The their expansion, the T'au Empire came to face a number of enemies which had a tendency to charge into close quarters to cleave apart their foes, from Space Marines to Tyranids. This sort of Combat was one that the Tau were ill suited to deal with even with the aide of Kroot Mercenaries. Eventually it was determined by the leadership of the Fire Caste that something needed to be done. The result was the Tau Slicer Drone.







The basic idea was simple: use their existing Drone template and add to it's undercarriage a set of three power blades based off captured Imperial models that were hooked up to a motor on the undercarriage to spin them around at high speed. The drones would then fly towards their targets, making passes and cutting them to ribbons as they went. Comparatively cheap and easy to produce, even Astartes armor was not invulnerable to their attacks. They did particularly well in urban and forest combat. As a final measure, each Slicer Drone carried a single explosive charge which would detonate on it's destruction. The survival rates of said drones was low compared to gun drones, but they were extremely effective disrupting enemy ranks and tying up melee troops while Fire Warriors delivered the Killing Blow





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