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Ailaros wrote:Blobs required commissars. Without being able to reliably keep your commissars alive, you are now unreliably fielding blobs. So much, so, that if blobs are going to only sometimes exist and sometimes not, it's not really a viable strategy anymore, at least against players who know what they're doing. The only way to solve this is to spend a fortune on commissars - one per squad, rather than one per combined squad.

Or, like me, you can free up all those points previously locked into commissars. 3 power weapon commies taken out basically means a free russ!

You exaggerate their vulnerability. If you're super worried, don't bother giving them an upgrade at all and just stick them in the very back of the unit. Ranged weapons will be either out of range, or if they manage a precise shot, you still have the Look Out Sir! roll. In melee, if they aren't engaged, they can't be targeted with precision attacks.

Omegus wrote:If you're super worried, don't bother giving them an upgrade at all and just stick them in the very back of the unit. Ranged weapons will be either out of range, or if they manage a precise shot, you still have the Look Out Sir! roll. In melee, if they aren't engaged, they can't be targeted with precision attacks.

But then why bother taking commissars at all? The most important part of commissars is stubborn, which won't work when they get precise striked out of close combat. If you keep them too far back, then those precise strikes will kill dudes with power weapons instead, meaning that your power blob just got de-fanged in the one turn before your commissar is forced into base contact with something. Power blobs worked by attrition, and that ability is now gone.

In which case, what is even the point of commissars? You're not going to beat anything in close combat, which means you're now mostly just gaining the reroll to morale, which can be handled much more cheaply with a standard. If the flag-carrier is picked out, then it's still not that big of a deal, as you can just get back in the fight, or if they're out of range, rallying is still a lot easier.

If commissars don't really have much use anymore, then there's not much of a reason to take them. If you're not taking commissars, you're not taking blobs.

Welcome to a new world of blobless guard.

It seems to me that using massed infantry has both gained and lost.

+ Overwatch adds a nice defensive element to your soldiers, especially with flamers. Additionally the optional cover that you can deploy yourself lets you get some assured cover and (if I'm not mistaken) gives a close combat benefit concerning initiative.
+ The new power weapons as such are nice, since they allow you to get some nice strength bonuses with power axes or mauls and what not.
+ Also, to address the benefit of challenges before it's downsides, you can now simply challenge enemy sergeants and beatsticks into single combat with one of your petty sergeants. If you're lucky and the enemy has some sort of power fist or slow weapon and your sergeant has a power weapon, you might kill him, which is nice, but not the best part. The best part is that if that enemy is awesomely strong, all of his attacks that would otherwise slaughter your guardsmen are now wasted on a simple sergeant. Sure that means you "lose" combat, but that will happen anyways and that's what your commissar is there for. This assures you to distract enemy sergeants and the like for as long as your sergeants last, in which time your regular lads and remaining sergeants can deal with the actual squad. It's not much, but hey, lets make the best out of this
+Next there is the sniping of models. Yes this is far greater a downside then an actual benefit since we can shield our pretty heavy weapons and commissars behind walls of guardsmen, but a good general will turn this to his advantage!... somehow. Well this is how: We IG get a friggin awesome amount of cheap snipers (rattlings) and pie plates that can snipe out those who are dear to our enemy. Besides we bring everything, including special weapons and officers en masse; that doesn't apply to our enemy. Once you knock the heavy weapons and power weapons out of those enemy squads, you will still have a good (melee) advantage. All you got to do is get to their (few) special lads before they get to yours.

Now the long awaited and maybe far more numerous cons:
- Furious charge loses the +1 ini! I know this is a small thing but it pisses me of! Straken used to turn my 30 guardsmen into 30 charging marines! Without this bonus and with the addition of overwatch, it's better to just sit back and shoot rather than assault... at least in most cases.
- Sniping models allows to get rid of our commissars making our troops rather ineffective in close combat.
- Doing wound allocation from front to back means we can't keep swinging our power weapons and losing regular lads... this drastically reduces our damage output. I figured that one might counter this by placing our sergeants in the middle of the blobs so that, given that we go second initiative wise, by the time the enemy's attacks have been resolved, our first rank of regular lads has gone down and our sergeants pile in/move up to strike. That way they die next round but at least got to hit stuff!

Hmm there's probably more stuff but I'm tired so yeah that's what I got.
Personally, I won't change my army much. I'll stick to my hordes of infantry and my power weapon lads and just see what happens. Maybe some day my commissar will actually kill something worthwhile in close combat...

Kaldor wrote:horde = lots of things

hoard = pile of wealth

Yeah, but these days you need a hoard to afford a horde.

So they're kinda equivalent.

Wouldn't then overwatch work on say a LRBT or a squad with 4 grenade launchers? People assault a battle tank with PC sponsons and get up to 9 hits off, + the hull flamer, so 12 possible hits...that sounds nice to me

PC sponsons are awful and can't snap fire anyway.

Omegus wrote:PC sponsons are awful and can't snap fire anyway.

I used them as an example because they have blast. And I was talking about for overwatch if assaulted. the tank could in theory, get 12 auto hits

You can't Overwatch weapons that can't snap fire except templates. So no.

Well, and vehicles can't overwatch anyway, right?

Right.

How different is the leaked version from the actual? I havnt seen the leaked edition yet

I tried playing a 6th edition match against a 'nid army at 1250 points, part of which utilized a 330pt blob squad (4 squads, 4 sergeants w/ power weapon and 2 commissars with Power Weapons).

End result of what I learned was the increased likely-hood of night fighting can be brutal, when combined with armies abilities to cheese out "Look Out Sir" rolls. Getting shots cheesed to non-LOS targets for additional cover save is unfun, chiefly because Guard is far less able to do so with a blob squad.

Also, blob squads are far worse now in close combat, especially against Monstrous Creatures. In 5th, I knew that multiple rounds of combat would eventually yield a dead MC because he would get wounds, but never stop my wounding potential. Now, at best I can keep my Power Weps until the 2nd turn of combat by hiding them in the center of the blob. After that, they die even with "Look Out sir! saves. And then the squad crumbles from losing their stubborn leadership saves.

Also, you can use an Allied Libby to give the blob squad extra survivability IF your lucky and get the invuln 4+ save from the divination psychic tree, but thats using allies to cover a new weakness, so I'm not sure if you'd want to consider that anyways.

Shooty guard may very well be the safer thing, but I feel that with how often Night Fighting may now occur ,infantry guard will still be difficult to field in any permeation

Also, you can use an Allied Libby to give the blob squad extra survivability IF your lucky and get the invuln 4+ save from the divination psychic tree, but thats using allies to cover a new weakness, so I'm not sure if you'd want to consider that anyways.

Why not just take a Primaris psyker? Cheaper, and has some alright stuff.

Gunline guard will also be VERY interesting. With all the night fighting, theres a good chance your LC's, ML's, and AC's Wont be able to shoot first turn because they failed their vision test. This was a problem in 5th ed for gun line guard. I guess you need like 4 tanks with spotlights to hit the enemy and then everything focuses on those 2-4 units on the first turn (assuming the lights hit)

This however, makes it even easier for your enemy to fire back, killing plenty of tanks as if night fire wasn't even around. (I suggest killing as much AT as you can first turn, closest first, then the crap in the far back on 2nd turn when you can see better)

Another possibility to consider is running both blobs and individual squads.

A 20-man combined squad with las/plas babysitting objectives (receiving BiD or FOMT) and a bunch of single squads with meltaguns ranging ahead to cock-block advances and giving cover to the rest of your army (receiving FRFSRF or incoming).

Infantry can give cover to vehicles now, so that's pretty cool.

Well, based on what I'm reading the melee style of power blobbing is dead. I find this particularly sad because this style, two power blobs, was the basis of my IG army (Ailaros inspired me with his excellent Folera blog).

Now that being said, I think it is till possible to use blobs, but not as the melee meat grinder they had been. One of the biggest issues facing blobs, both melee and ranged, right now is the potential loss of the stubborn bonus from commissars who are picked out by snipers. While the risk of having an expensive blob run off the field, as pointed out by Omegus, is slim, it is still a very great danger, especially in close combat, as pointed out by Ailaros. Now here is my thought, what if you remove the commissars from the blobs entirely?

It is possible to get the commissar benefits from other units that will not be at risk if the blobs are attacked. If you replace the power weapon commissars, who are 90 points if your are running two blobs, with Chenkov and a company standard, you get the same buffs as the commissars (as long as you keep them within a foot) at 65 points instead of 90. The extra 25 points can be invested in upgrading meltas to plasma or getting heavy weapons teams with AC or LC.

Chenkov is a two wound model who gives stubborn to everything within a foot of him. Since he has two wounds, the chances of him being killed by sniper fire is reduced (he cant get instakilled) and the other troops in his squad can protect him with the look out sir rule. It is also a lot easier to bubble wrap a PCS than a blob. I the company standard should also work. While I have not ponied up the $75 USD to buy the new rule book, I heard a rumor (I may be wrong) that if a standard bearer is killed another trooper in the command squad can pick it up. This would solve the potential problem of that guy being sniped. Overall this setup appears, at least to me, significantly safer than running commissars.

You can also remove your priests, if you use them, and use the extra 120 points (based on running one priest with each blob) to kit out your gun line blobs to further boost their effectiveness.

What are your thoughts on this kind of build? A stubborn gun line supported by a CC unit like Ogryn could work very well IMHO.

P.S. This is my first post, so if it is too long I apologize for its length in advance

BigBangA1 wrote:Well, based on what I'm reading the melee style of power blobbing is dead. I find this particularly sad because this style, two power blobs, was the basis of my IG army (Ailaros inspired me with his excellent Folera blog).

Now that being said, I think it is till possible to use blobs, but not as the melee meat grinder they had been. One of the biggest issues facing blobs, both melee and ranged, right now is the potential loss of the stubborn bonus from commissars who are picked out by snipers. While the risk of having an expensive blob run off the field, as pointed out by Omegus, is slim, it is still a very great danger, especially in close combat, as pointed out by Ailaros. Now here is my thought, what if you remove the commissars from the blobs entirely?

It is possible to get the commissar benefits from other units that will not be at risk if the blobs are attacked. If you replace the power weapon commissars, who are 90 points if your are running two blobs, with Chenkov and a company standard, you get the same buffs as the commissars (as long as you keep them within a foot) at 65 points instead of 90. The extra 25 points can be invested in upgrading meltas to plasma or getting heavy weapons teams with AC or LC.

Chenkov is a two wound model who gives stubborn to everything within a foot of him. Since he has two wounds, the chances of him being killed by sniper fire is reduced (he cant get instakilled) and the other troops in his squad can protect him with the look out sir rule. It is also a lot easier to bubble wrap a PCS than a blob. I the company standard should also work. While I have not ponied up the $75 USD to buy the new rule book, I heard a rumor (I may be wrong) that if a standard bearer is killed another trooper in the command squad can pick it up. This would solve the potential problem of that guy being sniped. Overall this setup appears, at least to me, significantly safer than running commissars.

You can also remove your priests, if you use them, and use the extra 120 points (based on running one priest with each blob) to kit out your gun line blobs to further boost their effectiveness.

What are your thoughts on this kind of build? A stubborn gun line supported by a CC unit like Ogryn could work very well IMHO.

P.S. This is my first post, so if it is too long I apologize for its length in advance

There's nothing wrong with a long post as long as it's well written like yours! Welcome to Dakka

First of all, snipers are the least of your worries. A sniper needs a roll of a six just to hit your Commissar, then needs to roll to wound (4+) and THEN you need to fail an armor/cover save followed by a Look Out, Sir! roll. So that's a 16.3 chance of getting that directed hit, a 50% chance of wounding from that brings it down to 8.15, and then you have a 5+ armor save followed by a 4+ Look Out Sir! roll. It might get your Commissar once in a while, but it's really not going to be a deciding factor 99% of the time.

What hurts blobs more is that in close combat you take casualties from the front, which is typically where you'll have the sergeants and Commissars swinging the power weapons. Unless you can really swamp your target, you're likely to lose them after a round or two of combat. You still get Look Out, Sir! rolls, but there's going to be more wounds being doled out. However, if you're fighting an elite army like Marines, you have just as good a shot of killing his sergeant or captain or similar damage dealer.

I won't say power blobs are dead, they're just a little less obvious in close combat. It will take some time of adapting to the new rules before I can say much for certain, but it seems like they'll be able to do alright.

Sniper rifle fire isn't the biggest of a dozen problems facing power blobs now, but it still is one. For your average BS4 sniper shooting against a commissar in cover, 1 in 20 shots kills. Bundle that sniper up with 9 more (like in a ratling or scout squad), and now you're losing a commissar every other turn from sniper fire. The worst, of course, is pathfinders, what with their double rending. 10 shots, 6.666 hits, 2.1 rends, well, you can easily see losing a commissar every turn against those guys. They might as well have 36" mind war.

As for replacing commissars with chenkov, you're not better off. Yes, it will be slightly harder to kill him with sniper fire, but it's not going to be much of a challenge to just kill him off straight away along with his PCS with a couple of heavy bolters. If your opponent sees this squishy guardsman and his tiny squishy party as the lynchpin of your plans, he's not going to last long.

I have an idea for the blobs. It probably won't work (being I still don't know/ have the rulebook) BUT it regards blobs. Line the front of the blob with ALL lasgunners, space a couple of them the full 2" (or close to it) apart (well call this 1st line)...place the flamethrowers behind/inbetween the spaced out men, and the power weapon men behind the rest of the lasgunners (2nd line) . Leave enough space so that the rest of the lasgunners behind 2nd line can move up in-between 2nd line men, and past to replace the casualties of 1st line as the blob advances. I'm sorry that I can't make a visual for this, thats not my specialty (maybe Allaros though, he's good at visual aides)

This way the flamers can still shoot, in-between their men and have a decent fire arc, they also don't get picked off right away due to the new wound allocation methods. The same goes for the PW people, as they are hiding behind a line of guardsmen.

This plan may make the blob move slower (as you try to replace 1st line) but it could still be effective and, in theory, saves your special guys for last.


Forgive me if I'm wrong, and I'm sorry for the length/detail. Again, couldn't make a visual aide, which would have definitely helped.

ImpGuardPanzies wrote:I have an idea for the blobs. It probably won't work (being I still don't know/ have the rulebook) BUT it regards blobs. Line the front of the blob with ALL lasgunners, space a couple of them the full 2" (or close to it) apart (well call this 1st line)...place the flamethrowers behind/inbetween the spaced out men, and the power weapon men behind the rest of the lasgunners (2nd line) . Leave enough space so that the rest of the lasgunners behind 2nd line can move up in-between 2nd line men, and past to replace the casualties of 1st line as the blob advances. I'm sorry that I can't make a visual for this, thats not my specialty (maybe Allaros though, he's good at visual aides)

This way the flamers can still shoot, in-between their men and have a decent fire arc, they also don't get picked off right away due to the new wound allocation methods. The same goes for the PW people, as they are hiding behind a line of guardsmen.

This plan may make the blob move slower (as you try to replace 1st line) but it could still be effective and, in theory, saves your special guys for last.


Forgive me if I'm wrong, and I'm sorry for the length/detail. Again, couldn't make a visual aide, which would have definitely helped.

The problem is that even if you make it into combat, hidden power weapons and characters no longer exist. In the last edition you'd trot out your sergeants and commissar to the front and then even though you'd likely swing last, you had enough ablative wounds to ensure that your power weapons would get to hit something. You'd typically lose the combat, but the commissar would ensure that you stay in the fight. Next turn you'd do this song and dance again. Over time the power weapon hits would grind your opponent down.

Now, the opponent swings first and kills everyone in the front of the blob. Even if you positioned your troops so perfectly that after the front row is killed your sergeants and commissar would get swing their power weapons, you're stuck with the problem that next turn your opponent would swing first again and splatter your commissar and sergeants as they're in the front. If you choose to keep the commissar at the back to keep the unit stubborn you're not getting his power weapon attacks and you just have regular guardsmen flailing at the enemy.

If you throw in enemy characters getting to pick their shot on 6s and pick their close combat attacks on 6s the sergeants and commissars won't survive very long.

Now it's better to go back to breaking up your blobs into individual squads to increase target saturation. Plus if anyone is still actually trying to assault you, you have individual speed bumps that work great without the enemy being able to consolidate into neighboring units after they're done tearing up your squad.

You still get the 3" move or whatever to get guys further into combat correct? Does the book say anything against moving units away? Why not (assuming your ;as gunners die but your pw survive, move some more lasgunners up close, and slip the pw men back a little, or to the side, somewhere that allows more lasgunners in the front line without necessarily moving the pw's out of range.

OR

keep the pw at w/i 2" of base contact f an enemy, but still shlep lasgunners to the front in-between things?



I do like the speed bump idea though

I guess the bigger question at this point is who has lost/gained more, power blob IG or mech IG?

ImpGuardPanzies wrote:Does the book say anything against moving units away?

Yes, in fact. In 5th ed, all you needed to do with those goobers in the back was keep coherency. Now they need to keep coherency AND move towards the closest engaged enemy model. Likewise your sergeants and commissars are compelled to get into base combat as fast as possible, even if you have to move other miniatures out of the way to make that happen.

Back in the day, power blobs were arguably better than speed bumps, because you could fit a more power weapons in a blob than plasma guns and in close combat, you got to use them on EVERY player turn, and the attacks couldn't be stopped by cover.

Without blobs, though, speed bumps are back indeed. Not only is this because shooting is better and blobs are dead, but now you're going to force overwatch fire on EVERY PIS they run into.

ImpGuardPanzies wrote:This way the flamers can still shoot, in-between their men and have a decent fire arc, they also don't get picked off right away due to the new wound allocation methods. The same goes for the PW people, as they are hiding behind a line of guardsmen.

The problem, exactly as you mentioned, is speed. Shooting has gotten so much better vs. blobs, that they're already not surviving long enough, and this gives you opponent even more time to thin the herd.

That and, as mentioned, it does nothing to fix the problems that blobs have in combat. The unfortunate fact is that blobs just aren't good in close combat anymore. Doing things to try and ameliorate shooting casualties won't fix this.

Spartan089 wrote:I guess the bigger question at this point is who has lost/gained more, power blob IG or mech IG?

Well, abstractly speaking, mech guard didn't suffer as much as foot guard, so I'd say mech went from being roughly equal to being slightly better than foot lists.

Really, all that mech lists lost is the durability of their chimeras. Meanwhile, their firepower got better (including through neat things like vets overwatching out the hatch when something assaults their vehicle). Mech lists will basically be exactly as effective as they were before, while having to tweak their lists away from hydras and manticores and towards russes and basilisks. Meanwhile, foot guard is going to have to be completely re-engineered, and the end result probably won't be as good as before.

Just some thoughts based on previous posts: You can't get the Divination Powers on a libby or a primaris psyker.

You can only kill what is in range. Stick the commissar in the back where someone can't shoot him.

Dunno what to do about power weapon guys dying early. Stick them in the 3rd rank and move them up to fight later on?

KGatch113 wrote:You can only kill what is in range. Stick the commissar in the back where someone can't shoot him.

... which means he won't actually be able to swing once he's in close combat, but will still be able to be picked out with precision strike.

KGatch113 wrote:Dunno what to do about power weapon guys dying early. Stick them in the 3rd rank and move them up to fight later on?

Likewise. The only thing you're gaining here is more dead guardsmen before the power weapon holders are picked out. You will be able to slightly delay your opponent horribly massacring your blob, but that's a long, long way away from 5th ed slowly winning by attrition.

okay, what about a different approach? Before we would run 40 man blobs w/ melts and power weapons... we would shlep them up the field and shoot/ assault whatever came closest...what if we changed the attitude?

Heres what I'm saying (this is by far the worst idea I've had in a while) Use the same blobs, move 6" (until you're within range to pump out 3 shots) all the while FRFSRF, once you get within the 3 shot range, find a place to cover yourself, (maybe pre-estiamte a point where this will happen, and place the agis) CAMP until you are assaulted, rapid-fire the heck out of everything, or go to ground if you think the next turn is about to be nasty. I wouldn't take more than 2 hey weapons in a blob like this, probably heavy blotters so you have more of a chance of hitting after moving.

the power weapons are there incase you're assaulted, but you're basically moving out a blob to distract the foe, and shoot the crap out of everything advancing to them. YES this won't solve CC, however you'll be in better cover, and you'll be focused on shooting, rather than getting close with flamers and assaulting. If you really want to upset them, put a vet squad with hacker in front of the blobs destination, take another heavy bolter and some flamers and shotguns. TAKE DEFENSIVE GRENADES. your enemy will be forced to attack hackers squad first, after wiping them out you hopefully will have another turn of shooting to dish out on the enemy. yes I know this is ridiculous, and [artially what most of us have been doing (or close to it) this is more tactics, but its an idea that will hopefully spark one of your brains with something awesome

Ailaros wrote:

Omegus wrote:I disagree, at least in the sense that there is no point in putting power weapons in a blob. Power blobs are still viable, It's just now they are more of a defensive gunline that still has some bite when it gets charged, as opposed to actively pursuing close combat like they did before.

The problem with power blobs being dead is actually mostly to do with the fact that blobs, themselves, are dead. Your opponent will have plenty of opportunity to pick out your commissar before the first round of the first close combat is over.

Blobs required commissars. Without being able to reliably keep your commissars alive, you are now unreliably fielding blobs. So much, so, that if blobs are going to only sometimes exist and sometimes not, it's not really a viable strategy anymore, at least against players who know what they're doing. The only way to solve this is to spend a fortune on commissars - one per squad, rather than one per combined squad.

Or, like me, you can free up all those points previously locked into commissars. 3 power weapon commies taken out basically means a free russ!

Well, on the bright side, we can use "look out,sir" in CC (page 26 BRB, bottum left corner, blue box) And that could help our commisssars and squad leaders. I think that the blob is still in more trouble than before, But you can still take out guys from the back, all you have to do is roll a 4+ for every squad leader..right?



Scratch that, Characters only, I forgot. Well thats disapointing. Sorry guys

Ailaros wrote:If commissars don't really have much use anymore, then there's not much of a reason to take them. If you're not taking commissars, you're not taking blobs.

That's not totally true. Yeah ditch the commisars, allie with wolves, stick a rune preist (or 2) in your blob(s). Don't even mess with the power weapons, it's just a vehicle for FRFSRF.

FRFSRF at anything with a pulse. When if finally gets into HTH, lose combat by 8 million, break, hopefully run, then auto regroup with ATSKNF from the rune priest and do it all again.

Plus the priest have the best psychic defense in the game, and can get some pretty sick powers out of the book.