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Since I have participated in and completed my Call to Arms pledges, I've really taken a liking to the WIP subforum. As I've finished with my Chaos pledges, I've decided to finally tackle the Kroot Fatstalkers I got last year. This is a continuation of the Kroot that I first started… 14ish years ago. I painted this guy right out of high school, alongside his 15 kin that came in the Carnivore set. Teenage me did not realize that unthinned Testors model car paint was NOT the paint for 40k minis. Then came BSF, in which Dayhek Grekh was 50% of why I bought the game After Grekh was done and I started developing an interest in Kill Team (pre-Farstalkers) I decided to strip half the Carnivores, get some Kroothounds and Krootox, and paint them in the same style Since I didn’t start basing until like a year ago, I think this group still count as WIP

Since I have a WIP thread, may as well have a HoH thread for completed stuff Kroot are fun to paint

So, the Kroot look pretty solid in 10th so far and I wanted to do a bit of a breakdown of everything we’re working with at the moment. I know points are out tomorrow, but I don’t imagine they are going to shift all that much. So this will be based on the assumption that their points will be relatively similar to what they were in 9th since they didn’t drastically change anything. Overall Army: Keywords (For the Greater Good): Sadly no FTGG for Kroot, while they aren't excluded from the rule itself, they don't have the Keyword on their Datacard. Hopefully Dal'Yth will give it to them when the codex drops. Kauyon: It’s going to be interesting in the Kauyon only days for a little while. You want to get close for all the melee fun, but the only Detachment rule makes you want to stay at range. However, with Kroot being what they are, I think this puts us in a solid spot, we can play aggressive against shooting armies and cagier against melee ones. Stratagems: Kroot come out quite on top in this department. We really only had three usable strats last edition: Grisly Feast (now baseline on all carnivores and slightly buffed), A Trap Well Laid, (now baseline Heroic Intervention), we loose the +1A, but get to fight at the same time as the charging unit, I’d say a solid trade, and Outflank which will probably come back as a Dal’Yth specific strat later. With more baseline strats, we get a bit more to do. The new Grenades strat for usable by Carnivores and Farstalkers will be a great damage boost to hard targets and will likely be used a lot. Go to Ground will also be a great way to boost the survive ability of larger Kroot blobs (on most units, they are now -1 to be hit, +1sv, 6+ invul, and a 6+FNP with a potentially 4+ FNP). Lastly they pick up Point Blank Ambush from Kauyon, giving them an extra Pip of AP in the late game to help close things out. Now for the units: Shapers: Less of an auto include than I though they’d be when I learned how leaders work. They don’t add that much more firepower and only a bit more melee power. The increase of the FNP from 5+ to 4+ is nice, but really situational as you have to kill a unit in melee. They don’t even give the unit better LD, I was really hoping for a 6+ on the Shaper. The only Enhancement they can take so far is a +1 to hit and sometimes +1 to wound, not a big deal on their minimal attacks. Overall, sadly really underwhelmed by the Shapers so far, hopefully they get more creative with them in the codex proper. The passive 6+ FNP for the unit is nice though, that's basically what you're paying for. Carnivores: The loss of Ap is an expected blow, but otherwise, they look stronger. Stealth making them a permanent -1 to be hit is great for their ranged survive ability and Grisley Feast being baseline is a nice situational buff. I think they’re in a good spot and there are also now between FTGG and Feast, there are real incentives to run them in 20 man blobs rather than MSU. The lack of Battleline is the biggest problem here and will keep all Kroot armies pretty much hamstrung and unable to run at 2k Krootox Riders: Again the loss of some AP was expected, but packmates is a really neat buff harkening back to the old rules of them all being all one big unit. Them having +1 to hit if they are within 6” of a carnivore unit (so pretty much all the time) is a great buff. Also, since you can never increase your hit roll past +1, they also make great spotters for your Carnivores if they ever do get FTGG from Dal'Yth later on. I can also seeing them be taken as a durable one of in regular Tau lists just as spotters if their points are low enough. So long as they don’t get a big points hike, I think these guys will be great in any list. Hounds: Picking up stealth like the carnivores is a great buff if they can’t close right away. Their scout move is down from 12” to 9”, and with no longer re-rolling charges, having them close on something turn one is a lot less of a sure thing than it was last edition. They’ve also unsurprisingly been made OC:0 so no snagging backfield objectives for them anymore. No more grisly feast for them either which is sad as it was the main unit I used it on. They are +1 to wound now if they are near carnivores which is nice, but they’ve also lost their pip of AP like most Kroot. Overall, their strength has gone down considerably; however they were a very ubiquitous unit in 9th, so I’m not surprised they got hit pretty hard in the downgrade redesign. Farstalkers: The only unit that REALLY changed considerably in what they are and what they do, both positive and negative. The Kroot hounds that come with the kit are part of the unit now, so you’ve got to take a squad of 12, not sure how that will effect their points. Most of their weapons have been made baseline, so the shotgun, bow and sniper are all just guns now. It makes sense for the shotguns, but I’m sad to see the bow and the sniper go. At least we still have the tribalest and skinner to play with. While the tribalest did pick up anti-vehicle 4+, and while it did go down to D1, I think picking up devastating wounds was worth the trade off. Where they are really going to shine though is as character assassins. While they don’t get full re-rolls against their bounty targets anymore, they do pick up both Lethal Hits and Precision against their target, making them a solid option to take out all but the most heavily armed characters. This of course can be make even batter with the addition of the FTGG buffs. Without the Legends data sheets yet, there sadly isn’t anything else to talk about. So long as points remain close, I think that Kroot will still be reasonably strong on the tabletop. It will be very much a swarm the infantry and ignore the vehicles kind of play-style, but Kroot have pretty much always played like that, so I don’t think that’s too big a change there. I’m looking forward to the points reveal tomorrow and prepping everything for launch day. Another Krootsade may be in the works too. :D

Well, Into The Dark happened. Those characterful Kroot sculpts, full of life and fun, and yet another idea sprung to mind... How about a predominantly Kroot force, with remnants of Tau and human support, in the vein of a guerrilla force ? So I imagined a human colony, long forgot by the Imperium as insignificant, happened across by a Tau force, only to be driven to desperate measures as the Imperium suddenly remembered about them, and brought destruction for the lovely xeno huggers. Who promptly scattered into the woods, but not without some resistance... The centre lass was probably the start, a somewhat irregular kind of character that I currently refer to as "the link". Added a charging Kroot friend, and a man of the woods, someone who shunned both Imperial and Tau society, but whose knowledge of local terrain is invaluable. Now, the ITD Kroot were most certainly "guerrilla" enough, but a few of them look more versed in human society, with patches of armour, and the poncho guy. So I started converting up some with this idea further, the Kroot who've lived/worked within society more, as mercenaries, pirates etc. Used some Hired Guns bodies, and I like the look: And the most guerrilla of folks, a conversion of the Ghosts: "But OSS", I hear you cry, "wouldn't they need some kind of mobile home, some sort of base of operations ?" Yes, yes they would: Some bunks for the left, and a kroot kitchen on the right, with lots of little details to add in. Maybe some 'bandage' camo netting on the top. Just a fun litle project (not a legal army) that's entirely killed my painting progress on the Dark Mech, but I've always been more of a builder. C+C welcome, and thanks for looking !

So I joined up with a local league recently and wanted to play something outside of my usual faire of Space Marines or Necrons. I love the Kroot lore-wise and since it was a casual league that allowed Legendary units, that sealed the deal for me. I didn't think I would do all that well TBH, I mostly just built it for fun, but it's been crushing it so far. Here's the list: 1 Battalion Detachment: Dal'Yth Sept (Sept traits sadly do not effect Kroot units): HQ 1 Ethereal on Disk with 2 Marker Drones: 80pts. WT: Gunship Diplomat, Relic: Seismic Destabilizer. 1 Ethereal on Disk with 2 Marker Drones: 80pts. Troops 60 Kroot Carnivores in squads of 10: 360pts. Elites 2 Shapers with Pulse Rifles: 50pts. 4 Individual Krootox: 112pts. Fast Attack: 12 Kroot Hounds: 72pts. 6 Knarloc Riders in squads of 3: 180pts. Heavy Support: 1 Greater Knarloc: 65pts. Total: 999 Points. So, there are two main features to the army that makes the army pretty solid: First, it's their maneuverability. 7" Pregame move on the Carnivores, then 7" regular. 12" on the hounds, 7" on the Knarlocs with auto 6" for advance. Shapers can even take a 1CP Stratagem to give them aura re-roll advance rolls if that's not enough. Basically, turn one, you can get well across the board and onto any relevant objective. Second is their numbers and surprising durability for their points. The main weakness to the Carnivores is their 6+ save and Ld 6. An Ethereal nearby protects them with both a Ld 9 aura and a 6+ FNP. Putting them in cover helps too, with the aid of the Hidden Hunters stratagem giving a Kroot unit in cover -1 to be hit and +1sv over and above what is given by the cover itself. Between the Knarlocs and Hounds trying up anything of concern, the army gets in fast and locks down the objectives long enough to ensure a victory even if the opponent manages to fight through it all by the later turns. So here's a very brief overview of how the army has done so far. I played 3 preliminary games before the league officially started, all at 1k points. Game 1 vs Blood Angels: He went first and conceded on his turn two. We played center ground and I got on all 4 objectives by the end of my first turn preventing him from scoring; I also killed his 300+ pt Repuslor Executioner with a my 65 point Greater Knarloc and about half if an assault intercessor squad trying to contest an objective. After a failed charge from his Sanguinary Guard out of deep strike on turn 2, he hadn't taken a single objective and scooped up his models. (Though he was super nice about it and asked to play again sometime.) We did't total the points since it ended so early, though I had maxed out on all my scoring so far and it didn't look like it would change. Game 2 vs Astra Militarum: So he played an all tank army fitted with lots of Plasma Cannons that seemed kitted out to take on Space Marines. He didn't have much chance as he simply couldn't roll enough dice to kill all the Kroot and so much of my stuff was ObSec that he couldn't contest the objectives. I scored a perfect 100 that game. (My first time ever.) Game 3 vs Tau (Farsight Enclaves): For this one, while grabbing the objectives, my Knarlocs and Hounds ran into his Riptide and Crisis Suits, trying them up for the first two turns while I took out his infantry with an ocean of Str 4 shots from my Carnivores. By the time the Knarlocs were dead, he'd lost all his infantry and much like the Gaurd player, just didn't have enough dice to dislodge the remaining Kroot from the objectives. I scored 99 points that game. So then the league started in earnest and was structured like so: Game 1: 750pts. Game 2-3: 1,000pts, Game 4-5: 1,500pts, game 6: 2,000pts. League Game 1 vs Custodes: (I cut 20 Carnivores, 3 Riders, 6 Hounds, and a Disk). Easily the hardest game fought so far as it was damn near impossible to kill his models (except for a Hero Krootox that killed 2 custodian guard by himself with some exemplary dice rolling). Much like the other games, I grabbed the midfield turn one in an attempt to choke him out. It essentially turned into a giant brawl on a midfield objective that lasted until the end of the third round with him trading a unit of custodian guard and a few wounds off his captain and dread for over half my army. His use of the Grim Responsibility and the Emperor's Auspice Stratagems prevented an absurd amount of damage that game. However, by the time he'd cleared all that out, I was too far ahead on points for him to make a comeback, though he did close the distance significantly finishing with a score of 82-71 (The original score was 95-71, but I realized afterwards I accidentally selected two secondareis from the same group, whups). So yeah, that's the story of the (as of yet) undefeated Kroot army. I've been really happy with it so far and am looking forward to the rest of the league. If I could change anything, I would cut a unit of Carnivores and a Disk (Spending 1 CP for the extra WT: A Ghost Walks Among Us to compensate for the movement loss) to add another Greater Knarloc. Those things are just so points efficient, but they are damn near impossible to find as they were discontinued so long ago. I'd love to hear what you think of the army and any other improvements that could potentially be made to it.

So, after both the nerf to Mont'Ka and the addition of Armour of Contempt, it really feels like Kroot went from being legitimately strong to, back to where they were in 8th. So, I wanted to quickly go over the differences we're seeing now and how everything stacks up. Starting with individual units, then tactics and stratagems: Shapers: Being an HQ slot really helps the Shaper, with access to Kroot specific Warlord traits and relics and their own special Shaper Rifle, they've gotten a sizable buff in damage output and utility at no points increase. They also gained +1 WS, +1 LD and the pre-game move ability at the cost of 1 W. While the Pack Alpha ability is now a WT rather than a pre-game strat, it's only really a downside if you're stacking a lot of Warlord Traits across your army. Overall, even with the recent nerfs, shapers still come out way ahead. Carnivores: The Kroot's bread and butter haven't faired quite as well as their leaders. Aside from gaining a much needed +1 A, the only stat change was the swap from +1 S on their weapon to a baseline 4S. Though they have gained quill grenades which is a nice little addition even though it will almost never come up and when it does will have only very minor impact. So technically the Carnivores did come out ahead, but only barely, the +1 attack is nice, and was pretty solid at -1 AP, but now most armies preventing that turns it back to a bunch of single damage no AP attacks that will only plink off a wound here and there. Krootox: The Krootox made out almost as well as the shaper with several changes, but one a big one. Their ranging beasts strat was now baseline, taking them from a measly 2A S6 AP0 D2 to 4A S6 AP-2 D2 turning them into a solid melee threat while still having a powerful gun at range. Also a decrease in points from 28 to 25 and the pre-game move (even at the loss of the 6" auto advance) both help out too. The Krootox still come out well ahead in 9th. Hounds: The +1 attack really made these glass cannons more viable, however, the -1AP they had was what made their high volume of S3 attacks chip away at things, now with AoC taking that away, the extra attacks get washed out by the typical loss of the AP. Their big benefit now is that they get the 7" pre-game move and their re-roll charge is baseline rather than requiring the unit being charged to have already been wounded. However, even when they do connect, you're mostly just tying things up now rather than actually killing them, which can still be good, but is far less so. All and all, hounds come out VERY slightly ahead. Knarloc Riders: These guys were the big looser of 9th unfortunately. See, while their unit stats stay the same since they are a legend unit, any weapon changes do still effect them. So, the rider is baseline S3, but no longer gets the +1S from his weapon and the AP-1 that replaces it is often not effective due to AoC. The broad reduction to AP really hurts the mount to, that only gets 2 attacks at S5 (6 on the charge), AP-2, D:2, half of what the Krootx brings while costing 5 additional points. If those mount attacks could be buffed with strats and relics like regular attacks, it could work out, but it specifically states that they can't increase. They were okay units in 8th, but are now just totally outshone by the Krootox, and even without them would be pretty meh as the power creep has really left them behind. Great Knarlocs: These legends have done better for themselves. Mont'Ka really helps out with the baggage harness Knarloc as you wanted to advance them to keep up with the army to provide their buff, and get close for melee, but then you could shoot its weapon. The only very minor nerf comes in the loss of the +1S on the Kroot rifle. The way the unit is templated, you select for your weapon, either the Knarloc at S:User (7), AP-4 D:3 or the rider at S:+1 AP:0 D:1, so their were some fringe cases against 1W units with no armour like demons where you would want to take the +1 S instead, but they were super corner cases. Overall, these guys came out a little ahead. So overall, while the nerf to Mont'Ka and AoC did really hurt the Kroot, they are still a little bit ahead of where they were baseline in 8th. But there are still the changes in support abilities and strats to consider. The Relic Kroot rifle is fantastic and a great way to hive a little Shaper some serious firepower. The Borthrod gland, when well positioned, adds some serious melee oomph too. Master of the Hunt is great, removing cover from units that would pump their save against our (now) no AP shooting. Shapers now give re-roll 1's replacing the reliance on marker lights for it in 8th, whereas Mont'ka still provides the re-roll 1's to wound that the shapers used to. The big loss is in the Etheral's. Their previous 6+ FNP aura really gave the Kroot some much needed survivability. While the +1 sv in cover does somewhat offset that, it is more situational and can be negated through AP. They also gave the army 9Ld making it hard to die to Ld losses. You can still get them up to 9 with the 8 the shapers provide and the +1 the Etheral gives if you take the Dal'Yth WT, but that only helps one, it's not something you can spread around anymore. This loss does make the army reasonably more fragile. You do gain the benefit of sometimes giving a unit +1 to wound, which isn't nothing, but you want to keep the units as small as possible to not loose them to Ld failure, so the benefit isn't huge. Kroot Shapers being HQ's now though does reduce Etheral reliance and you can just take more bodies to compensate for the removal of all but one Ethereal, so that does help balance out to a point as well. We also lost the benefit of marker lights. Those benefits are spread around in other areas like WT to ignore cover, or WT to provide +1 to hit from markers now, but only in an aura. These give these buffs in specific areas of units rather than allowing you to target them onto an enemy and give all your units the buff when attacking them. Overall, it's a fairly decent nerf. As for stratagems, we lost Hidden Hunters which does hurt. While the +1sv in cover being baseline is overall an improvement, the -1 to be hit from the strat was really good and being able to use it on the larger models that didn't normally get a cover save was super helpful. We also lost the REALLY situational one of hounds giving aura re-rolls to charge within 12" after they completed a charge. I only ever used it twice in all of 8th, but they were both pretty epic moments when I did. We did gain a couple solid ones though. Grizzly feast giving a unit a 5+ FNP is really nice, but they have to eliminate a unit in close combat to get it, which I've only pulled off once (when it was actually worth it to give the number of surviving models the FNP). It's nice, but really situational. The previous Heroic intervention strat was buffed to also provide +1 A which is a nice little boost, though it often draws the attacks onto the intervening unit, making most of them dead before they can get the boost. (Though if you can overlap this with a Borthrod Glad activation, you can roll a very large amount of dice. So, all and all, where are we at. While I think the Kroot did still come out ahead in 9th, before the recent changes, they felt like an army that could be thematic and go toe to toe with other armies, getting in their face and delivering death by a thousand cuts. With the loss of most of the Mont'Ka benefits and the addition of AoC, it feels like were back to 8th. We can't really kill much and have to focus on taking apart obsec units and holding objectives rather than fighting against their army. Speaking of objectives, there is one more thing that's really hurt the Kroot, the chance to secondaries, especially after the new updates. Without the ability to really kill much, were left with secondaries like Stranglehold and Banners to make our points, but don't really have any reasonable third pick. This was often offset but the mission secondary often being objective or action based which wasn't too hard to complete. Now we don't really have a viable 3rd pick and it's really hurting in the scoring department. Overall, we were reasonably competitive before the nerfs. I get why they had to be done to reign in the Tau proper armies that were just decimating things, but it's dropped us back into the 8th playstyle. The buffs we can still rely are still good enough that they do offset the nerfs, but not by a very large amount. So, to finally answer the original question, yes we are in a VERY slightly better place than we were in 8th, but the other armies are power creeping so much faster, that I don't know how much longer we'll be able to hold out own.