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.

Especially the former makes no sense to me fluffwise, and the latter is open to abuse gameplaywise (a unit of Firewarriors taking a Gun Drone basically up their Initiative from 2 to 4 when rolling for sweeping advances)

Edit: not that it will be able to benefit from the increased toughness anyway, unless the FW squad gets whittled down to 2 drones and 2 FWs, but then your squad is pretty much dead anyway.

They were always T4....

I would assume the T4 is in place to prevent Crisis/Broadside teams from becoming majority T3 if they took too many Drones. As a gameplay reason it is valid enough.
Fluffwise, it could be because they cannot feel pain and must be destroyed rather than simply maimed. While you can disable a Guardsman by hurting him enough, breaking bones and generally crippling him, a Gun Drone is going to keep going until the jets are disabled, guns shot to the point of ruin or simply destroying the AI core. All of which are probably harder when made out of metal than on a squishy meatman.

Background is over here..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................and rules are over here.

There are some things they agree on, other things they don't. The rules & stats are there to try and create a balanced game. In the background there is no balance so things can, and will, conflict/not match up with the rules/stats.

They are T4 because they are made of the same stuff that crisis suits are made of. This stuff is comparable to ceramitite (although it is cheaper, lighter, and barring fluff conflicts stronger, you need less of it for the same strength).
They are I4 because they would react faster than human (the computer would react automatically, and with the correct response, instead of fearing out).

Why do I see the clunker robot from the old "The Black Hole" movie being toughness four?
Seriously, I can understand that toughness four and the reason for it although, at toughness 3 you would see less of them spammed. The initiative four......Maybe they just have faster computer processors.

Sparks_Havelock wrote:Background is over here..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................and rules are over here.

There are some things they agree on, other things they don't. The rules & stats are there to try and create a balanced game. In the background there is no balance so things can, and will, conflict/not match up with the rules/stats.

Did you know your rules and fluff "here" are right next to each other? So very close.

Honestly most machine things are T4+ so this makes sense in the game.

I4 seems strange. Though considering how slow Tau are it makes sense they would do whatever they could to get the computers to be fast to compensate.

I think you misunderstood, or I'm misunderstanding you (which is very possible at this moment in time). Background on one side, rules on the other side, connected together but apart.

The background is generally written around the rules, so I too don't see why they should be "apart".

I'd simply interpret T4 as a series of failsafes, redundancy and self-repair circuits coupled with the general resilience of solid machinery, and I4 as ... well, a fast computer coupled with a really manoeuverable hovering disk?

Except the fact that a Tau drone has the toughness of an Adeptus Astartes does seem a bit weird, given it is merely a small disc.

The background may be written around the rules but the D6 system, with a minimum of 0 and maximum of 10, is rather limiting in portraying differences. How do you explain the difference between a S4 Space Marine & a S3 Guardsman with such limitations? In the background they're massively different but in the rules it's just a difference of 1 on the statline. Same with toughness - just one point of difference but in the background Marines can withstand phenomenal amounts of damage that would put a human so utterly and completely out of action that they'd most likely be a bloody mess on the ground. That's why they're apart in my eyes.

Comprehended Ansac's post - must either be running with a monitor with a smaller resolution than mine (1920x1080) or has the page magnified (ctrl+mousewheel).

But due to formatting you have a circle with the rules and fluff near each other. It is an amusing little formatting error that flipped your statement around to the opposite of what you meant.

Edit: Yep you got it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sparks_Havelock wrote:
The background may be written around the rules but the D6 system, with a minimum of 0 and maximum of 10, is rather limiting in portraying differences. How do you explain the difference between a S4 Space Marine & a S3 Guardsman with such limitations? In the background they're massively different but in the rules it's just a difference of 1 on the statline. Same with toughness - just one point of difference but in the background Marines can withstand phenomenal amounts of damage that would put a human so utterly and completely out of action that they'd most likely be a bloody mess on the ground. That's why they're apart in my eyes.

Actually I tend to think of the stat scales as a logrithmic scale with the difference between 1 and 2 being a doubling or more of strength, speed, or skill. As you get stronger and stronger the difference needs to be bigger and bigger for it to matter. Being able to bench 9 tons and being able to bench 10 tons is practically the same but being able to bench 300 pounds versus 1.3 tons is totally different.

Additionally the strength and toughness stats would also be more dependent on weight than it would actual ability. If you know about fighting then you know that being 60 pounds heavier is a huge advantage versus being the same weight but able to lift 60 pounds more when bench pressing. This is why weight categories are so important as even a very unskilled and out of shape 250 pound boxer can ignore most of the punches and usually hit harder than a much much better 150 pound boxer.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Except the fact that a Tau drone has the toughness of an Adeptus Astartes does seem a bit weird, given it is merely a small disc.

They are made of the stuff that also makes battlesuits. That stuff is comparable to ceramitite, what power armor is made of. Because there is less of it than on a battlesuit however, it only has a 4+ save.

I can't really buy the I4 due to fast processors, necron computational devices are undoubtedly much faster than tau's and all necrons are I2. Even scarabs which are smaller and about as maneuverable (OK so not really all that close in manuverability but there in the same ball park) as drones are still only I2.

Speaking of which I think a Tau Drone IC would be a cool idea.

Sparks_Havelock wrote:The background may be written around the rules but the D6 system, with a minimum of 0 and maximum of 10, is rather limiting in portraying differences. How do you explain the difference between a S4 Space Marine & a S3 Guardsman with such limitations? In the background they're massively different but in the rules it's just a difference of 1 on the statline.

That depends on the background you're looking at. Even an Astartes is, in the end, "just" a beefed-up human with somewhat thicker bones and some more muscle. Their skin isn't bulletproof, and their eyes pop just as easily as a normal guy's. The weapons used on the battlefields of the 41st millennium are powerful and terrible - and Toughness does not represent someone's ability to resist them so much as being able to fight on in spite of the injuries obtained, which could be anything from a fleshwound to a lost arm.

ansacs wrote:Actually I tend to think of the stat scales as a logrithmic scale with the difference between 1 and 2 being a doubling or more of strength, speed, or skill. As you get stronger and stronger the difference needs to be bigger and bigger for it to matter.

You know there are humans who have S4, too, though? And is the Toughness difference between a rank-and-file Space Wolf and Canis Wolfborn really that much bigger than between said Space Marine and a normal human..?

Call me a heretic, but I think Space Marines aren't actually that much more awesome. They're just better.

NL_Cirrus wrote:I can't really buy the I4 due to fast processors, necron computational devices are undoubtedly much faster than tau's and all necrons are I2. Even scarabs which are smaller and about as maneuverable (OK so not really all that close in manuverability but there in the same ball park) as drones are still only I2.

I always took the walking Necrons to be rather slow, actually. Zombie-like, if you will, befitting their "undead army" style.
Scarabs are faster (they have increased movement), but with them I would interpret I2 rather as a combination of reduced computing power (they are much smaller), lack of combat specialisation (afaik they're more a worker unit and not really intended for battle?). Or perhaps there is even a delay in their reaction because they work with a sort of hive mind that simply slows down the reaction of individual units, kind of how it was explained for Star Wars Battledroids.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Except the fact that a Tau drone has the toughness of an Adeptus Astartes does seem a bit weird, given it is merely a small disc.

Its a fairly solid hunk of metal, on top of being armored for the battlefield.

I would be surprised if it was just as fragile as a puny human.


As for I4, the Tau have programmed them with superior reflexes to compensate for their own deficiencies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NL_Cirrus wrote:
I can't really buy the I4 due to fast processors, necron computational devices are undoubtedly much faster than tau's and all necrons are I2. Even scarabs which are smaller and about as maneuverable (OK so not really all that close in manuverability but there in the same ball park) as drones are still only I2.

Remember that Scarabs are not really meant for the battlefield. They are maintenance and clean up tools.

Plus its possible that the Necrons were also relatively slow and sluggish, and they also saw little reason to improve those reflexes when they transferred over. being the undisputed masters of the universe could make you complacent. Unlike the Tau who would have seen an advantage to be gained by being faster than they naturally are. The Necrons did basically wipe out all other sentient life before they went to sleep, nothing to compare to.

IIRC drones having I4 was because some of the really old missions when the Tau were first released had rules for sentries that depended on their initiative stat. So gun drones got I4 to let them be effective in this role, and now long after those missions have been forgotten "drones have I4" is just one of those stats that nobody ever questions.