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Been listening to local Tau players play the role of victim in kill point missions lately because, in effect, each vehicle is worth two victory points - the vehicle and the drones that pop off once that vehicle eats turf.

In an effort to clam 'em up, I brought up a potential point that they may be able to use in objective missions, which is the more likely scenario in non-tournament situations. Let me know if this is valid logic or if I'm missing something in the rules that makes this invalid (I am not a Tau player, I do not own a Tau codex):

1) The main rulebook says non-AV, non-Swarm troop units can claim objectives. Not merely contest, but claim.

2) Transports purchased for units that fall under Troops on the Force Org chart fall under the troops portion of the Force Org chart.

3) #2 would extend to the drones that would disengage from a destroyed Tau vehicle. Those tiny units of drones are part of the Troops selection.

4) Because the Drones form a unit that falls under the Troops Force Org, those drones are now able to claim objectives.


As far as a pure rules perspective goes, the biggest counter argument I've heard locally is that, because the stats for the Drones are found in the Fast Attack section, these Drones are not able to claim, they're a non-Troops unit. I don't buy into this logic because the Drones haven't been purchased as a Fast Attack; they're part of a unit purchased from whatever part of the Force Org the vehicle came from.

You are correct by the RAW, not only can gun drones from a troop transport claim objectives but gun drones from any vehicles can also contest the enemy from claiming objectives.


Personally I would prefer a FAQ that makes vehicle gun drones not worth any Kill Points and can't capture/contest objectives either, but until that happens vehicle gun drones are a very strange situation.

cervidal I recall in the old days a rule saying drones from vehicles can't score.

Why doesn't this rule still exist?

Yakface is incorrect:

P.30. Codex: Tau Empire

"The drones may not rejoin the vehicle during a game and will never count as a Scoring Unit."

Thanks for the catch, my bad.


At least they can still contest enemy-held objectives though.

With the change from 4th edition to 5th i retired my Mech Tau army. They just don't have much benefits in 5th edition.

Red_Lives wrote:With the change from 4th edition to 5th i retired my Mech Tau army. They just don't have much benefits in 5th edition.

Noone will mind if you take this off topic and elaborate. What are the difficulties?

Well 4th ed mech Tau had only a few real advantages and they were as follows:

1. High mobility with good firepower (12" move with hammerheads/warfish and the ability to shoot all their weapons Railgun and SMS with the hammerhead and 7 str 5 shots with the warfish)

2. The ability to always keep a distance on your opponent without losing firepower.

3. The ability to shoot without getting shot at. (Jump shoot jump)

4. The ability to almost never get locked in assault

5. Relativity cheap scoring units 60pt fire warrior squads with no upgrades (except warfish), 180 pt hammerheads, 65 pt pirhana, 170 pt 3 man fire knife squads and such.


Now in 5th edition we lost almost all of these advantages. and they were lost as follows.

1. Our vehicles can no longer move 12" and fire all their weapons they can now only move 6" and do this, though not a huge loss on its own its still a loss.

2. With the addition of run moves in one foul swoop we lost the ability to keep a solid 12-18" distance (fire knife optimum range) from our opponents, meaning there is now a ledgitimate chance we will lose our precious suits.

3. With TLOS and the ability to see MUCH more of the board at any given time its it almost impossible to maintain the tatic of shooting without getting shot at.

4. Read #2

5. They only scoring units Tau have now are firewarriors which are about on par with imperial guard stormtroopers and Kroot. Firewarriors are ok but without devilfish they lack any real mobility. and Kroot are just plain bad, sure they have infiltrate but their overpriced, they have BS 3 essentially a bolter and no armor.

Now Mobile Tau did gain 1 advantage in 5th edition, for only 5 pts every vehicle has a 4+ save. But IMNO this is not enough to save this struggling army.

WTB NEW CODEX!!!!!!!!!

Okay well I agree strongly with pretty much all that post.

But you're going to have to name a unit that I will go "oh noes, you're not going to shoot me this turn? You're going to run instead? Even though you still can't assault?"

And once you name such a unit, consider still that I can still move jetpacks 12" a turn and shoot.

The other part of the Tau disadvantage is how much assault armies are improved by the extra moves, terrain cover and infiltration rules in 5e.

I hear from some people that 5th edition nerfs assault armies.

onlainari wrote:I hear from some people that 5th edition nerfs assault armies.

One example:Consolidation cannot catch enemy units any longer.

So if both Tau and assault armies got nerfed, what didn't get nerfed?

And did Tau get nerfed more than assault armies?

Assault armies didn't get nerfed. They lost the slingshot move, but they gained Run, and tons of cover, and for some units the ability to come on any side of the board.

onlainari wrote:Okay well I agree strongly with pretty much all that post.

But you're going to have to name a unit that I will go "oh noes, you're not going to shoot me this turn? You're going to run instead? Even though you still can't assault?"

And once you name such a unit, consider still that I can still move jetpacks 12" a turn and shoot.

I can... Assault marines (since they move 12" in the movement phase)

I see his point (kind of). Your assault marines might choose not to shoot but they sure as heck wouldn't run or they would forfeit their charge altogether.

Any nid creature would assault any crisis suit, but this isn't really new since the crisis suits could never outrun them even in 4th.

The perfect example of a unit that onlainari is looking for would be an asault marine that was NOT armed with a jumpack and had fleet.

Think past 1 turn, this is a 5-7 turn game afterall.

a tau player at my local gaming club said that drones that are attached to vehicles can fire if any other weapon is able to fire and tau can take a upgrade which allows them to shoot as fast vehicle. which means move twelve and fire all the weapons. is this correct

Nope they are passengers, they may only fire if the vehicle move no farther than 6" This applies to fast vehicles as well.

There is a Tau vehicle upgrade which allows it to fire as if a Fast vehicle. Multi-tracker?

But drones are passengers.

Don't forget that the game missions themselves put the clamp down on Tau pretty hard as well. Most armies start the game much closer together than they used to. This is never a good thing when one of your main advantages was long range weapons.

Tau have always had it hard against anything that moves over 6".

They still have that problem, except now everything can move over 6".

However I subtly pointed out that if they do that, they don't shoot me. And I move 12" a turn. And they can't assault 13-18", they are still stuck at assaulting 12".

So take a non assault marine unit, I still don't have any problem with it even in 5th. It's probably not going to run because it wants to shoot, or if it does want to run it still hasn't increased its charge range.

Taking assault marines on the other hand, they get to my lines faster because of run. However if I can move my lines, then it's the same tango I did in 4th edition with assault marines. Only in 4th edition they were usually dead (but not always) before I needed to tango, while in 5th edition I'd say they get there faster so I'm almost always going to have to tango.

But I still feel all hope is not lost. I have yet to actually play a game of 5th though.

I played 5 with my mech Tau, 1 against another tau (win) 2 against Daemons (bolth lost) 1 against mechanized eldar (loss but it was close damn joo eldrad) and 1 against IG which again was a loss he killed my troop choices and i wasn't able to hold any objectives and he had 55 man outflanking platoons so yea...

And which of those games did you lose because you were assaulted?

Sounds like you were getting out shot.

Although I really should read about daemons. I don't even know what their troops choices do. Is there a thread that can give me the run down?

My battle suits were caught in assault usually on turn 2 or 3 against Daemons. And assaulted by the eldar Gawd damn striking scorpions with outflank

You stick kroot in the way against outflank.

Well, I do. It works.

They are not a very points effective speed bump, gun drone squads are a cheaper alternative.

They work as a speed bump though. Kroot are versatile.

But they Aren't an effective speed bump. If assaulted by an actual assault unit (such as striking scorpions) they kroot will lose... by a fairly large amount, meaning that there is a great chance that they will lose and be massacred. Meaning that the scorpions moved 6" (movement) another 6" (assault move) then another d6 (massacre) closer to your suits. To me this is not a speed bump by any stretch of the word.

Red_Lives wrote:But they Aren't an effective speed bump. If assaulted by an actual assault unit (such as striking scorpions) they kroot will lose... by a fairly large amount, meaning that there is a great chance that they will lose and be massacred. Meaning that the scorpions moved 6" (movement) another 6" (assault move) then another d6 (massacre) closer to your suits. To me this is not a speed bump by any stretch of the word.

This is turning into a tactics discussion, but that is precisely what a speed bump unit does. The idea is that you only move the Kroot forward on a turn when your opponent would be able to assault something of more value in your army and you only move them far enough forward so that the enemy isn't able to charge another of your units at the same time.

The goal is to give the opponent's unit something cheap to kill that then leaves them stranded in the middle of your army on your turn waiting to be shot to death. The Kroot's low Ld is actually a huge bonus towards ensuring that this happens. If they lose the combat they pretty much *will* be falling back (which is good).

The great thing about Kroot is that if you center your 'castle' around a forest, they really make a great speed bump in that your opponent's shooting will be largely ineffective against their 3+ cover save (2+ if they go to ground), they can 'move up' and rapid fire without worrying about rolling for difficult terrain in the forest, and when the opponent actually charges them if they don't have assault grenades the Kroot actually put out quite a few attacks which means they'll take a few enemies with them.

Really, it's great for a 70 point unit. The only thing that sucks for them is when they fail a morale check from shooting or you charge them into an enemy they should beat in CC and you roll miserably and then they break and get run down. In general I would not charge with Kroot unless the situation is really desperate or you have totally overwhelming numbers.