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Anyone ever wonder why they didn't make a model for the Harbinger unit that was in dawn of war for the tau? It was my favorite unit in the game and it really kicked butt.

Heres something like I would want it to be.

Heavy support
235 points
12/12/10 4 HP
Tank, Skimmer
Weapons: none

Each Harbinger starts the game with 8 detachable gun drones - they can detach as a single unit.

Special rules -
Advanced drone control system - drones in this units detachment within 9" of a unit with this special rule - have +1 to their BS , have the interceptor rule, and are fearless.

Drone Hanger - at the beginning of each tau player turn this unit can activate d3+1 (missile, marker, or gun) drones. They function as a single unit that must disembark from the drone hanger - they cant not reenter the harbinger. If the Harbinger is destroyed they still function as an individual unit.

Sound cool?

I'm not a fan of things that just spawn new units and reward inactivity. As it is written, the best thing to do with this is to hide it in back, behind terrain and just have it pumping out drones constantly and that is a pretty unengaging thing on the tabletop.

Well - it's a lot like a Tervigon I guess. Except it has some really good special rules. Do the points seem fair at least? What would you change about it to make it more engaging?

So I figure starting the game with 8 drones is worth 12*8=96 points. So lets call the drone factory bit 140 points.

On average, if the harbringer never died you would be getting an average of 18 drones over the course of the game. At an average of 8 points per drone they would be cheaper then buying the drones outright but a lot of them wouldn't start on the board.

In most situations it would be best to spawn the missile drones in which case you would get 6 S7 AP4 shots per turn. It pumps out a missileside's worth of shooting every round. It sounds scary, but you have to remember it has to stay on the board for 3-4 turns to break even.

My gut feeling is that the cost is about right here. Seems like a cool idea overall.

Well, at least with a tervigon, it is still an MC, psyker and has some shooting attacks, so it has value in moving it forward and doing stuff with it. Also, it can cork out, where the Harbinger doesn't. It comes down to the difference is that a tervigon can do other things while this iteration of the Harbinger just sits there and poops drones while you hope nobody shoots it.

Anyway, as far as its points and specifics, I admit wholly that I am no expert in Tau, so my guess on the points is a guess at best. But that said, the Harbinger is based on the Devilfish chasis, correct? If that's the case, why does it have 4 hull points?

Now to make it more dynamic and interesting on the tabletop, I think a good thing to do with it is to expand its role. Right now, there's one way to play this. You park it somewhere safe, or on an objective, and make drones. There's no value in moving it or having it leave its hidey hole. It's basically a nice objective-holder that also makes other units/objective holders. What I would do is expand it so that it works somewhat like a Ghost Ark in that it can fly out an enact repairs on drone units. Another option is to remove the passive 9" buff and make it a stronger buff, but an activated ability. That way, you have choices to make with this thing, do you want to spawn some drones? Do you want to repair existing drones? Do you want to enhance drones?

 curran12 wrote:
Well, at least with a tervigon, it is still an MC, psyker and has some shooting attacks, so it has value in moving it forward and doing stuff with it. Also, it can cork out, where the Harbinger doesn't. It comes down to the difference is that a tervigon can do other things while this iteration of the Harbinger just sits there and poops drones while you hope nobody shoots it.

Anyway, as far as its points and specifics, I admit wholly that I am no expert in Tau, so my guess on the points is a guess at best. But that said, the Harbinger is based on the Devilfish chasis, correct? If that's the case, why does it have 4 hull points?

Now to make it more dynamic and interesting on the tabletop, I think a good thing to do with it is to expand its role. Right now, there's one way to play this. You park it somewhere safe, or on an objective, and make drones. There's no value in moving it or having it leave its hidey hole. It's basically a nice objective-holder that also makes other units/objective holders. What I would do is expand it so that it works somewhat like a Ghost Ark in that it can fly out an enact repairs on drone units. Another option is to remove the passive 9" buff and make it a stronger buff, but an activated ability. That way, you have choices to make with this thing, do you want to spawn some drones? Do you want to repair existing drones? Do you want to enhance drones?

It does give a drone buff bubble so playing it aggressively could increase the offensive power of a lot of gun drones which only have 18 inch carbines. It's likely to get shot down though.

I gave it +1 HP because the harbinger unit in the game seemed to be a little larger than a devil fish but I could be wrong. I really like the idea of an activated ability instead of a passive buff. Let me think about how I would do that.

To be fair not all of the units with the devilfish chassis have the same stats even now. The hammerhead/skyray have better armor then the devilfish.

Again, more ignorance of Tau talking here, but are there times where you'd want to be aggressive with drones? Cause to me that seems kinda un-Tau to be blasting forward. That said, I may be totally off the mark on this. But yeah, it still kinda falls into the trip where there's little for you to do with it as a player, the bubble is okay, but it isn't like you'll do much different on a turn by turn basis.

Start turn, d3+1 drones, repeat.

 curran12 wrote:
Again, more ignorance of Tau talking here, but are there times where you'd want to be aggressive with drones? Cause to me that seems kinda un-Tau to be blasting forward. That said, I may be totally off the mark on this. But yeah, it still kinda falls into the trip where there's little for you to do with it as a player, the bubble is okay, but it isn't like you'll do much different on a turn by turn basis.

Start turn, d3+1 drones, repeat.

That is how the unit functioned in the game. It could store like 10 drones and constantly replenished it's losses. You could only have 1 of them in your army though - I think that would be a good rule for this too. Only 1 harbinger per army.

Tau already have many options to field and detach drones (all vehicles, the drone gun port), where you have drone that leave a point to form their own unit.

I would prefer if the drones didn't form their own unit, but instead needed the harbinger to function. Like, if they go more than 8" away from the harbinger, they cease to function and die. The harbinger would then be required to move upfield.

To add flavor, you would need some type of special rule for the harbinger, other than just spawning stuff. For instance, the harbinger could be allowed to look out sir on the drones it spawned. So to bring it down, you would first need to kill the drones.
You could also add a second "drone factory" mode: on any given turn, the harbinger can forgo the creation of new drones, and instead buff the existing ones. Maybe +1 shot on their carbine, maybe a reanimation protocol (it spends its time repairing existing drones instead of building new ones), or +1T. Something that gives you a choice to make: currently you don't have any choice when it comes to using the harbinger: you just spawn stuff, you don't have any other option.

 curran12 wrote:
Well, at least with a tervigon, it is still an MC, psyker and has some shooting attacks, so it has value in moving it forward and doing stuff with it. Also, it can cork out, where the Harbinger doesn't. It comes down to the difference is that a tervigon can do other things while this iteration of the Harbinger just sits there and poops drones while you hope nobody shoots it.

Anyway, as far as its points and specifics, I admit wholly that I am no expert in Tau, so my guess on the points is a guess at best. But that said, the Harbinger is based on the Devilfish chasis, correct? If that's the case, why does it have 4 hull points?

Now to make it more dynamic and interesting on the tabletop, I think a good thing to do with it is to expand its role. Right now, there's one way to play this. You park it somewhere safe, or on an objective, and make drones. There's no value in moving it or having it leave its hidey hole. It's basically a nice objective-holder that also makes other units/objective holders. What I would do is expand it so that it works somewhat like a Ghost Ark in that it can fly out an enact repairs on drone units. Another option is to remove the passive 9" buff and make it a stronger buff, but an activated ability. That way, you have choices to make with this thing, do you want to spawn some drones? Do you want to repair existing drones? Do you want to enhance drones?

No nid player moves a tervigon forward...

Would the drones even be scoring. They aren't when they come off of the piranha formation or any other vehicle .

No missile drones, maybe marker drones.

Like what fresus said have the drones have a synapse like effect so that they either take a "mindlock" style test or simple cannot operate. maybe if a model with a drone controller is in the squad they bypass the limitation otherwise the drones must be within 12" of the Harbinger.

No buff to BS do you really want bs 4 drones if run in tandem with drone net?

I'd rather back off on the spawn-drones aspect and improve the drone command-and-control aspect. The idea of a unit that pumps out stuff RTS-style isn't particularly appealing to me and doesn't really mesh with the lore for the Tau, but a command tank that gives drones benefits for hanging around it is an interesting idea.

A few points.

I. The "synapse" proposal

As stated by Fresus and supported by TheBoy, Drones under this proposal would be severely limited when not within the operating distance of the Harbinger... which goes against every single instance of fluff concerning drone AI I've encountered to date, and so strikes me as being a poor choice of the potential ways to balance this homebrew version of the Dawn of War unit.

Not necessarily the wrong choice, mind you, but probably a poor one. As a Tau player, I'd want a damn good explanation for why my semi-independent drones become "Special" just because they started attached to a Harbinger, and an even better explanation why the unit wasn't balanced using more fluff-appropriate mechanics beyond "I don't like the way unit-spawning works."

II. Balancing the boost

Instead of providing a bubble of boosting effect, it may be more appropriate for the baseline vehicle to provide a focused boost to [its choice of] a single drone unit within range.

A. The range should be 12", not 9". There are two reasons for that:
1. 9" is not a standard range increment that players are used to dealing with, nor is it associated with any well-established blast radius. For ease of use, ease of recall, and intelligibility for the opponent, STANDARD range increments should be used for homebrew whenever possible.
2. You can balance the boost provided with a standard range pretty much as easily as you can balance the range provided with a particular boost. See above for why you'd choose one over the other, if at all possible.

B. Boosting a single unit helps limit the scope of the special rule's effect (it only ever affects a single unit, which is itself limited in size by the unit's rules), and so makes it easier to balance and more difficult to abuse.

C. Leaving out an Area of Effect boost expands your ability to add interesting variations as the concept is developed: Changing the boost from single target to a radius of effect could be given to a (costly) upgrade or upgrade character, or could be part of a homebrew formation bonus meant to showcase the Harbinger (or groups thereof).

D. Stacking the +1 BS with the Drone Net +1 BS would be less open to abuse, as it would be limited to a single unit of drones (and is not a terribly big difference for Gun Drones, given the minor difference in accuracy between BS3 TL and BS4 TL). Alternatively, the Advanced Drone Controller could act like a normal Drone Controller by SETTING the Drone's BS as equal to the vehicle's BS (which, due to the order of operations for applying stat changes, would result in the Harbinger's boost NOT stacking with the Drone Net's boost)

III. Drone Spawning

Unlimited MSU drone spawning is, as has been pointed out, already available to the Tau through a variety of other means. Instead, I'd want Drone Spawning to provide more of a replenishment mechanic to a nearby drone squad, spawning up to 1d3 +1 drones that become part of an existing, nearby drone squad instead of their own, separate squad (up to the normal maximum number of drones for a unit).

A. This would allow the Harbinger to occupy a UNIQUE but FLUFFY role in Tau tactics and mechanics, which helps give homebrew units legitimacy and flavor.

B. The Harbinger thus must choose to bring itself near battlefield conditions to provide its full points worth of effect, providing a balancing mechanic that encourages difficult choices and prevents effective "hide it in the back and spawn, spawn, spawn" tactics.

C. The Harbinger becomes more versatile and more reliable when surrounded by more drone squads, but doesn't exponentially boost the power of the drones while doing so.

D. The Harbinger becomes reliant upon having Drone Squads nearby to boost, thus limiting it's potential for abuse.

E. Multiple Harbingers maintain some of their versatility, but don't exponentially increase firepower... thus allowing more than 1 to theoretically be purchased without disturbing balance.

IV. Drone Menagerie

I'm unconvinced that anything except Gun Drones (and maaaaaybe ML drones) should be allowed to be spawned in. Missile Pods are almost certainly more expensive to produce than TL Pulse Carbines or Markerlights, and could be unbalanced if allowed to spawn in units they were unable to be purchased in normally (i.e. Drone Squads), limited as they are to Broadside fire support.

For ease of balance, and to make a mobile manufacturing wing be even remotely sensible for Tau-level technology, I would suggest limiting Drone spawns to Gun Drones, with the choice of Marker Drones available only for the original 8-drone attached squad.

V. Chassis

The Harbinger should choose either the Hammerhead or Devilfish AV/HP profile. If it's going to be heavy support and need to be within spitting distance of the thickest action, it should probably be the Hammerhead. That means you're looking at:

AV 13/12/10
HP 3
Tank, Skimmer

VI. Point Costs

I believe my proposed limitations, as well as the changes to the vehicle's chassis stats, should allow the vehicle to remain at roughly the same cost, due to:

A. The base cost of included units (96 points);
B. The boost of the Advanced Drone Controller (~20 points: larger boost than the Infantry version for ~10, plus incorporated EWO for ~5, and more versatility in its choice of which unit is boosted for ~5); and
C. The potential "free points" of spawned/replenished Drones (at a presumed 12 points per drone, averaging 3 drones spawned/replenished per turn, balancing around 3 to 4 turns of survival, for ~125 points, reduced slightly for the must--spawn-drones-into-an-existing-squad limitation to ~120)

That's roughly 236 points, or practically the same valuation as originally presented.








Generally speaking, I always loved that unit in DoW, and I've wanted to do a Skyray conversion for a while now, but I've yet to actually get to work on it. I'd love to see balanced homebrew rules that I could present to an opponent that don't smell of sharp .

@ Unusual suspect
Great write up. A lot of good points. Though I fear the end result of the unit would be pretty poor.

So lets say we change advanced drone control system to only effect a single unit at 12".

and drone hanger can only add drones to an existing drone unit. Plus no missile drone. Just markers and gun drones.

Turn 1 you will average an 11 gun drone unit with fealress, EWO, and bs3. What is that worth? I'd say it's worth about 150 points. Then you have a vehicle with no weapons that is pretty tough that can spawn 3 drones a turn on avg - that's worth about 55-60.

I'd go with about 205 points with these changes.

 Xenomancers wrote:
@ Unusual suspect
Great write up. A lot of good points. Though I fear the end result of the unit would be pretty poor.

So lets say we change advanced drone control system to only effect a single unit at 12".

and drone hanger can only add drones to an existing drone unit. Plus no missile drone. Just markers and gun drones.

Turn 1 you will average an 11 gun drone unit with fealress, EWO, and bs3. What is that worth? I'd say it's worth about 150 points. Then you have a vehicle with no weapons that is pretty tough that can spawn 3 drones a turn on avg - that's worth about 55-60.

I'd go with about 205 points with these changes.

Thanks.

Concerning your point costing for the spawn mechanic, you have to consider what drones are worth - 12 to 14 points, generally, though I've stuck with 12 for my own calculations. Your 55-60 points consideration suggest you only think you'll spawn, on average, 5 drones (beyond the ~3 you spawn first turn), which seems... low to me. It's possible, if the enemy manages to wipe out all drone squads within 12"... but then, your enemy spent the time and effort to wipe out drone squadrons, which itself is probably a beneficial distraction that makes the ability worth the points, IMO.

You can also end up with 6 turns beyond the first of 3 drones, which would provide 216 free points - more than you paid for the actual unit.

Ultimately, I feel the most appropriate method of developing homebrew units is to err HEAVILY on the side of caution, in particular by overcosting (in your mind, as the creator) what the new unit will provide.

This gives you two benefits, as other players are more likely to:
A. Allow you to use the homebrew unit at all. The moment someone sees a drone-spawning, unit-boosting, homebrew unit, they're going to be wary, and for good reason - most people do NOT appropriately cost their [edit: percieved-to-be] homebrew, does-everything-awesome Mary Suemarine (or in this case, Mary Sue anime fan).
B. Enjoy playing against a new unit with new capabilities they haven't had the chance to consider tactically.

If, after reasonable playtesting, you find that you were correct in assessing the unit overcosted? Slowly adjust downwards, perhaps by 5-10 points at a time. Playtest again at those point levels, and see where it stands.

It is, however, your homebrew unit to design as you wish, so if you want to start the unit's introduction at "what I feel this is actually worth to be a competitive unit", more power to you. It may be the best approach if you tend to play with a tight-knit group of players who know you well enough to trust your judgment on such matters.

Cheers!