Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The size to range issue of foot guard is very real, though. Force concentration is always an issue with horde armies. More often than not, if the front guys in a blob are within 12", a majority of the blob is stuck single-tapping.

And the efficiency of orders gain for blobbing is tiny. A few extra lasgun shots, for example, are meaningless against mech armies or gunlines.

Furthermore, we're talking about guardsmen in "Warhammer 40:000 - An exciting gunline adventure for two players". Blobs or no, your infantry is getting wiped off the table, or at least brought down to near irrelevance by turn 3, regardless of leadership. Leadership doesn't stop focus fire. Leadership doesn't let you not take casualties from the front. Leadership doesn't undo the effects of markerlights. Leadership doesn't make venoms fire fewer shots, or undo prescience, or prevent your opponent from fielding manticores out of LOS.

Leadership is virtually a non-factor for guard, not because their units are fearless, but because they get killed before they run. And even if you do take morale tests, MSU is still better, because 3 10-man units can't run off the table in the way that 1 30-man unit can, regardless of how angry the commissar may or may not be at the time.

You could give all infantry platoon units fearless for free, and it wouldn't matter. Paying to give them rerolls from a non-hidden unit doesn't matter any more.

Blobs are still very effective in my local meta. Obviously its not tournament meta or the meta everyone else uses, but they work shockkingly well. A frirnd of mine runs a full platoon (or as close as he can) in every game. HWS and HWTs in every infantry and command squad, Conscripts in huge numbers, 56 man powerblob with Commissars and Sergeants with Powerfists/swords everywhere. It, is, a, menace. The HQ is usually Creed or a simple Primaris Psyker and the other troop is a dirt cheap Veteran Squad, with Vendetta or Leman Russ variant to support and it kills stuff. The Heavy Weapons Teams and Squads can kill gak at long range, while anyone coming close gets wiped off the table by enormous numbers of Lasfire. The only army that has EVER beaten this list was a Wraithspam Iyanden army, and it was an incredibly close game regardless. It came down to a PF Commissar dualing with Yriel, which he lost obviously, but there were still many IG models on the field with few Eldar. Those few Eldar happened to be scoring Wraithguard and a Wraithknight and just happened to control the Relic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Both however, were on 1 VP each for First Blood and Linebreaker respectively, with the Leman Russ OHKOing a Farseer and Yriel and his crew in the IG homeground.

Lord commisar, CCS, aegis with quad and heavy weapon teams/ratlings. You get your orders off at ld 10 and the quad/icarus hits on 2's

It's also unnerving to have so many guardsmen at once. Commissars can keep them in check.

I don't run Commissars, mainly because I only have but one model, the old Female one with laspistol.

But while I have failed a few orders, my guys never break and run. They hold. Last tourney I had a 5 man squad hold out against a Dreadknight 2 turns in CC. He was squishing them whack a mole one at a time, but they held. Even managed to get a wound on him.

They were rewarded with extra paint detailing work.

When ever I play, I will usually have one, Lord Commissar, in any list I have over 1,500 points. I always seem to have around 85-100 points laying around to use. The stubborn they give out and high LD is too good to not use.

I for some reason rarely see any commissars used at my local area. The other IG players who go with blob platoons should always load up on commissars. the extra power weapon, plasma pistol, not bad to keep. I have used blob platoons in the past and each squad had a commissar, might have been over kill, but, it kept everyone in place.

Played my mech vets IG against a blob once, it was easy to watch those big platoons run away.

I think more than one Commissar in a platoon is completely overkill - while I do sing praise of how effective Commissars are at keeping my men on the table, you get diminishing returns the more there are. It's not like the platoon gets MORE stubborn with the addition of more Commissars. I played against an Azrael blob this past week, and his blob of 50 Guardsmen was full to the brim with Commissars. While the power axe attacks all had one lucky turn and killed my bikers, that was still like 200 points he could have spent on Deathwing Terminators, more Guardsmen, tanks, or what have you.

Yes but its a case of redundancy, due to Prescision attacks/Challenges and how wounds are allocated, and as the blobs are bought as individual, 10 (11) man squads, having Commissars all over gives you the ability to run them as single squads or have a few single squads, or two smaller blobs, whilst retaining the Stubborn.

Blobs with commisars and krak grenades are great for dealing with enemy MC and such, mostly because you can knock it down then lock it down.

could i ask the people who use blob guard successfully - what sort of meta do you play in? I only ask because my attempts to use blobs consist of them being blown to pieces and getting bugger all damage done.

Also, what's your typical blob list? Maybe i just try to fit blob guard in but the rest of my list is still built like a mechlist.

Commissars suck, gretchin kill them. They add nothing to the army...

xruslanx wrote:
could i ask the people who use blob guard successfully - what sort of meta do you play in? I only ask because my attempts to use blobs consist of them being blown to pieces and getting bugger all damage done.

Also, what's your typical blob list? Maybe i just try to fit blob guard in but the rest of my list is still built like a mechlist.

When I ran blob guard it was in a mixed meta, always had a Lord Commissar. Usually kept them behind the tanks, they're generally squishier than a squadron of Russes

BaconUprising wrote:
Commissars suck, gretchin kill them. They add nothing to the army...

...except for excellent leadership, and extra close combat power.

 Talore wrote:

BaconUprising wrote:
Commissars suck, gretchin kill them. They add nothing to the army...

...except for excellent leadership, and extra close combat power.

That my friend is what we in the business call a troll. Well not really but eh...

 Deadshot wrote:
Yes but its a case of redundancy, due to Prescision attacks/Challenges and how wounds are allocated, and as the blobs are bought as individual, 10 (11) man squads, having Commissars all over gives you the ability to run them as single squads or have a few single squads, or two smaller blobs, whilst retaining the Stubborn.

Commissars in individual squads is way, way too expensive. There's only a 15 point difference between a Commissar and 10 Guardsmen, and 10 dudes aren't going to live long enough to have the leadership be an issue. One per 30 seems pretty solid. Precision attacks are such a non-issue I can't be bothered to worry about them, especially since you can LoSir on them, and you have sergeants to eat challenges.

I'm a gambler with my units and dice, I like to take risks like using Stormraven's as a transport, but even I know that taking 1 Commissar is just asking for trouble. I don't play guard but I honestly wouldn't even consider having less than 1 Commissar per 20 Infantrymen. Its just too much of a risk to only have 1. And that LoS! Is only a 50/50 chance to take a wound on someone else. While Sergeants can eat challenges, what happens when all your Sergeants have been mulched or Executed by said Commissar?

 Deadshot wrote:
I'm a gambler with my units and dice, I like to take risks like using Stormraven's as a transport, but even I know that taking 1 Commissar is just asking for trouble. I don't play guard but I honestly wouldn't even consider having less than 1 Commissar per 20 Infantrymen. Its just too much of a risk to only have 1. And that LoS! Is only a 50/50 chance to take a wound on someone else. While Sergeants can eat challenges, what happens when all your Sergeants have been mulched or Executed by said Commissar?

Since when was using a Stormraven as a transport a risk?

And honestly, one Lord Commissar has always been enough for me. A guard player.

Calgar was in a Blob with a commissar and they failed there leadership........................

liquidjoshi wrote:Since when was using a Stormraven as a transport a risk?

Since this is what happens to the guys inside when the vehicle is destroyed:



Anyways, I'd also note that taking large squads does alleviate some of the leadership problems (which still aren't the real problem) on its own. Against a 10-man squad, you need only 3 casualties to cause a check, while a 30-man blob needs to sustain 8. A large combined squad already won't be taking leadership tests from stray gunfire - they'll only be taking tests against shooting designed to wipe them out. And, again, if you're getting shot at by something that's designed to wipe you out, then leadership isn't the biggest problem you're facing...

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Calgar was in a Blob with a commissar and they failed there leadership........................

It's been FAQ'd that Commissars can only execute models from the IG codex.

 Deadshot wrote:
I'm a gambler with my units and dice, I like to take risks like using Stormravens as a transport, but even I know that taking 1 Commissar is just asking for trouble. I don't play guard but I honestly wouldn't even consider having less than 1 Commissar per 20 Infantrymen. Its just too much of a risk to only have 1. And that LoS! Is only a 50/50 chance to take a wound on someone else. While Sergeants can eat challenges, what happens when all your Sergeants have been mulched or Executed by said Commissar?

Okay, so you're looking at a 1/6 chance of a shot from a character - so typically a bolt pistol or something of the sort - at actually hitting the Commissar. That's not even a 17% chance. Now halve that because of LoSir. We're looking at a little over 8%. Now you need to roll to wound. Even with a plasma pistol or something that'll wound on a 2+, the chances of actually doing anything are infinitesimal. I'm not really big on mathhammering in a vacuum, but this is something that's pretty strictly numbers. If you've got squads of snipers shooting or something like a Vindicare or Telion, it's much more likely, but snipers shooting at Guardsmen are largely wasted. If you've already munched through 3 sergeants in challenges and morale tests, then you've been in assault with something for a few rounds and that squad is probably pretty close to dead anyway. Even still, the Commissar can deny the challenge and while your squad drops to LD7, it still has Stubborn. I'm one of the stronger proponents of Commissars in this thread, and I still think 1 is enough. Yes, my Commissars die occasionally. This usually happens when the squad's down to its last handful of dudes at the bottom of turn 4 or 5. The points spent on a second Commissar for a thirty man blob are better spent elsewhere. You also don't play Guard, so I don't think you have a very good idea of how well you can keep them alive.

xruslanx wrote:
could i ask the people who use blob guard successfully - what sort of meta do you play in?

Both standard tournament meta, as in large tournaments like NOVA and Adepticon (as we have some players that like to go there, they tend to place very well), and basic players.

That said, I see everything, flier spam, no fliers, net lists, non-net lists, MC spam, everything.

Blob still works well. I enjoy hiding my commissar behind something so they can't kill it. The change to thunderfire cannons makes that harder, but then again my 3 deathstrike missiles put those out of commission real fast.

 Ailaros wrote:

liquidjoshi wrote:Since when was using a Stormraven as a transport a risk?

Since this is what happens to the guys inside when the vehicle is destroyed:

Fair enough, but Stormravens aren't exactly fragile.

Anyhow, Commissars = yes.

There aren't too many IG players in my meta so I don't see too many Commissars.

However, there was one game where I cast Terrify on a squad multiple times causing enough failed Morale checks the Commissar killed off 50% of the unit.

I don't see much use anymore....

If you run Al then maybe but usually its easier to ally sisters or marines.

 sfshilo wrote:
I don't see much use anymore....

If you run Al then maybe but usually its easier to ally sisters or marines.

What do you mean? Do you mean running allied codices to attach ICs to the blobs? While I know Azrael with a blob is super popular (and entirely too unfluffy for me to justify) I wouldn't make a habit out of sticking a Space Marine Chaplain to a blob just to keep their LD up. Seems too expensive an investment.

 Brother SRM wrote:

 sfshilo wrote:
I don't see much use anymore....

If you run Al then maybe but usually its easier to ally sisters or marines.

What do you mean? Do you mean running allied codices to attach ICs to the blobs? While I know Azrael with a blob is super popular (and entirely too unfluffy for me to justify) I wouldn't make a habit out of sticking a Space Marine Chaplain to a blob just to keep their LD up. Seems too expensive an investment.

Especially when you can just take a Lord Commissar anyway, who will probably do the job better.

And even then, a Lord Commissar is paying a lot more points to do essentially the same thing.

Its the cultists approach. You use a blob to surround a termie chapter master or librarian etc. Twenty guys and a Pcs is cheap for a body guard.

And good luck moving a platoon with a Chaplin off an objective...

Also, lord commisar....kinda lacking in the heavy hitting.

 sfshilo wrote:
Its the cultists approach. You use a blob to surround a termie chapter master or librarian etc. Twenty guys and a Pcs is cheap for a body guard.

And good luck moving a platoon with a Chaplin off an objective...

Also, lord commisar....kinda lacking in the heavy hitting.

I'm not seeing what a Chaplain brings aside from a troop tax, heftier price tag, limiting allies to Space Marines, and CC ability. You know, the CC you want guardsmen to stay out of.

LD10? Check. Fearless? Uh huh. Stubborn too.

To each his own I suppose, I'd just rather have a Lord commissar in there. Granted, the Chaplain is more survivable, but how much is that armour and toughness honestly worth on a bunch of blokes that are gonna be sat on my home point?

I haven't really used commissars a lot since 6th edition hit. I field a hybrid IG force, with half of the infantry in my army being on foot in separate 10-man squads and hiding in cover to protect my heavy tanks from the first assault. The other half of my infantry is in Chimeras to advance and take objectives, so they woulden't get a bonus anyway.
I have recently started experimenting with fielding an Ogryn squad, either with a Lord Commissar or a Primaris Psyker. The Ogryns are stubborn already, so they just need a character for the leadership boost, something which the pysker can do just fine.