Hey, you cool cats and kittens, this week I’m talking about some slick lil’ clown people!
In this article I talked about fun lists I’m playing virtually, and I’m using a slight variation of one of those lists in a virtual tournament!
Here is the list:
Frozen Stars Battalion
- Shadowseer (Warlord)
- Troupe Master (Kiss)
- 11 Players (6 Kiss)
- 11 Players (6 Kiss)
- 5 Players
Frozen Stars Battalion
- Shadowseer (Warlord)
- Troupe Master (Kiss)
- 11 Players (6 Kiss)
- 10 Players (5 Kiss)
- 5 Players
- Solitaire
Frozen Stars Outrider
- Yvraine
- 5 Skyweavers (5 Haywire Cannons, 5 Zephyrglaives)
- 5 Skyweavers (5 Haywire Cannons, 5 Zephyrglaives)
- 5 Skyweavers (5 Haywire Cannons, 4 Zephyrglaives)
I’ve found this list very very fun in practice matches! It certainly has some drawbacks (no shooting, fragile units) but its strengths allow me to do some really cool plays!
Fall back and charge is a gnarly rule, and as Frozen Stars these guys get a bucketload of attacks. The infantry units get a -1 to wound from enemy attacks within 6 of the Shadowseer. This makes those guys surprisingly tough, and most of the time your opponent will be taken aback by the lack of damage they do.
The Troupe units have 6 kisses a unit makes them really deadly. All that d3 damage really adds up! They have great damage: durability output, not to mention they ignore terrain, models and can advance and charge. I like to pack these guys into ruins and threaten the middle while launching the Skyweavers out to get kills and bonus points for the first couple of turns. The Skyweavers, and the Troupes, can get a 3++ for 1 CP, which makes them really hard to kill.
This list is really all about movement and deciding when to expose my units to damage. Nothing in the list is expendable, so when I do send a unit out to do a job, whether it’s getting an objective, killing a unit or both, I need to make sure that the odds are in my favor, and the task is doable.
The list has good answers for most types of units in the game. My Troupe Squads can handle hordes and certain tough targets, and the Haywire Bikes melt vehicles and are no slouches in combat. Every unit in the army has great combat potential. Even Cat Lady can get some kills!
One thing I’m thinking about with this list is that I need to trade my units for big points gains whenever possible. I need to try and get as many points as I can early on, before chip damage will make my units less effective. Going for bonus points, kill and hold more in the first three turns with the bikes will be a mainstay in my strategy, and I will hope to close the game out with two of my four Troupe units, and my characters, especially the Solitaire.
The characters are key in this list. Between all of my psykers, the army has the potential of 5d3 mortal wounds per psychic phase, and 2d3 per shooting phase with the Shadowseer’s grenade launchers. The Troupe Masters provide reroll wound bubbles for every Harlequin unit in the army, which is one of the reasons I like the Troupe units having chaff models in there to take casualties from and to string back to auras.
The Solitaire is the ultimate dagger in your opponents heart. That guy bounces around and kills characters like nobodies business; he is fast, a great model, and a constant threat to your opponent as long as he’s on the board.
This list is undoubtedly hard to play and small mistakes will cost me big time. It will make me a better player overall, though, and I’m pumped to get down to business.
Be sure to check back next week to hear the tale of some of my games with the list!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
I’d be interested in an article comparing this army list to the May 2020 PA changes to Harlequins.
I will definitely do that! I hope ee get some new strats/relics/warlors traits/custom masque forms. I think harlies are really missing units in the codex overall, but I doubt they do that in a white dwarfs.
Just wondering how you deal with the increase in indirect of no LoS shooting we saw just before Corona hit us hard.
Things like the double slow TFC and No LoS GK paladins spring to ming as being pretty brutal to an army like this? Not to take at a jab at your list because I love lists like this but seen myself struggling to make it work so hoping to find out what I can do to improve my odds.
Thanks for the write up was good read :)!
That is a very tough matchup for this list. A lot of it will be dependent on deployment and going first, especially against the artillery. The Grey Knights would be tough because the Harlies don’t have a great answer for 2+ armor saves outside of smite and just praying I push through enough d3 damage on the Kisses.
The saving grace against TFC’s though is that it will cost them a lot of CP, and TFC don’t actually kill that many troupes, you only lose about 2 per volley. And with 4 units they can’t stop them all! The bikes are really crucial in that match, and they are fast enough to get into the enemy backfield and pick those TFC up so you can sit behind walls with the Troupes safely and exert some board control.
Thanks for the comment and the kind words!!