They're Ninja clowns that pop out of stargates, that wear masks projecting your own distorted face back at you as they dance on your face.
They also have cool coats
Like this guy
1. HQ Choice
Troupe Masters and Shadowseers used to be HQ choices. Why not still?
Keeping those two as elites, not making any HQs, made it impossible to field min units to pull out voltron death-star rules. So I'm not to angry about it.... but it really did hinders the ability to field standalone Harlequin armies.
It would have been nice to have a chaptermaster equivalent. Just maybe a warlord character that was more then 2 wounds......
Maybe something that will happen now that we know Deathstars wont be thing anymore.
2. USR run charge
Rising Crescendo should just have been a USR for all harlequins and not something detachment dependent. Eldar have Battlefocus, Dark Eldar have Power from pain, and Space Marines have "Pick your special USR".
Giving Harliquins that ability to run and charge naturally just makes sense for what they are. It should have just been a simple "units made up of only models with this rule" get it, they could have even bundled Hit/and/Run into it which would have cut down on Faction rule sharing. But that just didn't happen.
3. Another Unit
Harlequins don't really need other units, they kind of have most things an army like them would actually field, but it would be cool to field them in different ways.
Troupes for example come with a ton of bits including the ability to build duel pistol wielding models.
Sound like a cool Elite Unit? I think so and it wouldn't require any new kits to be made. Literally just a page that says X amount of models come armed with duel pistols, can upgrade them to the other pistols, and no ccw options. Maybe throw in Precision shoots or something.
4. Skydancer
Skydancers are expensive. Right now they have a bunch of rules that kind of don't mix. They want to be in assault, but they have a lot of shooting potential. This was another unit I wished they had split into two. A close combat version and a shooting version. I wouldn't make either cheaper but give them more focused rules.
CC version would get skilled rider and maybe grenadesd, but would lose their guns. Maybe even just switch to a dual shuriken catapult.
Shooters would lose cc weapon option but would gain skilled rider and the ability upgraded to a prism cannon. Or at least make the bolas not one shoot weapons.
5. Heavy Support Changes
Death-jesters used to be here in a Harlequin army. You could keep IC versions in Elites, so you can create the classic unit we've mostly seen over the years, and then there'd be a a unit of 1-3 DJs as a Heavy option. It would have definitely made the goofy detachments more interesting to field. Maybe the option to get lances back would be nice too.
And
Void-weavers are just hilariously bad. They're paper bag tanks with weaponry that just doesn't justify their position. For the most part the are just the clown transport, minus the ability transport, with a gun that looks neat. Bonus it has a weird tail gunner rule that encourages you to stupidly drive backwards.
For the most part all that needed to happen was the cannon needed to be 1 point stronger in Str. I don't expect Harlequins to have predators or lemon russes, but they at least needed their heavy support platform to have at least a str 8 gun. Especially when it ended up being required for almost every single detachment option Harlequins ended up getting.
I was just happy to run clowns without this guy.
Can't even be bothered to find its gun.
So we know Harlequins will remain a standalone faction in 8th, what to expect from that is any ones guess.Can't even be bothered to find its gun.
My only hope is that they become a actual standalone faction. Recently the Ynnari did breathe new life into Harlequins, but mostly for the wrong reasons. It encourages you to field the bare minimum to get the best advantage you/I can get with fielding Eldar units, just like before, just a lot easier.
Fingers crossed that isn't the case in the future.
