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Just kicking around the idea of a count as army. Any idea if anyone else has tried this?

with their weapons replaced with ork equivalents, it seems fairly fluffy - they're both savage brutal 'uncivilised' races, so it's not too silly for a kroot to use ork stats. Fluffwise, the major difference is that kroot regularly hire themselves out as reliable mercenaries (especially to Tau of course), whereas orks only occasionally work as mercenaries (mostly BloodAxes) and generally aren't considered too reliable ("oh, we thort we wuz sposed to shoot at dem guys over dere, sorry, har har").

so the real fluff question is who are the kroot working for and receiving their ork-equivalent weapons from? Orks themselves seem unlikely employers. Hmm, maybe some unusually smart (and rich) grots are employing kroot and supplying stolen ork weaponry, as part of the Grot Revolutionary Front struggles? Or has a barking mad mekboy been banished from orkdom and is now cheerfully making weapons for some local kroot? Or don't use ork weapons at all, use something else which count as ork weapons - but to avoid driving opponents insane, make sure the weapons are easily identifiable...

I've long dreamed of something like this, and for the centerpiece of the army converting a Mumakil into some kind of giant kroot beastie, using the biggest Squiggoth rules I can find.

Clang wrote:with their weapons replaced with ork equivalents, it seems fairly fluffy - they're both savage brutal 'uncivilised' races, so it's not too silly for a kroot to use ork stats. Fluffwise, the major difference is that kroot regularly hire themselves out as reliable mercenaries (especially to Tau of course), whereas orks only occasionally work as mercenaries (mostly BloodAxes) and generally aren't considered too reliable ("oh, we thort we wuz sposed to shoot at dem guys over dere, sorry, har har").

so the real fluff question is who are the kroot working for and receiving their ork-equivalent weapons from? Orks themselves seem unlikely employers. Hmm, maybe some unusually smart (and rich) grots are employing kroot and supplying stolen ork weaponry, as part of the Grot Revolutionary Front struggles? Or has a barking mad mekboy been banished from orkdom and is now cheerfully making weapons for some local kroot? Or don't use ork weapons at all, use something else which count as ork weapons - but to avoid driving opponents insane, make sure the weapons are easily identifiable...

The way I see it since kroot tend to eat the dead I can always claim that they just got done with an offensive against the orks. This would be responsible for their new orky demeanor. Being scavengers they would probably pick up ork weapons to replace/ repair there own kits. Shoota's could be moded kroot guns mixed in with bolters shootas ect. I don't know id slugga boys would be armed with tribal spears or the more orkish equivalent. dread naughts and killa cans would be tough. lootas can be made from all the other bits I've managed to putt together.

another option I've been kicking around is using some tyranid parts to represent some things like power claws or some of the guns. (since kroot don't mind evolving into their roles much like nids)
It would be a big project, and kinda pricey. But I think it would be fun.

Sounds like a horrible idea to me. Kroot have an army list. If you don't want to play it, buy orks.

I could see killa cans and dreads being krootox and knarlocs, respectively.

Sounds kind of fun all in all, if you have lots of kroot and don't like ther merc list/apoc data sheet much. I don't know much about it either way really.

mauleed wrote:Sounds like a horrible idea to me. Kroot have an army list. If you don't want to play it, buy orks.

wow, pretty closeminded. anyways, im always down to see a good count as army. love the squiggoth idea. maybe knarloc riders could be bikes? pretty expensive if you go down the FW route, but i like the dea none the less.

I say I find the idea distasteful and I'm suddenly closed minded? Are all people who disagree with you closeminded?

It's a crap idea. It's as bad as showing up with marines and saying they're necrons.

Counts as is great for things that don't otherwise fit into the rules. Someone suggested using his genestealer hybrid army as orks, and that's interesting because.....there are no rules for genestealer hybrids in the game.

But there are rules for kroot.

I've seen people do this sort of crap in the past, and every time it just screams 'too cheap to do it right'. My personal favorite was the dryad army that was somehow nurgle daemon legion.

Not that he cares, but I have to agree with mauleed. There's rules for Kroot, they should be used. It'd be like using dark eldar for count as eldar or IG or space marines. If you want to play orks, play orks. I also think there (at least previously) was a tourney rule that you can't use, for example, dark eldar as eldar.

Now, if he wanted to do a bunch of wild conversions to show kroot mutated on an ork diet, somehow kitbashing the two together (which I don't see since Kroot are skinny and orks are thicker than Barry Bonds) and have them count as orks, that's a different matter.

And for friendly play, anything goes. He could use paper cutout shapes if his friends will let him.

And OT, but I wish GW would do a generic human mob list that could be an easy "counts as" for genestealer cults, LatD, and even loyal imperial citizens rising up against the latest invader. Include some sort of elite melee unit (genestealers, big muties, ogryn or combat servitors), some guys with captured heavy weapons, zealot mobs, and some tanks. IG works for armies like Blood Pact that are well-organized and equipped, but not for the unwashed masses that are swinging laspistols and 2x4's (and the list should allow one model in 10 to upgrade his 2x4 to a 2x4 with a couple nails in it - these are codex zealots afterall).

mauleed wrote:I say I find the idea distasteful and I'm suddenly closed minded? Are all people who disagree with you closeminded?

It's a crap idea. It's as bad as showing up with marines and saying they're necrons.

Counts as is great for things that don't otherwise fit into the rules. Someone suggested using his genestealer hybrid army as orks, and that's interesting because.....there are no rules for genestealer hybrids in the game.

But there are rules for kroot.

I've seen people do this sort of crap in the past, and every time it just screams 'too cheap to do it right'. My personal favorite was the dryad army that was somehow nurgle daemon legion.

First off the kroot list isn't viable for anything outside of friendly play. Sure kroot have rules, but they are no where near codex worthy
As for this being a cheap alternative to real ork army, I don't know where your getting that from. I'm talking about doing kitbashing and conversion work for most of the models in the army. The cherry on top was the idea that this army idea is fluffy.

Still if you don't like the idea fine thats your opinion. I just started this thread to get some conversion ideas.

you wil encounter some negative reactions with any 'counts as' army, but they'll be minimised by good fluff and cool models (i.e not just ork bits haphazardly glued to kroot bits).

The Kroot ability to absorb useful DNA from their prey could be handy to justify the nonstandard Kroot behaviour. And contact with other species (either looting or supplied mercenary equipment) to justify the unusual weapons.

a unique weapon look would be nice, i.e. not just using another 40K race's weapons. Maybe steampunk? Or something from a WHFB race with firearms, e.g. empire or dwarfs? Or something completely alien, although that would be a lot of work to model - making one original 'counts as' shoota is easy, but making 100 isn't so easy... (If you want to use the army in tournaments, be careful about using other manufacturers' weapons, some fussy tournaments disallow non-GW bits.)

I have a friend who was trying to set up an apocalypse game between himself and I, when he comes to me and says "Would you mind it if I use my 'Gaunts and played em as 'Fexes, and used my 'fexes and Tyrant as a few tyranid baneblades?"
I swear, I pimp slapped him all over with my eyes.
Then, I said, "OK!!! Just lemme use my Orks as a bunch of Dark Eldar. I don't have their codex, but what ever...I'll just make up some stats!!!!"
He has never asked such a dumb question ever.
That whole story was to say this.
AS LONG AS IT IS NOT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, JUST DON'T DO IT!!!
It's about as dumb as trying to make a CC Tau army.