I love the Mob Up stratagem but I feel like people aren't yet all on board with the possibilities. I've found a lot of clever tricks about using the rule but they are scattered about (
this article is pretty good BTW) and because of how
GW wrote the rules there is a bit of room for interpretation, so I thought it might be nice to have a thread that just talks about how we can use the Mob Up rule tactically.
First a clear statement of the rule:
1 CP
Use this stratagem at the end of your movement phase. Select two OK INFANTRY units from your army that are within 2" of each other that have the same data sheet (e.g. choose two Boyz units, or two Stormboyz units). If one of the units has 10 or more models, and the other has 10 or fewer, the two units merge and, for the rest of the battle they are counted as a single unit for all rules purposes.
Now for the tactics:
Unit Spam to get Brigade
Getting Brigade level command points can be frustrating especially if you want the orky buffs for units with more than 20 models (be they gretchin or boyz). However, if you take several smaller units with the plan of mobbing them up early you can still break into the brigade detachment and get your buffs (Personally I'm trying two 20+ boyz mobz with three 10 strength boyz mobz and a grott unit to fill in the troops requirement). Sure you might have to use one or two of those command points to do the mobbing up but I'll take the 10 or 11
CP that you'd have left over instead of the 8 or 9 you can typically get at battalion level (assuming 2000pts).
Mob Up - Da Jump Alpha Strike
Most people have figured this one out and it comes in different flavors depending on what unit you use but it provides some interesting possibilities.
Grotts - Mob them up so they get the surprisingly dangerous in large numbers. Use Da Jump and shoot like space marines. Since they're so cheep the fact that they will most likely die immediately doesn't hurt too much. Boyz - This is the classic mob up to 40 or so models and use Da Jump to get them right in your opponents face. If you're lucky you even make the charge. If you're really ambitious - or hold back a turn you can even make a 50 model attack, of course you have to use mob up twice then. Nobz - okay this one is pricey but if you take two 10 strong nobz mobz and mob them up that's 20 Nobz with power klaws killsaws ect depending on how you kit them out. If they have a fair number of ammo runts they may even hit something when they shoot. The flip side is they will provide a pretty juicy target points wise and don't really have the armor to withstand too much fire power. Mega Nobz - This one is likely too expensive unless you are doing an apocalypse level game. But just the idea of 20 mega nobz is intimidating. The cost can be tempered a little if you do one 10 model and one 5 model mobz. Kommandos - here you don't even need to use Da Jump just use kunnin infiltrators. The boost here is relatively minor basically it only makes sense to do one 10 and one 5 model mobz so that you can have the extra burnas or rokkit launchas.
While all units with the Infantry key word can be used this way I feel like there isn't much to mobbing up for other units like tank bustas, burna boyz, lootas ect. - but if you have some cool ideas please share!
Mob in ladz
Looking critically at the rules it appears that there's nothing stopping us from mobbing up into combat. That is if a unit is already within 1" of an enemy unit and one of that unit's models is within 2" of another friendly unit of appropriate size (one greater than or equal to 10 and one less than or equal to 10) they can mob up and become one unit in combat. Besides avoiding overwatch and the usual pile in game to bind up units this can potentially protect footslogging units that didn't make a good advance. The idea is to insure that when you make a successful charge you leave a tendril of boyz stretching back a bit. Then assuming they survive the first round of combat even if you are too far to charge your oponents units directly you can mob up and be in combat. Now all those models are immune to shooting even though they aren't necessarily within charge or pistol range they've just connected to the green tide.
Meetin' in the middle
Similar to the previous tactic - if two units of the same datasheet (most likely boyz) are both in combat but have managed to get within 2" of each other they can mob up into one larger unit carrying on two combats. Why would you want to do this? Because you get to attack first. Due to the combat mechanic where players take turns choosing which unit is going to fight next by mobbing up you essentially deny your opponent the initiative of ongoing combats.
'Urry Up ladz!
The idea here is that only the nearest unit needs to make the charge to get everyone involved. If only one of your units is eligible to charge but but nearby units are just too far away to get to the enemy mob them up with the nearer unit and charge anyway. This pairs well with the stormboyz advance and charge rule as well as extending the reach of your warboss's waaagh! buff to advance and charge also (see below).
Pass dem meds! / I saw em over dere!
This is basically extending the range of buffs from characters into the units that need it, this can be done without mob up, but mobbing up can connect or extend buffs into where they are needed. The general idea is that you can get your painboyz, nob with waaagh banner, or any other character with a buff that grants to "Units" into range of those who need it. This pairs well with the "Mob in ladz" (above), as boyz who are already in the thick of it suddenly gain saves and boosts without necessarily endangering the character granting the buff. Also works just as well with grotts and a runtherd.
Speed Freaks with Mob Buffs
One of the limiting factors with using a lot of transports with 8th edition is that getting the extra attack or having ridiculous leadership requires more than or just equal to the number of models that can be carried in a vehicle. Mob Up to the rescue. However, you have to be clever so that you manage to meet the requirements to mob up. For instance if you run two trukks with a full 12 you risk them actually surviving and then the units are too big - on the other hand if you run them at 10 a piece you risk them each loosing one or more models and also not being able to mob up. I'm not sure what number feels right to you but filling a battle wagon with 19 or 20 boyz and then keeping the trukks light (10 models each) you can rest assured that the larger mob will be able to absorb the smaller ones even if a few die on the way through exploding vehicles. Likewise I see no reason why you can't mob up within a battle wagon, not sure how useful if would be since you need at least 10 models in one of the mobz but it could help.
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All these options I believe are within any reasonable interpretation of the rules, however the glaring problem with the Mob Up Stratagem is that some actions in the movement phase affect the unit's later abilities - advance, fall back, even moving at all if you have heavies - and there's no word yet from
GW on what it means by "merge" the units. Do unit effects from both of the previous mobz now act on the entire merged mob or do neither of the effects affect the newly created mob, possibly just the effects from the larger unit - what if they are the same size (10) when merged? We don't know. The options below depend on how the rules shake out about which way the rules go on this issue.
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Advance and say you didn't / Fall back but say you didn't
This depends on either the merged mobs taking on neither of the unit effects from movement or just one of the units.
The idea is to advance with one or both (depending on which rules variant) mob up and now the merged unit can shoot heavies, suffer no penalty for assault weapons and also charge. Perfect but feels a little broken. Likewise the ability to fall back shoot and charge back in all on the same turn feels like it should cost more than one
CP.
Mob up to reset special effects
Several psychic attacks and special rules can temporally change a unit's stats, such as lowering your leadership, weapon skill or similar. When these effects are applied to a unit you could potentially remove the effect by mobbing up as the new merged unit never had the effect cast on it.
This list is by no means exhaustive and I would love to hear you thoughts on these ideas. Also if you have any clever ways to use mob up of your own please share I'd love to hear them.
