I don't think they are better at 125 pts...
They can't garrison and will often prevent other from doing so if taken as an upgrade (or prevent stealth suits from teleporting).
I like disrupt and embarking them in a tigershark but without scouting ability and markerlights they disembark and make the opponent laugh at their low firepower...

So that's the negative... now where the positive?
How would you approach making them better?

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Some possible options.

Removal of the formation. Basically, you can't drop the cost much further for fear of popcorn. You can't really increase formation size. And there'd be resistance from the 40K purists to a significant change in baseline stats. A possible solution if a Drone Formation is wanted, is removing the 'standard' Drones in favor of, for example, Sniper Drones or Heavy Gun Drones. Making them (or including) Markerlight Drones is probably a bad idea.

Upgrades gain Disposable. Or some equivalent or limited form of BM/Assault reduction. That seems to be a big issue.

Given Scout. Allows them to Garrison, which is another big issue. And doesn't seem too out of character.

Minor Devilfish change. Adding a Grot-like transport option for Devilfish might make them useful in mechanized formations. This'd probably require a change to the Upgrades (1-4 for 25pts each) if you made Devilfish 2+1Drone, so they'd be more utilized.

A lot of it depends on what the perceived role is. That seems to be the bigger issue. Neal brought it up in the Space Wolves thread. Why are they purchased in 40K? What tactical or strategic role do they fulfill? If other things do a similar job, why is one taken over the other? I'm not conversant enough with Tau (or 40K) to answer those questions. But just cramming them in the list "because they're in 40K" seems like the wrong approach.

Morgan Vening

First off, let me just say that at this point, incremental changes with low risk are the order
for the day. I love the idea of the new crisis models, but for the time being, they are just
new models and capabilities, without a clear understanding of how they are used. So without more
info they are going to miss this cut.

On to the issues:




H: I can support these changes




Although I'm not against some sort of bump, I will defer this until we can evaluate the above cost
changes. Too many changes at one time muddies the results.




H: Sigh...I will support these changes, except I would like us to test the cost at 650.




H: No, to split formations. No to hard coding the types in the formations. I can support a points
jump to 175, though I remain unconvinced that it is necessary.



H: I will support these changes: Add Invulnerable Save. Change their MW shot to 4+.



H: No change at this time.



H: No change at this time.



H: No change at this time.

I think that's it for now. Let's test these changes, along with the Skyray formation at 250 and see where we land.

Cheers,

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- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

OK cool!

Honda since you've picked what to change can you put out V6.3 with the changes in place, and the last lingering typos corrected?

It will make it easier to spur on new testing if we have a new version of the list, rather than "hiding" the new set of stats to test at the end of a thread that's been running for over a month.

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Dobbsy, I think you didn't notice the part where Honda shot down price increases for those two formations.

Honda basically only enacted power boost proposals, and none of the power reduction proposals.

We'll see if that proves to be overpowered or not after a bit of testing, I guess...

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ahh yep! you're right. apologies.

Great, i'll surely try these changes in my next game, HH are a good choice now!

About the future of gun drones... I totally agree with Morgan Vening! Drones need a more specific tactical role and probably that role should be "infantry support" oriented. I think they should be only an upgrade and not a standalone formation and have scout ability for easier deploying, garrisoning and to make a better use of jet pack when disembarking (if drones are an upgrade is really difficult to use jetpack because of coherency rules).

@E&C: Regarding a v6.3, yes I will do that, hopefully this weekend.



This list has struggled with what to do with drones. They've existed, not existed, been absorbed and never been quite satisfactory for the broader community. As they currently stand, they are not a threat to the balance of the list (i.e. very few people bother with them). Radical changes "could" have significant impacts to other formations because of the rules that they share. So at this stage and for the upcoming freeze, don't expect much in the way of changes. As I've said before, if the frozen list only has this one formation that people have an issue with, and not because it's over-powered, then we will have come a very long way.

So my advice would be to focus attention on the items that are currently up for discussion and their testing.

Cheers,

_________________
Remember Taros? We do.

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Sure!! ;-) I was just thinking about *far* future of drones, eheheh...

I tried the changes in a couple of matches yesterday. I really like the new fusion HH:a fast and skimmerer RA hunter for a little price.

I'm a little worried about the point drop of the manta because at 650 you can deploy both manta and ax-1-0 in a 3000 point army having a high number of macroweapon (crisis,HH,maybe the spaceship) and 2 TK. Isn't a bit strong?

Well, that army would have no fighter cover at all, so I would think it would tend to suffer in that regard...

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I haven't played Tau yet but am just starting to gear up to collect a Tau army.

I've been reading the Tau threads and enjoyed this one in particular.

Obviously I have no experience as yet but if I was asked, I would've guessed that the Hammerhead with Railgun would've been at least as effective as the Broadside considering it moves twice the distance and has Skimmer, has more weapons and can't be affected by AP weapons. I realise the Broadside has RA, is Infantry and has a slightly better to-hit with its railguns but I would've thought this would've be at least balanced by the Hammerheads Speed/Skimmer/extra weapons.....

Just a passing comment, that's all

In practice, the heavy armour of the Broadside suit is very useful to the Tau army, as it largely lacks such heavily armoured units. So that makes it a little more useful in the context of the army as a whole than its pure stats would otherwise suggest.

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