Its a reasonable idea, although probably a little unworkable in terms of in game interactions and unwanted effects (either your using drones to stop your flak and seeker missiles being supressed - probably a bit good, or if limited to the Drones 15cm range it isnt really a benefit so is an exception to a rule for no real reason.

Truthfully I would rather stay away from any rules changes/exceptions and just keep things fairly simple.

I definately really like the Drone formation as an upgrade to the Tigersharks as it allows the Drone formation to be priced very low in points without worrying about cheap activation boosting.

So the Drone formation will be going from the support formations to a 100pts upgrade for Tigersharks, I am also going to add Gun Drones as transportable by Devilfish, this wont have any real effect on the Third Phase Colonisation list - but opens the possibilities for variant lists if they want to do anything with Drones mixed into formations.

Finally the upgrade will go to 4 Drones for 75pts, still probably not a great choice but it has some uses for adding to Orca transported Fire Warriors or Stealth, also works as a fairly good upgrade for Crisis.

Sounds great!

Could you make Drones '25pts each or 4 for 75pts'? Then you could still add an odd drone(s) occasionally if you fancy or to use up left-over points, though the group upgrade would obviously be the most cost effective.

I like the sound of that Yme .. i also like the 25point per stand, 4 for 75

Won't mixing ground forces with flyers in the same formation cause some odd coherency effects?

The Upgrade isn't about extra units its about a separate Formation.

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Drones would still be a separate formation, they'd just be 0-1 per formation of Tigersharks.

Would the Drones count towards the 1/3 aircraft allowance? Personally I'd hope not as that may put people off taking them a little, but no biggie either way.

Then it's not really an "upgrade"... *laugh*

Its an 'upgrade formation'. I.e. in the list in the air section you have '+formation of drones x points' under Tigersharks. So separate formation but uses air allocation (no doubt showing the increased logistics the air cast need for the op) and requires tigersharks to be bought first. And give tigersharks seeker missiles

Did some thinking about the Drones because there seems always something wrong with them. And now it hit me what it was: They have only ONE shot with their Twin Pulse Carbines. But they should get two. Why? Because of Eldar Dark Reapers.
Dark Reapers are each armed with a Heavy Weapon. Usually in Epic each Heavy Weapon generates one shooting attack. But Dark Reapers are 3-5 individual models per Base (Squad Strength in WH40k is 3-5 Dark Reapers) which should generate 3-5 shots.
Now in the WhES the Dark Reaper's weapon, the Eldar Missile Launcher should have only AP6+. But an Epic Dark Reaper unit has 2 x AP5+. So it seems the unit has 2 x "Twin Linked" Eldar Missile Launchers.
In fact you could make a table (only valid for Infantry!):
1 Heavy Weapon (Space Marine Tacticals) = 1 shot
2 Heavy Weapons (Space Marine Devastators) = 2 shots
3 Heavy Weapons (Chaos Obliterators) = 3 shots
4 Heavy Weapons (Eldar Dark Reapers) = 2 improved/"twinlinked" shots

So now look at Tau units.
Fire Warriors: They have two shots as ca the half is armed with Pulse Rifles and the other Half with Pulse Carbines.
Pathfinders: Same as the above only that the split is between Pulse Carbines and Rail Rifles.
Gun Drones: only one shot?

Gun drones are all armed with Twin Pulse Carbines which, under the Tau design notes, have ranged shooting attacks.
Taking the Dark Reaper example a single Pulse Carbine has 15cm AP5+ Disrupt, a whole unit armed with them 2 x 15cm AP4+ Disrupt, so Gun Drones should have 2 x Twin Pulse Carbines 15cm AP3+ Disrupt.
To strong? Well then have a look at the Orks. In the WhES all Orks weapons would be +1 to hit in comparison to the rulebook stats. But now take into account that in Wh40k Orks are pretty bad at shooting because of the BallisticSkill of only 2. I have taken this into account in the WhES and now all Orks have -1 on all their shooting attacks which now corresponts to most of the rulebook Ork weapons.
So Tau Gun Drones ALSO have a BallisticSkill of only 2. With the above that would give Tau Gun Drones the final stats of:
2 x Drone Twin Pulse Carbines AP4+ Disrupt
or just
2 x Twin Pulse Carbines AP4+ Disrupt

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A very interesting point, BL.

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Yup, there's a strong case of 2xAP4+ disrupt based on the way other Tau infantry weapons are represented.

Just to cause trouble, the new XV9 fluff seems to suggest that drones are used sacrificially. They aren't sent into meat grinders but are used for situations deemed too dangerous to send living Tau (i.e bomb disposal robots) and do self destruct/fight to the death in order to let Hazard suits flee from combat.

So from a purely background point of view, in a close range firefight, a Tau squad may fall back if fire is heavy enough to remove it's accompanying drones and drones will fall back to cover/safe ground if presented with overwhelming firepower. However unlike warhammer, Tau squads won't panic and flee if a nearby Drone squad is wiped out. They aren't considered as disposable as Orks consider Grots (clearing minefields that hard way, actual bullet magnets knowing some Meks), they are expected to fight without support (Tigershark seeding), give their 'lives' to protect Tau and aren't considered sentient entities. Perhaps they've got cheaper to make now the original damocles gulf era patent's have expired

That said, I definitely like the Tigershark option. But disposable yet still very limited I could see (particularly with the idea that the drone squadrons are actually the released drones of the various tanks and vehicles within the formation as much as actual independant squadrons - the latter being the Tigershark dropped variety and the former being quite common in 40K when Pirhanas are taken)

Brainstorming on/

I have always thought of Drones as being one of the iconic items that defined the Tau. As I understand it, they are widely used in roles that are dangerous, menial, remote, as a force multiplier etc, and in the past we have toyed with Markerlight, Remote Sentries, Shield, Light and Heavy variants.

IMHO the main issue with Drones has been

1. their value and activation boosting capabilities,
2. defining their role and stats,
3. difficulties interpreting how the Tau should react to their loss.

Treating them as an 'upgrade' to a unit, formation or potentially even an army removes the 1st issue.
Perhaps we could discuss a couple of variant concepts which might help address the other issues.

Remote Drones - upgrade to TigerShark formation, and possibly other air transport
These are dropped by Tau transport and have no intrinsic activation or movement. They provide a 1 shot OW capability for area denial (a form of Tau 'minefield'). Once 'fired', they are removed from play.

Shield Drones - upgrade to Formations or possibly characters
These are unarmoured devices that provide point protection to the upgraded item (formation or character). Other than that they are not effectively a unit so do not count towards formation sizes and do not add BMs when they die. Like Ork titan shields, they always take the first hits applied to the upgraded item, but cannot be regenerated. (These can be represented by 'counter' style models associated with the relevant unit or formation)

Weapon Drones - The units currently under discussion.
These are 'standard' units with weapons, armour etc that can be added to formations as an upgrade. Perhaps we could experiment with 'Heavy', 'Light' and 'Sniper' variants that have the same upgrade value, but different stats? (Heavy has more weapons and better armour, but is slower than 'Light'. 'Sniper' has the ability, but a reduction in other stats etc)

Making independent Drone formations an 'upgrade' to particular transport formations does seem an excellent idea well worth investigating. If the Drone variants suggestion above is adopted, would you be allowed to mix and match?

Brainstorming off/

Absolutely.


I agree that drones probably shouldn't be largely available to an army just from activation spam.


Why not push that a step further, and just make the dropped drones a 15cm 3xAP4+ Disrupt attack? That also makes the Tigershark 'bomber' feel like a bomber in Epic terms.


I thought shield drones were assumed in the armor stats? I think this is adding complexity that we don't need here. Although, I don't thing we're getting enough armor bonus from the drones. I argued for a long time that a single Broadside with 2 Shield Drones was tougher than a Land Raider (took more Missile Launcher shots to kill), back when Broadsides were multiple minis on a stand and still LV.


Heavy drones are a FW invention, with similar firepower to a Stealth team. What role do they fill?

Light Drones are already in existence, though we are still trying to figure out the stats. Drones are not as good a shot as Fire Warriors, so their 6x twin pulse carbines per stand are effectively identical to those carried by 2x stands of Fire Warriors (assuming the 50/50 mix). 2x 15cm AP5+ is roughly correct.

Sniper Drones used to exist, but had a hard time identifying their proper role. They'd be a small formation that Scouts and has the same weapon as a unit of Pathfinders, without the Markerlights (at the Epic scale). What would you have them be and do?

This i think could some up drones very simply.

As previously put, drones are a force multiplier, they are already counted within units for their high shooting stats and plethora of short ranged weaponry (and to some extent armour)

The free roaming drones could be summed up by all the disrupt in the army, that' the drones co-ordinate with the firewarriors provided even more confusion and panic within the enemy.

The Tigershark and it's air drop is the only anomaly that needs to be solved.

This is a quite simple and elegant solution