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True, priests don't help orders, but you can get voxes cheap. Not going to ground is really the only drawback.

Biophysical wrote:

That is the main problem with close combat blobs, shooty blobs that are also competent in close combat are dangerous to the enemy on turn one, don't need their killing power up front, and have excellent durability per point. Furthermore, priests as a source of leadership are about four times more durable than commissars, do more to help in combat, more to boost shooting, and better leadership buffs for less points.

You shooty blob will be reduced to ashes with enemy fire (can be prevented by aegis and camping in one place) or tarpited in melee by monstrous creatures (cant reliably prevent this one, especially with FMC Daemons and Nids...). Still, durability is great with aegis, but there is a danger of tarpit by cheaper unit...

Blobs firepower is very cost ineffective (aegis + 50 men LC blob + priest for fearless + primaris for TL + CCS voxed for orders....5 LC shots, which are TL, ignores cover, but cost about 550 points and cant move to better position, which is VERY important in wh40k.....that a big no no...)

How exactly can your priest buff a squads firepower? There is no bonus afaik. He also does not boost leadership, he is LD 7.

 Lothar wrote:

How exactly can your priest buff a squads firepower? There is no bonus afaik. He also does not boost leadership, he is LD 7.

Bringing an extra plasma gun, probably.

What does anyone think of this ABG (as in, forgeworld) allied detachment for guard?:
Command Vanquisher with beast-hunter shells, co-axial heavy stubber - 190pts
Commissar Vanquisher with beast-hunter shells, co-axial heavy stubber - 190pts
Armoured fist squad w. lascannon in autocannon chimera - 130pts
So for 510pts, we get two tanks which murder armour and monstrous creatures, and one provides a Ld10 bubble to all your dudes for orders and stuff. We also get a scoring unit in a vehicle that adds some lascannon and autocannon fire. Thoughts?

My blobs sergeants carry meltabombs so I welcome MCs. Anyway, an enemy army can destroy any unit, but blobs are the toughest for the points while still retaining versatile firepower.

I'm looking at 3 squads with meltabombs and plasma guns, plus a plasma priest. 250 points, scoring, not a huge investment, firepower to threaten anything but heavy armor, 31 bodies.

Where are the third party wheels from?

Javin wrote:Where are the third party wheels from?

link

Biophysical wrote:I disagree. That is the main problem with close combat blobs, shooty blobs that are also competent in close combat are dangerous to the enemy on turn one, don't need their killing power up front, and have excellent durability per point. Furthermore, priests as a source of leadership are about four times more durable than commissars, do more to help in combat, more to boost shooting, and better leadership buffs for less points.

But why use blobs? Why not just use MSU?

The small increase in orders efficiency is more than outweighed by all the other benefits of MSU, and you don't have to spend points on those support characters to boot.

Foot guard as per hiding behind an aegis with a gunline got a little bit better, but it wasn't really the point of taking blobs in the first place. If all you wanted was some lascannons, you have options for lascannons elsewhere in the codex. If you wanted blobs, the point was go go somewhere with them.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Spoiler:

Taurox with some 3rd party tires doesn't look so bad.

That is amazing and if you do not link a tutorial or source for those wheel I'm reporting you to the commissar for tech heresy! (But seriously, we need to know how to do this. It is that awesome.)

After dinking around with a few builds against the wife's DE I'm liking Vets in auger taurox, scion bomb, with castled up blob support. The Bullgryns were able to tarpit her wytchs and provide a good buffer between those nasty DE and the little'uns but that was about it, I still like them I just feel like I used them poorly. (note to self, keep ogryns away from kabalite warriors.) I'm way out of practice and the game I get are few and far between so I'm relegated to mainly theory crafting, but i do like the new dex. Once i get back stateside and into a regular scene I think I'll be able to really get a handle on it though.

Reasons to use blobs over MSU:

1.) Kill points
2.) MSU is easy to push off objectives in the last turn because of bad leadership (although new Commissar rules may make MSU more interesting in this regard)
3.) MSU is bad at pushing tough enemies off objectives because of almost non-existent close-combat ability
4.) MSU can make far less use of important order and psykic buffs. It's not a small increase efficiency, it's 3-4 times the number of heavy and/or special weapons that can make use of Fire on My Target/Bring it Down and/or Prescience or any other of the great Divination buffs.
5.) MSU squads can be swept off the field by casual close combat (anything better in close combat than half a squad of tac marines can assault and destroy a lone infantry squad in one go.
6.) MSU is bad at protecting independent characters (although you probably just don't take them).

What do you get for all these drawbacks? The opportunity for your opponent to waste a little firepower by overkilling 10-man squads.

When running power blobs what do you guys do with your PCS and CCS? 5 dudes giving orders that need to be nearby would seem like an easy target. Put them in chimeras?

I played two 600 games with the new 'Dex today.

The Pask Punisher is great, I took it with a Vanquisher with MM's in a squadron. Pask killed a Chimera with Melta Vets inside and then proceeded to wipe the entire squad, despite the fact they were in hard cover, in the following turn. The Vanquisher just split-fired every turn using "Gunners, Kill On Sight" and ended up killing a Taurox and another Chimera, the rest was handled by 20 Forward Sentry melta vets on foot.

Other things of note - Forwards For The Emperor is one of the best new orders, and combined with cloaked Vets It gives me some great light infantry elements and on the cheap. Being able to pop out from behind cover, blast off some meltaguns and lasgun shots and then run back behind it is pretty brutal.

I had my opponent in the second game use Suppressive Fire, kill one Vet in my heavily entrenched Vet squad in one turn, and then pin me, which was pretty surprising because I'd already forgotten it exists- it does, and against low LD infantry it works a treat.

Thus far I am really happy with this Codex. The only unit loss that really bothers me is Al'Rahem, he'll sorely be missed. I can still use Cypher to outflank a blob but I wouldn't want to miss out on the awesome new orders.

That's a question I've never satisfactorily answered. The two best I've found are with nothing added, on foot. It's basically a kill point anyway, so don't give your opponent any more than that. A chimera with quad flamers is probably the best overall option, used as a mobile order dispenser and counter-attacker.

In the new dex, I kind of like quad snipers on foot. The squad is still super-vulnerable, but it's still cheap, and has some capability. No practical experience, yet.

 Mr.Omega wrote:
I played two 600 games with the new 'Dex today.

The Pask Punisher is great, I took it with a Vanquisher with MM's in a squadron. Pask killed a Chimera with Melta Vets inside and then proceeded to wipe the entire squad, despite the fact they were in hard cover, in the following turn. The Vanquisher just split-fired every turn using "Gunners, Kill On Sight" and ended up killing a Taurox and another Chimera, the rest was handled by 20 Forward Sentry melta vets on foot.

...

Thus far I am really happy with this Codex.

You should try a few games against Eldars...you probably wont be happy anymore...

 Lothar wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
I played two 600 games with the new 'Dex today.

The Pask Punisher is great, I took it with a Vanquisher with MM's in a squadron. Pask killed a Chimera with Melta Vets inside and then proceeded to wipe the entire squad, despite the fact they were in hard cover, in the following turn. The Vanquisher just split-fired every turn using "Gunners, Kill On Sight" and ended up killing a Taurox and another Chimera, the rest was handled by 20 Forward Sentry melta vets on foot.

...

Thus far I am really happy with this Codex.

You should try a few games against Eldars...you probably wont be happy anymore...

You should probably learn to take advantage of Eldar weaknesses. They're nothing scary if you don't get blinded by illusions of their supposed unstoppable strength. Target and destroy the Psykers, don't present infantry unless you have a strict numbers/'defensive advantage, use such tools as Vendettas and Leman Russes to obliberate Wraithknights.

HWS teams with Fire On My Target, that can now be issued twice a phase is a strong counter to Wave Serpents, taking away their precious 4+ cover saves. And before you whinge at me about leadership you can always take a Lord Commissar to give both HWS LD10.

Biophysical wrote:
Reasons to use blobs over MSU:

1.) Kill points
2.) MSU is easy to push off objectives in the last turn because of bad leadership (although new Commissar rules may make MSU more interesting in this regard)
3.) MSU is bad at pushing tough enemies off objectives because of almost non-existent close-combat ability
4.) MSU can make far less use of important order and psykic buffs. It's not a small increase efficiency, it's 3-4 times the number of heavy and/or special weapons that can make use of Fire on My Target/Bring it Down and/or Prescience or any other of the great Divination buffs.
5.) MSU squads can be swept off the field by casual close combat (anything better in close combat than half a squad of tac marines can assault and destroy a lone infantry squad in one go.
6.) MSU is bad at protecting independent characters (although you probably just don't take them).

What do you get for all these drawbacks? The opportunity for your opponent to waste a little firepower by overkilling 10-man squads.

MSU is harder to push off of objectives because your opponent can't cause one failed morale check or blow a single squad off the table with concentrated firepower. Meanwhile, no configuration of infantry platoon is going to be able to go across the table and push something off of an objective. Meanwhile, MSU is only less efficient for orders in infantry squads, which, given that you're losing a single lascannon or maybe two isn't that much. MSU is also better if your opponent is getting into close combat as speedbumping is FAR superior to getting stuck in, especially with these better orders we have.

Meanwhile, MSU has much more flexible firepower, and suffers less from overkill, and it also makes your opponent have to target many squads, and can force overkill on your opponent. They are better at holding and contesting objectives as more units means more objectives you can hold and more turns required to remove your units from them. They're more durable not only because of the time and targeting problem, but they can also give cover saves to each other. As mentioned, speed bumping is much better, and forcing disordered charges isn't bad either. You also don't need to have coherency for all of your dudes, so can split them up (more flexibility in deployment), and you don't have to watch as all of them get drug off an objective by a single model getting into close combat.

The only thing that blobs are straight better for is KP, as you say, but that's only 1 in 6 missions. For the other 5 in 6, the MSU is better.

Now, if we were talking about a blob that was designed to be good in close combat, then that would be a different matter, as you actually want to get all those guys stuck in and overkill is a much lower risk than losing combat, and getting drug off of objectives by close combat is going to be much less of a problem. Blobs worked well because of power blobs. Shooty blobs haven't ever been as good of a use for blobs because the small benefit you get of buffing more models at a time doesn't make up for the drawbacks. Meanwhile, of course, MSU power blobs probably wouldn't work well at all.

The real question, then is if the new codex brought back power blobs. They're certainly better than they used to be, but I don't have confidence that they've actually been fixed from being completely broken.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Lothar wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
I played two 600 games with the new 'Dex today.

The Pask Punisher is great, I took it with a Vanquisher with MM's in a squadron. Pask killed a Chimera with Melta Vets inside and then proceeded to wipe the entire squad, despite the fact they were in hard cover, in the following turn. The Vanquisher just split-fired every turn using "Gunners, Kill On Sight" and ended up killing a Taurox and another Chimera, the rest was handled by 20 Forward Sentry melta vets on foot.

...

Thus far I am really happy with this Codex.

You should try a few games against Eldars...you probably wont be happy anymore...

You should probably learn to take advantage of Eldar weaknesses. They're nothing scary if you don't get blinded by illusions of their supposed unstoppable strength. Target and destroy the Psykers, don't present infantry unless you have a strict numbers/'defensive advantage, use such tools as Vendettas and Leman Russes to obliberate Wraithknights.

HWS teams with Fire On My Target, that can now be issued twice a phase is a strong counter to Wave Serpents, taking away their precious 4+ cover saves. And before you whinge at me about leadership you can always take a Lord Commissar to give both HWS LD10.

What's this "whinge" you keep whining about?

It's some equivalent to whine. I dunno what the joke is behind it.

 alarmingrick wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Lothar wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
I played two 600 games with the new 'Dex today.

The Pask Punisher is great, I took it with a Vanquisher with MM's in a squadron. Pask killed a Chimera with Melta Vets inside and then proceeded to wipe the entire squad, despite the fact they were in hard cover, in the following turn. The Vanquisher just split-fired every turn using "Gunners, Kill On Sight" and ended up killing a Taurox and another Chimera, the rest was handled by 20 Forward Sentry melta vets on foot.

...

Thus far I am really happy with this Codex.

You should try a few games against Eldars...you probably wont be happy anymore...

You should probably learn to take advantage of Eldar weaknesses. They're nothing scary if you don't get blinded by illusions of their supposed unstoppable strength. Target and destroy the Psykers, don't present infantry unless you have a strict numbers/'defensive advantage, use such tools as Vendettas and Leman Russes to obliberate Wraithknights.

HWS teams with Fire On My Target, that can now be issued twice a phase is a strong counter to Wave Serpents, taking away their precious 4+ cover saves. And before you whinge at me about leadership you can always take a Lord Commissar to give both HWS LD10.

What's this "whinge" you keep whining about?

whinge
wɪn(d)ʒ/Submit
BRIT.informal
verb
1.
complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way.
"stop whingeing and get on with it!"
synonyms: complain, grouse, grouch, grumble, whine, moan, carp, mutter, murmur, whisper; More
noun
noun: whinge; plural noun: whinges
1.
an act of complaining persistently and peevishly.
"she let off steam by having a good whinge"
synonyms: complaint, grouse, moan, grouch, grumble, whine, carp, mutter, murmur, whisper; More

MOD EDIT - RULE #1 - Alpharius]

MSU is harder to push off of objectives because your opponent can't cause one failed morale check or blow a single squad off the table with concentrated firepower.

You can grab LD10 stubborn for 25 points off an Inquisitor, LD9 from a Commissar at the same price. The former also gives the entire blob the boons of prescience easily. A blob is not going anywhere.

Meanwhile, no configuration of infantry platoon is going to be able to go across the table and push something off of an objective.

I disagree. Even just dozens of Lasguns will easily dislodge Marines and infantry from weight of wounds, especially now that we can give those lasgun shots the ability to pick out the worst anti-infantry killers in each squad, if they're low LD (Cultists, Guardsmen, Guardians, etc) we can have a go at pinning them, we can throw buckets of dice with FRFSRF, we can split our fire if multiple types of threats are encountered, and move across open ground quickly with a far more safe PCS from 12'' back.

Meanwhile, MSU is only less efficient for orders in infantry squads, which, given that you're losing a single lascannon or maybe two isn't that much.

Definitely at least two heavy weapons, and about 16~ men at least aren't getting the benefits of the order. Considering we can literally give ignores cover and splitfire to neutralize the issues of hard cover and wasting the Lasguns,I would not do MSU Infantry Squads.

MSU is also better if your opponent is getting into close combat as speedbumping is FAR superior to getting stuck in, especially with these better orders we have.

That just means that given time he rips apart your defences easily piece by piece with no chance at all of fighting back effectively. A horde of Guardsmen will take quite some casualties, but will have attacks to throw back all at once, will last more than a turn and likely have an LD buffer so they stay in the fight longer.

Meanwhile, MSU has much more flexible firepower, and suffers less from overkill, and it also makes your opponent have to target many squads, and can force overkill on your opponent.

Our Command Squads can now give any infantry unit split fire, so this is kind of a moot point, even if it was particularly a concern in the first place - I rarely see overkill outside of having to mop up small squads with a bucket of Lasgun dice.

They are better at holding and contesting objectives as more units means more objectives you can hold

A large blob can spread out and capture multiple objectives anyway if this is an issue.

and more turns required to remove your units from them.

This is both balanced out by the fact that a large CC fight will take longer to resolve given the mandatory includes of morale buffers and the fact that it takes considerably more effort to force morale tests, which are done at considerably better LD.

They're more durable not only because of the time and targeting problem, but they can also give cover saves to each other.

They should be in cover to begin with.

As mentioned, speed bumping is much better,

For reasons mentioned above, having a longer protracted single combat is probably better (and for purposes of avoiding contesting the size of the blob in the combat will mean the guys at the back will still be holding it) as it will last multiple turns, with Priests put out more oomph, and won't fold like wet tissue paper as easily.

You also don't need to have coherency for all of your dudes, so can split them up (more flexibility in deployment), and you don't have to watch as all of them get drug off an objective by a single model getting into close combat.


Smatterings of naffness is worse than a concentration resulting in a strong unit.

This is more of a tactics and strategy concern if a single model is able to reach your Guardsmen and wipe them off the objective. The simple answer is to blow it to pieces long before that happens or add in hard counters to the unit itself - if its an MC, a Priest can smash, a Lord Commissar can use a power fist, Straken can counter-charge, just to state a few.

The only thing that blobs are straight better for is KP, as you say, but that's only 1 in 6 missions. For the other 5 in 6, the MSU is better.

I disagree for the reasons outlined above

The real question, then is if the new codex brought back power blobs. They're certainly better than they used to be, but I don't have confidence that they've actually been fixed from being completely broken.

I don't think precision shots were ever an issue, as they're so rare, and even rarer effective. Yeah, you might face one GK player one day with a Vindicare who snipes your Priest turn 1, but how many armies have a Vindicare?

We can put down more models on the table, we can safer spam Move Move Move and to multiple units per Command Squad, and now we have Bullgryns to give our blobs a mobile ADL.

But really, I think the best CC blob we're going to be seeing is Conscripts with a Lord Commissar or Inquisitor or equivalent inserted, and a Priest or two added. Even with WS2 S3, you're getting re-rolls to hit and re-rolls to wound, with the latter of the morale buffers you're also getting CC buff/nerf gadgets too.

Ew, british.

Mr.Omega wrote:Its dialect, you cretin.

Hey, I've never even been to Greece.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

Spoiler:

 alarmingrick wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Lothar wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
I played two 600 games with the new 'Dex today.

The Pask Punisher is great, I took it with a Vanquisher with MM's in a squadron. Pask killed a Chimera with Melta Vets inside and then proceeded to wipe the entire squad, despite the fact they were in hard cover, in the following turn. The Vanquisher just split-fired every turn using "Gunners, Kill On Sight" and ended up killing a Taurox and another Chimera, the rest was handled by 20 Forward Sentry melta vets on foot.

...

Thus far I am really happy with this Codex.

You should try a few games against Eldars...you probably wont be happy anymore...

You should probably learn to take advantage of Eldar weaknesses. They're nothing scary if you don't get blinded by illusions of their supposed unstoppable strength. Target and destroy the Psykers, don't present infantry unless you have a strict numbers/'defensive advantage, use such tools as Vendettas and Leman Russes to obliberate Wraithknights.

HWS teams with Fire On My Target, that can now be issued twice a phase is a strong counter to Wave Serpents, taking away their precious 4+ cover saves. And before you whinge at me about leadership you can always take a Lord Commissar to give both HWS LD10.

What's this "whinge" you keep whining about?

whinge
wɪn(d)ʒ/Submit
BRIT.informal
verb
1.
complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way.
"stop whingeing and get on with it!"
synonyms: complain, grouse, grouch, grumble, whine, moan, carp, mutter, murmur, whisper; More
noun
noun: whinge; plural noun: whinges
1.
an act of complaining persistently and peevishly.
"she let off steam by having a good whinge"
synonyms: complaint, grouse, moan, grouch, grumble, whine, carp, mutter, murmur, whisper; More

Its dialect, you cretin.

There are ways to make a point or provide information with out being a dick.
Stay classy Mr. O!

 Ailaros wrote:
*Lots of text*

So Ailaros, seems like you are looking at IG again. Can we expect more battle reports?

On blobs vs. MSU:

I'll agree that you don't expect any blob to cross the table and take an objective. I don't plan on mine doing that. I want a blob that can move to midfield and take an objective, and that's a perfectly reasonable thing to expect 30 guardsmen to do. I don't understand how you say that order efficiency is only of slight benefit to the blob. There's a lot of 4+ cover saves out there. Removing them is a 100% firepower efficiency for a squad. You can order two blobs per turn with a single CCS, getting you ~six squad's worth of weapons ignoring cover instead of two. Throw in Divination and blobs seriously outshoot MSU per point. Similarly, you say the shoot+run order is one of your favorites. Would you rather be able to advance (or withdraw) 20-30 guys or 10?

Just as a mathematical comparison, look at this blob:
3 squads, 3 bolters, 3 plasma guns, 3 meltabombs, vox, plasma priest: 258

vs these guys in MSU format
4 squads, 4 bolters, 4 plasma guns: 264

Without supporting units, the MSU has 25% more lasguns (same number of plasma guns), 25% more bodies, is much worse in close combat, and will occasionally lose elements to failed morale checks, but does have some interesting advantages Alairos listed above.

The thing is, the first group can blob up or it can remain separate if the mission favors it. The second group blobbing up is still powerful, but will has a huge leadership liability if it does. I know kill points are only 1 in 6 missions, but I don't want to ever just have to admit defeat turn 1 in any mission.

I'll concede that blobs can be pulled off of objectives, although a blob with Prescience can defend an objective mightily. I'll also note that a blob can't provide a cover save to itself, although this is less important because lots of stuff these days can get around cover. Sometimes, though, that ability to assault can be a huge boon. You can deny and even take an objective that way, you can hide in combat, or tie up a valuable enemy unit.

I don't mean to say MSU is flat out bad. I just think blobs bring a lot of options to the table that MSU don't.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

HWS teams with Fire On My Target, that can now be issued twice a phase is a strong counter to Wave Serpents, taking away their precious 4+ cover saves. And before you whinge at me about leadership you can always take a Lord Commissar to give both HWS LD10.

Aura of discipline is no more for order tests. Only for Fear, Morale and Pinning Tests.

 Alessan wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

HWS teams with Fire On My Target, that can now be issued twice a phase is a strong counter to Wave Serpents, taking away their precious 4+ cover saves. And before you whinge at me about leadership you can always take a Lord Commissar to give both HWS LD10.

Aura of discipline is no more for order tests. Only for Fear, Morale and Pinning Tests.

Dang. Creed is the only other way to improve the odds of getting those order bonuses, since he gets re-rolls on the orders.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

Dang. Creed is the only other way to improve the odds of getting those order bonuses, since he gets re-rolls on the orders.

Exactly.
And vox caster changed litle bit too.
An officer cannot use a reroll on his own unit.

The idea of Pask in a Punisher along with 2 Leman Russ Exterminators splitting fire and then the whole unit having a chance to reroll to hit with psychic powers is terrifying.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Alessan wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

HWS teams with Fire On My Target, that can now be issued twice a phase is a strong counter to Wave Serpents, taking away their precious 4+ cover saves. And before you whinge at me about leadership you can always take a Lord Commissar to give both HWS LD10.

Aura of discipline is no more for order tests. Only for Fear, Morale and Pinning Tests.

Dang. Creed is the only other way to improve the odds of getting those order bonuses, since he gets re-rolls on the orders.

False. The Commissar Tank from the Armored Battlegroup makes any Imperial Guard unit within 12" Leadership 10.

Blobs vs MSU is an interesting debate, and I think the advantages of both sides have been pretty well outlined by now. The best bit, however, is that you don't have to commit yourself to one or the other until deployment. Admittedly, there are some options (multiple priests/Commissars) that lend themselves to blobs more, but on the whole, you won't lose an awful lot compared to the versatility of choosing.

Times I would use blobs:
- Against shooty armies like Tau to try and mitigate leadership issues from heavy firepower.
- When planning on playing aggressively, as with Forward For The Emperor you can advance blobs far faster than MSU.
- When using allies for buffs- better point-for-point return on investment.
- In KP missions for obvious reasons.

Times I would use MSU:
- Against CC-heavy armies. You aren't ever beating orks or Nids in CC with Guard, so you might as well get more speedbumps .
- On boards with a lot of terrain. MSU is easier to manoeuvre and less likely to logjam itself.
- In missions where you're planning to win on objectives rather than a stand-up fight. If you know you're outclassed, then splitting up and trying to survive one unit at a time is probably a better option.

I don't see blobs being all that great versus eldar serpent shields and Riptides' ion accelerators (ignoring cover as well). Seems like the new IG will matchup better versus Tau than eldar.