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After getting my butt handed to me this weekend by a sisters of battle army, I decided to reevaluate my army list.

Using three troop choices, there is a chimera'd plasma vet, a chimera'd melta vet, a chimera'd melta PCS, and two power blobs. The game was annihilation, dawn of war.

Now, I probably should have taken the second blob out of cover sooner to assualt with, but past that are there effective strategies for mixing power blobs with Mechanized infantry? Is it ever a good option to try to mix the two?

Why is this a poll? Why not just ask the question?

What size army are we talking about here? It's possible to fit 8-10 vehicles into a 1500 point list and still have room for a blob.

Nominally 1500, but the question is more general.

Yes, but you don't want a 50/50 mix of the two styles. I use a single blob in games of up to 2000 points as objective holders and ablative armor for my artillery. The rest of the list is mechanized, but that small blob element is crucial to my success.

Yeah, I use a blob of 30 in my mech army to keep the enemy off my tanks and to claim objectives in my deployment zone.

I use combined arms tactics in my mixed army. The artillery is there to deal damage--either to the biggest threat, or to enemy artillery if there is any. The chimeras with special weapons in them and medium tanks (I use devil dogs) open transports so the artillery can kill the contents, or finish off wounded monsters/deathstars in midfield. The infantry holds ground and keeps assaults and melta away from my artillery.

It works well because you have threats at all ranges against a wide variety of opposing armies. If your opponent tries to stand off and outshoot you, you pound him with your artillery. If he tries to hold the midfield or move in with transports, you roll up with your tanks and special weapons and blow him away. If he tries to close and assault (which is what used to always work 100% of the time against guard, but not anymore thanks to blobs), the blob catches and tarpits/grinds away the assault troops. Infantry protects the artillery, artillery protects the AFVs, and the AFVs protect the infantry.

Yeah, there's nothing that says that half mech half blob armies can't work. Bonus points if your solution includes Al'Rahem outflanking with a bunch of chimeras.

The advantage of blob armies is their rugged durability and their raw killing power over time. The advantage of mech armies is that it gives your special weapons longer range, which means they can apply more damage up front.

I'd use the mech portion of the list for the same purpose that I'd use artillery here: to soften up your opponent before your blobs slam into them. They won't do this job quite as well as artillery, but they gain the other benefit of field presence (you're keeping your forces more concentrated, and eating up more space in the middle of the field), and they will be MUCH better at picking off stragglers that your blobs weren't able to finish off.

Half and half armies fail to achieve saturation. At most, the infantry shouldn't be more than 1/3rd of your total forces, heavy support and mobile special weapons being the other 1/3rds.

Although I could imagine a infantry+mech that is based mostly around infantry. 4 power blobs, 4 mechvets and chimeras for the officers + al'rahem would make a pretty mean 1850 point list.

In this case, the mech forces ARE the support units.

Certainly. The key point is, you need saturation of something, whether it's infantry or armor. Trying to achieve both usually amounts to achieving neither.

Yeah, unless you were taking chimeras only with infantry platoons. Then you'd have a lot of dudes AND a lot of chimeras. Of course, you would also have virtually no killing power...

Otherwise, you're just going to have to live with one of the two sides not having enough to saturate in its own right and be willing to accept near total losses if it means your main force actually gets the job done.

And really, total losses rarely happen, although they are perfectly acceptable if they do. With the meta being so mech-heavy, very few people add elements to deal with hordes. I don't remember the last time I saw a Space Marine squad without 2 meltas and a power fist.