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Hello all, I have wanted to start an imperial guard army and am not sure how to form it. At first I wanted a heavily mechanized army for the mobility but I have heard that pretty much everyone plays "mech" guard if you will. I have been going through the codex and wondered if anyone could share any information on the viability of a more blob-ish imperial guard. In my group of opponents(or friends if you will lol) I play pretty much different chapters of space marine and orks.

I recently started blob guard, and can offer some advice concerning blob efficiency.

You will want either:
Power blobs, where all sergeants have Power weapons, and which includes a comissar to provide Ld9 and Stubborn. with two squads, this gives 9 power weapon attacks, or 12 if you charge. As squad leaders, enemy can't target power weapons individually. These work as offensive units or tarpits, but you should keep in mind that they die fast when not in cover.

Other option would be a "Gunline blob", where squads have Special and Heavy weapons (I use Plasma gun or Grenade Launcher with Autocannon). while this limits target selection, you can use a single order for the entire blob. Comissar or some other source of Stubborn is, again, highly useful.

Power blobs in particular benefit from special characters, especially Straken for Furious charge to hit at same S and I with Marines.

The weakness of pure blob guard is it's poor mobility, as well as vulnerability to blasts, as one starts to run out of room. When building an army, you should keep this in mind, and take transports for platoon command squads, and either Special weapons squads or veterans in Chimeras (SWS take a chimera bought for a blobbed infantry squad)

Thanks for the reply Kali, I am now rethinking my complete blob. My enemies all pack a fair share of template weapons. Anyhow, If I were to make a platoon squad similar to this:
PCS (vanilla)
Infantry squad 1 melta x 5
Heavy weapon AC x 5

Could I put the infantry squads inside of a chimera for mobility and less squish targets, or is it a big waste of points to put bs 3 in a chimera?

Oh and another question, even though they are in a Platoon each squad operates as its own squad for certain things, by that I mean, they can all choose their own targets to fire at right? As long as I didn't combine them.

IF you' don't combine them, they operate as their own unit, which is good that you can manage your targets better, the downside is all the dice rolling and orders. With them separate you can issue one order to a 10-man squad, which isn't as effective as issuing that order to a 30-man squad. I run pure foot slogger guard, and I find it to be rather enjoyable. I try and keep two power blobs (30-man each w/ 3 commissars) up front to tie up the enemy and then have two vet squads behind them as my gun line, the higher BS makes them perfect for the role. Behind all of this I have my HWS to provide artillery and further support. You're not going to blow away the competition and win championships, but you will have fun. Also, there's a huge intimidation factor of showing up and putting 100+ infantry on the table. If you're gonna power blobs I highly suggest taking Straken, counter charge is amazing and if you wanna get the jump on the enemy furious charge makes your guard rather formidable.

My only real guard advice is not to bother with sniper rifles unless you are expecting squiggoths or something of that nature.

I made an all sniper rifle, light infantry guard (4th ed. codex, haven't picked up the new one yet). I guess I failed to realize that nothing is ever pinned due to everything (except guard and tau) having high leadership.

It is colorful, fun, and has character. It's also almost totally useless. =]

If you blob, you need Col Iron hands Straken for the 12" buble of Counter Attack and Furious charge.

Evocatus wrote:My only real guard advice is not to bother with sniper rifles unless you are expecting squiggoths or something of that nature.

I made an all sniper rifle, light infantry guard (4th ed. codex, haven't picked up the new one yet). I guess I failed to realize that nothing is ever pinned due to everything (except guard and tau) having high leadership.

It is colorful, fun, and has character. It's also almost totally useless. =]

Check out some of the 6th ed rumors, if they are true sniper rifles will make a huge comeback.

That'd be pretty sweet... under the 4th ed. guard rules for light infantry you could replace heavy weapons with sniper rifles in your troop squads, so I custom made a bunch of long-las rifles for 'em.

Blobbing is what I do. I agree with a previous poster - you will have fun with a fluffy IG, but you will not win much. Some ideas for this type of list:

A lord commissar is useful for his aura of command, which if you buy him a chimera, will be measured from the vehicle's hull, extending its range by a bit. Then you can join him to a HWS, so they can all start in the chimera parked and ready to fire, because it is his dedicated transport. The HWS can fire from inside the chimera, because it has 5 fire points counted from the turret hatch. It makes for a nice heavy-weapon bunker, especially if you put it in area cover and give it camo netting (3+ save). I normally load it with ML/HB/HS.

Another support combo I enjoy running is a vet squad with AC, 3 GL, and Harkin for his HB, in the same type of chimera. All five models can fire simultaneously from the hatch.

Yarrick 5 squads combined, with special weapons(your choice), Sergeants with PF. Run up the board behind a maxed out conscript squad. EPIC WIN!

look up ailros's blog regarding his power blobs. he has a very well detailed account of his application of blobs in many games. as can be seen in his posts, if done well blob IG is very competitive.