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Objective secured is important if the unit is durable and fast. The ability to snatch away an objective or claim one regardless of your opponents position is a game changer. The one problem with objective secured is that it doesnt matter as much if your opponent also has it.

I can almost tell who plays Maelstrom or EW mission by the replies. In EW ObjS is not that big a deal, but is almost always the game breaker in Maelstrom games. Especially on horde lists, my nid swarms make great use of it, even my Tau can use it to steal objectives from other armies tougher non-OS units.

I am going to hate running Tau against Demi-companies now.

barnowl wrote:
I can almost tell who plays Maelstrom or EW mission by the replies. In EW ObjS is not that big a deal, but is almost always the game breaker in Maelstrom games. Especially on horde lists, my nid swarms make great use of it, even my Tau can use it to steal objectives from other armies tougher non-OS units.

I see it the other way. In EW ObjS is huge because you know 100% that at the end of the game you are going to need that objective and if you are fast and going last you have less worries about jumping on it even though there is a squad already there that isn't ObjS. In Maelstrom there are 21 cards that deal with securing objectives (15-ish if you have army specific cards). that is only 40-60% of the total number of cards and it is even diminished by the 6 objectives that are spread out on the table, and since you score throughout the game and not at the end I would rather not throw one of my ObjS units at a single point early on.

I very rarely see it make a difference in the outcome of a game. Does it happen? Sure. Often? Rarely

There's a huge number of factors at play as to whether or not ObSec will matter, and it's typically not worth it to set those up. For Obsec to even trigger, you have to have an ObSec unit on an objective and be contested by a non-ObSec unit (if they both have ObSec, it's the same as if neither do). If the objectives aren't being contested, if neither hold true, then the rule literally just doesn't kick in. Furthermore, for it to make a difference in the outcome of the game and have any true relevancy, the above two conditions have to be true on a game turn that it matters (e.g. a Maelstrom game where the objective in question is actually something someone needs to get, or on the potential last turn of an Eternal War mission) otherwise the rule kicks in but doesn't matter. On top of that, even if all of the above are true, that objective has to be the deciding factor of the game. If you're tied with your opponent 1:1 then sure, getting an ObSec over to that other objective and turning it over 2:0 will win you the game, but if you're winning 5-1 and they get an ObSec unit over to one of your objectives and the game ends 4:2, then who cares, the outcome of the game didn't change and ObSec didn't change anything.

ObSec is nice extra trim option, something that is cool to have once in a while, but is not a routinely game winning special rule, and it's not something that's going to prove a gigantic liability to an army that doesn't have it.

I miss when only troops could score objectives...

Kaela_Mensha_Khaine wrote:

barnowl wrote:
I can almost tell who plays Maelstrom or EW mission by the replies. In EW ObjS is not that big a deal, but is almost always the game breaker in Maelstrom games. Especially on horde lists, my nid swarms make great use of it, even my Tau can use it to steal objectives from other armies tougher non-OS units.

I see it the other way. In EW ObjS is huge because you know 100% that at the end of the game you are going to need that objective and if you are fast and going last you have less worries about jumping on it even though there is a squad already there that isn't ObjS. In Maelstrom there are 21 cards that deal with securing objectives (15-ish if you have army specific cards). that is only 40-60% of the total number of cards and it is even diminished by the 6 objectives that are spread out on the table, and since you score throughout the game and not at the end I would rather not throw one of my ObjS units at a single point early on.

See that is the difference I see. I find it just the opposite, again a bug player here mostly, the fact I score all game makes having OS troops more important so I can snipe objective from under the opponent, or prevent him from scoring them. In EW, if I am down to Objectives at end of game the table is clear enough for OS to not really matter as much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I very rarely see it make a difference in the outcome of a game. Does it happen? Sure. Often? Rarely

There's a huge number of factors at play as to whether or not ObSec will matter, and it's typically not worth it to set those up. For Obsec to even trigger, you have to have an ObSec unit on an objective and be contested by a non-ObSec unit (if they both have ObSec, it's the same as if neither do). If the objectives aren't being contested, if neither hold true, then the rule literally just doesn't kick in. Furthermore, for it to make a difference in the outcome of the game and have any true relevancy, the above two conditions have to be true on a game turn that it matters (e.g. a Maelstrom game where the objective in question is actually something someone needs to get, or on the potential last turn of an Eternal War mission) otherwise the rule kicks in but doesn't matter. On top of that, even if all of the above are true, that objective has to be the deciding factor of the game. If you're tied with your opponent 1:1 then sure, getting an ObSec over to that other objective and turning it over 2:0 will win you the game, but if you're winning 5-1 and they get an ObSec unit over to one of your objectives and the game ends 4:2, then who cares, the outcome of the game didn't change and ObSec didn't change anything.

ObSec is nice extra trim option, something that is cool to have once in a while, but is not a routinely game winning special rule, and it's not something that's going to prove a gigantic liability to an army that doesn't have it.

It may just be Meta dependent/playstyle dependent, but I find it the opposite with OS kicking in almost every Game Turn in Maelstrom missions. EW it is really only important with Mysterious Objectives and end of game grabs.

I voted Rarely because my army revolves around using the Decurion detachment, and in my local meta these style of detachments and formations are used massively, but when someone does run CAD it can sometimes make the difference.

It really depends on the match up.
My DE don't care, as I'm going to be running minimum troops anyway, since they suck so hard.
Marines can do the wall of OS, that's brutal; 24 OS units all with either scout (12" in the transport) or in drop pods is a total nightmare for opponents without OS.

-Matt

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

My DE don't care, as I'm going to be running minimum troops anyway, since they suck so hard.

Out of curiosity, what do you take instead?

Many people here are answering this question based upon how many times in their experience has an objective secured unit actually held an objective, even though it has been contested by another non obj. sec. unit.
This is a bit misguided I feel, as objective secured plays a greater role in determining the direction players take in a battle.
Most decent players will have few experiences of objective secured directly influencing the game, but this is not due to objective secured being useless, but rather due to the fact that they know of the rule and have played their game accordingly.
For example, if I know there are eldar jetbikes on the board, I will go well out of my way to make sure they are wiped out or tied up in cc, as they are objective securing nightmares. If they didn't have objective secured (and weren't stacked with scatter lasers), then I would be more able to ignore them.

Personally I find that when a list inherently includes a lot of objective secured vehicles, they heavily influence the opposition's game plan. A drop pod list full of objective secured pods forces an opponent to deal with them.

I think I answered my own question

Won a game 6 - 5 because my warbikers (zhadsnark list) were contesting an objective held by a tactical squad. Would have lost that came were it not for a combined arms detachment..

I think objective secured matters if you make it matter, going second with objective secured units is a thing, highly durable units like waveserpents with obj secured is also a thing that can win games.