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I mean we all know what the commissar do. You fail your leadership test, he headshots a goon and then everything goes back to normal.

Now for a 25pts guy, the commissars statline is hugely disappointing. But I do get that he has a neat tricks for the blobs. With a garbage 5+ save (he's most likely behind an aegis anyways, so let's say it's actually a 4+ cover save) and 1W. If you get unlucky or he gets hammered and you fail your look-out sir roll, which you're bound to fail because he's build into a squad and not a character that joined the squad, so he get's a 4+ ( i think???) look-out sir roll, he's gonna get rekt.


Now on the other hand, the inquisitor costs the same and has a seriously nice statline for a 25pts model. 3 wounds, 3 attacks base, Ld 10, plus has access to many many toys and benefits from a 2+ look-out sir roll..
On the other hand, if this chap get hammered because you failed a look-out sir roll he has 3 wounds to play with.

Obviously they both are T3 so anything str6 is gonna one shot both.


Tbh, I think i'd stick with ye old commissar for my big blobs, but I can see the inquisitor being a valuable asset if you deck him out a bit with a few neato tricks. I can see rad grenades being a valuable asset if your blob get's caught in melee. Which enemies tend to do just that to tie up a generally hard to remove annoying huge blob that puts out a potent amount of firepower due to HWT and orders... and making the enemy T3 can be a life saver in close combat.


What y'all think?

IMO commissars are garbage. Go with the inquisitor, or, if you want completely fearless blobs with potential meelee buffs (albeit you lose ability to go to ground) go with priests. They give hatred and fearless, they're IC that can jump between units mid-game, they have a 4+ invul, and war hymns. They only have 1 wound, but as IC's (2+ LOS) with a 4+ invul, I've NEVER lost a priest while there was a squad alive around him.

Bear in mind that while an Inquisitor starts at 25 point with stubborn, as does the Commissar , it is hard to stop giving him upgrades.
A Ordo Xenos without Rad Grenades Psyker, power armor and 3 servoskulls seems such a waste!
And an Ordo Hereticus Is a waste without a Psyocculum.
So with Commissars you can start cheap and stay cheap. With inquisitors not so much.

Inquisitor + either Commissar or Priest (probably Priest). If you just run the Inquisitor, confident that LD10 Stubborn will be enough, you WILL roll 11 for your leadership and your 300-400pt blob WILL retreat off the board or be swept by a single flayed one (it WILL happen, trust me, oh the terrible memories). But like konst80hummel said, you will want to upgrade the Inquisitor. Rad & Psychotroke grenades at a minimum, and probably ML 1 and skulls.

Inquisitor's ld doesn't buff the blob's ld for orders.

chrispy1991 wrote:IMO commissars are garbage

IMO commissars are superior to priests in most situations.

koooaei wrote:Inquisitor's ld doesn't buff the blob's ld for orders.

How do you figure that?

 MarsNZ wrote:

koooaei wrote:Inquisitor's ld doesn't buff the blob's ld for orders.

How do you figure that?

There was a FAQ for the previous edition of the Imperial Guard codex. The FAQ is no longer in print, is a PITA to get hold of, and is for an earlier edition. The newer FAQs don't confirm which way to go, alas.

 MarsNZ wrote:

chrispy1991 wrote:IMO commissars are garbage

IMO commissars are superior to priests in most situations.

koooaei wrote:Inquisitor's ld doesn't buff the blob's ld for orders.

How do you figure that?

I was wondering wth you were talking about but then I remembered that guard priests don't autopass their war hymns and only have lead seven. Silly guardsman.

Mallich wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:

koooaei wrote:Inquisitor's ld doesn't buff the blob's ld for orders.

How do you figure that?

There was a FAQ for the previous edition of the Imperial Guard codex. The FAQ is no longer in print, is a PITA to get hold of, and is for an earlier edition. The newer FAQs don't confirm which way to go, alas.

I cannot believe they decided something this stupid.

Still, if the FAQ is gone I think you can use the Commissar's discipline...

ERJAK wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:

chrispy1991 wrote:IMO commissars are garbage

IMO commissars are superior to priests in most situations.

koooaei wrote:Inquisitor's ld doesn't buff the blob's ld for orders.

How do you figure that?

I was wondering wth you were talking about but then I remembered that guard priests don't autopass their war hymns and only have lead seven. Silly guardsman.

Hymn are unreliable yes. Priest cannot go to ground and does nothing to boost leadership. They're only good for making terrible melee units into mediocre melee units. Commissar makes orders easier, allows g2g and still prevents failed morale tests, just don't bunker him in with a primaris.

I don't know squat (I said squat, don't bane me) about Inquisitors, but I can do a lot of analysis between Commissars and Priests.

Priests have good hymns *IF* the unit reaches melee with reasonable numbers, and preferably with some cc-oriented upgrades, and *IF* he passes a Ld 7 check. So, hymns are a situational pro, and the low Ld is definitely a con. Priest does not improve odds of passing orders either, so is a con. Fearless is a pro and a con, because now your blob can't GtG if hiding in cover/on an objective/behind an Aegis, etc. You can safely put him in the same blob as a Primaris Psyker without blowing his filthy hertical brains out on a Perils, that's a pro. Token invul save and LoS are nice, but shouldn't be important since they should be hiding inside a large blob.

Commissars: Stubborn Ld 9 means *most* morale checks will pass, without giving up the ability to GtG, pretty good pro. Assuming the next best Ld is 8, he improves the odds of passing orders as well by 11% up to an 83% chance of successfully passing. There is a small chance (that other 17%) that some poor sod will get popped, and an even smaller chance (about 6% if you haven't rolled morale yet) that some upgraded sarge/HWT/special weapon guy will bite the bullet instead. A definite con, but pretty small, imo. Don't stick a Psyker next to him and roll your entire warp charge pool on a single power. Unless you like your commissar being more points efficient against yourself than any of your opponent's other units ("He just shot my ML 2 psyker after perils *and* that entire lascannon crew after failed morale! That's 25 points killing 105 points!"). Funny, maybe, but not good for your game.

Long story short, these two have different strengths and weaknesses. Priest is better for cc, Commissar is better for shooting/orders and cover/objectives. And since orders are a unique shooting advantage for guard, and guard cc isn't that great, I'll hand it to Commissars.

P.S. This post is half "Yeah, I just know my codex" and half me plagiarizing this thread, so take a look if you're looking for higher-level mono IG: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/706667.page

Priests are absolutely amazing - if you are playing them from Codex: Adepta Sororitas. Then one of them can take a 15pt relic that makes them and anyone else in their unit auto-pass the War Hymn and/or Act of Faith check. That makes them awesome-sauce to insert into the Imperium of Man unit of your choice.

In Codex: Astra Militarum or Codex: Inquisition they are merely OK. To be honest, I'd take them for the Zealot rule (which means technically they're not Fearless, they just have all the same effects. It might come up if some other effect has Fearless as a condition on it) more-so than the War Hymns. Re-rolling To Hits in the first round of combat and auto-passing Fear/Pinning/Morale checks is still pretty good for a unit that wants to get into combat. The War Hymn is just a nice bonus if it happens to go off.

This is a no brainer really.
Always go for priest. It gives hatred fearless and a 50% chance of re rolling all saves in close combat...
Why would you ever settle for just ld 10 when you could get a priest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The only reason not to take the priest is if you like to be able to go to ground more than being fearless.

 oldzoggy wrote:
This is a no brainer really.
Always go for priest. It gives hatred fearless and a 50% chance of re rolling all saves in close combat...
Why would you ever settle for just ld 10 when you could get a priest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The only reason not to take the priest is if you like to be able to go to ground more than being fearless.

Going to ground for guard is not trivial.

 oldzoggy wrote:
This is a no brainer really.
Always go for priest. It gives hatred fearless and a 50% chance of re rolling all saves in close combat...
Why would you ever settle for just ld 10 when you could get a priest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The only reason not to take the priest is if you like to be able to go to ground more than being fearless.

Going to Ground is often the only way for Guard units to get a decent save, if any at all.

Priest every time for me - particularly if there's a psyker or other buffing character hanging about in the unit (which my aggressive blobs usually have)

No executing your own models
No failing morale checks
If he denies a challenge the blobs leadership doesn't reduce
Hymns - Around 55% chance to get re-roll saves or re-rolls to wound is brutal against most infantry. Great little buff for attached characters too - now Coteaz can have a 2+ re-rollable too on some turns!
Zealot - re-rolling to hit first round of combat is nice
He's an IC, so has 2+ look out sir rolls (so helpful for barrage or when the blob gets whittled down)
Can leave the unit to jump into another if desired when the guard get gunned down
4+ invul (again, potentially re-rollable)

I guess these are weighed up against a small increase in orders going off and GTG (though GTG I find to be a bit situational and limits further options)

Personally I don't see much competition!

 oldzoggy wrote:
This is a no brainer really.
Always go for priest. It gives hatred fearless and a 50% chance of re rolling all saves in close combat...
Why would you ever settle for just ld 10 when you could get a priest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The only reason not to take the priest is if you like to be able to go to ground more than being fearless.

Yeah I mean who needs to pass orders amirite

 DoomMouse wrote:
Priest every time for me - particularly if there's a psyker or other buffing character hanging about in the unit (which my aggressive blobs usually have)

No executing your own models
No failing morale checks
If he denies a challenge the blobs leadership doesn't reduce
Hymns - Around 55% chance to get re-roll saves or re-rolls to wound is brutal against most infantry. Great little buff for attached characters too - now Coteaz can have a 2+ re-rollable too on some turns!
Zealot - re-rolling to hit first round of combat is nice
He's an IC, so has 2+ look out sir rolls (so helpful for barrage or when the blob gets whittled down)
Can leave the unit to jump into another if desired when the guard get gunned down
4+ invul (again, potentially re-rollable)

I guess these are weighed up against a small increase in orders going off and GTG (though GTG I find to be a bit situational and limits further options)

Personally I don't see much competition!

You list the ability to deny a challenge as a perk but regard gtg as situational? Gtg can easily yield a 3+ cover save from turn 1, and an increased leadership lets you avoid the penalty, compared to a priests 55% chance to reroll your 5+ in melee. That's situational? PS reroll wounds on WS3 S3 A1 models is not brutal to very many things.
Commissar in a conscript blob is amazing, huge buff to leadership for FRFSRF which affects every model, and in the unlikely event of someone getting executed there are no specials heavies or sergeants to blam. Compared to a priest which is making them last another round or two in combat, probably not until turn 3 or 4.
I can see priests being boss with Ogryns but I don't own any of those.

I guess it depends how you run your blobs. I admit commissar has its perks in a backfield objective-holding unit too.

I do see GTG as situational, as if you're getting a 3+ save from it then you would have been getting a 4+ anyway, so it's hardly much better. It stops movement and proper shooting, which further hinders an army with low movement. It can be nullified with orders, but I'd rather be using them for FRFSRF, tank hunter or ignores cover!

If the guard unit gets the charge then the combat can be deadly. I've wiped out a LOC, imperial knights, dogstars, deathwing and plenty of others with a guard in combat. People don't see it coming often, which helps. And if they're on the losing side, they can help tarpit to the last man.

Again, to be fair, I usually have coteaz, librarians or inquisitors in the blob as well as the priests, which add to the squads leadership for orders. Maybe if they weren't there I'd consider priests plus commissars, or priests plus inquisitors. Priests would still be my priority though!

how'd the priest get into the conversation? I didn't even ask bout him.

 drunken0elf wrote:
how'd the priest get into the conversation? I didn't even ask bout him.

Sorry, you are right. Keep it in the church people.

OT:How much do you value Summary Execution?

 drunken0elf wrote:
how'd the priest get into the conversation? I didn't even ask bout him.

Because you were talking about comparing 25 point single model upgrades for IG units. It was inevitable priests would enter the conversation.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 drunken0elf wrote:
how'd the priest get into the conversation? I didn't even ask bout him.

Sorry, you are right. Keep it in the church people.

OT:How much do you value Summary Execution?

I honestly think Summary Execution does more good than harm. It's basically Fearless without actually being Fearless, especially since I'm one who appreciates having GtG in my tool belt. And with Stubborn Ld 9, you don't have to invoke it *that* often. About a 1/6 chance on a morale check. I think the other rule that's similar to SE that actually really hurts is It's For Your Own Good, because Hogwarts alumni apparently are not to be trusted. Do inquisitors do anything like that-- wait, people normally run them AS the Hogwarts alumni, don't they...?

Yeah, I think I see why it's best not to put Inquisitors and Commissars in the same unit, if you plan on taking upgrades...

Honestly if orders are a concern that's what Volkov's Cane is for. All you have to do is keep literally 1 dude from the blob within 6 inches of the company commander holding it and you will only fail orders on double 6's. If we're talking conscripts, commissar's 9 ld comes into play more, however with a normal Guardsman blob their ld is 8 so you're only increasing it by 1 with a commissar anyways.

When I use blobs, the assumption is that they will die in droves. worrying about giving them cover saves is not a sound strategy when it's just too easy for people to spam flamers. IMO Their strength is sheer number of bodies. If I want them to get cover saves I'll run them through cover.

I prefer inquisitors and priests over commissars because I can jump them to other squads at will, don't have to worry about them shooting my own squad when I inevitably fail a morale check, and don't have to worry about priests and inquisitors getting sniped out of the squad. There are times when the character will still get hit by shooting attacks no matter how well you hide him in the blob, whether it's from precision shots, barrage, deepstrikers, etc... To put into perspective the survivability; a wound allocated to a priest has a 1 in 12 chance of killing him after LoS and the 4++. A wound allocated to a commissar has a 1 in 2 chance of killing him if he's not in cover (let's be honest, the shot hitting him WILL be at least AP5). Even with cover, which is totally circumstantial, he's still 3 times more likely to die than the priest from a wound allocated to him. That's not a small difference, that's a HUGE difference.

As for meelee being circumstantial. Let's just say the only games where my blobs don't get into melee are pure shooty armies like Tau. Almost every game I've used blobs, they get into melee one way or another and it's always a surprise to the opponent when that hatred rule and war hymns (potentially) come into play. Bottom line for me is that inquisitor and priest trump the commissar in the majority of the situations I encounter.