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Just wondering which is the better investment, one large squad of Kroot or three squads of ten for speed bumps?

Currently I'm aiming for an 11x Kroot, 10x Kroot Hounds squad, but before I finish buying the hounds, would another box of Kroot be a better buy for three smaller squads.

Due to cover saves, I'd go with squads of about 10 Kroot provided that you have the slots available.
I'd use Kroot mainly to disrupt enemy plans, but they can also hold an objective if in cover and not being assaulted.

I really like squads if 16-18 (10 kroot with 6-8 hounds) that way you can speed bump, or deny deployment with a fairly cheap unit.

Plus they are large enough that you have to kill several to force a morale check. Put them in cover (especially forest/jungle) on an objective and they are hard to move out.

Finally they make a great counter attacking or flanking unit at that size. You do a ton of attacks, plus with the hounds going at I5 you stand a chance of whittling down a lot of units before they get to attack.

I'd agree on the 16-18 size, but I usually use only kroot (no hounds). squads of 10 fail leadership checks pretty quickly, and as they count as "troops", it's especially important to keep them on the board to capture objectives.

I find my kroot shoot more than assault, so the extra shots from kroot (instead of hounds) are fairly useful, I find.

the best ive seen used was 2 units of 15 kroot, plenty of hounds and a krootox each, both units were pretty hard to get rid of, and actually killed a fair ammount.

I use 3 squads of 10.

That way I only waste 70 points keeping them alive, or waste 70 points pushing back infiltrators, using as a tactical speed bump, or outflanking.

They do their job just as well as 105pts of kroot, only 35pts cheaper!

I think a lot depends on what you plan to do with them, and the rest of your army. If most of the rest of your list is hidden (stealth, hiding crisis suits, etc), then the kroot squads will draw a lot of fire because the enemy will have very little else to shoot at. If you just want to infiltrate to deny enemy infiltrators a piece of ground, the small group should be fine, but any kind of combat contribution (or survival of enemy fire) demands a larger squads size.

It's a mech Tau list with 8 XV8's, a team of stealth suits (might change), 2 Devilfish and 2 Hammerheads. Stationary elements are a pair of broadsides and a 8-man firewarrior squad.

I don't really know what I want my kroot to do at this point. In 4th ed, they just infiltrated and acted as fire magnets/speed bumps...I only just started picking up on the large kroot squad idea.

Another nice thing about the larger kroot squads is that you can use them to generate cover for other models. Since it is pretty tough to get things completely out of line of sight this becomes more important than ever.

The trouble with that is that it generates cover saves against the shooting of whats behind. This will not matter with MEq, but guard ond orks will thank you if your kroot are giving their troops a 4+ save when they would have none at all.

See the great thing about a line of kroot is suits can jump over them and then jump back.

Also most places that I play there is quite a bit of terrain.

People are also becoming adept at generating their own cover.

I have been doing 3 squads of 10-12 Kroot.

I tried the big squads, but their Ld is to iffy to chance more than 70-84pts.

I would rather have more small squads than a couple bigs.

A squad of 10 Kroot and 10 Hounds has been a ton of fun to use.

Outflanking in a capture and hold has created some very big problems for enemies.

Those of you who've used large kroot squads....what has your experience been with their ld 7?

If your LD7 is being checked for something with a large unit, things have gone terribly wrong for them anyways. Large units usually get by without taking checks at all unless they get focused fire on them (good for the Tau player) or get caught out of cover (Tau player's mistake).

I regularly use multiple large units and I've never regretted it. Except for actually moving large groups of models around...

A fun trick to get around the poor LD and really bolster the unit, is to include a Shas'el/O with Iridium armor and 2 x shield drones. Join him to the unit for the Ld boost and always put the first 3 wounds on the 2+ saves. Makes people craazy! All kinds of extra gear work great for this character too, the failsafe detonator, stim injectors, positional relay. All gravy.

Their LD 7 causes them to suck in close combat, unless they absolutely ream their opponent.

Case in point, I had 14 kroot and 6 hounds (originally 14 kroot/12 hounds) charged yesterday by 15 termagaunts with no frag grenades. They wiped the termagaunts out without taking a causalty. Big miscalculation on my opponents part. Later I did the math and showed him that even had we fought at initiative he would have been wiped and only killed 3-4 kroot. That didn't make him any happier.

Fighting anything with any kind of reasonable armor save and you're going to lose and test on a 3 or 4 and run or get swept. It is going to happen. So larger squads aren't really about combat, except opportunistic combat or maybe outflanking and making damn sure you kill whatever stationary vehicle you get to charge.

As a gunline...20 kroot without markerlights are as good as firewarriors against most targets on a per-point basis.

I find my kroot spend a lot of time pinned. Which isn't the end of the world if they're there as a speed bump in cover. if they come under pretty much any kind of heavy fire from a pinning weapon, I just have them go to ground immediately.

volume of fire is a lot better in general than people give it credit for - large groups of kroot routinely kill or wound things like wounded daemon princes, zoanthropes, elite carnifexes, etc.

Really it depends on how mobile you want your army to be. As a gunline, something to protect your broadsides, etc, and as a really scary outflanking unit, 30+ kroot and hounds can work very well. If you're worried about LD 7, at that size a shaper isn't really that expensive and you can use his wounds against at least small arms fire to limit casualties.

I agree with the minimum sized kroot unit argument.

Their Ld is just too poor to risk on anything bigger. In any combat they lose they *will* be running as even losing by one casualty means they're testing at Ld6.

Yes, Kroot can kick out a lot of attacks, so a bigger squad can help you win combats, but there are a lot of strange matchups out there (high Toughness, good armor save units) that Kroot will often lose to no matter how many attack you have.


Also, there are lots of situations out there that can force your Kroot squad to take a morale check, like any pinning check or any special rule that forces a morale check (like the Deceiver's ability, etc).

Or if you're playing on a table without forests and get shot at, or if your Kroot outflank and then take some enemy shooting while they're out in the open, or if your Kroot are in a forest but get hit by a flamer, etc, etc, etc.


The point is, it really isn't that uncommon for Kroot to have to take a Ld test and with a Ld7 they *will* be failing a fair amount of those tests. That means it is a really good idea to keep your Kroot units small and cheap to minimize your losses when your Kroot units do run away.

IMO having low leadership is a GOOD THING. The combats that I charge my squads in to are combats I feel I have a reasonable chance of winning. Then their low leadership is no problem. If I don't feel that I can win the combat then I simply rapid fire my kroot into the enemy and set the kroot up to be the only thing charged in the subsequent turn. Then if you do lose the combat they run, HOORAY! Now your very shooty Tau army is set up to ream whatever killed the kroot.