Harlequins and Transport

Dear Denizens of the Dark City,

I apologise in advance if this question has already been answered.

I know I can't buy a Wave Serpent for Harlequins as a Dedicated Transport, and I know Harlequins were designed to run across the table with the Shadowseer power..

But, regardless, if I wanted to field them inside a Wave Serpent (or in other words: have them start the game inside of one), would it be possible to buy a Wave Serpent as an allied Heavy Support and have the Harlequins start inside of it?
Would it matter whether I fielded Dark Eldar Harlequins or Eldar Harlequins in regards to the option of starting inside a Wave Serpent?

Thanks!

A number of questions here...

Firstly, allies may never embark on each other's transports - period. With that in mind, being eldar or dark eldar harlies matters pending which transport you want.

Second, wave serpents are dedicated transports and are thus unavailable as heavy support.

Third, there is no possible way to start harlies in a dedicated transport as they have no option to buy one and only a unit that purchased the dedicated transport may start the games embarked in it.

You can start a vehicle empty and then embark turn one, you can choose a falcon grav tank and a unit of up to 6 eldar harlies and have them start in it but otherwise you are out of luck.

Bear in mind falcons (and wave serpents) are not assault vehicles so no jump out and charge from them. Also bear in mind, embarking first turn may limit how far the vehicle can move as per the rule book.

Ahh, thanks for clearing up so many things Massaen. For a second there, I thought the Wave Serpent was a Heavy Support choice (I don't really know the Eldar codex) so I guess that option out.
I didn't know that only a unit that buys a transport as a dedicated transport, can start the game inside of it. That's a good thing to know. This makes the Falcon Grav Tank an even weaker choice for pseudo-transportation purposes.
Six models is too little a unit to make an impact on a game, so that rules out the Grav Tank.

Here's to hoping we'll get some options in the Dark Eldar codex, or in the Harlequin minicodex I've heard rumours about. I love Harlequins, but I always get this feeling that for some reason or another, they are limited by GW in their useability.

Suppose so - however, when the harlies were first released, they wrote in White Dwarf that the Shadowseer and the Veil of Tears psychic power was supposed to be some sort of compensation for their lack of a transport vehicle.

That is true, but I'm slightly worried about the power now needing a Psychic test when it comes to protecting my precious Harlequins, so I've been thinking about other options of protecting them.

Has our faq been updated yet? Last time read it our harlies got stealth and shrouded automatically instead of the cwe version

That's right, it was replaced with stealth and shrouded. Still, worth noting is, that apparently the fact that the power is available permanently has not been deleted - as such, you supposedly don't need to take a Psychic test for the Shadowseer (however, the CWE-SS has to).

No for de. Eldar got the old version of 2d6x2range limit.

Trophies help with ld checks as they say any friendly unit may reroll.

also worth noting if you've got access to IA books, corsair harlequins can purchase venoms as a dedicated transport.

Thanks for the tips.

One more question.
I read somewhere that units that buy a Dedicated Transport, do not have to start the game inside the transport if they do not want to.
In this case it might be possible to buy an allied unit of, whatevers, and have the Serpent start an inch from the Harlequins and embark them turn 1.

Right? Or not?

Yep, I mentioned this is possible earlier though it has its own issues. Personally, the CWE power is very good and I would go that way over a transport...

the problem with a serpent is that it isn't an assault vehicle, so your harlies cant assault when they disembark. Your better off using DE and taking a raider.

So lets go over the options:

CWE:
Buy a Falcon, but up to 6 Harlies into it.
Buy a Serpent and start its unit outside of the transport. T1 embark the Harlies

DE:
Buy the Dias and start 9 harlies in it with Vect
Buy a Raider/Venom and start its unit outside of the transport. T1 embark the Harlies.

Remember CWE Harlies have the old Veil of Tears, while DE harlies do not anymore. DE harlies don't need to take a psychic test for theirs, but just have stealth+shrouding for their power.

Personally I prefer the DE power, its just a lot more useful

I prefer the spotting version - it's to easy to ignore cover these days!

If I understand the rules correctly, nothing can prevent me from taking a Serpent/Raider as DT for Avengers/Kabalites, put them outside and begin the game with Harlies embarked on transport.
Dedicated transport comes from force organization, but the FOC doesn't affect deployment of your forces. So you have a Serpent, which formally belongs to Avengers, but there are Harlies inside, because you have deployed so.
Correct me, if I'm not right

I think you are right up to te point where you say you could start the game with the unit embarked. I don't think units are allowed to be fielded embarked unless they are in their own dedicated transport.

Why not? The transport doesn't need to be dedicated to start with embarked units. For example you can embark your kabalites on a Tantalus, which comes from Heavy Support.
Or some units of orks start embarked on Battlewagons even if they are not their DT.

Units can start the game embarked in a transport, that is not their own dedicated Transport, e.g.: a Vendetta Gunship or a Landraider.

BRB p.121 wrote:

Units can be deployed in Transport vehicles if you wish - simply declare to your opponent which units are embarked where as part of your deployment.

But if a vehicle is a dedicated transport the only unit that can start the game embarked in it, is the unit it was bought for.

BRB p.121 wrote:

...if a unit is a Dedicated Transport, only the unit it was selected with (plus any Independent Characters that have joined the unit) can deploy within it.

After the game started any unit can use any Transport, as long as its capacity is large enough and it was selected from the same detachment.

BRB p.121 wrote:

After the game begins, other units can embark and disembark as normal...

BRB p.112 wrote:

However, note that not even Battle Brothers can embark in allied transport vehicles.

Ahhh, right, which brings us back to the point someone else made earlier in the thread: as you can only buy a Serpent as a dedicated transport, you cannot start the game with Harlequins embarked on it.

Well, embark them on turn 1. If the transport didn't move before the embarkation you can run at full speed and move flat out.

I would take DE version of harlies. Permanent 4+ in the open and 2+ in any terrain is great. By the way you can ride Raider, which is better, because it's the assault vehicle.