Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I look at them, from a gaming perspective, very dubiously.
They are cheap, they can have snipers and outflank.
All positives.

Then I realize just how easily a unit will die and think are they going to do enough to justify their points?

I think a 10 man squad with snipers and a hound is 75 points so it's not the end of the world but part of me cant help thinking they're going to die in seconds (possibly on entering play in some games).

I cant really find much to justify including them but part of me suspects that they are better than I'm thinking they are.

I do think another unit of firewarriors would be more useful.

(I am thinking of this in a vacuum to make a list for all armies etc)

You might want to keep some Kroot hanging around your gunline, to deter assaults or join in with ones that have already happened. Or you could go for a whole troop (or most of it), and run them as a blob style unit.

They're pretty much an auto-take in any competitive Tau list, so they don't suck.

At the very least, threatening your opponent's backfield objectives will take some of the pressure off your front lines.

What size unit would you recommend taking?

When I take Kroot, I take a full 20 man blob with sniper ammo. Sniper ammo doesn't replace the pulse ammo that is their standard ammo.

I like to infiltrate them into the enemy's backfield, just because a 20 man blob of anything can't be ignored for long without doing at least some damage.

Ralis wrote:
When I take Kroot, I take a full 20 man blob with sniper ammo. Sniper ammo doesn't replace the pulse ammo that is their standard ammo.

I like to infiltrate them into the enemy's backfield, just because a 20 man blob of anything can't be ignored for long without doing at least some damage.

Pretty much this.

If you are going to run them, take a gigantic mass of them, sniper round them up, and infiltrate them.

I sometimes take a single kroot hound to get access to acute senses for the units, but it's by no means mandatory.


It's a backfield ablative armor unit that if your opponent ignores can nibble down monstrous types, and if your opponent fires at them - awesome, they're not firing equivalent weaponry at fire warriors.

The above posts pretty much sum up Kroot. Take them as a blob infiltrate, watch your enemy make a decision to ignore or mass attack them. It is worth that alone in points for at least one unit.

Do you bother with a shaper?

The most competitive Tau, and TauDar lists have Kroot.

That should be a sign that they are good.

Boniface wrote:
Do you bother with a shaper?

I don't usually, no. The trick to having kroot be effective is be as large but cheap as possible. Sniper rounds in a max blob is still cost effective... a single hound for acute senses is debateable. A shaper really doesn't bring much to the table at all.

20 Kroot plus the disposable hound gives means your opponent has to kill 6 instead of 5 to force a morale check, it also gives you a very wide range of ability to deploy. Personally they are my go to choice for troops since they have some better tools to deal with the increased number of MC, objectives, and even secondary objectives while also carrying a decent standard weapon.

The shaper is really just far too expensive to bother with. I always try to keep them as cost effective as possible and very rarely would the increased leadership actually have benefitted me in a game.

It's all about your playstyle. Sure I run 60 FW, but I also at times run 80 kroot. Key here is using an ethereal to keep them in place from the safety of and always turboboosting dpod-ed devilfish. Works great. You should see the local nid players tears.

Another thing to consider is how well Kroot work in combat patrol and similar low point games.

Take your standard 400 point combat patrol, for 70 points you get a unit of 10 snipers that can infiltrate and have Stealth in forests (60 points if you choose to forgo the sniper rounds). Infiltrate them on or near an objective and force your opponent to choose on the first turn of play whether to concede that objective to you or dedicate a portion of his force to remove a fairly low cost force. If the ladder is chosen then you can easily set up your supporting fire to eliminate the advancing units as you know where they are going very much in the vein of the Kauyon (Patient Hunter) philosophy. If you happen to be playing a purge the alien game or one without objectives then based on the deployment of you enemy you can infiltrate in or near their deployment zone once again forcing a choice to either concede line breaker or dedicate units to remove a lower point unit from the game.

The Kroot to me serve two main roles, (1) a cheap scoring unit, (2) a means to tie up enemies deep within their territory allowing extra firing from our Tau weapons systems.

DOC

I love kroot. I take one big squad and infiltrate them as spread out as possible right in the middle of the table.

Of course my regular opponent plays genestealers, so I really don't think this is a good strategy for normal use...but denying him the entirety of the board from infiltration is so incredibly fun (assuming I go first, if not I just kind of spread them out in front of my fire warriors and let them eat the first charge).

Kroot are amazing, keep them cheap spam one unit and give them sniper rifles. You cannot go wrong at all.

As already said above...
Yes I think they are worth it
Yes you should take them in full squads
and sniper rounds are awesome

If you take only a 10 man squad... thats why I would outflank them so that they are not on the board for your opponent to get an easy first blood

I often run 80+ in my lists.

I definitely think they're worth getting as a non tau player. I had a squad of 10 get right up in my face on turn 1, which is NOT what I expect from my opponent! I then proceeded to wipe them out, though doing so took a good portion of fire away from othermore damaging units.

Bang them in a forest if possible, have them supported whenever it's available and move carefully. Use sniper rounds to remove ignores cover weapons as a priority, and basically use them to tie your opponent up on turn 1, protecting your more valuable units, in preparation for your reserves coming on in turn 2.

Plus they're just kinda cool by themselves anyway

Krootox are simply the shizl. So much good to say about them. invest I say! Invest!

Max size squad with one hound or positional relay somewhere in your army is auto-take.