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A buddy of mine runs the Russian Red Army (Imperial Guards) and one of the tricks he enjoys is using Chenkov and 50-man blob of Conscripts to hunker down on objectives. I find them EXTREMELY hard to move and near impossible if there is any terrain. He sticks a Commissar or Yarick in them to make them sit there and NEVER EVER move. If the blob ever goes down below 20, he just sends in the next wave using Chenkov. With proper timing, I find it extremely hard to claim such objectives. He usually can sit about 2-3 objectives with the blob, due to its size with a Command Squad capturing another behind the blob and maybe ANOTHER Conscript blob sitting on another.

Does anyone have ANY idea how to make them go away? I run Silver-Tide Necrons and Iron Warriors CSM. Of course, these games are friendly ones and winning doesn't matter so much but at least once in my life, I would like to claim that objective. I usually end up winning such games but I NEVER capture objectives with the Conscripts sitting on them.

Well I'm no expert but my suggest trying to snipe out the commissar since they won't come back with the conscripts. Get rid of their leadership and you should be able to chase them off the board every turn. Hmm with Necrons or CSM that is pretty tough. Assaulting maybe the best, challenge and since conscripts have no sergeants the commissar will be forced to fight and die or hide and they go back to LD5 and get swept thus killing the commissar and their leadership for the rest of the game. So maybe scarab swarms or mutilators to assault. Anyway that's my suggestion. Hopefully other people have faced this and can help out more.

Try Chaos spawn. WS2 S3 is really lousy against WS3 T5.

If you can manage to kill the Commissar, they'll almost certainly fail the leadership test and you can sweep them off the board -- but expect the Commissar to decline challenges. They'll only have Ld5 at that point, but rerollable stubborn Ld5 is still pretty close to a coin flip.

Remember that if he decides to SITNW, any independent characters in the unit are wiped out and can't come back. So keep that in mind.

I thought conscripts were Ld5, also spend the effort to kill the platoon command or company command squad near them giving orders. Shouldn't be too hard.

Yeah, sorry, my memory was off. edited for fix.

Just ignore them, take out the rest of his army. Or kill the platoon commander issuing the order. Really it's not to hard to get around them. And REMEMBER, the commissar dose not come back in the second wave.

Ps: if you thing endless conscripts are bad.... You should read up on the DKok assault brigade lists.

I would say get them into CC and try to challenge out the characters. If the blob is tied up in combat, they can't score an objective. CSM has some pretty good fighters and a faster initiative for sweeping, and necrons have some good resilience to keep the blob tied up in combat. Helldrakes or any necron flyer is a nice way for killing the command squad behind the blob.

Honestly you're not very likely to capture that objective, and the best way to win is to just ignore it and grab the others. The blob of conscripts doesn't have any mobility so it's not going to get to anything outside of its own deployment zone, leaving the rest of the objectives free to claim. If you really want to get the objective your best hope is to take advantage of the fact that if your opponent voluntarily kills them they won't get a new squad until next turn. Arrange it so that the game ends (or at least has a chance of ending) on the turn when they're off the table. It's even better if you go second because then you can finish off the last of the squad, claim the objective, and let the game end before the replacements arrive.

Also, if you want to rules lawyer it there's an argument that the rule for respawning says that they only respawn if the unit is voluntarily removed as casualties using the SITNW rule, not if they're wiped out entirely by normal methods. In that case all you'd have to do is kill them the normal way and make sure you finish off the unit entirely so that your opponent can't suicide the last model and make a new unit.

 kinratha wrote:
Ps: if you thing endless conscripts are bad.... You should read up on the DKok assault brigade lists.

Actually IMO the conscripts are a lot scarier. The DKoK respawning platoon costs a lot more, can't blob up, and requires you to get the entire platoon killed before you can respawn any of it. The conscripts have full control over their respawning, so if your opponent decides to ignore the last few survivors in a squad you can just kill them off yourself and bring in the replacements. With the DKoK version you have to work a lot harder to make your opponent kill those last few survivors even though they know perfectly well that killing them spawns a new platoon.

And how does that respawn thing work? When i read those Chenkov rules i thought it works like "u killed 20 conscripts out of 50 and i choose to send in the next wave so the next wave is gona contain just 30 and not 50 again".

How many objectives typically go on the table and how are you two placing them? Having 3-4 objectives within reach of a single blob and its Command Squad strikes me as...well, not how typical board setup should be. Especially since it sounds like this squad has routinely been destroyed only for its replacement to walk right back onto the objectives from the board edge. I can only assume that the blob gets stretched quite a bit to reach each objective, so ramming a unit into one of its extremities will see the whole blob have to converge on that spot, likely pulling it away from some of the points its holding. With WS2/S3 they won't be hurting very many units and even a small unit of Necron Warriors will hold them down pretty well (and CSM should just tear right through them).

Send in the Next Wave has to be bought for each conscript blob, so that 50 man mass comes to 275 points. Normal Commissars can't be added to conscripts, so it's well over 300 points to put a Lord Commissar in over 450 points to put Yarrick in--and neither of them get to come back to the blob. That's a lot of points for 50 S3 lasguns that will hit on a 5+ and wound your guys (Necrons and CSM) on a 5+. And it sounds like your opponent will sometimes run two of these points-hogs. Given that he also needs to buy a Platoon Command Squad (with Chenkov, who more than doubles the initial cost of the squad) and at least 2 platoons per blob of conscripts I'd imagine that at least half of his army is lasguns (at least 50 of which can't aim for crap...and the other soldiers aren't that great either). Both your CSM and Necrons should be able to to easily march on the piddly S3 BS2/3 shooting and laugh off the shots with their toughness and saves. Imperial Guard can muster a ton of fire support and your opponent is clearly sacrificing some of that big-gun potential in order to field his blob(s). Necrons should easily be able to engage his fire support (e.g. Russes, Basilisks, etc.) and incapacitate/destroy them before they hurt your guys. CSM, too, should be able to tackle those challenges (and they're definitely bigger threats than the infantry) with their own support.

Once something touches them in melee (especially CSM) the assaulting unit should be able to scythe right through the blob. Once it's destroyed once it'll lose its Commissar character and it'll be very easy to just assault it every time it walks back onto the table, beat it in CC, and watch it run away over and over and over. If the Command Squad that sits behind the blob does something tricky to make it much tougher than usual (such as the 'Take Cover!' command) then you might consider targeting it before you tackle the blob. Sure, the conscripts will screen it (or it might be sitting in even cover), but 5+/4+ cover saves are only going to keep 5 T3 guys alive for so long.

Edit:

You know, I used to think that only conscript units destroyed by their owning player could return, but I'm pretty sure that a 'destroyed' unit counts as 'removed from play.' Send in the Next Wave applies to a unit that is 'removed from play,' so I believe it applies to units destroyed by the enemy as well. The wording is a bit unclear, but what else is new? Maybe I ought to check the FAQ.

And the rule returns it to the state of its 'full strength predecessor,' meaning its original size (but without added characters).

Corollax wrote:
He usually can sit about 2-3 objectives with the blob

I can't help but think I've read somewhere that you cannot claim more than one objective with a single scoring unit.

I thought he was saying the blob screens for two other units on objectives while the blob holds the third. But yeah, it can only hold one and deny the others.

Maybe you can kill Chenkov?

 Truth118 wrote:

Corollax wrote:
He usually can sit about 2-3 objectives with the blob

I can't help but think I've read somewhere that you cannot claim more than one objective with a single scoring unit.

Erm...I think you may have messed up your quoting. I don't remember saying that. O,o

koooaei wrote:
Maybe you can kill Chenkov?

That does nothing. SITNW is added to the conscript squad in list construction. You only need Chenkov in your list to unlock it, once the game begins whether he lives or dies is irrelevant.

So basically kill the Commissar and we've got a deal... or do it so that he times his SITNW on the last turn.... well, seems like its worth a try. I'm actually considering Deathmarks at this point to snipe out that Commissar.

 Zaki66 wrote:
So basically kill the Commissar and we've got a deal... or do it so that he times his SITNW on the last turn.... well, seems like its worth a try. I'm actually considering Deathmarks at this point to snipe out that Commissar.

As far as removing the Commissar (without having to go through the blob) goes, that's probably one of the better ways to do it. However, bear in mind that the Commissar is going to have 3 Wounds (since only a Lord Commissar or Yarick can join the blob). Between needing 6s for precision and the +5 invuln save (and Yarick also has 4+ armour) it could take awhile for a unit of Deathmarks to snipe him out of the unit.

It would be helpful to know a general overview of your list and your enemy's list. In a vacuum there are plenty of ways to deal with 50 respawning conscripts--the particular way(s) that you can use to do so, however, depends on what else is in the warring armies.

Oh i don't have any conscript models but i'll definitely try them out as a replacement for my grots in the main ork's detachment! Proxy or maybe just vassal

 Zaki66 wrote:
So basically kill the Commissar and we've got a deal... or do it so that he times his SITNW on the last turn.... well, seems like its worth a try. I'm actually considering Deathmarks at this point to snipe out that Commissar.

I wouldn't worry about the commissar at all. They can't respawn with the rest of the unit, so either your opponent keeps the one conscript squad on the table even once it's down to so few models that it isn't effective anymore, or kills the commissar for you by respawning the unit. Don't waste anything on trying to get precision shots when you could instead be killing conscripts as fast as possible to force your opponent to respawn.

Dont forget that ONLY the conscripts get to come in with the next wave. if the commissar is attached at that point in time, he is simply lost and does not come back.

of course, if the player is savvy, he can put his on the edge to move more than 2" away on the previous turn or if he is in the middle, make a bubble around him more than 2" on the previous turn. But then, that leaves the blob a turn without the advantage ofthe commissar and allows him to be killed without having to snipe.

as someone else already mentioned he could be sniped out and if you use barrage weapons, a large blast centered on him that hits means he is the first model hit so he will likely hafta make some look out sir rolls.

Some ideas

Deathmarks to kill the commy

Flame templates to burn the conscripts on mass (Gauntlet of Fire and Stalkers may come in handy. You could use a despairtek, but I think the commy may reduce it's effectiveness). Since you use CSM as well you can probably give them flamers.

What points limit are you running?

yea I read in the OP that its implying that he is using the blob to claim multiple objectives, he can only claim a single objective.

in terms of shifting them, the others above have already given you advice on the best routes, personally I'd try to make use of a few template weapons to thin the numbers down and then charge in and challenge, chances are your going to shift them in one turn using that method and then they are only LD5 from that point onwards so not too much to worry about other than the 50 lasguns respawning that could be ordered to fire 3 times at RFR with orders (IIRC, if so that's 150 shots which could drop even 10 TH SS terminators on average)

150 shots is only 50 hits, 16.6 wounds, 2.778 dead terminators.

In all honesty that isn't too scary, especially if he is spread out try to block a few objectives. You just might need to taken one turn of fire that kills 5-6 Immortals and then you can clear the unit. IC's and all.

Assault said unit and challenge the leadership to a duel, kill the leadership and sweep the 50 guardsmen when they flee.

Attack your opponent where he is weak, obviously your focusing too much attention on his "immobilized" strongpoint.

Get a scarab farm going. Rush him with a spider, to soak overwatch, then rush in the scarabs and eat through them.

it's not gona be easy to challenge out a commisar cause you can't challenge a model that ain't in a fighting range. That's actually how i still manage to make my pk nobz work from time to time.

Interesting point, Inquisition Supplement makes this much easier to do. 25pt Inquisitor does what a Lord Commissar did before, and if you deck him out with Xenos grenades the blob becomes not-worthless in CC.

Yeah, my strategy would be to snipe the commissar / anything else with a high leadership value then chase the rest of the unit off the board. It might take a couple rounds of shooting, but it can be done.

Wow, leadership 5. That's low even by CSM standards.

Oh the inquisitor in conscript squad is an awesome idea! Imagine this 50-man blob getting scouts and rad, psi-nades! They're gona be a threat unless an inquisitor can be sniped out or they face a t8 something. Also jokaeiro warsmiths

Sounds like a tough nut to crack. Corollax recommended Chaos Spawn, and I'd also be backing up this trick, but only if you pull it off correctly. They mince and grind IG masses, but to remove the Ld-bubble HQ out of the bunch may become troublesome. This situation rings my bell about Sun Tzu's Art of War:

"There are roads that must not be followed, towns that must not be besieged. There are armies that must not be attacked, positions that must not be contested."

If the moment/situation allows it, pay no attention to the target, and concentrate your hatred towards everything else. Deny other objectives, annihilate other vital targets (scoring units, for example).
Kinratha also mentioned this, and I agree with him; that objective is not meant to be taken - at least easily.