Blob squads: What's going wrong?

[badgersplatter]

My army includes a blob of 4 infantry squads with 3 power axes, plus a commissar with another.
I have now played two games in 6th.
On both occasions, I have entered combat, lost (of course) by a few wounds, rolled >8 on 2 d6, removed a sergeant, failed the test a second time and been subsequently caught for a removal of the remaining 30ish models from the board in one round.
Am l doing something wrong with our special winning by attrition squad? If not, then... What are the odds?

[Ymmot (M.I.A)]

You test morale(and all ld tests) based on the model with the highest leadership value in the squad. To fail the test you need to roll 10 or more. It can happen, twice even, not a lot you can do if they dice won't behave properly.

[silversurfer]

10 ? Isn't it more about 9 (leadership of the normal commissar) unless he refused a duel and then he needed to test on 8 (leadership of a sergeant).
But we need to know more about the opponent and how the combat occured exactly.
I use to use 3 IS with a commissar and power axes for everybody and that goes well, it even get much more better against MEq.

[Ymmot (M.I.A)]

You only need to roll equal to your leadership characteristic to pass. With ld9, you fail on 10+

[WestRider]

Sept 28, 2012 10:28:22 GMT -5 badgersplatter said:

If not, then... What are the odds?

If you're rolling on Ld 8 instead of Ld 9 like you should be, the odds are about 7.7%. On Ld 9, it's about 2.8%. That's per occurrence.

Sometimes you just have to accept that you're living at the far end of the Bell Curve. It has to happen to someone, statistically speaking. Back when I played Fantasy, I missed the 2+ shot with the Master Rune of Skewering on my Bolt Thrower 17 times in a row. That's something like 1:13 Billion against odds, but that still means it happens sometimes, given the unimaginable number of dice that are thrown every day.

[badgersplatter]

That's it. Somehow (the second time around, at least) I read the Commissar's Ld wrong and had rolled a 9, lol. First time was I guess just bad luck. No idea how I got that number blind, lack of sleep perhaps! I also forgot to deploy a whole unit in that game

[dangerrod]

Sept 28, 2012 18:26:17 GMT -5 badgersplatter said:

That's it. Somehow (the second time around, at least) I read the Commissar's Ld wrong and had rolled a 9, lol. First time was I guess just bad luck. No idea how I got that number blind, lack of sleep perhaps! I also forgot to deploy a whole unit in that game

Ouch! Right them off as bad days and chalk up some more experience!!

The problem I have with any blob squads larger than 20 is moving them and then actually getting enough into combat to make the numbers work.

Plus if you loose your commissar in a challenge (or shooting/cc) then your almost always saying goodbye to a 235pts (or more) unit! Can you afford to loose that many points/men in one hit??

Danger Rod

[WestRider]

That's why you have Sergeants around to soak Challenges. Anyone who can make it through 3-4 Sergeants before the rest of the Platoon wipes his Unit was going to take out the whole lot eventually anyhow.

[badgersplatter]

It's worse - I just looked at my army list and realised I forgot to deploy a whole unit as well :-D Off day (first time visiting new club, didn't expect to get a game at all!)
I sometimes find myself unsure of positioning too. Keeping commissar's and sergeants at the back stops them having wounds allocated, sure. But then how do you get them into range to use the power weapons? A 40 man blob spread out to avoid templates can be 12-18" across, getting them into bashy slicey range often doesn't happen.

[WestRider]

Yeah, I've been finding it tricky to get that positioning right myself. Too far forward and they get gunned/cut down, too far back and they don't make it into contact until it's too late.

Doesn't help that if they're all outside of range to Pile In to Engagement Distance, they only get the End of Phase Pile In, and not their Initiative Step Pile In, so they fall further and further behind.

[Bobulus]

I have noticed that the best formation (let's call it like that) is the circular blob formation. First circle are the simple guardsmen, the second one are still guardsmen and the third row are the special figures like flamers, vox casters etc. In the very centre is my priest with my commissar and sargents.

You also, have to look that you don't spread much. It is vulnerable to pie plate fire but still is okay to move around.

We have to get used that our characters die more frequently now...

[hektorreborn]

I agree with Bobulus on the circular formation. Unless, im outflanking in which case my friends have seen some pretty crazy conga line type nonsense to contest multuple objectives..

[badgersplatter]

Just finished a game. Leadership test on the blob after being shot at. Rolled a 10 twice

[Adkenpachi]

Is it still classed as a blob in you have 50 men in a single file line? Napolionic stylee

[badgersplatter]

I might try that next. Just a wall across the table. Also, deploy a little way into the board so you have room to run and rally, rather than losing hundreds of points to a table edge

[hektorreborn]

Try a Lord Commissar maybe? Gets you to Ld 10, and a powerfist in CC. could camo cloak your blob then too so they live a bit longer.

[badgersplatter]

Well apparently it's like a 2.7% chance of failing a rerolled ld9, so I'm not going to let that spoil one of my favourite units to play around with. I've clearly just upset the dice gods. I might next game try seperate squads as speedbumps instead of the tarpit though.

[vladimir]

I would burn your dice and get new ones

[badgersplatter]

Tried separate squads this time in a 900 point game vs. BA last night and tabled him by turn 3. Might try that for a while longer.