Kroot Conga Line

From left to right, a tournament judge, a White Scars null deploy cheeser, and a Tau troll

This article or section covers stupidly cheesy and/or broken crunch that gives powergamers and munchkins a serious hard-on at the expense of everyone else. It is extremely likely to cause Rage in whoever goes against it. So don’t use it, you dick.

The Kroot Conga Line was a famous lulzy game in a 40k tournament in which a White Scars player found himself shut down and "destroyed" in his first turn by two squad of 13 Kroot Warriors. While similar tactics were commonplace at the time with Orks, taking things to the extreme of tabling your opponent by deploying in such a public event was unprecedented and attached a stigma of WIN to the Kroot to this day.

The Armies

The White Scars player was running this in 5th edition (2009), which means he was running under Matt Ward's rules. We can set aside our usual bitching though because the crunch in the White Scars rules wasn't half-bad was in actuality, pretty janky like a lot of things in 5th edition.

The tournament had a "no named characters" rule for whatever reason as is actually fairly common in lots of tournaments at the time and prior (people tend to forget that named characters were and to a lesser extent still are grossly OP for their points costs), forcing the White Scars player to have Kor'sarro Khan count as a generic biker Captain. While this meant he could still run Bike Squads as troops (fulfilling the mandatory Troops choices in the classic Force Organization charts), it meant his army - consisting entirely of bike squads and attack bike squads - no longer had the Scout and Outflank rules. Undaunted he ran the entire tournament with a Null Deployment strategy anyway, since fast units arriving from reserve still kick ass. Basically he'd been kicking everyone's ass left and right, Khan or no Khan, because 20 bikes and 13 attack bikes put out a lot of dakka and Null Deployment kept him safe from his opponent's first round of shooting.

The White Scar list was : HQ1 : SM Captain(100 pts) with SM Bike(35), Relic Blade(30) ,Storm Shield(15), Artificier Armour(15), Digital Weapons(10), Hellfire Rounds(10) [215 pts]

HQ2: SM Librarian(100 pts) with SM Bike(35 pts), Might of Ancients, Null Zone[135 pts]

Troop 1 : SM Bike Squad: SM bike squad(90), 2 bikers(50) ,Power Fist(25), 2 Meltaguns(20) ,Attack Bike with Heavy Bolter(40)[225 pts]

Troop 2 : SM Bike Squad: SM bike squad(90), 2 bikers(50), Power Fist(25), 2 Meltaguns(20), Attack Bike with Heavy Bolter(40)[225 pts]

Troop 3 : SM Bike Squad: SM bike squad(90), 3 bikers(75), Power Fist(25), 2 Meltaguns(20), Attack Bike with Heavy Bolter(40)[250 pts]

Troop 4 : SM Bike Squad: SM bike squad(90), 3 bikers(75), Power Fist(25), 2 Meltaguns(20), Attack Bike with Heavy Bolter(40)[250 pts]

Fast Attack 1: SM Attack Bike Squadron: 3 Attack Bikes(120), 3 MultiMeltas(30) [150 pts]

Fast Attack 2: SM Attack Bike Squadron: 3 Attack Bikes(120), 3 MultiMeltas(30) [150 pts]

Fast Attack 3: SM Attack Bike Squadron: 3 Attack Bikes(120), 3 MultiMeltas(30) [150 pts]

The Tau player's, Shas'O Kassad, played in the French Team. This list was :

HQ 1 : Shas'o with Plasma rifle, Missile pod, Positional relay, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard-wired target Lock, hard-wired blacksun filter and hard-wired drone controler with 2 shield drones

HQ 2 : Shas'O with Plasma rifle, Missile pod, Fusion blaster, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard-wired target Lock and hard-wired drone controler with one gun drone

Elite 1 : Ta'rocha 2 XV-15 Crisis Elite 1a : Twin-linked flamer and drone controler with one gun drone Elite 1b : Twin-linked flamer and missile pod

Elite 2 : Ta'rocha 2 XV-15 Crisis Elite 2a : Twin-linked flamer and drone controler with one gun drone Elite 2b : Twin-linked flamer and missile pod

Elite 3 : Ta'rocha 2 XV-15 Crisis Elite 3a : Twin-linked missile pod and target lock Elite 3b : Twin-linked missile pod and flammer

Troop 1 : 6 Firewarrior with Pulse rifle

Troop 2 : 6 Firewarrior with Pulse rifle

Troop 3 : 10 Kroots (10x7=70) with kroot rifle and 3 kroot hounds

Troop 4 : 10 Kroots (10x7=70) with kroot rifle and 3 kroot hounds

FA 1 : 5 Pathfinder with pulse carbine and makerlight in dedicated transport 1

FA 2 : 5 Pathfinder with pulse carbine and makerlight in dedicated transport 2

FA 3 : 2 Piranhas with 2 fusion blaster and 2 targeting array

HS 1 : Ta'rocha 2 XV-88 Broadside HS 1b : Team leader, twin-linked railgun, twin-linked plasma rifles, advanced stabilisation system, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard-wired target Lock, hard-wired blacksun filter and hard-wired drone controler) with 2 shield drones HS 1b : Twin-linked railgun, smart missile system and advanced stabilisation system

HS 2 : Ta'rocha 2 XV-88 Broadside HS 2a : Team leader (5), twin-linked railgun, twin-linked plasma rifles, advanced stabilisation system, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard-wired target Lock, hard-wired blacksun filter and hard-wired drone controler with 2 shield drones HS 2b : Twin-linked railgun, smart missile system and advanced stabilisation system

Transport 1 : Devilfish with disruption pod and one seeker missile Transport 2 : Devilfish with disruption pod and one seeker missile

TOTAL [1749pts]

The Moment of Glory

The board was a standard 72-by-48 inches large tabletop.

The White Scars player kept everything in reserve. Unlike 6th edition, this wouldn't instantly kill him by itself, that rule didn't exist yet, so he could still take his first turn with nothing on the board.

The Tau deployment didn't take long either. The Kroot, using their Infiltrate rule, deployed inside the White Scars deployment zone. Normally they're restricted from deploying within 12 inches of the enemy, but with no enemies actually deployed on the entire board there was nothing stopping 30 Kroot Warriors from running up to the enemy's table edge if they so desired.

After stringing his Kroot along the White Scars' table edge (not hard with 30 Kroot in 2-inch unit coherency), legend says he ended his turn and declared himself the winner of the game. Without Khan's Scout and Outflank rules, the White Scars could only come in from Reserve by the unpopular "walk on" method. But since walk on follows the rules of normal unit movement, i.e. not allowed to cross within 1 inch of enemy models, and with his entire table edge covered in Kroot, there was nowhere on the board the White Scars could actually walk on from.

The White Scars player flagged down a judge, and together they pored through the rulebook, looking for some kind of out that would let the White Scars actually play. Legend says the judges were sick and tired of this guy anyway, but it hardly matters. The Tau were winners by default, as the White Scars couldn't take any turns, contest any objectives, or battle and kill any Tau.

Legacy

The battle became famous on the interwebz, passed around forums and Reddit, and used as the butt of jokes and "hey check out this cool Tau tactic!" in Tau list articles (such as our very own). It's believed that it even influenced the 6th edition rulebook, when they added in the rules mandating players to start with half their army on the board, though that was more likely to nerf reserve spam lists.