Stealthy Kroot Stalker
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I recently ran a competitive tournament practice game with my Kroot against World Eaters in preparation for my first seriously competitive tournament; a really different experience from playing the semi-competitive games I’m used to. Lots of tiny little tricks that you can do for incremental benefits that you just don’t see anywhere else. I learned a lot.
Also, as an FYI (since some people keep assuming I’m only racking up wins with Kroot because I’m not playing against good players) my friend that I was practicing with is currently the top World Eaters player in Western Canada, so any gain I got in this match was not because of lack of skill on my opponents part. He is objectively a better 40k player than I am (at least for now ;p).
We chose to run terrain layout 1 since it’s the most popular and picked the mission Purge the Foe, since it’s my hardest mission given how many units I have (and apparently the TO really likes this one, so I’m sure to have to play it in the tournament). We did Tipping Point for deployment and Fog of War for the Mission Rule, which didn’t end up mattering at all. I chose to go fixed secondaries with Engage on All Fronts and Assassination (usually I take cleanse, but I didn’t think I’d have the free units to do it in what I knew was going to be a very fast meat-grinder). He took tactical secondaries.
I finally got a benefit of my propensity to roll ones to determine first turn as this is one of the few matchups I actually wanted to go second in. I managed to get my deployment and a full army scout move done in just over 20 minutes, which is actually pretty good for me, but I know I can shave a few more minutes off that. I got most of my screen in place just in case he managed his advance and charge on turn 1 and just went ham into me. He put two units of Exalted Eightbound in reserve, and I put everything on the table, even my Vespid since I wasn’t worried about being shot.
Fortunately he didn’t get advance and charge turn 1 and made a few cautious moves up, keeping both his berzerker units (the 10 man with the executioner and the 5 man with Kharn), and one unit of eightbound hidden behind terrain in his deployment zone, waiting for me to push up. Angron came up to cover behind the centre terrain with his other eightbound, both units of spawn and the Lord on Juggernaught. His last play was to push his Lord Invocatus into my lines to try and get a turn 1 kill for points and to move block some of my Rampagers from engaging Angron on my first turn. He only managed to down 9/10 carnivores though, and his turn was done, unable to score either secondary he drew.
With everything mostly hidden on his side I had a quick turn one. I pushed my screen of hounds just past the centre line to get engage, used my 10 man carnivores to cover the gaps and quickly took out his Lord on Juggernaut. End of round 1, I was cautiously optimistic with a 12-0 lead.
Round 2 is when everything started to die. He moved Kharn up to get on an objective and help with Khorne rolls while he crashed into my screen hard with pretty much everything else, wiping out all my hounds and most of my 10 man carnivore squads. However, this was the first point where my inexperience hurt me. On my right flank, His Lord on Juggernaut hit my Kroot hounds and deal 2 mortals to them opening up a little gap for the Eightbound to sneak through, tagging the hounds as the passed, but also my Dart Bow War Shaper unit that I was planning to jump on them next turn with. The rough part though was that since one of the eightbound was enough to kill the hounds, Angron who had been blocked by them was able to pile in 3” to my Rampagers that were 3.5” away and swat them off the table with ease. (Going to have to remember to keep things 4” back.) On the left flank his eightbound and Jackels hit my screen, but did little else, while the spawn did the same in the centre. While he killed a large quantity of chaff that turn, most of the meat of my army was still alive and ready to hit back.
After only a little movement, mostly just tossing my Vespid into his back like and killing a pair of Berzerkers in Kharn’s unit, he Rapid Ingressed some Eightbound into my back line, but I didn't’ have the resources to deal with them that turn. I pounced on Angron first, Grenading him for 3 mortals and getting me +1 to hit, tossed a Trap Well Laid on him with my unit of 6 Rampager pistols and then hit him with my Lone Spear for re-rolls. Fishing for Lethals with my Farstalkers against him (he was their bounty target) took off another 5 wounds, but left him frustratingly at exactly half. My first unit of Krootox wiffed hard with a bunch of 4’s to wound that would have worked if he’d been 1 lower. I got my 5’s with the next unit though, dealing 4 wounds of which he failed 3 saves and only made 1 FNP, taking him down to 3. A charge in with the nearby Krootox and Farstalkers were enough to bring him down, as well as put my Farstalkers over the line for engage. The unit of 6 Rampagers melted the nearby Eightbound, but lost nearly two of their own to fight on death. The eight bound on the left flank when down to my Krootox and Rampagers there, while my carnivore blender blob opened up on the jackels, dealing 16 wounds, but only killing 3 models after an unreal saving throw, though I did manage to finish them off in the charge phase, however I paid for it, loosing 8 carnivores to their fight on death.
Here once again is where my inexperience came back to bite me. I’d shot up one of the spawn in the midfield, and charged into them with my last carnivore 10 man, however, it was just in range of his Execution Berzerker blob to Heroically intervene, cutting that unit to shreds with Fights first and putting them squarely in the midfield and then consolidating into what was left of my Dart Bow War Shaper unit that could just not catch a break. Despite that, I’d still managed to take out quite a few large threats, and deny him secondaries once again, while scoring my own. Second round score 32-12.
Round three went a lot faster with a bunch of smaller fights all across the table. The Spawn moved over my left flank that I had cleared last turn to tie up my units there. The Dart Bow War Shaper managed to hold the Master of Executions in place and I brought the squad back with Join the Hunt when the died. His eightbound in the back chopped through a unit of Farstalkers and consolidated into my nearby Krootx, which turned out to be a mistake as they killed 2 on the swingback. Kharn came out swinging, hitting what was left of my large Rampager blob and tearing them to pieces while his Lord Invocatus fell back onto an objective. He finally managed to score some secondaries this round though, netting Assassinate and Extend Battle Lines.
On my turn, I dropped the Vespid down on his home objective that was now unprotected and brought my carnivores in on the right flank planning to contest the Lord Invocatus’ objective, while he Rapid Ingressed his last Eaightbound to try and make something of the collapsed left flank since my units there were still tied up finishing off the surprisingly durable spawn. and took down two more of Kharn’s berzerkers with my Lone Spear, however, he Blood Surged in behind cover to protect them from Krootox follow up. However, that put them in perfect site of my Vespid who rolled amazingly well and finished off both the Berzerker and Kharn himself. Lastly, I couldn’t go a round without making another misplay. I used Guerrilla Warriors to fall back my Krootox that were tied up with the single eightbound and get them a line of sight on the Master of Execution’s unit while still being able to charge back and kill the final eightbound. However, when I hit the unit with my Lone Spear (fortunately killing 4 berzerkers), he Blood surged right into my Krootx, I didn’t realize they could enter engagement range with the ability *faceplam*. The Krootox were thus torn to ribbons. I did manage to finally down the spawn units though and free up my models fighting over there. Despite my misplay, I still had some Farstalkers kicking around and managed to pick off the Eightbound I’d fallen back from. I kept up with the steady scoring, but he was closing the gap by killing more units every turn, taking the game to 48-34.
Round four was another bout of small engagements. He picked up 5 points on Overwhelming Force by taking out a Lone Spear (the first time I’ve ever lost one) and single carnivore I’d been too focused on time to move, however defend stronghold got him no extra. His last unit of Eightbound hit my left flank, taking down my last unit of Rampagers, but at OC 1, they weren’t able to claim the objective from my 2 Krootox that had their toes still on it.
On my turn I ralled the last of my mauled squads, downing both the Eightbound with Lone Spear, remaining Krootox, Shapers and the remnants of my last Farstalker unit. While on the right flank I took down the Lord Invocatus with my Lone Spear (who scooted back into my home table quarter after shooting to keep me in 4), Vespid, and revived Carnivores. This left him only with his Master of Executions and 6 Berzerkers on my home objective while I held the rest of the board at the end of round 4, and giving us a score of 64-51.
The last round went as well as possible for him given the board state, with a re-roll from his berzekers, he finally managed to revive Angron, dropping him into my deployment zone and scoring 10 points between Behind Enemy Lines and Establish Locus. I picked up engage for a fine time, but couldn’t get the final assassination. Final score after paint: 86-76 (though we realized after he could have picked up 4 more points by killing my Lone Spear with his Master of Executions, sacrificing 4 points on secondaries for 8 primary, though I would still have been able to get full engage thanks to my Vespid.)
Overall, despite my several misplays, I think I did really well against such an accomplished player and I am a lot less nervous about the tournament this weekend. The main thing I need to focus on is the clock, I wasn’t anywhere near as on top of switching it as I should have been, which cost me about 10 minutes and made me time out at the end of round 3. Had this been an actual tournament, I would have lost because of that, 72-86. Even so, playing under that kind of time pressure taught me a lot and I know where I can make up a fair bit of time next game. After the game, my opponent (who had never faced full Kroot this edition) commented on how when looking at the individual datasheets, the Kroot seemed weak, but that belied the strength and synergy of the army as a whole.
Anyhow, I hope that this was an entertaining recap and that it might give some more people a sense of how good Kroot actually are right now.
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