Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Anyone Know The Best Tactic For Tau Gun Drones? I Have Loads Of Them In My Case But They Are Never Used In My 1500 Point Army, Would The Best Way To Use Them Be Flank Cover, Deep Strike Pinning Or Some Other Way?
Use them as skirmishers to block enemy movement. Your piranha or devilfish gets blown up, the drones pop off and (if they pass their pinning test) get up in the face of the enemy unit and force them to spend a turn assaulting/destroying the drones, giving your suits another turn of shooting.
Also add two gun drones to crisis suit units instead of the more-expensive shield drones. Crisis suits should always be getting a cover save anyway, so it gives you another 3+/cover save against a couple of high-strength shots that would instakill a suit.
"The complete or partial destruction of the enemy must be regarded as the sole object of all engagements.... Direct annihilation of the enemy's forces must always be the dominant consideration." Karl von Clausewitz
Sounds Good, If I Deep Striked them down against armies like DE and used their weapons to pin wracks and grotesques to allow more fire on them so they cant get into CC?
Drones are a really cheap jump troop. They can DS, fire, move all in the same turn. Use them to harrass the enemy behind enemy lines to keep the enemy off ballance.
The problem is the poor BS skill, I know its twin linked but it still really is not good. I have seen 8 gun drones fire at a group of marines, 2 hit and the rest bounced off the armour
winnertakesall wrote:The problem is the poor BS skill, I know its twin linked but it still really is not good. I have seen 8 gun drones fire at a group of marines, 2 hit and the rest bounced off the armour
Yeah and most of the time ur against marines so i don't see much point in taking them, it'd be good if you could get a markerlight on them as well as the drones against a squad of tankbustas that should have less than 10, the markerlight can reduce their ld to 6 and then you can pin them!
Convert them into shield drones and be done with it imo.
11,100 pts, 7,000 pts
++ Heed my words for I am the Herald and we are the footsteps of doom. Interlopers, do we name you. Defilers of our
sacred earth. We have awoken to your primative species and will not tolerate your presence. Ours is the way of logic,
of cold hard reason: your irrationality, your human disease has no place in the necrontyr. Flesh is weak.
Surrender to the machine incarnate. Surrender and die. ++
Tuagh wrote: If you won't use a wrench, it isn't the bolt's fault that your hammer is useless.
Oh, I didn't realize you meant a unit of gun drones. I thought you meant the two free gun drones that you get with a devilfish/piranha or the ones you add to units of crisis suits.
I haven't seen an actual drone unit on the table since probably about 2001 or 2002 when Tau first came out. Everybody realized pretty quickly that their low leadership, short range, and inability to hit anything made them not worth the points. Like in your DE example, 8 drones shooting at a unit of dark eldar guys in cover has about a 70% chance of scoring one wound and getting through the cover save. Then you kind of have to count on the DE unit failing its leadership--not really feasible as a pinning unit. If you throw in markerlights to help them, those are markerlights that aren't being used to buff more important shots.
Kroot work better as independent unit skirmishers, and cheaper.
"The complete or partial destruction of the enemy must be regarded as the sole object of all engagements.... Direct annihilation of the enemy's forces must always be the dominant consideration." Karl von Clausewitz
Flavius Infernus wrote:Oh, I didn't realize you meant a unit of gun drones. I thought you meant the two free gun drones that you get with a devilfish/piranha or the ones you add to units of crisis suits.
I haven't seen an actual drone unit on the table since probably about 2001 or 2002 when Tau first came out. Everybody realized pretty quickly that their low leadership, short range, and inability to hit anything made them not worth the points. Like in your DE example, 8 drones shooting at a unit of dark eldar guys in cover has about a 70% chance of scoring one wound and getting through the cover save. Then you kind of have to count on the DE unit failing its leadership--not really feasible as a pinning unit. If you throw in markerlights to help them, those are markerlights that aren't being used to buff more important shots.
Kroot work better as independent unit skirmishers, and cheaper.
Yeah Thats a point, is it good using a large squad of Kroot, I find in my games that squads of 10 Carnivores and 5 Hunds get killed too quickly...
VoxDei wrote:Drones are a really cheap jump troop. They can DS, fire, move all in the same turn. Use them to harrass the enemy behind enemy lines to keep the enemy off ballance.
They can't make their jet pack move the turn they deep strike. Page 27.
While I was reading this, I was thinking "well they are pretty cheap, so if you have some points..." Then I took a peak in my codex. They are 12 points a model!
Yeah...so basically they are completely worthless. I would convert them into some coolish looking objective marker.
On a side note, do you think GW could knock down the price of an XV8 box to $20 if they took out the drones? Because its a big waste on both ends.
PraetorDave wrote:
While I was reading this, I was thinking "well they are pretty cheap, so if you have some points..." Then I took a peak in my codex. They are 12 points a model!
OTOH, if you compare them to Fire Warriors, they have about same firepower, are 2 points more expensive but have JSJ. I've put them into lists sometimes if my Elite slots are full, just to get little more mobile anti-infantry dakka and JSJ is of course always a winner. They're not exactly great (and sometimes TLOS causes problems, with their strange bodies) but work OK, at least against infantry heavy armies. If the enemy has weak scoring units in the back lines, (Gretchin, small IG squads) I sometimes assault with them. If Pinning actually sometimes worked, I'd use them more...
While I agree that Gun Drones are terrible, they sadly pinned a unit of Assault Marines accompanied by a Librarian in my most recent game, costing me a win.
Current Record: 5 Wins, 6 Draws, 3 Losses 2000 points
MrEconomics wrote:While I agree that Gun Drones are terrible, they sadly pinned a unit of Assault Marines accompanied by a Librarian in my most recent game, costing me a win.
Whoa...I usually fail to pin even Guardsmen. Everything in the game seems to be either Fearless, Ld9+ or has some stupid reroll rule.
Except Tau, of course. I guess Gun Drones work really well against other Tau :(
MrEconomics wrote:While I agree that Gun Drones are terrible, they sadly pinned a unit of Assault Marines accompanied by a Librarian in my most recent game, costing me a win.
Probably just as insulting, I had a shield drone fly into my last LC terminator's face and strike him dead. It was horribly sad. My friend never let me live it down. A 2+ save and he dies to a Frisbee...
Reality is a nice place to visit, but I'd hate to live there.
Manchu wrote:I'm a Catholic. We eat our God.
Due to work, I can usually only ship any sales or trades out on Saturday morning. Please trade/purchase with this in mind.
one tactic i have seen used with gun drones effectively is to throw marker lights on a target to lower Ld then use the gun drones to pin them, little buggers have left a few different people dumbstruck.
Army:
Havenican sector:
Amory IV legion 2750 points (100% painted)
Sons of Plague 2600 (95% painted)
HoverBoy wrote:
Skaven either devastate the enemy, or explode in spectacular shows of selfdestruction.
where are you from? Finland? Country between sweden and Russia? Never heard.
timetowaste85 wrote:
MrEconomics wrote:While I agree that Gun Drones are terrible, they sadly pinned a unit of Assault Marines accompanied by a Librarian in my most recent game, costing me a win.
Probably just as insulting, I had a shield drone fly into my last LC terminator's face and strike him dead. It was horribly sad. My friend never let me live it down. A 2+ save and he dies to a Frisbee...
lollol and lol thats sooooo sad well you cant always win
Jone96 wrote:
...I tought that unforgiven was going to floorball practices (He wasnt and yes, he really plays floorball)...
Omegus wrote:As for the Dark Angels, they are a codex chapter with some dresses and emo angst tacked on.
nsdocholiday wrote:one tactic i have seen used with gun drones effectively is to throw marker lights on a target to lower Ld then use the gun drones to pin them, little buggers have left a few different people dumbstruck.
It's just that if you have spare markerlights it is normally better to use them for destroying enemy units rather than pinning them.
The FREE Drones you get are awesome. (Not so awesome in KP games but aside from that..) They can harass and annoy enemy units and often get shot at a lot. Which means less dakka aimed at your important units!!
3 Piranhas = 6 Gun Drones. Not bad for free really. Turbo boost 24" - next turn disembark 2" ANYWHERE around the hull and then you can move/shoot/block units.
And that is why you hear people yelling FOR THE EMPEROR rather than FOR LOGICAL AND QUANTIFIABLE BASED DECISIONS FOR THE BETTERMENT OF THE MAJORITY!
Phototoxin wrote:Kids go in , they waste tonnes of money on marnus calgar and his landraider, the slaneshi-like GW revel at this lust and short term profit margin pleasure. Meanwhile father time and cunning lord tzeentch whisper 'our games are better AND cheaper' and then players leave for mantic and warmahordes.
daveNYC wrote:The Craftworld guys, who are such stick-in-the-muds that they manage to make the Ultramarines look like an Ibiza nightclub that spiked its Red Bull with LSD.
Leigen_Zero wrote:Drones are good for the following tactic, aptly named the 'DRONEnut':
Take a unit large enough to completely surround a LR, preferably one containing a very expensive deathstar unit.
Move drones to completely surround LR (so all the access points are blocked)
Railgun the bejesus out of the LR until it goes boom
Laugh as your opponent cannot emergency disembark anywhere within 1" of an access point, and thus the deathstar unit is destroyed!
Of course, it takes a while to set up, but its pretty effective...
Actually if you blow up the land raider (rather than just wreck it) he can still get out into the crater. Since railguns are AP1, they're twice as likely to blow up a vehicle as they are to wreck it.
"The complete or partial destruction of the enemy must be regarded as the sole object of all engagements.... Direct annihilation of the enemy's forces must always be the dominant consideration." Karl von Clausewitz
Leigen_Zero wrote:Drones are good for the following tactic, aptly named the 'DRONEnut':
Take a unit large enough to completely surround a LR, preferably one containing a very expensive deathstar unit.
Move drones to completely surround LR (so all the access points are blocked)
Railgun the bejesus out of the LR until it goes boom
Laugh as your opponent cannot emergency disembark anywhere within 1" of an access point, and thus the deathstar unit is destroyed!
Of course, it takes a while to set up, but its pretty effective...
An interesting idea, however I feel this is really situational. No player in his right mind is going to allow you to surround his land raider like that. Especially considering drones can only move 6", so it would take you 2 turns to do. Also even if you surround the raider completely, he can just tank shock the crap out of you. LD 7? Good luck with that.
Leigen_Zero wrote:Drones are good for the following tactic, aptly named the 'DRONEnut':
Take a unit large enough to completely surround a LR, preferably one containing a very expensive deathstar unit.
Move drones to completely surround LR (so all the access points are blocked)
Railgun the bejesus out of the LR until it goes boom
Laugh as your opponent cannot emergency disembark anywhere within 1" of an access point, and thus the deathstar unit is destroyed!
Of course, it takes a while to set up, but its pretty effective...
Actually if you blow up the land raider (rather than just wreck it) he can still get out into the crater. Since railguns are AP1, they're twice as likely to blow up a vehicle as they are to wreck it.
Yeah but Tank Shock isnt that serious, if you fail you just fall back so it isnt that bad
Chaos Space Marines, The Skull Guard: 4500pts 
Fists of Dorn: 1500pts 
Wood Elves, Awakened of Spring: 3425pts 
11,100 pts, 
7,000 pts
5 Wins, 6 Draws, 3 Losses 2000 points
Sons of Plague 2600 (95% painted)
well you cant always win
=- -= 
=- 