DE: Solving the Harlequin problem

I bet that stings a little.

For the last couple of days, I've been thinking pretty hard on how to best capitalize the Harlequin book.  If you guys read my last review, you'll know that I don't think the Harlequin book is good enough to be super competitive.  Don't get me wrong when I say super competitive, I just don't think it can hang out on top with the rest of the crap we're seeing in the tournament scene right now.  What lists are those specifically?  Let's take a quick gander..

• Adamantium Lance - Trio Imperial Knights
• Tyranid FMC - 5x Dakka Flyrants
• Chaos Flying Circus - Flying Demon Princes with Biomancy
• Mechdar - Wave Serpent spam with or without Wraithknights
• IG Leafblowers - Standard IG carpark with or without allies
• Tau Leafblowers - Riptides, Broadsides behind ADL
• Deathstars - Draigo with Centurians, WWP Fortune Wraithguard
• Tyranid Assassins - Built to overwhelm Serpent spam
• Eldar Lynx - Designed to destroy Invisibility Deathstars with Pulsars (ITC ruling)
• Necron Decurion - They don't die, you die instead

That pretty much sums up the super competitive meta right now, and let's just say that poor Dark Eldar and Harlequins will not be joining those ranks any time soon.  Harlies might be able to add a few things to the Eldar Deathstar with their Shadowseer, but I don't think they have anything to make a big impact meta-wise in terms of raw combat effectiveness.  The big daddy of the codex is definitely the Solatire, and he's just a T3 3W model that's completely dependent on CC to make his points back.  While the Starweaver is a pretty solid buy at 70 points, the 24" Shuriken Cannon is just not reliable enough to keep a AV10 open-top vehicle safe throughout the course of a competitive game.  I mean, if the Venom can't survive on the table for more than a couple of turns dodging through buildings and shooting from cover thanks to its 36" cannons, what makes you think a shorter-range clown mobile is going to fare better?

The only thing we can do right now is maximize on what the Harlequin codex does well, and that's spamming a ton of S6 shooting.  When we look at the Starweaver, it's only 5 points more than the Venom but adds a ton more battlefield application despite its rather subpar range.  Keep in mind what I said before about the competitiveness that is Dark Eldar and Harlequins in general.  At best, I see these armies fighting in the competitive mid-tier because the army itself does not have the sustain needed to carry through a longer game.  So what does that mean exactly?  It means that if you're playing an optimized DE list and you're a seasoned general yourself, you will do well as long as you're not being matched up with top-tier tourney lists.  Everything else should be fair game as long as you're facing powerful elements, but in moderation.

Looking at the Dark Eldar/Harlequin mix, you can clearly see one major flaw here:  You're complementing your glass hammer tactics with even more glass hammer.  So I guess in that sense, you've upgraded yourself from wine glasses to stained glass.  The major shift in playstyle for the experienced Dark Eldar player will be this:  S6 over Poison, 24" and not 36".  You trade a much more powerful shooting solution for less range, which directly means that you're going to be more exposed when you shoot.  This also means that battlefield terrain needs to be favorable, or else its going to be a bigger turkey shoot than what you're normally used to.

So what does an optimized list look like?  Well, I'm hoping it looks something like this:

1850
Dark Harlequins

DE CAD*

HQ:
Llama = 10

TROOP:
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider/AS, Lance = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider/AS, Lance = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider/AS, Lance = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster (in Starweaver) = 55
5x Warriors, Blaster (in Starweaver) = 55

FAST:
Razorwing, Lances = 140
Razorwing, Lances = 140

HEAVY:
Ravager, Lances = 125
Ravager, Lances = 125
Ravager, Lances = 125

Masque Detachment*

TROOP:
5x Troupe, Starweaver = 165
5x Troupe, Starweaver = 165
5x Troupe, Starweaver = 165

FAST:
Starweaver = 70
Starweaver = 70

HEAVY:
Voidreaver, Prismatic = 80

The idea behind this list is to shoot a lot of S6 while keeping as many lances in the army as possible.  Just like the rest of my DE lists, I focus on shooting and rely heavily on range band and firepower analysis.  Study the range of your weapons, look at the power that each of those weapons put out, and they lay it all on paper so you can see just how much firepower you truly have.

A typical analysis looks like this:
At full strength, the opening volley looks like 12 Dark Lances from 36" and 33 S6 Shuriken Cannon shots from 24".  If you extend (move forward), the maximum threat range is 48" and 36" respectfully. Should the enemy not close, and you don't want to expose your Starweavers, you're basically playing with 12 lances.  If you close with the enemy, you will add +5 Blasters at 18" from the Starweavers and Raiders, and if both of your Razorwings fly in, you will potentially have +4 more lances.  Throughout all of this, the Voidreaver will be putting out 3 S6 shots and more likely a S7 AP2 lance as well, but once again, the range will be limited to 24".  As your units die, so does the maximum firepower that your army can produce, so you'll see your max lance count drop from 21 to god knows how many depending on what is killed.  It's important you make a mental note of exactly how many lances you lose and from what range so you can better prepare battlefield tactics and make changes on the fly.  Each Starweaver killed for example, will cost you 6 S6 shots, so this is super important you know what kind of condition your army will be in as you move past the turns.

When you compare this to a similar DE list running Venoms, the biggest difference is obviously the the range and the Poison.  Vs. T4 and greater, you're going to be forcing a consistent ~4 wounds from much greater range.  This is one of the strongest attributes that Venoms have, especially when you consider the fact that they're dirt cheap, even with 5 guys inside totting a Blaster.  Unfortunately, the Venom is also a very polarizing unit:  It does absolutely nothing vs. vehicles so they're completely dead points if things are armored.  This is where the Starweaver comes in, especially against the AV11 range.  AV12 is still very much a stretch and AV13 is out of the question of course.  When you look at the matchups from the top-tier competitive lists, you'll see that Starweavers over Venoms will do better vs. all mech-related matchups minus 3x Imperial Knights, but will be slightly weaker vs. FMC spam.  The math here points in favor of the Venom for the raw amount of wounds it can inflict, but lucky 6s for AP2 can seriously hamper a Flyrant's plans in a hurry.  After you study the matchups a little more closely, you'll see that you'll do better vs. some armies, but a lot worse vs. others (such as range problems vs. Tau, and T8 Wraithknights).

While I don't think the power will change too drastically for DE/Harlies, I know that it will change the playstyle and dynamic of the army.  You will suddenly be able to threaten vehicles you normally wouldn't be able to hurt, and inflict AP2 wounds out of the blue, the latter being rare and thus, unpredictable.  At least you can sleep at night knowing that the Solatire finally has a use, and that's to punch Deathleaper and his Lictors in the face.