Thought I'd see how the collected wisdom viewed my ideas on a more Drone Heavy list for Epic Tau.

At the bottom of this post is an attachment with all my current thoughts in one place.

Epic Tau Colony, Drone Heavy, Background

A lack of personnel and industrial infrastructure mean that armour is in short supply and that manpower (Tau-power?) are relatively scarce.

Manufacturing drones and programing the AI is much quicker than raising and teaching children. Early military production focuses on drone production.

Tau command are not prepared to employ Kroot or other mercenaries on the Colony because of concerns that they might take over the world for themselves. Also fiscal constraints mean that the Colony cannot afford the cost of employing them.

Drone units are generally integrated into the basic formations rather than available as upgrades (people seem reluctant to include Drone upgrades). However to keep flavour and perhaps reduce abuse the aim is to include specialist drones in formations with appropriate integral specialist units.

Most standard Tau units will still have their integrated drones so they will retain the standard unit statistics.

Fewer armoured elements and no tanks (perhaps 0-1?). It is too difficult to keep them going at the end of a long interstellar supply line. And there is not yet the manufacturing capability to support these elements locally.

No big spacecraft but a strong space and air-caste based force to provide AA and anti war-engine capabilities. Probably not much call for sophisticated heavy hitting bombers on a colony world so no AX-1-0s. This list would be a good place for an AX-2-2 with its Remora Drone control systems.

Would need to have heavier, probably air mobile, crisis response teams available to deal with incursions that might occur anywhere on the planet.


Personal Notes
I've always been drawn to using robotic systems and the Gun Drone is such an iconic unit for the Tau.
Decided to try an build a Tau army without buying any new models so have been scratch building a bunch of different Drones using plastic sheet, a hole punch and staples. The rest are converted Eldar infantry, heavily modified plastic dreadnoughts and some old Eldar vehicles.
Anyway all the toys are currently packed up in a shipping container while our Earthquake damaged house is repaired so my mind has drifted off producing toys to play with to how I could make a more Drone flavoured/oriented list.
Living in an ex-colony also seems a good place to kick off a Tau Colony List.

Proposed Drone Rule

Attached Drones are not counted when deciding whether a formation can garrison.
Drones possess Tau Jet Packs.
One Drone unit per two Devilfish or Piranha transporting vehicles (rounding up) may use ranged fire or Fire Fight in an assault, while being carried by the transport.
Ignore the first drone unit killed in an assault when working out who has inflicted more casualties.
Each Drone unit requires two extra hits to be killed if the formation loses an assault.
It takes two blast makers to kill a Drone unit in a broken formation.

Notes:
(1) The drones would be allocated the (double) hits during assault resolution (or for a broken formation) in the normal order. This would encourage drone units to be at the front in an engagement to benefit from this.
(2) I’d hope that rule (1) is would not be unbalancing if applied to all Drone units, eg., the air dropped formation from Tiger Sharks.
(3) Drones mounted in combat berths on their transports will be suppressed along with the vehicle they are in and will need to dice to escape if the vehicle is destroyed.
(4) I’d assume that a Devilfish was carrying two drones in combat mounts and the rest of a drone unit in the troop compartments. The standard vehicle can carry 12 troop whose own integrated drones must be somewhere. Details for the Devilfish and for Piranhas are below.
(5) There will need to be some procedure for deciding which Piranha lost to enemy fire necessitates the loss of the full drone unit where the vehicle is transporting a ½ gun drone unit. Dice as appropriate to see whether an odd number of vehicle losses causes the loss of a full embarked gun drone unit, assuming the passengers are spread evenly across all Piranhas.
(6) Current Hammerhead and Skyray profiles appear to be carrying smart missile systems rather than gun drones. The Drone Harbringer appears to be able to carry 2 units of drones. To quote the Lexicon “A pair of Gun Drones are often fitted to some Tau vehicles (most notably the Devilfish and Piranha). These drones, when not using their firepower in support of their parent vehicle, will often detach themselves to support the embarked Fire Warrior squad in combat, as well as scout and protect exposed flanks from enemy actions.”
(7) The assault resolution option I originally had as “Count the Drones destroyed (when defending?) in an assault as half units (rounding fractions down) when working out who has inflicted more casualties.” Perhaps that is better?
(8) The standard Expendable rule does not apply to formations entirely of expendable units and the loss of Expendable units does count towards the casualty count in assault resolution.
(9) Perhaps the Garrison rule needs to exclude all drone formations. I think it unlikely that a tournament army would have already deployed drones as a garrison. There are already some “out there” as part of the Sentry Drone units (but these “teleport”); similarly for Sniper Drone formations and any in a Stealth Battlesuit formation. The only other all Drone formations are those air dropped by Tiger Sharks.
(10) The ignore the first Drone casualty for assault resolution would also apply for all Drone units. The idea perhaps being that Drones can download their awareness into a major network but cannot do this when the extended network is more seriously degraded. It would allow the Tau to push a drone out into an exposed position but give them some protection from a clipping assault targeted on the screening drone unit.

Will take a look when I get some time, but also let me know when your free for a game over holidays and maybe we can give it a whirl.

_________________
http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

Looks ok as a start, first thoughts are the Drone rule is overly complicated and probably unnecessary. I would recommend simplifying it to the following.

Drone Rule.

Attached Drones are not counted when determining if a formation can garrison.
Ignore the first Drone unit killed in an engagement when working out casualties.

I don't think all the FF stuff is required and the mention of the Jet Packs is unnecessary as it should just be on the any Drone units datafax. The two hits to kill when broken is also just not required.

Otherwise the list is fine if maybe a little limited, I would suggest the Introduction of the dedicated Drone Harbinger transport to the list as opposed to a variant Colony Devilfish. I would also suggest a dedicated ground Drone formation.

The AX-2-2 should just get a single weapon system from those you list, I would suggest a format might be that the purchase of an AX-2-2 opens up the option to purchase a cheap 2 Remora Gun Drone Fighter formation, which can be very cheap and a useful activation but being tied to a more expensive AX-2-2 prevents spamming. If the formation is split in two though it allows each to do their job - the AX-2-2 can ground attack and the Remora can Intercept or CAP.

Well I am really all for simplicity so am happy to stick with this.

Would want the list as flexible as possible, within the constraints of a themed list. Do you mean I have dropped too many of the typical formations, that might be interesting with extra imbedded drones. Thinking here about Crisis Suit formations and perhaps tank formations.

The basic Drone Harbinger vehicle seems obviously appropriate. A Devilfish converted to carry lots of Gun Drones. Can't really see much mileage in the factory part of the fluff, but would be interested in some way of getting the Networked Drone Controller flavour into the unit.

Would you put a dedicated ground Drone formation in as a core unit? I had gone around in circles with whether it was justified to add markerlight abilities to the formation; either with heavy gun drones or with markerlight drones, or with pathfinder upgrades.


I like the idea of having the option to operate the Remora units further from it's mother ship. I had thought that having the drones in the same formation would give some interesting shielding possibilities against enemy intercept/CAP moves. Would a single AX-2-2 for about 100 points and an extra 100 points for the pair of "supported" Remora Drones be reasonable? Very few bombers seem to come as single units but the fluff is pretty clear with one AX-2-2 to a pair of Drones. I am leaning towards a Tracer Missile with 45 cm MW 5+, Guided Missile as the main extra weapon on the Tigershark.

Drone Harbinger

They seem to be able to carry up to 16 Gun Drones, so Transport (4 Drone Units).
Various fluff suggests these should only be Gun Drones, in terms of being able to fit
and for being repaired/manufactured, but size wise they could also be Markerlight Drones.

Armed with twin pulse carbines and Gun Drones in firing mounts so the basic vehicle would be:

AV, 30 cm, Arm 5+, CC 6+, FF 6+, Skimmer, Transport (4 Gun or Markerlight Drones)
Twin Pulse Carbines and Gun Drones, 15 cm, AP 4+, Disrupt

There is a whole bunch of fluff available here to read: Drone Harbinger fluff

It would be good to be able to bring out some more of this in the Epic stats for the vehicle.
The internal factory building/repairing Gun Drones seems like it would be a bit over the top.
It could be ignored by saying that this is a repair servicing (even building?) function for between battles.

The Networked Drone Controller provides some more tactical flavour. Options:
(1) One aspect of this makes the supported Gun Drones Fearless, which sounds a little like the Ethereal rule.
There would probably be 2 Harbingers in a typical mobile drone formation and ideally multiple such
formations so such a rule could easily go over the top (I imagine).
(2) Alternatively always count the vehicle being in range for the purposes of suppression when shooting.
The shooting ranges for the formation are likely to be only 15 cm so this would have a minor effect.
(3) Allow a Harbinger formation to include a markerlight drone to simulate the better coordination.

My preference would be to use (2) and (3) but would be keen to get other ideas, views.
EDIT: Just realized that giving the vehicle a Seeker Missile would accomplish (2) without a special rule.

I liked the quote I saw somewhere, "More of an aircraft carrier for Drones rather than a Factory"

Your stats for the Harbinger look fine, although I might suggest that a 16 Drone capacity might translate better into a transport capacity of 3 drones.

Also a single Twin Pulse carbine and two Drones at most probably equates to AP5+ Disrupt.

In terms of command and control if the Harbinger is intended only for a dedicated Drone formation then the Leader ability is a fairly easy solution. If it is meant to be included in mixed formations that might make it a bit good.

. . . so revised thoughts, say,

Drone Harbinger

AV, 30 cm, Arm 5+, CC 6+, FF 6+, Skimmer, Leader, Scout, Markerlight, Transport (3 Gun Drones)
Twin Pulse Carbines and Gun Drones, 15 cm, AP 5+, Disrupt

Formation: 6 Gun Drones, 2 Drone Harbingers, for 200 points

Notes:
(1) The Harbinger is designed to operate remotely from other troops, as forward screening or supply line harassing forces, and provides repair (manufacture) facilities for Drones; hence Scout.
(2) The Network Drone Controller "overrides the Drones sense of personal self-preservation" with their "AI pooled and directed by the controllers in the Harbinger"; hence Leader.
(3) Adding the Markerlight ability to the vehicle helps augment the Network Controller system.
(4) Reducing the number of Drone units carried (for 4-5 Drones per unit and a couple with the vehicle) and removing the option of a Marker-Light Drone (putting the ability directly on the vehicle) in response to above.
(5) Dropped to AP 5+ to balance against the firepower of the Drone units (10 twin carbines on Drones vs 5 on vehicle plus attached Drones.
EDIT (6) Battlefield repair and the presence of reserve drones with the vehicle also supports the award of the Leader special characteristic.

looks good to me, might even be ok at 175pts for the formation.