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I played against a Tau player in a tournament recently and he presented a very odd rule to me. He claimed that shield drones were "wargear" and therefore did not count as separate models.

This issue came up when I shot an large blast at the squad. Here he claimed that I only caused two wounds, not 6 (counting the 4 shield drones). If this line of thought is true then couldn't the same line of thought be applied to Inquisitorial Henchmen?

Any thoughts or answers will be greatly appreciated!

Your Tau opponent was wrong. Refer him to Codex Tau page 31 where it talks about the Shield Drone having the same S and T values as it's controller and says Drones have to maintain coherency and they all form a unit.

That's a far cry from a Codex Ork Grot Assistant that is specifically stated to be wargear, decorative only, having no profile and just move them out of the way if you need to. They basically don't exist for any game rules but helping their Ork master.

Sounds like Grot Envy to me!

He is an idiot, or just trying to cheat. They do count as individual models pertaining to everything, squad strength, moral checks, etc.

Tell him that's fine but he can only assign hits to models . That should shut him up as he just spent 15 points on wargear that does nothing

The Green Git wrote:Your Tau opponent was wrong. Refer him to Codex Tau page 31 where it talks about the Shield Drone having the same S and T values as it's controller and says Drones have to maintain coherency and they all form a unit.

That's a far cry from a Codex Ork Grot Assistant that is specifically stated to be wargear, decorative only, having no profile and just move them out of the way if you need to. They basically don't exist for any game rules but helping their Ork master.

Sounds like Grot Envy to me!

QFT

Wow, as a tau player myself I think that was a really cheap move by him There's not much grey area on this one!

Ok, thanks for the help on this one guys! I knew the whole thing sounded a bit odd to begin with.

Alls well that ends well though, I still beat him and won 1st in the local tournament!

Always always always - When there is an issue like this

1) Get the codex in question & read the relavent section (drones, tau stealth suits, necron scarab swarm rules, telion special sniper rules etc)

2) Re-read. The point the guy to the relavent bits.

3) Bring in the BGB and find any relavent rules (What 'G' means in a weapon profile, complex saves in a unit, Etc)

4) Jot down the page numbers & list the rule/thing that you were unsure on (but have now resolve) in a scrap book. Use for referance.

I will say, that would not be the first time that I've seen a Tau player 'misunderstand' that rule. I think some of them genuinely do not understand the rules, and I think some are trying to outright cheat.

Drones are bought as Wargear, but it's clear in the drone rules that they count as a model in the unit, they can be wounded by blast templates, they count towards Morale purposes (including 25% in shooting and being below half strength).

Theres actualy a rule hidden in a weard place of the codex that says they count as models in the unit for any time the number of models in the unit is counted.

dietrich wrote:I will say, that would not be the first time that I've seen a Tau player 'misunderstand' that rule. I think some of them genuinely do not understand the rules, and I think some are trying to outright cheat.

Same with Marines players, Tyranid players, Chaos players, Eldar players and any other kind of players.

Fail.

Steelmage99 wrote:

dietrich wrote:I will say, that would not be the first time that I've seen a Tau player 'misunderstand' that rule. I think some of them genuinely do not understand the rules, and I think some are trying to outright cheat.

Same with Marines players, Tyranid players, Chaos players, Eldar players and any other kind of players.

Fail.

Actually, I have found that a lot less non Tau players cheat than Tau players. Go Figure.

Steelmage99 wrote:

dietrich wrote:I will say, that would not be the first time that I've seen a Tau player 'misunderstand' that rule. I think some of them genuinely do not understand the rules, and I think some are trying to outright cheat.

Same with Marines players, Tyranid players, Chaos players, Eldar players and any other kind of players.

Fail.

There is obviously a difference between not understanding a rule and cheating. I've found more people that don't quite understand how drones work (because they're not typical 40k rules - they are bought as wargear but also count as a model in the rulebook) than say, how many marine players don't understand Drop Pod Assault.

While it's still FAIL!, I'm willing to cut the Tau player a little more slack.

My point was that I have run into Marine players not "understanding" Drop Pods (and ATSKNF back in the day), Tyranid players not "understanding" Synapse, Chaos players not "understanding" a whole slew of rules, Eldar players not "understanding" psychic powers.

Implying that Tau players have a higher tendency to cheat is simply wrong.


PS. Note that while I do indeed play Tau, I also play several other armies (see my sig).

In my experiance, it's Chaos players who cheat the most. But that's not really relaited to the point of how drones work.