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Howdy. Formation is coming out in Mont'ka. Essentially, the formation allows any remaining members of a unit to enter reserves and be brought back to full strength.

So if you disembark drones, and then enter reserves are they still replaced?

What if one drone was destroyed; Do you come back with one drone ?

This potentially could allow you to get a lot of free drones over the course.

Yes, but that's also under-utilizing the potency of the formation.

If you have a unit of 5 Pirahna that drop off drones, then get killed down to 1 Pirahna, then that one leaves the board: 5 Pirahna come back with 10 drones.

The way it's written is that they just get infinite free drones and seekers, and you can make the argument they even regain lost Piranhas.

I'm just going to wait for the ITC to make a ruling about how this works, as right now it's just nonsensical the way Gee-Dubs worded it.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Yes, but that's also under-utilizing the potency of the formation.

If you have a unit of 5 Pirahna that drop off drones, then get killed down to 1 Pirahna, then that one leaves the board: 5 Pirahna come back with 10 drones.

Yeah I wasn't asking for some crazy drone OP cheese. Haha

Mainly wanted to understand how the rule would work. Thanks for the comment!

Yes, it does appear that when played correctly, this formation can deliver up to 32 free drones and 32 serker missile per turn that they arrive on the table. It's the "daemon factory" of Tau, it's a ... Drone Factory.

The current tactic people are discussing is combining these guys with the Drone Network formation for masses of BS3 drones with shared special rules.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Yes, it does appear that when played correctly, this formation can deliver up to 32 free drones and 32 serker missile per turn that they arrive on the table. It's the "daemon factory" of Tau, it's a ... Drone Factory.

The current tactic people are discussing is combining these guys with the Drone Network formation for masses of BS3 drones with shared special rules.

SJ

I feel like a mix of Drone Factories and Missile Factories is probably correct within the formation. The Drone Network is already a good deal, giving you almost strictly better Pathfinders, but they also just buff your army in other ways, now that's a good deal.

Honestly, almost all of the formations in the Mont'ka seem rather strong, even the Ethereal one.

I'm definitely going to build an army that all it does it spawn bin-lids. If that's all I use (i.e. minimal on everything else, and only use the drones) it might be a pretty ridiculous army to play with/against, but not necessarily OP.

Yep, you can. However, I'm more inclined to fire the seekers. I don't have so many drones anyway

 Tinkrr wrote:
The way it's written is that they just get infinite free drones and seekers, and you can make the argument they even regain lost Piranhas.

Why would the Piranhas not be regained? They are part of the unit and unit back to full strength means just that. There is nothing ambiguous about that.

Is someone actually arguing otherwise?

Naw wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
The way it's written is that they just get infinite free drones and seekers, and you can make the argument they even regain lost Piranhas.

Why would the Piranhas not be regained? They are part of the unit and unit back to full strength means just that. There is nothing ambiguous about that.

Is someone actually arguing otherwise?

You know how it is. Everytime any new rule comes out it's either totally worthless or ZOMG OP CHEEZ.

Yes, this formation can effectively spawn additional Drones. Yes, this formation can effectively resurrect destroyed or otherwise lost Piranhas. No, this will never result in infinite drones or Piranhas. Saying that it does is being a little Hyperbolic.

The reality of the situation is that you're likely to use this ability at most a couple of times. If you do, you'll have to remain relatively close to a board edge. A savvy player will simply keep towards the middle of the board or use overwhelming firepower/assault to wipe out all five Piranhas. They're pretty easy to kill. Massed Bolter fire can easily take out five. They only have 2 hull points each and it's not exactly like they're AV14.

Can not find anywhere aside from flyers where it says you can't enter from reserves and exit into in the same turn.

The formation says just be within 6" at end of movment. If you take 12 pirahna maxing the 3 squads. They could come on, drop drones and leave. Accumulating to 120 drones over 5 turns.

A hilarious tau summoning engine.

 Grizzyzz wrote:
Can not find anywhere aside from flyers where it says you can't enter from reserves and exit into in the same turn.

The formation says just be within 6" at end of movment. If you take 12 pirahna maxing the 3 squads. They could come on, drop drones and leave. Accumulating to 120 drones over 5 turns.

A hilarious tau summoning engine.

Remember that they only have a 2/3 chance of coming back on from Ongoing Reserves in the following turn. Rollings 1s and 2s will mean you get nothing for that turn. There is no guarantee that you'll be able to consistently bring the Piranhas back onto the field.

Also, I'm fairly certain Piranha units are 1-5 and not 1-3. I don't have my Codex handy right now. The Formation also comes with 4 units and not 3. That's 20 Piranhas with 40 Drones being dropped off per turn. That's 200 Drones over 5 turns if you roll well for Reserves.

Theoretically possible, but it's a massively expensive undertaking (the extra Drones cost 6 USD each, or 240 USD per turn) that will only ever let you play one game. I can't see anyone willing to put up with something like this more than once. If you were able to successfully dump your Drones every turn for 5 turns, you'd need to spend 960 USD on Drones at full retail (4 turns, since one turn's worth of Drones comes with the Piranhas).

 Kriswall wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:
Can not find anywhere aside from flyers where it says you can't enter from reserves and exit into in the same turn.

The formation says just be within 6" at end of movment. If you take 12 pirahna maxing the 3 squads. They could come on, drop drones and leave. Accumulating to 120 drones over 5 turns.

A hilarious tau summoning engine.

Remember that they only have a 2/3 chance of coming back on from Ongoing Reserves in the following turn. Rollings 1s and 2s will mean you get nothing for that turn. There is no guarantee that you'll be able to consistently bring the Piranhas back onto the field.

Also, I'm fairly certain Piranha units are 1-5 and not 1-3. I don't have my Codex handy right now. The Formation also comes with 4 units and not 3. That's 20 Piranhas with 40 Drones being dropped off per turn. That's 200 Drones over 5 turns if you roll well for Reserves.

Theoretically possible, but it's a massively expensive undertaking (the extra Drones cost 6 USD each, or 240 USD per turn) that will only ever let you play one game. I can't see anyone willing to put up with something like this more than once. If you were able to successfully dump your Drones every turn for 5 turns, you'd need to spend 960 USD on Drones at full retail (4 turns, since one turn's worth of Drones comes with the Piranhas).

Ongoing reserves are automatic aren't they?

 Kriswall wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:
Can not find anywhere aside from flyers where it says you can't enter from reserves and exit into in the same turn.

The formation says just be within 6" at end of movment. If you take 12 pirahna maxing the 3 squads. They could come on, drop drones and leave. Accumulating to 120 drones over 5 turns.

A hilarious tau summoning engine.

Remember that they only have a 2/3 chance of coming back on from Ongoing Reserves in the following turn. Rollings 1s and 2s will mean you get nothing for that turn. There is no guarantee that you'll be able to consistently bring the Piranhas back onto the field.

Also, I'm fairly certain Piranha units are 1-5 and not 1-3. I don't have my Codex handy right now. The Formation also comes with 4 units and not 3. That's 20 Piranhas with 40 Drones being dropped off per turn. That's 200 Drones over 5 turns if you roll well for Reserves.

Theoretically possible, but it's a massively expensive undertaking (the extra Drones cost 6 USD each, or 240 USD per turn) that will only ever let you play one game. I can't see anyone willing to put up with something like this more than once. If you were able to successfully dump your Drones every turn for 5 turns, you'd need to spend 960 USD on Drones at full retail (4 turns, since one turn's worth of Drones comes with the Piranhas).

We all know we would sell limbs for this hobby! Haha!

I never meant for this to be economical or the best ever. More hilarious and confirming how the formation rules work in the same process.

I think I have about 100 drones. You get 2 per pirahna. 2 per firewaarrior.. 6 per crisis .. commanders, etc, huge box of sprus lying around.

Drager wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:
Can not find anywhere aside from flyers where it says you can't enter from reserves and exit into in the same turn.

The formation says just be within 6" at end of movment. If you take 12 pirahna maxing the 3 squads. They could come on, drop drones and leave. Accumulating to 120 drones over 5 turns.

A hilarious tau summoning engine.

Remember that they only have a 2/3 chance of coming back on from Ongoing Reserves in the following turn. Rollings 1s and 2s will mean you get nothing for that turn. There is no guarantee that you'll be able to consistently bring the Piranhas back onto the field.

Also, I'm fairly certain Piranha units are 1-5 and not 1-3. I don't have my Codex handy right now. The Formation also comes with 4 units and not 3. That's 20 Piranhas with 40 Drones being dropped off per turn. That's 200 Drones over 5 turns if you roll well for Reserves.

Theoretically possible, but it's a massively expensive undertaking (the extra Drones cost 6 USD each, or 240 USD per turn) that will only ever let you play one game. I can't see anyone willing to put up with something like this more than once. If you were able to successfully dump your Drones every turn for 5 turns, you'd need to spend 960 USD on Drones at full retail (4 turns, since one turn's worth of Drones comes with the Piranhas).

Ongoing reserves are automatic aren't they?

If they are, I've been playing it wrong!

Drager wrote:


Ongoing reserves are automatic aren't they?

Pretty sure not. Unless a special rule says so. I know a Mawloc I roll for every time it reenters reserves. Unless on or after turn 4.

 Kriswall wrote:


If they are, I've been playing it wrong!

You have D:

From the big cheat sheet of 40k:

Ongoing Reserves: Units which leave the
board during the game enter Ongoing
Reserves, which arrive automatically the
next turn.

Also, the Drone drop happens in the movement phase, and the Rearm Refuel happens at the end of the movement phase, so unless you're going second, you can make it so that your opponent never gets to shoot at your Piranhas unless they have some form of Early Warning Override and enough range to hit your Piranhas. On top of that don't forget your drones are Jet Packed so they can move in the assault phase and more, and they have equal BS as Fire Warriors if you take the Drone Network detachment.

So, it works like this?

1. Deploy on table edge.
2. During your first Movement phase, detach Drones and then declare that your Piranhas are entering Ongoing Reserves.
3. During each subsequent Movement phase, move the freshly refitted Piranhas onto the board, detach Drones and then declare that your Piranhas are entering Ongoing Reserves.

Novelty tactic, but I can't see anyone actually doing this. You'd need quite a few Piranhas to have enough Drones to be effective. It would also be a very boring game to play.

When talking about balance, things like "not owning enough of ___" or that it's not exactly fun to play, don't really apply as they don't actually address the underlying issue.

A full Piranha squad is 640pts (16 Piranha), if you count drones at 12pts each they spawn 384pts a turn, if you count them as 14pts each they spawn 448pts a turn. They pay for themselves in under two turns and then net you 400pts of units each turn of the game. Even using the lower drone cost, and assuming a game ends in four turns, you've spawned 1536pts of drones... Heck I'll even make it only three turns because you probably won't benefit from spawning on the last turn but rather use your Piranhas themselves if you think the game will end, which means you've only gotten 1152pts of free drone spawns.

Think about how insane that is, you basically double your army in points if you're playing 1850pts, at the low cost of 640pts...

Heck, I'd do this if only for the novelty of filling an entire table to the brim with Drones. It's not like we don't get free drones in like every box we ever buy. Though really I'm probably going to just run 2x squads of 2-3 Piranhas with Seekers, a squad of 5 Piranhas for drones, and then the mandatory one Piranha.

Also, it's not like a bunch more Str 5 18" range guns are what Tau need more of, or are using to kill things.

 Tinkrr wrote:
When talking about balance, things like "not owning enough of ___" or that it's not exactly fun to play, don't really apply as they don't actually address the underlying issue.

A full Piranha squad is 640pts (16 Piranha), if you count drones at 12pts each they spawn 384pts a turn, if you count them as 14pts each they spawn 448pts a turn. They pay for themselves in under two turns and then net you 400pts of units each turn of the game. Even using the lower drone cost, and assuming a game ends in four turns, you've spawned 1536pts of drones... Heck I'll even make it only three turns because you probably won't benefit from spawning on the last turn but rather use your Piranhas themselves if you think the game will end, which means you've only gotten 1152pts of free drone spawns.

Think about how insane that is, you basically double your army in points if you're playing 1850pts, at the low cost of 640pts...

Heck, I'd do this if only for the novelty of filling an entire table to the brim with Drones. It's not like we don't get free drones in like every box we ever buy. Though really I'm probably going to just run 2x squads of 2-3 Piranhas with Seekers, a squad of 5 Piranhas for drones, and then the mandatory one Piranha.

"Not owning enough of ___" is a perfectly valid AND practical concern. Can this be done? Absolutely. Does it require the purchase of TONS of Drones at six bucks a pop? Yes, it does. In your example above, you're spending 192 USD per turn on those 32 Drones. That's a lot of money. Sure, some people will spend money like that on a one trick pony army, but the reality is that it'll be wasted money. If the tactic is unsuccessful, you'll never want to play it again. If the tactic is successful in a casual environment, but unsuccessful in a competitive environment, you'll never get a second game against anyone. If the tactic is successful at the competitive tournament level, you might win a game or two before the meta shifts.

And this tactic will never be successful on a tournament level. Drones are entirely ineffective against anything with AV12 or better. You can completely disarm this tactic by throwing a couple of Objective Secured Troops choices into a handful of Land Raiders. Just cruise over to the objectives and start taking pot shots at the Drones for fun since you don't actually need to kill them and they can't hurt you.

As a final comment, several people have said "but the Drones are effectively free since you get a couple in every Tau box". This isn't entirely true. I've been playing Tau for years and there's no way I could field 32 Drones per turn for 5 straight turns. Even if I could, it would be because I'd spent a TON of money on Tau over the years. Whether paid today or in the past, money is money.

 Kriswall wrote:

"Not owning enough of ___" is a perfectly valid AND practical concern. Can this be done? Absolutely. Does it require the purchase of TONS of Drones at six bucks a pop? Yes, it does. In your example above, you're spending 192 USD per turn on those 32 Drones. That's a lot of money. Sure, some people will spend money like that on a one trick pony army, but the reality is that it'll be wasted money. If the tactic is unsuccessful, you'll never want to play it again. If the tactic is successful in a casual environment, but unsuccessful in a competitive environment, you'll never get a second game against anyone. If the tactic is successful at the competitive tournament level, you might win a game or two before the meta shifts.

And this tactic will never be successful on a tournament level. Drones are entirely ineffective against anything with AV12 or better. You can completely disarm this tactic by throwing a couple of Objective Secured Troops choices into a handful of Land Raiders. Just cruise over to the objectives and start taking pot shots at the Drones for fun since you don't actually need to kill them and they can't hurt you.

As a final comment, several people have said "but the Drones are effectively free since you get a couple in every Tau box". This isn't entirely true. I've been playing Tau for years and there's no way I could field 32 Drones per turn for 5 straight turns. Even if I could, it would be because I'd spent a TON of money on Tau over the years. Whether paid today or in the past, money is money.

1) why does it have to be used in a tournament to be fun?

2) Cost does matter, but to use that we would have to apply it to everything. Riptide wing is 330 dollars .. heavy support is ~400 minimum... List goes on.

3) with enough drones you can take out all those objective secured units with headbutts and pinning

"Not owning enough of ___" is a perfectly valid AND practical concern.

So many games have tried to use this mentality, and it has failed every time, it's not a valid argument because if people want it, they can obtain it. Balance should always come from the rules, not whether someone is or isn't financially stable.

You do understand that you're not only running 16 Piranhas in your army, right? All 16 Piranhas only cost 640pts, that means you have another 1210pts to spend on anything you'd like. I'm pretty sure that in a tournament getting 1500pts+ of free models is always viable when the investment is so low, even if the models aren't amazing.

Additionally the Piranhas come with the initial 32 drones, so that's already a start. I just got back into the hobby and so far I've gotten a small force together, and let's see I got 6 drones from the Crisis Suit box, another 2 from the individual Suit box, 4 from the two Fire Warrior Boxes, and one from the random Stealth Suit model someone threw in for free. That's only 13 drones, yes, but that's also just the start of my army, I'll still need another Crisis Suit box or two because I want to play the Retaliation Cadre so +12 right there, I'm going to need a Commander which is another drone, and at least two Broadsides which gives me 4 drones I can magnetize so I can use them as missile drones or gun drones, I'd say the same for the Riptide drones I have but I'm using them for something else already. As a whole that's another 30ish drones which is a full spawn, so with a basic army I have two turns worth of making drones at basically no extra investment than what I'd buy anyway.

Now, you can say that's only half of what I need, but you're forgetting that drones will be dying each turn most likely and more so as the game progresses, so those will contribute to the Piranha refuels, and realistically you'll only need about 2.5-3 spawns of drones available, because if you need the full four, you've probably already won.

More so, it's kind of silly to use the 6$ per drone model, seeing as you can go on ebay and get them for 3$ or so, and there's also the fact that other people have tons of drones that you can probably obtain for much cheaper.

 Grizzyzz wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

"Not owning enough of ___" is a perfectly valid AND practical concern. Can this be done? Absolutely. Does it require the purchase of TONS of Drones at six bucks a pop? Yes, it does. In your example above, you're spending 192 USD per turn on those 32 Drones. That's a lot of money. Sure, some people will spend money like that on a one trick pony army, but the reality is that it'll be wasted money. If the tactic is unsuccessful, you'll never want to play it again. If the tactic is successful in a casual environment, but unsuccessful in a competitive environment, you'll never get a second game against anyone. If the tactic is successful at the competitive tournament level, you might win a game or two before the meta shifts.

And this tactic will never be successful on a tournament level. Drones are entirely ineffective against anything with AV12 or better. You can completely disarm this tactic by throwing a couple of Objective Secured Troops choices into a handful of Land Raiders. Just cruise over to the objectives and start taking pot shots at the Drones for fun since you don't actually need to kill them and they can't hurt you.

As a final comment, several people have said "but the Drones are effectively free since you get a couple in every Tau box". This isn't entirely true. I've been playing Tau for years and there's no way I could field 32 Drones per turn for 5 straight turns. Even if I could, it would be because I'd spent a TON of money on Tau over the years. Whether paid today or in the past, money is money.

1) why does it have to be used in a tournament to be fun?

2) Cost does matter, but to use that we would have to apply it to everything. Riptide wing is 330 dollars .. heavy support is ~400 minimum... List goes on.

3) with enough drones you can take out all those objective secured units with headbutts and pinning

1. I never said it has to be used in a tournament to be fun. I'm not sure where you got that from. In my experience, "loophole" or "one trick pony" lists aren't fun to play against and consequently, aren't fun to play as you run out of willing opponents. Whether or not this is in a tournament setting has little to no impact.

2. Agreed. Many Formations are cost prohibitive for an average player. This isn't really news and is a common theme on this Forum.

3. No amount of Drones is going to take out a Land Raider or the Objective Secured Troops riding inside it.

How on Earth is it a one trick list?

 Kriswall wrote:


1. I never said it has to be used in a tournament to be fun. I'm not sure where you got that from. In my experience, "loophole" or "one trick pony" lists aren't fun to play against and consequently, aren't fun to play as you run out of willing opponents. Whether or not this is in a tournament setting has little to no impact.

2. Agreed. Many Formations are cost prohibitive for an average player. This isn't really news and is a common theme on this Forum.

3. No amount of Drones is going to take out a Land Raider or the Objective Secured Troops riding inside it.

Only meant it by you kept saying it wouldn't work in a tournament. And if they have a land raider. Give up the first turn of making drones to blow it sky high with your 12 or more seeker missiles with tank hunter!

And this tactic will never be successful on a tournament level. Drones are entirely ineffective against anything with AV12 or better. You can completely disarm this tactic by throwing a couple of Objective Secured Troops choices into a handful of Land Raiders. Just cruise over to the objectives and start taking pot shots at the Drones for fun since you don't actually need to kill them and they can't hurt you.

Have you ever played in a tournament? You can't tailor your list, and tac squads in land raiders are terrible.

 Tinkrr wrote:
How on Earth is it a one trick list?

How is it not? Your hypothetical list's strategy would be built around exploiting the ability of this Formation to generate free Drones every turn. If it's not built around having waves of free drones available, then it's probably a little directionless as a list.

 Kriswall wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
How on Earth is it a one trick list?

How is it not? Your hypothetical list's strategy would be built around exploiting the ability of this Formation to generate free Drones every turn. If it's not built around having waves of free drones available, then it's probably a little directionless as a list.

The free drones are only 640pts, that's a third of your list. The only other support you'd take for those drones is the Drone Network, which isn't that big of an investment as it can just function as your source of Markerlights for the army. After you subtract those two things you have almost 1k points left to spend on your list, whether it be a Hunter Contingent or the FSE using the Retaliation Cadre as a core choice, or even just a basic CAD.

Seriously, if you think a 640pt investment that generates 1500pts of free stuff needs anymore support, that's pretty silly. The direction of the list is pretty simple too, you have what you'd normally bring, and then 1000-1500pts of free drones piled on top for good measure, if you're going all in on the Piranha plan then you're doing it wrong because you're sinking too much into what's otherwise a massive free point generator on its own.

 Kriswall wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
How on Earth is it a one trick list?

How is it not? Your hypothetical list's strategy would be built around exploiting the ability of this Formation to generate free Drones every turn. If it's not built around having waves of free drones available, then it's probably a little directionless as a list.

How is this different then a demon summoning list? If this is 650 points let's call it.. and its an 1850 tourney you can effectively field a full Dawn Blade Contingent with this formation as an auxiliary.

I would be pretty scared of that to be honest. Or build a FSE CAD or hunter contingent if you want.

Or heck, run the OSC formation to slay all your heavy armor.