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.

Yes, that is true, and people tend to keep 1/2 IC in the blob, just to keep Azrael safe. I am thinking about using precision shoots. That and rending would work - but its a gamble.

Not worth it.

Precision shots can be LoSir'd. Plus you need to hit with a 6, wound, fail LoSir, fail armor/invuln ... All that times however many wounds azrael has.

Thunderwolf Cav, with a hero with saga of the warrior born.

The thunderwolves will kill 5-6 guard a turn. The hero kills 3 the first turn, 4 in the next combat phase, 5, then 6, and so on.
Two too three turns and the blob is gone.

The poweraxe guardsmen need 4s to hit, and 5s to wound.

Of course, Rangnar plus some wolf guard in power armor, charging out of a Crusader will kill 15-20 on the charge, and 11 in the next turn, making it much easier to face down those cowardly DA characters.

Durandal is that killing 15-20 on the charge and 11 the next turn with their 4++ invul?

Durandal wrote:
Thunderwolf Cav, with a hero with saga of the warrior born.

The thunderwolves will kill 5-6 guard a turn. The hero kills 3 the first turn, 4 in the next combat phase, 5, then 6, and so on.
Two too three turns and the blob is gone.

The poweraxe guardsmen need 4s to hit, and 5s to wound.

Of course, Rangnar plus some wolf guard in power armor, charging out of a Crusader will kill 15-20 on the charge, and 11 in the next turn, making it much easier to face down those cowardly DA characters.

Correction: Hero kills one the first turn, one the next combat phase, then one, and so on.

SW Hero, meet sacrificial sergeants 1 through 5.

Frag missiles. 8-10 of them a turn. Should kill a fair few.

Or try and Jaws of the World Wolf Azrael and pray.

The way to kill buffed up blobs is to make them roll lots of saves

How I would deal with it:

Send a Swarmlord, Tyranid Prime Regen, TS, LW/BS), and Tyrant guard (BS) to play with them. Iron arm and Endurance (either from Swarmlord or another source, and possibly Warp speed) you're talking lots of dead guardsmen. Additionally, you can issue 2 challenges a turn. Each player turn that's 2 dead sergants.

Eventually you'll get to Azreal and then he'll lose the either the SL or Prime and you'll break the squad.

Remember,

You can only have 1 challenge in any combat.

Lucarikx

Plus he could just no accept, while Azrael with his strength 6 AP 3 weapon will be putting a few wounds on a turn. If the guard blob gets into combat with your big nasty swarmstar, that's a win for the guardsmen. Not the other way around.

roxor08 wrote:
How I would deal with it:

Send a Swarmlord, Tyranid Prime Regen, TS, LW/BS), and Tyrant guard (BS) to play with them. Iron arm and Endurance (either from Swarmlord or another source, and possibly Warp speed) you're talking lots of dead guardsmen. Additionally, you can issue 2 challenges a turn. Each player turn that's 2 dead sergants.

Eventually you'll get to Azreal and then he'll lose the either the SL or Prime and you'll break the squad.

Remember,

Deathstar vs deathstar is almost never a good plan.

And please people, read the thread and stop recommending challenges. You're really not understanding this build.

50 guardsmen with krak grenades. 5 sarge's with power axes and melta bombs. Azrael gives them all fearless and 4++. If you challenge, he can sacrifice a guard sarge. Or just refuse the challenge. Power axes and weight of numbers will beat out most dedicated combat units. Deathstar vs deathstar ties up valuable resources from both sides.

Ignoring the unit or mitigating it are your best options. The reason he put 50 guys in a unit with a 4++ is because he WANTS you to waste time on it. Throwing units at it is playing his game.

If you're nids, spawn a unit of gaunts and line them up 1" away from the blob and make him waste his time clearing away an expendable unit at a time. Flyrants can precision strike the special/heavy weapons out with t/l devourers. Terrify and/or hallucinate can work wonders.

If you must kill them, you need quantity not quality. Whatever in your army will force the most saves be it bolters, devourers, sonic blasters, etc. Whatever allows you to roll the most dice.

That is so true.
I am thinking about tarpiting that blob. Eg with two squads of ten fenrissian wolves. One squad assaults them, and the next squad assaults them in the next phase. If You can spare additional points you will pretty much hold one, 500 unit unusable for a whole game, with few squads each worth 80 points.

 portugus wrote:
Durandal is that killing 15-20 on the charge and 11 the next turn with their 4++ invul?

Each wolf guard has S5 and 3+d3 attacks on the charge. Furthermore, they are all characters and can issue and accept challenges. Each WG has a .28 chance to kill an IG model per attack (2/3*5/6*1/2). 10 models, at 5 attacks each, is 50 attacks. 50*.28 = 14 dead IG off the bat for 180 points of WG. Ragnar also 7 attacks for another 3 dead.
Subsequent rounds of combat the WG will have 40 attacks, which is 8-9 dead IG. So after the full game turn is over the IG blob squad will have lost 29 IG.

You can always challenge with Ragnar and wipe out the sergeants they send your way for little loss of effectiveness.

Also, 5 TW cav are doing 5*7*.28 = 9-10 kills a turn for 250 points, plus another 1-2 from Hammer of wraith first turn. Add in Canis, who has a .34 chance to kill and can choose to get one attack for every IG in base contact, and you are doing a minimum of 11-12 kills a turn. Canis also lets you take wolves as troops, which can help out as well with this dropping 30 attacks and preventing any overwatch fire into your more expensive TW cav by charging first. You are looking at 4 combat phases or two game turns to destroy the unit. IG response with the power axes is muted since they need 4s to hit and 5s to wound, with two attacks they will at best get a wound a turn, so you will suffer one casualty every game turn. And that is assuming your opponent saves them from any precision hits.

The IG blob squad only works against units that have a handful of high S, and low AP attacks. You can tear it apart with weight of fire and bury it under close combat attacks. I picked the above two examples for fun, but really it is easy to focus down the blob squad with more points then its worth because it is so large and your opponent needs to spread it out to block line of sight. There is nothing stopping you from charging in with your GH squads at the same time as more dedicated attack units. The enemy wants you to only send one or two units in at a time, that way they have an advantage, but if you hit it with GH shooting + assault by a bunch of the above it can go down faster.

Huh, never thought of those points.

Durandal wrote:

 portugus wrote:
Durandal is that killing 15-20 on the charge and 11 the next turn with their 4++ invul?

Each wolf guard has S5 and 3+d3 attacks on the charge. Furthermore, they are all characters and can issue and accept challenges. Each WG has a .28 chance to kill an IG model per attack (2/3*5/6*1/2). 10 models, at 5 attacks each, is 50 attacks. 50*.28 = 14 dead IG off the bat for 180 points of WG. Ragnar also 7 attacks for another 3 dead.
Subsequent rounds of combat the WG will have 40 attacks, which is 8-9 dead IG. So after the full game turn is over the IG blob squad will have lost 29 IG.

You can always challenge with Ragnar and wipe out the sergeants they send your way for little loss of effectiveness.

Also, 5 TW cav are doing 5*7*.28 = 9-10 kills a turn for 250 points, plus another 1-2 from Hammer of wraith first turn. Add in Canis, who has a .34 chance to kill and can choose to get one attack for every IG in base contact, and you are doing a minimum of 11-12 kills a turn. Canis also lets you take wolves as troops, which can help out as well with this dropping 30 attacks and preventing any overwatch fire into your more expensive TW cav by charging first. You are looking at 4 combat phases or two game turns to destroy the unit. IG response with the power axes is muted since they need 4s to hit and 5s to wound, with two attacks they will at best get a wound a turn, so you will suffer one casualty every game turn. And that is assuming your opponent saves them from any precision hits.

The IG blob squad only works against units that have a handful of high S, and low AP attacks. You can tear it apart with weight of fire and bury it under close combat attacks. I picked the above two examples for fun, but really it is easy to focus down the blob squad with more points then its worth because it is so large and your opponent needs to spread it out to block line of sight. There is nothing stopping you from charging in with your GH squads at the same time as more dedicated attack units. The enemy wants you to only send one or two units in at a time, that way they have an advantage, but if you hit it with GH shooting + assault by a bunch of the above it can go down faster.

There's a lot of things wrong with these claims.

Wolf guard are not characters when the whole squad is wolf guard.

Ragnar killing sarges in a challenge does not lessen their effectiveness. Ragnar is losing out on killing multiple bodies and instead kills one model. Meanwhile wolfguard without invulns get mulched by azrael and an entire brick of guard attacks.

The key thing about the Azreal 4++ blob is that the first time you see it, you gak your knickers and fire everything you have into it.
It's scary. It's a feth load of near invulnerable dudes.

Then you take a step back and think:

Well this thing costs nearly 1K points. It can capture 1 objective, provide cover for a few things and prevents loss of STWL. The firepower (in this melee focussed blob) is rather meagre for the points investment too.

I've dealt with the blob in 3 ways.

1) Ignore it. It can only cap 1 objective, and if you're running any sort of gun line, it will never make it to you thanks to the sheer number of guys.

2) If your opponent is using it as a line to provide cover, a Rune Priest with JotWW will take out most of it in one shot. It's hilarious, and you'll easily make the 100pts back in one cast.

3) If they're bunched up, shooting. A manticore (or similar large blast indirect fire thing) targeted on Azreal will kill a bunch of guard (assuming there's no better target out there, this thing is pretty low priority), and if you get seriously lucky, you can ID Az himself. It's pretty unlikely, but I've seen someone do it.

Charging into CC with a powerhouse character is exactly what your opponent wants. He'll slowly kill one sergeant per turn, for 4 or 5 turns. All while the rest of the blob and Az take out his squad.
I've charged TWC at this thing before and frankly, it wasn't worth it. Killed a quite a few guardsmen, but the weight of attacks was on the guard side. I highly recommend strategy #1. Ignore it, kill everything else. Win on objectives.

There's a lot of things wrong with these claims.

Wolf guard are not characters when the whole squad is wolf guard.

Ragnar killing sarges in a challenge does not lessen their effectiveness. Ragnar is losing out on killing multiple bodies and instead kills one model. Meanwhile wolfguard without invulns get mulched by azrael and an entire brick of guard attacks.

Look at the table in the back of the rule book. WG are type In (Cr), same as WGBL, Wolf Lords, Rune Priests etc. There is no exception if they are "in a unit". They can all issue and receive challenges, and have precision shots shooting and in assault. So 1/6 hits can be allocated as you wish, which means first turn you can allocate 8 hits to the sergeants if you want, regardless of the challenge state. That means that two should die off the bat, cutting the killing power of the unit substantially in the first turn.

You can also equp WG in any way you want. You can easily throw a Storm Shield and Frost axe on one and have him issue a challenge each turn. Or throw in Arjac. The blob squad need Azrazel alive, so they cannot risk him in combat. If they do, dump the precision wounds on him. Make him test.

Check the FAQ, all those character-units are no longer characters.

hyv3mynd does exagerate the troubles the guardsmen will give the wolves. When 15-20 guardsmen dissapear in a red mist, the remaining will probably be too far away to fight back with their 3" consolidation move. You are also probably looking at 2-3 dead sergeants, as they have to be somewhat close to the front to be able to fight, and one has to take the challenge. The wolf guard unit will probably ravage the blob.

However, that unit is not so hot in a more general sense, so I would rather use thundercav, grey hunters and podded flamers to fight the blob if I was playing SW`s

 Illumini wrote:
Check the FAQ, all those character-units are no longer characters.

hyv3mynd does exagerate the troubles the guardsmen will give the wolves. When 15-20 guardsmen dissapear in a red mist, the remaining will probably be too far away to fight back with their 3" consolidation move. You are also probably looking at 2-3 dead sergeants, as they have to be somewhat close to the front to be able to fight, and one has to take the challenge. The wolf guard unit will probably ravage the blob.

However, that unit is not so hot in a more general sense, so I would rather use thundercav, grey hunters and podded flamers to fight the blob if I was playing SW`s

Still not seeing how "15-20 guardsmen disappear in a red mist" with a 4+ invulnerable save on every model. You'd have to cause 30-40 wounds. Can you show the math on said SW unit causing 40 wounds on the charge? Don't forget the wolves have to take as many as 90 overwatch shots and Azrael will knock down several SW before they strike.

 Illumini wrote:
Check the FAQ, all those character-units are no longer characters.

The profile from the rulebook is never amended, just the rule forcing them to never leave the squad.

 hyv3mynd wrote:

Still not seeing how "15-20 guardsmen disappear in a red mist" with a 4+ invulnerable save on every model. You'd have to cause 30-40 wounds.

I've already shown that they get 2 base, +1 for extra CCW, +d3 for charging. That is 4-6*10 models which is 40-60 attacks. Overwatch is a non-factor, I can easily get a cheap unit of wolves to charge first and take the hit. If you have Azrazel in front, where he can "pick off" models, then I can just as easily devote attacks to him, or charge an area where he can't reach in the first round of combat. After all, you have to spread the blob out or it is useless.

Oh, and the squad has bolt pistols, so they kill two guards men from shooting before heading in. Of course, I could give them all combo-flamers. Or have them outflank with a Wolf Priest. Actually, with a wolf priest and shooting before assault 20 guardsmen will die in the first round on average (37% kill per attack). Of course I'm using about 7-800 points to kill a purported 600 pt unit, but I'll still have most of my unit at the end.

Durandal wrote:

 Illumini wrote:
Check the FAQ, all those character-units are no longer characters.

The profile from the rulebook is never amended, just the rule forcing them to never leave the squad.

.........

I've already shown that they get 2 base, +1 for extra CCW, +d3 for charging. That is 4-6*10 models which is 40-60 attacks. Overwatch is a non-factor, I can easily get a cheap unit of wolves to charge first and take the hit. If you have Azrazel in front, where he can "pick off" models, then I can just as easily devote attacks to him, or charge an area where he can't reach in the first round of combat. After all, you have to spread the blob out or it is useless.

Page 3 of the BRB FAQ, under 'Reference Section - Profile, Codex: Space Wolves, Wolf Guard." It reads: "Change unit type to Infantry." It also comes with the following Designer's note: "Wolf Guard, Nobz, Nobz Warbikers, and Crisis Shas’vre that lead a unit (for example an Ork Nob leading Ork Boyz, a Wolf Guard leading Grey Hunters) have (Character) added to their unit type." Wolf Guard, in a unit of Wolf Guard, are not characters.

Also, if you have 60 attacks, that's an average of 40 hits, resulting in ~27 wounds, at max, which means about 13 guardsmen killed on the charge, if you get the charge. This is if you lose zero models to overwatch (sacrificial Fenrisian Wolves can help, yes) or prior shooting from the prescience'd or Foreboding'd blob, and if you roll max attacks on the charge. That's not really what I'd be looking for in countering a guard blob. Frankly, knowing some people who play guard blob, they'd probably like that situation.

Edit: Actually, it's more like 9 dead guardsmen at max on the charge, as you're not ignoring their 5+ armor save with your CC weapons. That's even less enticing.

Wolf guard charging the Azrael blob is just a bad idea. Marines with 3+ saves wont last will most likely be charged by the blob and die from mass attacks.

Furioso dreads with Blood Talons, job done

You wont get forboding/prescience and azrael at them same time. You also dont get both the invul and the flak save. However, the wolf guard star is still a terrible unit overall, so no real point in going too far down this path.

How would 2 droppods with deathwind? launchers deal with the blob?

cheap mans thunderfire cannons.

Bishop F Gantry wrote:
How would 2 droppods with deathwind? launchers deal with the blob?

cheap mans thunderfire cannons.

It would do alright tbh

But I still don't believe this is still going on !!

Close combat would be an idiots way of killing this. As a marine and a tau player it is simple to wipe this unit out

In my marine list I always run 2 vindicators and a thunderfire i believe that should be suficent. you could also use dev squads with 4 flamers and a combi flamer. Or if your desperate I suppose you could feed them cc termies and use a psyker to grant fnp and then misfortune on the guardsmen

And as tau it's self explanatory.

Or just flat out ignore them, there only guardsmen with a substandard character in there

Bishop F Gantry wrote:
How would 2 droppods with deathwind? launchers deal with the blob?

cheap mans thunderfire cannons.

Terrible, it has a short range, so its easy to escape from, and its probably not going to start shooting until turn 2 at least, probably not until turn 3 and even then, they might get one shot off.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Plus he could just no accept, while Azrael with his strength 6 AP 3 weapon will be putting a few wounds on a turn. If the guard blob gets into combat with your big nasty swarmstar, that's a win for the guardsmen. Not the other way around.

If someone refuses your challenge, you get to choose who doesn't fight.
If I charged with a wraithlord/knight and he accepted, I'd fight and kill whoever was in front of me. If the challenge is refused, then Azreal will be at the back not being allowed to hit.

Apart from Azreal, what else in this blob squad can hurt a t8 model in cc?
Do people put powerfists on sergeants anymore?

 Griddlelol wrote:
1) Ignore it. It can only cap 1 objective, and if you're running any sort of gun line, it will never make it to you thanks to the sheer number of guys.

I want to add to this concept a little bit.

When someone suggests ignoring a unit, its not like we just pretend the unit does not exist. Were still aware of its killing power and what it can do. If possible you want to keep as much as possible out of range, etc...

What it means is that your going to focus on killing the rest of his army. If he had 700 points tied up in a unit (which is about all a unit + Azzie is going to be) that's going to be roughly half his army in a 1500 point game. Focus your killing prowess on the rest of his army and then afterwords focus on the unit.

That strategy can work. When I was playing serpent spam/Jetseer I would play a draigowing army and table everything except the paladins by turn 5. Then it was pretty easy winning the game.

 PredaKhaine wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Plus he could just no accept, while Azrael with his strength 6 AP 3 weapon will be putting a few wounds on a turn. If the guard blob gets into combat with your big nasty swarmstar, that's a win for the guardsmen. Not the other way around.

If someone refuses your challenge, you get to choose who doesn't fight.
If I charged with a wraithlord/knight and he accepted, I'd fight and kill whoever was in front of me. If the challenge is refused, then Azreal will be at the back not being allowed to hit.

Apart from Azreal, what else in this blob squad can hurt a t8 model in cc?
Do people put powerfists on sergeants anymore?

He said the entire group would have krak grenades.

Fair enough, that'd do it

Edit:
Would it not be really hard to get enough krak in range to do it though?
You need to be within 2" of the combat to strike (iirc) - if the guard blod is spread out in a 20" line shielding tanks then how many could get into cc?