Harlequins and the Dark Side

So I am pretty determined to take a squad of Harlies to Caledonian Uprising (Scottish ETC qualifier) - I love the models, love the fluff and I think they are cool as frakk. To put this current query in context, I'll be running them on foot with a Doom/Fortune farseer and a tooled up shadowfield Archon of fail.

But pretty confused by differences in the unit entries in the Eldar/Dark Eldar codices. For a start, in the Dark Eldar codex, a Death Jester replaces his shuriken pistol with a Shrieker cannon, and therefore can swap his remaining close combat weapon for a kiss, yes? But in the Eldar codex, it says 'he replaces his weapons with a shrieker cannon' therefore implying that both pistol and CCW are replaced. As i want to take a Death Jester with a kiss in case I feel like chucking him against something that my Archon or Farseer (lol) doesn't fancy in a challenge, DE harlies would seem to be the goer here.

However, in the Eldar FAQ, it says re Veil of Tears that the whole Veil section of rules is replaced with “The Shadowseer and her unit
have the Stealth and Shrouded special rules”, whereas in the DE FAQ, it says - Replace the last three sentences with the following: “The Shadowseer, and all models in her unit, have the Stealth and Shrouded special rules.”

Therefore, though this may be minor - the DE Shadowseer is still a psyker apparently, whilst the Eldar Shadowseer is not, which allows the Dark Eldar shadowseer to be targeted with weapons that can single out psykers. Moot point perhaps as I'll have a farseer in there, but still.

Which do you think I should take, and am I cheating if I give a Death Jester a Harlequins Kiss?

Quote :

I'll be running them on foot with a Doom/Fortune farseer and a tooled up shadowfield Archon of fail.

This is all I needed to read. If they are Dark Eldar Harlies then you can't Fortune them. If they are Eldar Harlies you can. The extra kiss/psyker rules lawyering stuff doesn't hold a candle to being able to fortune the unit, especially since you've got both the Farseer and an Archon in the unit.

You also need to check the FAQ as they changed the jester entry for dark eldar.

@ Murkglow - aye yeah major derp moment from me, thats a good one. Of course I should have realised that I can only fortune Eldar Harlies. Thanks for pointing that out. That would have been the worst noobish mistake I could have done, as lists are due friday and if 'd have taken DE harlies I'd have been up a gum tree re: fortune haha!

@ Massaen - cool bananas, hadn't noticed that in the FAQ, just had seen the Shadowseer part. So no kiss for the Death Jester. Just thought it could have been useful as the Shadowseer, Farseer and Archon are all of more value, but even without the kiss I still may use him to take a challenge or two as he's still a character

Thanks for clearing that up guys

Hmm...the psyker bit is interesting, it'd be nice not to have to worry about GK psy-shock missiles. The Eldar FAQ says they're a level 0 psyker in the Q&A though (last page second column), but they now lack any mention of being a psyker in their rules...huh...

I don't want to bring up an old argument but just be warned that if you take that unit to a tournament you run into what I ran into where it was ruled that since the Archon is a member of the unit for "all" rules purposes (p.39) then the unit did not qualify as a Eldar unit and therefore no fortune. So check before to see if it's kosher.

@ Bugs n Orks - aye that was what I was getting at, though since I do have the Farseer in there I'm sure most psyker targetting weapons would prioriitise him first - but as Murkglow says, the DE ones still being psykers is like a fart in the wind compared to not being able to Fortune them

Seshiru - I'm not particularly worried about that tbh. I was at the UKGT recently and from the point of view of the competitive UK meta, they had the stringiest parameters for mixed DE/Eldar units in that they ruled that the DE characters in Eldar units don't benefit from Fortune, which I could live with as as long as the Harlies are getting a cover save, thats a re-rollable 2+ on the regular harlequins anyway. Whereas other tournaments have not ruled that way, and therefore I can re-roll my shadowfield saves. Cally Uprising doesn't have an FAQ out just now but it seems that at the worst it will say that DE units don't benefit from Fortune if they are in an Eldar unit.

I think any TO's that rule that an Eldar unit with attached DE characters cannot Fortune - rahter than stating that the DE guy does not benefit - is over the top in their nitpicking tbh