Which Secondary Objectives are right for you?

[Karhedron]

Whilst discussion of secondary objectives has popped up on a few faction boards, I hadn't seen anything discussing them more generally. People who are used to ITC format may be familiar with the concept but for those of us who are encountering them for the first time, how do you handle Objectives that make up 45% of the total VPs available in a game? I thought it would be interesting to have a discussion about which Objectives suit which armies or opponents. I am only looking at the generic Secondaries rather than any of the mission-specific ones.

 

To get the ball rolling, here are a quick summary of the Secondaries available.

Purge the Enemy
 

Assassinate: 3 VPs for each Character model destroyed

Bring it Down: 2VPs for each Monster or Vehicle destroyed (3VPs if it has 11+ wounds)

Titan Slayers: 10 VPs for destroying a Titanic unit or 15VPs for destroying 2+ Titanic units

Slay the Warlord: 6VPs if the enemy Warlord is destroyed

 

No Mercy, No Respite

 

Thin their ranks: 1 VP per 10 models destroyed

Attrition: 4 VPs at the end of a round if more enemy units were destroyed than friendly ones

While we stand, we fight: 5 VPs for each of your 3 most expensive models (not units) that survive the battle.

First Strike: 5 VPs if any enemy units were destroyed in Turn 1. Extra 3 VPs if more enemy than friendly units were destroyed.

 

Battlefield Supremacy

 

Engage on all fronts: 2 VPs at the end of a turn in which you occupy 3 table quarters, 3 VPs when you occupy 4 quarters.

Linebreaker: 4 VPs at the end of a turn where you have 2 or more units in the enemy DZ (excluding aircraft)

Domination: 3 VPs if you control more than half the total number of Objectives on the battlefield at the end of your turn

 

Shadow Operations

 

Investigate sites: 3 VPs each time a non-character Infantry unit performs an action within 6" of the centre of the table and no enemy units are within 6" of the centre.

Repair Teleport Homer: 5 VPs for an Infantry unit completing an Action in the opponent's DZ. Unit must remain there until start of your next Command phase.

Raise the Banners High: 1 VP for each Infantry unit that performs an Action on an Objective. 1 extra VP at the end of the game for each Objective that still has your banner on it. Banners are removed if enemy controls this Objective.

 

Warpcraft

 

Mental Interrogation: 3 VPs each time a Psyker casts a WC4 Psychic Action within 18" of an enemy Character

Psychic Ritual: 15 VPs if a Psyker performs a WC3 Action within 6" of the centre of the Battlefield 3 times 

Abhor the Witch: 5 VPs for destroying a Psyker Character, 3 VPs for destroying any other Psyker unit. Can only be taken if you have no Psyker units in your own army.

 

 

[The Unseen]

I've found at lower points games, most of the secondaries are complete traps, and scoring max on any of them is basically impossible. (This is at 1k) At that level, the ones that are generally regarded as bad because they lock you out of most of the points, like kingslayer, become the best choices, because its an easily achievable goal that doesn't require you to "waste" one of your few units in a small game like Raise the Banners or any other action based ones.

 

My go too's on smaller games are Kingslayer, Assassinate if the opponent has at least 3 characters, EOAF if you have the mobility to spread out consistently, First Strike if you have either enough firepower to guarantee something will die, which requires your opponent not being able to hide everything they have behind obscuring and/or reserves, or you have something like Death Companies Forlorn Fury to guarantee a first turn charge no matter where the opponent hides and you think the counter-punch will kill less of your units than what you can kill. While we Stand can be good in smaller games if your list is designed for it, an opponent of mine had 1 of 6 out of a unit of zoanthropes, a neurothrope, and a biovore hiding in the backfield, as his choices, so to keep him from scoring it you had to kill all the zoanthropes for 5, to then get to the neurothrope hiding behind them for 5, and make it all the way to his back edge/no-los shooting to take out the biovore. This was at 500 pts, and suffice to say I did not succeed.

 

As games get larger of course, the value's of each secondary change massively. In a 2k game, 2 cheap infantry units drip feeding you 2 pts each every round they're left alone on an objective is really really good if you can either hide them or make killing them lower priority for your opponent, for example.

[Captain Idaho]

Ooo I talk about it quite some depth

.

 

I'll post a summary in more depth later on :)

[Karhedron]

Several Secondaries are clearly reactive and designed to be taken against certain types of opponents. It might be worth leaving one secondary undecided so you can tune it against your opponent.

 

Thin their Ranks: Good against hordes.

Assassinate: Only good if you opponent has lots of characters. Note that against a typical Battalion army, this will yield a maximum of 9 VPs s will only be worth taking against very specific opponents AND if you are kitted out to take out Characters.

Attrition: This is good against an opponent with lots of units so take it against MSU armies. 9th favours MSU so expect this one to be popular with armies that have a few powerful units like Knights and Deathstars.

Bring it Down: Good if your opponent is bringing lots of vehicles or Monsters. Generally only worth taking if you opponent has 7+ small vehicles or 5+ larger ones.

Titan Slayers: Worth considering if your opponent has a super-heavy. Definitely worth it against Knight armies.

Slay the Warlord. Avoid this one as it only yields 6VPs. Straight away you are reducing the total amount of points you can get by 9.

First Strike: Another Secondary that limits you to 8VPs I would normally avoid this one.

Abhor the Witch: If you have no psykers and find yourself up against Grey Knights, Thousand Sons and some flavours of Eldar and Nids. Do the maths and see if you can earn 15 VPs, if you can, it may be worth taking.

 

Next you have Objectives that you can plan for and build your army around.

 

Engage on all Fronts: This is a very straight forward Objective that will suit a lot of armies. I expect this to be one of the most common Secondaries. Only some very static gunline armies like Guard will struggle with this one.

Linebreaker: An interesting one that some armies will find easier than others. Marines in Drop Pods can really take advantage of this Secondary but opponents who screen their DZ will make life hard. Potentially powerful with the right armies but very situational.

Domination: This one basically doubles-down your focus on taking Objectives. Tough units with Objsec will benefit, as will armies that are not numerous enough to split their attention. Custodes might be able to make good use of this, as can Death Guard.

 

Lastly you have Objectives that require actions. To me these look like a bit of a trap as you will normally want your units to attack the enemy. Taking actions means units not contributing their offensive power for a turn. Some of these are very thematic and story-driven but to my mind, only suit specific builds. OPnly time will tell if they are competitive.

[Karhedron]

The Unseen makes good comment about different Objectives being viable at different points levels. I was assuming a typical 1500-2000 point tournament-style battle. But your points clearly illustrate I need to expand my thinking. At 500 points, 6VPs for the Warlord is actually quite good and also achievable.

[Dark Shepherd]

I play Wolves and the actions ones look a waste of resources

 

Engage on All Fronts

Mission specific

Bring it down/assasinate

Attrition

 

Look the way to go for me