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Author Topic: Vehicular Gun Drones and Target Saturation  (Read 2613 times)

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Offline Wyddr

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Vehicular Gun Drones and Target Saturation
« on: March 6, 2014, 10:07:33 AM »
So, I find myself with an hour or so to kill and nothing urgent to do, so let me pontificate a bit about gun drones.

In past editions, I found the vehicular gun drones to be the absolute best thing about Tau vehicles. In fourth edition (back when the Tau were incredibly good by even modern standards), they were basically free harassment units with the potential to cause significant problems for the enemy. Even in the era of kill points, the fact that the little two-drone units could contest objectives was absolutely golden. Today? Well, today they are arguably one of the most useful parts of our army.

Never Pay For Gun Drones
For many years this was my motto. I've never been terribly impressed with Gun Drone squadrons (I'm still not, honestly, though they are much better these days) and, with the possible exception of Stealth Suits, there isn't much motivation to attach them to other squads. You can get plentiful pulse fire from elsewhere, pinning isn't much of a motivation for the points, and the large unit footprint of a full squad makes the jetpack somewhat less than useful if it's your plan to keep it alive.

All of that changes, though, when dealing with vehicular drones. Since you aren't investing anything to field them (you want the devilfish anyway and Piranhas are worth it just as a cheap-as-chips fast fusion blaster) and since the enemy has no impetus to kill them (they aren't worth even First Blood points), their target priority is extremely low. Since you didn't really pay for them to begin with, you have no real need to keep them alive. They are basically free, independently operating guns that can fly around and do whatever seems like it would be disruptive for quite literally no risk to you. If they achieve anything at all, the will have earned more than their points back.

Their Advantages

1) Mobility: The Jet pack as well as the vehicle mount means you can get the drones where they need to be by turn 2. With Piranha, they can even assault things from the transport.

2) Firepower: While they don't pack an enormous punch, the fact that a two-drone squad packs firepower slightly better than a Heavy Bolter is important. It is just enough firepower to threaten most targets. Gun drones are unlikely to wipe units out unless used en masse, but they are very likely to damage units. They can take off the last hull point of a vehicle (assuming rear armor 10), they can knock a wound or two off most infantry squads, they have a chance to wound most MCs, they are twin-linked (giving them a better than average chance against flyers), they have Supporting Fire, and every once in a while they'll even pin somebody. When you are plinking away with little shots like this from 4-5 squads of the little guys, totally 10-12 drones altogether (without taking a slot or costing a point to field), suddenly they don't become funny anymore.

3) Surprisingly Durable: They aren't tough, but they are as tough as an Ork 'Ard Boy but with a jetpack. While nothing to write home about, when combined with the fact that they cost essentially nothing and are worth nothing, this is actually fairly substantial. Your enemy doesn't want to shoot at them, and the odd Rhino-mounted stormbolter won't be sufficient to make them go away. To kill them, the enemy needs to task an *actual unit* to shoot at them or assault them, and this is a colossal waste of his time and resources when we consider that you've still brought a ton of real Tau units to the party, too.

How to Use Them

In brief, Vehicular Gun Drones are an easy way to flood the board with harassment units. If playing a Mech Tau list, you are going to have 3-ish Devilfish and (I would recommend) 2-4 Piranha anyway. This means 10-14 gun drones floating around, causing trouble. Very few opponents can afford to deal with them, and most opponents won't bother. However, the incremental damage the drones do adds up over the course of a battle. Besides just shooting whatever seems opportune, here are some specialized uses for them:

1) Inhibit Movement: Clever drone usage can quickly make the enemy movement phase inconvenient. You can stick your drones places the enemy wants to move easily, and this forces them either to change their movement plans *or* engage the drones, and either option is a win for you. They can be particularly useful in getting in the way of flyers, again using their superior mobility to interfere with flight plans. If you bring lots and lots of drones, you can make a virtual movement minefield for deepstrikers or any infantry unit trying to get by to assault your main force.

2) Assault!: I realize it sounds crazy, but Drones are very capable of assaulting certain (weakened) units and keeping them tied up for 2 turns. Things like IG Heavy Weapons Squads or Eldar Rangers or the like aren't super likely to win the first round of combat by more than 1, which leaves the drones a slightly less than 50% chance of staying for that second round and screwing up a round of shooting, and that's assuming they don't manage to kill anybody themselves (which, while not likely, is entirely possible against squishy support units). This can frequently be worth the gamble, especially if you can get a couple teams of drones to assault all at once. I once tied up a small squad of Wraithguard this way for a turn or two, which paid off in a big way.

3) Anti-aircraft: I mentioned this above, but it bears repeating: Tau drones are actually pretty good anti-aircraft units. They have a decent rate of fire, twin-linking, and enough strength to pen AV10. Often this is all that is needed to knock down a flyer, and constitutes a minimal investment on your part.

The trick with using vehicular drones is getting them off their transports as soon as possible. Use the ride to boost them forward for a turn (by all means remember that the cargo of the devilfish is more important than the drones) and then pop them off to go their own way before their ride moves out next turn. If they go down with the transport, they may as well never have existed. They are best used as small independent units and the sooner you detach them, often the better off you'll be. They really do drive your opponents crazy, and I can't recommend them enough. Naturally, however, this presupposes you'll be taking a good number of Tau vehicles anyway (Devilfish especially), but this is typically the case for most Tau armies I've seen--2-3 devilfish are common, and 4-6 drones can still cause plenty of headaches.

Anyway, I hope you found this interesting, and I'd love to hear what you guys have found for those free drones to do.     

   

Offline The GrimSqueaker

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Re: Vehicular Gun Drones and Target Saturation
« Reply #1 on: March 6, 2014, 08:16:03 PM »
A nice summary, thank you.

Of course, I was one of those monsters who used to take Gun Drone squadrons merely because I like(d) them rather than for any performance advantage. Fielding them was like offering a herd of puppies for your opponent to slaughter.
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: Vehicular Gun Drones and Target Saturation
« Reply #2 on: March 7, 2014, 09:13:08 AM »
I took gun drones a few times way back in 4th Edition, but soon realized I could get all the advantages of a gun drone squad without paying a point by just taking a couple devilfish and piranhas.

These days I think Gun Drone Squadrons are actually useful, but not with gun drones. I would seriously consider taking a pack of marker drones in their place--they are more durable than Pathfinders, more mobile, and while they aren't as accurate, you can compensate by taking more of them. 8 Marker Drones costs the same as 10 Pathfinders and, while the pathfinders have much better accuracy, the Marker Drones probably have the flexibility and staying power to be relevant far further into the game.

I haven't tried it yet, of course--Marker Drone models are hard to come by and I just haven't had the motivation to raid my bit box and kitbash some together--but I think the theory is sound.

Offline Benis

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Re: Vehicular Gun Drones and Target Saturation
« Reply #3 on: March 7, 2014, 02:32:11 PM »
Great summary and interestingtake. I for one find the drone upgrades to be useful, tey have quite solid fire power for their cost (twin-linked BS2 is better than BS3) and adding a few of them to units that is usually strapped for ways of getting their numbers up can be useful (Crisis suits basically) I also find them worthwhile as a small addtition to Fire Warrior teams, a bit of extra resilience at the cost of having to have carbines is alright to me. All your thoughts on actual squadrons, though, are completely aligned with my thoughts.

As for Marker Drones, I think the target lock loaded Crisis Team with a drone controller and six Marker Drones are far superior than having them as an individual unit, you also, sort of get two choices in one by doing so.

Offline Wyddr

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Re: Vehicular Gun Drones and Target Saturation
« Reply #4 on: March 8, 2014, 03:01:49 PM »
I don't typically take Gun Drones in Crisis Squads because my crisis squads are usually tasked to shoot things that gun drones can't help with well (vehicles, TEQs, Monsters). If I attach drones to Crisis Squads, it's usually Shield Drones--they soak hits that would otherwise plaster my suits and add wounds overall.

As for the Marker/Crisis Suit combo, it suffers from a couple problems to my mind:

1) The fact that all the marker drones need to shoot at the same time as the crisis suits is inconvenient, with or without Target Locks. I often use markerlights to buff suits, and this set-up means a significant number of markerlights are placed in a marker-friendly unit that can't utilize them.

2) Fast Attack Slots are an easier trade than Elites slots. Elites are full of teeth--I spend points there on Riptides, Stealths, and XV8s. Relegating points in that portion of the army to a support role changes how those units are used and any unit carrying significant marker drones needs to compromise their offensive firepower somewhat to account for the drones. You'll be spending points (and hardpoint slots) on Target Locks and Drone Controllers whereas you might have otherwise purchased additional weapons or support gear that better prepares the suit for its combat role (or just saved the points). In Fast Attack, you're just trading Pathfinders for Marker Drones. Since I find the former *almost* useless and the latter intriguing, it's not as tough a trade-off.

3) The unit footprint and cost goes up (in aggregate), giving the enemy a higher priority target to take out. Markerlights are *already* high priority, so to make them moreso by tacking them onto a Crisis Suit unit seems to create the wrong idea in the enemy's head.

The golden mean in unit composition (in my mind) is a unit that is only slightly more dangerous than your opponent thinks it is. A pack of low-BS drones with no guns doesn't look that troubling, but they can support the rest of the army well in the long run. A giant unit of suits and drones that shoots missiles *and* has solid BS markerlights is just asking for it. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I like my markerlights to be unassuming and incidental to list design, not conspicuous and central. 

Offline AXEBLADE

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Re: Vehicular Gun Drones and Target Saturation
« Reply #5 on: March 9, 2014, 04:49:28 AM »
One quick warning to those using gun drones to inhibit movement is to make sure you don't give your opponent free movement by letting him charge them.

If your opponent has a squad of guys (especially if they are only armed with pistol/CC weapon) who need to run forward (say their transport got wrecked or something) then the charge distance and consolidation afterwards can easily save them a turn or 2 of moving.

Offline Wyddr

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Re: Vehicular Gun Drones and Target Saturation
« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2014, 09:47:14 AM »
One quick warning to those using gun drones to inhibit movement is to make sure you don't give your opponent free movement by letting him charge them.

If your opponent has a squad of guys (especially if they are only armed with pistol/CC weapon) who need to run forward (say their transport got wrecked or something) then the charge distance and consolidation afterwards can easily save them a turn or 2 of moving.

That's true, and good point. This can be mitigated somewhat with clever use of supporting Fire (all Drones can support each other) and simply placement. If you can tempt a 9" charge, good odds they'll fail it *and* get shot up to boot.

It's also worth mentioning how useful this is against non-tank vehicles, which *can't* charge you.

Offline GreaterGoodIreland

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Re: Vehicular Gun Drones and Target Saturation
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2014, 12:10:51 AM »
You know the unit that this really screws with? Individually powerful characters on their own.

At the end of 5th Ed, I used a pack of Gun Drones stripped from Devilfish (about 6-8 of them) to eliminate an Avatar of Khaine. He marched the guy through a particular part of the battlefield to chew up my Broadsides which were sitting reasonably forward in cover, and probably to support his vehicle deployed infantry that were in a slugging match with my Devilfish deployed Fire Warriors and some Kroot. So on he came, making as much effort as possible to get at my juicy units, and he finally reaches the open space in front of my position. He'll have me in a turn or two I reckoned, and I'm amphetamine parrotting it, having blasted a Wraithlord a million miles away instead of shooting at him with the railguns.

I detach the Gun Drones and run a screen in front of my units. My Fire Warriors are off to the side, greatly depleted but victorious in their fight against the Eldar infantry that had advanced, holding the objective which was keeping me in contention. He laughed, and charged. I then pointed out that it was in fact four units of two drones, and I had positioned them as best as possible to avoid a multicharge. So he smashes this one unit, but resolves to not make the same mistake. He takes a beating from my shooting the next turn, but still stands. He had planned to run, because I was positioning the drones so close to him that he would get no advantage from charging, but that stopped him from getting more than 4 inches towards his target.

Next turn, hypervelocity slugs and pulsefire ripped the Avatar apart. In short, the charge distance thing is only an issue if you position yourself more than 6'' away and there are other avenues of approach for the enemy to go to. Layer the units right, and they'll be bogged down for two or three turns depending. And all with Overwatch and Pinning Tests to contend with.

 


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