How to use harpies

[Tommyville]

Hia

I just can't find any usefull target for a harpy squad. They just die to a stiff breeze. Also people find them atractive for enemy movement direction, how to pull that of?

How do you guys use them, My thanks.

[Ace073]

Sit them on a funky angle in front of enemy units you dont want charging you. If they do charge and make it, they will be facing a retarded direction when they kill the harpies and so cant overrun into your units. Delays them for a turn.

You can also bait out the frenzy units with them sometimes, as they need LD test to restrain from possible charges, as well as bait out the goblin fanatics.

Lastly, they do well against lone wizards and war machine crew. Solid pickup.

[Red...]

Check the DRAICH (http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=65603), particularly:

http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=66883&highlight=
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?p=831608#831608
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?p=811473#811473
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?p=828288#top

[Omnichron]

As Red says, the DRAICH is where you find most of the usage of harpies. I will give an example of how I used them the last tournament I was in though.

It was the first match against Warriors of Chaos. He fielded Tzeentch warriors in the middle, and two frenzied chaos warriors on each flank. One of them had two hand weapons, and the other had halberds... other than that, he had a hellcannon and his lord sorc and exalted in the middle close to and in the tzeentch unit.

As he moved closer, I used the harpies and a unit of shades to block the warriors on each flank... On my left flank, it looked something like this:

------------------------
-----WWWWWW-----
H---WWWWWW------
--H-WWWWWW------
-----H-----------------
--------H--------------

W = Warriors of Chaos
H = Harpies

How I do it, is that I set the harpies up one inch away from the enemy, with two/three that blocks the unit so that they can't move forward or charge anything else (due to rotation means that they will hit the harpies, and get a failed charge if they try charging something else), and that they will get turned a different direction than my forces when they kill the harpies unit. Of course, if the unit don't have to overrun, it's just one bump in the road for them. In the example of this battle, he has to overrun due to frenzy, and moves out from position.

In the battle, I got two of his really heavy hitting units out of the way, so that all of my army could focus on the middle. That enabled me to wipe his entire army except these two frenzied units which didn't get into close combat whatsoever.

[Kangavallo]

In my experince of 8th ed, it is just not such a great strategy as it used to be. Unless the unit is frenzied that is.

I mean it is so easy to actually ctach the harpies now that you have to expect to lose them all. Its also really easy for the enemy to make yu flee and then just redirect towards a different unit any way.

[Omnichron]

I never flee with my harpies with these tactics (As I never set them in charge range before I actually want to), I use them as a sacrifice so that the enemy unit can't do anything for a whole turn or more. It's a kind of defenisve manouver, where you force the enemy to not get the charge he wants, and just end up getting into the fray late in the game, where you might already have crushed his other troops.

I use it against those most hard hitting troops, either when I am advancing on them, or when they get in position to charge me at any possible weak points. If I do it right, I will manage to set my army up so that he will get flanked and utterly destroyed by a combo charge from my units.

[Scyloc]

And of course the recently updated Best of DRAICH article:
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?p=812712#812712