Hi IJW Wartrader (and others). Here is the long delayed reply on RA Armour. Thank you for your suggestion and please accept my apology for not replying sooner. I have been looking at ways of including ‘Daethdi’ in some form or another,
(though this word seems to have been dropped in the latest 2015 codex).The issue you raise is quite difficult to resolve since it is central to the way the Harlequins are designed to operate as a unit and a formation (within the restrictions of the E:A rule mechanics). On the one hand the Harlequins should be vulnerable to ranged fire, whilst on the other hand their speed should make them almost impossible to hit in an assault, on top of which individually they should be more deadly in close combat than any other Eldar Aspect – ‘blurred coloured shapes passing through enemy troops as though they posed no more resistance than melted butter’.
The nub of issue is whether we make the Harlequins capable of destroying all opponents in First Strike assault leaving them with weak armour for ranged fire etc, or whether we need to improve their all-round resilience, potentially allowing the Harlequins to be less deadly in assault but still able to win assaults. We can also learn from the related (and extensive) Howling Banshee debate, which are considered somewhat lacklustre in assault compared with other Aspects, and this despite the increased CC factors.
One solution to the conundrum of the Harlequin stats would be to increase the power of the First Strike capacity to take out the enemy units before they can hurt the Harlies (the Howling Banshee solution).
- Originally the Harlies were made EA+1 MW. However this meant that they became OTT against virtually all opponents including RA vehicles – and hence titan killers. This provoked widespread complaints for several reasons, so was dropped in the next iteration of the list.
- The HBs have had their CC values increased to the maximum possible, but this is evidently not enough to make them attractive even for an eight strong formation.
- The "Infantry MW" special rule that was suggested was also rejected, though Harlies are another candidate where it would really help.
- By contrast, Warp Spiders are considered to be among the best Aspects, primarily because they can concentrate more First Strike firepower on fewer targets merely because they use FF, while their better armour makes them less vulnerable to return fire.
The point here is that being good in First Strike CC is apparently not enough if the formation fails to destroy the enemy fighting potential in the First strike phase. The other issue is that being in Base-to-Base contact with the enemy makes the HBs much more susceptible to enemy counter-fire from the remaining units of the enemy formation and support fire. Consequently, under their current stats, Howling Banshee formations tend to have a more specialist role attacking weaker infantry formations on the periphery of the battle rather than key enemy formations at the heart of the battle.
The alternate solution is to improve Harlequin resilience in some way (reflecting the fact that they are really hard to hit), to make them better able to survive close assaults. There are several ways of doing this, including giving them “Invulnerable”, “RA” or some form of special rule that varies their armour value depending on whether they are in combat or not, much like you are suggesting.
- Personally I dislike the ‘special rule’ approach both because it is yet another special rule, and also because it is easy to forget to apply the correct value in the heat of battle.
- “Invulnerable” would work, but also makes the Harlequins able to survive TK weaponry as well as MW, which seems even less sensible.
- Giving them RA also fits this requirement, though at the expense of making the Harlequins much less ‘squishy’ to ranged fire.
Since improving the HB First Strike capabilities did not really help them, it seems that the best way to help the Harlies was to make them more resilient, and RA seems the best option. This was the initial reasoning behind going with RA. But as discussed, adopting RA poses further questions over the formation as a whole, not least to the vexed question of ranged fire.
If we consider ranged fire in abstraction, basically the result is to reduce a formation by a few units, whilst adding some BMs that are often reduced or shed altogether in the Rally phase. Reducing the initial formation size mimics losses to ranged fire to some extent, thereby providing a simulation of the desired ‘squishyness’ to ranged fire. Effectively by starting with smaller than usual formation sizes we are building in the notional effects of ranged fire.
Using smaller formation sizes also provides other benefits as well, helping to answer other issues over the power of a given formation and it’s use;
- It reduces the overall power of the formation potentially allowing individual unit power to be increased or varied.
- It means that more enemy units will survive (to tell tales of ghostly blurred shapes etc). This both makes the Harlequins a little less fearsome to face, while also fitting the ‘fluff’ better.
- It makes the Harlequin formation more brittle, requiring finesse in their use rather than brute force, thereby restoring an Eldar ‘feel’ to their use.
- It also complies with an inherent list design requirement for basic formations to be slightly underpowered, allowing the player to add upgrades and support options for strategic and tactical advantages
So, in summary, 5+RA was chosen as the least bad way of representing the difficulties in killing Harlequins in assault, while reducing the formation size was an attempt to mitigate the ‘ranged fire’ issue (that also had several major benefits).
And if you want further ‘fluffy’ reasoning behind this choice of RA armour, we can also suggest that the personal holofields and other ‘Daethdi’ style equipment, together with the more spaced out nature of the people, all make it harder to target the Harlequins than other Eldar Aspects and troops.