Detachment Focus: Serpent’s Brood

In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into individual detachments, examine their rules, what makes them tick, and how to play them. In this article we’re looking at the Serpent’s Brood Detachment for the Aeldari, more specifically the Harlequins.

10th Edition has been a pretty quiet one for Harlequins thus far; after the heights of late 8th and an exceptionally busted Codex ruleset in 9th, this time around they’ve mostly been outshone by their Asuryani brethren, relegated to occasionally appearing in Reaper’s Wager lists alongside the Drukhari. A big driver of that is that the Ghosts of the Webway detachment in the Aeldari Codex doesn’t quite get there – it has some cool Enhancements and Stratagems, but a terrible detachment rule that has largely kept it out of the conversation.

Luckily, Grotmas has brought some gifts for the players of the Saedaths. What if there was a detachment for them with a good detachment rule, encouraging them to do what they do best and jet around in Transports or on bikes? And what if it still had plenty of other cool stuff going on? In today’s Grotmas detachment focus we explore these possibilities as we look at the new Serpent’s Brood detachment.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes.

Detachment Overview

The Serpent’s Brood wants you to hit your foe hard and fast, launching devastating attacks with a mixture of Skyweavers, Vehicles, and Troupes bursting out of Transports. Once your assault is underway, it gives you a few tricks to thwart the foe’s attempts to fight back,and some solid mobility tools to help close out the game.

Detachment Rule: Boons of the Brood

HARLEQUIN MOUNTED and VEHICLE units have Sustained Hits 1 on all their weapons. HARLEQUIN units that disembark from a Transport have Sustained Hits 1 on all their weapons till the end of the turn.

This kind of force multiplication was 100% what was missing from Ghosts of the Webway, and amps up the damage output of the army sufficiently to tangle with the nastier stuff out there. Obviously the biggest winners here are Skyweavers, who can either bring two good guns per model or a gun and a powerful melee weapon, getting value out of this in two phases, but it’s not just them; Troupes are now a major headache for the foe, whether they’re doing fusion pistol drivebys, or going for a multi-phase swing after disembarking.

An important thing to consider when looking at this rule is some cross-Aeldari synergies. First up, you don’t have to disembark from a Harlequin Transport to get the bonus, so if you want to bring one big Troupe, you can buy them a Wave Serpent to ride around in, and still set this up. Secondly, Lhykhis’ ability to set up Critical Hits on a 5+ is keyworded to AELDARI, so she works phenomenally well alongside this. Expect to see at least some Asuryani riding alongside the Harlequins of the Brood.

Detachment Rule: Travelling Players

In addition to the main Detachment rule, the Serpent’s Brood unsurprisingly gets an exemption to normal Aeldari restrictions on taking Harlequin Characters (so you can have up to three of each except the Solitaire), and makes your Troupes Battleline and OC2.

Enhancements

The Enhancements are arguably the least exciting part of this detachment, as the excellent Detachment Rule is paired with a strong Stratagem suite, but they’re very much still decent and open up a few options.

• Key of Ghosts: Gives all models in the bearer’s unit Scout 6”. A solid start – you can use this to threaten big early swings with a Transport, and if the opponent cowers from it you can then just hide it.
• Weaver’s Wail: Gives a Troupe Master +3S and +1A. Pretty much always decent if you have the points for it, and although the Troupe Master’s statline is a little weird, this helps a bunch if you run into T5-7 elite Infantry or enemy hulls (and I guess S8 with +1 to Wound is pretty ideal if you need to kill a Victrix Guard).
• Fanged Leer: Lets a Death Jester pick two Cruel Amusement abilities rather than one at a fairly cheap price. This is a weird one – it’s a really good effect, but the Death Jester is still costed like you can give him Index Fate’s Messenger, and once you add this he’s not that far off the price of a Solitaire, who is probably better. The detachment does also have a flat 6” reactive move though, and that’s very strong on a Lone Operative that wants to dance away from the foe, which might give this a shot.
• Shedskin Raiment: Shadowseer only, lets you redeploy three units, big yawn.

Stratagems

Roll on the good times – expect plenty of Serpent’s Brood builds to pack Eldrad just for the extra CP juice.

• Fangs of the Brood (1CP): Let’s a Troupe pick all three of their melee abilities instead of just 1. Functionally, as Harlequins, you’re always hoping to kill what you’re swinging into before they can hit back, so the draw here is that this gives you both +1 to Wound and re-roll 1s to Hit, which is especially great if you’ve just jumped out of your ride and picked up Sustained Hits. Makes it more reliable that you pick up smaller targets on a flank, letting you re-embark into your Starweaver, and if you need a really big hit with a larger Troupe out of a Serpent, this is your tool.
• Venomous Wrath (1CP): Allows a Harlequins Vehicle to make a Normal Move of 6” after shooting. You can use this for Fire and Fade stuff on a Voidweaver, but they aren’t hitting so hard that this gets very exciting. Low key the most important thing this enables is for you to get a Starweaver in position for the re-embark if it wouldn’t quite have the reach to do so otherwise (e.g. if you’re deploying a troupe from a Transport behind a wall and it has to go the long way round).
• Striking Stride (1CP): Advance and Charge. Yes please. Notably, it’s not Infantry-locked, so Skyweavers can go a loooong way and still slam into the foe.
• Weaver’s Coils (1CP): At the end of the Fight Phase, a MOUNTED unit that was eligible to Fight can either Fall Back (if they’re in combat) or make a Normal Move. This is very good, particularly on the current UKTC maps where a squad that wins a fight on the middle objective will trivially be able to use this to scoot behind the thin ruin, though even on GW maps you’ll often be able to cross a whole terrain mat. Although zephyrglaives are the premium users of this, you can sometimes also use it to move a shooty squad – if they’re near a Troupe that’s charging something they’ll reliably kill, just charge with the bikes too so they’re eligible to fight, then pop this for a big move. Finally, don’t forget that because this is a full Normal Move, you can apply the +2” move from Battle Focus to it, so check if you need those extra inches before blowing your final token elsewhere.
• Weaving Stride (1CP): Flat 6” reactive move for Harlequin Infantry. Obviously excellent, especially as you can often use it to dash back into a Transport.
• Skyward Lunge (1CP): Pull a Vehicle or Mounted unit into Strategic Reserves at the end of the opponent’s Fight Phase. Great on a shooty Skyweaver squad, fine as a way of squeezing some extra utility from a residual Starweaver later on.

Playing This Detachment

Unsurprisingly, your plan here is to select your targets judiciously, eliminate what you swing for, and dodge away from reprisals using a mixture of Weaver’s Coils and re-embarkation from your Starweavers. Obviously that’s always the core of modern Aeldari’s plan, but this detachment does more to extend it to Harlequins than we’ve seen previously thanks to the mixture of boosted damage and powerful Stratagems it unlocks.

Alongside that, you want to use at least one full shooty Skyweaver squad to rack up some big damage on the foe, either using or at least threatening Skyward Lunge to reposition around the table and pick off choice targets. To really amp up the damage potential of your big threats, consider bringing some Aeldari buff tools like Lhykhis and Shroud Runners to help maximise damage output when you pop off.

Your overriding goal is to pull apart the weakest links in your opponent’s chain, and survive to do the same thing again next turn. Luckily, this detachment very much provides the tools to do that!

Strengths

• Great explosive damage and reach.
• Gives Harlequins good ways of dodging reprisals.
• Strong synergies if you mix in Aeldari units.

Weaknesses

• Fragile, so if things go wrong, they go wrong.
• No Fight on Death and very limited Fight First potentially an issue in melee matchups.
• CP-hungry, so Eldrad is probably a must.

A Sample List

Army List - click to expand

Probably no big surprises here given everything else in the writeup. Small clown car units pick stuff up on the flanks. Big unit detonates something mid-board. The two Skyweaver units aim to find ways to do big damage with minimal reprisals, whether that be by chopping up a medium target and flying away, or blipping around and picking off foes on the flank. Lhykhis and the Shroud Runners can tee up particularly big turns if you need them. and I do wonder if in this list, the Exarch in the Lhykhis squad should be on the spinnaret build just for extra threat into lists like Spectacle, as I do think Fight First and Fight on Death armies are probably the biggest challenge for this list.

Final Thoughts

Huzzah for Harlequins finally having a real detachment. Not much else to say – happy Grotmas for clowns and clowns only.
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