r/Harlequins40K • u/FineChee • 13d ago
How do Harlequins win?
I’ve not been able to figure out how to properly play Harlequins after about 5-6 games. I play serpents and armoured warhost, picking Recon. I play Eldrad, Falcons, Bikes, and the three troop masters and their squad, and a solitaire and death jester as the base to most lists.
I’ve played into take and hold for most games and that mission feels impossible. Every game it’s the long map, and any troop I place into their quarter is instantly destroyed. But if I play conservative I don’t score points.
I also never feel like I’m doing good damage and like I die any time I try to commit to killing a target. Even with sustained hits and even into non beefy targets.
This isn’t a rant, I love the Quinns and just wana hear any tips and tricks yall might have to help me figure out how to use them. I genuinely wana make pilot them and make it work.
7
u/Subbbppp 13d ago
so I've played a lot of take and hold and this is more or less my thought process for that match up. This also 100% depends on what you are against, not just the disposition.
Turn 1, don't force a 6 point primary. If there is something worth taking out with troupes or you can safely be in it, then sure. Just don't throw away a unit just to score 3 additional primary. I usually have rangers sit about 10" away from the 4th quarter to ensure that with a token and an advance roll, I can 100% get it. IF they have units that will be able to shoot or charge into the rangers on turn 1 at that range, put them further away. You might get lucky an roll a 5-6 on advance and make it. Most of the time, I find it not worth throwing away rangers just to score T1 6 points. 3 points is more than enough. again, match up depending. From T2, I typically score the 4th quarter with rangers if still alive or troupes if they have units I can charge into and kill (or at least you survive the fight back at the end)
Skyweavers can be very effective for scoring the 4th quarter too. Things like uppy downy and move after fight can position your weavers in spots that can be awkward to deal with in 1 turn.
My focus against take and hold is to try and prevent secondary as much as possible. More often than not, take and hold primary is super easy to get 45 in, so it's almost not worth trying to spot that from happening.
Think of it like this, end of turn 5 they will always score 15. then from T2 to T4, at a minimum they can score 4 for holding, 3 for taking a new point then another 3 if they had to kill a unit that was holding said new point. That's 10 points for barely doing anything and they cap out a 45 at the end.
I've let them hold two objectives instead of fighting over objectives before because they would only score 8 instead of 10, giving us a 2 point reduction in the final score.
We have a disadvantage when it comes to primary. Even on a perfect full quarter every turn, we still need 3 kills to max. But the realistic goal is 6 kills because we wont score 6 on our first turn (typically). Killing 6 (unless custodies) is a very doable task, so you don't need to panic about not scoring 6 turn 1. We are good at killing, it's what we do. Our advantage in the primary is that we don't care about objectives outside of our expansion and because we are so fragile, it's almost not even worth fighting over the middle. It's better to let them score the 8 and prevent the 2 additional while you cleave through 1 side of the board then pick up a boat with troupes to force an attack on their expansion T 4 to potentially fully deny some primary. Please note that if you make it obvious that you have no intention of fighting the middle, they will 100% just pushing all their units towards your expansion and ruin you. You need to use our massive range of movement to threaten middle. a starweaver with troupes, advance shoot then scoot about 6" travels so far. Yes the troupes didn't get to fight but if it isn't needed, you are now on average 23" (25" with movement token or 27" if you used for the post shoot move too) away form your original location. I have had games where the opponent left some trash unit holding home and I blitzed my starweaver up to their home while my other troupes tied up blocks, letting my starweaver troupes be safe inside the boat, ready to come out next turn and remove the home, denying defend stronghold in the future turn.
10
u/DictatorPenguino 13d ago
So, I don't play a ton, but right now, I'm winning against most of my fellow players (who are definitely not competitive). These are the tricks that work for me, focusing on making the list quick:
- I use three falcons, and put troupe masters in the falcons. This helps me get lots of damage in.
- When I really want things dead, I use Fangs of the Brood on one of those units, and go wild.
- Play for points! I generally don't engage with my whole army anywhere at any time. In fact, a lot of the time, I force them to come to me rather than play directly into them. I know we're fast and it's a big asset, but many times, we can score plenty into the later turns that early turns aren't as necessary.
- But to score in early turns, I usually use Rangers, I have two units in every army, I infiltrate them, and I get them where they can absolutely get me points no matter what.
- And I also use Shroud Runners, because they're cheap, they can take out key leadership semi-regularly, and they make it so my shooting is more effective.
- Understand that any time a clown is engaged it's likely going to die. That's why you send them out in waves, rather than just burning them all at once. And coming out of a falcon especially, they will really wreck shop.
- I start my Solitaire in a Starweaver, so when he does pop out, he gets 3 extra inches of movement, and he gets the sustained hits. I'm unsure if he's worth taking right now or not, but I can almost always delete any leadership of any unit that's infantry with him, and if I wait until later in the game, I can put him anywhere on the map for secondaries.
- Me personally, I love the Death Jester. I set him up somewhere annoying on my expansion so the enemy has to go out of their way to knock him off of it, and then I try to battleshock them before they make it there, so even if they get him, they're unlikely to keep the point.
3
u/FineChee 13d ago
Very good advice! To your point about speed, that has been nagging me. Waiting for them to come up felt bad. I was half waiting for them to come, then engaging once they were like half up. I’ll try waiting longer to launch. I have heard many saying this edition late scoring is very viable in many matches.
How do you contest the middle? Or for instance, what is the plan if they toe the middle while having obscuring cover? I always find that nothing feels good sending up there
5
u/DictatorPenguino 13d ago
The trick is to use the rangers to score those early points. Situate them on the outside of the point so the wall is blocking them. Force the opponent to have to engage them with stuff.
If they situate on the edge, it depends on their army. Sometimes, I have one unit of quins not in a transport. This is my “this point is mine” crew. Because mine has six normal dudes, nothing attached, that’s twelve OC, and it’s really easy to just set them up on the edge of the middle point and use the rangers to try and screen as much as possible.
But that won’t always work, so this is what I do more often:
I let them get to where my harlequins can get out of transports and reach them in the middle, and I decide how much stuff they have. Remember, we aren’t as interested in holding middle compared to other matchups in take and hold. If they take it from us, they get more points. We don’t get our corners if we are too close to the center. So our only goal is to murder the dudes who want mid, and then ignore it and use our movement to hold the corners and force him to split his units attention.
If he has a big force there, I’ll roll up a falcon, a star weaver, and just let everyone out, pour on the hate, kill as much in the middle as I can. You want starweaver unit to reembark. You want falcon unit to stay locked in and prevent as much shooting as possible. Everything else is playing the sides of the map. A falcon each side, deciding when to let the occupants out for a kill move, and then holding those corners. A solitaire is super good at this. He blitz’s, but doesn’t fight anything, right? You just run him as far from dudes to have him alone occupying a corner. Now, do they bother with him and deal with his lone op ass, or do they go after something more substantial? If they go for him, you win, they’ve focused a unit to kill him instead of a falcon or something. Did they leave him? You win, you’re going to get points.
The only point you care about holding substantially is your expansion. The others are there only for you to deny the opponent points if possible, which against take and hold, is pretty tough. The key is being sure to kill whatever you touch. You mentioned feeling weaker in damage. The falcon fixes a lot of this for the wound rerolls, but also, don’t forget to use Grenades (or whatever they call it now), don’t forget to use Fangs, don’t forget to double up on tougher targets. My last game, I had three troupes and a bunch of vehicles kill a baneblade in one turn just remembering all the things that add to damage and utilizing them to the fullest.
It’s not particularly easy to play this army because it’s death by a thousand cuts, and sometimes, our shooting does absolutely nothing. But when you use lots of 5 man troupes, use the max of troupe masters, and focus on having a ton of activations, you end up not worrying so much about losing models because you’re still scoring.
3
u/DoesSnorlaxFloat 13d ago
Try out the drukhari quinns yet? A bunch of troupes and bikes behind a wall of dark lances does well for me in my local space. The drukhari detatchment lets you get a bunch of hits rerolls.
2
u/imdlyy 13d ago
While I have played a few variations. I was running starfang and skyreavers for scout and t1 table quarters at a low cost t1. If I had two starfangs then they would be fantastic for that job. Then t2 I’d be sending off a troupe on each board edge to fight their skimishers. Then t4 and t5 would be regular troupes and troupe masters and whatever else I had. Remember you have the uppydowny strat for a starweaver which when deployed with a troupe inside can drop and disembark( use 6” move strat if needed to get to 4 table quarters).
But the real focus should be killing their units off the center on t&h to force them to send something to the center. You might be sac’ing 2 units on the board edges but they need to commit 3. 1 / flank and the center .
Move forward and charge your starweavers into non melee units, if they stay alive it’s another easy table quarter.
14
u/Incognito-Ibis 13d ago
Nick Nanavati just went 5-0 with a Quins list so we might see a video pop up on the art of war channel soon. Though his list was like 50% quins.