New kroot. Noot.

Kroot War Shaper

KROOOT

STILL WITH THE GREATER GOOD!!!

SPECIAL WEAPONS!

NEW TYPES OF SHAPERS!

War Shaper is the more "General" type.

RAMPAGE

THIS PLEASES FARSIGHT! STRENGTH TO THE ENCLAVES!

I want 12.

Older man, fire support, though can move forward to rip and tear.

....

This is half the stuff!?

....

Army of Renown Kroot is an option.

Though you can still run Kroot with the Greater Good. Best of both Worlds.

Gods that old cover hits hard now.

New Kroot Carnivores are really well done, not much of note to say besides I love the new poses and how crisp they look, oh and puppy!

These are interesting! I love the concept of it and I can't wait to see what options this box will have! This is exactly the weirdness I hoped the Kroot could bring to the T'au Empire!

Followed by this 'older' Krootox, what a beautiful adorned beast this has become! All the jewelry and stuff gives the model such a different feeling and I'm all here for it, great changes!

The new war Shaper is just mind blowing, how much character they've put into one model is crazy, definitely getting both because I can't choose a favorite version

And (for now) lastly the new Flesh Shaper, awesome fitting model for the range! Beautiful!

Sadly didn't see the rest of the doggies but I'm hyped about this being only half of what's coming for the Kroot! Finally finally finally getting the love I think the Kroot deserve

And 11 badly repaired kroot, need to green stuff gaps & do bases tommorow, which will give me;

1 farstalkers kindrud

2*10 kroots

2 war / 1 flesh / 1 tracker shaper

MAYNOS OCCUPATION FORCE

The death of Aun’Shar spurred the greater Tau fleet into immediate action. Seven separate invasion forces were deployed to different areas on Maynos, with what remains of the May’nar sept sending a desperate spearhead deep into enemy territory, exploring a set of coordinates gained from deep within the vault.

1. Commander Shadowsun has been woken from cryosleep to lead the vanguard, equipped with her new slave arm system designed by the May’nar septs earth caste. Though the May’nar sept has been whipped into a blind rage from the death of an ethereal, Shadowsuns arrival has caused them to hone and focus that rage into making his death count.

2. Shas’Vre Steelsong in his XV104 Riptide battlesuit. While Riptide pilots are normally essential to the Tau war machine, Steelsong was grounded for the early portion of the Maynos conflict due to his battlesuit being retrofitted with Votaan technology acquired by the late Aun’Shar. Now equipped with an experimental Shatterpoint vibration system designed to melt incoming ballistics at a molecular level, he has never been more ready to take the field, and to exact vengeance on his foes.

3. The Hakrak hunting pack makes planetfall in a Tidewall Gunrig. Pivoting from a scouting mission to a full planetary occupation, the fleet has dropped mobile fortifications in key locations. Not yet trusted to be in a proper dropship with firewarriors, the volatile Hakrak tribe strapped themselves to the gunrig before it was dropped. To the indignation of the Earth caste scientists, the Carnivores had consumed the remains of Votaan berserkers that were marked for study, which, to the surprise of the same scientists, had altered the Kroot’s skin to withstand the heat and pressures of planetfall. Thus the hunting pack’s descent had a 0% casualty rate leaving them free to continue their desecration of the dead, causing wild and random evolutions unchecked by a shaper.

4. The full contingent of Fogbreaker squadron has joined the main force. It was originally Fogbreakers Tetra pilots that activated the vault, which caused the planet to shift and spike in energy at a single point. The remaining members of the squadron now feel obligated to see their mission through to the end, swapping their usual harassment tactics for a more direct approach, joining the vanguard led by Shadowsun.

5. The shadowy Aun’Vec oversees the assault from the back line. An ethereal from the Sa’cea sept, Aun’Vec is shunned from the council due to using the remains of fire warriors in his experimental weapon development programs. Although another ethereal has taken charge of this theatre of battle from orbit, Aun’Vec insisted on his own deployment to the surface, under the pretense that someone should monitor Shadowsun for signs of cryosickness. In truth the mysterious ethereal has been poring over seismic scans of the planet, looking for the easiest route to Aun’Shar’s last known location for some yet unknown purpose. In lieu of a honor blade, Aun’Vec is armed with an Eldar Ghostsword he claimed from a Wraithblade in combat. It is rumored that it was after this battle that his experiments took a dark turn, where he would attempt to plant Tau souls into drones as a way of resurrection.

Stay tuned to see them in battle in the final chapter of The Maynos Gambit!

Thirteen Kroot, twelve plastic figures from the Farstalker Kinband box with the additional one being a metal 2001 Games Day Kroot Shaper. I'm planning on using these in D&D, so the plastic Kroot have been assembled as low tech as possible--six with hand weapons, one with grenades to serve as an artificer, and the other three non-hounds with guns that look low-tech enough to pass as primitive firearms.

The Kroot will be standing in for the Dehavi, a species descended from a group of Skyfolk who were cursed with the loss of flight for their lack of hospitality/mercy/compassion in a time of war.

Tau Auxiliaries

since everyone and their mother have ideas on how tau auxiliaries should be handled/expanded, I'll throw in my own two cents on the matter as I do hold a perpetual love for the greyskins.

Personally, i love the tau battlesuits. I'm a real sucker for them, and I have a lot of ideas on expanding just the battlesuits which i'll go over quickly:

"infantry" battlesuits which would include stealth suits but also new strike suits [infantry crisises], demo suits [infantry broadsides] and jet suits [infantry hazard suits]

medium battlesuits which would include crisis suits, broadsides, hazard suits being moved into fast attack as the tau fast attack option, and new spectre suits [medium stealth suits]

large battlesuits which would broadly include the riptide, ghostkeel, and new skyline [hazard large suits] and wavesurge [broadside large suits]

and finally the special twoperson heavy battlesuits which would be the stormsurge for ridonkulus artillery and the stormtide for a more mid to close range approach knight killer

however I'd also like to see expansion on just regular tau infantry before ever expanding on battlesuits, and that would naturally lend itself to expansion of auxiliaries with it. so, first what do I feel the normal tau bois need?

shas'ui team, an elite infantry option that would be like your tau equivalent of a stormtrooper/karskin team. they could also have special rules/upgrades to act as an ethereal bodyguard attachment.

"stealth team", a more weird idea admittedly, based on how in dawn of war dark crusade tau get an early game single unit of an xv-15 stealth suit, canonically the older stealth suit [old game model] before the adoption of the xv-22 [the modern model], to capture immediate points and get ya through the start of a match until ya build a barracks. the stealth team in my mind instead of stealth suits use 'stealth armour' based on the xv-15 makin em an elite non battlesuit tau infantry.

demolition team, tau heavy weapon infantry option.

Which now brings us to the tau auxiliaries themselves. Personally I would have things set up to focus on four main auxilia races to simplify things a bit and try and control the spiral of units on the army list. Namely: kroot, vespid, morallian, and gue'vesa

kroot and vespid are obvious being longterm mainstays, the only units I feel would need to be added being an 'elite'/stronger vespid variant and a single character vespid unit like how the kroot have shapers. a similar pattern I feel would be best applied across other auxilia detachments.

vespid strainlord, a single character vespid unit and the boss of vespid strain leaders. strainlords would be a 'boss' by virtue of having the best planning and organizing skills of a group of strainleaders as opposed to being the strongest, though they would also get the best gear and first pick among the strainleaders for stuff like food usually making them the strongest by proxy of being a strainlord.

vespid sonicshrieks, a special/stronger vespid unit notorious for being exceptionally fast and using special sonic weaponry attuned to their faster then usual wingbeats.

next morallians. we dont have basically anything in the way of knowledge on morallians or what they looklike, outside of the skin of their young being particularly soft and sought after by drukhari and that they're more of a kroot mercenary type of auxiliary. their name alone, morallian deathsworn, brings to my mind a heavy support auxilia option.

morallian deahtsworn, the basic morallian unit. morallians would be big and chunky bois in the classic vein of heavy weapon experts in games everywhere. they would have heavy armour and their bodies would be naturally tough in comparison to their softskinned youth, which also results in them specializing in a ton of hard hitting highly explosive weaponry they can survive but others not so much. their own unique tech would be particularly nasty in that regard not dissimilar to stuff like phosphex or rad weaponry, though the tau tend to disdain applying such tech outside of the most extreme circumstances so most morallians under tau employ keep to more traditional incendiaries or explosives.

morallian oathkeepers, the single character morallian elite. as all commanders in morallian forces regardless of seniority would be required to undergo a series of extensive oaths they get called oathkeepers and their general stubborn bloodimindedness. oathkeepers rise to their position with age their skin having hardened to a truly impressive degree and the countless battlefields they've experienced giving them a distinct edge in experience and wisdom to their youngers.

morallian warmongers, a special morallian unit consisting of morallians not far away from becoming oathkeepers. warmongers would be recklessly eager to prove themselves and thus dive headfirst into the thickest of fighting heavy weapons blasting away and special cqc weapons gripped firmly to crack as many heads as possible.

and finally gue'vesa. the simplest solution is to just offer options to incorporate imperial guard units into a tau army, but frankly that feels like a missed opportunity to generate some wacky hybrid units of imperial and tau tech. niche wise they like their lore would fit into the middle of tau gunline and kroot aggressive melee being the guys ya keep infront of your melee impared fire warriors to add some gunline punch, throw grenades and eat charges but also behind the kroot line letting you charge in your kroot worry free of lacking a shielding unit for your fire warriors. like the kroot they'd also get a bit more toys in the army to work with.

gue'vesa squad. your "gue'la's" and imperial guard infantry equivalent. unlike the imperial guard however your gue'las get a bit more fancy gear and the training to use it ultimately playing like an imperial guard infantry squad got outfitted in tempestus gear by accident. So, they all get caprace armour, and special 'pulselas' guns which are kinda like hotshot lasguns but made with tau tech so ya dont need an oversized powerpack to run it. they are still otherwise an infantry squad though. the trusted bayonet remains on hand despite tau questions to the contrary.

gue'vesa stormtroopers. your elite gue'las or gue'vre as it were either being turncoat stormtrooper regiments or descended from such groups and their practices. well most gue'vre tend to be kept close to home as a nescient imperial governor turncoat to the tau empires sides best tool to keep order and protect their own skin from dangers 'inside the house', many more gue'vre get sent out with tau empire forces as either shows of solidarity or as means of currying favor by winning big battles and 'doing their part for the empire'. gue'vre get all the best shit including special infantry armour designed with tau technological assistance, and access to the experimental weaponry pathfinders use cause like pathfinders gue'vesa are 'dangerously hotheaded/insane' enough to use that stuff. the basic weapon of the gue'vre however would be the 'pulseplas gun' a spin on the standard imperial plasma gun thats been stabilized with tau technological designs increasing its reliability/rate of fire at the cost of making it behave a bit more like your usual tau pulse weapons. Tau earth caste engineers originally wanted to remove the overcharge capability but human project advisors insisted otherwise. in essence, your straight upgrade to the pulselas gun but with the option to overcharge at risk of exploding.

gue'vesa sentinels. well most gue'vesa armour like leman russes, chimeras and even baneblades can be found on gue'vesa homeworlds they tend to be reserved for home defense/reserve use among the gue'vesa. partly for logistical reasons as the tau have perfectly functional often superior armour equivalents to the leman russ and chimera in active service and thus easier to supply for and maintain on campaign, partly for moral and safty concerns as something like a baneblade is good for home moral and too valuable a symbol to risk losing on campaign. sentinels on the other hand are widespread among gue'vesa forces being relatively unique yet easily producible and replaceable by tau logistics well providing unique utility as a speedy gun walker usable by auxilia units. perhaps more importantly however is the unique model of sentinels the tau empire have helped design for gue'vesa use are compatible with many tau battlesuit system upgrades and all tau battlesuit weaponry meaning you can have these things lumbering around with some extra railguns or missile pods or ion blasters or what have you in support.

gue'vesa officer. your single character/hq for gue'vesa. pretty much exactly what it says on the tin being a gue'vesa officer, with the unique function of being able to issue some uniquely human spins on mont'ka or kauyon strategy in the form of 'killing blow order' your gue'vesa equivalent of fix bayonets and 'patient hunter order' your gue'vesa equivalent of suppression fire.

aside from that, some minor auxilia to help get a couple into most catagories. For my taste that would include greet stealthers, a mentioned auxilia race with flyers and vorgh that one auxilia mentioned recently that is lord of war sized and capable of fist fighting em cause it'd be very funny. finally, I think a tau psyker auxilia option would not be remise. not the nicassar mind as they are stressed to be voidbound, but something to cover that whole for the tau without being a tau unit itself. For my money, all i can think of is either an original creation of an auxilia race for that niche or just to throw in gue'vesa psykers as an option.

From The LVO Reveals: The Kroot!

The Characters:

Kroot kindreds are guided in battle by wise gene-shamans known as Shapers, and now they have a wider array of these specialised leaders to choose from – starting with the two in the Kroot Hunting Pack.

Up first is the War Shaper, a seasoned battlefield commander who takes responsibility for the disposition of all Kroot forces in the field. War Shapers are exemplary warriors in their own right. Their traditional equipment may look primitive, but it’s extremely effective in such experienced hands – whether the twirling melee prowess of the bladestave and prey-hook, or pinpoint ranged power of the dart-bow and tri-blade.

They are accompanied by the vicious Flesh Shaper – masters of ritual butchery who take a strong personal pride in guiding the carnivorous practices of their fellow Kroot and ensuring only the finest genetic material makes it into their pack’s evolutionary heritage.

Oh dang, the new Kroot are actually a whole new unit. And they have some options. Lets see, some quick theorycrafting... Assault Squad:  It’s possible to give two members of the squad Scatterguns (Assault 2 Str 4 AP 0,)  and one a Pulse Carbine (As before but Str 5,) one a Str 6 Bow (Assault 1 Str 6 AP-2,) and one a Flamer-equivalent (With -1 AP,) called a Dvorgite Skinner They still get a pre-game move of 6″, and now they can select a “bounty” at the start of round 1 and reroll hits against them. That’s like, 15.5″ of movement to get in range, rerolling hits. You can buff it further with things such as the Power of Tides invocation, giving you +1 on wound rolls. A Str 5, AP-1 flamer is SOLID. You can also get a bird that lets you ignore cover. So, rush in, cause havoc. Die. However, even going all-in on assault seems... Weird? You would have a mixed unit where only half your guys can actually attack if you rush in. You have a -bizarre- mix of weapon types with only the Flamer really standing out, though all of them are at least decent against guards. And you are kind of going all-in on a sudden rush-strike. Sniper: An interesting combination of abilities, one of the kroot can have a Sniper Rifle, the Kroot Hunting Rifle - Heavy 1, Str 6, AP1, 2D.  Snipers are rare among Tau, and this can pair with a guy who has a bird - Meaning you now have a sniper that ignores cover. Finally, Bounty Hunters again: That one character, you can reroll hits on. So, you can have one sniper, and the rest with standard Kroot Rifles and a Pulse Rifle (Which have the longest range of any of their weapons; the leader instead gets a Pulse Rifle) That one kroot sniper should be able to punch WAY above their weight class: They are effectively being screened by other kroot, they are rerolling hits, they are specifically targeting a character. This is also notably a sniper that is immune to counter-sniping, due to not actually being a character. This is very cool. It’s very characterful to have one cool sniper who hunts with a bird. But is it actually useful? In the end, that’s not a huge amount of damage. Certainly, you still have a gunline, but kroot are not super impressive at this without massed numbers. Worth noting: This pairs well with a Shaper wielding the Ka’Chak’Tarr, a Rapid Fire 2, Str 5, AP-2, 2D relic sniper. At that point, those 10 kroot are screening both their own sniper and the Shaper, and the Shaper is in turn letting the non-sniper kroot reroll hits of 1. That effectively gives you a pair of snipers and in-built screening for about 115 points.  I think if you are playing all-kroot, then fielding three of these units is possible and it’d give you just... An obscene amount of firepower against one character unit. That could honestly be huge. Kroot War Canoe: You ever taken a look at the Tidewall Shieldline? It’s a long, mobile piece of terrain that only costs 80 points. a 10-man unit can embark on it, and enjoy 10 wounds and a 5+ invulnerable save. A squad of Kroot Farstalkers on one would fit exactly and cost only 160-180 points For a while, I have had my eye on these things, noting that they would pair well to counter a Kroot’s infamous fragility. However, the issue is that - What are you getting out of that? 20 Kroot Rifle shots? But now... You have a varied group fielding a lot of really quite decent weapons, but who are very fragile themselves. So... You can combine them.  Fully kitted out Kroot Squad in a difficult-to-take-down War Canoe. You can have a pretty powerful anti-vehicle weapon and a solid sniper in each, along with some other weapons. You are ignoring cover. When your canoe goes down, you can scramble out and keep fighting.

You like the root I wish there was a book ,about how the kroon became allies with the tau

I love the Kroot! One of my earliest posts ever was about my desire for more Kroot units in the T’au Codex.

I think a study, or more information, on the War for Pech would be amazing, the first time the T’au and Kroot ever work together, one of the most enduring and long lasting friendships in the galaxy, so powerful that the Kroot, as a species, have all elected to never eat T’au meat, not because it is tainted like Genestealers or chaos, but because they feel respect and friendship for them.

I would LOVE expanded Kroot options; Kroot light vehicles for moving through dense terrain, Winged-Kroot morphs for fast attack, Shaper HQ’s to fight Warbosses, Psyker-Kroot to provide the T’au with some Psychic, Kroot veterans, who’ve consumed genetic samples over years and years to modify themselves, allowing a base-elite unit which can be fine-tuned with purchaseable upgrades reflecting their own modifications and such. 

GLORY OF THE EMPERORS HOLY CHALICE

Rules - 350 points. The Emperor's personal drinking vessel has been found! 3 turn match. The model touching it gets to hold the chalice. If the model dies, they drop it. Whoever has it after 3 turns wins!

Because it was low cost, we got rid of morale tests up front, and for the record we came up with the game type after we built 350 point forces. Oh and we went unbound.

Sororitas: Celestine, retributior squad (3x melta, HFlamer, HBolter) Simulacrim Imperialis.

Tau/Kroot: 12x Kroot + Shaper, Krootox, 4x Kroot hounds, stealth suits, HQ dude who shot a bunch of markerlights.(?) “Darkstrider”

Eldar: 2x farseer, 5x Dire Avengers, 5x Banshees.

Turn 1

Sororitas went first, celestine jumped 12 and flamed 6 kroot. Heavy squad moved up.

Kroot moved up and the shaper grabbed the chalice. Stealth suits moved up, everyone lit Celestine up and took her down!

Eldar everyone moved up, farseer drew from divination and cast hallucination on the kroot. Avengers killed a few kroot and banshees charged killing 4. Kroot lost combat, and we decided since the game was so small, and morale could lose you half your force we’d go fearless. To resolve combat loss, kroot took a leadership test, which they failed - DROPPING THE HOLY CHALICE!!

Turn 2

Sororitas Celestine came back to life with a single wound, jump-stealing the Chalice and making off like a bandit with her run move. Heavies moved up.

Kroot were tied up in combat, losing more men against the banshees, stealth suits took down celestine.

Eldar shot at stealth suits making no impact :( cast hallucinate on the heavy squad though! Banshees finish the last of the kroot.

Turn 3

Sororitas heavies grabbed the Chalice and keep running - it’s looking good for the Sisters!

Tau (only stealthsuits left!) try, but fail to inflict casualties on the sisters.

Eldar use mind war to kill the Chalice bearer, take down all but one sister and the banshees with their plus 3 movement manage to grab the Chalice in the dying seconds of the game! There was one inch of movement between victory and a 3 way tie.

The Dogs of War

They work well with Farstalkers or Carnivores, able to run and charge if near their masters.

Plus, objective capturing.

.....

Likely the next reveal for Kroot will be a cavalry leader.

So from current play testing, skyrays are shit, and kroots carnivores do more damage even Vs things with 2+ save, for 1/3rd of the points

Farstalkers are great, especially with the flesh shaper & enhancement for lethal/precision on shooting, and lethal/precision/substained 5+ in melee

Dogs seem neat for secondaries, as idc if my 40pt dogs don't shoot, but do if my 20 rapid fire kroot don't

Reroll hits on farstalkers & flesh shapers is great

I've had 0 luck on the war shaper, with root-3+ devestating bow character snipe, but that might just be my rolls, might be better off with +3" move on a 2nd farstalkers

Lone spear is mandatory

So with the new Kroot releases, we are getting...

Trail Shaper (Allows their unit and a second Kroot unit to redeploy, and move 1d6" in response to a unit moving within 9")

Kroot War Shaper, available with either a rifle or a bow and Krull Glaive

Flesh Shaper, which appears to be concerned with the kroot's ability to consume food and eat

Currently unrevealed model riding a Knarloc-like beast, believed by some to be a character

...That is a lot of characters. Huh.

You know, in some older editions there was a unit you could take called a Shaper Council, comprised of multiple Shapers. I could see that being a thing again, at this rate

Aside from shoving Kroot in reserve to persistently harass an enemy with endless amounts of cannibal chickens, I could see them playing well with fortifications too Basically - I’d have to check how a pre-game move works, but theoretically you should be able to move into a fortification, right? This would allow you to retreat to invincibility. - Tau fortifications are open-topped and can move over walls. This lets you set up a charge as you advance up the board - move up, and once the fortification is blown up, all your kroot deploy right there. Or they can just depart and get off a whole charge. Not bad for a kind of hybrid ranged/melee unit - Tau fortifications cost no command points to field - A Shaper can hide behind a fortification and be right there. You can set one up behind a shieldwall to activate Aerospace Targeting Relays, for example ....I should get some war canoes for them

My strategy could be persistently dropping in enemies from the edge of the map, harassing enemies constantly, while advancing in on canoes to set up a melee charge. This sounds fun.