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The title says it all, how does one make up for the lack of points in the most important area: troops? Some people use 2 minimum squads and 1 minimum allies squad but I'm thinking you can win games using objectives as well if you are smart about spending your points. What do you guys think? I know Death Star lists aren't really designed for taking objectives but I think there are a few kinds of lists that can capture objectives and still be able to rack up kills using the death star.

Your question doesn't make a lot of sense in a general sense, as one of the big things about many Deathstar builds are that they are Troops, e.g. Farsight Bomb, Paladinstar.

I see what you are saying, maybe I don't know that much about death stars other than my own. I guess a better question would be which death stars have troops as part of their unit?

Well why don't you tell us your deathstar then?

Well I run Farsight and Shadowsun. I know for a fact that they are not troops but I know little of other races. Also. This isn't the topic I wanted discussed. I wanted to know how one should run a death star list that isn't trying to table an opponent (for example) by winning objectives as well.

I wanted to know the list because then we can comment on troops based on how many points the Deathstar takes up. I assume when you say you run farsight you mean the farsight bomb + Shadowsun. So that leaves you with few points for troops considering you need markerlights and such as well. With no access to either of the buffer HQ's that means going fire warrior heavy wont work too well. I would suggest 2 units of 8 firewarriors as well as kroot in reserve. Or maybe drop the kroot and ally in Eldar Wind rider squads (2 units of 3 make GREAT objective takers) and take an allied Solitaire (Autarch on jetbike with mantel of the laughting god, fusion gun + lazer lance) or laughing seer for your allied HQ (Seer on jetbike with mantel).

The point of the deathstar IS to table your opponent, or at least severely hinder his attempts at your objectives by way of his troops being dead so they can't take any objectives. They also do a wonderful job of drawing fire power. In short, in deathstar lists troops should be cheap and good at holding home objectives, because the deathstar itself should be able to handle pushing the opponent off of his,

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
Well I run Farsight and Shadowsun. I know for a fact that they are not troops but I know little of other races. Also. This isn't the topic I wanted discussed. I wanted to know how one should run a death star list that isn't trying to table an opponent (for example) by winning objectives as well.

Well since the bomb tends to not need markerlights as much, try running 2x3 windrider jetbikes w/cannon in reserve then use a solitarch to threat saturate and keep the bikes in reserve as long as possible.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I wanted to know the list because then we can comment on troops based on how many points the Deathstar takes up. I assume when you say you run farsight you mean the farsight bomb + Shadowsun. So that leaves you with few points for troops considering you need markerlights and such as well. With no access to either of the buffer HQ's that means going fire warrior heavy wont work too well. I would suggest 2 units of 8 firewarriors as well as kroot in reserve. Or maybe drop the kroot and ally in Eldar Wind rider squads (2 units of 3 make GREAT objective takers) and take an allied Solitaire (Autarch on jetbike with mantel of the laughting god, fusion gun + lazer lance) or laughing seer for your allied HQ (Seer on jetbike with mantel).

The point of the deathstar IS to table your opponent, or at least severely hinder his attempts at your objectives by way of his troops being dead so they can't take any objectives. They also do a wonderful job of drawing fire power. In short, in deathstar lists troops should be cheap and good at holding home objectives, because the deathstar itself should be able to handle pushing the opponent off of his,

As far as your suggestions go I'm totally with that. Eldar could make good allies for both buffing the death star and fortifying objectives. As far as my original question goes though: I don't think the point of the death star is to table your opponent, its only one unit and it can't be everywhere at once. Only some death stars are troops and can capture objectives and only some death stars can split fire and take out multiple units a turn.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Your question doesn't make a lot of sense in a general sense, as one of the big things about many Deathstar builds are that they are Troops, e.g. Farsight Bomb, Paladinstar.

Crisis Shas'vre Bodyguards aren't troops, even in a Farsight Enclaves army.

I make more Troops with my Tervigons

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Your question doesn't make a lot of sense in a general sense, as one of the big things about many Deathstar builds are that they are Troops, e.g. Farsight Bomb, Paladinstar.

Crisis Shas'vre Bodyguards aren't troops, even in a Farsight Enclaves army.

Who says you have to use the Bodyguards? You can build just as good a star with the Troop Crisis.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Your question doesn't make a lot of sense in a general sense, as one of the big things about many Deathstar builds are that they are Troops, e.g. Farsight Bomb, Paladinstar.

Crisis Shas'vre Bodyguards aren't troops, even in a Farsight Enclaves army.

Who says you have to use the Bodyguards? You can build just as good a star with the Troop Crisis.

He's saying that the Farsight Bomb can never be a scoring unit, as farsight's 7 bodyguards are not troops, even in the farsight codex.

If you're not using the bodyguards, you're missing out on a lot. First of all, you lose the awesome M3S and CnC options. Normal crisis suits, even as vre can only ever have 3 Signature systems, weapons or support items. This means that only two suits gain the M3S and CnC buffs too. :\

Only normal Crisis suits can ever be scoring in a farsight list. THEN AGAIN, that would be an interesting FAQ question. But i think RAI, it is suggesting that Crisis elite units are now troops, not bodyguards.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Your question doesn't make a lot of sense in a general sense, as one of the big things about many Deathstar builds are that they are Troops, e.g. Farsight Bomb, Paladinstar.

Crisis Shas'vre Bodyguards aren't troops, even in a Farsight Enclaves army.

Who says you have to use the Bodyguards? You can build just as good a star with the Troop Crisis.

So a unit of 3 Crisis suits which don't give Farsight a guaranteed Look Out, Sir and cannot carry the same amount of special equipment is as good as 7 who do and who carry everything needed to allow the unit to destroy any threat it comes across?

Since when are Crisis limited to three guys per unit?

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Since when are Crisis limited to three guys per unit?

Since the first Tau codex.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Since when are Crisis limited to three guys per unit?

Only Farsight's pals can go above three.

Wow, I never knew that. My bad then, ignore what I said.

Anyway to ally in a GK Grandmaster to make the Bomb scoring?

Thatguyoverthere11 wrote:
Anyway to ally in a GK Grandmaster to make the Bomb scoring?

Doesn't work as GK can never be Battle Brothers with anybody else.

The wording on Grand Strategy only excludes certain units in the codex and otherwise says units "in your army". Personally I agree with you but it's never been FAQ'd and I remember at least once some tournament allowed it, a guy played GK+Necrons and made his AB scoring, etc.

With regards to Farsight Bomb and troops, you actually can do it using the Farsight Enclave Codex because in there all of Farsight's 7 friends are given names and stats -- as Independent Characters.

So 3 man Crisis Squad and then pick ICs from Farsight & Friends that you like, the ones that give CnC and MS3 obviously are key since that's not usually available in the Farsight Enclave book. Taking the IC Riptide in your bomb sounds hilarious as well.

The problems IMO will be
1, no Shadowsun unless you ally in Codex Tau Empire as Farsight Enclave explicitly bans her;
2, much less efficient points wise since the fluffy ICs aren't built as well as they could be;
3, fewer units will have Target Locks (the 3 crisis suits and only 1-2 of the ICs you can choose from I think) so less split fire capability.

But the deathstar would then have 3 scoring troops. You'd need to choose between Shadowsun or Eldar allies and it'd cost more, I'd personally go with the Eldar + Jetbikes.

Lanlaorn wrote:
The wording on Grand Strategy only excludes certain units in the codex and otherwise says units "in your army". Personally I agree with you but it's never been FAQ'd and I remember at least once some tournament allowed it, a guy played GK+Necrons and made his AB scoring, etc.

The wording on Grand Strategy doesn't matter, as the wording on allies disallows the use of allied abilities unless you are Battle Brothers, and Grand Strategy is a allied ability.

Don't shoot the messenger, but that's not actually true. The allies rules only cover a few specific things (i.e. psychic powers, transports, joining units). In other similar cases of these unique rules they've FAQ'd things that affect "a unit" to "a unit from Codex: Whatever".

And again, I agree with you since this is clearly not the intent, but I must admit that Rules As Written nothing interferes with Grand Strategy use in this manner.

Lanlaorn wrote:
Don't shoot the messenger, but that's not actually true. The allies rules only cover a few specific things (i.e. psychic powers, transports, joining units). In other similar cases of these unique rules they've FAQ'd things that affect "a unit" to "a unit from Codex: Whatever".

And again, I agree with you since this is clearly not the intent, but I must admit that Rules As Written nothing interferes with Grand Strategy use in this manner.

Wasn't shooting anybody, just stating my opinion.

And I misspoke, so let me rephrase. Allies rules say that Allies of Convenience treat each other as enemy units. Does Grand Strategy not say it has to be used on a friendly unit in your army?

Nope, it's just "units in your army". It gets specific about what type of model it must be (infantry, MC, walker) and then excludes ICs, Henchmen and Mordrak's Ghost Knights.

Hmm ok then, could have sworn it said friendly. Still, I have never seen anybody play it that way, I don't think I will either (mostly because allied GK nearly always have Coteaz as the HQ).

This derail has been most enjoyable and enlightening, but I'm afraid I'm going to steer us back to the original question. Sorry.

I can actually think of a few deathstars that aren't Troops, so the question's certainly valid (Seer Council, Harlequins, aforementioned Farsight Bomb, DE Beast pack shenanigans, TH/SS Termies with Corbulo to name a few).
The deathstar's so damn expensive in the first place that 2x Troops seems to be the only option left in most cases. However, there are a few cases where the Troops are cheap enough that you can spam quite a few units and give them enough weaponry to still make them viable, rather than an afterthought.

Guardian Jetbikes are now a good example with their points discount, as are Fire Warriors if you can spare the points for a Fireblade or Ethereal to join them (shouldn't be too tricky). Cultists would seem to be perfect for throwing loads of Troops down but I'm at a loss for what could be considered a Chaos deathstar, beyond "Abaddon/Kharn plus, er, something."

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Hmm ok then, could have sworn it said friendly. Still, I have never seen anybody play it that way, I don't think I will either (mostly because allied GK nearly always have Coteaz as the HQ).

It's been FAQ'd, so you can't do it anyway.

GK FAQ Pg. 1 wrote:Page 22 – Grey Knight Grand Masters, Grand Strategy

Change the second sentence to “Roll a D3 and choose that
many friendly Infantry, Jump Infantry, Monstrous Creature or
Walker units in your army chosen from Codex: Grey Knights
(but not models with the Independent Characterspecialrule,
Inquisitorial Henchmen Warbands or Grand Master Mordrak’s
unit of Ghost Knights).”

Ah, cool, although the other updates in v1.4_April13 have me shaking my head. Did anyone really try to argue that multiple Aegis effects would stack, lol?

Yeah, there's some weird ones in there. IIRC There's a question in the SW FAQ about how many attacks a Bloodclaw Attack Bike gets, because math is hard or something. And the answer is basically just 2+1+2 = 5!

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Since when are Crisis limited to three guys per unit?

Bodyguards can be a squad of 2. Crisis suits can be a squad of 3. Farsight's bodyguard can be a squad of 7.

Happens all the time! I never deal with bodyguards, so when I started to toy with them in a list I was doing the normal 3 suit lists. Luckily, my BattleScribe program told me I was wrong, I looked it up in the codex, and sure enough, it says you can only add one extra suit for a total of 2.