tau sheild drones and how much we can complain!

[Jimothy]

Ok so despite the title of this I actually think it makes sense that the gun drones are a kill point. In fact i think those crafty GW guys thought it out. Now dont give me this "units are kill points crap" cause thats not what im going for. what im going for is the fact that gun drones are free. You can upgrade to smart missile systems for fairly cheap thus getting rid of the kill point problem. This makes me think they chose to use the kill point bit as a sort of a balance to make the smart missile system more competative.

"You know i was god once."

[Andrew]

"Disengaged drones act as Drone Squadrons." That pretty clearly says it there. Easy KP. However, you only get that extra if they detach. If the vehicle is destroyed with them onboard, they don't count as a seperate unit yet, thus dying with it.

[Jimothy]

well, the codex says that gun drones are treated as passangers if the vehicle is damage so, as a result if they are destroyed from the explosion of a vehicle shouldnt they still count as a kill point?



or do passengers not count as KP if the whole squad dies in a vehicle explosion?

[Andrew]

Well, I'll have to read up on this one too on Wednesday.

[Leudast1215]

Smart Missile Systems on Tau vehicles are not cheap they're 20 points; a set of Heavy Bolters on Imperium vehicles are cheaper and Lascanons sponsons are just a bit more. The reason Shield and Gun Drones are an issue is because the codex was never written with 5th edition in mind (obviously), therefore looking at the specific wordings on the unit entry do not make it fair; it's RAW'ing something never intended to be an issue. The Tau codex is full of these issues, like with upgrades dealing with target priority and other upgrades being rendered redundant.

Also, Gun Drones on Tau Vehicles are passengers, therefore if the vehicle dies the Drones are wounded at S4, suffer pinning tests and operate independently as normal squads.

Basically, because of the lack of official FAQ, Tau players have to shell out an unreasonable # of points if you plan to use more than 1 vehicle to remedy an issue no other army has (the unique nature of Drones). As for Imperial Guard having more KP being passed around as a counter-argument, their codex is rather specific and works nicely with the definition of a KP. Gun Drones on vehicles do not; you don't even pay for them on Devilfish. On a Hammerhead I could see them being a KP because you have to pay for them (they're as much as a smart missile system!). Tau armies have pretty high KP #'s as it is; especially if you want vulnerable heavy weapons teams to survive for any appreciable length of time given TLOS, new wound allocation rules and over-all expense of said heavy weapons teams who have no ablative wounds (Crisis Suits).

I know it's already been ruled as a club rule that vehicle Gun Drones are a kill point, but I'll leave that up to whomever I'm playing with ^_^.

As for character purchasable Shield and Gun Drones, they're WARGEAR therefore they are not a kill point because they're physical representations of said wargear. Would you make a squad leader (a squad upgrade) count as an extra kill point, or a power fist for a Space Marine Sergeant a kill point? I think not.

[Andrew]

I never agreed to the wargear drones being kill points, merely that they might not work as well as before. And like I said, I'll check on the vehicle drones too. I want everything to be played right and good.

[Leudast1215]

I know, I'm just giving my personal opinion. That's why I tried to approach the situation analytically because it affects the two Tau players at NIMGC. So to me Wargear Drones should be cool; if they're on vehicles, I guess I should think Guard have it worse off hehe ^_^.