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Hi everyone,

With the new AM codex releasing this month and Imperial Guard already being quite common in my meta, I was hoping to get some advice on how to deal with the likely rise in blob guard I'm going to be seeing soon. With the orders, priests, buffs like re-roll-able saves in assault, and Yarrick, the blobs sounds like they can be both deadly and pretty durable too. I play flying circus, and I'm just wondering how most of you would deal with these if you came up against them? Thanks in advance!

Here is an example of a roster I play at 2000 points, which I've done well with in the past.

HQ-

Kairos-
Lord of Change-
-Greater Daemonic Reward x2
-Lesser Deamonic Reward
-ML3

Troops-
Daemonettes- x12
-Alluress
Daemonettes- x12
-Alluress

Fast Attack-
Flesh hounds x15

Heavy Support-
Daemon Prince (Tzt)-
-ML3
-Grimoire
-Greater Reward
-Wings
-Armor
Daemon Prince (Tzt)-
-ML3
-Greater Reward x2
-Wings
-Armor

CSM ALLIES-

Be-lakor

Chaos Cultists x10

Heldrake-
-Hades Autocannon

Play defensively for the first turn keeping your Daemon Prince either fully hidden from LOS along with Be'Lakor. Turn 2 use your Heldrake as an initiation unit and fly it forward into enemy lines decimating enemy squads. If they aren't hard pressed in destroying it the turn it comes on, they won't ever get around to killing it later since your Daemon Princes should accompany the Drake in VC + shooting Flickering Fire.

Just be careful with Be'Lakor. He's super fun to use, but he's extremely high priority due to his usefulness and point cost. Keep using Puppet Master on models that have good shooting and try to wipe out other squads. This can also be used on Tanks.

Cultists and Daemonettes hide, plain and simple. Hounds ONLY move forward turn 2 to apply pressure with the Heldrake and Princes.

Hope that helps

GoliothOnline wrote:
Play defensively for the first turn keeping your Daemon Prince either fully hidden from LOS along with Be'Lakor. Turn 2 use your Heldrake as an initiation unit and fly it forward into enemy lines decimating enemy squads. If they aren't hard pressed in destroying it the turn it comes on, they won't ever get around to killing it later since your Daemon Princes should accompany the Drake in VC + shooting Flickering Fire.

Just be careful with Be'Lakor. He's super fun to use, but he's extremely high priority due to his usefulness and point cost. Keep using Puppet Master on models that have good shooting and try to wipe out other squads. This can also be used on Tanks.

Cultists and Daemonettes hide, plain and simple. Hounds ONLY move forward turn 2 to apply pressure with the Heldrake and Princes.

Hope that helps

thanks for the reply

Yeah I've definitely learned to play more defensively lately. I keep the daemonettes and cultists in reserves as long as possible. As for be'lakor, yeah he is a huge target and I rarely have em out of LoS until the later turns. With these blobs their range is 24 inches so unless its Fateweaver with his 2++ I'll try to stay on the outskirts of them until i can widdle them down enough for a couple other FMCs to also come up.

The heldrake has been mainly my anti-air and with precience from the LoC, he has been pretty reliable at that.

The hounds are my main unit to get into assault with them, but I'm thinking if a Daemon prince got iron arm, he could be pretty useful in combat as well or if the LoC got the armor reward.

Last thing I thought of, besides puppet master being obviously useful, 2/3 of the hallucination effects in telepathy could be really helpful against the blob. I just have to be careful because with priests I'm looking at a 5+ DTW

Have you considered useing the Baleflamer on the Drake instead of the Hades Auto cannon? I know it kinda messes with your Str 8 anti air, but with Vector Strikes from the Drake at str 7 and Vector Strikes from the Daemon Princes + LoC and even Be'Lakor you should be ok.

A black mace DP is actually better then Bel'akor in this match up, so it may be better all around to field that if your meta is full of blob squads.

GoliothOnline wrote:
Have you considered useing the Baleflamer on the Drake instead of the Hades Auto cannon? I know it kinda messes with your Str 8 anti air, but with Vector Strikes from the Drake at str 7 and Vector Strikes from the Daemon Princes + LoC and even Be'Lakor you should be ok.

I have, but I've often come across multiple AV 12 flyers and they can be a burden on my FMCs so the Hades Drake has proven itself in doing its job of AA and its also taken down armor on the ground shooting at rear armor. If I went with a lash prince for AA I'd put the balefalmer on the drake, but I've opted for the LoC to save some points. Fateweaver also has the Flamebreath primaris from pyromancy, of course not as good, but still something against guard units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Red Corsair wrote:
A black mace DP is actually better then Bel'akor in this match up, so it may be better all around to field that if your meta is full of blob squads.

yeah i've been hearing that too, I've just found Be'lakor so reliable but I see where the argument is coming from and its definitely a great option, since the toughness tests would deal with yarrick quickly. Would you throw a mace prince right into combat? I'm just worried about survivability against that many models

Mace Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with Forewarning and Grimore on it. Not a reliable tactic, but when it falls into place it could be fun.


Not sure if Flamers of Tzeentch will become more popular with guard blobs or not. I can see a small suicidal unit being fun.

3 Units of Screamers and bunch of FMC all vector striking could be fun.

Puppetmaster, Hallucination, Invisability, Enfeeble, Heamorrhage can all be good powers.

Give it time, and we'll all learn what is best

Guardsmen are not the biggest fans of Flickering Fire. With a Prince/LOC/Fatey or large horror unit you can get 3-4D6 shots that wound on 2's and ignore Guard armor. It generally hurts a lot, but unfortunately isn't the most reliable thing as you need to jump through a few hoops to get it off and a blob with primaris will most likely be denying on a 5+. Soul blaze is also hilarious against IG, but warpflame is hit or miss with the 50/50 chance it will give them FNP.

Could always take Heralds with exalted Loci in large Horror squads. Double toughness still ignores FnP, right?

EricBasser wrote:
Could always take Heralds with exalted Loci in large Horror squads. Double toughness still ignores FnP, right?

Double strength does ignore FNP, and you can get off an absolutely insane amount of shots from flickering fire with a few Tzeentch Heralds in a squad of horrors as well (if you get them into range intact, maybe deep strike with onto a banner). Good call on the exalted locus...

 rabidguineapig wrote:

EricBasser wrote:
Could always take Heralds with exalted Loci in large Horror squads. Double toughness still ignores FnP, right?

Double strength does ignore FNP, and you can get off an absolutely insane amount of shots from flickering fire with a few Tzeentch Heralds in a squad of horrors as well (if you get them into range intact, maybe deep strike with onto a banner). Good call on the exalted locus...

that actually sounds like a great move, unfortunately I don't have any horrors or herald models atm myself :/ I guess this wouldn't work as well with just horrors without the heralds cause you can't get the loci. Was thinking of just switching out the daemonettes.

Flickering fire already eats guardsmen alive, you shouldn't need much more than that.
If Fateweaver had the grimoire on him I would just use him as my dedicated blob killer, staying out of charge range and shooting them to hell.

It's very possible, if they have 2 or 3 Primaris Psykers with the blob squad, that the blob would have Forewarning, or an Allied Dark Angel field generator, either will give them a good invulnerable save, and they won't run away if they have a Priest or 2 or 3. And if a psyker is there, they'll be DTWing on a 5+ at least. Or just flat out nullifying powers with Njal in there (I wanna do that ).

The blobs will be pretty good in combat, but vs a bunch of Flesh Hounds, they will pretty much be stuck and at least not shooting. So I think tie them up fast as possible like that. And before assaulting get some Puppet Masters and shooting in on them, as I'm pretty sure any good blob army will have some Leman Russes around, I know I would! The FMCs will almost certainly need to assault those to kill them unless they get some good rear shooting.

At least with Guard blobs, it's a single unit, and only a single grounding test for each blob instead of like 6 grounding tests.

I'm liking, as most of the time, the fast multi-wound units like Hounds and Screamers, and multiple Vector Striking. I haven't much luck with the shooty Horror bit. Don't assault with the FMCs until you have a good target. I also agree, Baleflamer is best, though I do like the Hades AC if I know there will be multiple flyers, but I prefer just having Bloodletters on a Quad Gun, they can Go To Ground if needed.

 herpguy wrote:
Flickering fire already eats guardsmen alive, you shouldn't need much more than that.
If Fateweaver had the grimoire on him I would just use him as my dedicated blob killer, staying out of charge range and shooting them to hell.

this was pretty much my original plan, maybe I just got too worked up with all the hype. I pretty much planned to have Fateweaver use 4d6 flickering fire and another spell, while the other princes deal with the heavy support. I also planned to have the fleshhounds outflank into cover and assault turn 3/4 on a hopefully widdled down blob. Do you think the points going towards the hounds could be better used towards something else?

Since Fateweaver is a MC as long as he doesn't VS he can fire 4D6 FF and a blast Tzeentch power. You could also cast prescience which even with BS6 still helps to get a few more hits in when you have so many shots.
If you're up against a unit with forewarning and you roll misfortune though you can make them have a very bad day!

I was planning on having the LoC to cast prescience on Fate, to free up one of his mastery levels

would the Tzeentch Beam spell work to snipe specific characters within the blob, given they are not to far in? I know it continues to all the models in the beam path until it hits zero in strength, if you angle it right you could have it pass through a primaris psyker for example. They would still get a look out sir attempt, but still could be useful.

For guard blobs you want large squads of horrors supported by heralds, flamers of tzeentch, and daemonettes/seekers of slaanesh. Use the tzeentch daemon units to pour out fire to thin the ranks and then assault them with the slaaneshi daemons. Generally speaking you will cut a blob squad in half (or more) from the shooting and be able to reduce them by another half or so in combat if you're striking first (which generally speaking you should be).

chaos0xomega wrote:
For guard blobs you want large squads of horrors supported by heralds, flamers of tzeentch, and daemonettes/seekers of slaanesh. Use the tzeentch daemon units to pour out fire to thin the ranks and then assault them with the slaaneshi daemons. Generally speaking you will cut a blob squad in half (or more) from the shooting and be able to reduce them by another half or so in combat if you're striking first (which generally speaking you should be).

thanks for the comment. I'm trying not to go too far away from flying circus, not because i don't like the ideas on using heralds and squads of horrors but I just don't have most of those models atm besides a a few horrors.

Flickering is really good against blobs.

I dont know from firsthand experience, but I would say that flying circus is inherently weak to guard and/or other horde armies. You have a pretty hard limit to your damage output, I think it might actually be mathematically impossible for you to table a guard blob list in a 6 turn game (which, while that isn't necessarily a good indicator of whether or not you'll win, it is an indicator of relative performance of two lists).

Also, I think AM might have the best anti-air capability of any book thus far released, further putting your flying circus list at a disadvantage, in short I dont think its going to work.

I think the Black Mace prince would do pretty well against the blob, if its lucky enough to roll iron arm on biomancy. Even enfeeble would help with the black mace in this case. Although against any other army, I'd always take Be'lakor, and puppet mastering a wyvern or hallucinating the blob could be really useful. Haven't decided between the two at this point, its a tough call for me XD

Its funny. OP wants a help with his CHD against IG blobs. I would like to help with my IG blobs against CHD

I think a unit of 20 fleshounds would do work on the squad. There are a lot of rule intricacies I still haven't ironed out with the IG priests and psykers in a conscript squad, so I'm not sure on their true power.

I wouldn't worry about it too much yet, let the internet test it more and more and see if it is an actual viable build.

There is no escape from the blob, it will get you. Stay out of 24 inches is about all i can recomend (dont know daemons very well) if you can snipe out any ics attached and special weapons.

My friend's practicing his IG for Nova and he's running 2 large 40+ men squads with Inquistion, Priests, Pskyers, and Autocannons. Throw in 4 flamers and a few Power Axes and 4 chances to get Divination's Forewarning and the squad hurts in melee and is hard to remove. They being said, the rest of his list consists of 2 Vendettas and 2 of those new Heavy barrage weapons (Heavy4, S4, Barrage, Shred) and 2 scoring squads in the Vets for mobility.

The squads are so hard to remove and you have to kill them down to the man because of the Priest giving them fearless. Also, besides the fact that they have a lot of attacks with rerolls to hit and wounds. They have Psychout Grenades that are ridiculous to deal with unless he rolls a 1. Even when this unit is in combat and you can avoid their Overwatch, the Psychout grenades proc every time they are assaulted.

This being said, I noticed that I'd rather shoot at this then go into combat with it. 4++ is annoying but shooting it and moving 6"-12" away from it every turn is a lot better. It's a large squad that hits hard in melee, but only has a bunch of AP4 or worse shooting (even though most of the time it ignores cover). Just run from it and kill the rest of his army would be my advice.

tl:dr - Run. Run far, far away from the blobs. Shooting is fine, but don't risk being in charge range. Kill the rest of his army before the blobs. Kill the things that will hurt you the most (Vendettas since you are running FMCs). Kill the IG's mobile scoring before the blobs.

Saythings wrote:
My friend's practicing his IG for Nova and he's running 2 large 40+ men squads with Inquistion, Priests, Pskyers, and Autocannons. Throw in 4 flamers and a few Power Axes and 4 chances to get Divination's Forewarning and the squad hurts in melee and is hard to remove. They being said, the rest of his list consists of 2 Vendettas and 2 of those new Heavy barrage weapons (Heavy4, S4, Barrage, Shred) and 2 scoring squads in the Vets for mobility.

The squads are so hard to remove and you have to kill them down to the man because of the Priest giving them fearless. Also, besides the fact that they have a lot of attacks with rerolls to hit and wounds. They have Psychout Grenades that are ridiculous to deal with unless he rolls a 1. Even when this unit is in combat and you can avoid their Overwatch, the Psychout grenades proc every time they are assaulted.

This being said, I noticed that I'd rather shoot at this then go into combat with it. 4++ is annoying but shooting it and moving 6"-12" away from it every turn is a lot better. It's a large squad that hits hard in melee, but only has a bunch of AP4 or worse shooting (even though most of the time it ignores cover). Just run from it and kill the rest of his army would be my advice.

tl:dr - Run. Run far, far away from the blobs. Shooting is fine, but don't risk being in charge range. Kill the rest of his army before the blobs. Kill the things that will hurt you the most (Vendettas since you are running FMCs). Kill the IG's mobile scoring before the blobs.

hey thanks for the suggestions. I pretty much thought that the only model I could put within that 24 inch bubble was fateweaver with his 2++ and re-rolls on 1. Anyone else even outside rapidfire range would have to deal with a ton of fire, and with ignore cover even if they had invisibility they'd be done for, just from the sheer amount of shots. So I think just kiting with Fate, while everyone else deals with heavy support, flyers, and the mobile troops. If I go with strategy, be'lakor is a better choice than mace prince, since I'm avoiding close combat.

Saying that, does anyone think I should allocate the points I have going towards flesh hounds in my above list to something else? Such as horrors or flamers for more shooting? I'll work on getting the heralds of tzeentch and more horror models in the mean time, since I do like that idea, but until then I guess we'll see how everyone deals with the new AM over time, its still early for a definitive tactic is pretty much Im getting. Thanks for all the replies everyone

Aren't all the important models such as priests and Psykers all T 3 with a save no better then a 4+ and few wounds? With that in mind i think having a few models shooting flickering fire at them you will probably get a few 6's, and he will fail a fail LOS! or two and then you have effectively pulled the teeth out.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Aren't all the important models such as priests and Psykers all T 3 with a save no better then a 4+ and few wounds? With that in mind i think having a few models shooting flickering fire at them you will probably get a few 6's, and he will fail a fail LOS! or two and then you have effectively pulled the teeth out.

Fateweaver will be shooting 4d6 flickering fire which will likely be twin-linked due to prescience, depending on what greater rewards the Lord of Change gets and the terrain I might also have him shooting out the outskirts of the 24 range the blob has, so thats more flickering fire, so yeah potentially a lot of 6's.

The thing with the blob is it's most likely 4++ on all models. And its FF on Fate is S5, so it doesn't ID. So you'll have to get a lot of 6's for Precision Shots and a lot of failed 2+ LOS and a lot of 4++ with rerolls (the Priest I believe has an option to reroll failed saves). So... You're more than likely not sniping, and not going to kill the blob to a man. It took me 4 turns to kill them all with Vulcan, 5 Command vets with 4 attacks on the charge and about 12 Sternguards all attack the blob for 4 turns...

Just shoot at the rest of the army until it's the only thing left.

Saythings wrote:
The thing with the blob is it's most likely 4++ on all models. And its FF on Fate is S5, so it doesn't ID. So you'll have to get a lot of 6's for Precision Shots and a lot of failed 2+ LOS and a lot of 4++ with rerolls (the Priest I believe has an option to reroll failed saves). So... You're more than likely not sniping, and not going to kill the blob to a man. It took me 4 turns to kill them all with Vulcan, 5 Command vets with 4 attacks on the charge and about 12 Sternguards all attack the blob for 4 turns...

Just shoot at the rest of the army until it's the only thing left.

fair enough. I think the one biggest benefit I get from facing the blob, is that that many models can only cause one grounding test on an FMC, and as long as I keep the grimoire prince well out of the way Fateweaver should be fine.