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I was initially disappointed that the tau could only take the Tiger-shark and not the Rail gun version for escalation. I've had the rules for this unit for a few years but never paid much attention since it's been over shadowed by its rail gun toting cousin, and in APOC Str D> 14 drones. However in a standard game being able to generate 14 gun drones a turn that don't scatter on deepstrike, may actually be useful.

I could see this really helping the tau when it comes to getting units into your opponents deployment zone, late game objective contesting, and generally being a thorn in your foes side by dropping down beside then bubble wrapping a farsight bomb, or O'vesa star lol. Depending on how long the Tiger-shark last you may be able to flood the table with drones you can get 42 drones out after 3 turns of movement.

What's everyone think?

Wait, can it really spit out 14 drones a turn? and do they have to be gun drones?

I haven't actually seen the rules. Just curious.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Wait, can it really spit out 14 drones a turn? and do they have to be gun drones?

I haven't actually seen the rules. Just curious.

Rules as written says something along the lines of "may deploy a max number of one squad of Gun Drones each turn, which must consist of up to 14 models"

It comes with 14 drones, so it only drops the initial squad it carries. It doesn't actually generate drone squads.

And remember, drone rules come from the Tau codex, which states that drones will never be a scoring or denial unit.

And if you bring one, it's extremely vulnerable because it's highest AV is 12. If your opponent doesn't bring a Lord of War it gives him a lot of possible victory points and a boost to seize.
If your opponent brings a Lord of War, it'll pretty much be harder to kill than your Tigershark while also putting out more damage.


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It's just be better to deep strike a drone squad in and get two barracudas. At least they don't buff your opponent and give up VPs.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
It's just be better to deep strike a drone squad in and get two barracudas. At least they don't buff your opponent and give up VPs.

This. The "standard" Tigershark is a fluff model that you buy if you don't really care about effectiveness in winning games. The railshark is just plain better in every way, and the fact that they didn't put it in Escalation is a pretty clear hint that the author has no clue what they're doing.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
It comes with 14 drones, so it only drops the initial squad it carries. It doesn't actually generate drone squads.

Rules as written say " It may only deploy a maximum of one squad of Gun Drones each turn,"

So yes each turn it MAY deploy more drones. It says nothing about being able to deploy once and once only.

I agree with you on the vp's it gives up, that sucks its in a fragile frame but I think I'll buy one just for the heck of having a ton of free drones on the field.

 Gitsmasher wrote:
Rules as written say " It may only deploy a maximum of one squad of Gun Drones each turn,"

Yes, a squad each turn out of the 14 drones that it carries as passengers.

And seriously, this is Escalation, the supplement most people already dislike enough as it is. If you insist on rules lawyering based on RAW that blatantly contradicts the obvious RAI then you and your Tigershark are going to be playing solitaire 40k alone in the corner while everyone else has fun.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Gitsmasher wrote:
Rules as written say " It may only deploy a maximum of one squad of Gun Drones each turn,"

Yes, a squad each turn out of the 14 drones that it carries as passengers.

And seriously, this is Escalation, the supplement most people already dislike enough as it is. If you insist on rules lawyering based on RAW that blatantly contradicts the obvious RAI then you and your Tigershark are going to be playing solitaire 40k alone in the corner while everyone else has fun.

By your logic I should be in the corner with wave serpent spammers, ovesa stars players, 2++ reroll daemon players. So that corner is going to be a pretty happening place

And I'm not rules lawyering, I'm reading the rules as written. Rremember GW is no stranger to making some pretty stupid and illogical choices, what makes you think that this is the exception to GW's outstanding record of common sense decision making?

This is beyond a simple misinterpretation and trying to really force it into an advantage. I find that extremely distasteful.

The Drone Rack is simply stating how you deploy the drones from a super heavy flyer and that you must deploy the entire squad at once. No version of the Tigershark allowed for the spontaneous generation of drones.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
This is beyond a simple misinterpretation and trying to really force it into an advantage. I find that extremely distasteful.

The Drone Rack is simply stating how you deploy the drones from a super heavy flyer and that you must deploy the entire squad at once. No version of the Tigershark allowed for the spontaneous generation of drones.

And the words *each turn* means just that, deploy 14 this turn, deploy 14 the next turn. If GW wanted it to be one time use only like lets say ummmm.... Seeker missles, then it would be worded like seeker missles, but its not and its written so that you can keep birthing drones out each turn

I'm not forcing anything your the one who is forcing a nonexistent restriction, when GW normally explains one time use weapons/systems, like seeker missles, pules bombs, combi-weapons... etc.

If it wasn't the intent, then it wouldn't have stated that it comes with 14 drones. It would state it comes with a drone hangar or a drone generator or something.

Again, you're really really stretching this. I think it's just some confusing wording since they didn't want to label it as a transport, and explain how it uses deploys drones like the smaller fighters.

The model and rules have been around for a long while now; I think you're confusing the Tigershark with the Harbinger(?) from the Dawn of War video game that could just keep making drones. It's not a flying factory, it's a small-ish jump-pack carrier that is able to drop its payload all at once or over a period of turns.

If the wording is the same as IA 3 (2nd edition); it says:
"The Tiger Shark may deploy its Gun Drones at any point during its Movement phase. It may only deploy a maximum of one squad of Gun Drones each turn, which must consist of up to 14 models and these are treated as a single squad of Gun Drones from that point onwards for the remainder of the game." I won't be buying Escalation but I do own IA 3 2nd edition.

Ok. Now look at the Wargear section. The unit comes with "Fourteen gun drones"; you'll notice that there is no language present similar to the Pulse Bomb for the Sun Shark which tells you how the bomb "regenerates". A rack holds something, it does not "generate" new items as the "Pulse Bomb Generator" does.

Next. Look at the unit entry for Drone Squads in the Tau Codex. You'll note that they have a composition of 4-12 drones. Obviously the entry for "Drone Rack" overrides this maximum of 12 but it's easy to see that you can choose to drop one unit of drones per turn from the 14 you start with and the unit may be comprised of at least 4 models but no more than 14 (because that's all you have).

If you could make 14 drones per turn and just swamp the battlefield like some tervigon on fertility meds, that'd be great but I'm afraid it doesn't work that way which is why you don't see this variant of the Tigershark on gaming tables.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
If it wasn't the intent, then it wouldn't have stated that it comes with 14 drones. It would state it comes with a drone hangar or a drone generator or something.

Again, you're really really stretching this. I think it's just some confusing wording since they didn't want to label it as a transport, and explain how it uses deploys drones like the smaller fighters.

Tell you what if you can find it in writing where it says "deploy once only, or once per game, or single use" then I will concede, but until you do no matter how much you try to argue, explain, or twist words and meanings, your whole point is rendered moot and invalid.

 Gitsmasher wrote:
By your logic I should be in the corner with wave serpent spammers, ovesa stars players, 2++ reroll daemon players. So that corner is going to be a pretty happening place

No, those people aren't cheating. You are, which means even the WAAC players won't play with you.

And I'm not rules lawyering, I'm reading the rules as written.

No you aren't. You're deliberately going against how any reasonable person would interpret the rule. It is perfectly clear how it works: you have 14 gun drones as passengers, and you can deploy 0-14 of them each turn.

what makes you think that this is the exception to GW's outstanding record of common sense decision making?

The fact that the intent of the rule is perfectly clear and the only reason this is even a question is that there's a slight typo in the copy/paste from the FW Tigershark rules. The FW rules say that the Tigershark "may deploy its gun drones", while the Escalation one says "may deploy gun drones". And also the fact that the 14 gun drones listed as wargear only make sense if they're the pool of available drones that you deploy from with the drone rack rule.


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 Gitsmasher wrote:
Tell you what if you can find it in writing where it says "deploy once only, or once per game, or single use" then I will concede, but until you do no matter how much you try to argue, explain, or twist words and meanings, your whole point is rendered moot and invalid.

And, again, the rule is perfectly clear to anyone who isn't deliberately trying to break that rule for their own benefit. You can complain all you like about RAW, but your chances of getting a willing opponent with that attitude are about the same as your chances of getting a willing opponent if you insist that "models draw LOS from their eyes" means that models wearing helmets (which means they have no eyes) can't shoot or charge.

 agnosto wrote:
which is why you don't see this variant of the Tigershark on gaming tables.

I'm not arguing that the drone shark is better than the railshark. Its obvious that the rail shark is superior in all ways to the drone shark. And in a game of APOC which is where the model was originally played I wouldn't want to spawn drones each tour. As all that does is bog a already long turn down.

I understand the IA version and when I play APOC I will use the IA rules. But in standard 40K I will play it as written so 14 this turn 14 the next turn. I honestly think you dont quite understand what *each turn* means.

But thats alright we can agree to disagree.

Not quite. It's 4 thus turn, 4 then the last 6 after that.

But you're right, we can agree to disagree and I may be wrong and GW did the unheard of thing of actually making a useless unit usable since I don't own Escalation and don't know if they changed it.

Anywho, best of luck and all that.

 Gitsmasher wrote:
I honestly think you dont quite understand what *each turn* means.

No, you're just deliberately trying to make the rule say something it doesn't. "Each turn" means that each turn you can decide to deploy drones out of the pool of 14. So on the first turn you can drop 8, next turn you can drop 6, and then you're out of drones.


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 agnosto wrote:
I may be wrong and GW did the unheard of thing of actually making a useless unit usable since I don't own Escalation and don't know if they changed it.

They didn't change it. The rules are the same as the ones in IA:Apocalypse.

 Gitsmasher wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
If it wasn't the intent, then it wouldn't have stated that it comes with 14 drones. It would state it comes with a drone hangar or a drone generator or something.

Again, you're really really stretching this. I think it's just some confusing wording since they didn't want to label it as a transport, and explain how it uses deploys drones like the smaller fighters.

Tell you what if you can find it in writing where it says "deploy once only, or once per game, or single use" then I will concede, but until you do no matter how much you try to argue, explain, or twist words and meanings, your whole point is rendered moot and invalid.

The Tiger Shark wargear specifically lists that it only has 14 gun drones. How would you deploy 28 gun drones over two turns? By your reasoning, my Remora can fire two seeker missiles EVERY TURN.

 Gitsmasher wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
which is why you don't see this variant of the Tigershark on gaming tables.

I'm not arguing that the drone shark is better than the railshark. Its obvious that the rail shark is superior in all ways to the drone shark. And in a game of APOC which is where the model was originally played I wouldn't want to spawn drones each tour. As all that does is bog a already long turn down.

I understand the IA version and when I play APOC I will use the IA rules. But in standard 40K I will play it as written so 14 this turn 14 the next turn. I honestly think you dont quite understand what *each turn* means.

But thats alright we can agree to disagree.

Are you trolling? There is no permission anywhere in the rule to generate additional drones. Deploying is not the same as generating. It holds 14 drones. How can you deploy more than it holds? "Each turn?" I think we all understand that one. I think you are having trouble understaning what "deploy" means.

 Gitsmasher wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
which is why you don't see this variant of the Tigershark on gaming tables.

I'm not arguing that the drone shark is better than the railshark. Its obvious that the rail shark is superior in all ways to the drone shark. And in a game of APOC which is where the model was originally played I wouldn't want to spawn drones each tour. As all that does is bog a already long turn down.

I understand the IA version and when I play APOC I will use the IA rules. But in standard 40K I will play it as written so 14 this turn 14 the next turn. I honestly think you dont quite understand what *each turn* means.

But thats alright we can agree to disagree.

Where does it say 'generate' in the rules?