9th Edition Secondaries? Which are best for guard?

[GuardDaddy]

There are 5 secondary mission categories.

You choose 3 secondaries, but max one from each category.

 

Max point for any single secondary mission in game is 15pts (so secondaries 45).

 

You select secondaries when you know opponent list, but before table deployment and going first is determined.

 

note: a Psychic action replaces casting a psychic power. Can be stopped with 'deny the witch' and perils double 1 or 6.

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Purge The Enemy Secondaries:

Assassinate: Score 3 VP per slain enemy Character.

 

Bring It Down:  Score 2 VP for each slain Monster/Vehicle, 3 VP instead if they had >10 Wounds.

 

Titan Slayers: Score 10 VP if you slay a TITANIC model, or 15 if you slay two.

 

Slay The Warlord: Score 6 VP for killing the enemy Warlord.

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No Mercy, No Respite Secondaries:

Thin Their Ranks: Set aside a tally of the number of models that you destroy. Add 10 to the tally if you destroy a model with 10 or more wounds. At the end of the game, divide your tally by 10 and round down, then score that many VP.( E.G. a tally of 109 would yield 10 VP)

 

Attrition: At the end of every battle round, score 4 VP if you destroyed more units than your opponent.

 

While We Stand, We Fight: Determine your 3 most expensive individual models. At the end of the game, score 5 VP for each that survived the battle.

 

First Strike: Score 5 VP if you destroy an enemy unit on the first round. Score an extra 3 VP if you slay more units than your opponent in the first round.

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Battlefield Supremacy Secondaries:

Engage On All Fronts: Score 2 VP if you have a unit wholly within 3 of the 4 table quarters and they are also more than 6” from the center at the end of every round. Score 3 VP instead if you’re in all 4 table quarters.

 

Line breaker: Score 4VP if you have two non-Aircraft units wholly within the enemy deployment zone. Score this at the end of every round.

 

Domination: Score 3VP if you control more than half the objectives at the end of every round.

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Shadow Operations Secondaries:

Investigate Sites: Action, non-Character Infantry only. Any Infantry unit can take this action if they are within 6” of the center of the board and there are no enemy units within 6” of the board. The action completed at the end of your turn, and every time you do you score 3VP.

 

Repair Teleport Homer: Much like Investigate Sites, except you have to be wholly within the enemy deployment zone and the action completes at the end of your next  Command Phase. Scores 5VP if completed.

 

Raise The Banners High: Action, Infantry Only. If your Infantry unit controls an objective and there are no enemy units nearby, you may take the Action. It completes at the end of your turn, leaving a banner on that objective. You score 1VP at the end of every Command Phase and the end of the game for every objective with a Banner. If the enemy gains control of an objective with a banner, that banner is removed and no longer scores VP.

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Warpcraft Secondaries:

Mental Interrogation: Psychic Action, Warp Charge 4. Action is taken in the Psychic phase, requires you to be within 18” of an enemy character. Every successful completion scores 3VP.

 

Psychic Ritual: Psychic Action, Warp Charge 3. Action can only be taken if you’re wholly within 6” of the centre of the battlefield. If completed 3 times, score 15VP

 

Abhor The Witch: Score 3 VP for every slain Psyker, score 5 VP instead if they were also a Character.

Edited July 15, 2020 by GuardDaddy

[GuardDaddy]

I'm playing around with infantry lists.

 

Raise Banners High

Engage on all Fronts

Mental Interrogation

 

all look very doable - and are based heavily on movement and board control.

[HallofStovokor]

Raise banners, engage on all fronts, mental interrogation. If you have no psykers and your against 1k sons or grey knights, abhor the witch isn't terrible.

[sairence]

Raise the Banners sounds cool, but seems very tricky to achieve...you need to keep your opponent away from 3-4 objectives over most of the game to max it out.

 

Psychic Ritual seems pretty doable...Astropaths have gone up, but they're still comparatively cheap and can still use character protection. Plus they are small and can hide.

[CyderPirate]

First Strike and Bring it down seem good for artillery/tank-heavy lists, respectively. 

While we stand, we fight might be cheesable if your most expensive units are flyers. They're only going to be on the board for a few turns, and you've got a chance to take out their best anti-air weapons before they turn up. 

Slay the Warlord shouldn't be too hard either, just need an assassin or two.  

 

You could potentially build an army around taking the centre ground and go for investigate site and psychic ritual. Probably not a great strategy for a lot of matchups, but with the right set-up and build, maybe.

[Minsc]

I'd say the beauty of the Secondary Objectives in 9th is the fact that there is no "best for my army", because it mainly depends on both your own army and what you are facing.
Secondary Objective X might be a great choice vs. player A, but a horrible choice vs. player B.

They can be a wonderful force equalizer that acts on whatever potential weaknesses/strengths your own army, or your opponents army has. A matchup that on paper looked hard in 8th can look much more manageable due to the Secondary Objectives.

 

I absolutely love them!  

 

[adamantium_wang]

My problem with a lot of these secondaries is that's it's either very hard to score the maximum 15 points from them or they simply don't pay out that many points. Slay The Warlord will only ever give you 6 which creates an 11 point potential deficit you have to overcome, and that's before a single shot has been fired. A similar thing happens with First Strike only ever giving you 8 maximum creating a 7 point gap.

 

Many of the actions are either difficult to pull off enough times to pay out either through table positioning requirements or the simple fact that only a single unit can perform a given action a turn, then needs to give up it's turn after having made sure it did not Advance, then survive an enemy turn to get your points.

 

I feel Raise The Banners High especially is a trap, to get the full 15 points you need to have at least 3 banners up every turn of the game and it will take at least 3 turns to just raise that many banners in the first place. And to add insult to injury as soon as an enemy controls that objective the banner is lost and you then have to retake and re-raise the banner again. Psychic Ritual needs to to keep your psykers alive in the middle of the table for a minimum of 3 turns. Mental Interrogation needs you to get it done once every turn to max out which is a big ask. Investigate Sites would need you to be within 6" of the centre of the board from turn 1. At least Repair Teleport Homer will only take 3 turns but you're realistically not going to be able to make a start of it from turn 2 at the earliest, so again not much of an opportunity to get the full 15 points.

 

Unless you're bringing Baneblades your most expensive units now are probably going to be Tank Commanders or regular Leman Russ, and keeping even two of them alive in a game is going to be a tough task. Thin Their Ranks greatly depends on how many 10+ wound models your opponent has, because if they have none you'll have to kill 150 models to get the full score. Likewise Assassinate requires you to be able to kill 5 characters for the 15 points.

 

That leaves Bring It Down, Titanslayers, Attrition, and all the Battlefield Supremacy objectives. Pick Titanslayers of they have 2 or more Titanic units, otherwise Bring It Down. Attrition is just like the familiar Kill More ITC objective which is doable you just need to do it for 4 turns to get your 15. Engage on All Fronts should be possible if you've got mobile units like Sentinels or deep strikers, but again you need to be in all 4 quarters for all 5 turns to get full points. Linebreaker needs 4 turns to get while Domination again needs you to be on more than half objectives for the whole game.

 

I think Guard Armies (and most armies in general) should be picking Bring It Down/Titanslayers and Attrition, with the last one whatever you think your army has the best chance of maxing out over 4 or 5 turns.

[GuardDaddy]

the flip to this thread is recognising which secondaries your army is going to give up most easily.

 

As this debate has shown the custom nature of using secondaries to control score - and therefore win - really changes balance of game. I think overall they look great. 

[sairence]

the flip to this thread is recognising which secondaries your army is going to give up most easily.

 

 

This. List-building in ITC for example was very much influenced by how many secondaries you can avoid giving up. For example, take only 7 Bullgryns, because 8 would give up Gangbusters.

 

The other point is that, while it may look difficult to max all of them out, it's the same for your opponent. I very much think they're not meant to be easily maxed, as that would kinda defeat the point. I haven't really had a huge chance to look through them in detail, but it sounds like it's not really easy or straightforward to choose...which I consider a good thing.

[Diagramdude]

Looks like raise the banners nets 1 point per banner per command phase, and there are two command phases per round. So the points could rack up quickly at 2 points per banner per round.

[Phubar]

My problem with a lot of these secondaries is that's it's either very hard to score the maximum 15 points from them or they simply don't pay out that many points.

The fact that they have a cap doesnt mean that they are meant to reach it.

 

Also the absolute value is not important as the winner is the one with higher score, no matter what is it the score.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Phubar

[duz_]

I think one thing worth noting about these new missions is that they are not designed to be maxed out

Ie. Although theoretically possible to get a perfect 100, the developers have said their intent wasn't not to make that a guarantee which for those more familiar with ITC missions might be a foreign concept

This goes for any faction so don't let that impact what is a good choice it not

[WarriorFish]

I agree, it feels more about which ones you can get reliably than the maximum. I'm not sure about which ones I might prefer I agree that some of them seem a bit harder than others while others would suit some armies/opponents more than others. For example Raising the Banners could be nice against a low model could army who doesn't want to or can't afford to go tearing them down so you can either tick over some VPs or put them out of position?

 

We'll see, the proof is in the pudding as ever so I'm very much looking forward to hearing of early experiences. It feels like there is good breadth generally so maybe it'll work out nicely and we won't end up with some left in the bin

[War Angel]

Does raise the banner score in both turns?

[Diagramdude]

Looks like no, it only scores in your command phase.

[GuardDaddy]

This is useful. Secondary summary sheet from D6 evolution. (Delete if not ok to share admin)

 

(https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n_AK98pedqC4rPb4Dpw4aAmnhbfccWqq/view

[mertbl]

I've had a lot of luck with being in 3 table quarters, kill points and deploy scramblers.

 

I think if you can max primary and earn about 10 points per secondary you will be in good shape to win.

[DarthWaffle]

Even if it's not the best for my army, I love the idea of Raise the Banners High. I love the idea of guard units being urge by a Commissar to raise the banner on this objective, regardless of the human cost. 

 

Engage on all fronts seems very doable.