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I've been a tau player for a while now, and I always avoided using kroot; on paper they seem almost unplayable, they're a close combat squad with a weak statline, a low initiative, no armor, and a low leadership score.

I played a Kroot Squad the other day, 14 kroot, 1 shaper, and 6 hounds. I infiltrated them into forest cover to take advantage of their fieldcraft. They hung out for a few rounds, mainly being ignored by my opponent, until there was an opening to move them towards an objective. The round after I had them leave cover, a 5 man tactical squad hopped out of a drop pod, and in one round of shooting, killed 6 models, forcing a morale save, which they failed, and they ran off the board.

I tried them again, using them more aggressively, adding three krootox riders. They managed to get a round of shooting, stunning a razorback and managing to get into a scoring position by turn 4. They were assaulted by a 5 man vanguard squad and lost the CC, and were escorted off the board.

For less than I spent on that squad, I could have had an 8 man firewarrior squad with a markerlight and target lock with a devilfish, equipped with a multi-tracker, two seeker missiles, and an SMS.

What are the kroot supposed to do?

Kroot are supposed to:

A) Form screening lines giving cover saves to your suits but not to the enemy, and "bubblewrapping" your important units to delay assault units from touching them for an extra turn or two.
B) Stay in cover and hold objectives cheaply.
C) Dump in a few random bolter-equivalent shooting wounds randomly.

Why did you place the objective where the Kroot would have to leave cover to hold it? They should have been able to Go to Ground and have a 3+ save while holding it. Even if they did have to leave, why would you leave cover before the very last turn, after your opponent's pod had arrived?

Krootoxen are overpriced.

Was it possible to congaline the Kroot from hiding, such that they could of still claimed a cover save in the shooting phase?

I didn't think of the conga line, the objective I was trying to take was in my opponent's deployment zone, so I needed 2 turns of moving and running in order to reach them.

So what you're saying is, the value of the kroot is as a meat shield for my better units? Maybe if they were fearless or something that might be okay, but they're cowards... not ideally suited to that role, and they're troops... I'd rather use a drone squad as an assault buffer than waste the points on kroot.

Is there any real reason to use kroot?

nope

They kick Necron butt in CC.

They're cheap and resiliant in cover. Plant a squad on your objective and they'll do just as well as Fire Warriors for less.

Just lst night I was reading a suggestion that one could use Outflanking Kroot to assault opposing armour and artillerary. How good a tactic that is, I couldn't comment-but they seemed pretty convinced it'd work:

http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14847

Wow, that's pretty interesting. Never thought of that. As a 84 point suicide squad designed to outflank, glance rear armor, or slow down an assault, they may actually work.

I think in order for that one to make sense, I'd be completely disregarding their role as a scoring unit... in which case I think a stealth squad team with a fusion blaster, 2 burst cannons, 2 TA and 1 TL would be way more effective, at like 119 points, at fulfilling the same goal. But the 35 point difference does make it pretty tempting.

Otherwise, I'm essentially just putting them in my list on the chance that the game I'll play is Sieze Ground, and an objective will end up in wilderness terrain, far enough from my opponent's deployment zone that I can just place the kroot and forget about them for the rest of the game?

Assuming I have 85 points left over at the end of my list, and all my elite and heavy choices are taken. Are those points better spent on a kroot squad, maybe with some dogs and a shaper, or a 7 man FW squad + 'ui with markerlight and bonding knife?

Against other CC units ans MEQ they are going to lose in assault. However they've been fairly effective for me as a screen and shield for my fire warriors, in one game they delayed an enemy Black Templar squad with the HQ in it for 3 turns.

That must have felt pretty cool, I was really hoping the kroot would be just a little bit more effective; in the DoW pc game, I really enjoyed playing the Tau and watching my kroot eat the bodies of their fallen foes. I'm looking forward to a codex update and sincerely hope the kroot get a nice bump.

In spite of the fact that they look like HtH units on paper, kroot are not an offensive unit. If you expect them to kill anything, you'll be unhappy with your kroot.

Your suits do all the killing in a Tau army. The kroot are there to help the suits do their job of killing.

-If you need your kroot to stay put for the first couple of turns before moving to an objective, join your commander suits to them. He benefits from their cover save, and they benefit from his leadership. When the enemy gets close or it's time to move the kroot, move your commander suits to safety and send the kroot forward.

-They need to crumble in a single phase of assault combat so that you can shoot the guys they were just fighting with. When the terminators or whatever get close to your suits, the kroot step up and form a screen 1" in front of the assaulters and rapid fire to kill as many as possible (usually only a few models, but that helps). Then the big bad assault guys have to waste a turn assaulting your 70 point kroot unit. If any kroot survive, they'll break and run, which allows your suits a turn of full-effect plasma fire at the assault guys now in the open. If you happen to have another unit of kroot in the area, they can step up and interdict the assault for another turn...

-If there's no good place to infiltrate or there are weapons on the table that will wipe out your kroot in turn 1 (mortars), start them in reserve. You don't *have* to outflank or infiltrate, and you should not outflank or infiltrate unless there's a good spot for it and a clear reason.

The only offensive use I usually have for kroot is to take a unit of kroots + hounds and outflank to tie up backfield units in CC. If you are going to assault with them make sure that they target soft units like infantry squads, tactical squads, guardians, etc, as they rely solely on large number of attacks to win the CC due to their low toughness and lack of an armor save.

They're also viable cheap backfield objective holders due to fieldcraft and going to ground, making them more resilient to shooting than firewarriros might be.

You can use them as counter-infiltratation units, although this is highly situational.

As Flavius says though, outflank and infiltrate are just options for you and should only be used if you see a good opportunity for it.

Kroot have one overwhelming advantage over Fire Warriors:

-They are not Fire Warriors.


As Flavius said, Kroot are not assault unit. They are shooty screening/skirmish unit. If they kill something in assault it's a bonus, not their raison d'etre.

junk wrote:Wow, that's pretty interesting. Never thought of that. As a 84 point suicide squad designed to outflank, glance rear armor, or slow down an assault, they may actually work.

I think in order for that one to make sense, I'd be completely disregarding their role as a scoring unit... in which case I think a stealth squad team with a fusion blaster, 2 burst cannons, 2 TA and 1 TL would be way more effective, at like 119 points, at fulfilling the same goal. But the 35 point difference does make it pretty tempting.

Otherwise, I'm essentially just putting them in my list on the chance that the game I'll play is Sieze Ground, and an objective will end up in wilderness terrain, far enough from my opponent's deployment zone that I can just place the kroot and forget about them for the rest of the game?

Assuming I have 85 points left over at the end of my list, and all my elite and heavy choices are taken. Are those points better spent on a kroot squad, maybe with some dogs and a shaper, or a 7 man FW squad + 'ui with markerlight and bonding knife?

A 7 man FW squad with those upgrades cost 145 pts, which is a bit pricey for just 2 marker lights when you can have pathfinders who all come with markerlights (sure you have to pay the devil fish tax to take them, but they are the best source of marker lights, and devil fish aren't that bad). I personally don't like the idea of paying 70 pts for 2 maker lights. (upgrade to shas'ui, 2 drones). That is an absurd amount of points to pay for that.

Also, you mentioned stealth teams? They take up elite slots (also know as crisis suit slots), and aren't all that effective (single BS 3 fusion gun, ask guard what they think about single melta squads). Kroot are troops, which for tau is the nothing good here, at all. Between FWs and kroot, they both suck horribly, but at least kroot have utility.

I have faced Kroot recently and they they ultimately caused my defeat.

The reasons;

o They dish out allot of attacks, especially when there are 12 + 12 kroothounds on the attack! They cut through 28 guardsmen in 2 combat rounds, most CC squads have trouble doing this.
o Outflanking
o They are troops
o Move through cover rules

I had massively under estimated them and while I went about mauling his Tau batttle suits and tanks I forgot all about them.

Sure enough turn 3/4 they pop up on my unguarded flank (I foolishly had sent my guarding Sentinals off to kill a gunless hammerheads, why still haunts me!). They then multi assulted my CCS and a blob that had snaked over two objectives. They then proceeded to pull the blob off of the objectives and killed them peicemeal.

I would suggest the prehaps the OP is not using them in big enough squads? They seem to operate like blobs to me, not massively powerful but can win by weight of attacks, obviously the lack of PWs and LD if offset by other rules.

Mannahnin wrote:Kroot are supposed to:

A) Form screening lines giving cover saves to your suits but not to the enemy, and "bubblewrapping" your important units to delay assault units from touching them for an extra turn or two.
B) Stay in cover and hold objectives cheaply.
C) Dump in a few random bolter-equivalent shooting wounds randomly.

Why did you place the objective where the Kroot would have to leave cover to hold it? They should have been able to Go to Ground and have a 3+ save while holding it. Even if they did have to leave, why would you leave cover before the very last turn, after your opponent's pod had arrived?

Krootoxen are overpriced.

This.

They keep good units alive, outflank to ninja objectives that Devilfish might have trouble getting to, and occasionally take out a combat squad or something. And technically they are more efficient point for point at shooting than firewarriors are... go figure.

When looked at in a vacuum they're not spectacular, but they fill an important role in a well run Tau army, so are worth taking if you know how to use them right.

So what is the right size, for a kroot squad?
Play a shaper for +21 or not?
Hounds, yes or no?

Attaching a commander unit means the commander can't have drones or bodyguards, right? Is just running a Command and Control node good enough?

I get the Point for Point shooting argument, but that doesn't factor the extra 6" range of the fire warriors, which can add an extra round of unreturned fire.

Notabot, you misunderstood because my math is wrong, a 7 man fire warrior squad with a single marker light and bonding knife is 95 points; so I guess I meant a 6 man FW squad for 85 not 7, not pathfinders.

Backfire, it seems like the raison d'etre pour Kroot c'est mourir. Fire warriors might kill something.

Notprop, I've actually never had to play against Tau; So I can only judge what it's like off my opponent's reaction; but the kroot squad I ran in my test was 211 points, pretty big; I definitely didn't use them right though, apparently, and didn't have a way to boost their leadership.

I'm usually running:
10 kroot
or 10 kroot, 5-10 hounds. Having a troops unit for 70-100 points is pretty convenient.

Hounds are nice because they're cheaper and I5. If using kroot primarily for screening/outflanking, then go min kroot and then fill up on hounds. If you're bunkering in a forest just to shoot, then just a bunch of kroot.

No on the Shaper, overpriced and the only use he has is a 1 point Ld boost. No on the 6+ armor too, keep kroot cheap.

I ran 2 squads of Kroot in my Ninja Tau list. I always saved them until turn 4/5 to outflank and grab objectives placed close to the boards edge. They would either get the objective or contest it.

I won about 60% of my games with Tau, I just never really had fun doing it.

When you start to get above about 13-14 kroot (or 10 kroot plus 3-4 hounds) there's a chance they might not break in the first round of combat, which leaves your suits vulnerable to assaults. The last thing you want is for your kroot to score enough wounds to hold in your opponent's turn, then break at the end of your turn.

If you need more kroot to handle something like a guard blob, send multiple units of 10-14 together.

junk wrote:So what is the right size, for a kroot squad?
Play a shaper for +21 or not?
Hounds, yes or no?

Attaching a commander unit means the commander can't have drones or bodyguards, right? Is just running a Command and Control node good enough?

I get the Point for Point shooting argument, but that doesn't factor the extra 6" range of the fire warriors, which can add an extra round of unreturned fire.

Notabot, you misunderstood because my math is wrong, a 7 man fire warrior squad with a single marker light and bonding knife is 95 points; so I guess I meant a 6 man FW squad for 85 not 7, not pathfinders.

Backfire, it seems like the raison d'etre pour Kroot c'est mourir. Fire warriors might kill something.

Notprop, I've actually never had to play against Tau; So I can only judge what it's like off my opponent's reaction; but the kroot squad I ran in my test was 211 points, pretty big; I definitely didn't use them right though, apparently, and didn't have a way to boost their leadership.

On firewarriors the 6 inch means jack, 6 shots (assuming min squads) at 30 inch range at BS 3 isn't going to do much. 3 hits, 2 wounds, marines laugh at it, and not exactly scary to the 4+ armies either. What is scared of S5? Ork trukks and DE raiders? Um, not good enough arguement. FWs are just terrible at what they are supposed to be good at, and are even worse at everything else.

Also, 95 pts is wrong by my math. 70 pts for the squad base, 15 extra for the squad leader upgrade with knife, 30 for the drone is 115. A unit of 4 pathfinders with devil fish is 128 (before upgrades). So for a pittance more you get 4 MLs instead of 1, and a nice gun boat that has more firepower than that crappy little fire warrior squad.

Oh, Pathfinders are FA instead of troops? Firewarriors aren't exactly solid troops, kroot are iin pretty much all ways better at shooting, combat, and special battle field roles. So what would I do? Take your min FW squad you have to take, reserve that crappy unit, having them come on and stealing the pathfinder devilfish. Then run 2 big blobs of kroots with hounds as your other troops.

Also, 95 pts is wrong by my math.

Check again. 7 FWs + the Knife Shas'Ui with a Markerlight is 95pts, a drone isn't required.

Avatar 720 wrote:

Also, 95 pts is wrong by my math.

Check again. 7 FWs + the Knife Shas'Ui with a Markerlight is 95pts, a drone isn't required.

Ah, see the option now, my bad.

Still, 1 ML shot in a squad that can't split fire is kind of a waste of the squad, effectively makes the squad a 85 pt marker light.

For another 5 points, the TL lets them split fire, also an upgrade for the Shas'ui of the firewarriors, regardless, I get what you're saying.

I've had a lot of success in KP missions running FireWarriors in pimped-out devilfish, moving into rapid fire range, disembarking, and opening fire at PA squads to soften them up, then finishing them off with PR/FB fire. It's a matter of necessity for tau to totally waste squads in one round of shooting, because one or two MeQs can destroy them with a sweeping advance.

I know the Tau mantra is 'never disembark' but I play it loose with them. Also, I like wargear, so I tend to field smaller armies than most tau players.

All this aside; I'd like to thank everyone who commented for the advice; I'll try running kroot again keeping all this in mind. Infiltrate into cover, use them as bubblewrap, run hounds, ditch the shaper, outflank to screw with my opponent's back line, and assault en masse to deal with guard blobs, don't use them offensively, and keep the cost under 100.

Kroot are basically cheap living cover. If you want to outflank or infiltrate you really need two squads with hounds (charge, pull the hounds first so you get all your attacks) and you always need more bodies than you think. They only work as an assault unit with hounds, and only once cause then all your hounds are dead.

Krootox are overpriced, a pair is the equivalent of an autocannon that can punch someone - for the cost of a crisis suit. I do occasionally use them in extremely low point games (a single <500) or large games (a pair >2000) simply because I run into force org issues. The only thing a krootox does better than 5 kroot (aside from the 48" half autocannon) is penetrate back armor and instant kill swarms. I have bad luck with infiltrating kroot so I just leave them in the back as a counter charge and the krootox gives them a gun to shoot with, but I ONLY add them when the rest of the list is rock solid. If the list is done and I have 35 points OR 70 points and all 5 suits I own on the table, only then would I ever do it. I have a shaper but rarely use it, about as often as my ehtereal - same issue as the ox he's just too expensive. In large games where you already have 20 kroot and need LD 8, that is the only time I would ever use him just to try to keep such an expensive and massive unit from running as fast.

My army is an alien themed Dal'yth Sept so I field Kroot AND Vespids at 2,000 - not advice I would recommend for competitive games but it looks good on the table.

kroot die. In a wargame there is great value in planning what dies when. Even if that means planning your own death.

The models look great, that's why you should use them.

Oaka wrote:The models look great, that's why you should use them.

Highly subjective. To me, the models are half of the reason why I don't use them, the other half is that they just plain don't appeal to me.

Kroot are intended to be an 80pt speedbump. Sometimes they are an 80pt objective holder. Nothing more.