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Hi guys, this is an out-of-curiosity question.

Does taking Cypher in a Black Legion Supplement army list allow up to 3 of its Chosen, which count as Troops, become Objective Secured units under 7th ed rules please? The relevant rules are:

1. (From the Black Legion Supplement) FIRST AMONGST TRAITORS: When choosing a Black Legion detachment, units of Chosen are troops choices instead of elites choices.

2. (From the Cypher Dataslate) FALLEN CHAMPIONS paraphrased: Taking Cypher + 1-3 Chosen without Chaos bits or a Dedicated Transport gives them all Infiltrate

But at the same time, I also read this under the formation rules, also appearing in the Cypher Dataslate:

3. (From the Cypher Dataslate) FORMATIONS: A Formation presents a collection of two or more units that fight alongside one another in a particular way. When you choose an army, you can take a Formation as a special form of Detachment. Unless otherwise stated, you can take any number of Formations in your army, and each is considered to be a completely separate Detachment, regardless of how many units make it up.

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This question comes from my inexperience with a Dataslate + Supplement Codice + Formation together. Thanks in advance for any help.

I also realise 30 Chosen Infiltrators with Special Weapons, while cool, can also easily be negated by an Inquisitor with Servoskulls...which is very fluffy, actually.

Cypher's Formation is not a Black Legion detachment

Indeed. You can take Cypher, by his lonesome, in a Black Legion Detachment.

However

1) a 'Fallen Champions' Formation Detachment is not a Black Legion Detachment, it's a Chaos Space Marine Detachment. You can't declare it as being from the supplement.

2) Squads only get Objective Secured if the detachment they're part of says they do: to date, this means Troops in an Allied Detachment or Combined Arms Detachment, or Gargoyles in a 'Skyblight Swarm' Formation Detachment.

3) Chosen in a 'Fallen Champions' Formation Detachment get different command benefits (the ones listed in the formation - i.e. infiltrate and And They Shall Know No Fear - instead).

This is fairly standard - you'll note that each new book since Codex: Orks has had a standard 'other force organisation' and that anyone using them gets an awesome rule (massed outflankers, hammer of wrath, autopassing reserves, etc) but gets it INSTEAD of objective secured.

Thanks for the clarification, guys. I heard the idea in my FLGS before and only got the pdf today and I thought there was something off with it. It was something about how it's a Dataslate, but the person that told me clearly was trying to misinterpret rules in his favour. Really pleased to know this isn't the case.

As others have already said, the Fallen Champions definitely don't get ObSec.

It seems to be a frighteningly common (but completely incorrect) interpretation that having a Battle-Forged army means you gain ObSec on all of your Troops. This is absolutely false, as ObSec is purely a property of specific Detachments.

Even if you could argue that the Fallen Champions are drawn from Black Legion, they are not part of a Detachment that has ObSec as one of its benefits. Simple.