Gun drones are, perhaps, the epitome of the Tau for many players. Ask another player about the Tau and, along with railguns, jump-shoot-jump and “they’re a bit too Manga for me”, most will mention gun drones.

In large numbers, gun drones can bring highly mobile pinning weapons to the table and, in small numbers, they can detach from vehicles and really annoy opponents/ provide additional kill points (depending on the mission you are playing), so I had high hopes for heavy gun drones when I read Imperial Armour 3. There is nothing that cannot be made cooler by being made heavy – weapons, metal and even water. So let’s see how they got on.

The Basics

In terms of stats a heavy gun drone is identical to its smaller, less well-fed cousin in every area but one. It has +1 Toughness, which makes it a bit more durable, but it still only has 1 Wound and a 4+ armour save, so not that durable – as tough as a Scout Marine, but with the usual Tau leadership.

Maybe the ‘heavy’ refers to the weapons. That’ll be it. What do these guys fill their hands (weapon slots) with when trouble comes to town?

Twin-linked burst cannons.

Meh – not too bad. They have their uses. But still – ‘heavy’? Worth noting that twin-linked BS2 is better than BS3, so these guys are marginally better shots than others armed with burst cannons eg. stealth suits.

In terms of squad size, you can have 2-6 of these, meaning you will need to purchase 3 sets from Forgeworld to get a full size unit. Or you could make your own. They are jetpack infantry just like normal gun drones, meaning they can deep strike and jump shoot jump. As for cost, each heavy gun drone is just over twice the price of a regular gun drone.

The FOC slot these fill should come as no surprise, and finally the use of the word ‘heavy’ is justified (if not actually excused). These units are a Heavy Support choice.

Options

You can swap one of the burst cannons per drone for a markerlight, meaning your burst cannon is no longer twin-linked. There is no limit on how many drones you can do this with, so you could have a squad of six all with a single markerlight. Before you get all giddy, just bear the BS2 in mind. You cannot take a targeting array with heavy gun drones, alas, and as the markerlights are not networked you cannot use them to boost the BS of the heavy gun drones themselves.

And that is it. The rules are brief and without any special features or unusual options.

Uses

Heavy gun drones are competing with S10 weaponry in the heavy support slots, but let’s assume you want to make a themed army, and that theme is mobility. Hammerheads are an obvious choice, but your other two heavy support choices (broadsides and sniper drones) are about as static as can be. Heavy gun drones let you keep all your forces on the move.

Let’s assume you are taking a full strength unit, since you will want to get the most bang for your buck from your heavy support slots.

If you take a full size unit, all armed with TL-burst cannons, you will be spending 150 points on a unit that can put out 18 S5 shots at 24″ (using JSJ). Compare that with a unit of stealth suits who cost 180 points to do the same damage at the same range. For the extra +30 points you are getting six 3+ armour saves and stealth field generators. That’s a good deal, but on the downside, the Elite slots are the most quickly filled in any Tau army, so there is an opportunity cost there. You are also giving up the wargear options of the stealth suits, including the ability to take a fusion blaster.

If all you want is to put out lots of mobile S5 fire at medium range, heavy gun drones are a cheaper way of going about it than stealth suits or crisis suits, and a good use for any markerlight tokens you might have generated.

Alternatively, you could try and emulate the stealth markerlight team (albeit without the ‘stealth’ bit), and upgrade the unit with markerlights. Six markerlights hitting on 5s will give you (summon the power of mathhammer!) two hits per Turn, although you will get the odd occasion when none or all of them hit. Compared to pathfinders it’s not great, and you are probably wasting eighteen burst cannon shots, since the ranges of the two weapons don’t match up. A stealth markerlight team (3 stealth suits, 2 drones – minimum cost 165 points) will generate between 1 and 2 markerlight hits per Turn, so a heavy gun drone marker team is a viable alternative. It lacks stealth and the 3+ saves, but has more wounds, more redundancy, better toughness and more firepower. I’d say if you run a stealth markerlight team you should give these guys a whirl.

Example: your pathfinders paint a unit of ork boyz, getting 5 tokens. You strip their cover save and have two tokens left over to boost your heavy gun drones BS to 4. You fire 18 burst cannon shots and 6 markerlights. You maybe kill 10 orks and generate another couple of markerlight tokens (remembering the markerlights don’t benefit from the increased BS) for the next Tau unit to use. Happy times

With the new XV9 being placed in Fast Attack (note to Forgeworld – thank you! Please release the model so I can buy it. Kthxbai.) I hope that any revamp of the heavy gun drones would see them placed in Fast Attack as well. On the other hand, the XV9 beats these guys all ends up, so…

One other use is to use these drones as an escort for an HQ. With the same Toughness you will not be risking unnecessary wounds on your commander, and they share all the other benefits that a gun drone escort brings (I4 attacks being one). If your commander is rocking a markerlight as well (an XV-84 suit) then a unit of markerlight-equiped heavy gun drones seems a sensible place to put him. Add a couple of shield drones and you have a resilient, mobile, high-leadership unit with blistering firepower and a key supporting role.

Conclusion

I love drones. I made a couple of heavy gun drones and bought some more from Forgeworld, and have played the unit in a few games. They never did anything stellar for me (got shot, got assaulted etc), but I might give them a go as a markerlight team.

Finished apart from the varnish, that is. I am now out of Testor’s Dullcote, and cannot find a supplier in the UK who is quoting less than 6 weeks to restock

But in the meantime here are finished Heavy Gun Drones I promised.

The first time I ever applied decals was to my Inquisitorial Stormtroopers. I added the “I” to the shoulder pads, and watched in horror as the 2d shapes utterly failed to dry flat on a 3d surface. Trying to stick them down was fruitless and cutting them made it even worse. I swore a vow – topography had failed me for the last time!

Much toil and internet followed until I discovered Microsol and Microset. Opinion seemed divided over the best one to use and the best way to use them so I placed my order, rolled two dice and entered the difficult terrain of experimentation.

The bottles are cheap and, unless you plan on drinking the stuff (warning: do not drink the stuff), will last you for ages. £5 plus postage gets you both bottles here.

So what do they do? They both describe themselves as “setting solutions for decals”. Both soften the decals as well, one more than the other. In fact, Microsol acts a bit like an acid and dissolves the carrier the decal image is printed on. Don’t worry – I’ve never had it dissolve anything else, eg. paint. It is intended for use on models, after all. It does actually contain an acid similar to vinegar. Some modellers have tried using vinegar as a cheap substitute for Microsol and if you like uncontrolled yellowing of your model, vinegar is the choice for you. If you think of Microset as the glue (it SETs the decal in place) and Microsol as the agent to disSOLve the decals, you won’t go far wrong.

I found that the best solution was to use both at once and, to demonstrate this, I picked out a couple of Forgeworld Heavy Gun Drones I bought off Ebay for a song a while back. A basic paint job hid the fact that they were probably recasts. That, or Forgeworld were having a real off day with the burst cannons. Who cares? – onto the pics!

(click for extreme closeups)

Step 0. I wanted some air bubbles for Step 3, so I didn’t do this bit, but you should. The surface of your model is not perfect, at least at the scale the decal is working on. It is full of imperfections, pits and microscopic ruts. All of these will do their damndest to make air bubbles under your decal. Air bubbles bad. The best way to avoid them (other than applying your decals in a vacuum – warning: do not apply your decals in a vacuum) is to make the model surface nice and flat and shiny. You could use gloss varnish in a pinch, but I prefer to use Future floor polish. It is available in the UK as Klear, made by Johnstons. Paint a thin coat of this on and let it dry – takes a few minutes. You are now much less likely to get air bubbles. Doesn’t that make you all warm inside? No? Don’t hate me because I care. Err, moving on.

Step 1. Paint on some Microset. Doesn’t matter if you use too much – it dries clear and matt. Soak up any excess with cotton buds or paper towel. Soften the decal in some warm water in the usual way (ie. around 20 seconds depending on the age of the decal – older ones need longer soak time), lift it out (I use a wide, flat brush) and slide it onto the model in the desired location. I hold the decal paper in one hand and use the same wide, flat brush to slide the decal off and onto the model. Use the broad tip of the brush to gently nudge the decal into the exact position you want. Gently. If any part of the decal is overhanging (as the edge of this one is) use your brush to tuck it under. The Microset will hold it in place.

You can already see the telltale glint of the decal carrier (the clear, shiny bit), defining the edges of the decal. Usually, this won’t go away and will plague you and your model for evermore, but we’re going to make it disappear with a step I brazenly call Step 2.

Step 2. You don’t need to wait for the previous step to dry – just go right ahead and apply a liberal amount of Microsol. Soak up any excess, but be careful not to touch the decal as you do so. Within a few minutes you will see it starting to look like this picture. The decal is starting to sag over the panel line and, if you look closely, you can see the decal itself starting to assume the same texture as the surface beneath. Wait for the decal to dry before sampling the vintage delights of Step 3.

Step 3. Even with Microsol turning the decal softer than pony-flavoured sunbeams, it won’t always be able to adhere to the exact contours of your model. That is why I put this decal over the panel line – Forgeworld always make them wide and deep and the decal won’t venture in there without some help. Once the Microsol from Step 2 is dry, take a scalpel or craft knife with a new blade (it must be razor sharp), and cut the decal. In this case I cut it along both sides of the panel line. You would also cut it where you see any air bubbles. I didn’t get any air bubbles this time (I was kind of hoping I would, so I could show you what to do!), but just slice right through them. Gently. Then apply some more Microsol.

I then took some watered down black paint and carefully ran the brush along the panel line again. Simple, but it looks good.

Step 4. Weathering. Unless you want your decal to look like it was painted on that morning take a needle file (you might find a rounded one works best) and very gently start scraping some wear and tear into the decal. It must be dry, or you will simply glom it into a horrible mess. Do as much or as little as you want, but beware of scraping away the paint underneath. A coat of Klear at Step 0 helps to protect your base layer of paint, here.

Step 5. Apply a coat of Klear over the decal and surrounding area. In this case I coated the whole top dome of the drone. Once it has dried, it will help to protect your decal and stop any further layers of paint or washes softening it or lifting it. You can now complete your model, and I will edit this post later to include a pic of the finished pair of Heavy Gun Drones. You will see that with the final coats of varnish, the decals are rendered completely invisible. Here is an example from another model of mine where I followed the same technique:-

I like the look of the Forgeworld Heavy Gun Drones, even though their rules make them a weak choice, especially in the Heavy Support FOC slot they occupy (rules in Imperial Armour 3: The Taros Campaign). Rather than buy them from Forgeworld (I don’t mind doing that, but these are a bit pricey for such a weak unit) this is my version from beginning to end.

First of all, here they are all painted up to match my Tau army:-

Here is a quick photo-rundown of how I did them:-

Basic ingredients; 1 Devilfish door and 2 XV8 burst cannons

The burst cannon mount is made from the back of an XV8 suit, cut as shown

It attaches like this

Then take one of these, and drill your flying base hole (2mm diameter) in the top

And attach it to the underside of the burst cannon mount like so

Then you simply glue the burst cannons on the side. Make sure you match them up carefully while the glue sets, so that they are both parallel and level.

To make a markerlight (scroll down for finished pics) take a fusion blaster and one of these (cutting where shown)

Then glue the part you cut off to the back of the fusion blaster. Cut the muzzle off the fusion blaster, as well as the little tank-bit on the underside so it looks like this

Lastly, you should be left with some Heavy Gun Drones that look like this

The one on the right has the markerlight.

While you are here, these are some objective markers I made:-

Some kind of crashed sensor drone:-

A member of my Ethereal’s Honour Guard in a bad way:-

And a weapons/ammo cache:-

All comments, crit and questions gratefully received