Harlies with rangers or wraithguard?

[helline9]

Hi, my first army in 40k was Harlequins (2nd ed?) but the game has changed a lot since then. After playing 'Guard & Sisters for so long the opportunity to play my original army again has me 'giggling like a school girl' but given the amount of options and the fact that i haven't played Eldar in a very long time... i'm a little stumped on some stuff (mainly meta).

My idea is simple; i want to run a Harlequin army with Craftworld Eldar as allies as a all-comers type list for tournament play.


-The large Harlequin infantry squads making up the bulk of the army will be on foot (using Formations/ Detachment with the 'Rising Crescendo' special rule), with every unit having Haywire grenades. I was looking at using the Harlequin 'Light' Warlord table with a squads Troupe Master as my Warlord (aiming for 4+ results on the table).

With the Craftworld Eldar Allied detachment force my thoughts are either:
-Illic Nightspear with Pathfinders and Warwalkers (Scatter laser & Flakk missiles)
-or a Spiritseer with Wraithblades (Ghost axe/ Forceshields) and a Wraithknight.


The Warwalkers (theoretically) can deal with any flyer problem, and as they're each armed with a scatter laser and a variety of missiles they can have a go at almost anything. If they have the Ghostwalk matrix as well then the whole army with this build has Move through Cover, allowing me to camp in cover where available. Illic & Pathfinders gives me options to cause some ranged shenanigans such as removing special weapons & leadership boosting characters, granting Area denial, forcing moral checks when combining fire with Death jesters etc. The advantage of this force is that i have ranged units to off-set my melee Harlequins, the problem is that the whole army is fragile with a vulnerability to knights and psykers.

The idea of using the Wraithblades was to have them converted as 'creepy dolls' and used as a mobile wall to cover my Harlequins advance where needed. The Wraithknight (giant 'creepy doll') would be to deal with other knights or equivalent as well as being a great big distraction. A Spirtseer also grants more Warp Charge points for Deny the Witch tests when combined with Shadowseers. The problem with this build is that my army becomes even more melee based than Harlequins alone are with no way of dealing with flyers or fast armies, however it does give me access to tougher units to tie things up with.

Note; The Pathfinders and Wraithblades are both troops choices granting the option for Objective Secured if i choose and by allying with Craftworld Eldar i can possibly add another squad of Harlequins as well (though at reduced ability).


So what do people think and which do people think would be better; using snipers or 'creepy dolls' as allies?

[ShadowcatX]

In a tournament setting? Neither. Rangers are 100% unplayable, and wraithblades are just bad.

[helline9]

If not use either of those choices, what from the Craftworld Eldar codex as an allied detachment would you add to a Harlequin army?

I've see a lot of people want to add a small amount of Harlequins to Dark Eldar raider-lance spam armies to use as a replacement for wyches but that's not the direction i want to go. There is the idea of a heavy psyker list using telepathy/ phantasmancy with mask of secrets but you can do that with just a lot of shadowseers anyway (the only thing you get from allied craftworld eldar pskers that you couldn't get without them would be more warp charge points). Adding things like banshees or scorpions would be a waste as Harlequins are already a melee army, fire dragons & wraithguard are too slow on foot (compared to the speed of Harlequins) ...having the fire dragons doing drive-bys from starweavers ok maybe (wraithguard are too bulky for starweavers). Dire avengers or guardians; what for ..to be defensive? if your being defensive with Eldar your probably doing it wrong (at a guess as you guys probably have more experience than me). Yes things like wraithknights are nice but to take an allied detachment you need a troop and a HQ to go with it.

[ShadowcatX]

The eldar's commonly accepted best troop option is a min sized squad of dire avengers in a wave serpent with scatter lasers and shuriken cannon. After that is guardian jetbikes as cheap and fast objective grabbers. The recent adaptations in the meta may make guardians superior to dire avengers, I'm not sure.

[helline9]

thank you for the replies, the more information and opinions the more it helps.

i did some more reading and yes wave serpent spam using the scatter laser for rerolls on both the shuriken cannon AND serpent shield seams to be a common tactic and very effective. Basically the dire avengers are there to purchase the wave serpent as a transport (which also allows the wave serpent to hold objectives), the longer range avenger shuriken catapult is generally why they where purchased over the guardians as i understand.
jetbikes: yes fast troops choice to grab objectives late game (being eldar they can't defend very well thus why its a late game grab ...which could be very interesting when added to; (4) narrator of wars on the twilight harlequin warlord table. narrator of wars allows you to +2 or -2 to the roll for variable game length! not having fun, spread the bikes out and end the game. lol) The jetbikes aren't that useful in a harlequin army as harlequins don't have objective secured at all so your forced to go for the kill not objectives, kill solutions are better in this instance and craftworld jetbikes aren't going to do it.

The thing is i'm looking at not adding harlequins to a eldar force but adding craftworld eldar to a harlequin force which is quite different. For example; in a standard eldar force rangers are terrible as they are static and expensive when compared to guardians. Being equipped with a sniper rifle makes battle focus on them is pointless as they can't keep up with the rest of the eldar force due to the weapon being heavy. However when added to harlequins that can fleet, run & charge all in the same turn with move through cover and can hit and run eldar units won't be able to keep up with the harlequins anyway unless they're doing drive-byes from starweavers. Obviously the best unit to doing drive-byes from starweavers is fire dragons, my problem with this is 2 fold; a.) the starweavers don't have a reliable way to scout, deepstrike, infiltrate or outflank. They don't even have skilled rider which would have helped, they have to charge up the field (using their one use 4++ save on the way) to hopefully pop tanks & transports at the same time as the rest of the harlequins get there without being destroyed in the process. b.) as eldar units can't keep pace with harlequins then i'm looking for a long ranged solution, a static fire base that can open fire from first turn, this unlike in a eldar army brings rangers back as a possibility for the allied troops choice in my opinion. (in case your still thinking wave serpents are the go remember that you can only bring one.. maybe two wave serpents and they are most effective in mass)


my new thoughts are; adding a shadowseer (with veil of tears psychic power) to each ranger and dark reaper squads with either;
-a farseer (for divination powers on the dark reapers/ rangers or telepathy (to add to shadowseer phantasmancy tricks) and extra warp charge points making the harlequin troupes shadowseers veil of tears more reliable) or

-illic nightspear (adding him to the dark reapers gives them infiltrate and shroud, and they grant him slow & purposeful as well as the ability to ignore jink saves. He also can upgrade the rangers to have shroud & precision shots without being in their squad if i choose)

[helline9]

In case anyone was thinking of the wraithguard with harlequins you could kind of do it with the harlequin 'cast of players' formation as it grants all eldar & dark eldar units within 6" (ie: wraithguards) crusader rule allowing for re-rolls on run moves (and access to stealth & shroud from phantasmancy).
an Iyanden wraith army with 'cast of players' formations anyone?

not the way i want to go but an interesting thought.

[ShadowcatX]

i did some more reading and yes wave serpent spam using the scatter laser for rerolls on both the shuriken cannon AND serpent shield seams to be a common tactic and very effective. Basically the dire avengers are there to purchase the wave serpent as a transport (which also allows the wave serpent to hold objectives), the longer range avenger shuriken catapult is generally why they where purchased over the guardians as i understand.

Actually it is because 5 dire avengers is cheaper than 10 guardians.

jetbikes: yes fast troops choice to grab objectives late game (being eldar they can't defend very well thus why its a late game grab ...which could be very interesting when added to; (4) narrator of wars on the twilight harlequin warlord table. narrator of wars allows you to +2 or -2 to the roll for variable game length! not having fun, spread the bikes out and end the game. lol) The jetbikes aren't that useful in a harlequin army as harlequins don't have objective secured at all so your forced to go for the kill not objectives, kill solutions are better in this instance and craftworld jetbikes aren't going to do it.

Wrong again. Harlequins won't have objective secured, but the eldar jetbikes will.

The thing is i'm looking at not adding harlequins to a eldar force but adding craftworld eldar to a harlequin force which is quite different. For example; in a standard eldar force rangers are terrible as they are static and expensive when compared to guardians. Being equipped with a sniper rifle makes battle focus on them is pointless as they can't keep up with the rest of the eldar force due to the weapon being heavy. However when added to harlequins that can fleet, run & charge all in the same turn with move through cover and can hit and run eldar units won't be able to keep up with the harlequins anyway unless they're doing drive-byes from starweavers. Obviously the best unit to doing drive-byes from starweavers is fire dragons, my problem with this is 2 fold; a.) the starweavers don't have a reliable way to scout, deepstrike, infiltrate or outflank. They don't even have skilled rider which would have helped, they have to charge up the field (using their one use 4++ save on the way) to hopefully pop tanks & transports at the same time as the rest of the harlequins get there without being destroyed in the process. b.) as eldar units can't keep pace with harlequins then i'm looking for a long ranged solution, a static fire base that can open fire from first turn, this unlike in a eldar army brings rangers back as a possibility for the allied troops choice in my opinion. (in case your still thinking wave serpents are the go remember that you can only bring one.. maybe two wave serpents and they are most effective in mass)

Actually, rangers are bad because they are bad, not because they can't keep up. Mathmatically, rangers are poor because a guardian will put out significantly more wounds across the board than a ranger will, despite the ranger being significantly more expensive. Also, you can bring harlequins as your primary detachment and eldar as a secondary cad which would allow as many wave serpents as you could afford.

But it sounds like your mind is made up, you're going to use rangers and that's that. And you know what? That's fine. You won't win as often but that's your choice.

[Captain Bubonicus]

I hate to add another option, but I noticed the other day that I still have a BUNCH of old 2nd edition Dark Reapers...

I was kicking around the idea of backing up a force of Harlequins with 3 good-sized squads of Reapers for long-range fire support. Haven't priced 'em out yet, but if I buy the S8 missiles for 'em, they could engage power-armored infantry or medium armor as needed.

So...just to muddle the stew some more.

[ShadowcatX]

Dark Reapers are an odd place, they are good offensively, but they cost too much for how fragile they are. However, with Harlequins, you're going to have a lot of fragile, expensive units already, so dark reapers may be able to dodge being the first one targeted.

[Captain Bubonicus]

Dark Reapers are an odd place, they are good offensively, but they cost too much for how fragile they are. However, with Harlequins, you're going to have a lot of fragile, expensive units already, so dark reapers may be able to dodge being the first one targeted.

Oh, yeah - at 30 points a pop bare naked, they sure get pricey quickly.