Heyo everyone, It is the worlds worst 40k player here, Hotsauceman. I’m here to tell you about the Tau Empires favorite tax unit, Kroot Carnivores. For more tips, check out Tactics Corner for more fun stuff.
Kroot are a race of bird people who evolve by adapting the traits of what they ate. So let’s hope none of them eat Ron Jeremy. They are one of the first races the Tau “uplifted” and make up a vast majority of their scout units. They are a light infantry that is made for assaults and spotting enemies. They are also light skirmishers as well as cannon fodder so real Tau don’t die
Kroot are a very diverse squad. They have 4 different types of models in their unit, each with a different purpose and a different ability to add to the unit. They are primarily used as a tax unit for those who want to get either some Forgeworld units on the table or some Lords of War.
Wargear
Kroot and Shaper
- Kroot Rifle with Pulse Rounds: A pretty decent gun; Pretty much a Bolter with worse AP.
Krootox rider
- Kroot Gun. A 48” Rapid Fire Auto-Cannon. Not bad, but Tau have better ways to get firepower onto the table.
Optional
- The Shaper may replace his Kroot Rifle with a Pulse Gun or Pulse Carbine: Ok, but I don’t bother with it that much. The Kroot Rifle can be very versatile.
- Kroot Rifles may take Sniper Rounds: Very nice and one of the few reasons to still take Kroot.
Special Rules:
- Acute Senses(Kroot Hounds) Pretty nice: if you are Outflanking you can Re-roll your side.
- Bulky(Krootox Rider): Nothing special here.
- Infiltrate: Pretty nice to use with the short range of their guns.
- Move Through Cover: Aint nothing slowing Kroot down. It works well with the following.
- Stealth(Forests): Pretty situational, but what table doesn’t have atleast 1 forest?
Tactics
Kroot are a tax unit like I said, but they are a pretty good tax unit. What makes them good is how cheap they are and the fact they can benefit from Markerlights. Because Sniper Rounds are the cheapest they can be without being free, I always take them. When with just two Markerlights, you can have 20 sniper shots hitting at BS5 it can get pretty brutal to use. Max squads are always the way to go. Yes they die easily, but with so many bodies and hopefully a good cover save, you can easily survive it, as long as they don’t have Ignores Cover. I typically try to set up mine in a ruin or a forest. To try to get the best advantage you can get. Kroot look like a unit you want in assault, but are actually very middling in it. Yeah their gun doubles as a melee weapon, but at only STR 3 you are not likely gonna hurt much of anything. But if you have a full unit, you can get upwards of 40 attacks in. You are not hitting very hard, but they can be a good tarpit unit.
Now, there are two models that are upgrades to the unit that are not seen that much. Mostly because they are still metal, and they are kinda bad. The First is the Krootox. A giant cow with a gun strapped to its back. It is their heavy weapons platform, the problem being that it isn’t that good at actually hurting something. It is only str7 and Ap4. So I say keep it in the foam. But if you want you can take up to 3 of them in a unit. The second is the Kroot Hounds. These guys are pretty cheap and are actually useful to the unit, they have a higher Initiative and can allow you to re-roll when Outflanking, allowing you to get those side objectives you need badly. They also are half decent in assault, with 3 attacks base, and you can take up to 5. So on the charge that is 20 attacks, still str 3 though.
Now, onto formations. They can be taken in both Tau decurions, and in two separate formations. The sad thing is they are not good in either. Inside the Hunter Contingent they can share Markerlights, which is a boon for this formation because you are not wasting Markerlights on Kroot. They can also add 1 to their BS when they do that as well. In the Dawnblade Contingent, they gain the ability to re-roll to wound rolls vs. one unit. Not bad with Sniper rounds. They are a choice also in the Hunter Cadre. Because they do not have the Supporting Fire rule, they do not benefit from its main rule. You can run and shoot, which is great for Kroot guns. Now, onto the worst formation in the game probably. The Allied Advance Cadre. 4 units of Kroot, 2 units of Vespid. First you have to take Vespid, which are a steaming pile of manure. Then, the Vespid get Stealth(Forests) and the Kroot get Shrouded(Forests). Oh yea and they can finally get supporting fire, only with units from this formation. This is a garbage formation you should forget about.
Kroot are a half decent formation that I personally love to use in my games because they allow me to run other units I can only run in a CAD. But even with being a tax they can be good, Remember to comment below and Frontline Gaming sells Games Workshop product at up to 25% off, every day.
Sniper Rounds are amazing- Hotsauce certainly doesn’t skimp on their praise in the article, but there’s a lot more to it than he mentions. The Rending ability built in on them means that not only are they a threat to targets of any size (even Wraithknights, when you get right down to it, though they’re not an ideal choice) but they even have a chance of hurting vehicles, something few basic guns can brag of. Combined with a Krootox, you can be surprisingly dangerous to enemy transports.
The fact that all Sniper weapons also have Precision Shots is also huge and easy to underestimate. Most all of the time when shooting at the enemy you’ll have to chew through anywhere between three and nine “ablative” guys to kill the one important member of the squad, i.e. the dude carrying a heavy or special weapon. Precision Shots let you bypass that nonsense- it’s certainly not reliable, but when it works you’ll feel like a million bucks. There’s nothing sadder than a Tactical Squad that has lost its Grav Cannon and is staring, forlornly, at the Riptides and Stormsurges bearing down on it.
Krootox definitely aren’t great, but with Str 6 in melee they can put some damage in when needed and for only 25pts they end up as a reasonable option. S7 AP4 isn’t an exciting profile, but you should be able to get two shots out of it most of the time thanks to Infiltrate and 48″ Rapid Fire, and Infiltrate also means you can get into different arcs than the rest of the army- always a handy trick.
Kroot Hounds aren’t quite mandatory, but they’re pretty close. A Positional Relay can do similar job if you have it handy, but I often find the Hound is as good or better. (You trade the one-in-nine chance of showing up on the wrong side for a bonus wound, essentially.) They’re pretty lackluster in combat, but Init5 is actually really handy for avoiding getting Swept when you lose (or for those rare Blind checks.)
“There’s nothing sadder than a Tactical Squad that has lost its Grav Cannon and is staring, forlornly, at the Riptides and Stormsurges bearing down on it.”
Not quite. Immobilized MaulerFiends hold that title 😉
Would also like to add that Kroot and Kroot hounds are total bad asses in Kill Team.
the ability to fill the board with cheap infiltrating snipers and fast hounds mean you can really over run the board with bodies and decent shooting.
I always see Kroot described as being melee or assault units but the sad part is Fire Warriors are better at assaulting than Kroot. Between the better armor, actual assault weapons (Carbines or Breacher guns so you can shoot then charge), and defensive grenades (attempt to blind the enemy before charging in or negate any charge bonus when charged) Fire Warriors are just better at close combat than Kroot. For me Kroot are relegated to being forest camping snipers or being a conga line overwatch triggering wall of bodies. Outflanking is also a potential thing for them but I rarely find a situation I want to outflank the enemy with basically bolters instead of dropping in Crisis Suits packing Ions or Airburst Launchers. I would love to see Kroot be good and there is so much potential with the “Empire” side of the fluff but on the TT these guys just don’t cut it outside of those wonderful sniper rounds.
Kroot really are not assault infantry. I learned this the hard way by having my kroot out-fought by Fire Warriors. The truth is that T3 with a 6+ save is just too much of a handicap and they have to give up their shooting attack entirely to charge because they only have a rapid fire weapon. Nor are they much of a tarpit unless you happen to have an Ethereal nearby making them stubborn, without that support they have poor leadership and will typically lose combat and flee.
In fact it would be hard to say that kroot are the best at anything – yet I find they are a fantastic utility unit because they are pretty good at a lot of things.
1. Massed precision shots are great in many situations for picking out key models.
2. Massed rending is arguably even greater because it combines with the Dawn Blade contingent so well. They are actually one of the more points-efficient ways for Tau to put massed AP2 wounds onto elite infantry.
3. Tau have lots of great deployment tricks but kroot are no slouches at this – the ability to put a cheap throwaway unit out onto a mid-table objective from the start puts scoring pressure on your opponent from before the game starts. Outflanking kroot can put some shots where they matter, which is often more important than the dry statistical view of how good their damage output is.
4. Table presence matters, especially for bubble-wrap purposes. Kroot are fantastic bubble-wrap because while they cannot perform Supporting Fire they can certainly benefit from the fact that all the more expensive Tau unit they are screening have the rule.
Finally I have to say that on paper I have to agree with all the reservations about Krootox and yet when I run them in a Hunter Cadre within a Dawn Blade my krootox have become my premiere Imperial Knight killers. They can move onto the boundary between shield facings in the movement phase and then use Ambushes & Feints to dash to an unshielded side – at which point getting re-rolls to penetrate gets serious work done.
I had honestly forgotten that Kroot exist. And I realy liked them then they cam out. That pure Kroot list with the converted Orcs and all that nonsense was cool back in… then I wasn’t old 🙁