Tau Drones

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Drones are small, round, usually hovering robots used by the Tau Empire for various support tasks. Because the Tau have never had to experience a robot rebellion, the way that the Imperium of Man did with their Men of Iron, artificial intelligences are not only still permitted but widespread in society. Unlike servitors, drones are capable of autonomous activity, though they aren't very bright when they work on their own. Despite being common and mass-producible, drones are not regarded as expendable (though we don't know exactly how "familiar" the Tau get with their drones).

Command-link Drone

Commander Shadowsun uses a special drone with extra communication equipment to help direct her soldiers. In-game, it used to project an 18" Ld10 bubble, but now it lets a unit re-roll To Hit rolls of 1 (because having Shadowsun shouting in your ear makes you a better shot, or something).

Drone Sentry Turret

Drone sentry turrets are probably the largest autonomous systems used by the Tau Empire, used to secure perimeters without requiring Fire Warriors to be put in harm's way. They mount twin-linked burst cannons, missile pods, fusion blasters, or plasma rifles in a "pop-up" configuration, so that the entire turret stays as enclosed as possible until the moment the guns need to fire.

Exploratory Drone

DX-11 Exploratory Drones are basically Tau version of C.A.T. units in Space Hulk missions, and fit similar roles of scouting, exportation and locating targets valuable enough to send a Fire Warrior team.

Grav-inhibitor Drone

Grav-inhibitor drones incorporate a "gravity wave projector" that slows down assaulting units, allowing the cowardlyintelligent, weak Tau to blast the assaulting unit to kingdom come via overwatchsurvive just a little longer in the face of the Emperor's close-combat might.

Gun Drone

Gun drones are the most common sort of drone encountered on the battlefield, armed with a twin-linked pulse carbine. They can be attached to squads of Fire Warriors, or fixed onto vehicles as detachable turrets, or even operate independently in squads of their own. Most other drones are built on the same chassis as the gun drone.

Heavy Gun Drone

The heavy gun drone is, as it sounds, the big brother of the gun drone, and in fact is the largest model of mobile drone used by the Tau. They carry twin-linked burst cannons, and can swap one of them for a markerlight if it will need to call down the seeker missiles.

Marker Drone

Marker drones are modified gun drones that carry networked markerlights for their squad (why the lazy bums couldn't carry their own markerlights is anyone's guess). They're more expensive than Pathfinders, but they can tag along with whoever is controlling them (which means, if they run with battlesuits, they can jump-shoot-jump as if they had jet packs themselves (you do realise that they have, and have always had, jetpacks)), and lend their markerlight bonuses to the squad they accompany.

Missile Drone

Missile drones carry missile pods. Shocking.

What's really shocking is that the Tau only deploy them with Broadside battlesuits (well, Games Workshop ruled that they do). Apparently, swarms of S7 AP4 was too awesome for a xenos army.

Pulse Accelerator Drone

Pulse accelerator drones carry pulse accelerators, which make pulse weapons even longer-ranged. Tau Pathfinders use them.

Recon Drone

Yet another toy for Pathfinders, the Recon Drone takes the bold step of giving squads organic heavy weapons -- well, a burst cannon isn't any more powerful than a pulse carbine, but it puts more shots downrange. It comes with some other toys for bringing in reinforcements, like a homing beacon and a positional relay (read: bubble of no-scatter for Deep Strikers).

Remora Drone Fighter

The Remora drone fighter has a main body about the same size as the Heavy Gun Drone, but it has wings, larger engines, and more weapons -- for one thing, it carries twin-linked burst cannons, a markerlight, and two seeker missiles at the same time.

Remote Sensor Tower

Remote sensor towers take the prize for the tallest drones used by the Tau -- when collapsed, they are twice as tall as a Fire Warrior, and they are twice as tall again when fully extended. They carry twin-linked markerlights and forward targeting data to nearby formations. They are often placed with sentry turrets to act as an autonomous defense line; if heavy anti-vehicle firepower is required, they can summon seeker missile-bearing Piranhas.

Shield Drone

Shield drones carry shield generators for protecting high-value targets (read: 4++ invulnerable save to soak high-Strength and low-AP attacks). The latest version is the MV52, which incorporates a 3++ save -- but only for Commander Shadowsun (which get kind of ridiculous in a unit that already has stealth and shrouded).

Shielded Missile Drone

The shielded missile drone was born in a moment of brilliance, when Earth Caste engineers realized that they could stick two systems on a single drone. The brilliance was immediately canceled out when the Ethereals decreed that the new drones would only be used by Riptides.

Sniper Drone

Sniper drones carry a rail rifle longshot pulse rifle (arguebly one of the best sniper weapons in the game, being AP5 instead of 6 48" range and RAPID FIRE! Yeah, two sniper shots at BS5 in 24" range from one drone) and come in teams led by up to three spotters carrying a markerlight/drone controller device that looks like a Virtual Boy.

Technical Drone

DX-4 Technical drones are the only drones without rules of their own -- Forge World suggests using them to represent certain stratagems in Cities of Death games, and there's an Apocalypse formation that uses them to repair drone sentry turret, but for regular games of Warhammer 40,000, they're really only good for decoration. Maybe they could be used by an Earth Caste who counts as a tech-priest or Techmarine from an allied detachment, or just homebrew a similar Tau unit.