Troops and Objective Secured

Alright guys and gals,

I have been pondering at what point level CAD do you add more troops w/transport to get ObSec?

So say we run a 1750 game: I currently run 6 troops with 6 dedicated transports for a total of 12 ObSec units. Do you think that is too much for that point value?

Since everything is scoring, at what point value to do you say I need more ObSec units? Do I sacrifice more durable or stronger units for the sake of ObSec?

My opinion of how many troops and transports per point level:
1000 - 2 w/transport = 4 ObSec units
1250 - 2 w/transport = 4 ObSec Units
1500 - 3 w/transport = 6 ObSec Units
1750 - 5 w/transport = 10 ObSec Units
2000 - 6 w/transport = 12 Obsec Units
If multiple CADs are allowed use discretion.

What is your opinion?

I dont think we need that many Objective Secured units. I am currently using 3 units w. transports for total of 6 for 2K games. 1 unit and transport is always sacrifical. The others are there to either use the OS rule or draw fire away from the killy elements of my army. But I rarely lose them. My opponents are much more concerned about Ravagers and seemingly easy to kill Warlord which I wave in front of them.

I dont count venoms and 5-man units, Wyches are not exactly objective campers, maybe contesters. They can be wiped too easily to really be useful as OS unit. They are not marines with 3+ save and T4. And if you take more durable units like warriors in raider, you are getting close to 200 points or over if you put in a Haemi for FNP. So... as a rule of thumb, I would go with 1 Raider with FF full of troops per 600-700 points of army.

OS in fact CAN win you the game, but cannot win just by itself... and spending more than a third of your army on OSs just because they are OS is not the way for DE.

While I agree with the basic concept that objective secured isn't the be all end all - there are a number of advantages to being Battle Forged, and it is quite functional for a DE army to build within that paradigm.

If we had lousy Troop options it would be different, but our Troops actually stack up *very* well against our Heavy, Elite, and Fast slots. So while I wouldn't go ga-ga for it...I also fail to see any reason not to have plenty of Troop options because our Troop options are flat out good.

Also, we have precisely zero alternatives to the CAD, other than going Unbound, so we might as well take advantage of it!

Sure, taking multiple OS units and forcing the opponent to deal with them while removing his OS units might be the way to go too. As Thor says, our troops are only seemingly mediocre. When played well, they can be very good. It would however require a specific playstyle IMHO and even trickier one than our usual, at least for me. :-)

The nice thing about having a surplus of objective secured units is it makes it easier to justify rushing a vehicle or small squad to their death for a clutch denial or score. I've sacrificed several wych squads to hold down a daemon prince at an objective before and rushed more than a few raiders across the board to their doom for similar reasons especially after they get their weapon destroyed or are snapshooting anyway. I've been running 14 objective secured units thanks to allies and I love it because enemies have a hard time keeping up with my score when I keep clearing my secure objective cards and making it hard for them to do likewise.

Well pardon me, really dont want to overstep any line, but that sounds like chess, not warhammer. :-) But the new rules do encourage it, dont they? I have not played against anyone with more than 9 OSs, but when I meet someone with 14, I might reconsider. But I am afraid that the list then will look like a spamlist, which I really hate to build and play.

It very much does feel like a game of chess, but to me that's a big plus.  I love focusing on the mobility and positioning of my fleet and that the army plays very differently from others that I have (like my stationary tau army or assault-happy chaos) when I'm just maneuvering 8-10 vehicles around the table.  I'm big on theme lists, so I usually take an idea to extremes like that.

I guess the fact that I am missing another army that would play differently makes me wanting all aspects in some regard during the game. :-)

Depends on how you want to play. For a competitive list I bring 5 troops in transports for 1500. At 1000 I have 4 venoms with objective secured. 2000 it depends if I bring 2 detachments. If I do I bring 7 to 8 troop choices.

That is why I dont play competitive games often. They bore me to tears starting with listbuilding. :-) Venomspam FTW. :-)

aurynn wrote:

That is why I dont play competitive games often. They bore me to tears starting with listbuilding. :-) Venomspam FTW. :-)

I play competitive and don't Venomspam (albeit I raider spam...)
There are certainly functional DE builds that are not Venomspam though. That's just the most generically accepted competitive build - it is hardly the only one.

I tend to run an equal number of venoms and raiders and couple em up with as many ravagers and reavers as I can get. I don't even run dual detachments. It's still variety to me and I even feel like it's fluffy for dark eldar who always thrive on going as fast as they can. They're the ricky bobby of the 40k world and I make sure they're all going as fast as they can. If that seems list spammy than I guess I'll just have to live with it but I tend to think of it as themed.

It was meant partially as a joke. However, competitive scene is very specific and in fact allows few possible builds that stand a chance. Not one, but not 30... See Nova Open top lists... :-)

I dont want to elaborate on this further as the topic of this thread is different.

Past couple of competitive games I've gone against nids which involve tons of poison shots into the air. Hence the mass amount of troops.

Thor665 wrote:

I also fail to see any reason not to have plenty of Troop options because our Troop options are flat out good.

This.

aurynn wrote:

Well pardon me, really dont want to overstep any line, but that sounds like chess, not warhammer. :-)

I have always liked to think of warhammer as a more complex version of chess.


@ the OP:
It depends on the faction you're running, but with DE, there is very little reason not to get as many OS units as you can. In a 1750 game, it only costs you 750 to fill your troop slots with 6x 5-man wych squads w/HWG, all in dual cannon venoms. That leaves you 1000 points(roughly 58% of your total) for HQ, Elites, HS, and Fast attack, while giving you 12 objective secured units.

Troops are SUPPOSED to be the bulk of your forces, and for DE, we luck out and have good ones. And you have SEVERAL options for troops. 4 different troop types(Wyches, Warriors, Wracks, Hellions) and 2 different kinds of dedicated transports, all able to be teched out with various upgrades to make them different.