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Recently I played a tau player. He kept doing this wierd thing with model removal. He had a couple of units of Broadsides and I deep stuck next to him with melta guns. This is enought to insta kill and not give a save. However he had a drone that gave him an invoulnerable save. Both times I wounded twice. I think only one guy had the invoulnerable save. However I think what he did was take two saves with the drone. He failed one and removed the drone. Is this legal?

if he only had one drone then this is not legal. As I understand and know the drone rules now they simply follow majority toughness/save rules. This means the drones can take hits just like any other model in the squad but as per a normal squad, every model must be allocated a shooting wound before a second can be given. Thus with two wounds. from a melta gun and only one drone there is no choice but to take a suit and try to save the drone.

This is why a scrupulous player will ask that all shooting be done simultaneously so that any bolter wounds can maybe be allocated to suits, perhaps allowing them to avoid the melta gun wounds.

No. Both wounds can't be saved by the shield drone. One of the broadsides should have taken a wound.

Yep, he has to take one wound on the drone and one wound on something else.

He may have had shield generators on a broadside or both as well which would allow him to do this...but I doubt he had that.

Your friend misunderstood the rules. The drone would take one wound and be allowed to make the inv save and the broadside would take the other wound which would instant kill.

The drone would then be removed at the end of the shooting phase regardless of wether it passed its inv save as there is no longer a drone controller.

If the broadside also had a shield generator then they could both make the save and then remove the drone if the save failed once and passed the other.

Basically, what dees ere guys above me said...

yeah except it was a 3 suit squad with one shield drone. So I guess the guy BS'ed me. It just seemed fishy as he was doing it.

People screw this up all the time. Wound allocation/save taking when there are only a few models in a unit with an invulnerable save seems to either confuse people or bring out the "let me try to take advantage of this" gene in people. I don't know. But it's up there with "vehicles are size 3 so my wartrakk blocks line of sight to my battlewagon" in terms of rules I repeatedly see people not only get wrong, but act really insistent that they are right.

since the drone and the broadside have the same armor saves, you don't allocate before saves are taken are inflicted. So no, he did it correctly, even if he only had one drone. for a more complete discussion of this, please see Yakface's post in the thread about "Shady Wound Allocation" which is currently being discussed about two threads up from this one.

Antonin, I think you may have misunderstood the original post. What he was saying is that a Shield Drone and a Broadside(without a shield gen) get hit by two instant kill weapons.

His opponent was saying that he could put both hits onto the drone and thus get a inv save on both hits. You can't do this, all models within a unit must have a hit allocated before a second wound is allocated to them(I forget the page reference) The Drone would get the save but the Broadside wouldn't, so the drone dies at the end of the shooting phase anyhow.

Yes a drone has the same save and toughness as its controller, but against instant kill the only model allowed to save is the drone, unless the broadside purchased the shield generator from the support system armory.

If the unit was hit by a single instant kill weapon then the drone would be allowed to take the inv save each time until the drone lost the save. As soon as you get two instant kills the one has to be placed onto the broadside thus killing him.

I read his "I think only one guy had the invoulnerable save" as meaning that a broadside had an invulnerable save (drones aren't people!) but you make a very good point - if the only invul save was on the drone then I agree.

Its an issue that can cause problems in other areas as well because the Drones are actually Wargear, except for drone squads. Causes me headaches when trying to work out the VP in my HQ retinue's with drones.

If they both had the inv save then your right, the save would be the same and both can make the save and you can choose which model to remove.

well the more I think about it the wierder it sounds. Cause I wounded him twice. Meaning one could go to the drone, the other to one of the broadsides. He rolled TWO inv saves, and made one and failed one. Then he removed the drone? So he took two inv. saves. THis just didn't sound right. He did it so fast though, that I was not sure. I asked what he was doing and he even confused me more. He claimed the drone was part of the unit and he could remove whoever he wanted. So I guess what I should have done was allocate the wounds myself. One on the drone the other on a dead broadside.

He was correct in his statement IF it was a shield drone.

It has the same toughness and armor value.

If you'd hit enough times to hit everyone, you could have forced him to nominate one model to take a save.

Otherwise, he did nothing wrong.

on pg 24, for make saving throws:

"When a unit takes a number of wounds from an enemy shooting at it, you begin by removing all models that do not get a saving throw and then roll all other saving throws together".

The broadside in this case would not get a saving throw. He dies. Then the shield drone gets a saving throw.

Since it's only 2 shots and 2 guys, even if they did have mixed armor it wouldn't matter, they'd both get allocated one hit and only get to make one save.

Bottom line, if one guy has an INV save and the other doesn't, you don't get to make two inv saves.

Technically, the rule on page 24 means that you don't get any invulnerable saves. You begin by removing all models that do not get a saving throw - so two wounds means you remove both broadsides, as they have no saving throws. The drone takes no save, but then poofs.

I'm not saying you should play it that way, but that is technically the correct way to play it, under that stupid rule.

Antonin wrote:Technically, the rule on page 24 means that you don't get any invulnerable saves. You begin by removing all models that do not get a saving throw - so two wounds means you remove both broadsides, as they have no saving throws. The drone takes no save, but then poofs.

I'm not saying you should play it that way, but that is technically the correct way to play it, under that stupid rule.

You're forgetting that the removing happens after allocation.
It's not saying he has to allocate them to models that don't get an I save. That would be a dumb rule.

First , allocate, THEN remove models that don't get a save.

Eric

If you have ten models with the same armor save, then you don't allocate. If five of those have invulnerable saves, you still don't allocate. If you suffer 5 power weapon hits, then according to the stupid rule on page 24 you remove five models, and don't get any invul saves.

Antonin wrote:If you have ten models with the same armor save, then you don't allocate. If five of those have invulnerable saves, you still don't allocate. If you suffer 5 power weapon hits, then according to the stupid rule on page 24 you remove five models, and don't get any invul saves.

Not quite right.

You can ASSIGN (aka allocate) the pw hits to those troops with an invul save so long as they are part of the majority save being ASSIGNED hits.

Then they can use said save.

This is in the rules.

The original situation being discussed is actually easy. The drone gets to take one of the hits, usually the first one. The next hit must go to the rest of the unit. This means a broadside dies and the drone gets a save. Easy as that.

Dakkaladd wrote:The original situation being discussed is actually easy. The drone gets to take one of the hits, usually the first one. The next hit must go to the rest of the unit. This means a broadside dies and the drone gets a save. Easy as that.

Agreed. I get the image of Marines smacking the now destroyed drone with the Broadsides looking at them like they're nuts and they slowly back away. Good stuff that is.

A Space Marine Chaplain grappling the drone, smacking it with his crozarious shouting
"The Power of Emporer compells you!"
"The Power of Emporer compells you!"

His retinue standing around him thinking "He's gone nuts!" and videoing the action on their mobile phones to show their brethren later.

Definatly good stuff

hellsguardian316 wrote:A Space Marine Chaplain grappling the drone, smacking it with his crozarious shouting
"The Power of Emporer compells you!"
"The Power of Emporer compells you!"

His retinue standing around him thinking "He's gone nuts!" and videoing the action on their mobile phones to show their brethren later.

Definatly good stuff

*Falls over laughing*

You good sir, have made my day.

Shield drones take on the same save and toughness of the unit they join so in the case of broadsides and suits those rules generally don't apply. The only case I can think of where that would not be the case is when an XV-8 commander joins the XV-88 squad.

The Tau player allocates one wound to the drone and one to the broadside. The broadside gets no save. The shield drone gets the 4+ save.

If the broadside that died had the drone controller (DC) then the drone disappears as well since a drone controller is required. However, if the Tau player had another Broadside in the unit (I don't see it clearly mentioned in the OP) he could pick the XV-88 without the DC as the casualty (assuming the kill zone requirement is met) and the drone would live, assuming he made the 4+ save.

I played it as the OP did for a while before realizing my mistake. The different answers in this thread are proof that the rules are very unclear on the correct procedure.

no but it was 4 guys. 3 suits and 1 drone.