With the looming gloom of the new Harlequins hitting the top tables, here are some tips and strategies you can use to face off against the theatrical elves.
I love Harlequins, their lore and aesthetic is just awesome and their paint schemes are so vibrant it works as a sort of contradiction to the Grimdark universe of 40k. However let’s face it – Harlequins are strong. In the hands of a good player even with their 8th edition codex they were hard to deal with.
As we wait for the meta to adapt to Harlequins and before we see any nerfs coming in (voidweaver point hikes being more than likely the first set of them), let’s look at the best ways to deal with this army and how to prepare yourself for fighting into them.
Right now the biggest menace are 9 Voidweavers in a Light Saedeth. We’ve been hyping up this build since the codex dropped and it’s finally coming to fruition. So let’s break down some ways to deal with this type of build and how you can start incorporating these rules to help yourself out. There are other builds out there that still do incredibly well, but this specific build is what people are going to be focusing on the most so it’s the one we’ll be looking at.
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The biggest problem with Harlequins is Voidweaver spam, however Voidweavers do not have Rising Crescendo which is what gives them fall back, shoot and charge. However they do have access to the Aeldari stratagem, Feigned Retreat for 1 Command Point to fall back and shoot (2cp if they want both). That means tagging 2+ units of Voidweavers drastically reduces their firepower, not to mention any damage you’re able to deal in melee combat.
If you watch the Semi Finals with Lennon vs. Zach, Lennon used his troupes to tie up every single Voidweaver unit in Zach’s army and that became crippling for him. Although Zach was able to win off of denying Lennon on Primaries Lennon had a good idea going to break down Zach’s firepower as much as possible.
Some might say that Caprious Reflections in a Light Saedeth gives Harlequins access to a 6″ move when charged, however just like dealing with Admech’s Tactical Obliqua, you just have to maneuver your army around to make it a difficult decision for your opponent and whether it’s even worth it or not. Fast moving units that can tarpit some Voidweavers are going to pay out in dividends for your army.
Ignore Invulns
I know the meme is that you have a force field to ignore your force field. However what we’re seeing is the reasoning behind these rules in the first place. Ignoring invulnerable saves into Harlequins is one of the best ways to deal with this army. We’re talking things like Bel’akor and Flying Hive Tyrants with Synaptic Hive Blades. Any way that you can force Harlequins to not use their Luck of the Laughing God rolls on re-rolling their saves is invaluable into the Harlequins matchup.
A Flying Hive Tyrant with Synaptic Blades equipped with all the good stuff like Rampaging Beast and Aggressive Surge kills 2 Voidweavers on average with Voracious Appettite. Let’s also not forget Breaking Through to pop a Starweaver or Character very easily if your opponent didn’t take the Laughing God’s Eye relic for a 5+++ against mortals or is outside of their aura for Webway Dance to get a 6+++.
Mortal Wound Spam
This is a no brainer. With access to only a 5+++ against mortals with a relic or 6+++ with a psychic power, mortal wounds are going to be one of your best bets into Harlequins. Grey Knights mortal wound libby bombs are amazing at clearing out Voidweavers. On average he’s moping up 2 boats on average with just psychic powers. Bring in some Purifier Squads or even Castellan Crowe to drop some more flat 3 mortals with Purifying Flame and you’re easily dropping boats like flies.
The same thing goes for Thousand Sons and their Exalted Sorcerer’s. The only problem is when you’re going down this route, Custodes become a slightly harder matchup if you just focus entirely on mortal wounds. However teching in something like a Mortal Wound Libby for Grey Knights is pretty easy, plus Purifiers still do work with Psycannon upgrades as well who can also reduce the damage from Shuriken Cannon’s down to 1.
Wrapping Clown Cars
An oldie but a goodie, no one likes hitting a transport and seeing a bunch of clowns come out and so wrapping up Starweavers so then the models inside can’t disembark they automatically die. Keep in mind that Emergency Disembark is a stratagem that Harlequins can use to try and still have extra models on the field so make sure you wrap up the transport to the best of your ability with long or weirdly shaped base size models to get the full value out of this strategy.
-1dmg, -1 to hit, -1 to wound and Transhuman
Harlequins have no access to re-rolls outside of Luck of the Laughing God and re-roll wound rolls of 1 for Core units. Any way that you can make their shots less efficient is obviously going to benefit your army. However unlike facing armies with access to things like Chapter Master re-rolls, Harlequins have no way to counteract these problems. A -1 to hit debuff drops the efficiency of Voidweavers. They can spend Luck of the Laughing God on these rolls, but that means they’re not getting their save re-rolls.
-1 Damage is a huge debuff against Harlequins and their melee in a Light detachment isn’t necessarily going to break anyone’s kneecaps. The -1 damage takes their Shuriken Cannon’s down to 1 damage and if they roll poorly on their Prismatic shots you’re looking at anywhere between 1-5 damage instead of 2-6.
High Toughness
Toughness 7 and higher models are hard for Harlequins to deal with. Slap some -1 damage or -1 to hit modifiers onto these models and you’ve got a force that Harlequins just do not want to deal with. This makes Crusher Stampede an amazing option to deal with Harlequins and with Tyranids new book coming out it’s only going to get worse for them as a lot of their monsters are going up to Toughness 8 with a 2+ save.
Some might be concerned about taking Vehicles into Harlequins, however Skyweavers are rarely taken in a Harlequin army nowadays. However, if you do run into Skyweavers they are vastly easier to kill off compared to Starweavers and Voidweavers.
Target The Starweavers
Voidweavers are strong, but they don’t hold objectives well. Meanwhile Starweavers holding troupes with Obsec can be a huge pain to deal with along with Voidweavers. It might be tempting to blast off the Voidweavers first, but 3 squads of 3 Voidweavers is a hefty amount of points along with characters and transports.
That means more often than not, you’ll be running into 6 troupes at max with objective secured and getting rid of them can be easier than dealing with the Voidweavers. When Harlequins run out of Troupe Players, it becomes incredibly difficult for them to keep up in Primaries especially in Light when they want to play a bit more Cagey.
Knocking off their troupes makes it easier for you to score points. Focus on the mission and focus on denying Harlequins primaries since their troupes are incredibly easy to remove from the board. Crack open those eggs and eat the yolk inside while tying up Voidweavers.
These are the best ways I’ve found to deal with Harlequins so far. There are other ways as well such as volume of fire and using flamers, but I’ve found the above to be the best. Obviously, not every army is equipped to do these things, and it can be hard dealing with other armies along with Harlequins if you tech too much into them.
Luckily, not a lot of people play Harlequins. It’s a very underrated faction and even at Adepticon where they had a magnificent showing only 10 people brought a pure Harlequins list to the event. We’ll see how the army does as people begin to adapt their lists more to take them on, but still keep in mind you’ll more than likely be facing off against more Custodes than you would Harlequins.
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