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I'm expanding my Tau army to include 100 Kroot and 50 Hounds. It's a legitimate army as long as there's a compulsory battle suit commander and a Fire Warrior team. I'd love to see the faces of my opponent as I infiltrate 150 models on the board. If I get first turn, I could deploy 24" away, and fire 100 Str4 AP6 shots. I wonder how much damage I could wreak against Green Tide, Nids, Necrons, or any non-mechanized army.

So far I've played one game using 100 Kroot. You can read the battle report here, posted by fellow dakkalite jy2:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/364017.page

Prior to my army expansion, I already owned 20 Kroot fully painted. I'll adapt the same paint scheme to the rest of my Kroot, but include minute differences to distinguish each of the 5 squads.

Here's a picture of my current painted Kroot:



Individual Kroot:







I currently own 96 Kroot and 18 Hounds. 40 more hounds are being shipped to me and by the beginning of summer, I'll have 4 more Kroot to complete the 100. I'm using Chaos warhounds for my Kroot hounds because they are cheaper and I love the look.

Here's a few pictures of my 96 Kroot, soon to be painted.









I'll keep this thread updated as I work on my future Kroot horde army.

Stay tune.

Edit: Wow, I have 5000 points worth of models!

The painting models look great.

Are you planning on converting/reposing any of the unpainted kroot?

You have made a good start SabrX,

A friend of my has been thinking about doing this...what if I infiltrate a Sh!t load of kroot....hmmmm
Ill direct him to this post

make sure you get rid of all those nasty mold lines

Heading of to read a 100 Kroot battle report now.

Keep the images coming!!!

Cheers,

Bra'tac

Thanks for the feedback.

Grass4hopper wrote:The painting models look great.

Are you planning on converting/reposing any of the unpainted kroot?

I'm keeping them the way they are. Many of them already have dynamic poses.

bra'tac wrote:
make sure you get rid of all those nasty mold lines

Will do.

Today I just finished spray painting 75 plastic kroot. The Shaper is currently drowning in simple green. I'll strip, base, and paint him later. I have a lot of work cut out for me.

In addition, I've received word my warhounds will be arriving next week. I also bought 50 small round bases to make the army more legit. I'm sure a lot of people would argue that using cavalry bases would be underhanded. Not sure what I'm going to do with my 50 cavalry bases. Sell them off Ebay?

Anyways, here's a few pictures of 75 primed black Kroot.





One of the issues I need to deal with is how to distinguish each 5 squads of Kroot.

One idea is to color each shoulder pad differently. I already have one squad of 20 Kroots painted with shadow-grey shoulder pads. I would like the remaining 4 to have a their own color taken the existing color of my army. I won't be using Vermin Brown and Rotting Flesh as they are already noticeable on the Kroot's painted torso. What 4 colors do you think I should use for the remaining 4 squad of Kroot?

This is promissing.

And yeah, painting the shoulder pads a different color is good to distinguish them. But have you thought of tribal tattoos? Each squad could originate from a different kindred, and therefore has other paterns of tatoos in different colors then other kindreds. Hope this helped ^^

I'm thinking of blue, yellow, purple and red.

That is alot of kroot!
I would be scared for my nids if I saw that many kroot :(

Scrazza wrote:This is promissing.

And yeah, painting the shoulder pads a different color is good to distinguish them. But have you thought of tribal tattoos? Each squad could originate from a different kindred, and therefore has other paterns of tatoos in different colors then other kindreds. Hope this helped ^^

I'm thinking of blue, yellow, purple and red.

Tattoos might be a little difficult. I'm not good at free-hand painting details. Different colors of blue sounds like a good idea. Perhaps ice blue, enchanted blue, space wolves grey, and regal blue. I'll need to experiment with washes.

Another problem I'll eventually run into is distinguishing the hounds. I'm using fantasy Beastmen warhounds. They differ in tail and horns, but I'll be snipping and filing them to look more uniform. I want to avoid painting the furs different colors. Perhaps a small highlight streak on the fur matching the Kroot should pad color will work.

Any ideas on what color I should paint the warhound's fur? It doesn't necessarily have to match the Kroot's color. In my fluff, I plan to write them as originating from some alien world other than pech (Kroot's home world).

On a side note, my 50 small round bases arrived last night. All I'm missing now is 4 Kroot Warriors. If anyone is willing to sell their non-painted or prime black Kroot for cheap with shoulder pads, PM me! I'd also like to see pictures.

origarmi chicken wrote:That is alot of kroot!
I would be scared for my nids if I saw that many kroot :(

Once I'm done, I want to test our my army against my friend's Nids.

What are you using to base them???

risewiththefallen wrote:What are you using to base them???

I use Woodland-Scenics-WB88-Light-Grey-Coarse-Ballast, which I glue, prime Chaos Black, paint Shadow Grey, and dry brush Skull White. It turned out really well. I've applied it to the rest of my army.

Ya looks good!nice job so far and I actually thought it was salt lol

Just finished building my 50 Chaos Hounds, which will represent Kroot Hounds in my future Tau Horde army. They are all on standard round small bases, the same size the real Kroot Hound models uses.

Here's a couple of pictures:





For those familiar with Beastmen Chaos Warhounds, I snipped and filed some of the tails to make them look more doggy-ish.



Eventually I'll base them and plug the holes with green stuff.

Stay tune for future updates!

I recently finished painting 20 Kroots. I painted their shoulder pads red, distinguishing them from the other painted squad, who wears blue shoulder pads.



20 newly painted Kroots.



Up close.

40 Kroots done. 60 more to go.


Aside from Kroot horde, I'm also expanding to Broadside spam. Kudos to Shas'Ui - jerseydevil from Advance Tau Tactica forum for posting a tutorial on converting Railguns:
http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=11799&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

I'll also magnetize my Crisis Suits. If the conversion turns out well, I may be able to field 18 Broadsides! Take that Reaver Titan!

It's been slow the last couple of days. My local GW is pretty slow on week days. It's hard to get a game in. Most people just come in to paint.

Warhammer Fantasy is also becoming more and more popular. In fact, there's more players playing WHFB at my LGS than there are 40k. I guess a lot of the 40k players have given up after being sick of playing MEQ all the time. At least in Fantasy, there isn't one dominating army that has spawn multiple variations.

So with a lot of free time on my hands and no one to play with, I painted my next batch of 20 Kroots in record time. It took me only 2 - 3 days!

I introduce to you Green Kroot squad. I painted their shoulder pads green, differentiating them from the other 2 Kroot squads.

60 Kroots painted, 40 more to go.



Green Party.




Close up.

This is going to be one BIG army! Has a cool native flavor to it, perhaps add warpaint?

Looks really good. I like the stone bases on all the models.

A Black Ram wrote:This is going to be one BIG army! Has a cool native flavor to it, perhaps add warpaint?

I'll think about it.

40k Ninja wrote:Looks really good. I like the stone bases on all the models.

Yeah, it looks really good, but it's a pain keeping them glued. Normal PV glue + chaos black primer doesn't cut it. It's only when I apply a thick layer of watered down Shadow Grey do they actually stick to the base.


As an added bonus for A Black Ram and 40k Ninja's quick timely response, I've thrown in another picture featuring all three painted Kroot squads. Thanks a lot guys for the feed back!



From left to right: Blue Team, Red Team, and Green Team.

Drats, I need to find a new display shelf after I finish painting my next batch of 20 Kroots.

Any ideas for the next Kroot squad's shoulder pad color?

A really dark purple? Goes with the green and blue.

SabrX wrote:

I tried getting this pose on one of mine but it ended up looking like he was cowering haha.

Keep up the great work! I love the Kroot.

Oh wow amazing! haha that is some dedicated work with all those kroot, keep going my friend!

A Black Ram wrote:A really dark purple? Goes with the green and blue.

I like it!

Perhaps Liche Purple?

The last color will be Blazing Orange. It will help balance the warm and cool colors among the 5 squads.

djphranq wrote:

I tried getting this pose on one of mine but it ended up looking like he was cowering haha.

Keep up the great work! I love the Kroot.

It was a little challenging gluing the Kroot's arms to the torsos. I learned the hard way, using super glue. Plastic glue is much more effective. It's also best to glue the the two arms holding the rifle first and then glue to the torso.

Whoever sculpted the Kroot range did a stellar job. There's a lot of room for dynamic poses.

Moartiki wrote:Oh wow amazing! haha that is some dedicated work with all those kroot, keep going my friend!

Thanks! It goes by quick, once I settle into a rhythm. My paint scheme is quick and simple. I should be finished before Fall Semester starts.

Just finished painting another squad of 20 Kroots. As fellow dakkalite 'A Black Ram' suggested, I painted their shoulder pads purple.



Purple Kroot team.



Kroot showing off his trophy.

80 Kroots painted. 20 more to go!

Huzzah!

Magnets, 4 Crisis Suits, and 2 Piranhas just arrived via delivery.

Now I can field my 80 Kroot, 9 Fire Knives, 9 Broadside, 2 Piranhas, and min Fire Warrior list without proxying!

I just posted a small tutorial on magnetizing XV8 Crisis Suits:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/390495.page

Expect Broadside Railgun conversion in the near future. If it turn out right, I could convert all my Crisis Suits with magnetized Railguns and field 18 Broadsides for Apocalypse!

In the process of expanding my large Tau army, I've collected too many Gun Drone bits. Using a Gun Drone sprue, spare Fire Warriors Pulse Rifle, and additional Gun Drone antenna, I've converted a simple Gun Drone into a Sniper Drone.


Sniper Drone right.


Sniper Drone left.


Sniper Drone front.


Sniper Drone rear.



Yesterday, I finished converting all my Crisis Suits' fusion guns into Rail Guns.



Kudos to Shas'Ui - jerseydevil from advancedtautactica.com for inspiring this conversion:

http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=11799&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Here's an image a couple images of my converted Broadside:



Front



Side

I may pretty it up later with additional plasticard.

Now I can field 9 Broadsides



I also recently posted tutorials for making Sniper Drones and Shield Drones. You can check them out here:

Sniper Drone conversion tutorial:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/392423.page

Shield Drone conversion tutorial:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/392433.page

Eventually I'll magnetize each Suit and weapon so that each Crisis Suit could wield one Railgun and count as a Broadside for Apoc.

Just finished putting together 3 converted Sniper Drone.

I now have a full Sniper team!



After I finish putting together a few more models, I'll beginning spraying primer, base coating, washing, and basing the unpainted Drones.

This is straight up crazy. I salute you, Sir!

Here's a little update:

I've just finished putting together 2 Piranhas



2 Piranhas

I'm now able to field 2 squadrons of 2 Piranhas.



2 x 2 Piranhas

With the last of my Tau models built, it's time to paint!

With the release of 6th ed, Tau got a lot of buffs. However, they also got nerf a little. They don't have flyers, which puts them at a disadvantage against armies that do. I can see Death-rain (TL-Missile Pod) configuration becoming popular as well as Broadsides.

Unfortunately, my Kroot Horde army got nerf by the focus fire rule. Kroot Hounds aren't appealing when I could take ally Orks or anyone else that have fearless hordes. That's not to say Kroot Hounds is completely dead. They are initiative 5, which gives Kroots a good chance of falling back after losing combat. It's also much easier to regroup in 6th ed. I'll be fielding 1 Kroot Hound per Kroot squad.

In any case, I finished painting my 4 Crisis Suits and 14 Railgun conversions. Now I can field 9 fully painted Broadsides!


Front view.


Side view.

I did finish painting my last squad of 20 Kroots. When I have time, I'll be posting pictures of them later.

Stay tuned! You may see some Green Skins allies accompanying my Kroot horde in the near future.

Lookin good keep up the good work!

iheartlargeblasttemplates wrote:Lookin good keep up the good work!

Thanks, will do!


One of the major weaknesses to a Tau army is assault. If you were to put all the 40k armies on a scale on assault proficiency, Tau would be on the extreme low end. They are terrible in assault. Fortunately, the new ally rules fixes that. I can pair Tau up with an army that's proficient in assault. That's where Orks come in. Orks are great in assault. On top of that, they have the mob rule. A blob of Orks can be fearless until their numbers hit 10. There aren't many other horde ally options out there except for IG and Necrons.

Tau and Orks joins forces for the greater good!

I recently bought 60 AoBR Boyz and a box of 5 Nobz.


Frontal View


Side View


Nobz

I don't plan on making a full Ork army, just enough to fill in the detachments. I still need a Warboss or a Big Mek. Lootas, Dakkajet, and Nobz Bikers also sounds like a good option.