Tau Drone Leadership

[Reglor]

I was playing a game with my sister, my BA with attached inquisitor and assasin vs her tau and I came across an interesting problem with drones. I used my Callidus assassin to shoot at her Commander (a Shas'o) with two gun drones and couldn't figure out the leadership to use for the drones. The drones only have a listed leadership if they are in a squadron.

 

In this game I ended up using a leadership of 7 for the drones but does anyone know an offical answer?

[turelhim vampire]

The drones are purchased as an upgrade to the character and therefore I would assume they would use his leadership. They form a squad with him anyway, so would use his leadership unless there is some rule you are using on your assassin which effects model's leadership rather than that of the unit?

[Reglor]

The rule in question is that her gun attacks using the target's leadership instead of their toughness. So because their are more dones then their are commanders, the majority toughness rule says I use the drones leadership instead of the commander.

[turelhim vampire]

I wouldn't have thought that you would use the Majority Toughness rule - as Toughness in this case is not a stat that is used, leadership is instead, so leadership rules would apply. Unless something specifically states otherwise, they would use the Shas'o's leadership instead of their own.

[Souchan]

You are told by the shredder to treat it as a regular attack, only to substitute the models Toughness with it's leadership value. For drones using the 7 in the summary profile would be the best way of dealing with it.

 

Raw wise however, the drone upgrades would in fact be immune to this particular attack as they simply do not have the stat to be attacked on. They would not gain the XV8's leadership as this never happens, there is a rule to use the IC's leadership instead of the unit's for leadership checks(Marines rites of battle also specifies when it may be substituted) and this is not a ld check. A case could be made to allow shield drones to do so, as they take their toughness from the controller.

 

So all in all, it is quite clear the drone rules do not even consider the exitence of the neural shredder and you should agree with your opponent or Tournament Director(depending what type of game) how they get handeld. I myself as said, find LD7 the cleanest solution. However Tau players won't like it as indeed, majority toughness(neural shredder is a loopy attack, best to just consider it a regular one but just replace all T values with LD and use the regular rules) does come into play in this instance in my opinion.

[ArmouredWing]

Not sure if you could back this up with RAW but this could very well work in your favour.

 

The neural shredder can only damage something that has a Ld value and with the attached drones not having this there is a possibility that you could only wound the drone operator.

 

Not exactly sure what the rules are for shield drones (lost the codex) but there might be a potential loophole there.

[greatcrusade08]

The shield drones, take on the toughness of its 'parent' unit, so majority toughness is irrelevant,

Also the shield drones have N/A under thier leadership stats, this is to represent the fact they are controlled by the 'parent' unit, it should also be stated that the shield drones unlike its gun drone counterparts cannot be taken as a seperate unit. Once the parent is dead they stop working!

 

Its my opinion that any attack vs their leadership will automatically fail as they have no leadership to speak of!

[Praeger]

This is a wierd case, but i ebeleive they will use the "parents" LD value.

 

Why?

 

1 - they use the T value of their unit.

 

2 - wht this measn is that the stat line for these now read T(of parent)

 

3 - in this case they are required to use the LD as their T value.

 

4 - swope the UNITS T and LD values around as the drones use the parents units values.

 

5 - parents LD now becomes the T of the drones.

 

 

Yes I realise this isnt specific enough and can be argued against, but I do think this is probably the best way of dealing with this.

[Souchan]

Only shield drones use the T of the leader. So that doesn't help much for the other 2 gear drones. Even snipers though, are mentioned as having N/A as their LD but in the summary they suddenly have a value. I still find the neatest and fairest solution to be counting them all as LD7, as it has been shown that's what they individually have typically.

[Hlakir]

Then how about the Marker Drone? They don't have a Leadership value anywhere in the codex. If you look at the Summary on page 48 of the Tau codex the Gun Drones are listed as having a Ld of 7, but with an * that tells us that it apply if they operate in an unit of their own. Sniper Drones have a Ld of 7 and Marker and Shield Drones have none at all.

[Souchan]

Then how about the Marker Drone? They don't have a Leadership value anywhere in the codex. If you look at the Summary on page 48 of the Tau codex the Gun Drones are listed as having a Ld of 7, but with an * that tells us that it apply if they operate in an unit of their own. Sniper Drones have a Ld of 7 and Marker and Shield Drones have none at all.

 

Reading both of my posts should make clear how I think about all the drones and the obvious disconnect between the rules for the shredder and how drones work.

 

In short, raw wise all gear drones are immune to the shredder. I feel however playing them as LD7 is more in tune.