Starting Harlequin Exodites

Hey Fritz,

Recently after selling my Tau I have had an obsession to start a Eldar Exodite force.

For obvious reasons I'd like a foot list that is still somewhat fluffy, hence my choice for a Harlequin themed army.

This is where I ran into a snag.

Wraithlords are hard to justify for use in a Exodite army (Read: Utterly Unfluffy) and so decided on war walkers instead. Now I know they are the sub prime choice etc etc but I was wondering what a 500 point army would look like that could be relatively easily (And hopefully cheaply!) be expanded into a 1000, 1500 and 1750 point list?

Hope to hear from you,

Adam

Reply Out:

Adam, thanks for emailing, interesting times for harlequins/exodites since you can go down both the Eldar AND the Dark Eldar path with harlies making an appearance in both books. The reason I have wraithlords in my harlie army is b/c if you are playing a full harlequin list (read 30 clowns) you don’t have many points left over so your other models need to fill multiple roles. The wraithlords have survivability, can shoot, and have some punch in the assault- not in a dedicated unit kind of way but there is that crossover there.

War walkers have to shooting and can assault in a pinch to tie up a unit till the harlies can come in and rescue them, but where they fall short is in survivability. The army design you need to think about is this.

You are sitting across for an IG/Space Wolf spam army with a ton of shots- thanks to veil of tears they can’t target your harlequins at all, so where are all those shots going to go into? That is why in my design of pathfinders, harlequins, and wraithlords they are all hard to shoot- can’t target the clowns, the pathfinders get the 2+ cover save, and the wraithlords are T8 with a 3+ save- throw in a farseer with fortune and the army can stand up to much much more then guys see on the surface, so they have to close with you, and when they do, the harlies pounce, but we are getting away from your exodie theme here…

If you use warwalkers you are going to need a dedicated farseer to sit there next to them and throw up fortune. With them behind cover for the 4+ they can be around for a bit. As long as the farseer is there throw up guide on them so you are getting even more out of them. The plus side of the walkers is that they are cheaper then wraithlords so you have more points for troops.

At 500 points I’d start with a farseer with guide and a singing spear, two ranger groups five strong, and eight harlequins with a shadowseer, death jester, + kisses.

Basically you sit in cover and force your opponent to come to you. If the rangers take a lot of shots they go to ground for the 2+ save. You stay just at 20” or so with the deathjester so he can take pot shots but your opponent can’t shoot back. Use him to open up razorbacks and the like, and when your opponent closes assault with the harlies. Farseer joins the harlies to take some wounds and to throw on guide for the jester to make sure he hits. Mid game the farseer can break off as a speedbump or to contest something if he/she is still alive.

At 1K+ points you start adding more harlequin units and war walkers, while upgrading the rangers to pathfinders, and eventually switching your farseer over to Eldrad- he is also critical in the list for the number of powers he can throw around each turn plus the divination redeploy.

That should give you some starting points to think about, hit me back up if you have some more ideas, or maybe want to go with guardians as your troops.

-Fritz

Edit: Shameless plug for my harlie guide.