen Stars seems better just for the extra damage output since you should be charging every turn.

As someone seriously considering a Freakshow list I consider the Silent Shroud form as the first tool that Harlies bring, not their total use. We've also seen their stratagem, 2CP to prevent overwatch against an SS unit which could make them an excellent unit to send in ahead of Talos. I suspect that the Mask of Secrets will be their relic (+1 to bearers Ld, 6" bubble of -1, I hope it gets a little more interesting) which leaves the WT and psychic powers. Mirror of Minds alone should be changed back to adding Ld to the roll off as it did in 7th.

Shadow Spectres are terrible now, CA bumping up their price by 10pts a model made them horribly overcosted for a T3, W1, Sv3+ models that want to get within 8" of the enemy, and to get the most out of their Ld effects you'll need to run Irylith as well, which is another 160pts.

The big thing that will determine weather a Freakshow works is not how low it'll be able to drop an enemy units Ld, too many armies have ways to mitigate Ld in the moral phase, but how many different way's we'll have to directly attack them via Ld. At present thats really only Mind War and the Torment Grenade strat, I really hope that harlies add 1 or 2 more things to that list.