Had my 3rd ever game with my Harlequins last night up against Caban's Iron Hands complete with his FW Scarian Tank (which is just awesome btw). He took something a little different to his usual list maxing out his tactical squads taking 4 units of 10 which he split into 8 x 5 man combat squads each with a Laser Cannon. Up against him I took pretty much every painted model I had in the form of the Ceogarachs Revenge formation which has 2 particularly useful rules (1) all models re-rolls invulnerable saves of 1 and (2) all models with Fleet can run and charge from Turn 2 onward.
Ceogarachs Revenge
Solitaire
3 x Shadowseer - all L2, 2 with Phantamancy, 1 with Telepathy
3 x Death Jester
3 x Troupes in Skyweavers - Master w. Caress, 2 x Embrace & 2 x Kiss
Voidweaver
Overall. it was good game in the end he had his Scarian and a Rhino left on the table while I was down to my Solitaire, the Voidweaver, one Troupe and a few Skyweavers. The Solitaire is just brutal in close combat he just zipped back and forth across the board vaporising whatever he touched - a unit of Bikes, then 4 different Tactical Squads all on his own. Didn't realise that he can also glance down vehicles as well with his Caress. One telling turn was No.4 where pretty much all of Caban's remaining shooting went into him and his 3++ with re-roll ones just bounced them all off.
| Troupes deploy in their Starweavers ready to go - Death Jester & Shadowseer in the building |
Combination of Haywire and Shuriken Cannons on the Skyweavers worked well - Haywire is pretty good for taking down vehicles and a S4 Blast isn't that bad against Infantry either. Still getting used to how they move though. Zephryglaives are nasty in combat S5 AP2 on the charge!!
Transports got taken out fairly quickly but their Shuriken Cannons were doing a fair bit of damage after that the Troupes got stuck into the Iron Hands vehicles and other units. Finding that the 2 Kiss, 2 Embrace kit out is pretty versatile. Do need to remember that Troupe Masters have 2 wounds though not one. Although in this game I did at least remember that I can assault out of the Starweavers.
There is still a serious lack of anti-armour across the Harlequin list with S6/7 the maximum you get on anything. After that you relying on Haywire Cannons, Haywire Grenades, S6 HoW from Embraces and 6's from the Caresses to take down vehicles. But it can be done Haywire Cannons and Grenades glanced down the Land Raider and also took out Rhinos quite comfortably.
| Sorry Marines time to die!! |
| Voidweaver hiding behind wrecked Rhinos |
Overall, I'm slowly getting the feel for the army especially now I am starting to figure out how each of the different vehicles move. Few more games and I'll have all the stats and special rules memorised and things will start to get easier.
Winning games with it is going to be tough though as (a) you do not have objective secured units and (b) the formations place big restrictions on how many units you can field in any list. Consequently, while I nearly tabled Caban he slaughtered me on Objective points.
