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So we have a guy at our local gaming scene who just loves his kroot and crisis suits. while the suits are bothersome, it's the kroot that really mess with my day. He usually takes full squads, half warriors and half hounds. he always keeps them in reserve to outflank them in. He'll go after infantry, but I've seen him use them to tear apart tanks with dozens of glances.

My roommate and I have really been thinking about this one. He's not the best at strategy (We're pretty sure he just uses whatever lists and strats are most popular on the interbutts), but he is rather effective. between him and his necron buddy who is always lying about his codex, we have quite a thorn in our sides when it comes to the scene at our FLGS.

So here's what we're thinking: walkers. I play orks, and my roommate plays IG. If we keep armored sentinels or killa kans on our flanks, they should be able to tie up the kroot well. however, we aren't sure, as neither of us owns the Tau codex, and we're not very familiar with their rules. I don't think they can glance the front armor of those walkers, and I've never seen him take anything special with them (if there is anything they can upgrade to, that is. Again, I don't know tau).

Thoughts? Massive tactical holes?

Well the best thing Kroot can field is a single model with Str 6 attacks, and that's the shaper (Not sure bout the str of a Krootox, that might be worrisome, check the dex), and even a Kroot Shaper can, at best, Glance a front armor 12 walker, and that's assuming he manages to hit it and roll a 6...not something I'd be too worried about. Tying them up with walkers is an excellent idea, I've used a dread for just that reason, had him tie up and destroy both of my opponents troops in an objectives game (the guy wasn't that good at all, charged right in when he couldn't make so much as a paint scratch on the dread), the only tricky bit is getting those walkers into combat without getting shot up by the suits' fusion blasters. If you can get them into the combat, you should be good to go. Don't let him give you any nonsense about Tau being able to shoot into a combat, they definitely cannot (had that tried on me by the same Tau player...he's a TFG fo sho).

Don't hang around the sides of the table.

Kroot are slow. If you're not standing around in their trap zone, they'll never catch you. If they try, they'll get cut down on the way in.

If you get an Armored Sentinal stuck in with the Kroot they won't be doing anything.

@Darkjediben: Shapers are Str4, same as regular Kroot.

Only Krootox can Glance Armored sentinals. everything else can't do a thing against AV12.

Get a couple Sentinals with Heavy Flamers and Roast them before assaulting them.

Eventually they will fail a LD test and you might sweep them.


You can then hunt down his Suits.

go dark eldar bro, im not up to date with the new codex, but think about it. scurages are like space marine devestators with jump packs. You just shoot and fall back all day. Granted the people might get annoyed, but your not doing anything illegal and its a free country. Besides if what you say is true you have a punk that misreads the stats on purpose. He deserves to get butt-whooped

If you put cammo netting on some standard multilazor sentinels, they can hang out in cover on the flank and still contribute some fire until the kroot show up. 3+ cover can keep them out of trouble from long range suits or railguns.

Stay away from the edges to waste the outflank. Besides that, I find a round of bolter fire deals with kroot nicely. The soloution to people who lie about their codex is to not play them, or only play them if they have a copy you can use. Use a suicide unit of guardsmen to flamer/ lasgun, or a sentinel with heavy flamer thinning them, then charging, will work fine.

I've killed entire squads of Kroot with one barrage from Grotzookas. Killa Kanz will destroy them.

Flamers are the Kroot's worst fear. They have no armour save and their big saving grace (pun intended) is the +1 to cover save they get in forests and jungles.

A Hellhound, Chimera with Heavy Flamer or similar hot-stuff totin' Sentinel will mince them. You'll be auto-hitting, wounding on 2/3+ and they'll get no save.

And Kroot have the same T3 whether they're Hounds, Carnivores or the massive S6 Krootox....

Staying away from the flanks may be difficult, depending on the board size of course. A more workable solution would be to stay on one flank and centre with most of your units. If they turn up on the wrong side (33% of the time) they will get shot up approaching you. For the rest of the time, the walkers are a nice idea (kans or sentinals)
Remember however that the kroot can come on at any point on the board edge, so make sure he simply can't walk around them. To do that, you will most likely loose out on firepower, so keep them cheap and cheerfull and spread them out along the edge, making it more difficult to get at infantry.

Another solution would be tanks. Yes he could charge them and glance them to death... but if hes just charged a tank and lined up against it... and you have several fast response flamers lurking nearby... (thinking, vets in a chimera or burna boys in a truck/dakka wagon, even a nob with a combi-scorka would do nicely)

As for the suits... It all depends on his loudouts with them. If hes close range, take fast assault things. You'll catch him eventually... stormboys could cause them some real problems if your terrain hopping, or the simpe trukk boys (if you can reach them) Failing that, spam S8+ shots (more for the IG player) Suits JSJ behind terrain? BASILISK! Battlecannons, melta, misisles for more direct fire. All of these would work well, but mobile firepower is the key.

Now I'm not advocating stealing (or something illegal along those lines), but a google search for "Tau Codex" revealed a complete PDF file of it to read on the first hit. Just sayin'

The only thing with str 6 is the Krootox, and like some one said, they are still only toughness 3.

I like the idea of walkers to mess up their day. That and the grouping to one side thing sounded like a good idea, denying him that edge.

My idea would be to mech up, and swarm toward his army. Because he doesn't have any bubble wrap around his main force, you could possibly make it into hand to hand with his fire warriors before his reserves come on. Then when his kroot come on in turn 3, there is nothing for them to save, as his army has been decimated in CC. Just a thought.

PraetorDave, That is exactly the sort of situation in which I am fine with downloading a pdf. When I first started, I DL'd a few of the codexs for the armies I was interested in. I bought the codex for the army I chose to actually collect. No way in hell am I shelling out that much cash to get an Idea of how the armies work. and no way am I going to buy a codex just to learn the enemy. I actually looked up the stat lines of the tau kroot options in the back of the rulebook. I should have remembered they put that there. However, this shows a shaper as S4. Darkjediben said he's S6. do they have an upgrade or some sort of +2 str weapon?

Honestly, I'm not so worried myself now. I plan on going for the kan wall, and I'm going to keep moving till I can assault his suits. My roommate, however, is the IG player who is planning on a heavy artillery/gunline list. He'll be using more of the tactics you guys have given me.

The S6 is the krootox. By the way.

Ahh, see, that makes far more sense. Do kroot oxen count as MCs? do they also outflank?

Not that I care too much, this guy has never used one.

Krootox are not MCs.

they are a Str6 kroot with a stronger gun.


Shapers ONLY option is to get a Pulse rifle. No Str6 in CC for them.


there is a Kroot codex out there that might have other options, but it wouldn't be legal with the T'au codex as its a seperate book.

A hellhound or two, or arty that ignores cover (not familiar with the Ig codex) will ruin their day. Stay away from the board edges!

Orks should be less of an issue. Any ork unit beside a small unit of lootas should pwn these guys in close combat and sweep them. Tailoring your list to kill kroot is not needed.

I have never heard of kroot actually killing stuff though. I thought they were used as bubblewrap for real tau units. I mean come on, they are T3 with NO SAVE. Even lasguns can take them down.

Suits are the real threat. Some lasguns for IG should pop them, or if your Ork get some deffcoptas and get them tied up in CC.

Point for point kroot are as good as boyz in close combat. The winner will be the one who charged.
The main thing I would worry about with outflanking kroot is the late game objective grab. But as an ork vs tau I would be placing objectives as far forward as you can, and in the center of the table....basically where you think you will be at the end of the game.

I have beat Tau with a kan wall, and with a BW trukk list. Whatever you do just be sure to bring a KFF otherwise you will not have an army left after turn 2.

Also bring some koptas with buzz saws. If you get turn 1 you can scout/turbo boost 24" before the game begins. then move 12" and assault 6". That way you can take out all his tanks that haven't moved yet. Auto hit str7 on armour 10!

Burnas, walkers, or stay out of his way.

Kroot are pretty handy against basic IG in melee.

except the Guard have a 5+ save and the kroot have none.

HiddenKrypt wrote:(We're pretty sure he just uses whatever lists and strats are most popular on the interbutts), but he is rather effective.

Hey internet? How do you beat the internet???

flamers and heavy bolters. or a power blob.

Grey Templar wrote:except the Guard have a 5+ save and the kroot have none.

And guard can field a massive number guys. Like, eighty at least at 1000 pts. Kroot aren't that much better than them for their point cost.

a maxed out squad of Kroot with a Shaper, 12 hounds, 19 carnivores and 3 Krootox is 338 points.

that is 35, T3, no save models.

a total of 75 attacks with 9 being Str6 and the rest at Str4.


i am sure that, for an equal amount of points, Guard can field a ton of infantry.

If a kroot squad takes a krootox they loose the ability to infaltrate. So no flanking with an ox.

yeah, so?

i was merely comparing a full squad of Kroot to IG.

Grey Templar wrote:yeah, so?

i was merely comparing a full squad of Kroot to IG.

Oh, I wasnt referring to you. I was just pointing that out for the OP. Just in case the tau player tries to pull flanking krootox's. Some tau player's like "forget" that rule.

Yeah if they're outflanking, one sentinell will tie up the squad forever. If they foot slog with a krootox or three...Well good thing you have guard on your side! plenty of templates to thin them into nothing. And then you can run your sentinels into them anyways. If he's putting that many points into kroot, you can outshoot him no problem.