Ulthwe Vs Harlequins 2500pts Written Battle Report

Letting someone else use one of your armies is always an odd prospect, in part because you build an army for your own play style, and that leaves a gap between what you have available and what they'd want.  That said, I've got my Midnight Sorrow Harlequins vs my Ulthwe.

The Ulthwe list above has a take-all-comer vibe, designed to be flexible enough to face more elite forces like Castellan and friends, or hold up against more of a horde force.  As a Brigade it boasts an impressive 15 command points.

The Harlequins are a force that is limited by my collection.  In this case in order to squeeze as many points as I could from the list I split my Harlequin squads from 12 down to 6 troupers each.  This allowed me to build two Battalions and add on a Vanguard detachment to total out 14 command points.  this also required me to take the Webway Portal in order to hit the 2500.  As it's basically playing with a handicap I took charge of the Harlequins.

The mission was #2 of the new Maelstrom missions, something like Head of the Snake.  Essentially you comfortably generate new tactical objectives each turn, but when a character dies you lose an outstanding objective.

Deployment: We opted to have the objective markers overturned until after deployment, meaning we had no idea what objective was where.  This made it tougher to remove objectives to refine the deck so I couldn't use my ordinary trick of removing the "defend objective" cards that are from my opponent's half of the board.

Harlequins would go first unless Ulthwe could seize.  Both forces lined up, but Ulthwe was clearly prepared to absorb a charge and hold off its foes long enough to gather against the clowns, even having Fire Dragons in a Falcon preparing to take down the Webway Gate before the 6 Harlequins deployed in the labyrinthine depths of the webway along with a Death Jester.  Unfortunately for the craftworld they did not seize, allowing the Harlequins to go first. 

Player 1 Battle Round 1:

The Harlequins moved up aggressively, and thanks to the Shadowseer slingshotting a troupe up the field with a second move they managed to get into the front lines.  The two units of Haywire bikes were okay against the Falcon and a Warp Hunter, but didn't destroy either, instead knocking them to their mid level profiles.  The troupe that got into the thick of it finished off a Guardian squad and attempted to wrap up the farseer but couldn't get in behind him with the changes to the Flip Belts rule.  In all the Harlequins got First Strike and achieved another objective whilst starting to defend an objective as well.

Player 2 Battle Round 1:

Looking to stem the tide the forces of Ulthwe quickly shifted position.  The bikes leapt out to cut down the Troupe Master who I had foolishly left unaccompanied by a troupe (since they were in the Ulthwe lines).  The fire dragons sped from the Falcon to take down the webway gate, but most of the units just shuffled around.  The Wraithknight trundled forward to try and dominate the center of the board.  A solid move as Harlequins often have trouble facing off against knights of any kind.  In an unexpected turn Ulthwe was entirely shut down for the psychic phase.  The Farseer had been placed in hopes of eliminating the troupe that was in the frontlines with Executioner and the bikes with smite, but both powers got denied, as did Jinx.  In fact Jinx and Executioner were denied with box cars.  The neutering of the psychic phase made a huge dent in the potential for the craftworld forces.  They did eventually manage to kill the troupe and the closest unit of bikes, after putting unholy amounts of firepower into them, but it meant that little could be done to damage the units that were quickly approaching.  When the Firedragons fired, point blank, at the Webway gate the unit of 6 managed to do a total of 5 wounds.  Considering I failed the one save I'd been required to make on it I just saw this as a reminder that Fire Dragons are overpriced given their unreliability combined with their frailty.  They aren't like Wraithguard, who can survive a bad round of fire, and take considerable effort to eliminate.  The bikes laid a tremendous amount of firepower into the Troupe Master, but with his 3++ he shrugged off all but 3 wounds.  The bikes charged him, hoping to finish off the last two wounds and net Warlord, but failed, and lost two of their number, one to the Heroicly Intervening shadowseer.  Ulthwe was positioned to defend two objectives in the next turn, and had secured first strike, but hadn't had immediately achievable goals, discarding a Defend Objective that was on the Harlequin side of the board.

Player 1 Battle Round 2:

This was a huge turn for the Harlequins.  They disembarked all units in transports in a pincer move, while the jetbikes pushed forward up the center.  For psychic powers a Shadowseer fogged the mind of the Wraithknight while another challenged it to a battle of minds and put two wounds on it.  Another managed to place -1 to hit on a unit coming up the center of the board.  Having success in the Psychic phase gave me a lot of confidence.  This was followed up by the second unit of bikes using haywire to finish off the wounded Warp Hunter.  I was, perhaps, even a bit cocky with 6 fusion pistols at point blank range with the wraithknight.  Unfortunately 4 of the troupers were unfamiliar with the sidearm and completely missed the hulking monstrosity.  The other two hit, but only one wounded and managed 4 damage.  Ultimately an uninspiring fare.  The Assault phase was fierce with the Solitaire getting in to the Spiritseer, the Troupe Master getting in to the Shadow Spectres as he could not be overwatched, and the bikes making it in to Dire Avengers while 3 troupes and a troupe master all made it in to assault with the wraithknight.  A troupe fully armed with Harlequin Kisses managed to bring the Wraithknight down to 4 wounds.  This made interrupting less appealing, but my opponent did in order to try get slay the warlord.  His assault failed and the Harlequins proceeded to slaughter Dire Avengers, Guardians, Shadow Spectres, and the Solitaire slaughtered the Spiritseer.  After it consolidating leaving it about 4" from the Autarch and Bonesinger... after the minor attempt of Utlhwe to strike back it was the end of the fight phase and I played the Fight Again strategy on the Solitaire... followed by the Troupe Master finally spiking a refund for the first time ever, getting a three CP stratagem for free.  The Solitaire was a blur, slamming into the Autarch and Bonesinger.  While the Bonesinger died to the brutality of Cegorach's Rose, the Autarch's force shield was impressively effective, only letting one strike through.  While the Harlequins pushed ahead to 7 Victory Points the forces of Ulthwe were shattered to be forced to discard their Defend Objective cards when their characters were slaughtered, crippling their ability to score.

Player 2 Battle Round 2:

The Wraithknight left combat and was healed for 3 wounds.  Then the psychic phase began and the Farseer was ready to Smite and Execute his way to vengeance.  But again both his spells were denied, both with box cars!  At this point it was readily apparent that Ulthwe's Warhost was crippled.  All that was left was to see how many models could survive.  The Autarch obliterated the Solitaire with his fusion pistol while the Warp Hunter wiped out the second squad of bikes.  The fog stopped the Wraithknight from making much of an impact.  They still had not managed to score any Plobjectives.

Player 1 Battle Round 3:

The Autarch was killed netting warlord and the Wraithknight was wrapped up again, but even with a troupe master they only dropped it to 2 wounds.  By the end of the turn the Harlequins were set to defend an objective and were now comfortably leading 9-1.

Player 2 Battle Round 3:

The Farseer went nuclear, getting off Executioner, Mind War, and then a full size Smite, killing off a troupe squad, a Star Weaver, and the Troupe Master, thanks to the objectives he was set to achieve maxed out two D3 objectives, pulling in 7 Victory Points.  Outside of that MVP performance the Ulthwe forces managed to do little other than kill a Void Weaver and the Wraithknight did pretty much nothing useful while fogged.  The loss of the Troupe Master meant I lost the ability to score the Defend Objective I'd been working on.

Player 1 Battle Round 4:

Virtually all of the troupes had been destroyed, leaving just a handful of harlequins, but they were still moving to capture objectives, bumping up from 9 to 15 points.

Player 2 Battle Round 4:

Only 2 wounds were left on the Wraithknight.  It couldn't defend its objective with the expected movement of the Harlequin model, so it would need to live through the next turn and then hope the game continued and then live through the next turn to defend the objective.

Players 1-2 Battle Round 5: 

The Harlequins got big game hunter against the Wraithknight and Mercifully the game ended.  The only Ulthwe unit is the wounded Hornet.

Harlequin Victory 22-8.

This game confirmed the difficulties that Harlequins have with knights.  Even a single knight can cause problems for them, and this is without the ability to shift it to a 3++ against shooting.  a full knight force is basically a hard counter to them, because the bikes are so easy to take out for knights.

I feel like the Harlequin dominance of the psychic phases in turns 1 and 2 swung the game hard in favour of the clowns.  It required so much extra firepower to rout them from the Ulthwe force's front lines.

In this particular mission the Defend Objectives are such a liability because they can't be scored instantly, thus making them more likely to be unachievable because you lost a character.  All in all it was a fun game, but really cemented my thoughts about certain weaknesses in both armies and just how impressive certain units can be in the right circumstances (looking at you Solitaire).

DWH

Wyches Complete

As I slowly disassemble my Corsair force and tweak the models I have completed a 10 model Wych squad:

I'm happy with how they came out considering they were recovered from being corsair conversions I made some years ago.  In their revamp I decided to give them a feature forearm in red to acknowledge their allegiance to and worship of Ynnead.  I'm not certain what cult I'll run them as, but as a start I'm noticing with almost 30 Kabalites and 10 Wyches painted, 5 Incubi, 10 Mandrakes, painted, and a couple Archons and Coterie just about ready to roll I'm feeling both like I don't need any more infantry, but also that I could use a small contingent of a Haemonculus coven.  What I really notice, however, is that I very much lack vehicle support for these units.  I only have a Venom and a Raider.  I think I need 2 more raiders, and then Ravagers and at least one more Venom.  It's a daunting future just to make them feel like a cohesive force.  At the very least, if I'm running Ynnari I can go nuts mixing and matching them since they lose their obsessions anyway.

I'm looking forward to pushing some fun lists forward.

How Often Do You Revamp Your Army?

With the crash of Corsairs from Forgeworld I'm thinking they'll be shifted to Kill Team at some future point.  Thus I'm slowly adapting mt old units that will never again see the table to play other roles.  This means I can find new ways to expand out existing units, such as below:

The two flamers were part of the original squad, and when the unit had templates they were an ideal way to make the unit a surprise impact squad that could spring out of a transport and lay waste to a massive infantry squad.  In 8th I haven't been able to fire the flamers a single time either on the charge or when being charged.  With the reduction in cost of the Fusion guns reduced along with the overall cost of the Storm Guardians it seems like a more tempting choice.

Fire Dragons still feel vastly too expensive, but this gives me an option to deep strike a massive unit and stretch it out enough so that the bulk of the unit can do something helpful like hold an objective, while these two models are stretched out to be close enough to add some potent firepower to a vulnerable target without wasting a ton of points.  With the 1-2 punch of Discipline of the Black Guardians and Celestial Shield they can provide an unexpectedly devastating hit, and then be surprisingly tough to shift.  If you somehow drop Protect on them at the same time a unit that is positioned well can become a nightmare to deal with, and one that your opponent never conceived could give them issues when overlooking your army at the start of the game.

All that said, I can switch out as I see fit, and I accomplished this by revamping an old unit to something I can make the most of now, the same way I scrapped two old bodyguard conversions to become Swooping Hawks again.  In some ways it just feels incredibly exciting to find new uses out of classic models I hadn't been able to run in what feels like forever.  It's bringing the fun back.

Ulthwe Family Photo

It's been a long time since I did one of these, a single photo of my whole craftworld army:

This shot realistically covers over 25 years of collecting.  Ulthwe has kept along with me through a lot in my life, including a bout with cancer in which I sold off nearly all my models to help pay my medical bills.

Other units have been retired like the original Eldrad, but the first model I ever purchased is still there and still used.

Here's the inventory of the photo:
50 Guardian Defenders with 5 weapon platforms
Autarch
24 Storm Guardians
10 Howling Banshees
Jain Zar
10 Striking Scorpions
Karandras
8 Rangers
8 Warp Spiders
6 Fire Dragons
16 Warlocks
3 Farseers
Eldrad Ulthran
1 Avatar
20 Dire Avengers
10 Dark Reapers
Maugen Ra
Yvraine
Yncarne
Visarch
6 Windriders
3 War Walkers
Skyrunner Warlock
Skyrunner Farseer
Skyrunner Autarch
3 Vyper Jetbikes
2 Night Spinners
3 Warp Hunters
2 Fire Prisms
Webway Gate
Star Striker (unique conversion)
2 Falcons
3 Hornets
4 Wave Serpents
2 Hemlocks
2 Crimson Hunters
Crimson Hunter Exarch
Nightwing
Phoenix Bomber
Vampire
Scorpion
Cobra
Void Spinner (unique conversion)
Storm Serpent (unique conversion)
Lynx
Support Weapon Battery
Autarch with Wings
6 Shadow Spectres
10 Wraithguard
6 Wraithguard with D-scythes
Spiritseer
7 Wraithblades
2 Bonesingers
7 Wraithblades with axes
Wraithlord
Wraithseer
Skathach Wraithknight
2 Wraithknights
2 Revenant Titans
Phantom Titan

I highly recommend people have a bit of fun and put their largest army out all at once and see how massive your collection has grown.  One day I'd love to use the force all at once, though I doubt I'll ever be able to.

40k Narrative Campaign Pack for Download: Verdict of Mirandus (4 Players)

Recently BOLS released an article on narrative campaigns, and I found it quite engaging as it discussed an area of 40k that I'm very interested in, but one that I feel GW has been a bit slack in supporting.

As such, I spent quite a bit of time developing a campaign for some local players.  This pack is the result of the campaign, providing a set of generic rules able to be used for any four forces, along with the narrative story of the campaign, and the actual game results from each Chapter.

Note that that my approach to this story was to reveal the actual story like a serial, with each new chapter being shared only after the completion of the prior chapter, and then the epilogue and conclusion were released after the campaign play had completed.  This should provide a building block for any group of armies, allowing the person running the campaign to spend more time developing the story and making tweaks to fit their own needs. 

In the case of our play it was Ulthwe, Deathguard, Necrons, and Astra Militarum.

Download it below!

Download: Verdict of Mirandus Campaign Pack

Harlequin thoughts, and the Unplayable Webway Gate

With the release of the new Harlequins codex I picked up the stunning new Webway gate. With a few extra models painted and the gate I completed my Harlequin force and added them up to a surprising 2500 pts exactly! It's a massive allied force to my Ulthwe warhost.

I've gotten in a few games with them, tabling an Imperial Soup army consisting of Greyknights and Gulliman. I tabled them in turn 4. An opponent using 1ksons conceded halfway through his shooting phase on turn 1 as I played the 2 CP Stratagem to get them -1 to hit, on top of the psychic power.

For people excited to try out the "Great Harlequin"Stratagem... I've found it overpriced for its effect. I expect in future games I'll skip it and make use of the CPs in game. If it had a more profound effect, or only cost a single CP I'd reconsider and use it again.

Sky Weavers with Haywire Cannons are surprisingly versatile and I highly recommend them.  Neuro Disruptors are still disappointing and should wound on a 2+ against infantry.

One of the things I did in these games is test out the Webway Gate. It's a beautiful model, but it's rules are a hot mess. These are the problems and solutions as I see them -

Issues:

1) Asuryani and Drukhari do not ave access to gate stratagems.

Give them access to generic versions.

2) deployment for gate is too restrictive.

Reduce distance from other terrain features to 1" rather than 3" and reduce the 12" distance from enemy deployment to 3", as it becomes all but impossible to actually place on most boards.

3) deployed units are stranded with no protection and are unlikely to contribute.

Allow units to move after deploying as if they disembarked from a transport.


4) gate has no use beyond first or second turn as it provides no cover.

Make gate offer aura of protection, +1 to save, for units wholly within 3"


5) it's too easy to cheaply prevent large models like Wraithknight from entering play with a single cheap model.

Instead of deploying "wholly within" 3" change the rule so that all deployed models must be within 3", this forcing an opponent to have a tough choice about how they're willing to stop you deploying.


No single one of these changes is really sufficient to make the gate attractive. It really needs all 5 to make it viable for play.

Aeldari Community Rules Update

After the changes in Chapter Approved, it put the Phantom in a more awkward spot.  It felt out of place at 2400 pts and still it can be easily obliterated by a Warhound.  In workshopping and tweaking one thing became readily apparent... the MACRO rule has to change.  For this purpose we've workshopped it to "Macro weapons are heavy weapons that may not fire overwatch.  In addition successful invulnerable saves must be rerolled against Macro Weapons."  This is for all weapons with the MACRO rule and the rule now scales appropriately rather than being absurdly good against Titanic units and useless against non-titanic weapons.

From there it became a matter of fine tuning units, which mostly only took minor changes and point adjustments to keep them in line with other titanic units.  The Phantom, however, still needed a lot of playtesting.   Even after the considerable number of changes I made the Phantom was, we were shocked to find, still bad.  Against an equal points force it was often in its last or next to last tier by the end of the first turn, regardless of which player went first.  It never survived the second turn.  After testing step by step we found the two major issues were 1) it took damage too quickly, and 2) the Macro Weapons didn't do enough damage, even against non-titanic units (why is a Leman Russ able to shrug off a D Bombard?).  Then we found what was really the sweet spot:

 
With the save already at 2+ and the T at 12, I was leaning to giving it a -1 to hit all the time, not just when it charged or assaulted, but at the suggestion of others tried T14, and to my surprise that small tweak seemed to slow things down a bit, keeping the Phantom in the second tier by the end of the first turn.  In addition the tweaked macro weapons (originally tested as "fires twice at the same target") made the primary weapons feel substantially dangerous, even moreso than the other solid weapons. 

Above: My favourite moment from playtesting.

With these changes it sits between the Reaver and Warlord and is pointed accordingly.

For those wanting an updated version the rules they can be found: HERE
Please note: Damage Tiers or on the fluff/image page.