What is the point of shield drones?

[Remus Ventanus.]

Ok im mega confuzed. The new rules in the FAQ states:

 

"‘Saviour Protocols: If a Drones unit is within 3" of a friendly Infantry or Battlesuit unit when an enemy attack successfully wounds it, you can allocate that wound to the Drones unit instead of the target. If you do, that Drones unit suffers a mortal wound instead of the normal damage.’"

 

Now, what the heck is the point of the shield drones 4+ invul save? The only time you will ever use the drone, is to try and take a wound from another unit, but if it just takes a mortal wound every time, then why even have a 4+ invul? This makes no sense at all to me, can someone clear it up?

[chapter master 454]

Ok im mega confuzed. The new rules in the FAQ states:

 

"‘Saviour Protocols: If a Drones unit is within 3" of a friendly Infantry or Battlesuit unit when an enemy attack successfully wounds it, you can allocate that wound to the Drones unit instead of the target. If you do, that Drones unit suffers a mortal wound instead of the normal damage.’"

 

Now, what the heck is the point of the shield drones 4+ invul save? The only time you will ever use the drone, is to try and take a wound from another unit, but if it just takes a mortal wound every time, then why even have a 4+ invul? This makes no sense at all to me, can someone clear it up?

 

If you want to be cute take them to sit on an objective and make those 50 lascannons that everywhere clearly has to deal with those 4 wound infantry spam lists GW thinks every takes.

 

Snark aside, none. They literally are useless and mean nothing.

 

Hope for GW to realise and fix the issue. Personally I would actually shift 'Saviour protocol' to be only for shield drones (all variants of shield drones) and that they get the old version. This would mean that Gun drones do gun drone things only and marker drones only do marker drone things.

[Remus Ventanus.]

 

 

Ok im mega confuzed. The new rules in the FAQ states:

 

"‘Saviour Protocols: If a Drones unit is within 3" of a friendly Infantry or Battlesuit unit when an enemy attack successfully wounds it, you can allocate that wound to the Drones unit instead of the target. If you do, that Drones unit suffers a mortal wound instead of the normal damage.’"

 

Now, what the heck is the point of the shield drones 4+ invul save? The only time you will ever use the drone, is to try and take a wound from another unit, but if it just takes a mortal wound every time, then why even have a 4+ invul? This makes no sense at all to me, can someone clear it up?

If you want to be cute take them to sit on an objective and make those 50 lascannons that everywhere clearly has to deal with those 4 wound infantry spam lists GW thinks every takes.

 

Snark aside, none. They literally are useless and mean nothing.

 

Hope for GW to realise and fix the issue. Personally I would actually shift 'Saviour protocol' to be only for shield drones (all variants of shield drones) and that they get the old version. This would mean that Gun drones do gun drone things only and marker drones only do marker drone things.

That was my thought exactly. Shield drines should well....shield units.

[Commander Dawnstar]

The only real case that comes to mind is when the Shield Drones are closer to the enemy than a character, thus forcing the enemy to kill them first before the character can be targeted with shooting. Naturally that means they're at their most useful when you actively avoid Saviour Protocols coming into play.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Brightstar

[CrimsonReign]

they make a slightly more effective (not meat) meat shield than other drones, but otherwise are less useful 

[depthcharge12]

Why not make them have a FNP save against mortal wounds and the like? Or possibly be part of the actual crisis suit units?

 

Why not make something good instead of nerfing everything else?

 

Edit: make them two wounds or half the price of gun drones.

Edited July 8, 2017 by depthcharge12