Feature Friday - Classic Harley

It's Feature Friday, and in honour of her recent appearance in Assault on Arkham and her upcoming appearance in the Suicide Squad movie, it's time to look at Classic Harley Quinn!

Better than some greasy-faced clown, that's for sure...

Let's get the gritty band details out of the way, first.  Harley is a Sidekick in Joker's band, meaning she can take charge if the mad clown isn't around - but it's rare that you'd want to do this, because Trickster and Inspire are just too good to pass up.  She also has Affinity for Poison Ivy, though, and that's what I'll mainly be focusing on in this article.  Joker smells, anyway.

Either way, Harley is going to cost you 75 reputation, so you'd better have a good plan for her.  That kind of cost means you can't just throw her away on objective-camping (unless you absolutely have to), or on distracting anything less than a sizable part of your opponent's force.  Don't forget, though, that even though it might hurt, sometimes you'll have to sit an expensive model like Harley on an objective just to maximize your points, if the situation calls for it.  Don't get stuck in only one way of playing a model!


Let's start this sucker off by poking around on Harley's card and seeing what's what.

Just looking at her stats, we can start to see what Harley Quinn is meant for.  Speed.  With Movement 4, the Fast rule, and Acrobat, Classic Harley Quinn can scream around the table.  Her high Movement stat gives her a maximum possible +24cm of movement, and Fast allows her to reroll any of those initial movement dice that might land on 1s or 2s.  Acrobat starts her off with a flat 12cm move, and allows her to move through difficult obstacles and miniatures for free - all for a grand possible total of 36cm (that's about 14" for you Imperial measurers!) through obstacles.  Who needs The Flash when we have Harley?

All those movement counters mean that there's not much to allocate to other things, though.  With a decidedly average "elite" Willpower 6, you really need to decide if you want Harley to move insane distances or if you want her to get mixed up in the fray.  While Acrobat does let her Dodge ranged attacks with her movement counters, it's not helping her bring any hurt to the enemy.  With stats like Attack 4 and Defense 4, you may actually want to get Harley into fights - because she's definitely capable of ending them.  Her martial kit is pretty unique, too: her Mallet, combined with Distract, let her face down either single tougher foes or larger swarms of mooks; not exactly something your average sidekick or free agent can manage.

Sweet art courtesy of BigAdam2040

Let's talk about the Mallet first.  There is a lot of awesome contained in this comic weapon, and it's important that you get a handle on all of it before Harley goes out to play.  It does 2 Stun damage right out the gate, and has the additional traits Reach, Heavy, and Push.  Reach gives Harley's already-insane mobility an extra 3cm of distance for her attacks, while Heavy ups her meagre Strength 5 to a respectable 4.  The Push quality is especially interesting because it guarantees a push on Harley's barrage of attacks, without you needing to spend any Special to do so.  Remember that all attacks resolve at the same time, with only one Collateral Die paired up with the damage you deal: Harley can swing up to 4 times with a 3cm reach, and push your target back into some kind of nasty obstacle or convenient firing-squad setup.

The special ability 360 Strike with Mallet is also really important to remember, as it lets Harley walk into large groups of enemy models and play whack-a-mole.  For the low low price of 1sc + 1ac (a third of Harley's action counters), she swings on all models within 3cm - friend or foe.  She can only use this once per round, but she is allowed mix it up with other attacks, choosing to 360 swing before or after her regular suite of swings.  Her Reach will let her get into base-to-base with a bigger enemy model, 360 Strike to push it (and all other goons within 3cm) back, and then - on a roll of push of 3 or less - complete her attacks on the bigger target.  This can get risky if you push your enemies more than 3cm away, though, so it's usually best to think of 360 Strike with Mallet as a crowd-clearer.  Save it for the swarms.

If you're dealing with a harder target, though (or even setting one up for a later kill), Distract is worth looking at.  For 1sc, Harley can choose a target within line of sight and 10cm, and reduce its Defense by 1 for the entire round.  There is no contested roll here, no opportunity to defend oneself; it's just a flat debuff that either Harley or her teammates can exploit to put major hurt on their foe.  Just remember that it's not cumulative, so only one Distract is allowed on a given target at a time.

Last but definitely not least, we come to the ability that has the most synergy with Harley's best friend Ivy: Discourage.  For 2sc, Harley can reduce a model's Willpower by 2.  Yes, that's right, their Willpower.  Sadly, this doesn't reduce action counters...but it does soften your foe up for Ivy's seduction skills.  Since Willpower (on average) ranges from 4-6, your opponent is going to need to roll 2-4 to shrug off Ivy's Control Pheromones...and good luck with that.  And hey, if you're running Arkham Ivy, this means that you can pull those deadly kisses off far more easily.

Oh yeah, and she has True Love: Joker.  If he dies, she becomes Willpower 7 and Attack 5.  Neat, but who wants to work with a clown when you can work with a hot plant lady instead?

Try to avoid this by running Harley with Ivy, not with Joker