Warhammer 40K, Short Battle Report: Harlequins vs. School Blood Angels

After some cajoling from my students, I allowed them to play against my personal Harlequins. They're still a work in progress, and frankly are rubbish in a 450 point game, but you can't show a neophyte ninja space elf clowns without them wanting to see them in action.


The army they're up against is the School's Blood Angels. They're a very tightly fit army, and like he School Tau based from whatever models we could beg or borrow from people. To give you an idea of what that means, does anyone recognize this chap?

Proper old school. But I wouldn't be doing the donor justice unless I showed you one of their current models. Everyone gets better!

So I've always been somewhat wary of letting them go into matches. They're simply not all that conventional for a Marine army.

Army Lists

Harlequins
Formation: Cegorach;s Jest


The Serpents' Breath - A BS5 Voidweaver with Prism gun.
The Blades of Fate - 2x Cloudweavers with Zephyr Glaives
Troupe: Troupe master with Storied Sword and Neuro disruptor, Haywire Grenades, 2x Neuro disruptors, 2x Caress, 1x Embrace


Blood Angels: School Angels
Formation: CAD


Librarian Dreadnought


Tactical Squad: 5 marines, Melta-bombs, flamer
Tactical Squad: 5 marines, Melta-bombs, flamer


Death Company: 5 Marines, Power Fist, Jumpacks


The lack of transports is something that I know should be fixed, particularly if all they have is flamers. But the army actually held up well!

Mission: The Scouring
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

The Blood Angels went first, after being forced to deploy first by Harlequin trickery. Cegorach was ever present in the dice rolls for the early game, meaning the hilariously short ranged Blood Angls only succeded in moving up the field, with the Death Company way out ahead of the rest.

The Harlequins, having gotten lucky with a lot of cover in their deployment zone, just danced around in their first turn, with only the skimmers getting off some shots at the Death Company and Librarian Dreadnought. One marine dropped, and the Serpent's Breath Voidweaver failed to even glance on a solid hit.

As the Blood Angel's second turn rolled around, the Death Company moved into assault range of the Cloudweavers, and the Librarian occupied the center of the field. Sitting on top of the most valuable objective, he cast witch fires at the single Harlequin Troupe... and failed to hit a single one!

The Laughing God cackled through the warp as bolter fire from the tactical marines struck glancing blows five times but hit only air, fooled by the delicate vehicles holo-fields. The final prank of the turn ending in the Death Comapany losing a marine to overwatch as they charged the Cloudweavers, only to roll a double 1 for their charge.

Out in the open, the Troupe and Cloudweavers circled the Death Company, peppering them with shots before the Cloudweavers charge wiped them from the battlefield. Their job done, the clowns skipped back to the safety of ruins, awaiting more of the Sons of Sanguinius to fall into their deadly play.

The fury of the Librarian dreadnought knew no bounds, hurling psychic energies at the Troupe, felling 3 of their number even behind the veil of cover. The tactical marines pushed up and again peppered the Voidweaver, this time striking a glancing blow. The raging dreadnought charged a magnificent twelve inches and rammed the skimmer, crushing it to pieces with a hammer of wrath attack before even needing to raise it's weapons.

At this point for the Harlequins, Cegorach left, clearly off to to play other tricks on the Chaos gods. The dice rolls failed them heavily, with the Cloudweavers failing to land a single hit of a tactical squad in their shooting phase, and only killing one marine on the charge, whilst losing one wound to over watch. The troupe were well out of range of anything other than the rampaging dreadnought, at the Troupe Leaders single haywire grenade missed.

The next turn simply had the Librarian and tactical squads moving up the field, dropping another trouper. The assault phase ended in disaster for the Harlequins, as the Cloudweavers failed yet again to land a single wound, and being wiped out in turn by the Blood Angels!

Seeing that it was their time to pass, the remaining Harlequins charged the Librarian dreadnought, after again failing to connect with their Troupemasters haywire grenade. The assault phase was equally terrible, only getting one hammer of wrath attack with the Harlequins embrace, and only landing a single glancing blow with the two caresses. The troupemaster again failed to hit with his haywire grenade, clearly down to some vile Slaneeshi trickery.

The returning blows from the dreadnought were devastating, pulverizing three on the Harlequins, causing them to break. Even with their unmatched quickness, they were run down and killed to an elf by the dreadnought, leading to a mightily decisive victory for the Blood Angels. Their only major loss was the Death Company, and those poor brothers were lost before the battle had begun.

Analysis

Yeesh.

The dice rolls at the end were no help for the Harlequins, a mighty string of ones putting what should have been easy combats to exactly the worst outcomes. In the end though, the one thing I need to make this army more viable is a Starweaver for the troupe. I'd then build them more towards close-combat over the neuro-disruptors, leaving the shooting up to massed shuriken canons.

The Blood Angels did very well considering they were footslogging up the field. I'm undecided if they really need transports, seeing as how there's not really enough firepower to take out marine squads in one go in a lot of armies... and if they spend time firing at tactical marines with Death Company bearing down on them, then they may have missed the most deadly part of the army.

All in all, I don't think a fair test for the Harlrquins or Blood Angels, as extremes of dice rolls were felt on both sides. There'll need to be a rematch for us to be sure about this.

Thanks for reading.

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