I don't think everyone uses their units with this strategy in mind. From a fluff perspective, it's outrageous, and from a practical perspective, my Kroot have far more valuable things to do than be a meatshield. Like, outflanking and seizing backfield objectives or mauling juicy targets that have been left in the enemy's rear.

For the cost of three Gun Drones, I get two guaranteed armor saves equal to that of the Broadside and two guaranteed invulnerable saves. Relying on cover saves is very risky business, with so many ways for the enemy to ignore them. This wound group obsession is ignoring the fact that gun drones are not effective at all in keeping a Broadside squad alive, because they do not have the Close Protection rule, and thus won't get the terrific armor save. For so few additional points with so much greater a chance at survivability, I'm taking one shield drone or two shield drones. Nuts to Gun Drones, which will rarely get to shoot at anything anyhow because of their short range.

Rhumal - I agree with you completely. It's worth noting that there are probably more Tau players out there that do the 'meat shield' approach than you realise, but to me it takes away some of the key reasons why I field Kroot in the first place.

I also agree with you regarding the points difference. We're not talking about a 60-80pt difference between the two options, and to me the benefits are well worth the marginally larger cost to field two Shield drones.

Personally I always use two shield drones on my broadside unit.

The extra ten points over the cost of gun drones increases your flexibility as you have the option to deploy your broadsides in the open, outside of cover. Typically this strategy is conducted in concert with a Helios Shield'O (adding another two shield drones and two more distinct wound groups). By placing this combined unit forward you are essentially insisting that your opponent dedicate his entire armies shooting on this unit for a minimum of two turns or more. Normally if the the unit falls it does so around turn 4 or 5, but come the end of the game it's not like they were going to hold an objective.

The Broadsides I deploy are commonly equipped with Plasma and TA's, so ignoring the rest of my army I'm looking at 8 high accuracy AP 1-2 shots if a assault team rush to within 12 inches, and because I'm in the open they are too (unless somethings gone horribly wrong). Admittedly I'm also predominantly playing against MEq within my group, and I suspect this would be far less beneficial against hordes, but it would remain distracting for your opponent. If you have other static elements in your army is a great way to say here's were we are having this fight - bring it to me if you can.

By using gun drones instead of shield drones I'd be forced to deploy into cover to maximise their chances against instagib. Don't know about the games anyone else plays but we always sort out the terrain after the lists are settled on. No guarantee you will have favourable cover. This might also put you closer to the flanks than you are comfortable with, or further back so your enemy writes off trying to assault your broadsides.

The 10 extra points are a bargain, even if they only soak up one extra round of your enemies firepower.

100% agree.

Let me add a further comment to that:

There's a lot of purely theoryhammer tacticas out there and the common denominator is absolutely ignoring the opponent. Granted the opponent won't always play optimally, but if you want to make a sound decision, you have to assume he will.

So, we face a Lascannon armed imperial foe. They want to take our Broadsides ASAP, to protect their transports and vehicles, but we have 2 Drones attached.

Are they really going to be boneheaded enough to shoot a single-shot lascannons at these broadsides and lose 2 or 3 turns of shooting?! Is this kind of opponent we build our tacticas against?

Because the opponents I normally play will try to do something feasible with the lascannons (Try to down a Devilfish, perhaps the Hammerhead, maybe some of exposed Crisis Suits if there are any etc.) and in the meantime try to bring some bolters, auto-cannons or other rapid fire weapons on the broadsides first. Shot 10 bolter shots at the unit, and the drones will be taking ~2 hits each to save. If they fail (and Gun Drones will), the Broadsides will be open for meltas or lascannons next (quite likely in the same turn of shooting).

Shield Drones are the only sensible protection, because rather than merely absorbing the hit they are a deterrent. They actually make the opponent wonder if it makes sense wasting a turn of bolter shooting and then lascannon/melta shooting at the Broadsides at all. If he decides assault is the only cost-effective way to deal with the problem, you gain turns of shooting out of the deal - that's what you pay for. Even if they decide to shoot at Broadsides with overwhelming amount of fire, the gain is ours - all these weapons stay away from our softer units for an entire turn of shooting.

So as far as "deterrent" aspect goes, Gun Drones achieve very little, IMHO. They merely introduce one more step to the Broadsides removal, while Shield Drones may actually force the opponent to change his plan and send assault units after the threat.

I’d have to say this sums it up nicely. Adding on to this is high strength blasts. Say your opponent directs a Boomgun or Battle Cannon blast at your broadside unit, would you rather attempt to absorb those shots with a 4+ cover save or a 2+ armor save?

When the inevitable assault comes (and they will, we all know this) having shield drones means you can take those 4++ saves against his power weapons and laugh off his regular attacks with obnoxious amounts of 2+ armor saves.

Remember, do you want a 10 point fire warrior protecting you or a 15 point terminator protecting you? Because that’s what it boils down to. In fact, the shield drone is better than the (standard) terminator (in terms of survivability) since it has a superior invul save.

Are they really shooting Battle Cannons at your Broadsides and not your Crisis? Your opponents are kind of stupid, no offense. Trying to punch a 2+ save with an AP3 gun is basically the worst possible use of firepower.



You should probably rely on something other than drones in your own unit to protect you from assaults. If your Broadsides are in an assault, you are already losing, because the Broadsides aren't shooting anything and they're going to take a casualty, fail a morale check, and get hit with Sweeping Advance. And, honestly, you want them to be as soon as possible, because if you get "lucky" and they hold out, it only ups the chances that they will break and run at the end of your turn and thus let the opponent charge (and kill) another unit or two. Because at this point they are deep in your backfield and your army has completely failed to do its job and you are going to lose very soon if something does not turn around.

Shield Drones do offer more protection, but I think the "only Shield Drones ever in XV88 units" mentality is missing several key factors. And Shield Drones ain't no Terminators.



I would LOVE to face this guy. Throwing Lascannons against Devilfish, the toughest unit in my army? Yes please. 50% chance to hit, 50% chance to pen, 50% chance to ignore it with DP, 33% chance to actually kill it. Go ahead, throw your twenty-four Lascannons against my single Devilfish; that sort of s*** makes me squeal with glee.

My Broadsides are not afraid of Autocannons because they have a 2+ save. They don't have to deal with Rapid Fire guns because I don't let my opponents get within 12" of them. Is this a really a problem for you? How are they getting this close? I have 3-9 Broadsides and 6-12 Crisis (depending on points levels) plus Piranha and other stuff- how are you not de-meching them almost immediately as they close in?

(Also 10 Bolter shots = 6 hits = 3 wounds, which isn't enough to force a save on my Gun Drone. In order to force two saves on my GD, he would need ten successful wounds, or roughly fifteen Marines in Rapid Fire distance. And again: why the &%$@ did you let that many Marines that deep into your lines? Don't say deep strike, because if you castled up properly, there's nowhere except outside your Kroot barrier for them to DS into.)

I don't think you should build armies in imaginary isolation, but to turn things right back on you, that sort of sounds like what you're doing here. Maybe you play against a guy who does that, but that sounds like some seriously screwed-up target priority he has. "Yeah, I'm not worried about those Broadsides or Crisis hanging out back there and shooting my armies to death, but DEVILFISH MUST DIE!!" That's the exact opposite of what he should be doing against a Tau army.



You talk as those Shield Drones are somehow magically immune to Lascannons, etc, that most people (in my area at least) are going to be aiming at the unit. You still only have a 50% chance of surviving the Lascannon shot. I don't see how that's really any different.

And "Man I should assault those Tau" is not really a change of plans for most opponents. We suck in assault. Most people's primary plan against us is "weather the shooting, get into assault" already. That's not a change.

Well, maybe my crisis suits are out of LOS from the cannon? Maybe they are still in reserve and haven't deep struck in. Maybe it's turn 4 and they have been killed or tied up in assault by something else. Maybe, just maybe, I blew up all of his AP2 weapons and that's the best he's got for keeping his armor alive.

Even so, you are correct no (good) player is going to shoot a battle cannon at a unit with 2+ saves when there are T4 3+ multi-wound models running around. But, when you have the opportunity to blow away the models protecting those units, such as your Gun Drones, which don't get a save, so high strength AP2 weapons can fire on the XV88s you might just do it. And no sensible Tau player is going to risk an ID wound on a Broadside because their Gun Drone can't take a save. But spending the extra points to make them shield drones ensures you won't have to make that choice since they probably aren't going to be shooting you. That in and of itself makes them worth the extra points.



So you've never been outflanked, had your kroot shield collapse and not been able to get away with your broadsides? I don't know how you deploy but against a non-deep striking army my broadsides are on the opposite side of the field from most of the rest of my army. If a unit charges them they aren't near anything else so they can take their time.



I guess you missed the entire "in terms of survivability" clause in my statement. A T4 2+/4++ model has a greater chance of surviving then a T4 2+/5++ model. So, yes when it comes to tanking shots they are almost exactly like Terminators.

When I am feeling particularly mean, I join my Shas'O (with 2 shield drones) AND my Shas'El (with 2 shield drones) to my unit of 3 Broadsides (with 2 shield drones from team lead with HW and Bonding knife and ASS).

Rock hard.

Gotta get through 6 shield drones to get to the Broadsides from shooting. And they DO shoot back!

And I give the Shas'O an XV-89 suit and the Shas'El gets Iridium armor on an XV-84 (free markerlight) = all 6 shield drones have 2/4+ sv!

Other advantages to this setup:

Use the Shas'Os leadership.

If someone who is nasty in CC gets close, I detach the Shas'O to tie him up and the Broadsides continue to fire. If Shas'O dies in cc, they shoot the nasty CC guy who got too close.

Of course, that's only if 'nasty CC boy' gets past my Gundrone squadron speedbumps or kroot speedbumps..

These all seem like very situational uses or poor situations for the Tau player. While there is a certain amount of contingency planning that needs to go into any army, planning for situations like "70% of my firepower is dead and they are still pounding me with the strongest weapons in their arsenal" is not really the sort of thing I would bother to do.



*shrug* If those Battle Cannons are aimed at my Broadsides and not my Crisis, I am fine with that. Every turn he wastes his big guns trying to chip away at the unit is another turn I am hitting him full strength with proper target priority rather than doing everything backwards and hoping it works out. (My el-cheapo Gun Drones still have a 4+ against the Battle Cannon hits I'm allocating them; not as nice as a 2+, I'll admit, but you're talking about a very specific situation here.)



Outflanking? Well, if I didn't put a Kroot/Gun Drone/Piranha/whatever shield along that board edge, I deserve what I get for being stupid. If my Kroot are going down, I have probably had 2-4 turns of shooting to deal with units. Whatever breaks my Kroot is either going to be basically the last unit they have left (and get Rapid Fired to death by my Crisis) or part of an army that is absolutely devastating me (in which case I'm probably going to lose and Shield Drones aren't going to change a thing.)

And, uh, yeah, that is basically the opposite of the way I deploy. I would never sit my Broadsides over on their own, alone and unprotected like that. Seems like suicide to me- Tau need to use interlocking support from their army to function effectively, and a 250pt "distraction" is not exactly a great idea in my book.