Best way to capture or contest an objective?

How can we do this? all our scoring units/troops, get shot to hell by anything bigger than a sling shot. So even if you survive getting to the objective by the time you grab it or contest it you're massacred. Cant wait to get my hands on that big SOB Eldar Wraith Knight for my Eldar allies.

A solid choice for keeping the obj. ÿours' would be 9x wrack + haemi. Not very expensive, quite resilient. In cc they kill in shooting they sucks . But still better than wyches

Other good choice would be 20-man blob of KW with cannons or lances + haemi+ seer with divination. I personally used this setup and I must admit, pure terror and hard as rock, their OW kills. Only in cc they can lose . Even blasts are not that strong, unless it's barrage.

Ignore the objectives for the first several turns. That particular tactic has yet to let me down. The best way is to just sneak squads onto them on turn 5 from a transport - move 6", disembark 6", run a minimum of 1". Means if your transport is within 16" of an objective at the start of the turn, you can get a squad within claiming range. Of course, most of our stuff has fleet as well, meaning that we only have a 1/36 shot of -only- making that 1" run, in practice its likely to be higher; odds are good of reaching something within 20" of the transport. Also bear in mind that anything can contest, so your fast moving things can go contest objectives. Reavers are great for this, anything within 51" is under threat (12" move, 36" turbo thanks to Eldar Jetbikes, and then a final 3 to be in contesting range). I run a squad of 3 for precisely this purpose.

The key is to not commit too early. Play smart and use superior manoeuvrability and range to your advantage - transports make great shields for things to hide in. The later in the game you make your play for that objective, the less time your enemy has to retaliate and take down your squishy stuff. Use objective placement to your advantage - you want them spread out so your opponent can't concentrate their fire.

Totally agree and also I tend to focus on asset denial.. we have the power to wipe out most troops choice no problem.. I do struggle vs hordes though with limited objectives contesting last turn is generally the best option imo

A canny opponent will try to make it very hard for you to contest or claim an objective by spreading his troops around the objective to prevent you being able to get within 3". I've faced this many times and it's very frustrating.

I've been ignoring objectives since I started playing and it works wonders.  The exception to that, is sometimes, if I have an odd number of points remaining, I'll take a 3x man wrack squad if I have a haemy and reserve them or hide them completely from los on an objective, go to ground etc if they get shot at.  I've held more than a few objectives that way.  A lot of people, will forget they're there and never shoot them.

Yeah 3 wracks Deffo the most point effective and generally unless the enemy is shrewd, who is fussed about those 3 wracks you have in reserve, cheap objective Ty and at worst a round of combat before backup can help

I wouldn't say *ignore* the objectives.  You need to keep them in mind the entire game or you'll find yourself out in the cold at the end.  

Instead, just don't try to claim / deny them until turn 5.    Prior to that you might want to stay within walk/running range in case the transports are shot out from under you.  Obviously the earlier in the game it is the further out you can generally be.

Generally speaking, the first turn should be about getting first blood.  Turns 2 through 4 should be about warlord and killing enemy claiming units (usually just troops).  Turn 5 is when you move onto the real objectives.  If you've cleared out enough of the enemy you ought to be just fine.  If not, hope there is no turn 6.

I tend to always go second for this reason.  I keep my units far enough back from the deployment lines and hidden to make it unlikely they get first blood while they try to rush forward.  Invariably some unit, usually a Rhino, is a little too bold.  As a DE general you really have to think like a lion.  They don't just jump into the middle of a hundred gazelles and hope for the best.  Instead, they pick of the strays.

Then I'll move up enough to be in range (at this point it's normally a 6" or so move) to take out a weak unit for first blood.  From that point, my target priority is dependent on what might be able to reach me.  For example hard hitting fast attack options are shot first (wraiths / flesh hounds); then Warlord (if possible), then transports/troops.  

The main thing is simply to have a plan for each mission type.  

For example, Scouring is played completely differently from Relic.  In Relic, I have no desire to get caught up in melee in the middle of the board and instead just go for secondary objectives while keeping some Reavers back to contest the primary at the bottom of 5th.  So, in this case I don't even bother having my troops placed anywhere near the thing.

In Scouring, I'm going to focus on the two 3 point objectives, while trying to deny the 4 pointer and getting at least one secondary.  Typically, one of those objectives will be in my opponents table half which will also gain me line breaker. So I'll try to position 2 transports within about 18" of the 3 pointers while trying to funnel his forces into an area I can hit with everything.

One tactic I've had reasonable success with is to place objectives where your opponent thinks they can claim them. If you place all the objectives you can in your deployment zone then you'll be more inclined to sit back with your own troops, inviting the opponent on to you. If you place most of them in the midfield, they're still perfectly reachable by the majority of our units for claiming/contesting at the last minute, but it has one of two effects on your opponent.

Take for example Tyranids, they're best in close combat, but it'd take a gutsy tyrant to run straight past the objectives to get there. If they decide to claim them, you can spend several turns pounding them with firepower they're not really equipped to deal with.

The opposite case is for example guard. The last thing they really want to do is come out from behind whatever it is they're hiding behind to claim an objective. It's often too tempting though and again you've got them where they don't want to be. If they don't come out, you can concentrate on contesting the primaries late on, and winning through secondaries like linebreaker - after all, we've got the movement to get linebreaker but a guard army is hardly going to come chasing after you.

Of course, it's a risky tactic and it could definitely be worth keeping one back relatively safe, but you never know when that teleporting unit of terminators is going to do the damage, and it would not only claim a primary, but linebreaker as well.

Just my tuppence, but I'd appreciate hearing what more experienced archons think of it as a tactical option.

Well, I tend to not try and take objectives until the late game because frankly, Dark Eldar aren't resilient enough to hold them for any length of time excepting a few corner cases. My general tactic is to focus on facemauling my opponent's scoring units - you can't claim objectives if you don't have anything left capable of so doing.

What really annoys me is when you get armies like guard/tau/GK henchman spam that are pure gunlines and its a 3 objective game, and your opponent wins the roll, plunks 2 out of 3 objectives behind his aegis defence line and struts around like they're the greatest tactical genius known to mankind...

I still stand by spreading them out as much as possible. Other than our craftworld brethren, no armies can come close to matching Dark Eldar for speed and redeployment potential.

@clively - you may want to rethink the relic tactic, since you can't contest it. The rules are slightly different regarding how to score in that mission, as the relic's treated differently to the primary objectives in the normal missions. There's rules for seizing the relic as opposed to controlling it, and the mission states that "the relic is worth 3 victory points to the player who has seized it" - i.e. who has a model carrying it.

cap and contesting objectives is a multi-purpose thing with our army. You dont just leave a unit sitting on them, as then they arent helping with their firepower, and are fragile enough for people to push them off. You also cant ignore objectives, because objectives are how you win 5/6 games. What you need is a mixed approach.

T1~2 you ignore them and focus on killing the important threats. After that T3~4 you really need to start digging into the opponents troop choices so they cant grab anything, while positioning yours to take them. Around T5 is when you make your move for them. A good idea is a 10 man warrior squad, as if they need protection they can go to ground for a 3+~2+ coversave if the objective is in or near cover. They can also still participate in the fire with all those snapshots, and giving them a cannon adds 11 more shots to get a chance of getting a 6.

All awesome advice, printed this thread out, this what I love about DE apart from them being soooo.. beautiful, they're so f@#ing hard to play, thus so rewarding.

Panic_Puppet wrote:

What really annoys me is when you get armies like guard/tau/GK henchman spam that are pure gunlines and its a 3 objective game, and your opponent wins the roll, plunks 2 out of 3 objectives behind his aegis defence line and struts around like they're the greatest tactical genius known to mankind...

Thats one of the reasons I love my venoms.
Splinter cannons outrange las guns, pulse rifles and GK weapons

My ploy is usually to kill their troops
I only need to hold one or two obectives to win then no matter what, and GTG wyches are fairly survivable.

Panic_Puppet wrote:

Reavers are great for this, anything within 51" is under threat (12" move, 36" turbo thanks to Eldar Jetbikes, and then a final 3 to be in contesting range). I run a squad of 3 for precisely this purpose.

You meantion with the reavers a final 3" - where does this come from because after turbo boosting you cannot make any more volunatary moves, whcih would mean the assault phase move?

cammy wrote:

You meantion with the reavers a final 3" - where does this come from because after turbo boosting you cannot make any more volunatary moves, whcih would mean the assault phase move?

You only need to be within 3" of an objective to contest/deny it, hence the extra 3".

Mimicking much of what has been said, I offer my support to the idea that you should avoid openly holding objectives until about turn five.  Just make sure that you have a pleasure-craft or two loitering with a squad of infantry near an objective on turn four (for a turn five grab) and you should typically be okay.

This allows us to focus more on raw killing potential with our splinter-weaponry; which in turn prevents the enemy from scoring objectives.  Sure we might lose a couple squads on the way, but we should still have enough in the end to pull out a solid win.

Edit: For clarity.

Objectives are complicated. Ideally, you want the enemy camped on them as soon as possible
I lost a game once because two of my assault squads (blood angels) objective camped T3, 4 and 5. I held those objectives, but the other guy ignored those two squads and pounded the rest of my army flat.
You want him spread across the board on meaningless tokens, you can defeat him in detail, all that matters is who owns them as the end.

In short, the best way to capture or contest an objective is not to give your opponent the opportunity to react (or at the very least, the minimum time to react). If you claim the objective on turn 1, your opponent has 5-7 turns to clear you off it. If you don't claim until turn five, they may have no chance to do anything about it (but will at most have three turns).