What to do with drones?

[The Pounder]

Ok gents, like the title says, what to do with everyone’s favourite floating discs?

I’m wondering, are they better used in a support role in units? Or formed into units of their own?

How to equip them? Marker, Shield, or Gun?

A lot of questions I know but I want to get the most out of them.

[Panzer]

Gun Drones are still easily worth their points even at a 50% increase. Just use them as before but don't build Drone spam lists anymore.

 

Shield Drones are still really good as well. They're really hard to get rid of with regular anti-infantry weaponry due 4++ and 5+++ unlike Gun Drones or Marker Drones and they can actually survive the use of Saviour Protocols. Just imagine a single Drone soaking up two Lascannon shots aimed at your Crisis, Ghostkeel, Braodside or Riptide. For just 10 points. Your enemy will hate you for it. :D

 

Marker Drones are ... difficult. It's really really important to hit with Markerlights if you bring such a unit but Marker Drones are one of the units who'd like to benefit from 5+ Markerlights the most due BS5+. You can give them +1 to-hit via Drone Controller but ... do they really offer more than Gun Drones hitting on 4+? I doubt it. I'd say Fireblades and Marksman are still the way to go for Markerlights, especially with the Sa'Cea stuff now.

 

 

On the question about how to use them...well. First things first, yes they are definitely a support unit. Basically everything in a T'au army is supposed to support the rest of the army in one way or another. Except for something like Crisis who drop in and wreck stuff I guess.

Gun Drones I'd play either as seperate unit or with a Crisis unit. As seperate unit it'll depend on what the Codex says about the "Drones can now Mantastrike"-rumour. Manta striking them can definitely be strong if dropped into the right position as response to enemy movement, otherwise I'd go with the classic Dronefish (Devilfish with 2x Gun Drones filled with a Fireblade + 2x5-6 Gun-Drones).

Shield Drones I'd either drop with Crisis/Commander, attach to Pathfinder with special rifles or play as seperate unit for Ghostkeel/Riptide/Broadside.

Marker Drones ... I'd honestly don't use at all currently.

[MithrilForge]

Nice bit of info there sfP, 

i too am a bit rusty on the equipment list of T'AU so this is helpful 

look fwd to saturday - T'AU day  

 

Mithril 

[Waking Dreamer]

Just a question to add, are technical drones worth it on a crisis heavy army list? Consider I have a riptide, a broadside and about eight crisis models including a couple of commanders, would the ability to repair d3 wounds on a 4+ with a d6 roll per unit come in handy?

 

Minimum per unit is 2 technical drones that can either shoot: 8" assault 1 S5 AP0 D1, select an enemy unit 12" away and remove any cover bonuses from their save, or repair a battlesuit unit for d3 wounds on a 4+. Each drone is 16 points and a unit is minimum 32 points. Though I believe You can stack repair attempts as long as you have multiple repair units within 3" of the battlesuit.

 

3 units of these repair drones can give yourself a vanguard detachment with a say HQ Commander. What do people think?