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A friend of mine wanted to start IG, but didn't want to play with any vehicles. So we both sat down with the book and thought of different things he could do and fell into the idea of full infrantry guard. He ends up running a lot of blobs, infrantry platoons with their heavy weapons, along with the PCS and CCS. In the end he has a ton of lasguns, a handfull of laspistols, around 10-12 autocannons, and 13-15 Lascannons. Both of us liking the army started to think about it's theoretical table top performance and were quite shocked when we found that it should, theoreticly anyway, just mow through every list around here. Now I'm starting to think about it more and realise that it has good match-ups against pretty much everything. Am I correct in thinking this? Is the IG Super Blob that good? Before he goes and buys into it I want to double check myself, as the army would be A) a lot of models and B) a ton of money. Experiances from anyone to play with or against such a list would be most appreciated, but anyones opinion would be good.

P.S.- The only weakness I could think of to such a list would be Sieze Ground, and an unfavorable amount of the objectives going to the opponent. Still it would seems to me that the IG army could win easy then, but that could be an assumption based on how things are around here.

How many points are his goal?

If you go for 2000+ point games then all infantry can be playable. You have to focus on orders and focused firepower.

You will always have lower firepower than mechguard because you lack the heavy support ordnance, flamers cannot used very well, so you have to rely on your heavy weapons.

If you have only area terrain then this is pretty effective. If you have some blocking terrain, then heavy weapons become less dangerous.

concerning blobs:

They are good as long as the opponent attacks them constantly with lesser material than needed so they can grind him down squad by squad without shooting them.
However if he focuses and prepares his attack on a blob, he will be successful soon. I would consider them decent although they are very nice blockers. But they are too slow to choose their opponents and therefore not useful in the offensive. They suck badly compared to ork shootamobz.

Some notes:

1. he probably should put commisars in most, if not all of those blobs, to make sure they don't get morale-screwed. Stacking a bunch of power weapons into the squads make sure when they are caught in mellee they kill /something.

2. Remember you can't combine infantry and ccs or infantry and heavy weapon squads.

3. The army might have difficulty with some MEQ swarmy armies, like a blood claw heavy list or khorne bezerkers. Or bikers/similiar models that they will not get the charge on and will only wound on 6's.

4. any walker in close combat will lock up the squad for the entire game, walkers absolutely must be cut down before they reach CC

5. While very strong, some psychic powers and weapons can annihilate the squads, dreads can tie them up all game, and they can be rather expensive on a per-unit basis.

6. Dont bother with special weapons too much on the big blobs, you usually don't get to fire them

7. take straken or CREEEEEED, I would suggest putting them in a chimera for a mobile command bunker but it doesn't matter that much.

8. IG swarms are pretty good but shuffling around small upgrades on large numbers of squads to figure out what is effecient for you is how the army works, so it will take some tuning and getting used to it.

2000 points usually, with that going up at 'Ard Boyz time. Sometimes lower, but those are usually team tourney where he just splits his list and finds a partner.

He isn't taking any heavy weapon squads, just the heavy weapons the different units, Infrantry Squad, CCS, and PCS can take.

We figured dreads could be a problem, and have 3 metla bombs per blob, so a decent chance for a hit, about 50/50.

Commisars are in every squad for morale.

Both Straken and Creed have been reconmended and I'm going to talk with him about including them.

Are power weapons needed in the squads? With all the guardsmen there shouldn't they put wounds on by number? Especially considering no squad will make it to them undamaged.

arinnoor wrote:2000 points usually, with that going up at 'Ard Boyz time. Sometimes lower, but those are usually team tourney where he just splits his list and finds a partner.

He isn't taking any heavy weapon squads, just the heavy weapons the different units, Infrantry Squad, CCS, and PCS can take.

We figured dreads could be a problem, and have 3 metla bombs per blob, so a decent chance for a hit, about 50/50.

Commisars are in every squad for morale.

Both Straken and Creed have been reconmended and I'm going to talk with him about including them.

Are power weapons needed in the squads? With all the guardsmen there shouldn't they put wounds on by number? Especially considering no squad will make it to them undamaged.

the power weapons provide the 3-4 wounds that can't be saved. it's how they wittle down the opposition.
it's a doable list. the last tourney i was in, an IG player running a foot list won. and i'd consider having some HWT
in there. if all HW are in the blob squads they might be not very useful if they move all the time. just protect them!

arinnoor wrote:
Are power weapons needed in the squads? With all the guardsmen there shouldn't they put wounds on by number? Especially considering no squad will make it to them undamaged.

they aren't /needed/ but you are pretty much guarenteed to win just about every combat, as opposed to just tying the unit up, and they are /cheap/ probably much cheaper than what you are spending on special weapons you won't get to use.

In practice:
What I do is run a priest near the middle of 2 blobs intersecting, if one is going to charge i'll attach him to that squad and assault with creed giving furious charge, many of these guys aren't reaching combat, but I put heavy weapons near the front along with the sarges, if a heavy weapon makes base contact, he has a nice 2" globe of more men in combat. one trick is making sure the priest is far enough back to not get engaged in the first round of combat.

Now, lets say half of the 30 man blob (what i use) reach combat against space marines. 4's to hit, 4's to wound (furious charge which /is/ required) some off the top of my head mathhammer
25 attacks from infantry, 15 hits, 7.5 wounds, like 2ish dead marine
16 attacks from sergents/commisars, 8 hits, 4 wounds, like half a dead marine
or with rerolls
25 attacks, ~22 hits, 11 wounds, ~3 dead marines
16 attacks, 12 hits, 6 wounds, ~2 dead marines

but if you gave them power weapons, that would be 5 total casualties without, or 9 casualties with rerolls. So when you lose the furious bonus and wound on 5/6's, there's only the broken shambles of the unit left to try and last to your next turn.

So look at it from the offenders view, you either move up and get assaulted by a hundred units that are going to wipe your butt out, or you sit back and get outshot, with power weapons its a lose/lose. Without the power weapons, your guys might be able to mob down a unit eventually, but with them you might wipe out a slightly weakened unit in a single combat phase, or at worst, in 2 and you are ready by your next shooting phase to open up on something new or assault again, for me, getting a blob tied up in combat for a few rounds instead of one is going to cost me alot more than the 40 points in power weapons in the shooting that I lose by bringing the unit down by attrition.

Hmm, I can see the use of power weapons. They could make it in, maybe those priests as well.

I will only run one priest per 2 blobs and keep them in groups of 2 blobs, if you can't spare the points, cut the priests not the power weapons!

When you run an infantry shooty list its easy to be timid with them and expect them to be fragile, but as i'm finding out for 40 points you can turn one of your shooty blobs into a close combat juggernaught that can finish the job against virtually anything if the enemy gets within rapid fire range.

What is your opinion of a Psyker Battle Squad in an army like this?

Yeah, if you're gonna run big blobs, I'd definitely upgrade them with combat stuff. No amount of S3 attacks brings down a T6 hive tyrant with 6 wounds, 2+ armor save, and chance to regenerate wounds. If you get rid of the save, that's 6 times as much damage done.

A super blob could fit 8 power weapon attacks in every squad of 11 guys. Combine 3 of them that's 24 power weapon attacks on the charge and 27 worthless fodder to be sacrificed before losing any PWs.

It'd be funny to see something like a Bloodthirster or tyranid Hive Tyrant be torn down by that.

Someone should model the guardsmen as Clone Troopers and the commissars/sergeants as Jedi with lightsabers.

TheBloodGod wrote:Yeah, if you're gonna run big blobs, I'd definitely upgrade them with combat stuff. No amount of S3 attacks brings down a T6 hive tyrant with 6 wounds, 2+ armor save, and chance to regenerate wounds. If you get rid of the save, that's 6 times as much damage done.

A super blob could fit 8 power weapon attacks in every squad of 11 guys. Combine 3 of them that's 24 power weapon attacks on the charge and 27 worthless fodder to be sacrificed before losing any PWs.

Yeah, but the extra commisars are a waste, you really only want 1, i'd rather pay 60 pts for 10 extra bodies and a power weapon than 45(iirc) for a commisar and a power sword.

My favorite has been a unit of 15 khorne bezerkers charged into my 56 man blob, tore down about 40 of them and then were in turn wiped out by the power weapons, its like assaulting a wall of pudding, you just can't kill enough of them XD.

another fun trick is letting the commisar get poached in close combat and then the unit swept to leave them open to a round of firepower next turn


as for psycher battle squads, its up to you to experiment, they can be super powerful against things your blobs cant handle like nob bikers but remember spending points on something besides bodies and weapons could be points wasted, you reach a cliff at some point where if you had more guns you would be better off than having better models. Since you aren't running many pinning weapons they won't be quite as effective as with a normal IG list.
I personally run my infantry swarms with a heavy backing of griffons or autocannon hydras for heavy indirect fire support against anything that can threaten the blobs.

I posted up my friend's list in the army list section. Is this the kinda thing you were talking about?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/318570.page

so, I've played with power blobs a lot. Here are the results.

infantry only is pretty tough to beat, but it is NOT unbeatable. I've had a lot of losses due to pretty terrible luck myself, but there are a couple games that were lost due to liabilities in the style.

The real question isn't will it always win, but is it fun for him to play. If it is, then have him go for it, as it's a fluffy list that can actually win stuff.

We are expecting to win every game, but as long as it can hold it own with competitive lists we should be fine. By competitive lists I do mean the 'ardest, 0 comp, super cheesy lists.

arinnoor wrote:We are expecting to win every game, but as long as it can hold it own with competitive lists we should be fine. By competitive lists I do mean the 'ardest, 0 comp, super cheesy lists.

The best part about these lists is they are usually tuned to deal with mech, and as long as you can weather some rocket launchers you will be fine, every plasma gun, meltagun and lascannon on the board is basically wasted points against you

I know isn't it great.

Are there any armies or particular builds that any of you noticed does well against this list? Or others like it?

Above point is true.

Often I grab a fistfull of plasma/meltaguns in my lists because I never find anyone fielding a true horde army.

Every single game, they bring either vehicles, monstrous creatures, or expensive power-armor stuff, all of which calls for heavy guns.

First thing that comes to mind when I think non mech all infantry IG is a Straken power blob list like this one

Company Command Squad, Straken, 2 Bodyguards, astropath medic, camo cloaks 3 meltas.

Platoon Command 4 meltas
3-4 x Infantry Squad Power weapon melta bombs on sarge, las cannon
1 x Infantry Squad Power weapon on sarge, las cannon, commisar with power weapon

Platoon Command 4 meltas
3-4 x Infantry Squad Power weapon melta bombs on sarge, las cannon
1 x Infantry Squad Power weapon on sarge, las cannon, commisar with power weapon

Platoon Command Al Raheem 4 Meltas (Outflanking Platoon)
3-4 x Infantry Squad power weapon melta bombs on sarge, Melta Gun
1 x Infantry Squad power weapon on sarge, Melta Gun, commisar with power weapon.

At higher points you can add more Platoons like the first one. You can only have 1 Al raheem outflanking platoon.

The idea is that Straken gives furious charge and counter attack to those 2-3 huge platoons with lots of power weapons in them so you are strength 4 on the charge and get 2 attacks even if you get charged. All those power weapon attacks add up and even if you lose combat you are stubborn on a 9 and have 40-50 bodies. Straken can give 2 bring it down orders to the platoons at leadership 9 because of commisar to fire off 4-5 las cannons to kill vehicles. If vehicles get close you have platoon commands who are mixed in with your infantry blob for cover to kill them with melta guns and then you assault the contents with the big blobs with lots of of power weapons.

The Al Raheem outflanking platoon is for getting the enemy objective. It has meltas for killing vehicles. The melta bombs in the squads are in case you have to assault vehicles or if a dreadnought decides to assault you you have a chance of killing it.

If you can find the points for it you can run a Psyker Battle squad its really good vs nob bikers and other death stars as well as squads that hang back and shoot like lootas and long fangs.

arinnoor wrote:I know isn't it great.

Are there any armies or particular builds that any of you noticed does well against this list? Or others like it?

I've predominantly run infantry+artillery at higher points, and I've had a few legitimate problems, including a BA drop pod army of doom, and some late turn eldar skimmer spam shenanigans. Also, night shields on DE raider spam against an army that relies heavily on melta is obnoxious.

Otherwise, guard horde armies are just so durable that it's really hard to kill them entirely. Not to say I can't imagine a few ways it can't be done.

Yeah, an army like BA that can garnatuee there power armored guys drop close does seem like an issue, but since the blobs can, more or less, handle them I think it can work out. I'll have to make sure we get some games on to test that though.

Another question though do mission types help or hurt the army? Killpoints, Capture and Control seem silly and in the Guards favor, while I am warry of Seize Ground. Also are deployment types a problem at all? Is deploying the army a pain, cause of all the models?

arinnoor wrote:I know isn't it great.

Are there any armies or particular builds that any of you noticed does well against this list? Or others like it?

A full on Immolator spam list can give a list like this fits. You probably won't be able to kill all 11 of them before they get close enough to Hflame you. With smoke I think you can kill half, but a foot list getting hit with multiple heavy flamer templates + the girls flamers and heavy flamers.... Yeah, its could be bad if you don't get first turn. Another concern is the deep strike lists that bring template weapons. Stern guard with a couple of combi flamers, librarians with template powers, DS HF/MM speeders, Hflamer armed dreds, daemons with breath spam. Or armies that deep strike lots of durable CC units. Like blood angels with their decent of angels assault units.

I think that a well built BA list is going to be one of the harder to play against as Infantry Guard... Things like the Storm Raven allowing them to throw a DC DN with the talons of eternal HtH and another squad of say, DC at another target(s) all while still being able to shoot at two other targets... Or the Vanguard Vets assaulting directly from drop... They'll probably die to a decent power blob, but they'll hold you in place long enough for the rest of the lads to get into position...

That said, proper spacing as you set up to receive the charges will probably make it so you CAN allow him to grind his army to bits while you (hopefully) get in enough shots to take them down... That and I've always been a fan of heavy weapons :-)

i love IG blobs!

Blobs are always risky to run...because sometimes you run into a unit that can wipe them in two turns...

But the great thing is...you can choose to blob or not...make sure you always have the option and availability of setting up your units so that they are effective when not blobbed...i like multiple commisars...

I finding it hard to imagine squads that can wipe a blob in a turn or two. I only see a couple of armies that have that kinda power and ability, BA and Daemons come to mind. Walkers I could careless about, as if i don't someone kill them in shooting each blob has roughly a 50% chance to hit with a melta bomb and that should do something. If something drops close enough then I can charge it and either greatly damage it due to the strength and Initiative increase, or at least put a couple of wounds on it.

arinnoor wrote:I finding it hard to imagine squads that can wipe a blob in a turn or two. I only see a couple of armies that have that kinda power and ability, BA and Daemons come to mind. Walkers I could careless about, as if i don't someone kill them in shooting each blob has roughly a 50% chance to hit with a melta bomb and that should do something. If something drops close enough then I can charge it and either greatly damage it due to the strength and Initiative increase, or at least put a couple of wounds on it.

assuming power weapons and hitting+wounding on 3's, you'd need 67 attacks to wipe a 30 man squad
without power weapons you'd need 101
thats an aweful lot of attacks for a unit to put out, so yes, your basic guardsmen will lose to an elite close combat unit (supprise!)

in that case you take a wound on the commisar, and let the unit retreat or get swept, and then gun the unit down.

Stern with full GKT retinue and that also has Holocaust...that's two large templates in one assault.

arinnoor wrote:I finding it hard to imagine squads that can wipe a blob in a turn or two. I only see a couple of armies that have that kinda power and ability, BA and Daemons come to mind. Walkers I could careless about, as if i don't someone kill them in shooting each blob has roughly a 50% chance to hit with a melta bomb and that should do something. If something drops close enough then I can charge it and either greatly damage it due to the strength and Initiative increase, or at least put a couple of wounds on it.

Orks have several ways. 20 boyz charging out of a battlewagon have 80 attacks, generally killing about 25 guardsmen which is most of all but the biggest blobs. Burnas in a battlewagon can easily wipe a blob with their templates of doom (60 ap 5 wounds being fairly typical from one turn of shooting.) Unless the blob has power weapons, khorne berzerkers, grey hunters, and the like will typically come out on top in a few rounds as well.

Blob guard is fairly decent but does get chewed through surprisingly quickly once things start going against them.

The problem the orks will face is getting through the impressive firepower the IG can bring to bear. Both my firend and I know if the orks get there they can beat a blob. So he simple will try his hardest to make sure the orks don't arive unharmed. Burnas would be a little harder. I usually don't get a good shot in till turn 2-3 depending on where they setup. Considering the range he has he could setup on the backedge and still aim at me. 3-4 Turns to get a shot off gives him time to take down a battle wagon easy.

After discussing it with him we both agree that power weapons are very important to the army to overcome things like marines, as they can pod or DS in too close. Now those power weapons don't give them the ability to rock everything in close combat, but if they get the charge they can midigate a good bit of damage against MEQs, by killing quite a few.

ductvader wrote:Stern with full GKT retinue and that also has Holocaust...that's two large templates in one assault.

Thats a unit full of awesome that will obviously roll a big squad of 5 point uselessness