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Hmm. Aren't Drones wargear?

This means a Suit with Drones is a unique wound group. Otherwise, how would you keep track of who has what Drones when coming or going? If you kill three of my four Shield Drones in a unit and we don't keep track of who had which Drone, how would we know who got to keep their Drones in the event of casualties or ICs leaving, etc.

Seems treating them as unique wound groups is most logical to me, but that doesn't mean I am right.

I say that they count differently.

1. Everything that everyone else has said.

2. Drones *ARE* wargear. They don't fall into the "if the unit has same stats, etc, etc.." They *ARE* wargear that belongs to a single suit. For wound allocation, drones are a means for a SINGLE SUIT to try surviving by passing its wounds on to a drone that *that* suit owns.

Dashofpepper wrote:
2. Drones *ARE* wargear. They don't fall into the "if the unit has same stats, etc, etc.." They *ARE* wargear that belongs to a single suit. For wound allocation, drones are a means for a SINGLE SUIT to try surviving by passing its wounds on to a drone that *that* suit owns.

Drones are still creatures with a profile that belong to a unit. If they aren't then I'm not sure how you're moving them, shooting with them (in the case of gun drones) and assaulting with them because those rules are only found in the rulebook for models that are part of a unit.

Democratus has already posted my personal rebuttal to the idea that drones with differing controllers are a 'different type' of model. The rulebook lists 3 criteria to determine if a model is the 'same' and a single type of drone, regardless of who controls it, meets all three.

All Shield Drones (for example) have the same characteristics, weapons, and special rules. Yes, the application of the drone controller rule is different if they have different controllers, but the rule itself is the SAME. For example, if you made up a 3x5 card for your Shield Drones that had their characteristics, weapons, and special rules copied straight out of the codex, would the 3x5 card for a Shield Drone controlled by Battlesuit 'A' be any different from that controlled by Battlesuit 'B'? Nope, they would be exactly the same which is all the rules for 'complex' units require.


And honestly as a Tau player, you already have a unit (Battlesuits) that allows you to spread wounds around to different models to avoid taking casualties (as you can equip each battlesuit differently and each model has 2 wounds to start with), it seems almost crazy to me that some of you are trying to advocate that you should be able to spread wounds around EVEN further; and I'm a Tau player as well.

This sounds like a "let's e-mail GW and ask" type thing. Just hearing what they say may help guide us in the right direction.

yakface wrote:Democratus has already posted my personal rebuttal to the idea that drones with differing controllers are a 'different type' of model. The rulebook lists 3 criteria to determine if a model is the 'same' and a single type of drone, regardless of who controls it, meets all three.

Your methodology is correct. i disagree with your conclusion. I view catagory 3... (special rules) to be broader, and to include all facts such as the jighly complex drones and controllers rules.

yakface wrote:All Shield Drones (for example) have the same characteristics, weapons, and special rules. Yes, the application of the drone controller rule is different if they have different controllers, but the rule itself is the SAME. For example, if you made up a 3x5 card for your Shield Drones that had their characteristics, weapons, and special rules copied straight out of the codex, would the 3x5 card for a Shield Drone controlled by Battlesuit 'A' be any different from that controlled by Battlesuit 'B'? Nope, they would be exactly the same which is all the rules for 'complex' units require.

Again i agree with everything except your interpretation of 'special rules'. It seems to me that you are literally taking 'special rules' to mean the bolded print in the unit section of the army book. That does indeed say "special rules" on it, but that is not ALL of the special rules in my opinion.

yakface wrote:And honestly as a Tau player, you already have a unit (Battlesuits) that allows you to spread wounds around to different models to avoid taking casualties (as you can equip each battlesuit differently and each model has 2 wounds to start with), it seems almost crazy to me that some of you are trying to advocate that you should be able to spread wounds around EVEN further; and I'm a Tau player as well.

Now we are talking about wants... All I want is to be playing the game correctly. I prefer your method. It's easier, makes the games shorter and requires much less book-keeping. I just don't agree that it's the correct way to go about doing it.

I'm not being snarky here, but could i get a ruling on this question?

Ok, I'm at adepticon this year with my tau army... my Commander with gun drones jumps over to join a crisis team to hide from some shooting and to lend his leadership to the squad. This crisis team also has two gun drones. The unit takes casualties, no drone controllers die, but 2 drones do. In my movement phase, I leave the unit with my commander, taking two drones with me. My opponent stops the game and asks for a judge to get a ruling.

Am I going to get to keep the 2 drones, even though we never discussed which drones died after the shooting was resolved last turn?

Shep wrote:Am I going to get to keep the 2 drones, even though we never discussed which drones died after the shooting was resolved last turn?

The answer is, 'you have to track which drones belong to which controller and pick which ones you remove so that if the drone controllers separate and/or die, you know which drones to remove'.

If you're tracking models - whether it is to track which drone goes to which controller OR to track which combi-weapons in a unit of Sternguard have fire their 'one-shot' - I think the models have different Special Rules.

Ok, I'm at adepticon this year with my tau army... my Commander with gun drones jumps over to join a crisis team to hide from some shooting and to lend his leadership to the squad. This crisis team also has two gun drones. The unit takes casualties, no drone controllers die, but 2 drones do. In my movement phase, I leave the unit with my commander, taking two drones with me. My opponent stops the game and asks for a judge to get a ruling.

Am I going to get to keep the 2 drones, even though we never discussed which drones died after the shooting was resolved last turn?

I agree with Yakface's interpretation. The drones were all the same for wound allocation purposes. You did the wound allocation correctly but you failed to declare to whom the killed ones belonged and your opponent failed to ask until it was too late.

I'd give you a choice: either d6 it to figure out where the 2 drones go or put one drone on the commander and one drone with the suits.

I would hope that the "one drone on each" compromise would be agreed upon before calling for the rules judge.

This is NOT a "ruling" on behalf of the 40k events at Adepticon. It's just how I would make the call if it came up during play in the Team Tournament.

I am of the opinion that they are the same for wound allocation, but you must keep clear which drone is owned by what model, same way as a unit with multiple Combi Weapons.

Since the drones are part of a pool of identical models for wound purposes, you get to choose which drone dies when removing models. Seems to me it would be wise to remove the drones belonging to the Crisis Suit that also died from the shooting.

This does get a bit more complex in combat, where models get removed in initiative order. At that point you really should have a clear way to determine which drone is with which suit.