mass harpy's

[Gramash]

hey all
i was just wondering,

how would a list with a lot of harpy's work?
and just 2 units of dark riders and a hero
it could be fun right?

what are you're thoughts about it?

ever tried maybe?

[Bounce]

Problem is you can't actually attack much and so the whole game will consist of you flying around trying to avoid missile weapons and wiping out small units hoping for a draw.
Not much fun to my mind.

Plus you are going to need about 150 Harpies which as they come in packs of twos for about 20AU$ is going to break your budget for a once off army.

Plus they aren't the best looking models and their wings fall off a lot.

[No one]

I remember dalmar posting such a list a while back, I think it was called ''DAF: Druchii Air Force'' it consisted of a sh*tload of harpies a dragon, DR and some other stuff IIRC, might be worth to search for it.

I found something:

Ok, a quick think and I've come up with the following - for the DAF to be effective it's crucial that the Harpies have the Dreadlords LD:10 within 12". Now in his current guise he's too slow, so back comes the dragon. Et voila!

Quote:
Dreadlord - Black Dragon, hydra blade, PoS, PoK, HA, SDC and shield. 575pts

Master - Cold one, Lance, Ring of Darkness, HA, SDC and shield. 154pts

Sorceress - Level 1, Dark steed, 2x Ds. 162pts

5x Dark riders - musician. 92pts
5x Dark riders - musician.
5x Dark riders - musician.

5x Harpies. 55pts
5x Harpies.
5x Harpies.
5x Harpies.

5x Cold One Knights - Full command; ASF banner & Ring of Hotek. 235pts

1x War Hydra. 175pts
1x War Hydra.



Rationale:
The Lord accompanies the Harpies, lending his LD:10 to their cause (fear, terror, break, etc) and added combat prowess, whilst the CoK advance with the Hydra's and Riders protect flanks, re-direct/bait - flee, etc.

It's not the one I was looking for but it looks quite good

[Viper]

Bad idea. You won't kill much of anything, they are way too fragile and don't have the leadership to deal with panic/fear/break. The beasts rule means they cannot use the Generals leadership nor can they be joined by characthers.

Harpies have their niche role, I would not compose a whole army of them. You could conceive any army of 3 to 4 units with characters mounted on flyers but you should also include ground based combat units as well.

[Calisson]

Bad idea. You won't kill much of anything, they are way too fragile => agree

and don't have the leadership to deal with panic/fear/break. The beasts rule means they cannot use the Generals leadership nor can they be joined by characthers. => disagree. This was true under previous army book but has been removed. Even better, destroying a harpy unit does not bother even other harpies!

Harpies have their niche role, I would not compose a whole army of them. You could conceive any army of 3 to 4 units with characters mounted on flyers but you should also include ground based combat units as well. => agree. See example quoted in previous post.

[Red...]

Depends on who you play against really. I could see it working okay against horde armies or armies with low combat skills (e.g. empire, orcs and goblins) but against high elves or warriors of chaos? forget it. The former would chop you down before you got to attack back (due to their ASF) and the latter would laugh as your S3 attacks failed to do any damage, then rip you limb from limb. The only path you could would be to hide behind trees all game and try to gain victory points for table quarters...not very fun

[Vesidel]

I agree with the general consensus of the replies. Harpies are a major disappointment when you expect much other than warmachine hunting and confusing the enemies movement out of them. They aren't really even that good at character hunting unless the character in question is a naked scroll caddy.

[Thanatoz]

I agree with the general consensus of the replies. Harpies are a major disappointment when you expect much other than warmachine hunting and confusing the enemies movement out of them. They aren't really even that good at character hunting unless the character in question is a naked scroll caddy.

And even then, with 6 S3 attacks without hatred they will only inflict 1.5 wounds on average.

[Bounce]

But the lone wizard will only have 1 S3 attack back so the harpies should be able to win with ease and it would be well worth the 55 points.

[Calisson]

lone wizard

Such thing does still exist?

[Hamstafish]

Harpies can hit and run into the front of any non asf unit and try and kill mages. it normally works but your harpies die. And if they die without killing the mage finish the job with another unit of harpies. 1.5 wounds is usualy a dead mage.

[Desert icon]

So, you've killed his expensive wizard. What next? Harpies can't take on ranked units (or even many non-ranked units and missile troops). Either way, those 100-300 points of dead wizard won't beat 2,000 points of dead Harpies.

I suppose though that you can just kill a wizard and then hide for the rest of the game and take quarters. But if you do that you won't really be playing a fun game of Warhammer. More like Borehammer.

[Viper]

Bad idea. You won't kill much of anything, they are way too fragile => agree

and don't have the leadership to deal with panic/fear/break. The beasts rule means they cannot use the Generals leadership nor can they be joined by characthers. => disagree. This was true under previous army book but has been removed. Even better, destroying a harpy unit does not bother even other harpies!

Harpies have their niche role, I would not compose a whole army of them. You could conceive any army of 3 to 4 units with characters mounted on flyers but you should also include ground based combat units as well. => agree. See example quoted in previous post.

Crap... that was a rule from last edition. That makes them a bit better.

[Dread_knight666]

Harpies have their place and they are probably one of thee most cost effective units available to us, however they have many limitations and I believe an army of harpies would suffer far to many difficulties to be considered a viable or fun list.

Personally I always bring a few units of harpies to a game and they are an asset against all enemies. They are excellent at killing enemy fast cav, or other lightly armored units, or more traditionally as war machine hunters thanks to their 2 attacks. There are exceptions of course, they are useless against high elf, or other ASF units and can run into problems against dwarfs or other tough, heavily armored units as well. I would recommend not charging anything with a 4+ save or greater and to exercise caution against anything better than T3, but that still leaves a plethora of other targets. You can also bypass their poor Ld by keeping them close to your general and also launch successful charges against fear causing models like corpse carts.

[Bounce]

On the other hand you could go for 6 units which rounds out at 330 points. You have a bucket load of Harpies and then still tons of points to spend on normal troops. Would be very scary and effective.