Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Eldar Harlequins

This is the 8th Edition's Eldar Harlequins tactics. Their current tactics can be found here.

Why Play Harlequins

Because you love practical jokes, big smiles, and grisly murder, have a thing for Carnevale masks, and like laughing at your opponents when your psychedelic clown elves eat entire units in assault at the speed of light.

Harlequins are massively improved from 7th in almost every way. They're extremely fast, surprisingly difficult to kill with proper support, and hit incredibly hard in Assault, quickly chewing through MEQs with mass high-strength, decent AP attacks. Badly positioned, they'll still quickly die to the enemy's firepower, but with proper planning you'll be laughing all the way to the circus. Send in the clowns.

Pros

• Incredibly fast with a default 8" movement plus the ability to Advance and Charge, and everyone ignores terrain and models.
  • With the Psychic Awakening update, a whole bunch of deepstrike shenanigans have also been added.
• Beautiful models with a unique and cool theme that can be painted in any kind of ridiculous way without breaking fluff.
• Hit like an absolute truck in Assault with 4 attacks base for basic troops, and can also pull off close-ranged Shooting shenanigans with Fusion Pistols and Starweavers.
• Your BASIC TROOPS can have 5 attacks.
  • To compare, many characters have just 4, and the Golden bananas have 3 (admittedly though their thing is being hard as nails in defence, they hit at much higher strength and AP than you, and have ways of boosting their numbers of attacks. Try not to get arrogant when facing them down in melee; give 'em a chance and they will wipe your entire squad).
• Have the AELDARI keyword, meaning you can plug the holes in their capabilities with complementary units from Dark Eldar or Craftworld Eldar (e.g.: cheap scoring Kabalites). You will, however, need to take these units in a separate detachment, per the new Battle Brothers rule.
• Cheap HQs and Troops you want to be taking a lot of makes it easy to fill out Battalions and Brigades for extra Command Points.
• Possibly the best faction for leadership bombs on single units.
• The sheer number of tactics and synergies available give Harlequins one of the highest skill ceilings in the game, a true harlequins player can run rings around their opponent giving them a very satisfying playstyle.
• Haywire bikes are arguably one of the best way of dealing with vehicles for eldar, the glaives on those bikes will also typically eat through primaris marines pretty quickly too.
• You can make cool Joker quotes the whole game and laugh away if you are winning.
• You can always say that you're just doing it for the lolz if things go bad!
• Most players are not accustomed to battling against these buggers. Use that to your advantage and seriously play for keeps, laugh and clown around all day but this army is even more cutthroat than dark eldar.
• Almost every model has access to a 4++, and also has access to high AP weaponry.
• They're Clowns.

Cons

• Even with improved Invulns, you're still fragile. Your clowns will fall apart under any kind of concentrated fire. If you can't hit first and hit hard, in nicer terms things will go poorly. Never mind the average armour save for infantry is 6+ (7+ on Shadowseers, god knows why) means that if their invulns are somehow negated, your clowns will fall apart even easier than guardsmen.
• In addition to the above: this is seriously the Harlequins greatest disadvantage. You pay a premium for your models, but unlike other elite armies, you don't have some bullshit to fall back on. Meaning if you don't manage to wipe out a unit on the first turn of combat, two turns of even CQC weapons are going to wipe out your unit, or cause so many casualties that they may as well have been wiped out.
• No long ranged weaponry. The best you have is 24" on your Shuricannons.
• Small pool of units to choose from- Two HQs, one Troops, one Fast Attack, two Elites, one Heavy support, and a transport. Most Harlequin armies are going to look very similar each other in terms of units.
• Your models are pricey, in points and dollars. Less so now after CA 2019 but the dollars point still stands.
• They're Clowns.

Ghost Space Clowns vs. Regular Space Clowns

23/07/2017 FAQ: You must have Yvraine, The Visarch or The Yncarne as your Warlord to be able to give any Aeldari units in your army the "Ynnari" keyword. Yvraine and The Yncarne are your only access to the Revenant Discipline and the same FAQ finally gave The Visarch a 4++ Invulnerable save. It's a Tax, but all three characters are in a good spot now. GW has to sell that box set I guess. Remember that you still need to to take the following units in a separate Detachment should you wish to use them: Dhrazar, Mandrakes, Urien Rakarth, Coven units and The Avatar of Khaine.

16/11/2017 FAQ: Soulbursts now cannot be triggered on your opponent's turn, and only one of each particular action can be performed on your turn. Given the charge-happy nature of your Harlequins, it's hardly worth giving up your ability to advance and charge as well as the ability to fall back, shoot and charge again so you can squeeze in a maximum of one extra charge if you kill a squad on your turn. This constraint does not apply in Narrative/Open Play games, however.

16/04/2018 FAQ: You can no longer take Ynnari detachments with mixed troops due to changes to the Army of the Reborn rule. They must now be pure Craftworlds, Drukhari or Harlequins detachments only. They still don't receive a masque/craftworld/kabal etc trait, but they do now count for the purposes of unlocking stratagems, so you don't need to bring an additional "pure" detachment just for that purpose. You must also add one of the Ynnari HQs to *every* detachment you want to be Ynnari, as well as nominating one as your Warlord.

White Dwarf Ynnari Index/Psychic Awakening: Phoenix Rising: The Ynnari received a massive rework, gaining their own Warlord Traits, Stratagems, Relics, fully fledged psychic discipline and Tactical Objectives. They additionally received their own version of Objective Secured (finally) and updated faction Keywords. The best news is that Strength from Death now functions more akin to a Masque Form or Craftworld Attribute, no longer disabling abilities like Rising Crescendo or Battle Focus. The bad news? The Soulburst mechanic was entirely reworked in what could be considered a severe nerf, no longer granting out of phase actions. Instead, while it triggers for all of your units across the field whenever any unit dies, all it does now is grant them the "Fight First" combat rule, giving them a +1 to-hit if they already could or just charged. This ability isn't terrible persay, as having an effective BS2+ on the charge across your entire army is nothing to scoff at considering your combat oriented playstyle. It's simply underwhelming compared to several of your vanilla options, especially since it's only active if a unit is completely wiped out where virtually every other attribute in the game is consistently active (even if they have some variable condition, like the 12" rule for Alaitoc or Raven Guard, for example).

In terms of all the new tricks and trinkets you get? It's a very mixed bag. On one hand, the Warlord Traits and a couple of the relics are actually really solid picks, almost worth considering a token Supreme Command detachment for some particularly lethal HQ choices. On the other hand, the Revenant psychic discipline only offers one or two powers genuinely worth taking and comes with the tax of locking out any access to the Phantasmancy Discipline for your Shadowseer's use (not even mentioning how all Ynnari units can't benefit from Runes of Fate/Battle or Phantasmancy powers any longer, directly or otherwise). The stratagems and objectives are where the Ynnari fall flat on their ass. What stratagems weren't simply copy-pasted from the other aeldari factions are generally overpriced and situational at best or flat out useless otherwise. Your tactical objectives suffer similar issues as well, simply being inferior copy-pasted versions worth fewer VPs for the exact same tasks that the vanilla versions also must complete. Granted, tactical objectives aren't a concern unless you're playing Maelstrom of War, so many players may not even notice this particular issue.

So, should you have your harlies join the Ynnari? These days, definitely not fully. A small, secondary detachment is certainly a decent choice worth considering if you want to build a bit of an HQ death star, but you sacrifice far too much from the rest of your army if you commit your detachments to the Ynnari entirely. A situational +1 to hit in melee on the charge isn't worth giving up a guaranteed extra attack on the charge, or effective morale immunity when you want to go big. Between barring all named characters, several notable units (like your Solitaire) and banning the new perks and abilities granted through each faction's psychic awakening, there just isn't much the Ynnari offer that sticking with the vanilla factions can't also provide or even outperform entirely with their own inhouse selections.

Faction Keywords

Your main keyword is HARLEQUINS. You also get the AELDARI keyword, which is shared with Craftworlds, Dark Eldar, and Ynnari, allowing you to freely mix and match units from all four factions.

You also have to choose a <MASQUE> keyword, to denote what Masque your Harlequins belong to. This will determine their Chapter Tactics equivalent, Masque Forms.

16/04/2018 FAQ The new Battle Brothers beta rule states that the AELDARI and Ynnari Faction tags are no longer sufficient to include units in a Battle-Forged detachment. Any and all units now must also share an additional faction keyword (Such as <MASQUE> or HARLEQUINS) in order to remain battle-forged. While mixed soup lists are over, you can still take these units in separate detachments and remain battle forged.

Special Rules

• Defenders of the Black Library: Objective Secured, Harlequin style.
• Reclaim the Galaxy (Ynnari): Objective Secured, Ynnari style.

Rising Crescendo

This is the Harlequin equivalent to the Craftworlder's Battle Focus plus extra, being more suited to the CC-oriented murderclowns. It lets you Advance in the Movement Phase while still being allowed to Charge (just like the formation bonus of the same name from 7th but starting Turn 1), which is extremely useful already. Even better though, it allows Harlequins to fall back and still shoot or charge, letting you steal the initiative from your opponents or pull out of difficult fights to charge a more suitable opponent. This special rule lets you pull plenty of shenanigans as well as boosting your speed in general and letting you strike first in the majority of assaults you get into.

Masques

The Midnight Sorrow

Border

In the grim darkness of the far future, Chaos is to be felled at any cost.

A fairly large masque scattered across the galaxy on a crusade against Slaanesh and Chaos at large, to the point of obsession. Members of this Masque find themselves losing their identity entirely to their fight against the ruinous powers. Also a pretty big part of Eldrad's plan to awaken Ynnead.

Mobility is this Masque's thing, allowing them to fall back and consolidate further than others, along with some buffs while fighting Chaos.

The Midnight Sorrow Special Rules

• Masque Forms – Art of Death: Units with this form can move an additional D6" when they Fall Back. In addition, they can consolidate up to 6".
  • Remember that everything has Flip Belts, so you move over units like they aren't there (when falling back, consolidation is not in the movement phase). Combine this with Rising Crescendo and your opponent will be tearing up their deployment plans in seconds when they reason this rule.
  • Against shooting heavy armies, this is devastating, as the 6" consolidation can often land you in combat with something that can't fight back. This keeps your Harlequins safe and forces the opponent to fall back, costing them a turn with a potentially strong unit. Combine this with Cegorach's Jest and you will be lucky to be invited back for a rematch.

• Warlord Trait - Nemesis of the Damned: Rolls of 6 in the Fight Phase cause 2 hits instead of 1 for your warlord. In addition, your warlord adds 1 to hit rolls against Chaos units.
  • Not very good, your warlord usually does not get kills and you don't even average one extra attack per round of combat. A lot better against Chaos, however.

• Stratagem - No Price Too Steep (2 CP): When a Character is slain, it can Fight again. If the Character is a Solitaire or was slain by a CHAOS unit, it gets +1 to Strength and Attacks for its final duel. Nice and poetic.

• Remnant of Glory - Midnight's Chime: A one-off buff-bubble that can be activated the start of the Fight Phase. +1 Attack for all The Midnight Sorrow units within 6" of the bearer, including the enemy, if you're in a mirror match.

The Veiled Path

Border

In the grim darkness of the far future, illusion and doubt are powerful tools.

The Veiled Path is an enigma. Manipulative, even by Eldar standards, they are known to both aid an harm various groups at seemingly random. A Shadowseer of this Masque was actually instrumental in the events leading to Guliman's resurrection. Their combat techniques and performances alike feature heavy use of hallucinogenics, in both cases spectators and allies have been known to be abducted without a trace.

On the tabletop, they tend to be something of a mixed bag, their main trait causing an exact dice value, rolled for at the start of each fight phase to fail. They also allow you to deepstrike more units.

The Veiled Path Special Rules

• Masque Forms - Riddle-Smiths: At the start of each Fight phase, roll two dice, discarding the highest. For the rest of the phase, any To Hit rolls of that dice number that target a unit with this form (before modifiers) automatically fails.
  • This will apply army-wide, so consider if you might want to reroll your lowest value die so it applies benefits to as many combats possible.
  • Won't work outside of any phase that isn't the Fight phase, so be careful with things like enemy Psychic/Stratagems/IG orders that allow units to fight in other phases.
    • Inversely, though, this will protect against other out-of-phase attacks in the Fight Phase. So for those edge-cases where you fight a Sister player that shoots you in the Fight Phase...
  • A little bit of math for this ability: Assuming a doubles roll for Riddle-Smiths just gives that number, then you have a 1/36 chance of getting a 6, 3/36 (1/12) chance of a 5, 5/36 for a 4, 7/36 for a 3, 9/36 (3/12, 1/4) for a 2, and 11/36 chance of getting a 1 (which is basically useless, since 1s always miss anyways). On the surface, this form looks like it works best against more elite armies. If your enemies have WS 2+, then rolling a 2 basically gives them -1 to hit your clowns, while rolling a 2 for someone with 3+ doesn't matter, since they missed on 2s anyways.
    • Or, cumulatively, that's 1/36 for 6+, 4/36 (1/9) for 5+, 9/36 (1/4) for a 4+, 16/36 (4/9) for a 3+, and 25/36 for a 2+, to let you see the chance of the ability applying to a number that an incoming accuracy stat can hit you with (e.g. you need 4+ - 4, 5, or 6 - to matter against a WS/BS4+ attacker). In each of these cases, if you have rolled well enough, Riddle-Smiths will act like a -1 to hit, which itself matters more against lower accuracy - the ability is more likely to matter against more accurate opponents, but when it does matter, it matters more against lower accuracy ones (when it hits a base accuracy 6+ opponent, their ability to hit you becomes zero). The net result is that the ability is better against more accurate opponents; the full results (relative to before the Riddle-Smiths debuff) are:
      1. 6+: 97.22% (2.78% penalty)
      2. 5+: 94.44% (5.56% penalty)
      3. 4+: 91.67% (8.33% penalty)
      4. 3+: 88.89% (11.11% penalty)
      5. 2+: 86.11% (13.89% penalty)

• Warlord Trait - Webway Walker: Your Warlord can Deepstrike (9" from enemies, same as normal). In addition, you can use the Webway Assault Stratagem twice.

• Stratagem - Capricious Reflections (1 CP): At the end of your opponent's Charge phase, a Veiled Path unit can make a Heroic Intervention as if they are a CHARACTER.
  • Unfortunately, it doesn't stack with Dramatic Entrance, as it actually doesn't add the CHARACTER Keyword, but Dramatic Entrance requires it.

• Remnant of Glory - Mirrorstave: Replaces a miststave. Instead of having a Strength score, its wound rolls are equal to the target's unmodified WS (if used in melee) or the target's unmodified BS (if used in shooting). Obviously, this makes it excellent against characters and elite units but awful against cheap hordes. Ranged = 12" Assault 6 AP-1 Damage 1. Melee = AP-1, Damage D3.

Frozen Stars

Border

In the grim darkness of the far future, a spark of joy must exist in such a bleak reality.

The Frozen Stars believe that there's still a future for Eldar-kind, having taken to protecting the maiden worlds on the Eastern Fringe and killing anything that isn't a space elf for laughs.

Butchering is precisely what the Frozen Stars excell at, gaining a bonus attack when charging until the end of the fight phase and sporting a stratagem to aid in their murder sprees. Conversely, their warlord trait and relic provide defensive bonuses, sorta thematically fitting with their notion of hope for their race.

Frozen Stars Special Rules

• Masque Forms - Hysterical Frenzy: If units of this form charge, +1 Attack until the end of the Fight Phase.
  • Like the Legendary Fighter Warlord trait applied to your whole army (which can funnily enough stack with that trait to give your warlord another extra attack on the charge). Obviously best used on max Troupe squads (a full 12 person Troupe goes from 48 to 60 attacks), but they'll be a massive threat magnet, and won't fit in a clown car. Morale will be nasty; keep 2 CP spare (or The Laughing God's Eye) for auto passes.
  • When you decide to run maxed out 12-elf squads, it is either this trait or Dreaming Shadow, but consider how well this trait pairs up with the War Dancers stratagem, putting Khorne Berzerkers to shame. Frozen Stars have their specific stratagem Malicious Frenzy that allows them to add +1 to wound against Infantry, Beasts, and Bikers (read: your favorite targets), all without any dependencies on psychic support or WTs (maybe Twilight Pathways to deliver them wherever needed). So, in the end, with a modicum of CPs (that's around 3-6) you can finally have enough Choppa to make any Ork horde cry, with 120 S4 AP-3/S5 AP-2 attacks on the charge with +1 to wound and re-rolling all failed to wound. Now that's proper murder clowns!

• Warlord Trait - Our Kin will Rise Again: Friendly Frozen Stars units within 6" of your Warlord gain a 6+++ against their last wound. Doesn't stack with Webway Dance.
  • Kind of helps your survival (especially with all the buffs you can apply) but a 6+++ is still meh.

• Stratagem - Malicious Frenzy(2 CP): Select a Frozen Stars unit at the beginning of the Fight phase. Add 1 to that unit's wound rolls for any attacks that target an enemy INFANTRY, BEASTS or BIKERS unit.

• Remnant of Glory - The Ghoul Mask: Lets the bearer Deny The Witch as if they were a Psyker, or on a Shadowseer lets them Deny twice a turn. Additionally, you can add 1 to the Bearer's Deny Test roll.

The Soaring Spite

Border

In the grim darkness of the far future, the screams of our jet engines herald victory.

Their existence is based upon the tales of the Cosmic Serpent and its offspring, favoring heavy use of Sky, Star and Voidweavers (all of which are named after the Cosmic Serpent's children) compared to Troupes on foot as their performances are airborne. This has lead to them being pretty popular with Saim-Hann and even taking part in duels with Wych Cults.

Fitting wonderfully with their lore, this Masque provides bonuses to your vehicles and bikes, most notably allowing you to advance them without penalty and perform drive-bys. How goddamn cool is that?

The Soaring Spite Special Rules

• Masque Forms - Serpent's Brood: Models that have FLY or are embarked on units which have FLY treat their Pistols as Assault 1 if they or their Transport Advanced that turn. Also, Assault weapons on units with FLY don't get the penalty for Advancing. Aiming pistols sideways is not optional.
  • Perfect for fusion pistol drive-bys. Also, removing the minus 1s from your 'weavers is a very nice bonus. No reason to not advance with this form.
  • This is a very good trait just because it extends the pitiful 6" range of your pistols up to functional 12" effectively making them meltaguns. Also, never underestimate a 6" increase in range, as with proper deployment and/or screening, it is very easy to ensure almost complete safety for a majority of valuable targets, though this trait doesn't help you with screening.

• Warlord Trait - Skystrider: Your Warlord can disembark from a Transport even after it has moved.
  • Holy heck, you've got a way to make your Meltas have a threat range of 50" (47" with rolling two damage). Put this on a Shadowseer that knows Twilight pathways, put it and a Fusion Pistol squad into a Starweaver, move the Transport 22" then disembark the Shadowseer, cast Twilight pathways, and zoom!
    • If you give the aforementioned Shadowseer the Faolchu's Talon relic, this threat range is buffed to an even more absurd 56" (or 53" for two dice melta rolls.)
  • It's also good for supporting a first-turn Skyweaver charge with a Great Harlequin Troupe Master. Advance a couple of squads of Skyweavers and a Starweaver with a 5-clown Troupe and the Troupe Master up to 22", disembark the Master, thus giving the nearby Skyweavers and the Starweaver both re-rolls of ones to hit and re-rolls to wound in melee, shoot the ranged weapons (you can use Troupe's Fusion Pistols and Skyweavers' Haywire Cannons to destroy any transports or vehicles near your target), use the Starweaver to eat up Overwatch, let the Skyweavers slice and dice whatever needs to be sliced and diced, then Skystride the Troupe Master back to safety. Disengage, rinse, repeat. Bonus points for using The Hundred Swords of Vaul to hide this strat until the game starts.

• Stratagem - Skystride (1 CP): Use this stratagem before your unit consolidates. You can consolidate up to 6" towards the closest SOARING SPITE Transport, and if all models would end their consolidation move within 3" of it, they can immediately embark on it as if it were your Movement phase (even if they disembarked earlier that turn).

• Remnant of Glory - Faolchu's Talon: If the bearer is embarked on a transport, the transport gains an extra 6" of movement. Additionally, if the transport is destroyed with the bearer embarked on it, no disembarking models will be slain and the transport will not explode.

The Dreaming Shadow

Border

Through the strange, grim dark aeons of the far future, the dead shall eternally lie.

Unlike other Harlequins, the Dreaming Shadow is focused on the Necrons rather than Chaos. They put on an exaggerated amount of hate for other Harlequins over their disagreement on who their primary enemy should be, though most see through this and hold respect for them regardless.

The shooty Masque. Death Jester bonuses and shooting or chopping after being slain are this Masque's thing (though if you're going heavy on the fusion pistols it'll almost always be shooting). Providing what was once the only Shrieker Cannon relic, this flavor of clowns allows you to get some more mileage out of the dudes you lose, along with a bonus to that if you've got any necrons present.

The Dreaming Shadow Special Rules

• Masque Forms – Sombre Sentinels: When a unit with this form fails a Morale test, only one model from this unit must flee. In addition, each time a unit with this form is slain or flees, roll a D6 before removing that model: on a 4+, that model can either shoot with one of its ranged weapons as if it were the Shooting phase or make a single attack as if it were the Fight phase.
  • Max out your squad sizes and get these mini Ynnari into combat ASAP.
  • The way models disembark from destroyed Vehicles works, the models are placed on the battlefield first before you roll to see if any were slain. This means wise disembarking gives you a chance to use any slain models right away. Odds are, if the Starweaver is filled to 6 models full, one will be slain, so make sure you've placed your model you want to slay somewhere useful to get a free shot off.
  • Your grenade is a ranged weapon, remember that on any Shuriken clowns.
  • Watch out if you die in combat, as the single melee attack is not great compared to a fusion pistol shot or a plasma grenade.
    • Remember even when you do die in combat, you can shoot your pistol, pistols can be shot even if you are in CC.

• Warlord Trait - Warden of the Dead: Add 1 to Sombre Sentinel rolls for units within 6" of your Warlord. If there are any Necrons on the battlefield, then instead add 2 to these rolls.
  • Makes the ability more consistent, with how good it already is this is pretty much a must pick, even better versus Necrons.

• Stratagem - An Example Made (1 CP): Use it on a DREAMING SHADOW CHARACTER in the Shooting phase. Any successful hit roll for that Character scores 2 hits; any that hit on a 6+ become 3 hits.
  • Keep in mind that the Dreaming Shadow have access to Curtainfall, which combos hilariously well with this stratagem, since it turns your 3 shot shuricannon at S7 ap -2 into a 6 Shot Shuricannon with S7 AP2 that can target Characters. Any character that lacks an invuln or has a low invuln is very potentially dead.
  • Additionally this work on grenades. Yes it works on plasma grenades carried by troupe masters. This means you get D6 S4 AP-1 shots where every hit is 2 hits and every hit of a 6 is 3. If there are some light infantry standing between you and something you want dead through this super 'nade at them and they won't be standing there for very long. Yes this does work in combination with 'Haywire Grenade' so yes this does mean you can deal a reliable 2D3 mortal words with potential 3D3.

• Remnant of Glory - Curtainfall: Replaces a Shrieker Cannon. A heavily buffed Shrieker Cannon that can be coupled with a Stratagem or 2 to dish out some disgusting shooting. The Shuriken Profile for this weapon gains AP-2, whilst the Shrieker profile boasts S7 AP-3. Both profiles have 30" range, and any hit that wounds on a 6+ gets Bladestormed out to AP-4. On top of that, both profiles reap the benefits of being Bio-Explosive; for each model slain with this weapon, the target unit suffers D3 mortal wounds. In the Codex it states that the Bio Explosive Power only effects the Shrieker Profile, however both profiles do benefit from -2 LD from causing a casualty.

The Silent Shroud

Border

In the grim darkness of the far future, subterfuge can make for a grim performance.

With the power of illusion and technology, this Masque performs and fights in almost pure silence, their members not speaking a word as they do their work. Secrecy and stealth are the fundamentals of this Masque, both on the battlefield and off with both being unnerving and disorienting.

These clowns reflect their brand of terror on the tabletop by debuffing the enemy by being near them and possibly allowing them to charge without the threat of overwatch.

The Silent Shroud Special Rules

• Masque Forms – Dance of Nightmares Made Flesh: Enemies have -1 Leadership when within 6" of any of your units. Also, enemies must roll two dice in the Morale phase and use the highest roll.
  • As this doesn't stack with multiple units (a la Haemonculus Dark Coven), it might be worth kitting out a cheap Elite detachment of Death Jesters & Troupe Master to get the most out of this effect (maybe add a Starweaver to have a survivable & fast way to get the debuff aura in range of specific units).
  • With how much minus leadership the Harlequins can create, this can be pretty scary. You have -1 from this, -1 from shards of light, -1 from the mask of secrets and -2 from a death jester. -5 leadership plus requiring two rolls will make even custodes quake in their boots, on top of making the Shadowseer's grenades do even more damage. Just watch out for abilities like ATSKNF or auto passing morale.
  • Also note that forcing enemies to roll two dice and picking the highest can actually be beneficial to some armies, such as Tau with bonding knife rituals (autopassing morale tests on a roll of a 6).

• Warlord Trait - The Final Joke: If your Warlord is slain in the Fight phase, then after their slayers have made all their attacks, roll a D6. The enemy unit suffers D3 mortal wounds on a 2+, or D6 on a 6.
  • Good way to disuade people attacking your warlord in combat, not great compared to the other options though.

• Stratagem - The Silken Knife (2 CP): Simple yet great - at the beginning of your Charge phase pick a Silent Shroud Unit. Your opponent can't fire overwatch against it. Perfect with the Player of Light warlord trait to help your chances in not wasting 2 CP on a failed charge. Enemies cannot fire overwatch if a unit is within 1", so you only need it once, and any allies can charge in without fear of flamer death.

• Remnant of Glory - Scintillant Veil: Troupe Master or Shadowseer only. Increases the range of their Aura abilities by 3".
  • Remember that this works on your Masque Form, on the Player of the Light Warlord Trait, on the Shadowseer's Webway Dance Psychic Power and the Great Harlequin's aura.

Ynnari

Border

in the grim darkness of the far future ...

your thematically ...

your good at ...

Ynnari Special Rules

• Reborn Harlequins - Strength from Death (Ynnari): Whenever any unit is destroyed, all Ynnari units fight first in the fight phase for the rest of the turn. If they already could or just charged, they also add +1 to their hit rolls.
  • As Reborn Harlequins replaces <Masque Forms> and no longer removes Rising Crescendo, this basically serves the same role as your forms. Honestly, the Harlequins made out the best of the three eldar factions with the Strength from Death rework, especially now that you get to keep Rising Crescendo and basically guarantee that 2+ to hit priority fight phase during those Soulbursts.
    • That said... there are better, more practical perks to be had just sticking with one of your regular Masque Forms. A secondary Supreme Command detachment is probably the only one worth considering, as anything larger begins stripping your main army of debatably more synergistic stratagems and abilities.

Ynnari Warlord Traits

Yup, after nearly two years of going without, Ynnari armies finally have access to their own unique Warlord traits. Due to the way Ynnari detachments now work, so long as a named Ynnari character is in the detachment, you may name take it as a Ynnari detachment and name any generic HQ as your warlord if you so wish. All non-Ynnari named characters cannot join a Ynnari detachment anymore, but Harlequins don't really care about that caveat. Note that if you're going Ynnari, you must pick one of these instead of your usual ones.

• Lord of Rebirth: Heal one wound a turn automatically and ignore wounds on a 5+, a reasonable choice given the up close and personal style your Warlord'll likely have.
• Warden of Souls: Whenever your Warlord is affected by Soulburst, and +1 to their Strength and Attack characteristics. A pretty solid trait all things considered.
• Walker of Many Paths: A free hit/wound reroll every turn with a 5+ CP refund when you use a stratagem. A flexible choice that helps keep your options open when you don't know what to expect.
• Fear of the Grave: All enemy units within 6" of your warlord subtract 1 from their leadership, 2 if it's during a turn a unit was killed by the warlord. Stacks very well with leadership bombs courtesy of the Visarch. An allied detachment of vanilla Silent Shroud Harlequins or Craftworld Hemlock Wraithfighters with the Horror Rune of Battle can ruin the day any blob not outright immune to morale tests.
• Favoured of Ynnead: Consolidate 6" instead of 3" in melee. Can be handy to keep up the momentum, but runs the risk of leaving your warlord's entourage behind. Yvraine has this by default.
• Master of Death: Whenever your warlord rolls a hit roll of 6 in melee, it generates two hits instead of one. A good way to help deal with hordes and fish for hits in general, but kind of unreliable. The Visarch has this by default.

Ynnari Stratagems

A subset of stratagems to further enhance your Ynnari detachments. Now that the Ynnari have their own set of stratagems, GW decided that they are no longer permitted to use Craftworld, Harlequin or D. Eldar stratagems. Bummer.

• Fire and Fade (2cp): Copy-paste of the vanilla version, only twice as expensive for some reason. This lets your selected unit move 7" after shooting, no charging or advancing allowed. Just like the vanilla Harlequin strat, this is situational at best. Even more so given the increased cost.
• Lightning-Fast Reactions (2cp): Another copy-paste, add a -1 to-hit modifier if targeted by a ranged or melee attack. Useful for your Starweavers in a pinch.
• Deadly Misdirection (2cp): Identical to Feigned Retreat, this one lets you shoot and charge after falling back. Quite useless to Harlequins, Rising Crescendo does this for you automatically.
• Artefacts of Death (1/3cp): The ever standard extra relic(s) stratagem, nothing special.
• Webway Ambush (1/3cp): Your flavor of deep striking Infantry, Biker or Beast stratagem. Situationally useful.
• Exalted of Ynnead (1cp): Pick one of your non-warlord/named HQ characters and give them a warlord trait, no duplicates allowed. Doesn't make them a real warlord and you can only do this once. Actually quite handy, as there are some good traits to choose from.
• Inevitable Fate (2cp): Pick an enemy unit at the beginning of the fight phase and all your Ynnari stuff re-roll wound rolls against it. Can be handy, but kinda pricey.
• A Taste for Death (1cp): Used when a unit's ranged weapons wipe an enemy unit, they add +1 to-hit in melee till the end of the turn. Objectively useless, as they'd be benefitting from Soulburst if they kill a unit and since most decent ranged weaponry can't be fired while in combat, they'd need to charge and would cap on their hit bonus from the Soulburst itself.
• The Great Enemy (1cp): Largely the same as Inevitable Fate, but limited to Slaanesh targets and only buffs one of your units. A fluffy strat that's unfortunately quite situational due to the rarity of that keyword.
• Back from the Brink (2cp): When one of your Infantry/Biker characters dies, use this and roll a D6. On a 4+, they come back with D3 wounds and sets up as close to where they died as possible. Can only do this once per character. Can come in handy if your opponent fucks up your plans.
• Reborn Together (1cp): Add +2 Leadership to all Ynnari units that have another Ynnari unit within 6" of them. Sort of helpful if you're worried about leadership bombs or casualties screwing your morale.
• Whispering Spirits (2cp): Basically the opposite of Reborn Together, targeted enemy unit subtracts 2 from their leadership when within 1" of your dudes. Stacks obscenely well with the myriad of leadership debuffs at your disposal.
• Acolyte of Ynnead (1cp): If one of your psykers attempts to manifest a Revenant power in the same phase that you destroyed a unit, add 3(!) to their psychic test. An allied vanilla detachment's Farseer spamming Smite/Mind War/Executioner can help create opportunities to use this.
• Ynnead's Net (2cp): A Ynnari biker can advance and charge in the same turn. Shining Spears still have a place in this army!
• United in Death (1cp): Pick a Reborn Asuryani, Reborn Drukhari and a Reborn Harlequin unit. All of them get +1 Attack in the fight phase if they're Soulbursting. Yikes, try making that happen in a Matched Play game.
• Shrine of the Whispering God (2cp): Pick up to three Incubi units and they get Strength from Death. Handy, if useless to a Harlequin based Ynnari list.
• Souls of the Strongest (1cp): Kill the enemy warlord, and all units with Strength from Death get soulbursts for the rest of the game even if no other units are destroyed in subsequent turns. This can make your Harlequins pretty monstrous if you can pull it off fairly early on, but your lack of native sniper units or ranged options in general can make it a bit tricky to pull off depending on your opponent.

Revenant Discipline (Ynnari)

Now available to any Ynnari Psyker unit. These powers allow them to play both a supportive and offensive role for army. Do note, Ynnari units can no longer select or benefit directly from any Runes of Fate and Battle or Phantasmancy powers and they cannot be targeted by them anymore. Offensive powers and debuffs from allied vanilla detachments should still work for your Shadowseers (only for Harlequin Ynnari), but they cannot directly buff your Reborn dudes. The good news is that you do have some pretty nice powers that can be cast relatively reliably.

1. Gaze of Ynnead: Essentially Smite on crack, this WC 6 power lets you choose the target, and deals mortal wounds based on a D6; a roll of 1 results in 1 mortal wound, 2-5 causes 1d3 mortal wounds, and a 6 results in 1d6 mortal wounds on the target; the total expected mortal wounds is, accordingly, 25/12, or slightly more than 2.
   • Like all non-Smite Psychic Powers in 8th, this is worse than Smite: the odds of it going off base are down from 30/36 to 26/36, so the total expected output is only 1.5 mortal wounds. For comparison, Smite deals 1.79 (both results assume the Psyker survives Perils on double 6). What's surprisingly nice here is that the reduction is small compared to two significant trade-offs: the first is that you can pick the target, and the second is that your Warlocks can cast it without a wacky special rule nerfing your mortal wound output. Still not a great power, but other disciplines definitely have worse.
   • The math changes for both Yvraine and a Farseer, and for any other buff you can come up with to casting the power. However, any buff that increases the casting total, like Yvraine's, tends to make Gaze worse, not better: Yvraine's Gaze deals 1.74 mortal wounds, but her Smite deals 2.08. In other words, normally Smite does 19% more mortal wounds than Gaze, but for Yvraine, it deals 20% more. The difference is negligible, but will accumulate as you incorporate more buffs, like spending CP to re-roll her cast. It can be a solid offensive tool in the hands of Yvraine, but you'll ideally pick it up mid-battle when some of her warlock meat shields get chewed up rather than starting out with the power.
2. Storm of Whispers An AoE aura attack, this WC 6 power lets you roll 3d6 per enemy unit within 6" of the caster; every roll of a 6 hits the unit in question with a mortal wound.
   • This power is hot garbage. Assuming you pull it off - and you will 26/36 of the time for a standard caster, or slightly better than 2/3 of the time - each unit suffers, on average, half a mortal wound (or, in other words, every nearby enemy unit will suffer 13/36 of a mortal wound, on average, or slightly better than 1/3). That means a normal caster needs to be within range of five units for this to compete with Smite, and Yvraine needs to be within six. Stay the hell away from this power - you're seriously better off casting Smite additional times, even despite the casting penalty.
3. Word of the Phoenix: WC 5, this ability no longer triggers Soulburst, but rather allows the targeted Ynnari Infantry or Ynnari Biker within 18" to heal 1d3 wounds or resurrect one model, who comes back with a single wound remaining. Finally, a semi-reliable (well, less reliable than medical care from any faction that actually offers it - contrast with a Bonesinger, who can't fail to heal her target) way to heal your units! Only having a 5/6 chance to heal a wounded target is worse than just about any healer in the game offers, but a 5/6 chance to bring a dead target back to life beats out several healers out there, like any Space Marine Apothecary - AND it works at range. Accordingly, this is best used on as elite targets as possible (to maximize how many points you're returning to the table) with as few wounds as possible, both to maximize your chance to res rather than heal, and so that your res restores as high a percentage as possible of the target's total wounds. For example, it'll repair Vypers at range just fine (since it doesn't care about the presence or absence of Biker), but you'll get overall better performance on a Warlock Skyrunner Conclave.
4. Unbind Souls A WC 6 debuff that allows units to re-roll wound rolls for melee attacks against the targeted unit. Now that Doom is more or less off the table for Ynnari units, this is the next best thing. It synergizes fairly well with the new Soulburst as it is relatively easy to cast without much hassle - and while it is easier to cast than Doom, the double nerf of shorter range AND being melee only really hurts.
5. Shield of Ynnead A slightly more challenging WC 7 power that grants all Ynnari units within 6" of the Psyker a 5++ invulnerability save. This works for literally everything in your army that doesn't already have a 5++ or better (e.g. this won't do anything to protect Wyches in melee) and can be a fantastic tool for your Wraith units, vehicles, or even the ever standard Aspect Warriors.
6. Ancestor's Grace: This WC 5power allows the targeted friendly unit within 18" to reroll To-Hit rolls of 1 until your next Psychic phase, so both shooting and melee. A nice supplemental power, but it might be better to simply use an Autarch or Archon, who will benefit multiple units automatically with his aura (so long as you're using primarily <Craftworld> or <Kabal> Eldar in your Ynnari detachment).

Ynnari Tactical Objectives

Yep, these exist now too. They aren't anything special, mind you.

11 - Spirit Sanctuary

Roll a D6; gain 1VP if no enemies control the corresponding Objective Marker. Kind of unreliable and random, but still relatively easy to work with.

12 - Harness the Spirits

Successfully casting a power from a Ynnari Psyker generates 1VP. Yvraine or a Shadowseer can make this one easy pickings.

13 - For Ynnead's Glory

Get 1VP if three or more units were killed by attacks made by Ynnari units this turn. Kind of a tall order for a single VP, especially since the Harlequin's The Dance of Death gives you 1VP for just killing one unit.

14 - Surety of Purpose

Get d3VP if you achieved at least two other tactical objectives this turn.

15 - Death's Every Visage

Score 1VP if you destroy a unit in the Psychic/Shooting/Fight phase this turn. Score d3VP if you destroy a unit in all three of them. Worse than the vanilla version.

16 - Soulsurge

Score 1VP if you destroy three or more units with attacks made by Ynnari units while they are benefiting from Soulburst in a single turn. Kinda fucked up that the more challenging version of For Ynnead's Glory doesn't offer any more VP for the extra effort needed (you'll need to wipe 4 enemy units in a single turn to get this; one to trigger the Soulburst and then the remaining 3 for the objective). Made somewhat easier if by some miracle you manage to pull off the Souls of the Strongest stratagem beforehand.

Relics of Ynnead

A fresh batch of relics available for your Ynnari characters, thanks to the May issue of White Dwarf. These are all exclusive for your generic characters and cannot be taken on your named Ynnari characters, ironically.

• Hungering Blade: For your Troupe Master only and it replaces his Power Sword. S+3 AP-3 flat D2 sword that swats an extra mortal wound on targets for every wound roll of a 6. A pretty solid upgrade that's effectively free compared to his other choices.
• Song of Ynnead: A 18" S5 AP-1 replacement for a shuriken pistol. Follows shuriken AP-3 rules and every time it kills an enemy model, its unit subtracts 1 from its leadership till the turn ends. Since it shoots three times, this can devastate enemy leadership in conjunction with other debuff powers/abilities, especially when in the hands of a Harlequin.
• Mirrorgaze: A standard "-1 for hit rolls against the bearer" relic.
• Soulsnare: Once per game, you can pick a unit within 6" of the bearer and roll a D6. 1 does nothing, 2-5 deals D3 mortal wounds and heals the bearer for the damage dealt, and a 6 deals D6 mortal wounds and heals for all lost wounds on the bearer. Basically a pocket mini-smite with some crazy benefits if you get lucky and obviously pays off more on characters with big health pools.
• The Lost Shroud: Halve all damage received, rounding up, with a 5+ FNP for good measure. Crazy good ability that can take the edge off strong weapons, but largely underwhelming on any characters with less than 6 wounds total.
• Corag Hai's Locket: Whenever the bearer destroys a unit, permanently add 1 to their movement and attack characteristics. There is no cap to this, meaning you can get some ridiculous stats if the owner of this racks up the kills. Stacks beautifully with Soulbursts and Warden of Souls. Unfortunately, it can't be taken on a Solitaire (as Solitaire can't be used in Ynnari detachments).

Ynnari Special Characters

• The Visarch: Now actually a better combatant than Yvraine. At 80 points and with a statline that puts him somewhere between a close combat Archon and the Phoenix Lords, The Visarch is a very nice character. His BFS, Asu-Var, the Sword of Silent Screams is a Strength 5 Force Sword that reduces the enemy unit's Leadership by 1, allowing him to be the linchpin for Leadership Bomb setups. On his own, he's got a pretty tanky 3+/4++ save in addition to healing a wound on a 4+ when any Aeldari model within 7" dies. If that model happens to be a character, he also gets +1 Attack (caps at 7) for the rest of the game (Warlocks, Troupe Masters and Court of the Archon bodyguards are fantastic for this). While he is the only Ynnari character who doesn't offer any Revenant discipline powers, he does now offer a 6" re-roll hit rolls of 1's bubble for the fight phase. He himself acts as a bodyguard to Yvraine and if he's within 3" of her, he can take any wounds for her as a Mortal Wound on a 2+. Lastly, if taken as your Warlord, he is stuck with the Master of Death trait, granting him 2 hits on a roll of a 6 during the fight phase instead of just one.
  • Your cheapest Ynnari character compliments the Harlequin playstyle quite well all things considered. Even if you're not using him as your Warlord, your access to reasonably cheap Troupe Masters can give him some potential fodder to heal and build up his attack cap while he lays the smack down on your foe. Additionally, when paired with a vanilla Harlequin list, you can use his sword to help stack a crazy number of leadership debuffs on an enemy unit if you want to go that route.

• The Yncarne: The single most expensive HQ choice for the Eldar, the Yncarne clocks in at a whopping 280 points to field, equipped with nothing but Vilith-shar, the Sword of Souls, an awesome weapons that is S6 AP-4 DD6 with re-rolls to wound. With 6 attacks, S7 and 7 attacks with the relevant Warlord Trait, whatever it is hitting is dying. If that in itself doesn't seem like much, the Yncarne is a flying monstrous character that can cast two of the six Revenant Discipline powers giving her some impressive flexibility. The Yncarne is also pretty resilient, T6 with a 3+ armor and 4+ invuln that cover 9 wounds that regenerate on a 4+ for any Aeldari model killed near it. It also provides a 6" bubble to any friendly Aeldari of Fearless and 6+ FNP. While the 8" of movement it has may not seem particularly fast, the Yncarne also has the unique ability to teleport to the location where any squad (friend or foe) is killed, so long as it is at least 1" away from enemy units. This makes it one of the few units able to deep strike easily within charging range to wreak some melee havoc (although it can't charge when it Deep Strikes) and can give it a terrifying threat radius. Typically best taken advantage of when one of your units dies at the end of your opponents Shooting Phase or during their Fight Phase letting you move and charge on your turn to cut out the prime targets that are causing you so much trouble.
  • Possibly out and out the best of the three for a Harlequin Ynnari detachment if only going for the one with the main argument for the other two being price alone, but this girl is worth every single point on her own. She's as fast as your clowns so no problems keeping up, and with inevitable death the fact that she can't board your transports becomes a non issue. Keep in mind that fearless and 6+++ bubble she has for your Clowns to help make them just that much tougher. A powerful if expensive and risky tactic however is using strategems to keep a 12 clown troupe in Tactical Reserves, then bringing them in with the Yncarne via either Inevitable Death or normal Tactical Reserves to the wonderful and quite intimidating image of the Avatar of Death rising up with her 12 back up dancers come to reap the souls of the living (Kinda sounds like one of their performances really, just with slightly more bloodshed) keep in mind this will attract fire from your opponent but they'll have to kill the 12 clowns before they can get to Yncarne and with the fearless and 6+++ bubble they have to get get rid of every.single.one. which distracts from your other clowns or any Ynnari Craftworld/Drukhari detachment you brought along who are already stabbing them to death and if it doesn't attract all the fire power your opponent can muster well, the Avatar of Death and her 12 backup dancers have come to reap their souls.
  • Note: The Yncarne cannot charge after arriving in this way as his rule prohibits it, so you ideally want him popping up on your opponent's turn. You also want to be exploiting the ability to redeploy when anything dies as a mobility/escape tool. If nothing else, The Yncarne popping up somewhere unexpected can divert a ton of fire away from your other units, though you might want to leave the DISTRACTION CARNIFEX role to something like a Succubus, Solitaire, or Venom.

• Yvraine: The Emissary herself, Yvraine costs 115 points and is exclusively armed with Kah-vir, the Sword of Sorrows (basically a Force Axe stat-wise). While her statline itself might seem like a sub-standard Phoenix Lord at S3 T3 with 5 Wounds and only an invuln of 4+, but whenever any Aeldari model (model, not unit) dies within 7" of her on a 4+ she regains a lost wound. This makes her surprisingly survivable especially against pesky snipers. In addition to this she had access to several, quite potent psychic powers that are exceptionally useful for your dudes. Though be aware there are a few lack luster ones like Storm of Whispers or for you redundant ones like Shield of Ynnead, so be mindful when picking her powers. On the note of psychic powers if it was a psyker that died (including allied non Ynnari ones) she immediately learns a new psychic power which isn't something you'll have too many of in a purely Ynnari Harlequin detachment, but hey you've access to the entirety of the Aeldari race . . . okay well sort of.
  • Where as she's an excellent support character with her psychic powers and fits rather naturally in a Craftworld or Dark Eldar Ynnari detachment she takes on a light that she couldn't in the other Aeldari factions. This role is as a supremely aggressive battle psyker tossing out hurt with Gaze of Ynnead and Smite, reviving your expensive elite infantry with Word of the Phoenix helping out any limping squads get some fight back into them, and most importantly dropping full rerolls to wound on a target (So long as the power goes off) keeping you from being in a tight spot if she didn't make it into combat as well unlike your Troupe Masters. More over her Warlord Trait allows her to consolidate up to 6" letting her keep up with your Clowns and keeping her in the thickest fighting.

Ynnari Tactics

Warlord Traits

Universal

• Luck of The Laughing God: The Warlord can re-roll hit rolls, wound rolls and damage rolls of 1.
  • This helps all Harlequin characters. A Death Jester's shrieker profile will almost always hit with this, combined with the shrieking doom stratagem, you can also reroll its damage. A Troupe Master armed with a Kiss or Storied Sword also becomes more dangerous, very useful for having him as a character killer. While a Shadowseer will almost always hit with her hallucinogen grenade launcher, good for leadership bombing. Her melee weapon also does D3 damage.
• Fractal Storm: The Warlord gains a 3++ against Melee Weapons.
  • Not quite meh, but still pretty eh.
• One Foot in The Future: The Warlord gains +2" to their Movement characteristic, and +1" to any Advance, Charge, Fall Back, Consolidate, Pile in or Heroic Intervention distance.
  • Pretty cool. Helps with your Troupe Master or Shadowseers positioning for their aura.
• Player of the Light: Re-roll failed charge rolls for Warlord and friendly <Masque> units within 6".
  • Not as useful as it first seems, as Harlequins have the mobility to get extremely close to their targets before charging. It helps against those low rolls, but not much else.
  • Alternative take: Use PotL to absolutely 100% guarantee that your Clowns can get into combat without any hiccups. The last thing you want to do is be stuck four inches away staring down 20 IG you could've vaporized with a successful charge.
• Player of the Dark: Each wound roll of 6 in the Fight Phase causes an additional Mortal Wound.
  • With the re-rolls to the Troupe Master, this can generate a few more wounds, not great but not bad.
• Player of the Twilight: Once per game, the Warlord can re-roll a hit, would or save roll. Also, when you or your opponent use a Stratagem, roll a die. If the number rolled equals the cost of the stratagem used, gain that many CP (e.g. your opponent uses a stratagem costing 3CP. If you roll a 3, you get 3CP from them).
  • Exactly as reliable as the "gain CP on 6+" rule that most armies have, but more rewarding. It is only less reliable than SM "gain 1 CP on 5+", but applies to both players rather than only to you, and can still be more rewarding.

Stratagems

Universal

• Cegorach's Jest (1 CP): Use this when the enemy unit falls back from your unit. If you aren't locked in combat with any other unit, you can shoot that unit AFTER it finishes it's fall back move. Not great, because most of your Harlequins will be armed with fusion pistols which might be out of range depending on how far they fall back. Helpful if your bikes make early contact and send your enemy scrambling.

• Dramatic Entrance (1CP): At the end of your opponent's Charge phase, a Harlequins Character can make a Heroic Intervention at 6" instead of 3". Situationally useful, though you don't want to get charged in the first place.

EDIT1 24/04/2019. Per FAQ you can heroically intervene even if enemy hasnt charged, but is within distance at the end of his charge phase. Meaning for example, model with movement value 6 cant escape from Solitaire, he will have distance to heroically intervene and fight again in opponent turn.

• Enigmas of The Black Library(1/3CP): 1 or 2 extra Relics, as usual.

• Fire & Fade (1CP): Select a unit that has just shot something. It can move 7". Identical to the Asuryani and Drukhari variants. Very meh, as you cannot charge after the move. Could find use to secure objectives. As the stratagem doesn't specify that you have to move away from enemy units, it can be used to boost a Starweaver full of fusion pistols into pistol range, however. Shoot with the transport, then use the stratagem to move an extra seven inches towards your pistol target.

• Great Harlequin (2 CP): Used before the battle starts, and one use only. A Troupe Master gains the Great Harlequin keyword and the Will of the Laughing God ability. The latter grants re-roll to hit rolls of 1 for all Harlequin units of the same Masque within 6" in addition to his innate granting re-rolls to wound. Excellent! This 'not-Cegorach-I-swear' Master will be a priority for your opponent to wipe off the board, especially if you jack it up with Warlord Traits and artifacts. Make sure you don't send it going in alone for character killing where it can die easily.

• Haywire Grenade (1CP): Same as Craftworlders and Commorities, a Character can throw one (1) of these instead of D6 Plasma Grenades. If it hits a VEHICLE, then it inflicts D3 Mortal Wounds. Good for polishing off a near-dead thing or dropping a Damage Tier.

• Heroes' Path (2 CP): Use at the start of the Movement Phase. If a Solitare, a Death Jester, and a Shadowseer are within 6" from each other, you can remove them from the battlefield and set up again anywhere 9" from the enemy unit. Shadowseers and Troupe Masters are easy to keep together but Solitaires often become isolated. Only really useful as a first turn redeploy.

Alternate take: a solitaire with the rose and a shadowseer with the player of light warlord trait popping up behind your opponents lines, blitzing, war dancing, and using an example made will fuck up absolutely anything with his 40 attacks, for a low price of 6 command points. ((Why would using "An Example Made" confer 40 attacks to the solitaire? Its shooting phase only and he doesn't even have a gun!))

• The Hundred Swords of Vaul (1CP): After Deployment, but before the first turn, you can redeploy a unit (including a Transport and its passengers). Good for ruses, not much else.

• Isha's Weeping (1 CP): At the end of any phase select your Harlequins unit that suffered any casualties. It's invulnerable save is increased by 1 to a maximum of 3++ until the end of the turn. A very interesting way for your opponent to feel fucked up by himself if he managed to kill someone in your Charge phase. More useful to use on your opponents turn than your own (use Prismatic Blur for your turn). A Troupe that lost models to Smite can have a hefty save to the Shooting and Fight phases that turn.
  • Alternative take - It is actually better to use it on your turn if possible, as it lasts until the end of the TURN, not the end of the ROUND, thus working longer if used on "whoever goes first round".

• The Labyrinth Laughs (1 CP): Same as the NECRON Emergency Invasion Beam Strategem, but for our new Webway Gates - when said Webway Gate is destroyed but before removing it from play (great that it can't explode afterwards) you can set up a unit which was in a webway spar wholly within 3" of the Gate and more than 1" from the enemy units.

• Lightning-Fast Reactions (2 CP): Copy from Drukhari and Craftworld Codexes, your opponent subtracts 1 from their hit rolls targeting Harlequins unit for a phase, in which this stratagem was used. That's all Harlequins. Considering your FLY units have innate -1 to hit, and if Veil of Tears is cast, you're looking at a potential -3 to be hit, which can make your opponent cry bloody tears in attempting to actually hit you.
  • As per Codex, Veil of Tears affects only your Infantry units, so no -3 to hit for your Bikers and Star-/Voidweavers.
  • If you really hate your enemy you can take a Solitaire with the suit of hidden knives, cast veil of tears on him, charge into a unit that got fog of dream'ed, and laugh while the enemy cries about his people killing themselves on fours or less. Beware of potential 40k rulebooks flying into your face.

• Mirthless Hatred (1CP): Same as the Craftworld Kin get. Select a Harlies unit at the beginning of the Fight phase, that unit gets to re-roll failed Hit and Wound rolls for any attacks that target a SLAANESH unit for that phase.

• Prismatic Blur (1 CP): Select a Harlequin unit from your army that has advanced. It gains a 3+ invulnerable save until the start of your next movement phase. Turns your normal clowns into Solitaires in terms of survivability, which is nothing to laugh at, as anything in your army can have one of the best saves this edition. Well used on your transports to be a bit more survivable when getting your Infantry where you need them, though really you want to take a full Troupe of 12 models to get the most out of this. 12 Wounds with 3++ is usually reserved for named characters, but on a basic troop, the choice is, frankly, great. Have a Shadowseer bring up the rear with a Shield from Harm, and your unit can survive just about anything that turn (except Mortal Wounds and Morale tests ofc). Worth nothing, you can effectively 'not move' and use this stratagem by declaring an Advance, moving half away and then half back to the same position. Good for helping hold objectives from ranged enemies.

• Shrieking Doom (1 CP): When firing a Death Jester's Shrieker Cannon or Curtainfall with the shrieker profile, it gains +1 S and it becomes d3 D. Pretty good for inflicting the rounds on multi-wound models. Combine with the luck of the laughing god for extra hilarity.

• Torments of The Fiery Pit (1CP): Activate during the Fight phase. Pick a Harlequins character that has lost any Wounds this game Battle Round. Increase their Strength and Attacks by 2 for the rest of this Battle Round phase.
  • Want to have The One Rape Train to Rule Them All? Give your Solitare a Cegorach's Rose and Blitz him right into your opponent's face. If he hasn't killed everything within his grasp on his turn, then at your opponent's Fight phase he will become death incarnate with 12 (!) (2 from Blitz and 2 from this) S6 (!!) attacks, that deal 3 (!!!) damage each (last part is vs Infantry). Or don't even wait for your opponent's Fight phase and just use War Dancers strat on him just for the sake of Overkill and Hilarity, which will burn your CP just like it will melt everything in the actual Fight with your Path of Damnation walker. And for the laugh of gods, don't even start to think about how it will synergize with Ynnari...
    • Blitz ends at the end of your turn, which means it will end before you get a chance to fight with this stratagem (as long as the solitare is unwounded before you blitz). This results in only 10 attacks for the following fight phase.

• Vessel of Fate (1CP): A Shadowseer can attempt an additional psychic power this Psychic Phase. Most probably used for Smite as they can already Cast twice and only know 2 Phantasmancy powers, anyway. Good for weakening a unit before a charge.

• War Dancers (3CP): Standard Fight Twice Stratagem, but you can pile in twice. Sweet! Just think about it a Frozen Stars 12-elf troupe will yield 120 attacks on the charge, pile in twice, advance and charge and they don't even need to be Ynnari, so a friendly Ynnari Shining Spears blob can fight twice, what not to love!

• Warrior Acrobats (1CP): A Harlies Infantry unit gets to Advance 6" this turn instead of rolling a Dice. Better than a charge reroll if you can get 6 inches closer.

• Webway Ambush (1 CP): Use this strategem at the end of your Movement phase. You can deep strike 2 units from the webway following normal rules for Webway Gate (9" from enemy units and within 3" of the gate) or you can deep strike only 1, but only more than a 1" from the enemy and within 3" of gate.

• Webway Assault (1/3 CP): During deployment, you can deep strike one (1CP) or two (3CP) of your non-vehicle units anywhere more than 9" away from your enemies. Finally, the fluff that Harlequins attack out of nowhere is on the tabletop. Instead of worrying if your opponent first turns mulches your best clowns before you can react, or whilst making your way up the battlefield if you don't get into combat first turn (though you really should), you can keep them safe. A Charge of 9" is more than you will be used to making. With the new Beta rules for deploying deep strikes, weigh up whether it's worth using this stratagem or not when seeing your opponent deploy. Just don't leave them off the board too long, wasting their point cost somewhere in the Webway. And remember, this Strategem is restricted to "Once per battle" use if you aren't a riddle-maker from The Veiled Path Masque and have a Warlord with Webway Walker trait, which lets you to use it twice.

Looking for the psychic awakening stuff? They're all separated here for now. I am a merciful god.

• The Curtain Falls (2 CP): Use in fight phase when a harlequin unit would consolidate. Instead, they can fall back or move as if it were movement phase. Note that they cannot advance as part of this. A more defensive tool. With the absurd mobility your clowns have, you can use this after you destroy a unit in melee to then fall back to somewhere where they won't get blasted off the board in the next round of shooting, or into range for Shield From Harm.

• Eye of Damnation (1 CP): Use when a Solitare is killed by a melee attack. The unit that destroyed it suffers d3 mortal wounds. Cannot be used with No Price Too Steep. If you are running Midnight Sorrow, you're probably better off using No Price Too Steep due to the sheer amount of attacks a Solitare can crap out. If you are not or you don't have 2 CP to burn, this could be an easy way to finish off that asshole with the thunderhammer that's left on one wound.

• The Foes of the Mind (2 CP): Use at the start of a shooting or fight phase. Select a Shadowseer. Until the end of the phase, shield from harm affects all MASQUE units rather than just infantry. Pretty straightforward, best used if you've got a Shadowseer in the middle of a group of Skyweavers to make them a bit more beefy.

• Murderous Entrance (2 CP): The first time a harlequin unit is selected to fight in a fight phase, if that unit made a charge add 1 to the damage characteristic of melee weapons they are equipped with. Because Primaris marines are gay and you wanna use troupes to blend them instead of bikes. Some other candidates include Solitares that for some reason don't have Cegorach's Rose, bikes and troupes hunting monsters, or a character that got caught out and can use it to survive.

• Mythic Role (1 CP): Before battle and if you have a Shadowseer, select one AELDARI unit. Each time that unit is chosen to shoot or fight, reroll one hit or wound roll. One use only.
  • Kinda like what Salamanders or the Expert Crafters trait gives you, though only one hit OR wound, not one of both.

• Pivotal Role (1 CP): Select one Troupe Master, Shadowseer, Death Jester or Solitare. Can gain one of their pivotal roles that does not replace their normal aura/ability (Choreographer, Shield From Harm, Death is not Enough, Blitz). Pivotal role must be unique. The only one I would recommend against using this on would be Death Jesters, since you can usually make do without Death is not Enough, given all the bullshit that can let units basically freely pass morale.

• Polychromatic Storm (2 CP): Use before the start of the first battle round and before the first turn begins. Select up to 3 Harlequins units, remove them from the battlefield and redeploy. When setting up, you can use any abilities or stratagems that would allow them to be set up in a different location during deployment (i.e. Webway Assualt) Now this is the good shit. Fluffy and useful as all hell. Set up a big blob of bikes or troupes that you initially planned to start in deepstrike on one part of the battlefield, then pop this and stuff 'em in deepstrike. Move another one to the other side of the board. This also works with stuff like Shocking Emergence.

• Twilit Encore (1 CP): Use in opponent’s movement phase when an enemy unit within 1” of a harlequin troupe falls back. After it has moved, that harelquin troupe can consolidate up to 6”. Each model must end that move closer to the enemy unit or nearest enemy model. If they fall back into their own units, you can use this to tie up other units. Get rid of that partially dead blob of guardsmen AND the full-strength one that was right next to them.

• Virtuosos of the Webway (1 CP): At the end of your movement phase, select one harlequin infantry unit not within 1” of enemies. Remove the unit from battlefield and redeploy at the end of your the next movement phase 9” away from enemy models. Had a unit of troupes that was chasing something on the other end of the battlefield that you need back with the rest? In fear of that 12-clown blob getting deleted in the next turn of shooting? Use this shit.

Psychic Powers

Phantasmancy is the unique Harlequins discipline, and it's a grab bag of buffs, debuffs, and a few direct attacks.

Phantasmancy

Overall an okay discipline, but it requires a lot of careful thought to utilise properly. Broadly speaking, the best powers to take on 2 Shadowseers are Webway Dance and Veil of Tears on the Shadowseer in the back and Twilight Pathways and Fog of Dreams on the one in the front; if you only have one, Twilight Pathways and Veil of Tears are probably the best combo intrinsically, letting you get 1 thing you want in position and hard to hurt, but your mileage may vary.

1. Twilight Pathways: Warp Charge 6. Pick a unit within 3" and it gets to move. This is potentially the most useful of the psychic powers, granting a huge mobility boost, especially considering the huge movement speed of Harlequins. However, it is limited by its extremely short range- you will need to carefully position your Shadowseers if you want to get the most use out of this power. With proper placement it can be used to slingshot units across the board to vital locations (objectives, crucial combats) or to increase the threat range of melee units. Tricky to properly utilise, but valuable.
2. Fog of Dreams Warp Charge 6. Pick an enemy unit that is both within 18" and is visible to the Shadowseer, and it has to subtract 1 to hit for attacks made against Harlequin infantry unit (note that this debuff only applies against Harlequins, so if you have Dark Eldar or Craftworlds in your force they will not benefit.) Useful to defang a powerful enemy unit in either shooting or assault, though it has a lower range than you might like. Best cast on a powerful close combat unit that you're about to charge or a threatening shooting unit like a Knight geared up to start shredding your clowns next turn. Combined with Shield From Harm and Holo-Fields, this can make your units irritatingly hard to kill.
3. Mirror of Minds Warp Charge 7. Choose a unit within 24", and roll off. If you roll equal to or higher than them, they take a Mortal Wound. Repeat until they roll higher than you or the unit dies. This is a usable but unreliable character sniping tool (remember that the restrictions on targeting Characters do not apply in the Psychic Phase). A few lucky rolls will kill weaker Characters like Priests and Commissars, and it's best used for that purpose, as more powerful characters usually have too many wounds to bother. Because you have a net 21/36 chance of winning each roll-off, the expected number of mortal wounds dealt is 1.4, provided you successfully cast the thing, meaning this power is worthless - Shards of Light has the same Warp Charge and hence odds of going off, does more wounds on average when it does go off, and inflicts a leadership penalty to boot. Hard pass.
4. Veil of Tears Warp Charge 7. Pick an allied Harlequin infantry unit within 18". Attacks made against that unit get a -1 to their hit rolls. Simple yet effective, especially against things with plasma. Combine with Fog of Dreams to really fuck with your opponent, as a -2 is nearly (or actually, in the case of many targets) impossible to hit with. Also works well with Webway Dance, for maximizing protection near your Shadowseer, and with Twilight Pathways, because you can apply the buff and then send the target away, and it will keep the buff.
5. Shards Of Light Warp Charge 7. Smite (albeit dealing only D3 mortal wounds disregarding how much you have rolled) that can target any unit it wants, and gives the target -1 LD. This is sufficiently worse than actual Smite to usually make it a waste of your time, as casting Smite twice (with the second one at WC6) is still better overall than this power.
   • This power has a pretty descent niche when stacked with other leadership debuffs and the eldar Craftworlds spell Mind War, allowing you do almost guarantee killing one character a turn in the psychic phase.
6. Webway Dance Warp Charge 7. Friendly Harlequin units within 6" of the user get FnP 6+. The 6" bubble is an Aura - i.e. the FnP is provided at the time the damage is dealt, not at the time the power is cast, unlike Veil of Tears - making this power broadly terrible combined with Twilight Pathways, and less than excellent with Fog of Dreams, leading to maximum synergy with Veil of Tears, if you want it; any target within 6" is also within 18", so if you have something friendly you plan on keeping near your Shadowseer, you can apply both buffs to it, without worrying about things like the target having a special rule that triggers on you casting a power on or near it (like Deny the Witch).
   • Crucially this is the only buff spell that can effect your bikes and vehicles, so if your taking a Skyweaver-Shadowseer detachment give your Shadowseer this and Twilight pathways for maximum synergy.

Tactical Objectives

11 - The Dance of Death

1 VP if at least one enemy unit was destroyed. Bonus points for your morale, if you laughed maniacally while doing so.

12 - Strike and Evade

1 VP if at least one of your units Fell Back and Charged during this turn, or D3 VP if 3 or more units did so.

13 - Trickery and Deception

Now the mindfuckery begins! When this TO is drawn, each player secretly nominates an objective marker. At the end of the turn, each player declares whether you control the objective he nominated or not. 1 VP if you control at least one of them, or D3 if you either control both of them or you control one, that both of you nominated.

14 - The Joy of Lament

1 VP if at least one enemy unit Fell Back or failed a Morale test during this turn.

15 - Take the Stage

1 VP if you control the Objective, the number of which corresponds with the current battle round (3rd round=3rd objective). This can't be fulfilled on the 7th and subsequent turns, but if you play 7th turn using Harlequins you are definetely doing something very wrong or have a plan that will humor The Laughing God himself.

16 - Principal Performance

1 VP at the end of the battle if your Warlord hasn't been slain (relatively easy), rising to D3 VP if the enemy Warlord on the contarary was (middle difficulty) and reaching it's peak of 3 VP if your Warlord was the one who decimated your enemy's (that becomes high risk=high reward one).

Armory

Ranged Weapons

• Fusion Pistol Just like the Craftworld Eldar version, but you get to take it on Troops. It has a tiny 6" range, but S8 AP-4 and D6 damage (rolling two dice for damage and picking the highest at 3" range) makes it a powerful tool for melting vehicles. Remember that your units are fast and can leapfrog enemy units, which allows you to occasionally catch out a poorly placed Character. Being able to fire it in assault makes it a more worthwhile pickup for Troupe Masters.
• Hallucinogen Grenade Launcher Not a grenade, but an 18" range Assault 1 weapon exclusive to the Shadowseer. On hit, you roll a 2D6, and if it's equal to or higher than the target's leadership they take D3 Mortal Wounds. Not a bad little toy, and could be seen as a slightly weaker extra Smite. Again, remember your speed and leapfrogging abilities- this can be used to snipe at badly bubble-wrapped Characters.
  • Stacks very nicely with LD debuffs, for obvious reasons
• Haywire Cannon One of your longer ranged weapons at 24", it's an Assault D6 S4 AP-1 D1 weapon designed for your vehicles and Jetbikes. Instead of the 2+ Glancing Hits of 7th, Haywire now means it causes one Mortal Wound to a vehicle on a 4+ and D3 on a 6+. Now a dedicated anti-armor weapon, and can dish out some serious hurt even on T9 heavies. Save a command re-roll for turns when you need to maximize your damage output. Its a good weapon, sadly its still unpredictable. Against T7 or less, expect 2-3 wounds inflicted, T8 or more maybe one of two. Best when used in volume and concentrated blasts, so unleash multiple cannons all at once. If you roll hot and snag multiple sixes you can outdo a lascannon, but this is not an army that compensates for randomness well... Still, if you play aggressively as you should, your opponent will likely be dealing with other threats. IF you manage to preserve your cannon wielding units they should steadily pour on wounds eventually crippling enemy armor. A fusion pistol is simply more reliable, a haywire cannon offers range and a higher upside if you pray ever-so-dearly to the dice gods.
  • Note: The new FAQ confirms that Mortal Wounds are treated as individual "hits" so you can't roll off against Mortal Wounds inflicted by these, giving them a very powerful niche against things like Quantum Shielding and Serpent Shields.
  • 23/07/2017 FAQ Update: FAQ confirms that a roll of 4+ is a guaranteed Mortal Wound regardless of if that 4 failed to wound. These are now very reliable at stripping wounds from vehicles that have invulnerable saves.
  • Codex: Now Assault d6 instead of Heavy d3, an insane boost, and should make bikes with these and zephyrglaives the go-to anti-Vehicle pick.
• Neuro Disruptor 12" range at S4 AP-3 D3 Damage (1 Damage against Vehicles)at only 5 points as of CA 2019 allows it to fill an odd niche for killing multi-wound infantry units. Given fusions are only 2 points more and can do the same,though at half the range, maybe these are actually worth considering now.
• Prismatic Cannon Exclusive to the Voidweaver, and gets to use one of three profiles- Heavy D6 at Strength 4 AP-2 D1, for zapping light infantry, Heavy D3 at Strength 6 AP-3 DD3 for scorching the likes of Terminators, or Strength 8 AP-4 DD6 for vehicle hunting, all at 24" range. Suffers from the same Heavy-ness as the Haywire Cannon, Not anymore! As of the codex it's Assault D6/D3/1 like the Haywire Cannon. It isn't terrible at what it does, which is threaten a wide range of units; if you're taking a Voidweaver you should probably opt for this seeing as if you want fast Haywire jet bikes make for a better platform.
• Prismatic Grenade Your actual grenade. It's a D6 Grenade with S4 and AP-1. Nothing much to say, just remember to throw it when your Troupes shoot for a bit of extra damage.
• Shrieker Cannon The Death Jester's special toy. Can be fired as a 24" Assault 3 S6 gun (with the AP-3 on a 6 to wound) or with a special Shrieker profile. The Shrieker profile only gets 1 shot with the same profile, but if it kills an Infantry model you cause an additional D3 Mortal Wounds; and if it kills any model, the target unit gets a -2 Ld penalty until the end of the turn. This is fairly useful against single-wound model units, but almost completely useless against characters or multi-wound models, so make sure to use the Shuriken profile against them.
• Shuriken Cannon Just like the gun your Craftworld buddies get. 24" range, S6 Assault 3 with the ubiquitous AP-3 on a 6 to wound makes it a versatile and useful weapon that can be fired while maintaining mobility. The new wound chart means it'll wound on at least a 5+ against basically anything. Your Vehicles and Jetbikes get one or more of these standard.
• Shuriken Pistol Identical to the Craftworld Eldar version, most of your units get this base. Pistol 12" S4 AP0 is eh, but AP-3 on a 6 to wound makes it moderately useful, and it adds a little extra killing power up close. Remember that it can be fired in melee now. You generally want Fusion pistols if you can afford them, however you always want one Troupe per unit carrying a Shuriken Pistol so you can still spam Grenades.
• Star Bolas One of two equipment options for Skyweavers. A D3 Grenade with S6 Ap-3, which is reasonably strong, but just like in 7th it's rarely worth choosing them over the Zephyrglaive. You already have better ways to do that kind of damage.
  • If you have a large jet bike unit taking 1 of these isn't a bad idea, since its a grenade and only one person can fire it. S6 AP-2 D2 isn't something to laugh at and can seriously harm whatever unit you will charge afterwards.

Melee Weapons

• Harlequin's Blade It's a free CC weapon with no bonuses. Still does work against T3 if you're in a Troupe master's Aura. That said only take it if you don't have the points for any of the below:
• Harlequin's Embrace The cheapest non-basic melee option, costing 6 points. No longer causes Hammer of Wrath hits, instead, it's a +1S AP-3 close combat weapon. A weapon which is strong in the right circumstances but not always useful, this should be your backup choice for Troupes.
• Harlequin's Caress The middle child of the three primary Harlequin weapons, which costs 7 points and grants +2S and AP-2. While there are certain unit types against which it is the better choice (this is explored more below), it's true usefulness is the ability to be good to decent against almost everything while being equal to or better than the Embrace in almost all situations (t6/7 and t3 being the main times when it's not, but both weapons kill GEQ equally well and even with extra 'naked' bodies a squad with 8 of these can take out a leman russ in one turn about half of the time). This should be your default choice.
• Harlequin's Kiss Only gives +1S and AP-1 but also packs d3 damage. As the codex equalized the price of Caress and Kiss, now you've got much more incentive to use the Kiss. Unfortunately d3 is generally worse than flat 2 damage and s4 can't damage a lot of vehicles so you're basically buying a shittier version of a Wych's shardnet.
• Miststave The special melee weapon for the Shadowseer, it hits hard with +2S, -1 AP and D1d3. While -1AP is poor, the Shadowseer's 3 attacks let it do a surprising amount of damage up close for a Psyker, and D3 damage gives it a chance to splat other HQs.
• Power Sword Only available to Troupe Masters and exactly like the regular Power Sword. Completely useless to Harlequins, who have the flat-out superior Embrace for two points more. Skip unless you're planning on taking the Power Sword relic.
• Zephyrglaive The melee option for Skyweavers, a +1S AP-2 weapon with 2 Damage. Combined with the extremely high speed of Skyweavers, it's a useful weapon for backfield assaults against 2W models, letting them quickly wipe out skulking units of Hellblasters and the like.

Caress, Embrace or Kiss

The Embrace works best against T3, T6, T7, and T10, while being somewhat equal to the Caress against T4. The high AP makes it better against high armour saves, but not invulnerable saves. Due to the Embrace working well against the most common infantry toughness (T3, and T4/2+, plus T4/3+ most of the time after taking cost into account), it is the default choice against most armies.

The Caress works better against T5, T8, and T9. It is better than the Embrace against T4 units with high invulnerable saves and/or only 4+ armour; it's also better against T4/3+, but does cost a point more, which has to be taken into account. It, therefore, tends to occupy a dual roll, being very good against elite armies such as Custodes, and spam armies such as Orks and Guard; however, the high AP of the Embrace might be preferable against some armies with a higher armour save.

The Kiss hits at the same strength as the Embrace, but at 2 worse AP and more damage (double against anything with 3 or more wounds), all for a point more, meaning it works well against multi-wound models with invulnerable saves, which pretty much relegates it to fighting characters. However, a below-average damage roll makes it worse than the Caress or the Embrace, against anything. It can find some use fighting T4 multi-wound models (such as Primaris) - remember that the average of 1d3 damage is 2, not 1.67; however, the lack of significant AP might hurt you in the long run. Put Kisses on models who will be character killing and leave it at that, though it now is actually a situational alternative to the Embrace and Caress. If you can get yourself into range, Fusion Pistols are usually better damage dealers for the price, even given that they get 1/4 or worse the rate of fire as your close combat weapons, but that's a big if.

Know what you're likely to be facing and build your Harlequins accordingly. Of course, this advice is worth sod all in a blind match-up, so take whichever weapon counters what you are most afraid of, and if you fight an army who the weapon is not designed for it is not a huge loss, as both weapons perform very closely to each other. You can freely mix and match within a single unit - no target exists for which this is better than a loadout designed for that target, so this is inferior to specializing your units and sending them against the targets they're good against, but on the other hand, a mixed unit of Embraces and Caresses will do reasonably well against whatever your opponent throws at you.

• ALTERNATIVELY: I performed some math hammer, pitting Troupes against space marines, terminators, death guard, dg termies, ork boyz, wyches, and kabalite warriors. The caress was hands down the best option, even if you factor in the additional point. Point for point, the blade was best against wyches, and the embrace was best against kabalites, but other than that the caress is most effective AND most cost effective. The kiss was never the best weapon in any scenario, even against multi-wound terminators. The embrace came second overall.

• ADDITIONAL ALTERNATIVELY: The long section written above is pretty much just incorrect. I have no idea where they got their information. For a start the average of 1d3 against two wound models is 1.67, because it's impossible to do three damage to a two wound model, unless damage carries over (which it doesn't in almost all cases). Therefore your damage possibilities are 1, 2, or 2, resulting in an average of 1.67. Secondly most of the information in the long section about which weapon is most potent against certain targets is also wrong.

(Just wanted to add that while this 1.67 number is correct for a single wound, the value drops when considering multiple wounds, which are likely when attacking with 4 troupes with kisses. The second wound does an average of 1.44 damage. This is the one third chances that the first wound didn't kill plus the two-thirds that it did kill times 1.67.)

Here are the average values per individual player:

• Versus Guardsmen: both caresses and embraces do 1.78 wounds. The kiss is third with 1.48 wounds.
• Versus Bloodletters: caresses, embraces, and kisses all draw with 1.19 wounds.
• Versus Marines: caresses do the most with 1.19 wounds. Embraces are second with 1.11.
• Versus Plaguebearers: caresses and kisses both do 0.79 wounds. Embraces are third with 0.59.
• Versus Terminators: caresses and embraces both do 0.89 wounds. Kisses are third with 0.74.
• Versus Bikers: caresses win out with 0.89 wounds whilst embraces and kisses draw with 0.74.
• Versus Shield Captains: embraces and kisses draw with 0.59. Caresses trail with 0.44.
• Versus Rhinos: the kiss leads with 0.89, whilst the embrace is second with 0.74.
• Versus Knights: the caress leads with 0.59, whilst the kiss follows with 0.44.

Caresses seem the most consistent. It's not always the best, but it is in most situations.

When you factor in Choreographer of War the table changes significantly because the caress benefits less from rerolling wounds due to its higher strength value. This pushes the embrace and kiss up a little bit in comparison.

Here are the average values per individual player if they're rerolling failed wounds:

• Versus Guardsmen: both caresses and embraces do 2.37 wounds. The kiss is third with 1.98 wounds.
• Versus Bloodletters: caresses, embraces, and kisses all draw with 1.58 wounds.
• Versus Marines: embraces lead with 1.67 wounds, caresses follow with 1.58.
• Versus Plaguebearers: kisses lead with 1.19 wounds, the caress follows with 1.05.
• Versus Terminators: the embrace leads with 1.33. The caress is second with 1.19
• Versus Bikers: caresses win out with 1.33 wounds whilst embraces and kisses draw with 1.23.
• Versus Shield Captains: embraces and kisses draw with 0.99. Caresses trail with 0.74.
• Versus Rhinos: the kiss leads with 1.48, whilst the embrace is second with 1.23.
• Versus Knights: the caress leads with 0.99, whilst the kiss follows with 0.81.

As you can see in some cases the kisses and embraces overtake the caress here. However the caress remains the second best option in almost all cases. It's much harder to make a decision about 'best' here because all of the weapons are good against different things.

• ULTIMATE ALTERNATIVELY

Ignore these fucking nerds, math is boring. Take whatever you think is coolest and have faith that you'll be rolling enough dice that things will work out regardless. Cegorach is the laughing god, not patron saint of calculators.

Relics

Universal

• The Mask of Secrets: The bearer of this gains +1 to their Leadership, and any enemy units in 6" of it have -1 Leadership. It's a small bonus to your Characters getting into melee, murdering a few scaredy-cats multi-model units to make an extra model flee, whilst not getting as hurt by certain Psychic spells, or helping to proc the Hallucinogen Launcher. Best when combined with Silent Shroud's form, a Shadowseer wielding Shards of Light, and a Death Jester or several shooting in single-shot mode, for, ideally, -5 leadership.
• The Storied Sword Replaces a Power Sword, and so can only be taken by a Troupe Master. A nice little weapon with S+1 AP-3 D1d3. Can be seen as a D1d3 Embrace or an AP-3 Kiss for 2-3 points less. It also lets you re-roll failed hit rolls for Attacks made with it, which is actually re-rolling 1s due to what can take it, which is a little meh on a Great Harlequin who’s re-rolling hits of 1 from their Aura anyway, but nice if you’d rather not burn the 2CP.
• Suit of Hidden Knives: Any time an enemy unit rolls a 1 to hit the bearer with a melee attack, roll a D6. On a 2+, the attacker suffers a mortal wound.
  • Trolltastic with a Shadowseer's ability to self-Veil of Tears and cast Fog of Dreams on the enemy for -2 to hit, making rolls of 1, 2 and 3 count as a 1. Coupled with 2CP for Lightning-Fast Reactions and you have an inverse death-bomb of a Psyker that turns more than half of his opponent's attacks into Mortal Wounds. Remember that you can't opt-out of Fighting if you're within 1", and you can't forfeit your attacks even if they can't hit, so prepare for a salty opponent if you ever manage to pull this off on a big unit!
  • Especially relevant following the recent SM update, hilariously making all flavours of power armour even more susceptible to this relic; Shock Assault now gives +1A to a SM unit that charged or was charged that phase. Leap headfirst into that 15-man Crusader blob and laugh like a maniac as they all fall on their chainswords - you will definitely die, but so will they. An excellent relic for wringing that last bit of usefulness out of a wounded and/or isolated Shadowseer (using the combo described above).
  • With the leaked PA pivotal roles, this becomes increasingly powerful on a Solitare that can take a permanent -1 to hit from attacks. This can stack with the above -2 from psychic powers and -1 from Lightening Fast Reactions, meaning all rolls to hit of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 cause mortal wounds to the attacker on a 2+. And remember, this is still -4 to hit, so anyone without WS 2+ cannot hit you on 6+ Without stratagems/relics/psychic powers to improve their accuracy. Against something like Tau, there are almost no units in their army that can hurt you in melee, and even that is probably going to kill itself against you first.
• Crescendo: Replaces a Shuriken Pistol. 1d6 shots and D2, but no other improvements over the regular version. Meh.
• Starmist Raiment: 3++ vs ranged weapons and enemies cannot fire Overwatch against the bearer if they advanced this turn. Helpful, especially with a Great Harlequin who can charge in without worry before the Troupes bundle in; also very useful on a Solitaire, for the same trick from farther away, but the Solitaire already has the 3+ invuln.
• The Laughing God's Eye: Whilst within 6" of the bearer, Harlies auto-pass Morale and gain a 6+++ against mortal wounds caused in the psychic phase.
• Cegorach's Rose: Replaces a Harlequin's Kiss, and is identical, bar its two abilities. It comes with a standard re-roll failed wound rolls, which is nice, but won't stack with a Troupe Master, and is not nearly as nice as the next bit: Against INFANTRY units, it deals a flat 3 damage, as opposed to 1d3. This is enough to make the bearer (a Solitaire, because who else) an absolute nightmare for your opponent's multi-wound models. Most importantly, this brings consistency to the Solitaire and turns him into the scariest character assassin on the battlefield.

Psychic Awakening stuff below this. Again, you're welcome.

• The Shadowstone: Shadowseer only, adds 3” to the range of the bearer’s aura abilities and psychic powers. Straightforward, useful.
• The Veil of Tears: Once per turn, the first save roll that fails for the bearer counts as succeeding. Save yourself a CP reroll. or the Player of Twilight Warlord trait one. A nice defensive little buff.
• Domino Shroud: Once per battle at the end of any phase, so long as the bearer didn’t arrive from deepstrike this can be used. Place a marker within 12” of the bearer, then remove them from the battlefield and set them up within 1” of the marker and more than 1” from enemy models. The bearer cannot charge after using this, though it can use it after they did charge. Using it defensively to pull a character out of harm's way after combat is pretty straightforward. Offensively, you can stick it on a Death Jester to get him into place for a round of shooting that advancing alone might not get him to. Or you could stick it on a Solitare, run him at the nearest unit and start blending. In your opponent's move phase the next turn, pull him out and set him out of LOS and in position to get ready to fuck something up on your turn. Don’t like getting charged by a smash captain or horde of Boyz? At the end of your opponent's Charge phase, teleport out of combat before the Fight phase. You can also use it to bail out of combat if you lose a few too many wounds in overwatch.
• Destiny’s Jest: Clown favored combat drugs, sorta. Pick one off the list or roll 2d6, rerolling duplicates to get both. You may wanna do this, as literally none of these are necessarily bad on any character aside from maybe the melee stuff on a Death Jester
  • 1. +1 attack
  • 2. +1 strength
  • 3. +1 toughness
  • 4. +1 wound
  • 5. +3” movement
  • 6. Improve AP of melee weapon by 1
• Cegorach’s Lament: Replaces a Shrieker Cannon. Compared to a stock one, it has a 36" range, loses the rending effect but gets a guaranteed -3 AP, and it's shrieker profile, renamed Wail, gets a flat 3 damage. Best of all, it's not locked behind a specific masque. Compared to Curtainfall, you lose out on one point of strength and potentially higher AP for more consistent AP and a slightly longer range. The difference in strength will generally only be noticeable against T6/7 targets, meaning they'll wound just as reliably against the typical GEQ/MEQ targets your Death Jester will be trying to snipe. For character hunting, the more consistent AP, damage, and slightly better range offered by Cegorach's Lament will prove more useful against any character with above or below T7 and T6 respectively. Even if you're running the Dreaming Shadow as your Masque, this one should be your default pick for your Death Jester in most circumstances. Feel free to take both on two separate Death Jesters if you really want though.
• The Twilight Fang: Troupe Master only, replaces Harlequin Blade or Power Sword. (Why would you pay for the power sword when you can keep the free blade though?)Regardless of which option you pick to replace, it's a S +2 AP -3 D 2 weapon. Already powerful on its own, it lets you skip an upgrade on a troupe master and save about 6-7 points while getting the benefits of all three options consolidated into one. In addition, you can make additional attacks with the weapon based on the current battle round number. The later the game goes, the scarier your Troupe Master becomes, arguably rivaling a Solitare if it gets high enough.

Other Wargear

• Flip Belt: In the movement phase, you can move across units and terrain as if it wasn't there. As of the April 2019 FAQ, you can ignore models that aren't buildings in the charge phase now!

Unit Analysis

HQs

• Troupe Master: No longer a squad sergeant but a full-fledged HQ, allowing you to fill out Detachments. Is reasonably cheap at just 60 Points, and comes packing 5 attacks hitting on a 2+ with your choice of Embrace, Kiss, or Caress (or Power Sword, but you're never going to take that). The real reason you take a Troupe Master, though, is for the buff aura, granting friendly <MASQUE> units within 6" re-rolls to wound in Assault. This is an extremely powerful buff to your Harlequins and should be leveraged as much as possible by keeping multiple units within the aura (remember that only one model needs to be within 6" for the whole unit to benefit). Ideally, a Troupe Master should be nearby whenever you get your clowns into a charge. He can potentially spar with enemy HQs using a Kiss, as his re-rolls help to overcome the comparatively low Strength and AP, but he's best off with a big Troupe hacking through the regular enemy army. Like the Troupe members, his best loadout is a Fusion Pistol and Embrace.
  • However, as a single-model buffing unit, his grenade deserves special mention, not least because it's the same range as a Fusion Pistol. The grenade can't be thrown in melee, which is significant, but for drive-by shootings, it's substantially better than the shuriken pistol and comes for free anyway. Since his primary purpose is his buff, not dealing damage himself, there's a lot to be said for leaving him with his Shuriken Pistol, having him rely on his grenade when he needs to, and spending the points elsewhere. Don't do the same thing with his melee loadout unless you're certain, as the gap between a basic weapon and an Embrace is drastic.

Pivotal Roles: By default Troupe Masters get Choreographer of War. However you can, trade this in or pay 1 CP to pick one of these other perks instead/in addition. You cannot have duplicates of any pivotal roles.

• Prince of Light: Reroll charges for <MASQUE> units within 6”, adding 1 if you already could.
  • Probably not a good idea to take this with Player of the Light, even with the free extra inch. Harlequins are already fast as fuck and can basically guarantee charges in the move phase as is.
• Darkness’ Bite: After this model fights, you can select a unit it attacked, that unit suffers 2 mortal wounds.
  • On one hand, it's free damage, enough to delete a Terminator for free just by sending one attack into its unit, though clowns tend to be blenders in melee combat anyway. However, if you are up against an elite army with a bunch of invuln saves, this can be a godsend.
• Twilight’s Grasp: For every melee attack against a unit that is not a MONSTER or VEHICLE, an unmodified wound roll of 2+ is always successful.
  • This can make your Troupe Master a very scary anti-infantry unit. Giving this to one alongside Choreographer and a high AP melee weapon (embraces or even power swords are good choices) and throw it at anything that doesn't have the aformentioned keywords will likely result in those things dying in a painful manner.

• Shadowseer: Moved from the Elites to HQs, with a price bump to match. The Shadowseer clocks in at 110 Points. Possessing the ability to cast two spells in the Psychic phase, a decent melee presence with 3 S5 AP-1 D1d3 attacks, and especially the Shield From Harm ability. The defensive counterpart to the Troupe Master's Choreographer of War, it means your opponent must subtract 1 to wound rolls against friendly <MASQUE> infantry units within 6" of the Shadowseer. This is a potent defensive bonus and one of the few defenses you have available, and much like the Troupe Master's bonus should also be extended to as many units as possible at once. The sheer joy of seeing weapons have to wound your squishy, squishy clowns on a 5+ cannot be overstated. Shadowseers are too expensive to spam, but at least one is practically mandatory for any list.
  • Neuro Disruptors can be taken for 5 points, increasing your Shadowseer's damage output while also being slightly more reliable than the stock shuriken pistol. Potentially worth taking now that it's not 10 points on an already expensive model.

Pivotal Roles: Replaces Shield from harm or pay 1 CP to pick one of these other perks in addition.

• Veil of Illusion: Friendly <MASQUE> units within 6” of this model count as being an additional 6” away when shot at. For cases where you need to determine if a model is at half range, this is factored in.
  • Arguably the best of the three. Shut down rapid fire guns, prevent flamers from doing anything during overwatch, overall a nice buff.
• Gloomwake: Friendly <MASQUE> units get the benefit of cover if within 6” of this Shadowseer.
  • Additions like this make me question if GW reads their own rules or not. This would be fine, though invulns are not affected by cover. Literally useless unless you've got a shadowseer keeping pace with some bikes or clown cars. Skip for literally anything else.
• Agent of Bedlam: Subtract 1 (to a minimum of 1) from the attack characteristic of enemy models within 6” of this model.
  • Very nice on a Shadowseer that likes to get into combat. This is per model, so against larger groups it can shave off a pretty big chunk of their threat. Works best on stuff that has an attack characteristic of 2.

Special Characters

There aren't any named Harlequins with rules right now, but since you can field Harlequins in an Ynnari force, the Ynnari named characters are listed here.

Troupes

• Troupe: Oh BOY have Troupes really gotten better than the last edition. To start off you can buy all of your Harles fusion pistols for 7 points each. Added on to the fact that you can shoot pistols in combat during the shooting phase, this makes Troupes a monster in combat. Competent vehicle killers? Harlequin Troupes? Who would have thought it! In addition, they all get a 4++. Yes, you read that right. Armies will no longer shred them anymore, coupled with the fact that high AP weapons will never rend their saves actually makes them an extremely tough unit. And to top it off, Rising Crescendo lets them advance AND CHARGE. Did I also mention they move 8" and are not slowed by terrain or any models?. These dudes are best equipped with the Harlequins embrace for most armies. Overall these flippity-flops just got a helluva lot faster, tankier and deadlier. All at only 11 points per model!
  • Side Note: A basic 5-man Troupe with optimal loadout, Fusion Pistols+Embraces, is 140 points - 1 point less than 3 5 men squads of Kabalites with Blasters, although the Troupe will do a lot more damage if it can get within Pistol/Charge range against most targets, so they are not cheap, but what they really shine in is melee. A bog standard 5-man Troupe is going to pump out 20 attacks at S4 AP-3, all with fairly good staying power with 4++, perfectly amplifiable with the Shadowseer's and Troupe Master's buffs. Please do keep in mind that even with -1 to wound rolls against them from the Shadowseer, they are still T3, and while with their newly acquired 4++ they may take lascannons to the face for turns without dying they still do drop down like flies even under standard bolter firing. All this in mind, if you cannot stick 'em in combat and/or hide 'em from LoS (preferably both) you should stay in the warmth of your cozy little Starweaver while peppering your opponent with Fusion pistols (which you can do now even if your transport is engaged in combat). So, in most cases, a starweaver is more than essential.
    • As noted above, their 4++ is equivalent to a 4+ against AP0 weapons (slightly worse, in fact, since Harlequins generally get no benefit at all from cover), so you need a Shadowseer if you want to run into mass Storm Bolter fire from something like Grey Knights. Without a Shadowseer but within 12", every 9 Grey Knight shooters equals 8 dead harlequins; with a Shadowseer around, that improves to 6 dead against the same 9. As you can see, the Shadowseer is helpful but needs to be near a lot of Troupes to earn its cost back.

Elites

• Death Jester: The Jester retains his role as a ranged support sniper, but now has some nasty tricks. The first thing to note is he lacks any melee weapons, so unlike most of your army, he will want to hang back, made a bit easier by his character status. The next thing to note is that he is capable of sniping other characters regardless of whether they are the closest. So far, so good. His weapon and Death Is Not Enough is where he really starts to shine, though. His weapon has two profiles. One is a standard shuriken style weapon, the other trades Assault 3 for the ability to tack on D3 mortal wounds if an enemy INFANTRY model is slain. This lets you potentially knock out small chunks of a unit. Note that the -3 AP on a 6+ applies to both profiles. Death is Not Enough is where the Jester gets his most dangerous punch. If he slays any models, then the target suffers -2 Ld until next turn. And if a unit he attacks flees, you choose the first model that is removed. This applies for an entire turn, so use your Jester to soften an opponent before a charge. Regardless of whether or not he does damage, if an enemy fails its morale, you'll get to get rid of that special weapon. The only problem is that his trick is situational, best used against certain armies. Other times, you'll just be sniping characters.

Pivotal Roles: The Death Jester was the biggest winner in our Psychic Awakening. All of these powers replace Death is not Enough, which you should do, or pay 1 CP to pick one of these other perks in addition to it.

• Harvester of Torment: Each time the model shoots, if the target has 6 or more models, each successful hit roll scores 3 hits instead of 1. Does not stack with other stuff that causes additional hits
  • Sorta like having a passive, better version of An Example Made on a Death Jester. Again, not locked behind a masque but literally only effective against bigger units. Fighting GEQs is basically begging for this thing to be used.
• The Jest Inescapable: Add 12” to this model’s ranged weapons. Unmodified wound roll of 6 inflict 1 mortal wound in addition to normal damage and the target does not get the benefits of cover.
  • Especially nice on a Death Jester sitting on an objective in your deployment zone. With a certain relic he can fire at stuff 48" away. Has a bit of synergy with a Jester that has Player of the Twilight warlord trait for farming CP while remaining in relative safety.
• Humbling Cruelty: Each time this model scores a hit, the target is pinned until the start of your next turn. Pinned units subtract 2” from their move characteristic and cannot fire overwatch.
  • This should be your default choice. If you have two Jesters, give this to the one without the relic and have him futher up. Split your shots among three different targets with the shuriken profile for maximum coverage. Only shoot this at things you intend to charge of course, unless fighting Tau. If that's the case, target other stuff so that they can't FTGG.

• • His Shrieker profile is usually worthless, because he's doing 1/3 the normal damage in exchange for getting the "lost" wounds back as mortal wounds if his one shot kills someone. Obviously, the profile is terrible against unwounded multi-wound models (particularly the characters he's so interested in hunting), as its ability can't trigger, but even when it can trigger, doing 2 mortal wounds only when the first wound gets through is the same damage amount as just shooting the target 3 times, and meanwhile you've drastically increased the variance in his shooting (it all comes down to 1 shot, not spread out over 3). You should really never use it.
    • While it is true the single shot's mortal wounds ignore both armor and invulnerable saves, this is immaterial, as the mortal wounds only happen after the original shot has made it past both. The only case in which the single shot deals more average damage is when the additional AP on the base shot is relevant and the target has at least 4 models left in it (so you can get the full average on the 1d3 mortal, if you trigger it); in those situations, the worse the target's save/the better their invuln (giving them less penetratable armor), the better the single shot will do (as on a 6+ to wound, both profiles have the same AP), and any Feel No Pain will swing the balance back over to the multishot immediately, due to the FnP's ability to shut down the remaining wounds by saving the first one (e.g. a 6+ FnP will reduce wounds dealt, post-save, from 2 1/2 to 2 2/9). For example, when shooting GEQ units in cover (T3/4+) with 4 or more models remaining, the single shot profile will deal 22.22% more wounds (1.53 total, as opposed to 1.25).
      • Note that the above disregards the Leadership penalty, because it assumes you're shooting to kill now, not trusting to morale to finish the job for you. Against a target where the Leadership penalty is relevant (i.e. it increases the number of models the target unit expects to lose to morale), the single shot profile will improve, as models it encourages to flee count towards it. If that same GEQ unit was leadership 6, and it lost 2 models to being shot, and it had 4 models or more left in it, the leadership penalty alone would raise the expected number of models fleeing from 0.5 to 1.67, more than triple (and more than an entire model, in absolute terms). This is particularly important for Death is Not Enough, discussed below, as you will get to choose which model flees.
  • His Shuriken profile has terrible points per wound, but that's very normal for snipers in 8E; he's nowhere near as good as, say, Ratlings or Deathmarks.
  • Take him for Death Is Not Enough, or don't take him at all - that's what he can do better than anyone else. Remember, he just has to shoot at a unit to activate the ability - he doesn't even need to hit, and it works perfectly well in melee, not just at range. The only downside to Death is Not Enough is that it won't stack - multiple Jesters won't let you pick additional models to flee - so multiple Jesters will only let you trigger the ability more reliably.
• Solitaire: You know him, you love him. An incredibly powerful single model, with Melee potential that will truly threaten any other infantry or character in the game. Functionally, he hasn't changed much between editions, though he has gotten a couple of buffs. A 12" move puts him among the fastest infantry on the board. His trademark, Blitz, lets him add 2D6" to his move and sets his number of attacks to 10, but he can't use it if he gets Twilight Pathways in the previous turn. Worth noting is that Twilight Pathways is inordinately useful to him regardless since his native movement is higher than other infantry. Just don't use it when you're planning to use Blitz. Between these traits, the Flip Belt, and his 3++, you are looking at a highly mobile character killer. Be careful, though, as he suffers from the same T3 squishiness as the rest of your army. BE cautious and consider a transport, as every enemy sniper and lascannon will desperately try to vaporize this guy before he can reach "terminal threat range." Also, the psychological power of this model is not to be taken lightly. As noted below, a basic troupe can outperform him... but your opponent is still very worried about the solitaire. This is a model you want your opponent to make mistakes over and alleviate pressure on the rest of your army. Very fitting method of fucking with their mind.

Pivotal Roles: Replaces Blitz or pay 1 CP to pick one of these other perks in addition. Given that you can only take one Solitare anyway, this is probably the best candidate for taking two on.

• Shocking Emergence: You may set this model up in deepstrike during deployment. After being brought in from deepstrike, following the standard 9" rule and declaring a charge, roll 3d6 and discard one of the results.
  • Very nice, though arguably the worst of all three, which is saying something. On one hand, it's a way to safely get your Solitare into position though there is also normal deepstriking, heroes' path and other such methods to achieve similar results without giving up Blitz. If you don't have a Shadowseer and Death Jester for some reason though, it's a valid choice.
• Chromatic Rush: Instead of rolling to advance, this model can automatically advance 6”. Each time this model consolidates or piles in, it can move an extra 3” in addition.
  • Even more to the Solitare's crazy mobility. Combine with Midnight Sorrow for even more shenanigans. 9" consolidate is even more than a normal clown's movement.
• Unnatural Acrobatics: Subtract 1 from all attack hit rolls against this model
  • Far from bad, though personally wouldn't take it over Blitz. Has synergy with the Suit of Hidden Knives, see entry for that relic for further explanation of how you can cause a mob of orks to blow themselves up on this thing. It also works against shooting, so it can act as another form of defense although you could argue that the 2d6 extra movement from Blitz is the best defense of all.

• • He has the <MASQUE> keyword now so can benefit from friendly Troupe Master and Shadowseer auras and Psychic powers! They can even ride in Starweavers now meaning they will actually be able to survive for long enough to hit close combat now!
  • Even on the Blitz turn, not nearly as dangerous as a standard Troupe in melee for the same cost (for 13 points less than his cost you can field an entire 5-man Shuriken Pistol troupe with Embraces, which will kill almost any target faster than the Solitaire can with its 20 attacks); the primary reason to take him is his ludicrous running speed, as he can run faster than a lot of Jump Infantry can fly, and a 3++.
    • Alternative take, even if a troupe will be able to crap out more attacks than he can, keep in mind he can actually take relics, specifically Cegorach's Rose. The reroll for wounds is like having a troupe master in his back pocket, though the 3 damage it has against infantry makes him a threat to any character, multi-wound infantry and so on. Just don't run him into vehicles.

Fast Attack

• Skyweaver: Clowns on bikes. By default, they come with a shuriken cannon and star bolas at 35 points per model. Do yourself a favor and buy the zephyrglaive. The star bolas are perfectly serviceable - or would be, but as with other Harlequin units, you want them in close combat, plus they are Grenades, so you can only throw one per unit. The scary part is how mobile they are. A 16" move, plus a 6" automatic advance, then the charge. They also fly, so can drop out of combat, fly over their enemies, and play amazing hit and run (and hit again) tactics. At 3A and 3 wounds with their 4++ and -1 penalty against anyone shooting them, they stick around longer than they have a right to, knocking out models all along the way. A good default tactic is to advance, shoot, charge, then fall back, shoot, and charge again next turn. Keep in mind that they are among the most mobile units and, if needed, can also harass at range until they swoop in for the kill.
  • Note the once humble Zephyrglaive. Once largely ineffective, it occupies a niche role as a 2 Damage weapon. Use these guys' maneuverability and speed to hunt down multi-wound models like Terminators, primaris marines, heavy weapons teams and characters.
  • The codex made haywire cannons Assault d6, making them very mobile and dangerous anti-vehicle platform. Taken with the Soaring Spite allows them to shoot after advancing with no penalty.
    • Mathhammer does put the Haywire Cannon ahead of Shuriken Cannons against any Infantry/Monster T5 and below due to their AP and rate of fire. The Shuriken Cannons pull ahead against T6 and up, and naturally, Haywire is always better vs vehicles. Defaulting to Haywire isn't a bad choice if you have the points to spare.

Dedicated Transport

• Starweaver: Because you really, really want to get your troupes up close and personal (and that is 100% of the time you field them). In the 8th edition Starweaver received a MAJOR buff, now making it probably the best transport in the entire game (still maybe a bit short of Wave Serpents and Valkyries) and what is more important, it is much more infuriating to take down. As it was before it is fast, open-topped, and has a 4+/4++ (now 4++ is permanent) with 6 wounds. Mirage Launchers, now they are here not to modify your invulnerable save, but on a permanent basis give -1 to hit for any shooting attack against you, making it much more survivable in shooting, (All those marines with their lascannon spam will be forced to hit on 5+ after moving, and I'm not talking about IG) , For armament it has shuriken cannons, while not phenomenal, do their bladestorm effect and now can fire at whatever you want that firing arcs are gone. It is no slouch in melee; it has the best WS of all vehicles with marinesque 3+, and with A3 S5 it can now kill a few MEQ/GEQ on its own with 3 attacks; sadly, it loses its -1 to hit in melee, so do not expect it to survive well there. All is good, but, honestly, the worst part is that it can only carry 6 <MASQUE> INFANTRY and you do not have access to a DE raider or any bigger capacity transport.
  • Note on Points: For 9980 points as of CA 2019 with 2 Shuricannons included, this boat is a steal and is very similar to a DE Venom which, incidentally, comes at 75p with double Splinter Cannons (presumably a tax for being able to bring a character along and to use it for fusion shenanigans despite the fact that fusions are really only good against high toughness stuff without an invuln which basically all harlequin units are decent to amazing against....). While they do share a lot in common, the Starweaver has better transport capacity, better invulnerable, and better movement, while not pumping as many shots at close range. Its main use is not only to transport your units and to provide them shelter until they can assault on turn 2 but also to soak up overwatch (and with 4++ it can do it pretty reliably); Overwatch is your worst enemy, just as it was before, and when each and every model of yours has 4A at S4 AP-3 and you are paying 24-33 points for that pleasure losing even one Player may spell doom for your assault and thus may even cost you a game.
  • Disembark your clowns and then charge these in first to eat overwatch for the squishier guys. Not only will this thing stand up to massed bolter fire better, being wounded on 5s but it's also not too terrible in melee either as stated above.

Heavy Support

Voidweaver: No longer a mandatory tax, so now the real question is are they worth taking? Short answer: maybe. With the Haywire and Prismatic Cannons both being Assault weapons, you're now a little more accurate with your shots while on the move, and can even advance for laughs. It's no longer a terrible unit, but it faces some pretty stiff competition. As of CA 2019 this thing got a serious point decrease down to 90. Since prismatic cannons now cost the same amount as haywires, you'll almost always take the prismatic cannon since bikes are a much more spammable method of getting haywire onto the field. Keep this thing out of combat, its main advantage over anything else is being able to threaten a variety of targets at a 24" range. It can put out 1 fusion strength shot with its lance mode at 24" compared to a starweaver full of clowns needing to be within 6" to get out more shots. It's pretty niche though with its new cost, it can now be justifiably taken in some lists, especially if you're trying to get a Brigade (which is easy to do in the current codex).

Fortifications

• Webway Gate: For 120 points you can finally pick this giant arc. Fluffwise, it is the very reason of Eldar trollability to suddenly appear somewhere, where they completely shouldn't be. Crunchwise, it is still a giant arc with T8, 14 wounds, 3+ and 5++ which helps you to deep strike your units. It is set up anywhere on the battlefield more than 12" from enemy deployment zone and their units during your deployment and, of course, is immobile after that. What it allows you to do, is to be able to set some of your AELDARI units in the Webway (aka Necron style Tomb World), but, aside from 1 unit per gate (aka 1 unit per Night Scythe) restriction, you also must be 9" away from enemy, just like for normal deep strike (both parts can be amended a bit via Webway Ambush stratagem, so check out the Stratagems section for more info), AND within 3" from the gate. Of course, if the gate is destroyed, all units, that were in the gate's Webway (the Webway form Webway Assault strategem is not the same one) are slain. On the one part, it does let you save some CP for not using aforementioned Webwey Assault Strat and, furthermore, allows you to deep strike your Vehicles on the contorary to it. Still, the restriction for model placement (9" away from the enemy or 1" with The Labyrinth Laughs Strat and within 3" of the gate itself) poses a large threat that your opponent just bubble-wrap your nice and large gate with infantry blob, thus making actually using the gate a bit of "Risk-Reward" tactics, if not even a bit of a doubtfull one. The model is very nice thou, so don't restrain yourself from using it as a piece of terrain.
• Universal Fortifications: Harlequins benefit more than most from taking Bunkers and Bastions. Assuming a 6" diameter building, they have an effective threat range of a 42" circle (this is often squished into an oval due to deployment zones), or roughly a quarter of the board. While your faction transports are certainly faster, the building are far more durable.
  • Note that these will require a fortification detachment, which may be an issue if you plan on spamming for CP.

Army Building and Tactics

Army Building

If you're interested in running clowns, for the most part it's recommended to run them alongside some other form of eldar too. See the other pages for starting with these armies. If you want to run pure harlequins though, below is a decent way to get started.

• 3 boxes of troupes: these come with Troupe Masters too and are the only way to fill out a battalion. Building them with caresses and fusion pistols, along with one clown naked to absorb a wound from transports dying or overwatch is the most common way of setting up a squad. There's a pretty simple way to convert one shuriken pistol and a kiss into a caress and a fusion pistol, meaning that just one box will allow you to outfit every clown with one.
• 2-3 skyweavers: the bikes are generally one of the best units in this army, easily able to deal with vehicles and primaris marines, along with having some decent anti-horde in large enough numbers and if you get lucky in rolling haywire shots. They've also got a pretty large threat range compared to normal clowns, for example.
• 2-3 starweavers: These are pretty much required for each unit of troupes you aren't deepstriking in, they'll get them across the board faster and once they've unloaded, you can send them off to camp on objectives for you if your force is struggling, or to eat overwatch for the troupes aboard.

Once you've got the basics, maybe played a few games to get a feel for just how the army runs, expand out in pretty much whatever direction you want. Grabbing a shadowseer and a solitare, mayber a death jester are generally good next steps and you can never go wrong with more bikes.

Souping

Harlequins can be brought alongside any other army that has the Aeldari keyword, this includes Craftworlds, Drukhari, Ynnari, and Corsairs. You've already got some blisteringly fast, expensive(ish) melee units, Craftworlds can bring in some Wraith units or grav tanks for some durability while Drukhari can get you cheap, longer range shooty units that can crap out ungodly amounts of poison with kabals. Check out the other pages and take what'll compliment your army and shore up weaknesses. Just keep in mind that they need to be kept in separate detachments.

Tactics

Given harlequins tend to be fairly squishy, you'll wanna place every unit you can out of LOS when deploying, along with a maxium sized unit or two in deepstrike. These should typically be just normal clowns or bikes.

Abuse the fuck out of your mobility, stay in combat to avoid being shot at. Given all our units can ignore models in the move and charge phase, you can use this to wrap units in combat, preventing them from falling back and denying the enemy the ability to shoot at you. For the love of god make sure you're using terrain to your advantage for LOS blocking before you charge. Against shooting heavy armies like Tau, consider taking stuff like Starmist Rainment or the Silken Shroud stratagem to deny overwatch.

<tabs> <tab name="10th">

Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (10th Edition)

General Tactics	General Weapons Terrain
Imperium	Space Marines (Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Deathwatch, Space Wolves) Grey Knights
	Adeptus Mechanicus Adeptus Titanicus Imperial Knights Imperial Guard Sisters of Battle
	Adeptus Custodes & Sisters of Silence Imperial Agents (Inquisition, Rogue Traders, etc.)
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (Death Guard Thousand Sons World Eaters)
	Chaos Daemons Chaos Knights Chaos Titans
Eldar	Eldar (Craftworlds, Corsairs, Harlequins, Ynnari) Dark Eldar
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults
Votann	Leagues of Votann

</tab>

<tab name="9th">

Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (9th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications Tactical Terrain Weapons Apocalypse
Imperium	Space Marines (Blood Angels Dark Angels Deathwatch Space Wolves) Grey Knights
	Adeptus Mechanicus Adeptus Titanicus Imperial Knights Imperial Guard Sisters of Battle
	Adeptus Custodes & Sisters of Silence Inquisition Officio Assassinorum Rogue Traders
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (Death Guard Thousand Sons World Eaters)
	Chaos Daemons Chaos Knights Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Craftworld Eldar Dark Eldar Harlequins Ynnari
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults
Votann	Leagues of Votann

</tab>

<tab name="8th">

Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (8th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications Apocalypse
Imperium	Space Marines Blood Angels Dark Angels Deathwatch Grey Knights Space Wolves
	Talons of the Emperor (Custodes and Sisters of Silence) Adeptus Mechanicus
	Adeptus Ministorum (Sisters of Battle and minor factions) Adeptus Titanicus
	Imperial Knights Imperial Guard Inquisition Officio Assassinorum
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (Death Guard Thousand Sons)
	Chaos Daemons Chaos Knights Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Eldar Dark Eldar Harlequins
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults

</tab>

<tab name="7th">

Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (7th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications
Imperium	Space Marines (Siege Assault Vanguard) Blood Angels Dark Angels Deathwatch Grey Knights Space Wolves
	Adeptus Custodes Cult Mechanicus Skitarii Adeptus Sororitas
	Imperial Knights Inquisition Officio Assassinorum
	Imperial Guard (Armoured Battlegroup Death Korps of Krieg Assault Brigade Death Korps of Krieg Siege Regiment Elysian Drop Troops D-99)
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines Khorne Daemonkin Chaos Daemons Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Eldar Dark Eldar Harlequins Corsairs
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks Ork Dred Mob
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults

</tab>

<tab name="6th">

Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (6th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications
Imperium	Space Marines Blood Angels Dark Angels Grey Knights Space Wolves
	Adeptus Sororitas Inquisition
	Imperial Guard (Armoured Battlegroup Death Korps of Krieg Assault Brigade Death Korps of Krieg Siege Regiment Elysian Drop Troops) Militarum Tempestus
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines Chaos Daemons Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Eldar Dark Eldar Corsairs
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks Ork Dred Mob
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids

</tab>

<tab name="All">

Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (All)

General Tactics	General (8th) Movement (8th 7th) Psychic (8th 7th 2nd) Fortifications (8th 7th) Tactical Terrain Apocalypse (8th)
Imperium (8th)	Space Marines (8th 7th 6th 5th 4th 3rd) Blood Angels (8th 7th) Dark Angels (8th 7th) Deathwatch (8th 7th) Grey Knights (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd, AKA Daemonhunters) Space Wolves (8th 7th 6th 5th)
	Talons of the Emperor (Custodes and Sisters of Silence) (8th 7th) Adeptus Mechanicus (8th 7th) Adeptus Ministorum (Sisters of Battle and minor factions) (8th 7th 6th 3rd, AKA Witch Hunters) Adeptus Titanicus (8th)
	Imperial Knights (8th 7th) Imperial Guard (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd) Inquisition (8th 7th 6th) Officio Assassinorum (8th 7th)
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (8th 7th 6th 5th) Death Guard (8th) Khorne Daemonkin - 7th Edition Thousand Sons (8th) Chaos Daemons (8th 7th) Chaos Knights (8th) Renegades and Heretics (8th 7th 6th)
Eldar	Eldar (8th 7th 6th 5th) Dark Eldar (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd Revised) Harlequins (8th 7th)
Necrons	Necrons (8th 7th 6th 5th 4th)
Orks	Orks (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd) Ork Dred Mob - 7th edition (6th 5th) Ork Kult of Speed - 3rd edition Feral Orks - 3rd edition
Tau	Tau (8th 7th 6th 5th)
Tyranids	Tyranids (8th 7th 6th 5th) Genestealer Cults (8th 7th)

</tab>

</tabs>