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This may get shifted to the YMDC forum but the rules seem clear and that oddly enough people have missed this for 5 years.

It goes like this

Tau Battlesuits have their own "Armoury". In the armoury there are the three different sections of:
1)Battlesuit Weapons
2)Battlesuit Support Systems
3)Battlesuit Wargear

States in the rules that, "Any model with access to the Battlesuit Armoury may take up to 100 points from the Battlesuit Wargear List."

This means that the Battlesuit Weapons and Support systems do not count towards the 100 pt total

Again I refer you to the, "Any model with access to the Battlesuit Armoury may take up to 100 points from the Battlesuit Wargear List." line.

This is where it gets fun.

Drones are Wargear

Under the drone rules there is no modification that requires the battlesuit to be equipped with a drone controller in order to purchase drone.

Under the Drones Section it specifies that, "Drones under the command of a drone controller are counted when assessing if the unit should have to take a morale check having taken 25% casualties."

The Drone Controller rule in the wargear section is what actually limits the number of drones to two per model.

By Raw, any battlesuit with access to the armoury and wargear section can purchase a 100 pts of drones and the drones casualties won't effect moral.



So, If you decide to use this, How would you do so?

How would this change the tactics of how Tau players build and use their HQ's?

What would be best, Loading up commanders and joining them to a unit or loading Team leaders.

The way the rule is written the infantry can do this also and it makes the 100 pts of wargear statement make sense.

What do you guys think?

My first reaction is that Tau have been in play for nine years with the rule of two drones per model equipped with a controller.

You are going to have a very uphill fight to convince people that this new proposal is valid and fair.

What do I think?
It's not the RAI

If you want 10, I suggest to err on the safe side and just get 2 and get a FA slot of drones. <--That would be the back-up plan should opponents be "no" to this (which I would be one of them).
_________________

Otherwise... I think I rather have an equivalent points of Kroot...

Where does it say drones may be taken as war gear?

I'm only seeing the option to take drones as war gear if equipped w/ a drone controller..unless i'm jus tmissing something in my codex?

I think that you could do this, but your opponent would hate you.

Using RAW I theoretically could outfit a unit of Crisis Battlesuits with no extra points cost, my opponents would just hate me, and its obviously not RAI.

TopC wrote:Where does it say drones may be taken as war gear?

I'm only seeing the option to take drones as war gear if equipped w/ a drone controller..unless i'm jus tmissing something in my codex?

The Drones are listed under the wargear section with a points value. The rules say that units with access to the armoury may take up to 100 pts of wargear. There is no rule restricting this access by stating that purchasing drones is contingent upon the taking of the Drone controller.

The Bringer wrote:I think that you could do this, but your opponent would hate you.

Thank you for agreeing

The Bringer wrote:Using RAW I theoretically could outfit a unit of Crisis Battlesuits with no extra points cost, my opponents would just hate me, and its obviously not RAI.

When I noticed this a year ago I had the same initial reaction, then I noticed the same 100 pt wording in the Infantry wargear and the only way to do this would be by purchasing more than 2 drones. This coupled with certain recent rules Faqs for other armies has made me decide to gently push the issue. Would play this only with opponents agreement until it was faq'ed.

Arguements like this remind me of the American legal system. Just because you didn't put the lid on tight enough on my coffee I managed to spill it on myself while driving and sue you becuase its your fault I spilt it on myself. There are some true YMDC arguements that are valid. This one is an obvious abuse of the rules as it makes the drone controller a redundent uprade with a penalty. Its like arguing A.S.S. movement can be declared after you move.

hyperviper6 wrote: Its like arguing A.S.S. movement can be declared after you move.

A.S.S. Can be declared after you move...

I just noticed something...

What about where it says you can take no item twice?

That would limit the amount of drones...

Sooo, technically the Drone Controller would enable you to have two drones where you normally couldn't have that many.

Fortunately, the player picks the item and not the model

Really, good catch so the commander would be stuck with 3 drones then.

Commander with 3 drones or just 2 that are purely wargear and impose none of the negative of the drone controllers. Would this affect your tactics and build strategies.

Edit for additional sentence

Under the drone entry, it would seem to suggest that drones you buy w/o the drone controller don't need to stay in coherency with the unit that bought it.

It says they must maintain coherency with the unit their controller is in... but if there is no controller, then what? Could you leave coherency?

Where could you take that?


This is the you make da call forum... I'm just testing where you could go with this little hole in the Tau codex.


EDIT - There are three types of drones, so technically you could get all three types + 2 more with the Drone Controller.

Gwar! wrote:

hyperviper6 wrote: Its like arguing A.S.S. movement can be declared after you move.

A.S.S. Can be declared after you move...

Technically yes, but that is liable to induce PIN syndrome.

The only reason I can see to allow Tau to have 10 drones is because they are underpowered in 5e and need a boost. However plenty of players say they are a top tier army so it is going to cause trouble.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

hyperviper6 wrote: Its like arguing A.S.S. movement can be declared after you move.

A.S.S. Can be declared after you move...

Technically yes, but that is liable to induce PIN syndrome.

The only reason I can see to allow Tau to have 10 drones is because they are underpowered in 5e and need a boost. However plenty of players say they are a top tier army so it is going to cause trouble.

But Ladies can't suffer PIN Syndrome, and the only Tau Player here is a Lady.

I am a Tau player.

Anyone can suffer PIN syndrome unless they are exceptionally intimidating.

Kilkrazy wrote:I am a Tau player.

Anyone can suffer PIN syndrome unless they are exceptionally intimidating.

By "here" I Meant in my local area, not Dakka!

I gave this some thought and re-read the relevant parts of the tau codex regarding this matter, which intrigued me since Tau are my main army.

However it doesn't work like that. Page 26, drone controller entry: it states you can take one or two drones, not 1+. The wargear entry on point limit doesn't affect the specific wargear rules.

juraigamer wrote:However it doesn't work like that. Page 26, drone controller entry: it states you can take one or two drones, not 1+. The wargear entry on point limit doesn't affect the specific wargear rules.

The point is that he isn't buying a drone controller, as I understand it.

Yup, if you don't take the drone controller, it would seem (by strict RAW) to be legal to just take one each of the drones, for a total of 3.

However, I think it's obvious from reading the Drone Controller entry that the intention was for drones to only be available through taking a controller, so I doubt that too many players would actually let you do this.

The Bringer wrote:Under the drone entry, it would seem to suggest that drones you buy w/o the drone controller don't need to stay in coherency with the unit that bought it.

Without the controller, they do indeed fall into a bit of a grey zone. There's a general assumption that wargear models form a unit with the model for which they are bought, but I don't think it's actually spelt out anywhere in the current rules.

This would mean crisis teams of 2 w/ 4-6 drones an still no need to take the Bonding Knife.

Would make the average Crisis team much more durable

insaniak wrote:

Without the controller, they do indeed fall into a bit of a grey zone. There's a general assumption that wargear models form a unit with the model for which they are bought, but I don't think it's actually spelt out anywhere in the current rules.

same with sw ics.

buy an ic plus 2 fenrisian wolfs which count as wargear and form a unit.

HamHamLunchbox wrote:same with sw ics.

buy an ic plus 2 fenrisian wolfs which count as wargear and form a unit.

The difference with Wolves is that they actually have rules that cover how they work. Drones only have such rules if you buy them a drone controller. Which is, as said, how I believe the codex intends it to work... it just doesn't specify that as clearly as it should.

Wait a minute. If the drone rules state that they must maintain coherency with the unit their controller is within, and there's no controller, then the game can't proceed. The impossibility of a condition does not give a player free reign to ignore the requirement to maintain that condition. (The other alternative is for the Tau player in that case to admit that no legal move can be made with that squad, and forfeit. )

So if you bring a squad without a drone controller, you'll never finish a game again, for the above reasons.

solkan wrote:Wait a minute. If the drone rules state that they must maintain coherency with the unit their controller is within, and there's no controller, then the game can't proceed.

The drone controller rules only apply to models with a drone controller.

If you wanted to be really technical, you could take 4: 2 from a "Slot taking" drone controller, and 2 from a hard wired drone controller. They ARE two seperate entries, after all...

If you wanted to be really technical, you could take 4: 2 from a "Slot taking" drone controller, and 2 from a hard wired drone controller. They ARE two seperate entries, after all...

Nope, drone controller entry states a model with a drone controller MUST take up to 2 drones, not MUST take 2 drones for each controller.

I would say that in terms of the wargear, drones are units/models not items as per the drones section.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you wanted to play selective rules as well you could say the unit has the gun drones but never place the models for them because the wargear section says that battlesuit wargear doesn't have to be modelled cause it is assumed to be integrated.

We have missed the following piece of rules:

"No model can pick the same item twice." (Tau Empire, p.25 in the paragraph on the Battlesuit Armoury.)

That would prevent a suit from taking more than three drones, even if we ignore the Drone Controller.

kilkrazy,

you can have 3 drones, 1 gun drone, 1 marker drone and 1 shield drone as they have independant listings in the wargear.

But not 10 drones which was the original concept.

@Killktazy-The Bringer caught it early on and posted, at which point I remebered running into that line last year. I had completely forgotten abot it when I started this thread.

There are still merits to continuing the discussion because even 2-3 drones per battlesuit without the effects morale clause could change how many kit out their army.

Except if the models are partr of the ICs unit then they count as models for morale cehcks as well, as morale checks are based onlosing MODELS from the unit, meaning the line in the Controller is actually redundant.

This is the same redundancy you see in lots of places, so you cannot infer that the rule for Drone Controllers not covering DC-less models means anything about DC-less models.