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Can Broadsides take A.S.S. and a Drone Controller and Drones? Or, can a broadside unit with A.S.S. take more than 2 drones from the team leader's hard-wired drone controller?

From this thread:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/235239.page

Please keep in mind that when you read the entry for the A.S.S. it will make your brain cells commit Hari Kari because it is so poorly written.

You have to read and really understand the Tau Crisis rules and weapons to have even a beginning of an idea of what the wargear is "Implied"to be used for.


Now that this has been brought up it will become apparent that by its own words that the A.S.S. does absolutely nothing and that there is no benefit from this wargear by RAW.




Now I will be arguing two points in this thread.

First, that the ASS convey no benefit what so ever. The easy one.

Second, I'll be arguing for the for the side that says you can take more than 2 drones if its agreed that the ASS actually does convey some benefit.


Any takers on either debate?

The rule seems very straight forward to me. When you use it, you become Slow and Purposeful, which gives you Relentless, and thus lets you count as stationary when firing so you can move and shoot heavy weapons. Sounds like a benefit to me.

The rule states that every MODEL in the unit must have it if one member does. Drones are a MODEL in the unit, but unable to purchase the system, and thus the rules writes in an exception stating the that UNIT may still take them, but not each member.

The whole thing seems very straight forward and easy to understand to me.

Where does it state relentless? For matter of fact where does it say that you get to fire heavy weapons. It implies such but doesn't state so clearly.

If the rule is about firing of heavy weapons then why does it comment on sacrificing the Crisis jump move in assault?
Tau jet-packs crisis suits don't have access to heavy weapons.



The drones as wargear would never be able to purchase wargear. Why would an "exception" rule be specially written to "support" a rule already laid down in the codex, under the Who can take wargear portion.

Debates? About the Tau Codex? With all their Clear and Concise rules???

Heresy!!!

And not having the Tau codex to hand, but running off memory, Id have to agree with focusedfire here on whatever it is he is arguing (just kidding but yeah I do agree with focusedfire here)

Relentless is stated in the definition of slow and purposeful.

You guys utterly fail at reading.

p 25 Tau codex

During the movement phase the battle suit may choose to use the Slow and Purposeful universal special rule for the remainder of the turn, though if it does it may not make an additional jetpack move in the assault phase.
Also, if one model in a team has advanced stabilization then all models in the team must be similarly equipped, and if one model makes use of the system all must do so.
THE UNIT MAY STILL TAKE DRONES.

Slow and purposeful gives relentless as a rulebook effect, as the above poster mentioned.

So in conclusion if you pay for the teamleader upgrade on a Broadside suit he may take a HWDC and the ASS.

No you fail at reading.

So what? The unit may still take drones? Woop de flipping do. No one was saying you couldn't. What we are saying is you may not use the A.S.S because of the "and if one model makes use of the system all must do so. " bit.

It doesn't say all non drone models, or battlesuit models, just all models. As it stands, a Unit with A.S.S and Drones may not ever use the A.S.S while a drone is around because the Drone cannot use the A.S.S because it doesn't have it, and because ALL MODELS must use it.

Gwar! wrote:No you fail at reading.

So what? The unit may still take drones? Woop de flipping do. No one was saying you couldn't. What we are saying is you may not use the A.S.S because of the "and if one model makes use of the system all must do so. " bit.

It doesn't say all non drone models, or battlesuit models, just all models. As it stands, a Unit with A.S.S and Drones may not ever use the A.S.S while a drone is around because the Drone cannot use the A.S.S because it doesn't have it, and because ALL MODELS must use it.

Isn't it a universal special rule that is conveyed to them? I thought with slow and purposeful if one model in the squad had it they all moved at that speed. The sorcerer in the thousand sons squad does not have slow and purposeful but he doesn't get to move faster.

That it is. A unit always moves at the speed of its slowest model. However, just because 1 model is S&P doesn't mean the others get to move and fire Heavys.

The thing here is the wording of A.S.S. In order to use it (and have the S&P USR conferred) every single model in the unit must use it. Since Drones do not have it, they cannot use it, so none of the unit can use A.S.S if there are any drones in the unit.

That it is. A unit always moves at the speed of its slowest model. However, just because 1 model is S&P doesn't mean the others get to move and fire Heavys.

The thing here is the wording of A.S.S. In order to use it (and have the S&P USR conferred) every single model in the unit must use it. Since Drones do not have it, they cannot use it, so none of the unit can use A.S.S if there are any drones in the unit.

Ah, i see. Do drones actually count as squad members for the purpose of this sort of thing or are they just representative wargear markers? Either way i think the RAI is fairly clear cut.

Given that the drones are the same unit type as their owner, would there be room for interpretation that the Slow&Purposeful or Relentless parts are confered to it, as for the turn where A.S.S. is used, the model counts as relentless?

Its rather chilling to read, as I can fully expect to be facing the arguments against this weekend now that its around.

Drones are considered part of the unit, forming a unit with ICs (that just happens to be able to still join/leave other squads) and counting for purposes of scoring and unit strength. But they ARE just wargear, and bought that way. Does "all models" extend normally to wargear when talking about restrictions on models which cannot even access the armory in the first place?

It doesnt matter that they count as part of the unit.
They dont have A.S.S so they cannot use it.

Since A.S.S requires every model to use it in order for even one to use it.... well its simple after that isn't it.

Uhm, are we discussing whether the ASS provides an effect or whether or not it takes up a hardpoint? I thought Focusedfire's argument was that he could take a drone controller and ASS on the same model, thereby having a 3-man team of broadsides with six drones and ASS?

I believe the counter argument is that all models in the unit must have ASS. Since drones can't purchase ASS then you can not have drones in the unit.

If you buy ASS for one broadside you might as well buy it for all broadsides in that squad because otherwise you can't use it.

This means none of the broadsides can have a drone controller support system.

One broadside can be a team leader and hardwire one, giving you a maximum of 2 drones.

The rules are that a unit of broadsides with ASS support system and a team leader with hardwired drone controller and 2 shield drones can use ASS.

That's not what the rules say, that's what the rules are. It is useful sometimes to know what the rules are, just as it is useful sometimes to know what the rules say. Now because of this thread, you know both. Expect to be moving and shooting your broadsides with shield drones against all opponents, especially in all tournaments.

Huh, RAW gone mad indeed...

Why do they have the last sentence in the ASS description then? Do they often insert meaningless sentences in the rules like that? It's obvious the RAI is that they may still take Drones, even though they obviously cannot have ASS. It's like they ended it with "Apples are red." if you don't take it like that.

onlainari wrote:That's not what the rules say, that's what the rules are. It is useful sometimes to know what the rules are, just as it is useful sometimes to know what the rules say. Now because of this thread, you know both. Expect to be moving and shooting your broadsides with shield drones against all opponents, especially in all tournaments.

Errrr.... what?
"What the rules say" and "what the rules are" are the exact same thing? You can pretend it doesn't work that way, but RaW a squad with A.S.S and Drones cannot use the A.S.S

Waaaaaaagh! wrote:You can pretend it doesn't work that way

Okay. Thanks. It's not like there's anyone out there that doesn't.

I repeat:

Expect to be moving and shooting your broadsides with shield drones against all opponents, especially in all tournaments.

It is useful to sometimes know how people will actually be playing the game, as well as knowing what the rules say.

Read they sentence carefully. There is no seperation between the equipped suit and jet-pack.


(Quote from Tau Empire codex)
"During the movement phase, the Battlesuit may choose to use the Slow and Purposeful universal special rule, though if IT does it may not make an additional jetpack move in the assault phase."(Emphasis/itallic mine on the word it)


Broadsides don't have jet-packs.

So Jet-packs can make use of the rule but have no heavy weapons. Thus, no benefit and no purpose to the rule as by the sentence structure in the paragraph precludes the broadsides from getting the A.S.S.



Now, about the drones. If it is deemed that the broadsides may actually be able to take the A.S.S., Then I stand by "The unit may still take drones." Meaning the UNIT not MODEL.

This is one of the few clear statements GW makes in the entry and they chose to use the plural not the singular.

This brings up questions,

Why write that single seperate little sentence?
If only one model benefits from the statement, then that model already had the rule in place from being a team leader under the who can take wargear rules.

If it is for only one model as some suggest then why did GW make a special effort to use the plural unit?
The rest of the rule was written from a very specific single model point of view, then suddenly this one sentence jumps to the whole unit.

This would indicate that the whole unit gets to take them.

In this instance I invite you to remeber that take drones is a player slang term that includes the drone controller. The reason for this is that the drone controllers cost 0pts. Hence the slang of taking drones usually being accepted to include the controller. Its not good writing or RAW but does give the logic behind the term.


Said something like this before, will say things like it again. Some of the the crisis wargear entries make your brain cells want to turn emo and cut themselves. Just for laughs, everyone read the Cyclic Ion Blaster entry.

Edit for spelling

For the record, I hate the Tau codex. RaW do not allow the use of the ASS if the unit includes drones. RaI is probably that they can, since the drones just float about at the same speed as the unit and count as... jet-bikes or jet-pack infantry, I forget which. Either way, they're at least Relentless.

Stupid codex.

Some of the wording in the codex indicates that at some stage of development Crisis suits were intended to have the option of taking some sort of heavy weapon. This option didn't make it to the final edit, but some legacy wordage remained. The fact that the upgrade is of no use to Crisis suits in their current form is not in dispute.

The rule forbidding use of a jet pack move in the assault phase does not mean that a Broadside can't take the upgrade. It just means the Broadside can't use that ability (the fact that it didn't have that ability in the first place is irrelevent) while using ASS.

In 4th edition, the "jetpacks" part was just barely off the 'stupid mentions' level as the only possible actual setup that could involve ASS being required and jetpacks being used was the overpriced "stealth markerlight" team, where the m.drones and team leader could thus fire heavy weapons, as the jetpack only allowed rapidfire back then.

So it was doable, moreso if you used the 81 or 84 from forgeworld.... but pretty damn useless in actual practical value.


edit: As for the broadside lacking the ability, Its sorta like the bad wording on Vulkan Hestan right now, or older editions of marines where (OH NO!) you 'lost' (*COUGH*) two fast attack slots to gain an extra heavy support, because you SO were gonna use those fast attack slots in the first place, with iron warriors... Its pretty common in the various 'rules exceptions' to have something that removes an ability you don't have or don't/can't use anyways.

That's not being argued, Raxmei. The point is the interaction between ASS and the use of Drones.

Actually Kaloran, it is. Whitedragon,Maj Tom, and myself started this debate in another thread. The wording of the Title of this thread does not preclude this argument and I opened this subject up for debate with my first post.

There are 2 debates here. The first is about the drones and the the second, is looking at the entire rule.


@Raxmei- It actually could be taken to mean that the broadsides wouldn't be able to use it. The paragraph/run on sentence that actually gives the Slow and Purposeful rule can be read that the model has to have a Jetpack move to sacrifice in order to use the ASS.

Ah, my mistake. Carry on.

Kaloran, I sympathise with your feelings about the Tau codex.

I love my Tau armies and their style of play but do sicerely hope that the writing is much clearer in the next codex.

focusedfire wrote:@Raxmei- It actually could be taken to mean that the broadsides wouldn't be able to use it. The paragraph/run on sentence that actually gives the Slow and Purposeful rule can be read that the model has to have a Jetpack move to sacrifice in order to use the ASS.

It actually doesn't say anything at all about "sacrificing" or anything that could even be implied that way. It simply says that you aren't allowed to make a jetpack move if you choose to take the A.S.S. The fact that a broadside suit isn't allowed to make a jetpack move because of another rule (i.e. not having jetpacks) is irrelevant. Saying you can't do something isn't the same as saying you have to give that something up in order to take this.

During the movement phase the battle suit may choose to use the Slow and Purposeful universal special rule for the remainder of the turn, though if it does it may not make an additional jetpack move in the assault phase.
Also, if one model in a team has advanced stabilization then all models in the team must be similarly equipped, and if one model makes use of the system all must do so.
THE UNIT MAY STILL TAKE DRONES.

The interesting thing for me is that it says "if one model in a team has advanced stabilization then all models in the team must be similarly equipped..." It says models in the TEAM, not models in the UNIT. Of course, per GW's usual crappy wording on things, there is no formal definition of what "team" means. Some people interpret it to be the suits, ignoring the Drones. Others interpret it to be synonymous with "unit" and therefore since the drones don't have an A.S.S. option, the unit can't use them. It's an ambiguous area, like most arguments end up being, so just determine before the game starts how it's going to work (and RaI is pretty obvious, so the discussion shouldn't be too hard).

Yes, I think we are all in agreement about how poorly worded some of the rules are in the Tau codex *coughorkfighterscough*

The ASS confliction is, and in my personal opinion, an oversight by the writer. ASS were designed to be taken by Broadsides only, since they are the only suits that could make use of it (SMS & Railgun).

However, since they are battlesuits too, I believe they had to put the sentence in there about not making a jet-pack move after the Slow and Purposeful move, simply because there would be crazies out there who would put it on a regular Crisis suit because it was available in the Battlesuit wargear list. One example might be to use an imaginary heavy weapon they thought up, or an imaginary SMS. Who knows. They may have had plans to give Crisis suits heavy weapons, but then decided to scrap it, and forgot to cover the paper trail of rules that allow those types of choices.

However, the two sentences about how every model must take it if one takes it, and still being able to take drones, are directly parallel together. They are there to let you know that if one Broadside takes an ASS, the other 1-2 must also take it, but the Team Leader/Shas'vre may also take 1-2 drones if they desire, without having to purchase the ASS for them (which you can't anyway).

Very poorly written indeed, but obvious (to me) in its operation. Its too bad any Marker Drones taken with Broadsides with ASS can't make use of it, since the ASS doesn't change the Broadside's unit type to something other than infantry.