Medi-Probes, Medi-Drones Medics and Monitor

 

Medi-probes, medi-drones and medics are used by several factions in the Antares universe, so we have produced a single article to help with them all. The Isorian Senatex’ Monitor special rule is very similar to Medic, so this is included here, also.

A medi‐drone is a mobile medical drone that is able to administer immediate care to wounded. Medi‐drones are often included in units of troops, especially command units.

Medi-probes are sharded probes that roam the battlefield on their own, seeking out and helping the injured (see below for a description of probes).

Medics are trained battlefield emergency medical technicians who carry all the equipment necessary to save lives. They are able to immediately rehabilitate troops suffering minor trauma who might otherwise be rendered ineffective.

Monitors are special Isorian medics with extensive shard monitoring equipment. This means they are highly capable of handling injury to their own shard (squad), but cannot help anyone outside that shard.

Medi‐drones, probes and medics in human armies can only attend friendly  panhuman casualties – they cannot attend machines. They can attend to any Beast normally expected in their army, but not those of mercenaries, and grant the Ace rule to humongous beasts who are in their radius of effect.

Any friendly unit within 5” of each source of a medic effect, including the unit that includes the drone, can re‐roll one failed Res test each time it is shot at, fights hand to‐ hand, or otherwise suffers damage; a model with Monitor only affects their own unit. A ‘source’ is one or more medi-probes or one or more Medics or one or more medi-buddies, so a unit within range of a medi-drone, several medi‐probes and a Medic gets three re‐rolls (though rerolls cannot be rerolled). If a model has Tougth, then this can also be used with any rerolls from medic- sources.

The PanHuman Concord can take Medi-probe shards and both they and the Snetex and Freeborn can take medi-drones with their NuHu’s drone cloud and on their command squads. The Algoryn have medi-drones on their commanders but otherwise use Medic Teams.

The most well-known example of medics are those of the Algoryn, and medic teams are common amongst Vector AI and Founder formations. They are highly regarded by the troopers who rely upon them in the field. They can be equipped with a medi-drone, as well, and can even be armed, the Algoryn well aware that there most dangerous opponents, the Ghar, are bent on destroying all panhumans, whatever their role and on or off the battlefield!

Medi-Probe Shards

In general, probes are small hovering unarmed drones surrounded by a cloud of nanospore. They are simple machines with limited and specific intelligence – by Antarean standards, that is. Many exude nanospore (nanobots) that feed information back to the unit’s combat shard, as well as using whatever types of communication is possible (given much of what we consider advanced communication methods would be blocked in an Antarean battlefield).

Medi-probes operate in shards – independent groups of drones that scour the battlefield and carry out their assigned roles. A typical shard consists of four or more probes but only a single shard of each type of probe can be used – though more probes can be bought at higher FLs (check the army list). For most purposes each  medi-probe in the shard is treated as a unit in its own right, but the entire shard contributes only one order dice to the dice bag. Being shards, they cannot receive some order dice due to events as they can only be given a Run order.

Medi-buddies follow normal buddy rules, and Monitors and Medics act as infantry or their type. Medi-probes have a Res of 5 and a move (M) of 10″, able to Run at double that distance, though they may not sprint. Like other probes, medi-probes are nimble, so also bob out of the way of units trying to attack them hand-to-hand, and cannot be engaged in an Assault. Further, models in a sharded unit normally have to be targeted individually unless they are attached to an enemy unit or are within 1″ of each other.

Tip: It is worth checking a scenario before playing, as some scenarios and environments block the activities of particular probes.