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I think that a heavy flamer or inferno cannon could wipe out that squad very easily. Cover saves are great, but are easy to negate, just like armor save.

Vets on foot can do ok, but they are squishy bodies on the ground without too may models to pass out the wounds.

Conscripts are cheaper than a lot of people think. Infantry squads will need a special and a PW to work, that's 70 points - 7 points a man. Conscripts are 4.
41 man blob vs 41 man conscripts (with LC, camo cloak and PF) works out at 325 vs 250 points.
Now it's true (and obvious) that the conscripts can't dish out PW attacks or threaten vehicles with melta (though in a blob they're more of a deterrant than a threat, given the low mobility), but they still hit most things on 4s in CC, and they're just as difficult to kill. You essentially get an extra 10 wounds.
Obviously the brunt should be platoons, but conscripts have their worth.

Testify wrote:Conscripts are cheaper than a lot of people think. Infantry squads will need a special and a PW to work, that's 70 points - 7 points a man. Conscripts are 4.
41 man blob vs 41 man conscripts (with LC, camo cloak and PF) works out at 325 vs 250 points.
Now it's true (and obvious) that the conscripts can't dish out PW attacks or threaten vehicles with melta (though in a blob they're more of a deterrant than a threat, given the low mobility), but they still hit most things on 4s in CC, and they're just as difficult to kill. You essentially get an extra 10 wounds.
Obviously the brunt should be platoons, but conscripts have their worth.

I don't think anyone takes 41 man blobs. Or PF, or LC or camo cloaks. I'm pretty sure the standard setup is two infantry squads with a power weapon for the sergent, a special weapon, and one commisar with a power weapon between them. Conscripts can't take commisars in the unit, and if i recall, their leadership is 6 (or it might even be 5, i can't remember) so they really need the help. Also, they are only ws and bs 2, so against all spacemarines, orks, DE, eldar aspects, cc daemons, and a plethora of other things, they hit on a 5+, and their shooting is only a 5+. from what I have heard, the only decent thing that they can do is to take a unit with chenkov's send in the next wave, and use it to perma-hold an objective, or as a speed bump for your artillary.

loota boy wrote:

Testify wrote:Conscripts are cheaper than a lot of people think. Infantry squads will need a special and a PW to work, that's 70 points - 7 points a man. Conscripts are 4.
41 man blob vs 41 man conscripts (with LC, camo cloak and PF) works out at 325 vs 250 points.
Now it's true (and obvious) that the conscripts can't dish out PW attacks or threaten vehicles with melta (though in a blob they're more of a deterrant than a threat, given the low mobility), but they still hit most things on 4s in CC, and they're just as difficult to kill. You essentially get an extra 10 wounds.
Obviously the brunt should be platoons, but conscripts have their worth.

I don't think anyone takes 41 man blobs. Or PF, or LC or camo cloaks. I'm pretty sure the standard setup is two infantry squads with a power weapon for the sergent, a special weapon, and one commisar with a power weapon between them. Conscripts can't take commisars in the unit, and if i recall, their leadership is 6 (or it might even be 5, i can't remember) so they really need the help. Also, they are only ws and bs 2, so against all spacemarines, orks, DE, eldar aspects, cc daemons, and a plethora of other things, they hit on a 5+, and their shooting is only a 5+. from what I have heard, the only decent thing that they can do is to take a unit with chenkov's send in the next wave, and use it to perma-hold an objective, or as a speed bump for your artillary.

a)Good luck taking 21 man blobs against any dedicated assault army
b)You've ignored everything I said and simply disregarded my alternative as "unused"
c)I explicitly said take the LC with the conscripts
d)They will hit WS 4 and below on 4s, not 5s

The argument of powerblobs versus dedicated assault units comes up very often on here. But what a lot of people do not take into account is that it is not one powerblob of 21 men versus a dedicated assaulted unit. It is often more than one.

Conscripts are ok for what you get. But in order to truly take advantage of them you need Chenkov to give them send in the next wave. Along with the max number of conscripts or close. With that you also need a LC not with them but with another unit within 6" to give them his leadershp 10. That way you tie up an opponents unit and then kill them on your turn and have them assault once again.

I tried ths last game I played against some paladins and they did well, but it was a very situational unit. Whereas powerblobs offer everything you need is a nice neat package that can move around and stubborn cannot be taken out of until the last man.

Plus side:

Casualties hardly matter. Commissars make them stubborn. They put out immense volumes of fire that even at lower str makes peeople cry. Creed in particular is an absolute necessity for such a list. For the Honour of Cadia. Special Weapons squads up the yin-yang. They cost a lot (money), and they do a lot.

Downsides:

Not very mobile so you GOTTA have a good dce day cause its a little unlikely that you'll reach the rear objective on single objective missions without giving some on the "fully foot" idea.
Also, Torpedoes like Castellan Crowe are enormously effective against the foot IG. Drop pod walls can make for a very sad bunch of IG, since the IG can kill the pods while the stuff behind them still gets to come out and play. They also are generally sad when an AV 13 Dreadnought shows up. ooofta. Real bad.

So in other words, their like almost every other build: they can be beaten and they can beat people. Which is just fine if you ask me.

I guess my question with foot guard after hearing other players complain is, are they fun? Standing and rolling dice with little movement if any sounds... dull. I won't like. I think I need a little more from my gaming experiences than FoorGuard can provide. But then I cut my teeth on Tau so I WOULD say that I spose.

IamM4nny wrote:I agree with all of this, however a tactic I have recently been using and have found to be very effective is to use veterans (3+ to hit which dramaticly increases amount of possible kill for 10 more points!) give some lascannons and camo cloaks at stick them in a building that's 3+ to hit with 8 las guns and a las cannon with a 3 plus cover save!!!

Tell me what you think!

Feth head stole my Avatar! And gave poor tactical advice. Took me a second to realise it wasn't my post
I used to use my Vet's the same way when i first started playing... It's a huge point sink for ONE BS 4 Lascannon with a 3+ Cover Save. Take advantage of your Veteran's ability to pack 3 Special Weapons and/or put Heavy Weapon Teams in you Platoon Infantry Squads, combine them and add a Commissar to make them Ld 9 and Stubborn

Back on Topic:
My main problem with an Infantry Based Gun Line is that other than the Heavy Weapon Teams your blobs' max range is 24" and to be honest it's only really at 12" that they throw out enough shots to truely threaten most targets but nothing gets inside 12" against a static gun line that doesn't want to. Your blobs are stationary and although your fire out put can be devastating your opponent has full run of the majority of the table top both allowing them to avoid the majority of your fire power and effectively target your sitting duck blobs with their counter units. Also it seems like every damn army is across the board and in your face turn 2 at the latest these days and good Close Combat units don't give a poop about how many WS3 S3 units you have in a blob even with Power Weapons.
Deployment is a big issue too. You need to grab as much area terrain/cover as possible while maintaing good line of sight and you want to spread out to avoid being templated but the more you spread out the less models you can get into combat when they are Assaulted not to mention the stress of working out where to place your few Power Weapons in the blob to have them be useful if/when you are charged.

I'm not against having blobs in a Gun Line list i just think the primary focus should be on the Artillery and Tanks you use to support them.

Peace Out!
Jonny!

Testify wrote:

loota boy wrote:

Testify wrote:Conscripts are cheaper than a lot of people think. Infantry squads will need a special and a PW to work, that's 70 points - 7 points a man. Conscripts are 4.
41 man blob vs 41 man conscripts (with LC, camo cloak and PF) works out at 325 vs 250 points.
Now it's true (and obvious) that the conscripts can't dish out PW attacks or threaten vehicles with melta (though in a blob they're more of a deterrant than a threat, given the low mobility), but they still hit most things on 4s in CC, and they're just as difficult to kill. You essentially get an extra 10 wounds.
Obviously the brunt should be platoons, but conscripts have their worth.

I don't think anyone takes 41 man blobs. Or PF, or LC or camo cloaks. I'm pretty sure the standard setup is two infantry squads with a power weapon for the sergent, a special weapon, and one commisar with a power weapon between them. Conscripts can't take commisars in the unit, and if i recall, their leadership is 6 (or it might even be 5, i can't remember) so they really need the help. Also, they are only ws and bs 2, so against all spacemarines, orks, DE, eldar aspects, cc daemons, and a plethora of other things, they hit on a 5+, and their shooting is only a 5+. from what I have heard, the only decent thing that they can do is to take a unit with chenkov's send in the next wave, and use it to perma-hold an objective, or as a speed bump for your artillary.

a)Good luck taking 21 man blobs against any dedicated assault army
b)You've ignored everything I said and simply disregarded my alternative as "unused"
c)I explicitly said take the LC with the conscripts
d)They will hit WS 4 and below on 4s, not 5s

So, if you are taking the lord commisar to counter-act leadership for your conscripts, now you are looking at spending an extra HQ slot, and an extra 80 points to get an extra 10 bodies... not that great. You lose what you gained in point cost for spending on a mandatory HQ. Gaurd are independent.

What do you think of this?

Replied in that thread.

IamM4nny wrote:Tell me what you think!

I think I wouldn't bother with the camo cloaks. Probably just three special weapons and a heavy.

The point of foot vets in a foot horde is to be able to throw down some firepower that actually has some staying power (compared to HWSs and SWSs). Having double the abblative wounds already handles this. Making their cover save better through camo makes them more expensive than more durable.

Lothar wrote:Power blobs are not a competitive choice

Clearly you've never seen a competent power blob commander. Power blobs are plenty viable both in theory and in practice.

Testify wrote:Conscripts are cheaper than a lot of people think. Infantry squads will need a special and a PW to work, that's 70 points - 7 points a man.

This is certainly true, but conscripts are much, much worse. Conscripts really don't do very much more than die. Useful in certain builds, certainly, but you really can't expect them to kill much, or survive much against shooting, or at all against the faintest whiff of close combat. Sure, you can include a lord commissar, but then you have to include that into the cost of the conscript squad, which makes them lose the only thing that conscripts had going for them (their cheap price), without really adding all that much more.

Ailaros wrote:

Testify wrote:Conscripts are cheaper than a lot of people think. Infantry squads will need a special and a PW to work, that's 70 points - 7 points a man.

This is certainly true, but conscripts are much, much worse. Conscripts really don't do very much more than die. Useful in certain builds, certainly, but you really can't expect them to kill much, or survive much against shooting, or at all against the faintest whiff of close combat. Sure, you can include a lord commissar, but then you have to include that into the cost of the conscript squad, which makes them lose the only thing that conscripts had going for them (their cheap price), without really adding all that much more.

The hit the same as regular guard, and they're just as tricky to kill. I also included the cost of the LC in my above comparison, and stated that conscripts support blobs, not replace them. You still need the PW attacks of blobs to wear the enemy down, but if you can get the charge off with a mob of conscripts, there's very little will be able to kill them all in a few turns.

I do see people say infantry heavy guard are immobile and a bit dull. I have to disagree to both!

I dont blob squad mine, I find that assualt armies and the deep striking armies that I often face struggle to cope with a large number of smaller squads backed with a large amount of heavy weapon squads. Sure individual squads will be ripped, but I can usually field alot more of them than the assault army can field units. I played a Chaos army the other week and his 2 deepstriking termie units and charector fared none to well mostly being downed by massed las gun fire, while the rest of his army were picked appart at distance.

And given we tend to play on 4ft wide tables a foot unit can make it accross alot of that table over a game, hardly immobile.

lampy wrote:I do see people say infantry heavy guard are immobile and a bit dull. I have to disagree to both!

Velocifaptor wrote:So how viable is an IG fire line list perhaps with artillery support ect.

A static Gun Line is what we a discussing in this topic.

Peace!

Ailaros wrote:

Lothar wrote:Power blobs are not a competitive choice

Clearly you've never seen a competent power blob commander. Power blobs are plenty viable both in theory and in practice.

I have seen him. I believe you or Grundz can play Blobs very well. I have read all your reports from 5th edition you have on your webside about Folera. From them and from my own experience and from the experience of blob players I know in our FLGS I am sure power blobs are not competitive and are no tournament army. Plus I never saw any power blob player in top of some high-prestige tournament...not lately, not ever. If you want to discuss this further, please PM me, we can talk about it without spamming this thread

lampy wrote:I do see people say infantry heavy guard are immobile and a bit dull. I have to disagree to both!

I dont blob squad mine, I find that assualt armies and the deep striking armies that I often face struggle to cope with a large number of smaller squads backed with a large amount of heavy weapon squads. Sure individual squads will be ripped, but I can usually field alot more of them than the assault army can field units. I played a Chaos army the other week and his 2 deepstriking termie units and charector fared none to well mostly being downed by massed las gun fire, while the rest of his army were picked appart at distance.

And given we tend to play on 4ft wide tables a foot unit can make it accross alot of that table over a game, hardly immobile.

Do you find its easy to give up a lot of KPs using this route?

If your going with 10 man squads, would you use vets to give them a lot more special weapons, or do you just try and keep em as cheap as possible?

RubberJonny wrote:

lampy wrote:I do see people say infantry heavy guard are immobile and a bit dull. I have to disagree to both!

Velocifaptor wrote:So how viable is an IG fire line list perhaps with artillery support ect.

A static Gun Line is what we a discussing in this topic.

Peace!

And? I didnt see the word static in the OP question anywere. Its really in reply to the varying people that say that kind of army list cant move and is dull. The question was how viable was a fire line type list, you can still play aggressive with it and not have a dull game, all valid i feel.

Lothar wrote:I am sure power blobs are not competitive and are no tournament army. Plus I never saw any power blob player in top of some high-prestige tournament...

Yes, but you're making the tragically common mistake of believing that the only places where 40k players are competitive is at tournaments. Furthermore, hordes don't work at tournaments because they don't work at tournaments (because tournaments differ in important ways from real games of 40k), not because they're not competitive.

If you've never seen good blob players at your FLGS, it's probably because you don't have good blob players at your FLGS.

Testify wrote:The hit the same as regular guard, and they're just as tricky to kill.

But both of these aren't true.

As for the fist, infantry platoons are way, way killier against way, way more targets because they can take upgrades. Blobs can take meltaguns, meltabombs, lascannons, and autocannons, which means that they can handle any vehicle in the game. Conscripts' only hope is to take them down with frag grenades, which, in the case of units like walkers, land raiders, and anything faster than you (like skimmers), will end in failure, every time. Meanwhile, blobs can take plasma guns, meltaguns, plasma pistols, lascannons, missile launchers and power weapons, which means that they can handle terminators, HQ baddies, and monstrous creatures. Conscripts have to really hope that their WS2 bayonet stabs and their BS2 flashlights can kill off their targets before its too late. Even against hordes, it's still to the blobs, whose BS is better, and who can bring heavy bolters, and flamers, and power weapons.

I can't think of anything that conscripts, per point, kill better than blobs, while I can list whole classes of units that blobs can handle that conscripts never can. Blobs can be equipped to handle any unit in the game. Conscripts can only ever be equipped to handle things that lasguns can handle.

As for survivability, they only take the edge here against shooting. In close combat, the lord commissar is an independent character. A hell of a beefy independent character, by guard standards, but as ICs are REQUIRED to get into base contact as quickly as they can, they're not immune from being picked out by a single power fist or thunder hammer.

More importantly, with nothing serious to do in damage in return, the squad that's attacking your conscripts will likely get close to its maximum number of attacks every turn, while in the case of a power blob, those power weapons are actually killing stuff, and reducing the opponent's ability to kill stuff back, thus increasing the survivability of the squad.

Conscripts do less damage, and are only situationally more survivable (while in other situations being less), and you have to spend a lot more money on models, time painting them, and time unpacking, deploying, moving, rolling dice, and repacking them to boot.

There's a reason you don't see a lot of conscripts in guard armies. In fact, there are several just right there.

Ailaros wrote:
But both of these aren't true.

As for the fist, infantry platoons are way, way killier against way, way more targets because they can take upgrades. Blobs can take meltaguns, meltabombs, lascannons, and autocannons, which means that they can handle any vehicle in the game. Conscripts' only hope is to take them down with frag grenades, which, in the case of units like walkers, land raiders, and anything faster than you (like skimmers), will end in failure, every time. Meanwhile, blobs can take plasma guns, meltaguns, plasma pistols, lascannons, missile launchers and power weapons, which means that they can handle terminators, HQ baddies, and monstrous creatures. Conscripts have to really hope that their WS2 bayonet stabs and their BS2 flashlights can kill off their targets before its too late. Even against hordes, it's still to the blobs, whose BS is better, and who can bring heavy bolters, and flamers, and power weapons.

I can't think of anything that conscripts, per point, kill better than blobs, while I can list whole classes of units that blobs can handle that conscripts never can. Blobs can be equipped to handle any unit in the game. Conscripts can only ever be equipped to handle things that lasguns can handle.

Not really. They're jack of all trades, master of none. If you give your blobs heavy weapons, you're making them completely immobile - thereby making it difficult to get your power weapons against the enemy in the first place. A BA or Eldar player will very easily be able to out-manoeuvre your blob and assault in way that means those PWs don't get to strike 1 or 2 turns. And the HWTs will suffer like other HWTs do - piss-poor placement, having almost everything in cover, being unable to move to see things out of sight, and rather expensive. The special weapons are handy it's true, though at BS3 and the high price you pay, plus the almost inevitability that they will be spread out and less effective, make them a "more dakka" option than a reliable form of power.
Both of those ignore the main point though, which is not that conscripts do what infantry squads do for cheaper - they don't. But they CAN do something similar for cheaper, i.e. meatgrind. There are times when you need a blob to act as a physical wedge, either to bog down the enemy, or delay them, or deny a flank. Conscripts will do this just as well as regular guard, for less cost. They also have no deadweight, a blob with 3 missile launchers and 3 meltaguns essentially has 60 dead points once it gets into combat (assuming they'll either die or come out of combat too late to shoot again).

Ailaros wrote:
As for survivability, they only take the edge here against shooting. In close combat, the lord commissar is an independent character. A hell of a beefy independent character, by guard standards, but as ICs are REQUIRED to get into base contact as quickly as they can, they're not immune from being picked out by a single power fist or thunder hammer.

Keep him far enough back and he's pretty safe. Once you've charged/piled in, against almost any enemy you will outnumber stupidly and therefore will mob the enemy, denying the LC a chance to get into base-to-base contact, as long as he's 6" away during the initial assault. An exception to this is horde armies, but in general the LC should be able to toe-to-toe with a couple of 'nids/orks anyway.

Ailaros wrote:
More importantly, with nothing serious to do in damage in return, the squad that's attacking your conscripts will likely get close to its maximum number of attacks every turn, while in the case of a power blob, those power weapons are actually killing stuff, and reducing the opponent's ability to kill stuff back, thus increasing the survivability of the squad.

Conscripts do less damage, and are only situationally more survivable (while in other situations being less), and you have to spend a lot more money on models, time painting them, and time unpacking, deploying, moving, rolling dice, and repacking them to boot.

Well 31 man blob with melta guns and PWs is 255, which is the same as LC with 40 conscripts. Now, let's do maths!
Against MEQ, the blob does 27 normal attacks, 13.5 hits, 4.5 hits, 1.5 dead. The PW attacks are 12, 6 hits, 2 dead, for a total of 3.5 dead.
The conscripts (assuming the LC is skulking somewhere nearby and is not being singled out) do 40 attacks, 20 hit, 6.6 wound, 2.2 dead.
So it's true you take a 33% damage reduction...but you also gain 33% more wounds, as well as extra space on the table.
At no point in this thread have I said that conscripts are supposed to replace blob guard - they are not. They are there to support them. To be used as a screen in front of your blobs, for example, or to deny a flank. A conscript mob being assaulted means you have a guaranteed couple of turns to manoeuvre your blob (with attached priest) around and smash the enemy's rear.

Ailaros wrote:

Lothar wrote:I am sure power blobs are not competitive and are no tournament army. Plus I never saw any power blob player in top of some high-prestige tournament...

Yes, but you're making the tragically common mistake of believing that the only places where 40k players are competitive is at tournaments. Furthermore, hordes don't work at tournaments because they don't work at tournaments (because tournaments differ in important ways from real games of 40k), not because they're not competitive.

If you've never seen good blob players at your FLGS, it's probably because you don't have good blob players at your FLGS.

I have never said I have not seen a good blob player. In fact, there is a briliant player at our FLGS, who plays blobs regulary and who had played for many years (from 3th edition I think). But even he knows that in this edition they need to be supported by other things. For example classical chimeras with special weapon units (he uses PCS and CCS because he does not like vets, they are too common for him).

How do you define competitivness? The best thing how to find a competitive player (and competitive army) is to organize a tournament and see who is the winner. If someone (some army type) is winning pretty often (imagine several prestige tournaments) or ends in top then you can say this is a good player/army. How would you define what is competitive and what is not?

Lothar wrote:How do you define competitivness? The best thing how to find a competitive player (and competitive army) is to organize a tournament and see who is the winner. If someone (some army type) is winning pretty often (imagine several prestige tournaments) or ends in top then you can say this is a good player/army. How would you define what is competitive and what is not?

Tournaments are the best way of finding out which armies and players are competitive in a tournament, but not in general. For general, I prefer league play, as it doesn't have all the things that make a tournament game different from a regular game of 40k.

With the correct amount of cover, no draconian time restrictions, and playing the missions as the rules and codices were written for you to play them makes horde armies much more competitive than in environments that change the rules to make hordes less competitive.

Testify wrote:They're jack of all trades, master of none.

You've got it backwards, actually. Conscripts can never master any trade, as they don't have the ability to take tools that allow them to master anything.

Infantry platoons, on the other hand, can BiD autocannons at transports, making them good for long-range anti-transport (a role conscripts have no hope of mastering), or BiDing plasma blobs against monstrous creatures, making them good for short-range MC duty (a role conscripts have no hope of mastering).

Really, with blobs, it's jack of all trades, master at one, where with conscripts it's master of none, so trade out those jacks for something better.

Plus, it doesn't make sense to gripe about an infantry platoon staying static to shoot a heavy weapon, when the infantry squad actually has the ability to take heavy weapons, and thus actually kill stuff. Saying that conscripts are superior because they are unencumbered by heavy weapons is like saying that conscripts are superior for not taking power weapons, because you don't have to bother finding the best Sv to use them against...

Testify wrote:A BA or Eldar player will very easily be able to out-manoeuvre your blob and assault in way that means those PWs don't get to strike 1 or 2 turns.

Testify wrote:Keep him far enough back and he's pretty safe.

You can't have it both ways. Either your opponent is able to maneuver, which means power weapons won't make it in range if your opponent doesn't want them there, but you can't hide your commissar because your opponent will be able to force him into range, or the opposite is true, where it's possible to hide the commissar through good placement, but good placement can likewise make sure power weapons are where they need to be.

Testify wrote:So it's true you take a 33% damage reduction...but you also gain 33% more wounds, as well as extra space on the table.

Against MEq, yes. Now do the math against terminators. Do it against DE venoms. Do it against dreadnoughts. Do it against vendettas, or russes, or land raiders, or scorpions or any of a LOT of things that infantry platoons can handle that conscripts will always struggle against, if they're even able to be effective at all.

Conscripts provide more bodies, but infantry platoons provide way more killing power, which makes them far superior.

Also remember that Autocannons are really cheap (comparably) to add to a blob and don't really hurt it CC abilities that much. The AC is a great weapon and gives the blob a lot of options.

One last thing I forgot. If you're running blobs, you NEED meltas in them. Otherwise people will tankshock you like crazy. They may seem like a "waste" of points, but the moment you leave them out, you'll see why you never take powerblobs without them

If only conscripts could at least take a flamer or heavy flamer, maybe one for every 10 conscripts.
I can see no use for conscripts other than Apoc games or for just plain fluff reasons.

As far as this opinion that HW teams make your blob immobile, I guess I missed that in the rule book "any squad with a HWT can no longer move". LOL. HWTs can get in base to base witha lot of models and in a 31 man blob with 4 power weapons (counting commissar) means they can take a ton of punishment and still dish it out.

I must say I took a lot out of alairos's Posts and battle reports in the past. He knows his tactics and thy are sound. I credit
alairos' advice with the success I have had with guard.

I'm a big fan of infantry only. You get a lot of bang for your buck. Unfortunatly, it doesn't have the staying power of a mixed force. Some would argue against that since you have so many wounds running around.

If you run an infantry only army, you have to make movement a priority. Last minute dashes arn't going to sieze any objectives. Plan ahead and make sure all of you're units have support. The main weakness is that you don't have the speed to react to changes in the game. Example would be a transport is cutting down a powerblob and they've not got any weapons to deal with it. You could usually rely on long distance firepower from tanks or sending some melta vets in a chimera but with a foot list, the game can be over by the time they get there. Work at platoon level if you have to. Make sure that platoon has everything it needs to take an objective, regardless of what it faces.

On the plus side, the sheer ammount of heavy weapons and troops you can squeeze into even the smallest of games can make even an experianced opponant flinch. Most armies are currently made to fight balanced or mech forces. Infantry only throws up the scissors in what at the minute, seems to be a rock-rock-rock contest.

Voxes may take away from weapons but make your leadership passable

Power blobs with commissar and voxes make them pretty much unbreakable.

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:If only conscripts could at least take a flamer or heavy flamer, maybe one for every 10 conscripts.
I can see no use for conscripts other than Apoc games or for just plain fluff reasons.

As far as this opinion that HW teams make your blob immobile, I guess I missed that in the rule book "any squad with a HWT can no longer move". LOL. HWTs can get in base to base witha lot of models and in a 31 man blob with 4 power weapons (counting commissar) means they can take a ton of punishment and still dish it out.

I must say I took a lot out of alairos's Posts and battle reports in the past. He knows his tactics and thy are sound. I credit
alairos' advice with the success I have had with guard.

Add in the fact that cleverly placed heavy weapon bases at the front of a blob can help stretch that 2" you need to pile in on combat. Which is easier to pile in on, a 25mm base, or a 60mm?

That said, I never take 100% pure foot, I always take a few russes as backup for them. Many people at my club fear Leman Russes (for good reason) and so they do a great job of not only attracting fire the blobs would take, but they also dish out serious fire support. Since one of the few things blobs can provide are good blast templates, they help cover a niche that blobs have trouble providing. Throwing a lascannon on them even helps with anti tank duty if your blobs are having trouble and need an extra pinch of firepower.

I run my blobs as two squads with a power weapon, meltagun, and a missile launcher. Plus the commissar with power weapon. I position my blobs in cover and shoot for a 2-3 turns. It usually only takes a turn or two to reach an objective. I also run 3 leman russes, 2 vanilla, 1 exidcutioner (plasma turrent one) or a demolisher. I refuse to run an av 12 hulls. It forces your the enemy to waste his s9> on 5pt guardsmen.

The meltas are essential or your going to be tank shocked like crazy. Plus they make walkers think twice before trying to assult

Deceiver wrote:I'm a big fan of infantry only. You get a lot of bang for your buck. Unfortunatly, it doesn't have the staying power of a mixed force.
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On the plus side, the sheer ammount of heavy weapons and troops you can squeeze into even the smallest of games can make even an experianced opponant flinch. Most armies are currently made to fight balanced or mech forces. Infantry only throws up the scissors in what at the minute, seems to be a rock-rock-rock contest.

In my opinion the infantry only army is the direct opposite to what you said. Your firepower is much lower than the firepower of mechanized guard or hybrid army and your staying power is greater then theirs. Infantry only army pays many points for extra wounds and only few points for strong weapons. Example - infantry blob with some heavy weapons - you can pay 245 points for 30-man, commissar and 3 lascannons...mechanized army has no problem to take 2 vendettas for similar cost. With infantry, you do not "get a lot of bang for your buck". You get a lot of bodies for your buck.
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The sheer ammount of heavy weapons you can squeeze into even the smallest of games has lower firepower then the toys the mechanized guard would take...The only way to have many Heavy weapons for low cost, is to take Heavy weapon team squads (75 points for ACs, 105 for LCs). In infantry only army I really do not recommend to do that. They will be the first target for opponents heavy weapons (to instakill them - ACs or Scatter lasers or Shuriken canons or Tau missile pods just love HWT and even for missile launchers and LCs those teams make a good target). Another thing is, they have the survivability lower than AV 12 vehicles (and same or lower firepower - AC HWT is worse then Hydra, LC HWT is much worse then Vendetta).

I am not saying infantry army is crap to play, you have some advantages over mechs and hybrids, but you certainly do not have the advantage of firepower.

I disagree with you probably because, as you pointed out, I use a lot of HWT. You may not reccomend them but I certainly would. For example, I could pay 150 points on vehicle based autocannons in the form of the exterminator at 150 points. At 75pts I could get a unit of three auto cannons. Admittedly, most would go for the hydra instead.

You get more infantry based firepower for the points than in vehicles because you're not paying for the armor value. The main draw back is you don't get to use the biggest of guns, ordnance and such. Seconded with the lack of transport. But that doesn't mean you can't get overwhelming firepower for a range of different targets. At 140pts you can get two PCS with x4 melta guns. What vehicle will bring the equivelent of x8 melta gun shots? The manticore does well as a tank hunter at 160pts. Vanquisher which is no where near that kind of firepower at 155pts. Plus you can BiD the PCS. Increasing firepower further. The downside been you need a delivery method and the units won't be as durable as vehicles.

This has two consequences,

1. You have more firepower but without vehicle assistance, delivery is much harder and the troops are more exposed. This increases the chances of them been wiped out before hitting their inteded target.

2. Because the units are cheaper, you can take far more to give better coverage. This helps offset the loss of single units.

The key to a good infantry only force is careful placement of units, ensuring that if you lose one unit, you have another nearby that can fill in the gap. And secondly, making use of deployment and movement options such as the ones stormtroopers come with. You may have more bodies and guns, but they're far more vulnerable.