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I have been obsessed with this idea ever since the codex came out.

joining a commander XV8 with a group of drone squadron marker drones for some JSJ BS5 marking goodness...

anyone out there tried it out？ how well or bad did it work out for you.

As far as I can tell through toying with this on my end, this only runs into one major issue. That blob of MLs which now all have a great chance of hitting are now creating more MLs than you need on a single unit. Yeah, that one squad is gonna get lit up like a torch with everything firing bs5+ no cover, but you also ignored every other enemy squad.

Just my 2 cents

GreyDragoon wrote:
As far as I can tell through toying with this on my end, this only runs into one major issue. That blob of MLs which now all have a great chance of hitting are now creating more MLs than you need on a single unit. Yeah, that one squad is gonna get lit up like a torch with everything firing bs5+ no cover, but you also ignored every other enemy squad.

Just my 2 cents

I second. With BS5 no more than 3 ML are needed to be uber effective. Anything more is so much overkill. although now they all cost the same, its not really a waste of points but if they were still a 30 pt model it would be a huge waste. Ive seen it done effectively a few times, as long as you make sure to have markerlights on more than the one unit it should be fine, your just making sure that one squad gets *really* dead.

If you have a commander model in your army, and end up with an extra 50-75 points and an open quick attack slot then by all means grab a drone controller for the commander and take a small squadron of 3-4 ML drone.

Make sure if you do that, you want to nab Target locks for the commander any his bodyguards so they don't have to shoot the same target. Waste of non-ML'd shots on something that's going to get seriously lit up after you ML'ing by a different squad. Spend their shots on something else.

I'd actually say the opposite, although it depends on what units you're running. I want at least 4-5 markerlight hits on certain units. Almost all of our large blasts have "gets hot". I prefer to make the Riptide bs6 (re-roll gets hot) and ignore cover with his ion accelerator.
Keep in mind that the drones are also relatively squishy. You don't want to have a useless unit if you lose 2 models.

I've been having some success with a Mark'o + unit of Crisis Suits with Target Lock and 5-6 Marker Drones. Missile pods (or whatever other weapons) into one unit and markerlights into another. It's very expensive, but very survivable and hard to catch.

I run two Commanders with two marker drones apiece and attach a 4 marker drone unit to each. Gives me two units of durable, maneuverable, BS5 markers.

I think it works out great. You'll always be able to find targets with a 6" move on top of the 36" marker. As someone said earlier, extra markers are not a bad thing. There are several units who could use the bump up to BS6+ thanks to Gets Hot and scatter. Throw on a target lock and two missile pods on the commanders and you have two very versatile units that are a huge buff to your army.

Savage, I just tried your method and it worked out quite well. Even more-so because I run at higher points with 2 Riptides, Sensor Towers, and a tetra squad split up. While it hurt a little bit having my commanders jump in expense from going Ethereal/Dark Strider or Dark Strider/Cadre (depending on my troop choices for my back-field), I found it was priceless having all of the choices.

Essentially, every time my riptides fired off their long ranged guns, if I was nova charging or just overcharging having the reroll on potential gets hot results was priceless. When the enemy was still outside of range of my firewarriors I used the TLing from my sensor towers to get the reroll and gave the Riptide BS5, requiring one less markerlight charge than before.

Once the enemy got within range of the gunline the TLing went to them and the markerlights (12 drones, 4 tetras, and 3 sensor towers) were enough to keep the riptides at BS6 and give plenty of extra to my Firewarriors. My MLs were also essentially coming from 8 independent sources for targeting purposes (2 squads of drones, 2 tetras one with target lock, 1 independent tetra, and 1 other independent tetra, and the sensor towers each independently targeting)

It was really quite versatile and made the gunline really unapproachable. Lots of versatility, and a huge bubble created by the sensor towers (much larger than the Ethereal's)

I loved my Mark'O's performance. I run 6 gun drones and 6MLs The gun drones are really just ablative wounds but have potential to do some damage. I never missed with a single marker light and when i can take a missleside squad that rallied and bring them back to bs5 to murder something important, having 6 MLs arent neccesarily a waste at all.

Glad to hear it worked out well for you. I tried them once when the book first came out, and now I can't stop running dual Mark'o commanders. With the new equipment they're just too good of a unit and have way too many options to help the rest of your army.

One thing I forgot to mention is that bodyguards are a seperate unit from the commander. You can purchase the commanders and still get two units of 1-2 bodyguards. I tried this and gave them dual fusion blasters with close support equipment like the Nueral Web System Jammer and Onager gauntlet. A bit expensive, but it does free up elite slots and still lets you bring plenty of suits.

A little side note, the sensor tower rules are changing. Apparently the new Taros Campaign is out and has updated rules for sensor towers. All I heard is they are fortifications now, so kind of a bummer there.

I have been using a mark'o with 6 drones, and they work in coordination with my riptide to drop the heavy blast pain, with ignore cover and bs 6/7 he pretty much can eliminate entire units every turn. so its a good synergy thing.

Ooo that might be a bummer, even though it makes sense. I hope they reduced the cost if so (and added the HP entry so that fun little dispute can finally be laid to rest)

Easier Method:
Commander with 2 weapons, Target Lock, Drone Controller

2 Drones

Buy a Bodyguard. 2 Weapons, Target Lock

2 Drones.

4 Drones. 4 Weapons. 3 Targets. No wasted FA slots.

Total points: 190+Weapons (Roughly 250, or the cost of a decent Space Marines special character).

I really don't see it as wasted FA slots, since the only unit I'd be taking in those slots would be pathfinders anyways.

There are several ways to do it, including the Commander joining Elites with markerdrones and target locks. I think this is the most efficient with just using the Gundrone squads for two support units. With the bodyguard you have two weapons at BS3 while the rest of the group remains at BS5. I try to keep it simple, so I have the commander squad at BS5, his weapons are missile pods so don't generally need to remove cover or raise BS and the unit does exactly what it's required to do.

Pol'o!

 Badablack wrote:
Pol'o!

hahahahahaha, made my day,

I like giving my mark'o 2 missle pods the DC and a TL, so he can shoot at w/e while the drones light something up.

Seems like a bit of a waste, since you can get markerlights elsewhere and BS5 Gun Drones only with the Commander... although the BS5 Gun Drones only make sense when taken in groups of 10 or more.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Seems like a bit of a waste, since you can get markerlights elsewhere and BS5 Gun Drones only with the Commander... although the BS5 Gun Drones only make sense when taken in groups of 10 or more.

You'll never need more than 5 or 6. Which you can get from Bodyguards, which you might as well get anyways.