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At my monthly game I encountered a new Tau build that looks devastating. I was not playing this opponent (I was getting crushed by a War Convocation + Knight), but the guy who did was not enjoying his situation.

Basically, the Tau player brought a handful of Fire Warriors squads and Drone Teams to make up the core of his army. The rest of his force was the Piranha formation with the "Refuel and Rearm" rule. He ran 16 Piranhas, 3 units of 5 and a unit of 1. Each left and re-entered the board each turn, dropping off two fresh drones... 32 drones per turn. By Turn 3 he had several hundred extra point of drones on the board. The volume of fire was making short work of the Wolfstar variations his opponent was running. He obviously went big on eBay and actually had all the models he needed, although in an exciting variety of color schemes.

Anybody seen this / played it / countered it? Looked pretty brutal to me and its only a matter of time before I have to face this guy.

Yes, it is a heavily discussed strategy referred to as the "Drone Factory". I've mapped it out but lack the models to play it. Comes to around US$1700.00 retail to build. Its not a tough army to defeat, but it psychologically overwhelming. The key it to win the mission, not kill the Tau. Any AP4 or better will kill the Drones, but Drones can't score.

SJ

 MacPhail wrote:
At my monthly game I encountered a new Tau build that looks devastating. I was not playing this opponent (I was getting crushed by a War Convocation + Knight), but the guy who did was not enjoying his situation.

Basically, the Tau player brought a handful of Fire Warriors squads and Drone Teams to make up the core of his army. The rest of his force was the Piranha formation with the "Refuel and Rearm" rule. He ran 16 Piranhas, 3 units of 5 and a unit of 1. Each left and re-entered the board each turn, dropping off two fresh drones... 32 drones per turn. By Turn 3 he had several hundred extra point of drones on the board. The volume of fire was making short work of the Wolfstar variations his opponent was running. He obviously went big on eBay and actually had all the models he needed, although in an exciting variety of color schemes.

Anybody seen this / played it / countered it? Looked pretty brutal to me and its only a matter of time before I have to face this guy.

I think he is not playing it right. The piranha cannot re-enter reserve on the turn they come in. So it should be 32 drones per 2 turns. The list is not hard to defeat. Eliminating a squad of piranha is definitely not hard for most army. His drones does not score as well, so having any of your unit in objectives is as good as scoring. Eliminate the piranha first then the firewarriors second. Then he has nothing on the board that can score. Also, his fire power is limited to s5 so its not hard to sit in tanks like land raider and lough off at the drones. If you can, bring tanks with template weapons such as heavy flamers, Blast, etc. Thunderfire cannon works too. Only shoot the drones with template weapons. Personally, a pure drone factory list is not hard to defeat if you know the list weakness.

Read the faq, he can enter and leave on the same turn, but he obviously won't be able to shoot with the piranhas; if you take AV 13-14, he will have to risk a turn firing seeker missiles giving you a turn to eliminate a squadron on your shooting phase.

The BRB FAQ states a unit that arrived from reserves cannot go back into reserves on the same player turn. So the drone factory based on the FAQ would be limited to a fresh batch of drones every other turn.

 Vankraken wrote:
The BRB FAQ states a unit that arrived from reserves cannot go back into reserves on the same player turn. So the drone factory based on the FAQ would be limited to a fresh batch of drones every other turn.

Not those faqs, the unofficial official faqs on their fb account, this question was asked specifically and answered.

I checked the first draft tau faq released this july and it stated that they can re-enter reserve on the same turn. Well then, in this case only army with large amount of tanks/transport, knight formations and another tau list can fight this. Other tau list being the easiest to deal with drone factory because they can intercept those piranha as they enter from reserves. Long live intercepting pulse driver storm surge and ion riptide!

 Big Mac wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
The BRB FAQ states a unit that arrived from reserves cannot go back into reserves on the same player turn. So the drone factory based on the FAQ would be limited to a fresh batch of drones every other turn.

Not those faqs, the unofficial official faqs on their fb account, this question was asked specifically and answered.

The facebook FAQ that covered the BRB states that you can't go back into reserves the turn you arrive. If the Tau FAQ says you can then its a rather big conflict that they need to clear up but its not the first time the FAQ team didn't keep their rulings the consistant. (This is why its still a draft)

So what's the convention on BRB vs. Codex... what trumps what?

It sounds like getting first turn and/or bringing some Interceptor is your best chance at disrupting the gambit. Otherwise just ignore it and work on scoring objectives.

Codex wins. The drone factory is a very powerful build that hasn't really been fully exploited due to ITC ruling that you have to wait a turn before re-entering reserves.

The ITC ruling just made so you needed less Gun Drones and more Marker Drones. Instead of a potential 128 Gun Drones spawned, you would have up to 96 Drones and 96 Seeker Missiles. With so many Seekers, I recommend figuring in a second Drone-Net of Marker Drones.

SJ

Brief thought: Do multiple Drone Networks' BS bonuses stack?

MilkmanAl wrote:
Brief thought: Do multiple Drone Networks' BS bonuses stack?

No. But it does make it twice as hard to remove the bonus.

SJ