Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Eldar Harlequins

Eldar Harlequins are coming back as an army in their own right with their own Codex, preview rules for many of their units can be found in white dwarf issues.

Why Play a Harlequin Army

If you're an Eldar player for any stretch of time, you'll probably have the models. The previous Craftworld & Dark Eldar codex forced you to choose between Harlequins in Elites, of other units such as Incubi, Banshees, Trueborn or Fire Dragons, so it became a difficult choice to take the jack-of-all-trades clowns over another unit with a more specialist role.

Now you can take an entire army of the psychadelic laughing trolls as its own force, or as an allied force to one of your own detachments.

Special Rules

New Psychic Discipline: Phantasmancy

Primaris. Veil of Tears - Warp Charge 1. You know it. You love it. You swear by it. Anyone who tries shooting at your psykers squad has to roll 2d6x2. If they're not within a distance equal to the result, you won't get hit. Would be great if shadowseers could take jetbikes.

1. Dance of Shadows - Warp Charge 1. Grants Stealth & Shrouded to a unit within 18". It is better than Conceal because it can affect a target other than the Psyker, this becomes very impressive on allied Dark Eldar units (like Wyches) who are generally quite fragile anyway and need some protection against shooting.
2. Peal of Discord - Warp Charge 1. A 9" Nova that brings 2d6 S4 AP- Concussive hits. It seems to be good for keeping mobs at bay as prep for a charge.
3. Shards of Light - Warp Charge 1. 3d6 S3 AP- witchfire shots at 24" with Blind. Not fantastic since many armies have high enough stats to both tank the shots and pass the blind test, but very good for distracting Tau, Orks or Necrons with low Initiative scores and foiling their plans to shoot or assault.
4. Fog of Dreams - Warp Charge 2. Forces a unit within 24" to only fire snap-shots and only hit in combat on a 6. Not quite as awesome as the Veil, but this one's useful for combat too, and unlike Shards of Light, it's a Malediction so you don't need to roll for it to hit them or worry about them passing the blind test.
5. Laugh of Sorrows - Warp Charge 2. A Witchfire with two ways to screw the enemy over - After hitting the target as normal, they must roll two separate Leadership tests. If the first one fails, they take an unsavable wound for every point they fail it by; if they pass the second one, they take a wound for every point they pass it on. Quite frankly, this is very capable of being the most trolltastic power ever because it'll have a way to wound literally any enemy who can't deny it or get lucky with leadership tests, since high or low, your opponent's leadership values will catch him out.
6. Mirror of Minds - Warp Charge 2. Another violently trolltastic power. First you and your enemy need to roll a d6 and add your Leadership to the result; if you win, they take an unsaveable wound, they win and it's over. Sounds like Purge Soul from Sanctic, right? Well it isn't; you get to do it again and again for each win you take until your enemy either wins or dies.

Harlequin Masque Detachment

The Harlequins, of course, have their own detachment, which is probably for the best since they don't have any HQ choices to fill minimum slots for any other Battle-Forged FOCs.

The Masque requires 3 Troops, 2 Fast Attack and 1 Heavy Support as Compulsory choices (and no more of these types) and up to seven optional Elite slots for characters.

Currently, the command benefits of using the Masque are unknown.

Wargear

• Harlequins Kiss - done a little differently now, you roll one attack separately which is resolved at S6 AP2, and any 6s to-wound on this attack have Instant Death.
• Harlequins Caress - a power glove that does the old job of the Kiss, grants auto-wounding/glancing AP2 melee attacks on 6s to-hit.
• Harlequins Embrace - D3 Hammer of Wrath attacks at S6, beyond that it doesn't do much else.
  • Analysis - All weapons still grant +1 attack for 2CCW (Even the Embrace, which has no effect after the HoW). Now, despite the fact that the kiss does not apply to all of the attacks a model gets (usually one in four on a charge) it still might be the better option as it is a guaranteed AP2 strike with a chance of ID, rather than a one in six chance of AP2 on all other attacks.

• Neuro Disruptor - AP2 Fleshbane pistol means people are going to die, especially when each player in a troupe can carry one, it costs a fair bit, but is still cheaper (and safer) than a plasma pistol in most other armies, though the plastic kit apparently only comes with the option for two.
• Fusion Pistol - more expensive and shorter ranged, but good against vehicles. This has always been around Harlequins, and not much has changed with this weapon. Only take if you have no other means of tank-hunting.

• Holofields - Now they do give a basic 5+ Invul. What this means for the Craftworlders, only GW knows...
• Mirage Launcher - For one turn, you get to up a vehicle's Invul to a 4++. Considering that they're all about as strong as papier-mache, it's a good thing they're here.

Enigmas of the Black Library

• Crescendo - Troupe Master and Shadowseer only. A Shuriken Pistol that can fire as many times as a model has attacks. Cheap, and baller ability thanks to how many chances you get to use Bladestorm.
• Cegorach's Rose - A MasterCrafted Harlequin's Kiss with Shred for a Solitaire or Troupe Master. Pretty useful.
• Mask of Secrets - Grants a Shadowseer Fearless and enemies within 12" take -2 Leadership, which melds well with their innate Fear.
• Laughing God's Eye - Friendlies within 12" have AW. It's handy to throw on a Shadowseer for bonus denying power.
• Starmist Raiment - Expensive, but it grants the user 3+ Cover when you run until its next shooting phase. That's a good distraction if you know how to kite.
• Storied Sword - S+1 AP3 MC Sword. Quite sadly, it's wayyyyy too expensive to justify. Also, only Troupe Masters can take it.

Army List

The army list is -expectedly- not very large, and mostly contains a single unit per slot.

Troops

Harlequin Troupe - A change up from what it used to be in the Craftworld codex, they now come in squads of 5-12 and the Troupe Master got a welcome boost of +1 WS, W & I turning him into a viable army warlord in his own right who can take from the relics list, he can also take a power sword, but you're probably better served giving him a kiss or caress to help him chew up 2+ save characters in challenges. The rest of the unit is customisable as you would like, with any model being able to take any harlequin item combination.

Dedicated Transport

Starweaver - essentially a Venom with two Shuriken Cannons, it has Mirage Fields like the the Skyweavers do, giving them a 4++ for a single turn.

Elite

Solitaire - A guy who's been out of the game since the second edition (except for that house-rule codex GW released), and he's making up for lost time. A WS9, I10, A6, 3++, eternal warrior melee beast that is going to lay the pain on his opponents with his Kiss & Caress. Once per game he can "Blitz" which is rolling a number of dice equal to the turn number and moving that distance instead of the 12" he normally gets and does it over other models and terrain. The boost for doing this is bumping his attacks value to 10 in the following assault phase (basically 12 attacks once you count the charge and the 2CCW bonus). He's very fragile though despite being Eternal Warrior, since he has only T3 and is forced to go solo, he'll end up getting brought down by a turn of lasgun fire if you keep him within range of the enemy guns, so use that 12" of movement to keep him away from rapid fire ranges and out of sight until you need him to tear up a unit in melee.

• The Solitaire has both the Kiss & Caress in melee (on top of whichever Enigmas he takes) meaning that one of his attacks will always be S6 AP2, while the rest of his considerable number of attacks have that chance of rending as normal.

Shadowseer -

Death Jester

Fast Attack

Skyweaver Squad - Two-person jetbikes but nothing like a Vyper, you get 2-6 in a unit with a Shuriken Cannon each. They are expensive, but you get two wounds a piece and the ability to make their 4+ save invulnerable for a single turn (but they have 5++ the rest of the time as well) They get an item called "Star-Bolas" which is a one use S6 AP2 grenade, but you can exchange this for a Zephyrglaive which is an objectively better close combat item, giving them S+1 (S+2 with furious charge) AP2 on the charge and then counts as a power sword after that, this unit gets Hit & Run so you want them bouncing in and out of combat like proper Harlequins and peppering them with rending ninja stars over and over.

Starweaver - Essentially a redone Venom, it has two Shuriken Cannons and can carry up to 6 clowns in here (sadly, no clown car physics are in effect). Being Open-Topped with AV 10 and 2 Hull Points, it's going to crumble at so much as a glance and flamers will incinerate its passengers, but it does have that 4++ for a turn and their basic Holofields. It also has Fear, which is kinda funny considering its frailty. If you're familiar with Venoms, the same rules apply - Alpha strike with the forces inside, if you have a Shadowseer here, use a good defensive power to make sure they live.

Heavy Support

Voidweaver - the other option in the Starweaver dual kit, this vehicle fills several artillery based roles, since it can purchase a Prismatic Cannon, which is so versatile and can Lance apart enemy vehicles (but only at S7 though, meaning it can glance a Land Raider on 5, Pen on 6), knock chunks out of MEQ with an AP3 small blast, or blow hordes up with an AP4 large blast. It also has two Shuriken Cannons just like the Starweaver, but the second rear-facing gun may select a different target but only in the rear facing. The stock Haywire cannon is kinda forgettable, though. It's an S4 AP4 Blast with Haywire, and that's all it can be.

Formations

The Great Troupe (Warzone: Valedor): get 3+ units of Harlequins together and 3+ Dark Eldar Venoms OR Eldar Vypers (You can also take Starweavers too, since they are dedicated transports) and you've got an apocalypse formation that grants all of the Harlequins Crusader (so you can run even further and chase them down), Deep Strike, Preferred Enemy (Chaos) and ALL of their ranged weapons gain the Blind & Concussive qualities and if a unit fails their blind check on a roll of a six, they become "confused" and treat all of their melee weapons as Unwieldy for the rest of the game. As an added bonus to this already impressive formation one of your Troupe Masters becomes a Troupe Leader and gets the profile of a Phoenix Lord -1 S/T, badass.