Blob Guard choices: ...Rambo! ...sorry Marbo

Moving on to the Elite section of the guard codex I'll be looking at the loner who has a peeping fetish.. thought you may know him as Marbo.

A unique unit type in the codex Marbo can arrive anywhere he wishes without fear of scatter, this really opens up play options with him to let you have a chance to remove anything you wish.

Firstly his stats are decent for a guardsman, higher WS and BS means he’ll be more reliable in both aspects, especially in HTH where his 5 attacks at ini 5 which wound on a 2+ and with two wounds he has a chance of not dying too quickly to survivors.

For shooting he has a few options, the ripper pistol is great for downing a single termie or putting a wound on a character and with the sniper rule and AP2 you can hopefully pull this off. Although his most used and often first used attack is his demo charge, which is the enemy is unprepared for can really mess up their plans...

With BS 5 it should only scatter an inch or two if you roll average which should still mean you hit the majority of the unit, or if it’s a vehicle it can hopefully still stay on the target.

A nice addition is meltabombs which I’ve used to great effect in games where he’s thrown his demo charge and enemy vehicles are still flying around the area... nothing makes people sweat than a sneaky meltabomb wielding guardsman appearing out of sight of their army but within charge range of their expensive vehicles.

cool looking custom marbo I found online

With fearless, fleet, hit and run, stealth and move through cover you again get more buffs to the already decent character stats and equipment. With fleet and move through cover you are not as worried about terrain rolls depending on the distance needed, and being fearless can aid in keeping him from being pinned, while stealth keeps him alive longer hopefully.

It and run is just a lovely bonus in case you survive the combat and want to try breaking away to assault another unit or crack a tank which thought it was safe.

And all this for only 65 points... a bargain I tell you.

...In terms of his place in a blob army? Hell yes if you want a mobile threat where you need it, and with his wide range of weapons you can take down threats to the blobs as they continue to close. Sure he may die afterwards, but his role should be fulfilled if that charge hits and blows something up, then he just has to sit in his cover and pass saves soaking shots meant for your main army.

Marbo model, love the pose

Add in Al’Rahem and you can have more than one distraction arriving mostly where you need it... but just remember your Astropath to get them in early so you’re not playing points down for most of the game.

The main thing though to remember is he will die, so don’t be precious with him, place him where you need it and go for the kill... as I find with my blob army things will die in droves, and you can’t keep worrying when this happens or you’ll ease up and the enemy will punish you, and what Marbo allows you to do is exert some pressure of your own where you need it.       

For mech lists again marbo can easily find a place, the same disturbance with demo charge anywhere you need it while being so cheap in points really does help get him included in most armies. The only downside being if he misses and gets shot next turn or it’s a kill point game and he fluffs his shot. But that is really minor for what you have the potential for imo.