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

Eldar Harlequins are coming 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

Harlequin Masque Detachment

The Harlequins their own detachment, which is probably for the best since they don't have any HQ choices to fill minimum slots for most other 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.

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 an 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.

Heavy Support

Voidweaver - the other option in the Starweaver dual kit, this vehicle fills several artillery based roles, since it's Prismatic Cannon 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.

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.