Post Carnage: Eldar Vs Necrons

I took the Harlequins to the tabletop for the first time today against Craig's Necrons. It was an excuse for me to use the Heroes Path formation and use the new miniatures for the first time along with trying out a few counter tactics for taking on Necrons.

The Solitaire was the first unit I was interested in seeing in game. He's a fair chunk of points for a load of special rules and decent enough stats, but it's one thing mathammering it and another actually using it.

The Infiltrate special rule was useful in this game, it allowed me to get the Solitaire close enough and hidden away to allow me to charge in turn 2, the 12" standard move helps with this too as you can give him a bit more distance from your target.

When I got him into combat, I was flat out underwhelmed by the performance. 6 Attacks, +1 for two melee weapons, +1 for charging resulted in me taking out a single Necron Warrior, they are helped by the increased survivability from Reanimation Protocols and a high Leadership to practically ignore fear but I was expecting more. Being equipped with a Kiss and Caress is practically redundant save for granting an extra attack in combat. Honestly, I think he would be more useful with the Embrace to give D3 S6 Hammer of Wrath attacks instead of the Kiss, especially when you consider how he moves in the game and what he represents. He may be a Solitaire, but he needs backup, I can see that his power will come from hitting a unit, winning the first turn of combat and causing them to break before running them down with his godlike initiative, the problem here comes from trying to break high leadership Necrons or Space Marines and not being able to run them down.

In his defence, I think I misused the Shadowseer. He needs to be up in the face of the enemy to be able to use all the tricks in his arsenal. I gave him the mask and the disruptor which both have 12" ranges, but was sat in a building away from the enemy being a psychic sniper.

I rolled on Telepathy this game as I feel that gives more use for a solo Shadowseer, however, the powers I had were again pretty much negated due to Necrons high leadership. Another vote for getting him stuck in more, however, he doesn't have the 3++ that the Solitaire has, neither does he have the high mobility so would be more prone to being cut down before being useful, however, the stealth + shrouded buff from the formation does offer a 4+.

In the end I'm holding my judgement on this unit, I need to use it better and I feel that the three units in the formation need to work together in order to stack Leadership debuffs and get the best out of the high points cost for the formation.

The Death Jester was a sound unit. At only 60 points, it's hard to complain. He was stuck up in a building and fired the Shuriken Cannon at things, it's hard to go wrong with a unit that simple.

The Shrieker ammo didn't work for me this game, but I put that down to facing Necrons, I still reckon its use is against swarm armies with their masses of 5+ armour units. Also, I would probably keep him close to the other units in the formation, as I have said multiple times, his special rule again is based on leadership debuffs, which would be stronger when combined with the others.

It's probably my own fault for seeing the rule as them having to run as individual units as part of the formation doesn't mean that they can't run together, they just don't for a squad or play well with others.

Special shout outs to the Night Spinner. It's a hidden gem for facing Necrons, the monofilament rule gives it +1 Strength for units with 3 or less Initiative. That brings it into Instant Death territory and a very helpful -1 to Reanimation. When you are coming up against hordes of undead metal skeletons, anything with the monofilament rule is going to be useful.

The Vauls Wrath support battery could also be useful as it comes in a little cheaper, but lacks mobility and is not able to get to the magic strength 8 and I feel being able to hit hard and as many models as possible is the key to facing Necrons.

I have another couple of games coming up soon, and I will probably be using this formation again, I'm going to take what I have learnt here and apply it and hopefully unlock the power of the Harlequins.