The Blob

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Does anyone give blob squads w/ Commissar upgrades?

 

I've yet to play a game with the Guard, but it honestly seems like such a waste when the upgrade is going to be the first guy my opponent chooses to be shot by the Commissar.

[Frater Cornelius]

Why risk rolling 1-2 and lose a special weapon when you can get a Priest for Fearless and additional melee benefits to boot.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Hmm. Hadn't considered that.

 

The Fearless is intriguing. Though buffing a Guard blob's CC ability might be the very definition of polishing a turd.

[Frater Cornelius]

As hilarious that phrase is, you couldn't be more wrong. Big IG blobs are one of the most intimidating melee opponents in the game, just not in a conventional sense. IG blobs have 1-2 jobs in melee, piling wounds on high value low model count units and tarpitting. This is where the priest comes in. He gives the Zealot USR, which means fearless and hatred. These alone are amazing. Your blob will get somewhere between 30 and 50 attacks, double on the charge. The reroll to hit is so incredibly worth it. But now comes the cherry on top: he can make the entire blob reroll to wound. Yeah... that TDA squad is looking really bummed, as is probably that Riptide. Some people like giving the sarges power axes for maximum hilarity. As for the tarpitting, the priest can give the unit reroll failed armour saves. This will bumb the cjance of success to 5/9. Just as a referrence, SM have a 6/9 chance. Pile fearless on top, now THAT is a true tarpit. Granted, the priest must pass a leadership test to grant reroll to wound or failed armour saves with his own LD, which isn't anything to write home about, but fearless and hatred are constant. For 25 points. All of that above for 25 points and you can get 3 of them. He alone turns a GM blob from a shooting menace to a great allround unit capable of holding it's own in most situation, be it dakka or choppa. If you invest in power axes for sarges, even more so. Liking the Priest yet? ;)

[SpecialIssue]

^^^ That. It can be hilariously effective. Even against MCs. 60 (or more) attacks re-rolling to hit, with a good chance to get re-rolling saves or to wound when taking multiple priests.

[Commissar Uri]

Really depends on what your battle plan is. Blob infantry can come in several incarnations.

First you have your traditional blob, 50 dudes taken together, put a lord commissar into them to make them fearless and let them march across the board and obliterating stuff with massed fire. Have 2 of those to march across the board, get some heavy wep teams to hang back on objectives. This also works with DA allies and put Azrael in there for 4++ and fearless. This way, I would equip them as cheap as possible. Give them grenade launchers for some punch, flamers to massacre assaults. Let the heavy weapons be assault canons to off-set low BS, or lascanons if you plan to use Primaris Psychers. Leave the sarges naked.

Second you have the melee confic, less popular but it can really surprise people and knock out insane stuff. Have 50 man blob or 2, Straken, equip sarges with power axes and give your guys flamers, pack priests for zealot (fearless and hatred, I think). When your dudes charge then will have HUGE amount of attacks, flamers before the charge, Straken gives Furious Charge and Priests give melee bonuses. Again, Azrael or Divination can give 'em 4++. There is little that can stand in their way, either they kill with mass of attacks, or the 5 sarges bring power axe attacks, he can not challenge all of 'em. They have to get there first, so maybe put some distractions up like Bullgryn cover, use the Run! Run! Run! order and support with long ranged fire to pressure them a bit.

Last confic I can think of, mechanised. Put all of the 5x 10 squads and PCS into Chimeras and do drive-bys This is not really 'blob' anymore since you would need to separate them so the Chimeras can go their ways.

Deathstrike is decent, since it can fire on 3+ on turn 2, which is nice. With a 10" pie plate there is the danger that is can leave the board very easily this invalidating the shot. But it can also hit bullseye and make opponent rage-quit. Compensation jokes at their expense

it's from another thread but I have to give props to the guy by quoting it. The second one sounds pant wittingly hilarious to do to someone. More so if you can flank it on the board. As an ex tau player if they suddenly appeared on my side of the board... oh I would cry

[Frater Cornelius]

Aye, replace the lord commissars with priests and mix variant 1 and 2 and you'll get the allrounder. Beware though, do NOT use this without proper anti tank. If there is one thing IG blobs terminally SUCK at it's busting walkers, high AV tanks and long ranged anti tank.

[FragEmAll]

IMO fancy weapons should be for commanding officers only. I run 50 guardsmen with 2 Commisaars and a priest. Why 2 commisaars? If you come up against a challenge you don't want to accept the opponent will select your commisaar to decline the challenge, losing you stubborn. With 2 commisaars you still benefit from the rule.

 

Never accept a challenge. volume of attacks is just brilliant. I have taken apart Thunderwolf cavalry, Assault terminators amongst others by the simple virtue of clubbing them to death with bayonets and rifle butts. Obviously most of the blob will die horrifically but the few survivors will always be standing victorious at the end :D

[WarriorFish]

Tau tears are especially valuable this edition, so collect them whenever the opportunity presents :P

 

It's important to always have a trick or two up your sleeve, even if it's just the classic "I have more models and dice than you" ;)

[Sinthos117]

Aye, replace the lord commissars with priests and mix variant 1 and 2 and you'll get the allrounder. Beware though, do NOT use this without proper anti tank. If there is one thing IG blobs terminally SUCK at it's busting walkers, high AV tanks and long ranged anti tank.

IG blob guard is some of the BEST anti tank in the game!  Throw melta guns in the squad and they become even more terrifying. I run 21 man blobs, 2 IS with power axe, melta bomb, and melta gun with a priest.  Add a pysker for more good times.  The best thing about IG, IMHO, is the fact that our best stuff is scoring.  We have the best troops slot in the game and claiming we cant do anti tank is selling yourself short.

[Frater Cornelius]

 

Aye, replace the lord commissars with priests and mix variant 1 and 2 and you'll get the allrounder. Beware though, do NOT use this without proper anti tank. If there is one thing IG blobs terminally SUCK at it's busting walkers, high AV tanks and long ranged anti tank.

IG blob guard is some of the BEST anti tank in the game!  Throw melta guns in the squad and they become even more terrifying. I run 21 man blobs, 2 IS with power axe, melta bomb, and melta gun with a priest.  Add a pysker for more good times.  The best thing about IG, IMHO, is the fact that our best stuff is scoring.  We have the best troops slot in the game and claiming we cant do anti tank is selling yourself short.

 

With BS3 melta shots aren't all that great, but with primaris this can be fixed somewhat (until 7ed moved prescience away from primaris power). I prefer Veterans and long ranged dakka for it. But I suppose it's up to play-style.

[WarriorFish]

Agreed, part of why the Guard codex is so good - aside from the fact it's a Guard codex - is the versatility it has. Throw death from afar or close in for a personal introduction to the Emperor's Hammer; we've got it all :)

[FragEmAll]

if you want your guardsmen to be anti tank capable, then give them all krak grenades. i'd like to see that carnifex/dredknight survive 50 krak grenades in its kneecaps :D

 

Part of the true honest joys of my Imperial Guard collection is seeing the 'poor bloody infantry' winning unlikely combats. Obviously a land raider can't be taken apart this way, but that's why we take vanquishers and melta vets - right? ;)

[Raulmichile]

_{Interesting, but 21 men blobs are survivable enough?  I feel they are a little few.}

[Frater Cornelius]

The minimum you can get with a priest is 26 models with 27 wounds. or 23 models with 27 wounds if you run a weapon team in every squad. You need to take at least 1 PCS and at least 2 10man infantry squads.

[FashaTheDog]

I like massive blobs of Guardsmen. Fifty Guardsmen with power axe armed sergeants, a 40 point Commissar with a power axe, attach a Primaris Psyker (or more if you're feeling frisky) with one of those handy buff powers and force axe, attach a Priest, and call it 465 points of NONE SHALL PASS! If you add flamers or meltaguns, the cost becomes 490 or 515 points, respectively. Now that does seem like a steep price and a bit much for one unit at first glance, but you could break that into a Psyker, Priest, and five Infantry Squads with a Commissar in one which give you versatility depending on the mission. You could even have a unit of 10 and two units of 20 or a unit of 30 and a unit of 20 or however you feel it would best benefit you.

Back when Krieg could combine squads, it went from a fearsome prospect to down-right terrifying as they were WS4 and stubborn in the assault by default. Sadly Krieg can no longer combine squads at all, which really hurts in missions where each unit is worth a VP (What's that you say Marine player, the only way I can possibly win now is by tabling you? Challenge accepted!), and the pdf Siege List cannot even legally issue orders by RAW thanks to the sloppy cut and paste job it got .

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

As hilarious that phrase is, you couldn't be more wrong. Big IG blobs are one of the most intimidating melee opponents in the game, just not in a conventional sense. IG blobs have 1-2 jobs in melee, piling wounds on high value low model count units and tarpitting. This is where the priest comes in. He gives the Zealot USR, which means fearless and hatred. These alone are amazing. Your blob will get somewhere between 30 and 50 attacks, double on the charge. The reroll to hit is so incredibly worth it. But now comes the cherry on top: he can make the entire blob reroll to wound. Yeah... that TDA squad is looking really bummed, as is probably that Riptide. Some people like giving the sarges power axes for maximum hilarity. As for the tarpitting, the priest can give the unit reroll failed armour saves. This will bumb the cjance of success to 5/9. Just as a referrence, SM have a 6/9 chance. Pile fearless on top, now THAT is a true tarpit. Granted, the priest must pass a leadership test to grant reroll to wound or failed armour saves with his own LD, which isn't anything to write home about, but fearless and hatred are constant. For 25 points. All of that above for 25 points and you can get 3 of them. He alone turns a GM blob from a shooting menace to a great allround unit capable of holding it's own in most situation, be it dakka or choppa. If you invest in power axes for sarges, even more so. Liking the Priest yet?

Man down. Call for backup.

Thanks for the insight. I have to go rethink some basic principles.

[FragEmAll]

I wouldn't call a 20 man squad a blob, they just can't take the casualties. go 50 men strong or go home ;)

[Sinthos117]

1 20 man blob is easy to kill, 6 on the other hand....  The reason I use the smaller blobs is that it gives me more tactical flexibility.  Cover for 20 men is easier to find than for 50, same thing for charging lanes.  It is easier to capture objectives spread out across the board with multiple squads, because most armies cant deal with that many scoring choices, and you have to kill every man in the squad or else they can still score.  Of course there are still benefits of the larger blobs and a 20 man blob cannot stand up to a dedicated close combat unit, but then ask yourself this:  Would you rather have that Vanguard vet squad with 10 Lightning Claws chew through 20 men and be open to shooting or be stuck in against 50 and finish them off in the next turn?

[FashaTheDog]

1 20 man blob is easy to kill, 6 on the other hand....  The reason I use the smaller blobs is that it gives me more tactical flexibility.  Cover for 20 men is easier to find than for 50, same thing for charging lanes.  It is easier to capture objectives spread out across the board with multiple squads, because most armies cant deal with that many scoring choices, and you have to kill every man in the squad or else they can still score.  Of course there are still benefits of the larger blobs and a 20 man blob cannot stand up to a dedicated close combat unit, but then ask yourself this:  Would you rather have that Vanguard vet squad with 10 Lightning Claws chew through 20 men and be open to shooting or be stuck in against 50 and finish them off in the next turn?

Well, you could always multiple 50 strong squads and use each other for cover...

[Pyro X]

Or use div and get 4++.

[Sinthos117]

The problem with 50 man squads supporting each other is the support range.  One assumes that the blob is spread out to avoid massive hits from blast templates, which leaves large surface areas per blob.  A smart opponent will hit one blob on the farthest point away from the other blob, which gives them the most time to kill one off with out the other giving support.  This of course is my personal experience,and if someone else has found a way to fix this issue let me know.

[FashaTheDog]

The problem with 50 man squads supporting each other is the support range.  One assumes that the blob is spread out to avoid massive hits from blast templates, which leaves large surface areas per blob.  A smart opponent will hit one blob on the farthest point away from the other blob, which gives them the most time to kill one off with out the other giving support.  This of course is my personal experience,and if someone else has found a way to fix this issue let me know.

Bah, who cares about casualties?

[Fibonacci]

Immersturm, on 13 May 2014 - 04:34, said:

Granted, the priest must pass a leadership test to grant reroll to wound or failed armour saves with his own LD, which isn't anything to write home about, but fearless and hatred are constant.

A Leadership Test is a special kind of characteristic test with its own rules on page 7. Unless it gets changed in 7th, Leadership Tests for models or units always use the highest value of the unit.

[Frater Cornelius]

 

Immersturm, on 13 May 2014 - 04:34, said:

Granted, the priest must pass a leadership test to grant reroll to wound or failed armour saves with his own LD, which isn't anything to write home about, but fearless and hatred are constant.

A Leadership Test is a special kind of characteristic test with its own rules on page 7. Unless it gets changed in 7th, Leadership Tests for models or units always use the highest value of the unit.

 

No, not entirely true. It sprecifically states that the model must pass a LD test, not the unit. If it is the unit, then the highest is chosen, if it's a model, it uses it's own LD. After all, you are not using the highest LD in a unit when doing psy-test, at least I hope you do not ;)