Building an infantry blob around Corteaz

[slowclinic]

As the title suggests, I'm wanting to optimise an Infantry Platoon to work best with Inquisitor Corteaz. I run a mechanised army with allied Scions, so firepower, artillery, objectives and opposing armour is sorted. What I'm missing is a deterrent and gard counter for pod/deep strike spam. I'm yet to field Infantry beyond mech Vets, so I'm still new to this side of the Guard, although I already have Psykers, Priests, and Commissars to play with. If I could fit the Platoon, including Corteaz, into 350pts as an easy addition to what I already run regularly, that would be most helpful.

 

So... How do I best do this?

[WarriorFish]

For a blob it'd be as many troops as you can get, without being unweildy. Is your plan purely to shoot the enemy into oblivion? If so loading up on plasma guns and pistols should do the trick. The plasma's 24" range would help you get more guns into range but some melta is an idea to pop armour.

[Myrkul]

Yeah plasma would probably be the best bet w/ a 50 man blob thats 5-10 ap2 shots.

 

You could also ally in a marine detachment w/ a SM captian in cataphractii armor to give the blob S&P. Then you can run heavy weapons also, but thats going to rack up the point cost.

[slowclinic]

Good point. I suppose Dreadnoughts are the most popular unit dropped in, at least in my local meta anyways. Plasma guns do run the risk of getting hot, and at BS3 aren't wonderful, but rapid fire might help with that. Especially if I can cast prescience on the blob ahead of the arriving turn.

 

What about heavy weapons? The middle ground is usually autocannons, but there may be a use for Lascannons in this case. May as well load out on Servo skulls too.

[WarriorFish]

HWTs would need decent placing so their LoS is harder to use, but autocannons is a good shout. Keeps cost down a bit and two shots helps with BS3. That's a lot of S7 that can glance a Dread to death. Against the likes of an Ironclad they won't land close enough to get melta'd so perhaps the odd lascannon is worth considering?

[Otto von Bludd]

If you intend to use Coteaz as a deep strike deterrent he is not ideal in a blob - his special rule "I've been expecting you" activates when a unit arrives from reserve within 12" of him, not his unit.  This means if he is deep in the center of a 50 man blob it may not even be possible for an enemy to deep strike into his rule activation range.  A better plan would be to place him in a small but shooty unit; a command squad with 4 plasma, an acolyte squad with 3 plasma cannon servitors (3 small plasma blasts on a clustered up deep strike squad) and 3 plasma acolytes, a HSGV Scion command squad and so forth.  Use the blob to block off an area and put Coteaz and his small unit somewhere else, like an elevated position behind your gun line / tanks where people like to deepstrike.  Keep in mind no one will ever dare deep strike near him, at least not more than once, so he will function more as area denial and for catching bad deep strike scatters. 

[duz_]

I agree with Otto above

As for non conscript blobs in general I find their sweat spot being 3 squads (30 models). Enough to weather a couple of turns of direct shooting but not too many it consumes your movement phase.

[slowclinic]

Good points. When it comes to building a blob, I wouldn't be intending on going above three combined infantry squads; two might actually be the sweet spot to provide enough bubble wrap and also get Corteaz in a good position. Where I see the benefit of placing him in a more specialist shooting unit as opposed to massed lasgun fire, I think losing such focused firepower is counter productive. I've found a lot of success in placing the artillery in a far corner, which limits where deep strikers can arrive, so I imagine the unit would be more of a deterrent than anything else. There's also nothing stopping me playing around with a specialist PCS with multiple plasma guns or a combination of plasma and heavy weapons.