Are Kroot in a better or worse spot now than 8th?

[Tawnis]

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.