What Can I Do Against Harlequins?

[nidnewbie]

The most experienced player I face has switched from Crafters to a pure Harlequin list. He fields 3 or 4 units of Starweavers full of Troupes firing fusion pistols (S8 AP4 D6) and 3 or 4 units of skyweavers. Both of these units fly and his Troupes have flip belts so they can move through terrain and units. Everything has at least a 4 invulnerable save. His bikes and transports can fall back, shoot, and charge. His movement is insanse and he deals crazy amounts of damage. I don't see anyway to hang onto objectives, reduce his board control, or kill him fast enough.

Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated!

[hivefleetkerrigan]

I'd suggest going with devourer gaunts. Eldar are not tough, so high volume of S4 shots will do some good damage.

[nidnewbie]

his bikes and transports have 4+ invulnerable saves, I don't think the devilgaunts will do a lot to scratch them. I need to crack them open to get the soft Troupes out. Meanwhile the transports are open top with those fusion pistols shooting s8 ap4 D6 damage shots. That's on top of the Shuriken cannons the transports have.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Each 30 gaunt blob will do about 8.75 damage on average to the bikes/transports. You can double the damage on average by using the shoot 2x strategem. Massive amounts of gaunts will make his shooting do terribly as he appears to be teched for antitank.

If you're open to GSC, mass flamer acolytes will do well in either the shooting or the melee phases. You could look at bringing massive numbers of mining lasers but I don't think high quality shots would be as good as high numbers of shots.

[No One]

nidnewbie said:

his bikes and transports have 4+ invulnerable saves, I don't think the devilgaunts will do a lot to scratch them.

...Discounting the AP0 option because 4++, um? That said, devilgants aren't great, but that's because of -1 to hit, and T5 with possible -1 to wound.

hivefleetkerrigan said:

Each 30 gaunt blob will do about 8.75 damage on average to the bikes/transports.

No or optimistic: transports are -1 to hit, bikes could be 3++, and both could be -1 to wound/-6" range.

[piersonsmuppet]

Tyrannofex could work well to kill bikers/transports, but is a prime target for the meltas. Almost equal to Hive Guard against those targets when moving, and much more effective if standing still, for ~100 less pts.

Smites will be the best for the bikers I think, laugh at that -1 to-hit and 3++ as it does nothing. To build on that, a Broodlord could be a good choice. Can threaten with smite and melee.

Those fusion pistols keep our best answers from working well, as anything with MSTs will have a rough time closing tue distance (Flyrants could work though)

[zimko]

It may seem bad because of fusion pistols, but our monsters are the best answer. Both flavors of hierodule, dimachaerons, swarmlord, tyrranofex all do good damage against harliquins. Ya they have 4++ but each failed save is a dead biker when you're hitting them with 3 damage weapons (swarmlord and boosted barbed hierodule shooting). Pile on the smites before charging. Use the Dima to kill transports before they get too close. Split your attacks as much as possible and take out as many as you can, then let him use his fusion pistols to kill your Dima. All you need is for the squishy contents to get into the open so that the devgant bomb can split fire and wipe out troupes.

[infornography]

Would Exocrine possibly be a good answer to the transports? I don't have much experience with what strategems Harleys can use, but I would think they could deal with the invuln through weight of fire.

Devilgaunts are definitely the answer to dealing with the infantry however. They are the ideal platform to deal with T3 invuln saves.

[piersonsmuppet]

I don't think I like the Barbed Dule's shooting into bikers or transports w/ -1 to-hit, at least for the pts. 2 CP needed to avg only 2 Bikers. If they pop -1 wound or 3++ which No One mentioned, you likely only get 1 Biker. DevGants start at almost 3 Bikers dead with 0 CP, and drop to still probably killing 1 even with both the -1 wound and 3++. They'll use the 2CP much better as well, so they still are probably the most effective shooting we have into the bikers. For the Transports; T5, -1 to-hit, and 4++ cause the Scythed/T-fex/Barbed to all shoot extremely similar. Spending 2CP on Pathogenic raises each's effectiveness about the same giving Scythed/Tfex a higher ceiling/lower floor with random shots, but a CP re-roll can help you hit the ceiling more often.

[piersonsmuppet]

May 6, 2021 16:34:23 GMT infornography said:

Would Exocrine possibly be a good answer to the transports? I don't have much experience with what strategems Harleys can use, but I would think they could deal with the invuln through weight of fire.

Devilgaunts are definitely the answer to dealing with the infantry however. They are the ideal platform to deal with T3 invuln saves.

Exo/Barbed/HG all avg 2 failed saves on the transports, and HG will break away when spending 2 CP (4 failed saves w/ d3 is ~8 wounds, 2 failed w/ 3D is 6). Scythed gets avg 3.5 failed saves, so ~6/8 wounds with 2 CP. T-fex avg 2.33 failed saves when moving, so avg ~6 wounds w/ 2 CP. Everything is about the same, with the bigger guns getting a small boost in Kronos and the flamers getting to benefit from Levi durability and higher output if the dice favor you. I think it's all close enough that it's a preference choice based on fleet.

[killercroc]

Not sure if this has been pointed out yet but use shockguard or Zoans. Nids cannot do anything about the -1 to-hit, and with Invulns AP is pointless so use BS 3+ & rate of fire so mitigate these as much as you can!

Shockguard will hit on 4's and you can even advance and shoot them every turn since the negatives to hit don't stack! They're T5 with 6 wounds? So the guns will wound on 3's and the mortals will pop on 4's so every wound is also a mortal wound. 6 SG will get an average of 12 shots so that's 6 hits and 4 wounds! that 4++ will stop half the wounds so that's 2D3 that should go through doing an average of 4 damage, plus the 4 mortal wounds from hits (should get at least one 6 to wound so average mortals should be 5). So, just on averages alone 6 Shock guard will get 9 wounds so more than enough to drop a Starweaver per shooting phase, using double-tap they can drop two a phase. Now they're a bit of a price investment at 210 points compared to his 80 point transports but they're a solid way of getting the job done.

Zoan smite though does get past the -1 to hit and invuln and has huge range. A single smite isn't enough to do the job reliably however. Even max squad of 6 is D3+3 MW so 33% chance to drop one in a single hit, but if you mix smite & psychic scream you'll have a much better chance. The real use of these guys comes from their 3++, so even if they get hit by fusion pistols they ignore it on a 3++ so they can tank the damage Harlequins can point out better than hordes or monsters can. I don't know if they have a weapon that can ignore invulns however.

I'd say Dakkafex won't be your best choice mainly due to their cost even though their firepower is effective against a lot of things. Dakkafex is 24 shots, so 12 hits, 8 wounds, 4++ so 4 saves in total average of 4 wounds caused so not enough to drop one and the fex is sitting at 130 points so very expensive but cannot average even a single kill unless you do the +1 Dmg strat.

Acid Tyranno though... it is a thing. Good amount of shots if it gets in range and since it's heavy you can't run and shoot so max 24" range but it sounds like your opponent is getting in close anyway. Quick math seems that an average of 7 shots isn't enough to down one, you'll need 9 shots if all the to-wound/save/damage is average. So you'll need the double shot to get off to reliably kill one meaning it's a lot of points to still not always get the job done unless you're lucky, and I'd say the Fleshborer hive wont cut it cause hitting on 5's makes those 20 shots less meaningful.

As for the actual Troupe Dakkagaunts are the way to go, who cares if they have a 4++ we got AP 0! So max firepower, S above their T and range is your friend, not to mention their recent 2 point deduction made fielding them much more affordable. And since they're on gaunts with that T3 6+ it doesn't matter what your opponent shots at them they will drop, so all their high S, AP & Dmg stuff will be a waste against them. Hormagaunts I'd not recommend cause your opponent could just kite around them, unless they really want in combat the should be the ones picking when melee happens, so stay away from pure melee units unless they're faster than what they're chasing... so Harpies and Flyrants.

As for the Skyweavers, if it can kill a Star it can kill a Sky, so Zoans or Shock guard here too.

TL;DR Gaunts with Devourers and Hive Guard with Shock Cannons are your best bet for dealing with what you listed.

[nidnewbie]

Thanks for all the feedbback! I think I have a few more tools in my toolbox now. I need to wrap my head around how to play an effective hoarde list.

[hiveoverall]

May 6, 2021 3:55:53 GMT piersonsmuppet said:

Tyrannofex could work well to kill bikers/transports, but is a prime target for the meltas. Almost equal to Hive Guard against those targets when moving, and much more effective if standing still, for ~100 less pts.

Smites will be the best for the bikers I think, laugh at that -1 to-hit and 3++ as it does nothing. To build on that, a Broodlord could be a good choice. Can threaten with smite and melee.

Those fusion pistols keep our best answers from working well, as anything with MSTs will have a rough time closing tue distance (Flyrants could work though)

With maleceptor making the pistols strengh 7 and 5++ from dermic symbiosis an acidfex will not die to fusion pistols anytime soon.

If you build specifically against quins you can win easy with nids (even though overall quins is a much more powerful "codex/minidex"  than nids).