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Objective secured has been in the game for a while now I wonder if we can determine the effect of it on the game*.

*Excluding on eldar jetbikes because their unusual speed + cost + objs would ruin the statistics for all the other units.

It matters almost every time I play against Drop Pods. Only reason percentage isn't higher is because not all my opponents are space marines and the game isn't always about those objectives.

If we exclude jetbikes, then literally never.

It changes HOW I play (since my armies lack Obj Sec), but the outcomes are pretty much the same.

My army also lacks Obsec and I find it huge and very often a factor. Maybe because we play a fair amount of maelstrom.

In my subjective experience, very rarely. It happens, but it's relatively rare, certainly in less than 10% of games. Often even when ObSec actually kicks in, it doesnt change the ultimate outcome (usually because one side or the other was so far ahead it doesnt matter).

Is ObSec useless? No. Is it a critical must have ability that is crippling to work around if not present or presents some dramatic advantage if not present in the opponents force? Absolutely not. It pops up every once in a while, but not consistently.

Often it really just feels like a hamfisted artificiality when it does actually kick on in a meaningful way though. "My marines hold the objective but your identical marines locked in combat with them dont count as contesting because of an arbitrary artificial army construction rule, despite the fact that the objective is by no conceivable measure "secure", yay!". (Though ObSec is far from the only thing that does that).

EDIT: For ObSec to really make the difference between victory and defeat, a number of conditions must hold true. Your opponent has to be contesting in the first place with a unit that doesnt have Obsec, your contesting unit has to have ObSec, neither side must have the ability to wipe the other off before the objective is considered "held" (either the end of the game or end of turn for maelstrom), and the game has to hinge on objectives in such a state. If all of these dont hold true, ObSec didnt do anything to change the outcome.

On non-Eldar Jetbikes? A bit. On Eldar Jetbikes? All the time.

Quite a bit for me, ObSec Venoms and Kabalites taking an objective from my opponent has really helped me out in quite a few games.

As a rule I always try to kill my opponant off of an objective before I attempt to secure it so obsec never comes into it.

This is just one of my 'rules of honourable play' that I enforce upon myself to make it more fun/challenging.

I would say almost never. I put down less than 20%, but it's probably closer to less than 10... I just don't remember that well.

My friends and I typically don't play Marines vs Marines. In those cases, the better melee army tends to take objectives anyway. Seriously, IG Vets aren't going to stick around when 3 Tacticals show up. They're going to get beat in hth and run away anyhow.

I think it's a silly rule, with next to no value.

I'm the only SM player in my local meta (and I usually play my Necrons instead), so my results are a little out of the ordinary. I'd say around 30% of games I've played were decided by one army having ObSec.

I don't play to capture objectives, I play to wipe my opponent off the table. he can't capture objectives if his army is gone

I play elites heavy CADs or formations (DW/RW), so I don't see it all that often. I usually sit my objsec units in the backfield to make sure no one takes objectives on my side of the table while the rest of my army takes objectives down the field. A terminator unit or a BK unit doesn't need to worry about objsec because if you have troops close enough to them that it'll matter they're going to get punched/corvus hammered off the table next turn.

Literally never. Even on the rare occasion I had the jetbikes.

I steal points all the time with fast obj sec rhinos. Does no one else use Rhinos for this?

Martel732 wrote:
I steal points all the time with fast obj sec rhinos. Does no one else use Rhinos for this?

What are rhinos? All I have are these piles of scrap my CSM were riding in until the end of turn 1.

Every close game. So, like 1/3 of the time.

I am not sure how many times it has actually effected the outcome of my games (probably very little), but it affects every list I make. I either commit to having plenty of ObSec, or units that can destroy common Obsec units quickly. Or in the case of my Eldar, both.

Really the only armies that truly care are Fast armies, Transport heavy armies, or Static gunline armies.
If, however, you have an balanced army that avoids spamming the same stuff, ObSec does not matter much.

I feel like this was a mistake.
Originally only Troops could score and that forced players to field the units that SHOULD be most common in their armies. Making everything score, but a bonus to those Troops was nice for a while, but with the increasing number of Formations and relative meaninglessness of Unbound (because Battle Forged armies can be pretty much whatever you want now), ObSec just doesn't create the balance it was supposed to.

-

I don't have an exact number. It does come up quite often. My friend who plays Space Wolves has taken lots of objectives from me with it. It's taken me a while to really start to use a cad from the rule book. I was focusing on Ork builds from their codex and supplement for a long time. I've found owning objectives is better than a random roll for a Hammer of Wrath. It's helped me, forcing my opponents to make harder choices and spend resources to get Objectives.

Our group plays Marlstrom missions, so Obj Secured comes to play very often. All of you old school campers, waiting for turn 5 to score points, maybe not so much.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Our group plays Marlstrom missions, so Obj Secured comes to play very often. All of you old school campers, waiting for turn 5 to score points, maybe not so much.

even with Maelstrom, while it comes into play more frequently, simple unit count is probably going to be far more important. Again, not only does the objective need to be contested, it needs to be contested by the right units at a relevant time for ObSec to kick in, and the points need to be close for it to be relevant. Does it happen? Yes. Does it determine the outcome of games? Only very rarely will it mean the difference between victory and defeat even in Maelstrom.

Lets not forget that the older style missions arent exactly dead either, theyve got just as much prominence in the rulebook and are largely the "default" game style for most pickups, while Maelstrom is often, if not usually, highly modified from the book rules for use in events and leagues and changes the value of Obsec as a result.

 oldzoggy wrote:
*Excluding on eldar jetbikes because their unusual speed + cost + objs would ruin the statistics for all the other units.

Seems like an arbitrary prohibition. Scatbikes are really good obsec units, but they're not so good that they'd skew the statistics more than, say, Drop Pods, which have an unusually low cost plus speed plus ObSec, or GSC CAD Troops, who are even more mobile than Scatbikes in some ways and far more resilient because they're in Ongoing Reserve for most of the game. I use the latter a lot and I find them very handy whenever I do. I still picked "don't know" because I rarely play straight "hold flags at the end" games and my armies are more than able to pick up VP from stuff other than objectives.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Our group plays Marlstrom missions, so Obj Secured comes to play very often. All of you old school campers, waiting for turn 5 to score points, maybe not so much.

even with Maelstrom, while it comes into play more frequently, simple unit count is probably going to be far more important. Again, not only does the objective need to be contested, it needs to be contested by the right units at a relevant time for ObSec to kick in, and the points need to be close for it to be relevant. Does it happen? Yes. Does it determine the outcome of games? Only very rarely will it mean the difference between victory and defeat even in Maelstrom.

Lets not forget that the older style missions arent exactly dead either, theyve got just as much prominence in the rulebook and are largely the "default" game style for most pickups, while Maelstrom is often, if not usually, highly modified from the book rules for use in events and leagues and changes the value of Obsec as a result.

I don't agree regarding maelstrom games, yeah I realize most people still play primarily Eternal War type games, but in Maelstrom obsec IS a big deal - especially when one side doesn't have it. I can't tell you how many times a nearby rhino has denied my non obsec units points.

For my Raven Guard, it didn't come into play as much as I hoped [because my scouts are in the auxiliary formation, and I don't have lots of vehicles]. But the Battle Company giving Objective Secured to everything in it did matter in several games. OS Bikes and a Jump Pack Chapter Master were the stars of taking objectives.

But with my Daemonic Incursion, who have 'ObSec Plus', it's been a huge factor in the few games I've fully played with them. Infiltrating or deepstriking Nurglings are great.

Oddly enough with my Demi-company OS has done very little for me overall. Most of the time I can either blow the enemy unit off the objective or the opposing unit has OS as well (my typical opponents bring troop heavy lists)

 Gunzhard wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Our group plays Marlstrom missions, so Obj Secured comes to play very often. All of you old school campers, waiting for turn 5 to score points, maybe not so much.

even with Maelstrom, while it comes into play more frequently, simple unit count is probably going to be far more important. Again, not only does the objective need to be contested, it needs to be contested by the right units at a relevant time for ObSec to kick in, and the points need to be close for it to be relevant. Does it happen? Yes. Does it determine the outcome of games? Only very rarely will it mean the difference between victory and defeat even in Maelstrom.

Lets not forget that the older style missions arent exactly dead either, theyve got just as much prominence in the rulebook and are largely the "default" game style for most pickups, while Maelstrom is often, if not usually, highly modified from the book rules for use in events and leagues and changes the value of Obsec as a result.

I don't agree regarding maelstrom games, yeah I realize most people still play primarily Eternal War type games, but in Maelstrom obsec IS a big deal - especially when one side doesn't have it. I can't tell you how many times a nearby rhino has denied my non obsec units points.

They'd have denied your non-obsec unit the point either way with or without ObSec if they were in contesting range, as I noted that's more a function of unit count making an impact (having lots of scoring units to claim/contest helps), your opponent just wouldn't have gained the point themselves. Sometimes that matters, sometimes it does not. In most games, in my experience, ObSec determines victory maybe 5% of games? It kicks in in a lot more than that, but actually making the difference between victory and defeat is relatively rare (as often X player would have beat Y anyway or both players had ObSec or the objectives just ended up not being terribly important that game, etc).

It would seem that as of this moment (60 votes), 45% of us believe that ObSec impacts our outcomes less than 30% of the time. I actually included ObSec Jetbikes in that, as my most frequent opponent is a Scatterbike Abuser.

I'm not at all surprised, I've long been of the opinion that it only matters in MEQ vs MEQ scenarios. Essentially, if one army has significant melee advantage, obsec becomes useless. Or if one has high-powered, close range, ignores cover weapons, such as Tau. Or certain Chaos Marine builds that focus on AP3 Templates.

The other time might be when running a tough, durable army with Ob Sec vs a Non-Obsec army with otherwise fast, objective stealing units that aren't able to out-thump / out-blast you in rapid order. Scatterbikes, for example, would rarely need obsec, because they can either blast units off of objectives, or more safely claim an uncontested objective on the other side of the board. Let your Wraithknight stomp into the contested objectives.

I mean, Tau use their Hunter Contingents and Riptide Wings and Sneaky-Suits and such. They either win by blasting you off objectives or you win by thumping them away from objectives. If units are within 6" of each other, it will come down to whether or not the opposing unit can make their assault roll.

Eldar will blast you off the objective, or stomp you off the objective, or will fly to another objective and take it, so as not to risk the bikes.

Space Marines Battle Companies have a ton of ob sec units... but no high-end list wants to get "close" to them anyhow. They'd rather keep their distance and blast away with longer range. If you can get close, you'll win in assault, so nobody left to contest anyhow.

Necrons can blob a 20 man Warrior unit on an objective and just physically keep you from getting within 3", while blasting away with Gauss Rifles. Assault them? They've got TURNS worth of durability, even against efficient assault troops... that nobody takes.

Are you going to get within 6" of a Knight with or without Obsec, sitting on an objective? Not that Knights are top teir... but you get my drift.


Ob Sec has gone from a game defining rule, to almost a half-forgotten rule that suddenly, almost randomly, changes the outcome of a game VERY RARELY. It almost feels like another random element in a game that's gone full reta.. random.

Obsec has been massively effective for me. In a world full of special formations and point n click killy units, this rule has been the one to bag me many single point victories.

 Vaktathi wrote:
They'd have denied your non-obsec unit the point either way with or without ObSec if they were in contesting range, as I noted that's more a function of unit count making an impact (having lots of scoring units to claim/contest helps), your opponent just wouldn't have gained the point themselves. Sometimes that matters, sometimes it does not. In most games, in my experience, ObSec determines victory maybe 5% of games? It kicks in in a lot more than that, but actually making the difference between victory and defeat is relatively rare (as often X player would have beat Y anyway or both players had ObSec or the objectives just ended up not being terribly important that game, etc).

Well I think you're glossing over quite a bit here. I mean really the reason most folks seem unaffected by Obsec is because most lists have it - and Eternal War missions.

Not having Obsec in Maelstrom games though (which I realize is situational to begin with) I can tell you it makes up a big difference with points. So many objectives I just flat out ignore because I know I won't be able to clear out that many enemy scoring units; and so often despite throwing the kitchen sink at an objective the lone remaining scoring troop can still award my opponent the points.

Also in EW missions it happens once, but Maelstrom on every one of my opponents turns he can sprint onto any objective I 'hold' and make a point; it is pretty decisive for win/loss. But like you said, when both players have Obsec than it's generally not as important to the final game results.

For me it personally isn't a huge thing.
My thousand sons for example when I'm not running a cad it will be a black crusade detachment so while I will have obsec because of the warband its not needed at all.
My tau don't have it unless I run a cad and again its not really needed. My shooting is generally enough providing I focus fire
My space marines have it as I run the demi company but again I don't feel like I need it.
My daemons don't care for it to be honest.