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The power blob sounds like it might have some merit...I've been trying to come up with ideas for an assaulty unit for my army, and that sounds like it might just fit the bill.

I've only lost my 30-man blob in CC one time. It was an attrition fight against a squad of chaos marines, a squad of khorne berzerkers, and a chaos sorcerer. Even with pretty abysmal rolling and some of the power weapons out of position, they ground the chaos units down to just the khorne champ and the sorcerer (who made a huge number of invulnerable saves). Dedicated units with 3+ attacks per model--like berzerkers--do tend to overcome the huge numbers. If it had been only 20 guys, they wouldn't have done that well.

Most of the time, the 30-man blob eats whatever it touches that isn't a walker. But it is right at the edge of unwieldy; I can't see how I'd manage a blob of 40.

Flavius Infernus wrote:I've only lost my 30-man blob in CC one time. It was an attrition fight against a squad of chaos marines, a squad of khorne berzerkers, and a chaos sorcerer. Even with pretty abysmal rolling and some of the power weapons out of position, they ground the chaos units down to just the khorne champ and the sorcerer (who made a huge number of invulnerable saves). Dedicated units with 3+ attacks per model--like berzerkers--do tend to overcome the huge numbers. If it had been only 20 guys, they wouldn't have done that well.

Most of the time, the 30-man blob eats whatever it touches that isn't a walker. But it is right at the edge of unwieldy; I can't see how I'd manage a blob of 40.

Agreed with the size. I've run Al'Rahem with 30 guys, and they have never been taken out. They've been taken down to 6 guys, but were still standing on the objective in the last turn. 20 seems to be a bit on the weak side, to me, maybe if you use more than one blob at the time, 20 is a better number. 30 is unwieldy though, blast/template weapons are a pain, terrain can cause issues etc, so I totally agree that I would never have 40 guys in there. I think they can work in the 20-30 guys range.

I disagree with the size.

I find that a 30-man blob doesn't provide enough bodies and can too easily be focus fired down to a, for me, useless size.
40-man is my preferred size.
In my Assault Guard Army I have two 40-man power blobs and a single 30-man power blob (no Priests anywhere) supported by Straken. While he can only be in one place, I find that he can easily boost two blobs with some considered movement.

I find they work fine in that size-range. And yes, we do use plenty of terrain. Actually I think we use more than the recommended 25 %.

I find 30-man squads perfectly acceptable. Twenty often feels insufficient and easy to whittle down to inadequacy. Forty tends to be quite expensive, and for me at least, hard to maneuver on the battlefield.

I use two types of blob squads: I like using thirty with a commissar and autocannon teams to hold objectives, destroy enemy transports, and provide bubble-wrap/tarpit screens for my artillery and heavy support tanks. Special weapons tend to be GLs, or if I have the points, plasma guns. Alternatively, if I have Creed and/or Al'Raheem in the army, I like to outflank a mob of 30 with commissar, armed with meltaguns and power weapons.

Ailaros wrote:
As for the priest v. another squad with a power weapon. 12 rerollable power weapon hits puts down 9 power weapon hits. 16 regular power weapon attacks puts down 8 hits.

Of course, this assumes you get to charge with a large, unwieldy unit with no transport options. And in subsequent rounds the Priest becomes either a 60-point dead weight sitting in the back of the squad, or a liability as he is swiftly killed and gives up a KP.