How to Play Harlequins in 10th Edition Warhammer 40k

magnetize your minis flight STS custom kits and all the hobby supplies you'll need from the magnet baron.com [Music] hello and welcome to the YouTube channel for craftworld elder.com I'm Brent and in this video video I'm going to be talking about the best way to tackle the terrifying and possibly quick sodic task of playing mono harlequins in 10th edition 40K uh I'll start by explaining how harlequins have changed in 10th edition what makes them more challenging to play Maybe than never before and then I'll shift to explaining how the Army plays best in competitive games the best loadouts and Squad sizes for each harleyquinn data card and how to use those units most effectively in concert with one another I'll finish by discussing briefly a roster that I've developed that uh wins more than it loses in competitive play even if it's not in danger of a top 10 GT finish now for you busy horse dentists who don't want to hear my initial digressions about the evolution of space clowns in 10th edition uh you can find a clickable chapter heading in the video description with a link to the most practically applicable content uh and busy horse dentists and devoted listeners alike can find a rundown of the lists that uh the list that I'm talking about in the video description after that link okay so first of all let's just be clear about the initial premise of this clown posi Manifesto I really do believe that in mid-tier competitive play monoh harlequins can do reasonably well if you build your roster carefully pilot them well and stop thinking about player troops like they're the melee Monsters of previous editions uh that said I don't think you're going to win anything bigger than like a three round store store tournament and if you're going to a GT winning more than you lose probably constitutes success with monoc clowns uh for the kind of 40K that the majority of players are engaging in an all harlequinn list is not only usable but it's rewarding to play because of the unique play style and also just the like exotic status of clowns in the current meta and even if you don't find yourself inclined to run mono harlequins as an army uh I hope that this video might persuade you to Splash something other than the death Jester into one of your current craft worlds lists because several of the units that I'm going to talk about really do have more to offer uh than many of us I think have realized as we've been focused on um shinier units in the index uh that have maybe taken up all the air in the room okay here we go unless you've been taking a long break from Warhammer or like pathologically focused on the hobby side of things or just like lost in the webway since 10th edition started uh you have to know that alari were the top faction in the game for the first couple months after the index dropped and then remained so after an initial round of Nerfs maybe first equal with CSM and the elar are still highly competitive after yet another series of points increases and a serious Smackdown of some of her most powerful mechanics uh despite all of this azer yanis still strike fear into the hearts of most opponents as they are gradually removed from their carrying cases and positioned next to the board like a threat but not so with harlequins once the terror of the table in ninth Edition uh space clowns have suffered perhaps the biggest Comedown of any army in the game when they ceased to be an independent faction and were absorbed back under the alari umbrella right where they started back in second edition when Eldar got their first codex and were called just Eldar from a lore perspective this sort of makes sense harlequins aren't really a standalone military force uh they are like a mysterious diaspora of traveling actors whose many troops Meander through the webway visiting various craft worlds and kamora alike to bring both memories and prophecies in the form of metaphorical performances they're as inscrutable as the black Library itself the great Repository of knowledge uh the greatest repository of knowledge in the whole 40K Universe of which they are the Soul Guardians but the point here is that lorewise space elf clowns are really more likely to accompany a drari rating party or a craft world's War host than they are to ever go to war on their own and that's probably part of the justification for the big tent thing uh but that said I actually think that monoh harlequinn lists as a thing are completely consistent with the the L uh because frankly a 2,000 Point Army and 40K is hardly a complete Force by the standards of warfare in the 41st Millennium and I think most of us assume that when we play a game the battle that we are creating must be happening at the Nexus of some larger conflict it would be hilariously grandiose in the actual 40K setting to refer to any 2,000 Point roster as an army except maybe custodes uh given this even from a lore perspective mono Harlequin lists actually make total sense because like 30 clowns alongside some bikes and void Weavers is 2,000 points of Harley quins but that is a small band of allies for an actual alari warh host or like a cur a big kamur rating party uh unfortunately for Haro Quin players no such Detachment rules are currently in sight monoc clowns struggle under the umbrella of the current index for the simple reason that they clearly were not conceptualized by the rules writers to synergize effectively as a totally independent Force at least not with the current Detachment rules and strategems now maybe there are harlequinn rules that were created before the addition started that uh will be let loose at some point we assume that all of the all of the codexes the 10th Ed codexes existed before the addition started and they're being sort of drip fed to us and modified as uh rulle writers see how certain things play out right but like hopefully somewhere out there in the future uh harle Quinn rules will arrive but they they haven't come yet and so far it seems like they haven't really been considered as a as a as a subaction that needs any kind of help which is evidenced by the fact that despite monoc clowns never having appeared anywhere near the podium at any GT since 10th edition started Ed as far as I'm aware uh they've received no help in the data slates and in fact have been repeatedly nerfed both directly and indirectly presumably because in GW data analysis harlequins have only been considered through the lens of big tent eldari which are a Powerhouse that assessed on win percentages alone hasn't needed anything but Nerfs and as a result uh most 10th edition clowns have taken a break from the careers they trained for to weight tables work r fests and to hate on the death gester for being the only theater kid from the old days who can still support himself without selling out that said I absolutely think that we will eventually see those Detachment rules aimed either primarily or exclusively at space clowns uh and maybe those rules will provide better workarounds for a lot of the challenges that I'm about to address but in the meantime before we have access to those uh before we have had access to those rules those of us who do want to run mono quins uh have had to suffer through a lot of lopsided games to develop an approach that while it isn't going to win a GT anytime soon I think can work reasonably well into most armies if it's well played and I will get to that part shortly but first I want to establish what the obstacles are that have taken pointy eared murder cars from being one of the top 25% of armies in the previous edition of the game uh down to the bottom 25% in 10th Ed probably the most significant blow to space clowns came in the form of changes to the data card for Harley Quinn players uh although the subaction never had a wide unit selection the tremendous diversity of War gear available to basic harlequinn players in previous editions meant that uh a a troop a single troop could be configured to be a Dirt Cheep action monkey or like a quite expensive melee Powerhouse or in in some additions a brutally powerful close- range shooting unit or some hybrid of these so it was kind of like one unit that could be turned into four or five different kinds of aspect warriors uh and this is no longer the case although there are still two or three distinct ways to run Harlequin players they have nowhere near the flexibility and the potential damage output or the objective presence that they used to which is a major loss to an army that has only eight data sheets in total furthermore um so that's one issue uh another big one is that while it was once possible to include nine void Weavers in a list and frankly I'm glad that like we don't need that anymore but you could do it before uh that number has fallen to three which is significantly less and Sky Weavers like likewise have gone from a potential 18 down to 12 which means that Harlequin troops are essential to any build uh those so your signature infantry have suffered a serious reduction in their melee damage and lost the ability to advance and charge and to move over enemy models uh and they've they've lost some OC but they're also even more essential to lists than they used to be because the the number of other tools that we can include have has been reduced right so those are those are those are big those are big issues uh that said it would be disingenuous not to all Al acknowledge that not every 10th edition change has hurt clowns so Harley quins did get their army wide four up invol save back which had gone up to a five up army-wide invol save for a while in ninth Edition and historically it's I think like always been a four up invol so the five up kind of it just just felt wrong but uh the fact is that that slight durability restoration is simply not enough to offset the reality that playing Harley quins can leave an elf Enthusiast feeling like she just does doesn't have all the tools she needs for Target elimination or for board control which are both both pretty important in 10th Ed uh lastly the reduction in fate Dice from 12 to six hit mon mono harlequins pretty hard as did the first balance update that prevented alari players from using as many fate dice as we wanted in a single phase remember those brief housian days uh well those changes completely made sense for alari as a whole initially monoc clowns kind of relied on the ability to blow a bunch of Fate dice on turns one and two either by being unreasonably durable with automatic invol saves for a turn or brutally hard hitting for a single round uh not that people were really doing that like everyone was too busy with wraith Knights back then to seriously consider clown rush but then when the Nerf came clown Rush was dead before it ever got started uh and in order to avoid just actually getting salty I'm not not going to talk about the changes to fantasm except to acknowledge that these two were sad for shadow seers everywhere so here's what all this adds up to as far as uh obstacles to play in harlequins effectively Nerfs to infantry damage output in vehicle Squad size means that the Army no longer has the potent Target elimination it relied on in previous additions to offset its fragility which has been insufficiently ameliorated by The Return of the four of enol furthermore uh without a durable and dangerous unit like the Avatar of cane or a block of wraith guard to like dominate the Midfield mono harlequins just don't have access to the Tactical tools that would best compensate for those current shortcomings like a like not quite enough durability and and not quite enough damage output if you had a big bully unit in the middle of the field to to Anchor the Army it it would help but but they don't and and I don't think a incarnation of karak as a model on the table is likely to show up anytime soon but wouldn't that be cool uh lastly and this one I haven't talked about at all is that without access to an HQ that boosts your command points or lets you use strategems for zero for excuse me zero CP so you you don't obviously have the way leaper the altar way leaper it's difficult to make effective use of fire and fade and some of the other strats that would provide additional tricks and shenanigans for playing around obstacles and clowns are supposed to be a bag of tricks but currently those tricks are a bit more limited than ever before so there it is that's it a relatively comprehensive overview of why harlequins are hurting and a few people at this point are like Brent I thought you I where's the clown optimism I'm here to learn about clown optimism and from here I am going to adopt a policy of clown optimism but I I do think it is helpful to start by acknowledging that clowns are hard to play and that these are the obstacles that we're we're aiming to play around um and and and now we're going to talk about how to do that and I can honestly say that I've enjoyed every game that I have played with my mono harlequins even even even tragic ones every single game perhaps in part because the puzzle they present provides a break from the embarrassment of riches that has kind of been craft worlds in the first year of 10th edition uh my big breakthrough came I think when I stopped trying to run my troops like they were ninth Edition melee murder hobos and since then I found that in the majority of matchups clowns can really do all right uh I don't want to P anybody off by implying that if you aren't winning with your Harley quins it's because you're doing it wrong like one of these YouTube Financial gurus who claims that the only reason that you're not a millionaire is that you keep buying $4 lattes instead of index-based mutual funds because that is not the case if you're losing with your clowns you're in good company but if you have a large enough collection of space clowns to build most lists which is now actually like easier after the 10th edition rules change which streamlined a bunch of weapons choices then unless you're like playing at some Club in London where half the tables are taken up by players who've won multiple super Majors I don't think you need to totally despair sorry London players who were like oh you just described my club um but I think in in most places right at most clubs part of enjoying tactical 40K is setting reasonable and and achievable goals uh and although like I have not take taken my own M lead Maniacs to anything bigger than a store tournament if I were to run them at a GT I would just aim to win more than I lost and I would call it a success if I pulled it off I think that's a reasonable goal like you need to set for whatever Army that you're you're going to run you need to set reasonable goals for the thing um if you're the type of player that needs to be a contender for the podium at every GT you attend then monoc clown are just not they're not for you uh but even if you are one of those players who only takes Podium probable lists to Big tournaments there's definitely room for you to consider adding a few more Disciples of kagar to your most competitive alari list the death Chester is not the only theater kid who deserves a big shot at the stage so hopefully for even for you people hopefully there'll be uh something worthwhile about what I'm going to say next but let's talk about let's talk about harle Quinn's strengths and the particular play style implied by those strengths so first off although clowns are by no means as Killy as their craft world's cousins uh compared to lots of other armies in 40K Harley quins actually do have a reasonable amount of powerful shooting and they especially excel at destroying opponent's Vehicles void Weavers with Prismatic cannons and Detachment rolls can put a serious dent in just about any Target at long range while uh skyw Weavers with Haywire cannons can blow away vehicles that should be way out of their weight class uh the death Jester with Fates messenger is already a well-known and much feared damage dealer who can wreck heavy infantry and light vehicles and mediumweight monsters at range with little chance of reprisal because he's a lone operative so some really good shooting there uh and then in addition harlequins have access to some cheap and effective car units including the solitire who's both an accomplished character assassin and a heavy infantry cleanup unit and then the troop master who at 55 points is shockingly useful in a variety of roles and both of those units do find their way into competitive Big 10 eldari lists as do the others I just mentioned so weirdly despite being underpowered as a mono faction the majority of harlequinn data cards do have play and do see play in effective competitive eldaria lists which is I think why GW hasn't felt like they need to fix them in advance of some eventual uh harlequinn Detachment rules which I just have to believe are are coming lastly with no individual models that cost in excess of 125 points and and across the board for a invol save except a slightly better one on the solitire uh clowns can be weirdly fiddly for an opponent to eliminate they create odd inefficiencies in damage output especially at a time when many of the popular weapons in The Meta are like anti-vehicle weapons but like harleyquinn vehicles are all pretty cheap and somewhat Expendable and also add to that the inherent speed of all space elves and you get an army that is fast and Scrappy and difficult to pin down and can be surprisingly hard-hitting and has enough cheap units and loan operatives for scoring and objective play but also enough Target elimination and maneuverability that with precise Target priority you have to you have to destroy the right things in the right order uh a skilled Shadow Seer will often be able to neuter an opponent's most crucial units early and then and then do pretty well so I think played well harlequins prefer a Tempo game of Duck and Cover aggressive unit trading to win by Simply Having a few quick units left to score secondaries and play objectives in the final turns while an opponent is sitting like maybe on a block of Terminators or some other bully unit that just can't see anything or spread out enough to score uh it will be a high casualty game if it's a competitive game but but there there is a there is potentially a path to Victory I think in in many many matchups the mistake a lot of former ninth Edition players make with clowns initially me included is to try to set up a big like turn two All or Nothing Blitz with three or four infantry units entering melee on the same turn as like two or three units of Sky Weavers and a character or two while your death Jester cackles get wrecked in Elish uh the big Blitz was like a great play in earlier iterations of the game and against some lists it can still be a winning move so do not discount it entirely but in the majority of matchups that play that like big Blitz play on turn two will lose you the game when your infantry and your bikes just don't they just don't do quite enough damage certainly the melee output is not quite enough to get the job done and then basically your whole Army is vulnerable to a counterstroke and when the counterstroke comes that's game over so don't don't play clowns the way they used to play because there's a new way to play clowns um so the new let's the strategy here's here's here's the new way instead of that I think in most of your matchups your clowns need to keep their heads down and chip away at enemy units for a couple of turns with void Weavers and Sky Weavers and the shuriken cannons on your transports while occasionally trading a unit of players or a star Weaver to like finish off a damaged unit to score a secondary objective uh Target priority needs to emphasize first enemy units that are fast followed by enemy units with powerful shooting and excess of 24 in because if your Void Weavers can outrange stuff they can stay in the game meanwhile uh your loan operatives can hold objectives on your own side of the table and in parts of the Midfield that your shooting units and infantry have made safe at some point your opponent's list will be worn down enough for you your list will be worn down too but at some point your opponent's list will be worn down enough for you to Blitz with everything you have left including those loan operatives and remaining infantry units which if led by a troop Master can do reasonable damage to any unit in the game uh some of you are freaking out that I just said that I'll talk more about it later it's not it's it's not terrible if all goes well presuming a competitive matchup in which you don't just table your opponent which is totally possible you will sometimes just table your opponent with clowns it is a thing but assuming assuming that is not the case and this is a a competitive game at the end of the game you still should have the goal if if things go well is that you have four or five units at least partially intact that can jump around and score and your opponent is down to like one or two durable units that that you've been like kiting and are simply inefficient for scoring purposes uh if clowns don't attain Victory on essentially on turn three and a blow and blowout murder Mayhem when you largely table your opponent you just haven't lost enough stuff to be stopped um when it doesn't go that way when it's close which is more likely uh clowns are like a come from behind when by nose Pony and mle you you're down you're down for a few turns and then you score big on four and five which historically is actually how a lot of Elf lists have played so in some ways this is really not totally new we're just we have fewer tools to make it happen when thinking about CP as a harlequin player you need to emphasize slightly different strategems than you would in a conventional alari list most of your CP is go probably going to the strategems Lightning Fast reactions smoke screen and grenade grenade is essential in harle Quin lists you may occasionally use fantasm on a loone operative that is almost out of range of enemy weapons uh or it maybe like a troop unit that needs to jump onto an objective but for the most part it really be will be those first three strats that account for just about all of your CP you might occasionally use fire and fade because clown shooting units no longer travel in large squads though it's like difficult to justify the 2cp expense to move a single void Weaver behind a building or even a squad of bikes like the you're maybe more likely to do it with a squad of bikes because they're more expensive but with with no way to generate additional command points uh it the 2cp expense really hurts I'll talk a little bit more about strategems when I do a rundown of all of the individual units in a moment and what what they prefer but just expect to throw a lot of grenades and to toss a lot of smoke bombs I think that's where you're going to see a lot of your CP go fate dice to function a little bit differently for clowns than they do for conventional alari uh especially now that we have only six fate dice fortunately your troop Masters provide a way to make use of Fate dice rolls that would otherwise be completely useless without a farseer their karak favor ability allows trop Masters to treat any role as a six once per turn for the purposes of hitting wounding or armor saves so not any fate die which is kind of a bummer but still uh it does make it does make all of your fate dice usable nevertheless um Harley quins cannot make use of Fate dice with anywhere near the efficiency of craft worlders because their hard-hitting weapons as in clown hard-hitting weapons already have fixed damage values that can't be cranked up to eight and the fire OverWatch trick that's so amazing on the Avatar or really good on a bright Lance uh it just doesn't work nearly as well when we now have half as many dice and you don't have a far Seer to let a void Weaver treat a one as a six uh to automatically hit with OverWatch fire so here's here's what this ends up realistically looking like generally you maybe you have a single six the that you could use for OverWatch on a void Weaver and if so great uh but your your other roles of four or five are likely to be used to succeed on invulnerable saves for your Sky Weavers and your Void Weavers and then the remaining dice that are below a four are mostly going to be used by your troop Masters to Auto succeed on either wound rolls with their Fusion pistols against High toughness targets are higher than the the strength eight uh or to succeed on a late game armor save where they really need to not be blown off of an objective or whatever fate dice are still good they're useful but you are never as a mono Harlequin player going to do anything with a fate die that's going to make an opponent say wait you can do what which there was a lot of and even when you warned people before the game there was a lot of that in the beginning of 10th edition that's just not that's just not happening with clowns we don't really don't really have a trick like that uh okay let's dive into data sheets there are only eight of them after all and uh each of them features in my current Harley Quinn list even the shadow Seer which I once regarded as the worst unit in the entire index after the webway gate uh which I no longer think is the case honestly if you are running monoc clowns uh I think 1330 points of your list is essentially predetermined anyway because you're definitely going to want the maximum number of skyw Weavers and the maximum number of void Weavers and three troop Masters as well as a death Jester with Fates messenger and a solitire those are those are non-negotiable the only question really is going to be how many transports and player troops to include and how large the troops should be and whether it's worth taking any backup death gers for additional loan operative control and whether you want a shadow Seer uh and of those the only especially important one is whether to lean into more infantry or more transports uh uh I I'll talk more about this later Let's do let's do units and instead of going in index order I am going to start with the auto includes and then just do what makes sense so let's do void Weavers first because there is literally no version of this list that doesn't want three the void Weaver is a highly mobile light tank used for Target elimination it has the standard chassis with the 14-inch move and the toughness of six and the four up save and the four up invulnerable save and six wounds and an objective control of two the OC of two is nice one of the things Harley quins really struggle with is not having any High OC infantry so you really do have to just like kill your opponent's stuff to control objectives the uh the void Weaver has shurik and Cannon as a secondary weapon and then for its primary weapon you select either the Prismatic Cannon or the void Weaver Haywire Cannon like Gambit I guarantee that you want the Prismatic cannon on all three of your mandatory void Weavers it has excellent Hard Target elimination with a 36 inch range Two Shots hitting on threes one reroll for the Detachment bonus of course strength 12 woo minus 3 AP flat four damage that's great and it also can pivot into its mediocre anti-infantry profile that is decent into teranet with a 36 inch range 2d6 shots blast strength four no AP one damage it's a I guess it's it's a bunch of Bolter fire at 125 points the void Weaver is your best tool against enemy monsters best shooting tool and in combination with your skyweavers it can blow away tough vehicles with relative ease uh it's very good you you want to deploy your Void Weavers such that first of all out of line of sight like elf players deploy your stuff out of line of s but uh you want to set them up such that they can move to get a bead on high threat enemy units early while also using line of sight blocking terrain and long range to deny your opponent full retaliatory shooting so playing them on the flanks can be good playing them tight on some centerboard piece or moving them so they're tight on some centerboard piece of terrain such that they like block half of your opponent's deployment Zone from returning fire can be good but you need to you need to shut down a lot of your opponent's return fire Lanes when you position these things because they are reasonably fragile and there's no way to just like totally duck them out of line of site without spending 2 CP which you can't you can't afford and you can't do for all of them the four up and vulnerable save in combination with a fate die uh and with strategems like smoke screen and lightning fast reactions should be sufficient if you're not overexposing it to return fire to ensure that an Expos exposed gunboat can probably survive a turn of return fire as long as you are using the terrain well and if if you come up against a matchup in which that is not the case then that's that's scary and yet another reason that you need to like immediately try to destroy your opponent's most mobile uh units because presumably that's that's how your opponent is is going to do it is to just be fast to get a beat on you um so those those defensive tools are really important for those of you unfamiliar with the smoke screen strategy it's a 1cp generic Strat that gives a vehicle that has the smoke keyword I guess it doesn't have to be a vehicle but I think generally it's vehicles that have the smoke keyword both minus one to hit and cover during the shooting phase losing all of your Void Weavers early seriously reduces your odds of winning so you need to play judiciously with them and uh use whatever defensive tools are available to you to to make this work it's not that you cannot afford to trade a void Weaver here and there they're only 125 points and they were actually 100 I think back when the index dropped uh but in a mono Harlequin list you you just have limited access to Hard Target limb that doesn't rely on the anti-vehicle keyword that the skyweavers have so you kind of need to be careful about losing these things especially if you're playing into a list with a bunch of monsters like tyranids in a general alari list uh avoid Weaver is unlikely to find a place it it's more disposable in a general eldari list because you have other units that can do that same job it's not as big a deal if you lose your Void Weaver but the real issue is that since they got their increase to 125 points they used to be a pretty good pick for a a regular alari list but at 125 points they just don't compete well against War Walkers with t with twin bright lances I mean the war Walker can't like pivot into being an ant anti-infantry platform but it's got the Scout move it has that amazing minus one to wound ability uh and the bright lances hit harder so it's probably the void raver is only uh only for mono harlequins I I think they do still occasionally appear but I I I don't personally think they compare well to the the war Walker if you do decide to Simply trade one of your Void Weavers for something uh and you have a six on a fate die don't forget to just like you might as well zip it into the midfield if you have a fate die roll of a six so that before your opponent totally blows it away you can Auto hit on OverWatch with the Prismatic Cannon and then maybe also get some sustained hits with the shuron cannon because it's got three shots with sustained hits and you've also got your Detachment reroll for the other prism Canam shot who knows like that's some pretty scary OverWatch fire uh if if if you're trading any way or if something moves into the Midfield and you and you happen to have that die and the opportunity is there if you do have any void Weavers left in the late game which is somewhat unlikely but if you do uh you will have to choose between capitalizing on their 36 inch range to keep them totally safe while continuing to destroy enemy units because one of the things you're going to do is is prioritize long range shooting uh for Target elimination if you get to the point where your Void Weavers are just kind of safe you've got this choice to make do you hold them back where they're where they're safe and continue to participate in the battle or do you get aggressive and jump into the mid board so you can also use the shark and cannons uh which are good especially in combination with the other shuriken cannons you're going to have on your transports and the star BS on your bikes to punish enemy units that move up too aggressively in the vast majority of games that will happen and also in the vast majority of games it's going to be the appropriate play I think usually you do you need to in the late game with Harley quins you have to suddenly get really aggressive and I think that if you do have any surviving void Weavers that's the move last note on void Weavers uh they can each force a unit hit with one of their shooting attacks to take a battles shock test this is like okay if you really need an enemy unit not to be able to use strategems on your turn you could use multiple void Weavers possibly in combination with the death Chester which has a similar ability to like force a bunch of battles shock tests but honestly this is very unlikely to come up most of your opponent's strategems that they'll want to use on your turn uh are defensive and probably triggered before hits are assigned like things that make a unit minus one to hit or minus one to wound in the shooting phase you can't shut that down until you've successfully shot it um you could shut down OverWatch though on a unit that has torrent attacks uh which could be good if you're planning to charge with like a solitire or a troop Master but while this sounds cool in theory I think the vast majority of the time you should just use your shooting efficiently instead of doing that and charge something with your combat character that doesn't have a torrent weapon uh because units a automatically recover from battle shock in the command phase none of these things none of the battle shock that you inflict will impact your opponent's ability to control objectives that's just for new players obviously you veterans know this um so the battles shock thing don't get don't get all excited about the battleshock thing it's not it's not like a reason to include the unit instead of a war Walker okay Sky Weavers skyw Weavers are another Max Model Auto include that are likely to be a major Workhorse in most matchups together with void Weavers these account for the majority of the powerful Target elimination in a harle Quinn list because I recently made a unit Focus video on skyweavers I am going to avoid rehashing everything I said A week ago but the short version is this you definitely want three squads of four bikes you want to give all of them Haywire cannons probably and most of them or all of them star Bas the Haywire Cannon automatically dishes out flat three devastating wounds to vehicles on wound rolls of four up and a squad of four puts out eight shots with one roll to hit one roll to wound for the Detachment bonuses and that's absolutely brutal and often enough to seriously just like just annihilate a tough tank and a single volley furthermore the flat three damage and devastating wounds means that the bikes are also pretty okay until like three- wound heavy infantry like Terminators are chosen despite only being strength three without great AP because devastating wounds uh the star bullas have D3 shots hitting on threes at strength seven with minus 2 AP flat 2 which is good it's an insurance policy for finishing off tough Vehicles because at strength seven they'll still on fives wound Lake T12 stuff um and it also gives the bikes Target diversity into regular to wound heavy infantry those bull is just they're good at killing Space Marines big bike squads are just brutal damage dealers with the maneuverability to to get a bead on enemy vehicles and then the speed to also help you score secondary objectives based on board control if you need to and like void Weavers skyw Weavers have the smoke keyword so you can make them minus one to hit and also give them cover and they're you know they're only T4 so cover can matter against masted uh like no AP Small Arms fire um at 190 points for a Max Squad these are definitely worth preserving with like additional defensive resources they are they are very expensive by harle Quinn standards so uh fate dice strategems there might even be rare circumstances in which the 2cp fir and fade absolutely makes sense and if you want to hear the stuff that I just said explained in Greater detail watch the unit Focus video on skyw Weavers uh that said there are a few differences between playing Sky Weavers in a monohar list specifically rather than a big tent alari list which is kind of what I had in mind when I did that earlier video and most of those differences originate from the difference in ideal Squad size so in an alari list you're generally running these things as like MSU which is for you new players stands for a minimum sized unit so two elf squads well there're multiple elfes on the bike so two bike squads uh whereas the shortage of effective combat units available to a Harlequin lists means that you if you're running just straight up clowns you pretty much need to take them in units of four and at that point they need to be treated as valuable Heavy Hitters rather than disposable skirmishers with scoring potential right so they're much more precious for a harle Quinn player another difference is that uh in a mono harlequinn list there is actually some incentive to consider giving one bike in each Squad a shuriken Cannon for a little bit of threat diversity against opponents who aren't running as many vehicles uh I've been running that like the three in one build pretty successfully where I have like the three Haywire cannons and the one sharken Cannon um but it is very and I don't want to just tell you you should do this it's very metad dependent and I'm frankly not convinced that it would be safer or easier it wouldn't be safer or easier to just go with four Haywire canons which I've also done which works about as well um the other load out option you have to consider is whether to replace any of the star bulls with Zephyr glaves uh Zephyr glaves have four attacks hitting on threes at strength five minus one flat two damage in my unit folks video on Star Weavers I explain why the math on the star Bulls is generally better um but I found that in monoc clown lists it really does make sense to run two squads with the star bullas and one Squad with the glaes for one thing the 12-in range on the bullas generally means that you can only get two squads into effective range anyway and having a fast moving melee cleanup unit cleanup unit excuse me especially in the late game can not only be useful but sometimes gamechanging for objective control the the big issue uh with the melee build on the skyw Weavers is that it they don't in addition to the low AP they just they don't want to start a turn bound up in close combat because the Haywire Cannon is just too valuable a tool to neuter so any melee engagement you enter with your bikes until the very late part of the game you want to be able to win entirely before your next turn comes around or have CP on the back burner for fed Retreat which is the one that lets you like fall back and still shoot and charge uh so I think mostly you want the Bas I do find some glaves useful I I've actually also experimented with uh a squad that has two glaves into Bolas and it's fine it's fine and sometimes it's like perfect but I think it might invite you to devote too much mental energy to try to position in it in order to have suitable targets for all three weapons and I don't think that the occasional advantages and additional flexibility are worth the mental resources required by the more complex load out uh your ability to make finite decisions in 40K is limited you have a certain amount of mental energy for that and the more of those decisions you make the more likely you are to make bad ones this is just also true of human beings um so you do yourself a favor when you don't give yourself unnecessary fiddly decisions to make especially in a tournament where you're going to have to play like three games in a row and be your best elf for all of them uh don't burden yourself with additional low stakes decisions and for this reason I really think my final suggestion remains 12 bikes all with Haywire cannons two squads with Bolas one with glaves but but you decide right um you certainly can mess with that a bit but whatever you decide you need to be tactical about how much fire you expose the bikes to so that you don't blow through this essential resource too quickly uh bikes are key okay the next Auto include is the death Jester who likees skyw Weavers already got his own unit Focus video uh I would suggest watching that if you want a deep dive on this most popular of murder clowns but here is the very quick version the death Jester is a lone operative who can squat on a backfield objective while remaining untargetable until it is time to put the hurt on enemy units presuming to enter the Midfield with his shrier Cannon which has a 24in range three attacks hitting on twos strength six minus 20p flat two damage and devastating wounds on its own nothing to write home about but in combination with the death gers native ability cruel amusement and the 15-point enhancement Fates messenger the street Streaker Cannon is actually a terror weapon uh cruel Amusement lets you select either Precision ignores cover or sustained hits three as an additional ability for a single death gester in your list each turn uh Fates messenger allows you to change a hit roll or a wound roll to a six after the dice are rolled so in practice this means that in almost all cases you choose sustained hits three you roll the three dice to hit you roll one with the Detachment ability fishing for another six even if you didn't roll any ones even if you didn't miss you fish for another six and then you use Fates Messenger to change some die that is not a six to a six and every roll of six will score four hits because of how sustained hits works so with cruel Amusement you can potentially do some big damage and the most likely outcome generally when you shoot is like nine hits which is particularly nasty into two wound infantry but also with devastating wounds and decently high strength it can ding big monsters or Vehicles usually for around like four damage with average rolls that's pretty good so the death Jester is probably the also the best candidate in the Harlequin list for the occasional use of fantasm if you need to back away from a window or stay just outside of 12 in when an enemy manages to get a little too close it's great it's it's just a it's just great uh you you must you must take one now in theory you could include multiple death gestures in your Army in order to have a few more loan operatives for objective control even though only one can have Fate's messenger and only one can use cruel Amusement per turn you might still think this is this is a move um I'm really skeptical about this to be honest back when the index first dropped and death gers only cost 70 points I think that this was really worth considering but at their current cost of 90 I kind of think they need to also be able to participate meaningfully in the battle which is pretty tough without access to their special ability so uh my recommendation is that like the Highlander movies there should be only one should have been only one I don't know the joke almost Works uh at least until they make the new one with Henry caval at which point I have to I have to reassess my opinion of the Highlander movies The Other Auto include uh loan operative is the Solitaire who for you uh I haven't said anything about lore but I I just this is so cool for you lore newbies uh soliter is like the emo theater kid that is super talented but everyone else is kind of afraid of uh the soliter is the actor doomed to play slanesh in every mask recounting the fall of the alari Empire and this role apparently comes with the ability to be supernaturally fast and brutally effective in melee but unlike other harlequins this sad clown knows that after death he or she will be devoured by she who thirsts as salars are the only Harlequin Souls beyond the wit of kar act to save from Damnation now the solitar doesn't have a shooting weapon but has a 12-in move and can advance and charge it has nine attacks that hit on twos at strength six minus two flat two with Precision so it can assassinate a character leading a unit in addition uh our favorite slesh ha and vigilante also has fights first and the blitz ability which once per battle allows it to add two D6 to its normal move and raise the attacks characteristic to 12 or get three more attacks uh which practically generally means raising it to 12 now as a combat unit the solitire can be used to wipe out a small Squad of heavy infantry or annihilate a key enemy support character that was handing out Buffs or resurrecting enemy infantry those guys always have to die uh but like is not going to run into a is not going to run into some big tough thing and and and kill it um in the event that the soliter survives to the late game it's it can it also just becomes this like fiercely powerful cleanup unit that with its 12in move and advance and charge can like punch an enemy off an objective uh that's out of line of sight of your shooting stuff it's it's a great Tool uh that said unless there is a chance to assassinate an enemy character that really needs to die I would advise holding back with the solitire for at least the first two turns quite possibly the first three its speed and the loan operative ability make it an excellent candidate for holding objectives and for scoring action-based secondary objectives or just position-based secondary objectives uh especially that one that requires you to like run into various corners of the board and then not do anything uh because then in the late game when your opponent is starting to run low on resources the solitire it doesn't really matter how far away it is can use the blitz ability to get back in the game and quite possibly like Blitz a key unit and then even smash into something else on the last turn of the game uh the the solitire is only moderately scary to an opponent for the first three turns but when there there when there's not a lot left on the board suddenly the solitire is like a terrifyingly effective resource uh one word of caution about the solit despite being the only clown with a three-up invulnerable save o instead of a four up the solitar is uh fragile as an archon's ego at toughness three with only three wounds every other clown character has four but for some reason like being into sles I just assume that like probably the actor doing the solitire does a lot of drugs and is just kind of frail because you would be really disturbing to have to pretend to be slish all the time um so the takeaway is you need to not expose your solitire to any significant OverWatch fire it is the most OverWatch thing uh like in the game um when you're moving around or setting up charges especially torrent weapons a unit with flamers will send a solitare to slines faster than you can say R aandra uh so don't don't do that okay um troop Masters three troop Masters are the last of the auto include Harlequin units and they are highly efficient at only 55 points for a scrappy little combat character that is nasty enough to do serious damage but well some serious damage and cheap enough to be treated as Expendable if they are running around on their own that said uh I found that although I really like an occasional lone troop master in my regular alari lists I think that's a great tool in monoc clown rosters I actually prefer to have them leading units of players and I think this is probably one of the places where other people people who have been playing mono harlequins a lot and having some success might be tempted to be like no no you're you you run them on their own because I I know a lot of people feel this way and I understand the arguments for it uh and and I'm not saying that I'm by the way I'm not suggesting that I'm necessarily right about this I just for my own play style and and the way I'm using my my troops I found that having them attached to units has actually been pretty good uh let's set aside for now the fact that my suggestion is somewhat controversial and talk load out so the true Master can have a fusion pistol a neurod disruptor or a shuriken pistol and you always want to give it the fusion pistol which has a 6inch range one shot hits on twos strength eight minus 4 AP woo D3 damage but melted two so D3 plus two against targets within 3 in as well as the assault keyword which can help to set up being a Target within three in now for the melee Loadout you can choose either a quote Harlequin special weapon because they're all the one thing now or a troop Master's played which is just objectively better than the harlequin's weapon in every way there's no reason you would ever take a harlequin's weapon uh I assume maybe there will eventually be a strategy that balances this like all of the Harlequin weapons do a thing but at the moment the only reason to select the Harlequin special weapon is that when you modeled your troop Master back in ninth Edition that's how you built it uh The Troop Masters blade confers six attacks hitting on twos strength four minus 2 AP one damage and in addition when this model is leading a unit all of the melee weapons equipped by models in that unit have the devastating wounds ability which for you new players means that they nullify all armor saves even invulnerable saves on critical hits which are sixes to wound lastly I mentioned earlier that the troop Master can use any fate die as a rooll of a six when substituting the that die for a hit a wound or an armor save it's a bit of a shame that uh the damage roll isn't also an option to guarantee five damage with the fusion pistol but we can't complain too much because the only way to make this meaningful uh would be to use your fate dice rolls of one and two and it look it's especially useful one targeting something with the fusion pistol that's greater than toughness eight uh because right you the it's got great armor penetration but you've got to get you've got to get through the toughness uh first so um I think I think you will you will frequently find yourself using your your crappy fate die rolls to uh guarantee a wound against a hard target with your um Fusion pistol on your troop Masters in a big 10 alari list an individual troop Master is a is like a throwaway model used for objective control and secondary scoring that can pivot into being a decent little combat character when necessary but as I me mentioned earlier I found that in monoc clown lists I like them to team up with Harlequin players and the the primary reason is that they mutually boost one another's melee damage the troop Master gives players uh devastating wounds in melee and the players give the troop Master plus one to wound on the charge the players of course also act as bodyguards for the combat character uh and by not running them as separate units you you do give up a couple of Detachment rolls that's a that's a thing and definitely don't think you absolutely have to attach all of your troop Masters to players um but I have found that it renders the players a bit more functional as a combat unit and just given the like limited resources available to a harle quins players I have found that I need at least some of my uh player units to be functional as combat units one thing you do have to do though is make a true master your warlord if you plan to include more than three units of players which is only because uh players player troops only become battle line units if a troop Master is running the show which is I just think not a necessary rule but it's it's in there it's I guess it's narratively fun uh okay troops so basic Harlequin troops and I will talk a little bit more about troop Masters as I talk about basic caran troops basic caran troops are the most iconic of mysterious space clowns No Mono quinnn list is complete for aesthetic reasons alone without 20 of these uh they are however arguably the least competitive Harlequin unit that said I think that if they're played with technical finesse they can be surprisingly effective counter punchers as well as a good like hybrid combat unit and they're also decent scoring units they come in squads either of five 6 10 or 11 and each model in the unit comes default with a harlequin's blade and a shuriken pistol but any player can swap the blade for a special weapon all of which have the same profile now which at least for me comes as a relief even with 60 of these things fully painted in my collection and earlier editions I kept finding I just didn't have enough players with the right loadouts to be optimal uh which was annoying so I I kind of don't mind that the all of the Harlin special weapons are not one weapon um but I also I do also understand why people who are truly like harlequinn Harlequin play that's their thing that they're Harlequin players they like the the depth of those different weapons uh the lead player can instead swap the harle quin's blade for an alari Power sword and you always should you should always do both of those things all of the players should swap their regular sword for an a harlequin weapon and then the lead player definitely wants the Power sword uh the Harley Quinn weapons Grant four attacks hitting on three is strength four minus one AP one damage the Power sword has that same profile with an extra attack and an extra AP in addition when in squads of five six or 10 up to two players may have Fusion pistols instead of shuriken pistols and up to two may have neurod disruptors instead of shuriken pistols while at 11 you may have four Fusion pistols and four neurod disruptors for this reason there is no reason to ever run a squad of 10 at that point you pay the extra points for one extra model and get two more Fusion pistols you should always max out the number of available Fusion pistols so if it's a smaller Squad you you definitely want two of them uh if you're going all the way to 11 you take the four the fusion pistol is uh one shot hits on three strength eight minus 4 AP D3 damage again melta two so for D3 plus two damage inside of three Ines just like the troop Master but hitting on threes instead of twos cuz not a tro Master uh the neuro disruptor honestly is nothing to write home about it's frankly in my opinion it's no better than the shuriken pistol it's the same weapon but it has anti-infantry too but it has no AP so there you go and I think you rather than being trivially better into very specific specific infantry having a little bit of AP uh I have many times dinged tanks and things with shurik and pistols I'd rather I'd rather have the AP um if you could like give disruptors to the whole Squad they would actually have really good Synergy with the Bladestorm strategy which gives two additional AP and credit for critical hits but C CP is really precious in a Harley Quinn list and you're unlikely to ever use blade storm for two to four models with a one shot weapon so sad sad um if you have some models modeled with neurod disruptors don't feel like you have to pull them off and put Shen pistols on it's I I sometimes stick a couple in just cuz they look cool but like they're not they're not they're not a competitive pick uh also as I already mentioned players get plus one to wound in melee on the turn that they charged which is extremely good and it gives them some level of threat into any Target because even the toughest stuff in the game they're still wounding on fives and they do if you're running a big Squad with the troop Master actually have a crapload of attacks uh so and and they all then they they've also got devastated wins early in 10th edition one of the most prominent 40K CH channels which uh I'm not disparaging here I I have a tremendous respect for these guys but they did an analysis of harlequinn troops and determined that they were terrible a Max unit of players they pointed out cannot even reliably kill an MSU Squad of basic Space Marines in melee um first of all that's not actually true it it's true if you don't take into account any special abilities but it's not actually true if you take into account the bonus to wound on the charge and the slightly better weapons equipped by the lead player then no you you proba probably pretty reliably you will it's even less true if you take into consideration that they can shoot before they charge at that point like yes they're they're doing it um if a if a maximum because there's 11 of these things in a maximum size Squad right if a troop Master is involved it's even more of a walkover for the poor Marines uh that said it is true that 10th edition Harlin troops are not Lightning Fast melee monsters like they were in ninth Edition they just aren't but they also aren't meant to be instead what distinguishes harlequins from other melee units like scorpions or banshees or even corsairs um banshees advance in charge like everybody's scorpions start off near the opponent everybody's got their thing there's really good AP on those Corsair swords what harlequins do is that they are a they're a techn technical unit best played as a counter puncher that relies on a hybrid of shooting and melee to really get the job done and also gets pretty Juiced by a tro master has that option right so if for example you were to begin with a maximum sized unit of players so 11 with the four Fusion pistols LED and the lead player with the eldari Power sword led by a troop Master with a fusion pistol and a sword uh within if you were to move that whole unit within melter range of a 10man marine Squad so not the MSU Squad and shoot before you charge you should exterminate it without an issue once you account for the bonus to wound on the charge and the devastating wounds in melee and the better AP on the weapons of the lead player and the troop Master similarly if you do that same thing and you move within melter range of a vehicle or Monster and use the troop Masters fate die manipulation ability to Auto wound with his Fusion pistol that has minus four uh a AP and then will do D3 plus2 damage and then you use your Detachment roll on one of the other four Fusion pistols and then you charge with the whole Squad with like over 50 melee attacks at plus one to wound and with devastating wounds on sixes you do stand a pretty good chance of killing the target even if it's something pretty good because you you're doing like eight damage with the fusion pistols and then this big Smackdown with devastating wounds and plus one to wound and and and everything else so that's that's not bad that's it's pretty good um and in either case if you trigger the grenade Strat before you shoot Victory is all bit of short the grenade Strat is an incredibly useful tool likely to account for at least three of your CP over the course of every game you play quite possibly four it allows you to pick an enemy unit with an 8 in of one of your units that has the grenade keyword that has not yet fired so either a troop master or some players and you roll six Dice and every four up just automatically does a mortal wound to the Target if you are an aspiring Shadow Seer you will learn to love this strategy in your Harley Quinn lists it's also one of the reasons why a single troop Master is cool in a regular big 10 alar list because he can like throw grenades and do an average of three mortal wounds to a thing before he shoots it with his Fusion pistol and then charges it with his kind of pretty okay melee profile uh now because 12 harlequins neither fit in a transport nor have any way to advance and charge at that point because you can't also attach a shadow sear the particular combo I was just talking about really is relegated pretty exclusively to a counterpunch technique because it just it isn't quick enough to get within melter range of stuff that hasn't like entered the Midfield of its own accord but a single maximum siiz Squad of harlequin foot sloggers in your list with the properties I just described hovering just out of line of sight forward of your deployment zone is a pretty powerful tool it it's not it's not a Bulet unit it's not durable enough but it kind of does a similar job a bit it's pretty powerful deterent and uh it can surprise units who are not accustomed to playing into Harley Quinn's um with with its damage output alternatively troop Masters leading MSU squads so minimum sized units so five elves and a troop Master can jump out of a transport to use essentially the same combo I just described with fewer elves but more maneuverability because those transports move 14 in and can hide out of line of sight in the Midfield the basic play is the same uh you you jump out you move near the thing grenade strategy followed by Fusion pistols with fate dice manipulation and rerolls followed by a charge with plus one to wound and devastating wounds and what you end up with is a 13o trading unit between the troop master and the players that's good into a variety of targets especially targets that have already been worn down by random shuriken cannon fire and star Bolas uh it's pretty good also at only 75 points for the basic Squad of five players with no leader no well they have the lead player with no tro Master it's also not a terrible idea to include some of these disposable harleyquinn units just for scoring purposes I don't have any in my current list it's just that's just how it's shaken out I've I've had some in the past um but the fact that not running any currently doesn't mean that you shouldn't because they have the grenade strategy too so even though they don't have the devastating wounds and no way to like Auto wound with a fusion pistol on the Fate die like use your crappy fate die rolls to Auto wound they can still do some damage to a tough Target especially if you have the CP for the grenade strategy don't and don't need it elsewhere um or they can just run around and score now you might also consider running a unit of players with a shadow Seer instead of a tro master um uh for 60 points I have been surprised to discover that the shadow Seer is not terrible as I originally supposed when reading the index for the first time she gives the entire unit stealth so minus one to hit and the ability to advance and charge as well as the chance to roll that advanced roll which actually makes the unit really quick it can like rock it across the midfields and because the pistols all have the assault keyword the shadow Sears unit can do some serious damage before charging in because they advance and they shoot with their pistols and they can still charge um also her melee weapon the Mis Stave actually brings a meaningful little melee bonus it's it's it's okay it has four attacks hitting on twos strength five minus one a D3 damage um strength five is pretty cool here because with the plus one to wound conferred on her by The Troop it actually wounds he like heavy infantry like Marines on a two up so four attacks hitting on twos potentially a reroll for the Detachment bonus wounding on twos and then D3 DM minus one apd3 damage it's a solid Boon into multi- wound enemies I've like it you know it's not amazing but it it it ends up it changes the melee outcome in a noticeable little noticeable way I have consistently found that a single troop led by a shadow sear is in fact a valuable tool for hitting aggressive enemy units trying to position themselves for like a turn two jump or to add weight of dice to some engagement that needs a little extra help or occasionally just to tie up some enemy tank and move block it while chipping away at its Health uh if you do decide to Blitz something with your Shadow sear unit and do real damage don't forget to throw the grenade first you you can do that right if you have the CP and you don't need that particular strategy elsewhere that's an option so that's it for player troops although I think um they are absolutely absolutely deserving of a little love at some point when we get either an actual codex or a harlequin supplement they need some help it's stupid that they have an OC of one that's dumb and they probably should have some trick for getting around the board faster uh like jumping into the webway and jumping out somewhere else if they're not engaged and there should be some way to boost their melee damage right for at least of one troop somewhere on the board there should be a strategy for that um so I'm not I'm not saying that they I'm not saying that they don't need love harlequinn lovers uh but they also they don't totally suck either I don't think they make the grade for splashing into a conventional alari list in a competitive setting but they definitely play well enough that if you did want them for narrative reasons or you absolutely need them because you're running mono harlequins they can do some work they you know they they do stuff okay uh lastly we have the star Weaver the star Weaver is a six elf transport with a firing deck and two shuriken cannons which at 80 points is also a modestly costed durable little firing platform it is a 14inch move toughness of six a four up save a four up invulnerable save the fact I mentioned the forup save also because that means you can get meaningful cover it has six wounds and an OC of one it also has the smoke keyword and an ability called rapid embarcation which lets infantry units and infantry unit um not engaged jump inside at the end of the fight phase if the transport is nearby the obvious move with the star Weaver is to put an MSU troop unit possibly led by a troop Master inside and position it out of line of sight in the mid board from here your infantry have all sorts of options they can pop out to engage an aggressive enemy uh the Shen cannons can be used to soften up opponents units that move into the Midfield also both the transport and the elves inside of it are cheap enough that if necessary you can send either the Infantry or the transport to make a suicidal play to score an objective or a score secondary Mission and you'll still have the other unit remaining and you won't really mind losing the whatever you threw away uh a transport with a troop unit inside of it also constitutes well so it constitutes two disposable generalist units both of which do just enough damage to matter for Target elimination and both of which are maneuverable enough to also be used for scoring and move blocking also if your opponent starts to lose her grip on a particular quadrant of the table zipping in with a star Weaver clown car gives you objective play it gives you secondary scoring opportunity over there and it gives you just enough threat to count tactically and also like all transports the ability to park it on an objective and still control the objective if the vehicle is destroyed because the surviving embarked units land on the point can can matter that can be useful uh and just a reminder for you newer players that although infantry surviving the destruction of a of a transport are automatically battles shocked they will also automatically recover from battles shock at the beginning of your next turn before objective control is resolved so sometimes like when 10th edition first dropped there were people who were confused about this and they were like ah the transport on an objective thing doesn't work anymore because battle shock but it does uh unfortunately the firing deck on the star Weaver is not actually very useful initially it looks like it would be because like with the 14-inch move it's not too tough to get within three Ines of an aggressive enemy tanker monster at which point if there's a full complement of clowns on board led by a troop Master they could hit the target with three fusion pistols at melta range as well as the shuriken cannons on the transport itself and there are two reasons why you would never do this the first is that the embarked models are not treated as a separate unit so there is only one Detachment reroll to hit and one roll to wound both of which you'd use on Fusion pistols uh also the troop Master's ability to manipulate his Fusion pistol wound roll doesn't count because when you're shooting from a firing deck the shooting is assumed to come from the vehicle not from the model so any special abilities that the model has it isn't just something on the weapon itself like melta just don't they just don't count um so your shooting is just worse the other reason that you would never do this is is that your clowns uh cannot then throw a grenade which we've already established is excellent now there's a few naysayers listening to this video who are thinking but Brent the clown car provides extra durability and is slightly faster for engaging units at the extreme edge of melta range into you detractors I say not this time naysayer uh because models can disembark within three inches of a transport and Harlequin troops can make an advanced move of 8 plus D6 Ines and still fire with their pistols all of which have the assault keyword which means the absolute worst movement range they would have from the transport is 14 inches which is the same move value is the transport itself and that's if they roll the one to advance uh also the star Weaver has the rapid embarcation ability I remember I mentioned this earlier so the Infantry jumps out moves the 14 inches with the advanced move right uh gets within melter range of the target throws the grenade shoots with full Detachment rerolls on the fusion pistols then the transport can shoot with full Detachment rerolls on the shuriken cannons and then the squad can just jump back inside the transport for free at the end of the fight phase because neither the transport nor the uh models are engaged in melee so you get the same effect as using the firing deck but you get extra rerolls and you get to use the uh tro Masters ability to manipulate fate Dice and you get to throw a grenade and you end up with the same outcome it's just better you you just don't use the fire deck don't do it don't do it uh obviously the other advantage to getting out of the transport is that if your clowns are close enough and they really need to like maybe you don't need to make the advanced move but you need to finish things off with a charge like obviously that that also matters the other time you might theoretically use Rapid embarcation is after tpking an enemy unit and melee you might want to keep the clowns safe and mobile or maybe jumping back in the transport means that they can like dis appear behind the corner of a ruin so maybe you can get your clowns into melee be really SM smart and thoughtful about how you position them when you Pile in so that they will still be close enough to jump back in a transport which is in fact around the corner of a ruin out of line of sight of an enemy uh which is a pretty good trick but it also won't come up very often at all okay wow sorry um I think I basically just embedded most of a unit Focus video on the star Weaver uh in here which was not actually my intention they they are useful for sure I generally treat my star Weavers as my most disposable of tools but I am never sorry to have them uh two sharken cannons is I didn't really talk about their shooting but two sharen cannons is good sharen cannons are solid the sustained hits are solid and if you have a if you have a shark and cannon on every void Weaver and you've got two to three transports each with two shark and cannons that fire adds up to something meaningful uh oh I Okay so one last trick though before I move on if you draw that slightly annoying secondary Mission early in the game especially turn one that wants you to do the action in board Corners uh it's cool to have and you've already got like a transport in your back field you can do a cool thing whereby um because usually with the board Corner thing you you're only and in the beginning of the game you can only score this on your side of the table which is annoying and it's tempting to throw it away but if you do draw into this you have your solitire jump in the the board Corner that's exposed to enemy fire because he's a lone operative so it doesn't matter and he has the blitz ability so it doesn't matter that he's far away from everything else and then with your star Weaver you can have your clowns jump out of a star Weaver before it moves move towards the Midfield out of line of sight so they're in position if they need to make a jump turn two and the star Weaver can drop back do the action and then its move is enough that it doesn't matter that it like it can get back in the game next turn uh so sorry I talked way too much about star Weavers okay there it is a reasonably comprehensive rundown of every clown data sheet to finish up let's talk uh just a little bit more about list building and maybe a little bit about the roster that I posted in the video description if you take my advice and run the units that I suggested as Auto includes your only decisions really come down to whether to take a shadow Seer and how to distribute the remaining points between troops and transports in 10th edition every transport needs to start with models inside of it it's just a rule um but this doesn't really matter because if you have the three troop Masters you could theoretically even if you wanted to go hard on having lots of transports and very few troops you just put a troop master in each of three transports and then whatever um in terms of like how many transports you take versus MSU Harlequin troops I honestly can't tell you that I have the best clear answer to the best balance of points on troops versus Star Weavers but I will say that I have personally found that the following constitutes a good balance of damage output and disposable trading pieces two star Weavers one maximum siiz unit uh of players led by a troop master that obviously doesn't fit in a transport but acts as a Midfield counter puncher it's that like Bully unit that's not a bully unit two MSU units led by troop Masters in those two transports and then a small Squad led by my shadowseer that can act as a super fast blocking or trading piece and there's an extra clown in that squad for the simple reason that I had some points left over now I could of course like Drop just the shadowseer and get another uh get another MSU unit of clowns or I could manipulate things little bit and get another uh star weaver or I could give up half of my big unit and get another star Weaver I I'm not I'm not going to try to talk you into what I'm doing specifically but I will say that um it is working as well or better than anything that else that I have tried uh I also spent a few leftover points to give my troop master that is my Warlord the Phoenix gem which can be super useful like none of the enhancements aside from Fates Messengers are totally necessary but the Phoenix gem is really go good I think um for the simple reason that it gives you a little extra objective control in the Midfield where you can't necessarily always rely on your lone operatives and and obsc is objective control I used the ninth word there um is hard for Harlequin sometimes so the Phoenix gem is this enhancement that on a two up revives its slain bear at the end of the phase which can swing an objective in your favor so there's like no amount of shooting that can eliminate your troop Master on a two up it's just going to get up no matter what what um that can score you an objective and be pretty good now um earlier iterations of this list uh had three transports which is the number if I could make it work that I would prefer um but dropping the extra clown and if I were to give up the Phoenix gem that doesn't get me there and there just at this point there isn't anything else I'm really willing to give up also I just think thematically authentic Harlequin lists need an absolute minimum of 20 players and having more is cool uh having like very few or no Harlequin players and tons of vehicles I think just looks kind of ridiculous and janky um nevertheless my decision to include more troop units than star Weavers is not a concession to Aesthetics I have found that at least from my own play style it works a bit better but some of you might want fewer clowns and more star Weavers they cost about the same uh and it is totally possible to separate out your troop Masters so you have a bunch of disposable janky trading pieces that are hard to pin down and annoying to eliminate because of the invulnerable save personally I would suggest having at least two of your troop Masters attached to units for damage output reasons but uh but you feel free not to like I don't think that there is a definitive best list for all play Styles once we have acknowledged the necessity of the 1330 points of totally mandatory includes regardless of what you decide and putting together a monoc clown list if this is something you're going to do I guarantee you that it will require skillful play to make it sing Harley quins might be the single most unforgiving faction in the game right now and so knowing when to keep your head down and when to be aggressive and what targets to prioritize and when to trade will be essential none of which you can learn without saddle time which is just getting a bunch of games in uh nevertheless I think that mono harlequins are a rewarding experience for veteran AU shks whose local meta might be fed up with months of getting their monky butts handed to them over and over again by Night Spinners and wraith guard uh playing mono Harley quins presents an opportunity to hone core skills while proving to ourselves and others that we can win competitive games without running a tier lists for newer players on the other hand uh clowns are likely to be a Savage trial by fire that said if you are a new player who's eager to get better at 40 okay and you're really interested in mono harlequins uh it it might be a quick way quicker even way to develop skills necessary for tactical play than big 10 alari for the simple reason that every time you make a mistake you will be punished although even though tactics tactics for uh making Harley quins effective are nuanced with only eight data sheets in the Army there's actually less to keep track of than in some conventional alari lists which is also good for newer players because you can focus a little more on strategy and a little less on just trying to remember what everything does but there's still a lot of like janky unit specific rules uh so it's it's not it's not easy for new players but I also think um Harley quins are just a great they're a great tool for getting better at core 40K skills and regardless of whether or not you have any interest in running monoc clowns if you do have some Harley quins in your collection and you haven't tried splashing in anything but the death Jester into your craft worlds list I would encourage you to give it a go uh Sky Weavers are really good and Singleton grenade Goblin troop Masters will not let you down they're so fun um the void Weaver probably doesn't compare well enough as I said with the double bright Lance War Walker to be strictly a competitive pick and it but it's it's not like you're handicapping Yourself by taking one either if you just want to the Troops and transports probably are the hardest to justify in Big 10 alari but if you wanted to do it for narrative reasons you certainly could they're far from useless so that's what I've got uh before I sign off I want to say a quick thank you to my patrons in whose Mansions I dwell with gratitude if you too would like to imagine yourself as a space self Aristocrat with an eccentric military adviser wandering around your wraithbone Palace like a favored pet you could sign up for the patreon by using the link provided in the video description and for $3 a month a acquire Discord membership and early access to some content and the right to self-describe as a patron of the Arts and even if you don't want to be a patron every person who clicks like and subscribes for best of all leaves a comment helps me out I also just enjoy reading your comments uh if you have your own ideas about how best to run monoc clowns in teth Edition 40K I hope that you will leave those below and if you just want to say hi that's great I like that too okay everyone that's what I've got back again soon and don't forget to destroy your oppon fast units first it's very important take care bye

Channel: Craftworld Eldar

Views: 6,626

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Id: UNOdGTKu4W8

Length: 84min 36sec (5076 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2024