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I am creating a blob guard army, focussing on either lots of regular guardsmen in a giant blob, or as MSU.

Two weeks ago, I played them in a stronghold defense type mission, it was fun. Until after the game, I realized my opponent brought an apocolypse formation, without evening having my permission

anyways, I am planning on getting a normal dawn of war game in, and was wondering, what is a horde good for that MSU guard isn't?
Massed lasguns could be effective, but when you are facing mass bikes, like I usually do, what do they bring to the table?
instead of a 30 man blob, why not 3 different units all sitting on objectives with a heavy weapon base? that way, my vets, bullgryns, and other units can do the heavy lifting, somewhat countering guards major mobility issues.

Or you can play it with fast units on one flank and the blob or two on the other, the fast units covering you blob as they advance, while your guard fight supported by russes and basilisks in the midfield, almost how space wolves play. But guard really lack fast units, we have the horrible overpriced hellhound variants, sentinels, that are $30 a model, and I would like nine, but thats way to expensive. The best bet seems allies (landspeeders, drop pods), but I don't want to go down that route.

so, in general, what is the best way to implement non-mech guard tactics, and make them so SOMETHING no matter how underpowered they are. Thanks

I think large blobs of guardsmen work, especially when combined with force multipliers. Ministorum Priests are amazing! And even the psyker can add a lot to a blob.

But really you cant rely on just blobs alone. You need something to supplement, like you said, and Guard rely on their vehicles. Don't think that bringing some artillery and/or a vendetta is suddenly making you a Mech-Guard player.

Mech-guard brings little to no infantry at all. By playing blobs, you NEED something to support them. The main focus of your army is still infantry, but having a couple vendettas or some manticores is really going to help you.

MSU guard are much more fragile, and its so much harder to get them the force multipliers that they need from HQ sources like Ministorum priests and psykers. to run MSU guard you need transports for them. Traditionally the MSU guard is veterens in chimeras. It allows them to move where they need to be and prevents them from being annihilated completely in one phase.

by mech, I meant... well... mech, like tank commanders and vets in chimeras.

the idea of MSU guard, is that say 10 scatterbikes can only kill 10 guardsmen a turn, instead of the 20ish they should be killing.

when I use the term Mech I am indeed talking about tanks as well, sorry if that was unclear.

But if I am understanding this right, your original question was asking, "what is the best way to field IG without going full mech?"

or are you just looking to compare horde/blob guard to MSU guard?

Small unit size can be very advantageous. Against melee heavy armies I find that when some angry dudes assault, they kill a whole squad, which means I can shoot them next turn. As you noted, it's also good against low numbers of high volume of fire units.

The great thing is, to blob or not to blob is a decision you make during deployment, not intrinsic in you your list.

 gummyofallbears wrote:
by mech, I meant... well... mech, like tank commanders and vets in chimeras.

the idea of MSU guard, is that say 10 scatterbikes can only kill 10 guardsmen a turn, instead of the 20ish they should be killing.

Yes. MSU is better.

@icculus -

I was asking what was a good way to play blob guard, or if I should ditch the idea and just go with MSU instead.

Like some folks have already said blob comes with the ability to buff large numbers of guys in one go, one priest=50 fearless guardsmen, one prescience= 50 twinlinked lasguns, orders etc etc. These buffs can make guardsmen surprisingly terrifying and punch well above their weight or survive when they normally would have been wiped out.

MSU I've found works well if you play on boards with lots of cover or ways to make the guardsmen abit more survivable or if you're running lots of transports to act as a buffer and speed boost for your basic guardsman. While the taurox is no chimera they can serve as a decent distraction and a added firepower with their autocannons and are cheap and therefore abit more inline with non vet squads.

Another plus of MSU is the ability for melee unit to only tie up one squad at a time. Often times this results in the death if your squad but the death of the enemy squad as well as they are caught out in the open and you losing only a cheap guardsman squad as opposed to the opponent losing a more expensive unit