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Stormtrooper

2018-03-28T21:05:34Z

2001:999:41:521A:1C2C:C236:3D94:A115: /* On Tabletop */

[[File:Stormtrooper1.jpg|right|300px|thumb|"I smoke Marlboro, you smoke cock."]]
{{Topquote|I don't care how many there are, FIGHT!|[[Scott McNeil|Kasrkin Sergeant McNeil, shortly before being overrun.]]}}

The elite of the [[Imperial Guard]] and the core of the [[Militarum Tempestus]], '''Stormtroopers''' (officially called '''Tempestus Scions'''), [[Skub|are the best general-combat infantry that the Imperial Guard can field, and are the toughest, best-equipped, and best-trained soldiers available to an Imperial commander that isn't a]] [[Space Marines|SPESS MEHREEN]]. While most of the Guard is armed with your typical [[Lasgun|angry flashlight]] and Flak Armor or Flak Vest, Stormtroopers normally pack Hotshot [[Lasgun]]s, which fire much more penetrating shots that are capable of piercing most infantry armor with ease, and they are clad in Carapace Armor, which gives them substantially higher survivability on the battlefield. They are named after the elite World War I German military units who used infiltration tactics to overtake enemy trenches.

In earlier editions of the game, they were favored as "Light Marines," since they had fairly similar performance to Space Marines but cost considerably less due to their weaker gear. As of the new edition, they're now a dedicated elite choice, with all the pros and cons that implies. Unless you use their new codex, of course. Then they become troops.

There are many different types of stormtroopers, all depending on their homeworld. [[Cadia]] for example fields Kasrkin, Armageddon fields Steel Legion Stormtroopers, [[Death Korps of Krieg]] field Grenadiers (that being the dubious honor of [[Grimdark|being the survivors of the military equivalent of lemmings]]), and the [[Harakoni Warhawks]] are made up of only stormtroopers. The Inquisition also fields their own branch called the "Inquisitorial Stormtroopers", who form the Inquisition's main offensive force. Regardless of their appearance or gear, they're all incredibly potent if used correctly.

Unfortunately, in terms of actual models, the only stormtroopers you can currently get (besides the Death Korps Grenadiers) are the Tempestus Scions. If you're lucky, GW may have some Kasrkin available for Made-to-Order, but only some of the time, and only in metal. If you want them in plastic, you'll have to resort to kitbashing Scions with conversion bits from Forge World like the respirators.

The average Guardsman in the street can't stand them, referring to them as "glory boys" and resenting the fact that they're a good deal less likely to die given that they're given better equipment than standard issue cardboard armor with a flashlight. With the exception of the Kasrkin (and probably Death Korps Grenadiers, since dead men don't care for glory), who are revered and respected amongst Cadia, This is likely due to the fact that Kasrkin are way more badass (not to mention the fact that they are looked up to by the average Guardsman). And unlike most stormtroopers, who are raised and trained in the prestigious [[Schola Progenium]], Kasrkin are all trained right on Cadia and experience the same hellish conditions as everyone else. They also strongly believe that THIS WILL BE DA DAY UF GLOREE.

==In [[Dawn of War]]==
Kasrkin (The stormtroopers of Cadia) are available for the Imperial Guard starting in Winter Assault, and they're one of the better choices the Guard has. They suffer the same problem that almost every unit in Winter Assault has, however, in that they're redundant - they utterly replace Guardsmen by Tier 3 in that game, and in every game of WA that makes it that far, your sole mission objective from then on is to spam Kasrkin endlessly.

In the later games - Dark Crusade and Soulstorm - their numbers were hardcapped, ergo ensuring that you can only use one squad at a time. Also added in as a main unit in the Inquisition Daemonhunt mod/Ultimate Apocalypse.

Also made hideously OP after Dark Crusade's infamous moving debuff, as their ridiculous rate of fire meant that even with 15% hit chance they were still going to get a decent DPS.

==In Dawn of War 2==
Stormtroopers are DoW 2's equivalent of DOW's Kasrkin, they appear in all games but only become widely playable during Retribution, where the Guard becomes a playable faction. You only fight alongside them in the original DoW 2 and you get to control two squads of them on one mission during Chaos Rising. They use Hot-Shot lasguns with armor-piercing effects. Stormtroopers can be upgraded with multiple "kits" that lets them be more effective to different targets and fit certain circumstances.

The kits are:
* Assault kit, which increases their damage output and range and reload speed, but now actually costs something and makes them take more damage as well. Usually passed up in favour of melta, but still useful for dealing with some elite infantry and commanders.
* Anti-tank kit, which easily makes them the best hunter-killer unit the Imperial Guard have available in the game. Their melta guns and melta bombs allow them to wreck vehicles, fuck up enemy power supplies, and to a lesser extent, tear up enemy commanders and superheavies.

Unlike their original appearance in DoW, stormtroopers this time round actually have a role other than being guardsman squad 2.0. Their weapon options and ability to infiltrate make them ideal for removing high priority targets like enemy vehicles, elite units, or commanders. They can also be used to disrupt power supplies and decap points. Although stormtroopers are a bit tougher and have more [[dakka]] than regular guardsmen, their unit size is much smaller (compare 5 troopers to an infantry squad's maximum of 12) and they fare even worse in melee. With the addition of a sergeant and [[commissar]], guardsman infantry squads can reinforce three troopers at a time for a fraction of the cost of a stormtrooper, which makes them a whole lot more resilient in the field when combined with a reinforcement point such as a [[Chimera]].

==On Tabletop==
[[File:Tempestor.jpg|300px|thumb|right|What they look like.]]
Scions/Stormtroopers are difficult to classify in tabletop. Many players eschew them, since the Imperial Guard used to be able to field cheaper <STRIKE>Infiltrators with</STRIKE> carapace armor (and better range as part of the bargain) via Veteran Squads, and Veterans had Objective Secured as part of the bargain (but now so do Scions, who can be taken as Troops). On the other hand, Scions Deep Strike by default and come with AP-2 weapons which can put the hurt on just about anything, including Marines.

As of 8th Scions have effectively replaced Veterans as an up-armored, elite Troops choice. Although Veterans can still take heavy weapon teams and heavy flamers (which makes them a better choice for a static gunline) they have lost infiltrate ''and'' their old doctrines (carapace armor, camo-cloaks, snare mines), making them worth just about fuck-all to anyone who isn't running a Vanguard.

Where Scions come into their own, however, is as surgical strike units. Suffice to say, Scions are amazing units when used for target elimination - nobody likes taking AP-2 fire from anything (except, you know, [[MEQ|TEQ]]) and they provide easy deep-striking plasma and meltas that the [[Imperial Guard]] lacks. Scions are a comparatively mobile and deadly force whose basic guns now have better AP than a goddamn ''bolter''. Access to up to 4x special weapons and BS+3 doesn't hurt either - well, actually it does hurt. A lot.

Scions can take a transport such as a [[Chimera]] or [[Taurox|Taurox Prime]], however, Valkries and Vendettas are much more reliable than simply deep striking. In 8th they can also be taken as their own stand-alone regiment and come with interesting stratagems and special rules. For instance, their Warlords can Deny the Witch as if they were a psyker; with '''Superior Intelligence''' you can shoot at deep strikers within 12" the instant they arrive; combine the '''Tactical Auto-Reliquary of Tiberius''' with Master of Command and your Tempestor Prime becomes a 40 pt Creed; and if your Stormies are in double-tap range than their weapons gets an extra shot whenever you roll 6+ to hit.

A common joke amongst /tg/ is that in order to win, you must spam '''MOAR STORMTROOPERS'''.

==Tales of Hilarity==
Almost ''every'' 40K oldfag can tell you a tale of their first (and often most memorable) encounter with Stormtroopers; usually it pans out around the same way: the player (often playing something lighter-armored, like [[Tyranids]], [[Orks]], or [[Eldar]]) has fought a lot of Guard units, but hasn't really ''seen'' Stormtroopers in action before, and the Storms are usually camping an objective or getting ready to clear an area. The unwitting player moves in to intercept, expecting just another Guardsman squad, and proceeds to learn that Carapace Armor is a thing and it makes its wearer substantially harder to kill than Guardsmen are. The Stormtroopers then immediately return fire and quickly mulch the squad with their BS4 and AP3 Hellguns (AP5 in the previous editions, but with 24" range) weapons, and the young player quickly learns to never take a unit lightly again.

Another humorous tale that is constantly related regarding Stormtroopers is when Inquisitorial Stormtrooper Sergeants, in 3rd edition, were able to, due to a typo in earlier prints of the codex, take Thunder Hammers. This was expensive, but since a standard power weapon was only 10 less, this quickly became a thing wherein a Stormtrooper squad could be an effective charge deterrent, as enemies would assault the squad, the Stormtroopers would armor save most of the damage, and the hits from the Thunder Hammer would screw the attacker's initiative, resulting in the one thing every close-combat squad fears: Losing an assault to a bunch of Squishy humies. This was errata'd away in later editions, though there ''was'' an article on Games-Workshop's website condoning the practice back in 2006.

{{Militarum-Tempestus}}
{{Imperial-Guard}}
{{Inquisition}}

Kroot

2018-03-28T20:40:06Z

2001:999:41:521A:1C2C:C236:3D94:A115:

[[Image:Kroot.png|thumbnail|right|300px|In Tau Empire, chicken eats YOU!]]

The '''Kroot''' are a vassal species to the [[Tau|Tau Empire]]. Rather bitey. Basically carnivorous space chickens who look like a cross between Amerindians, the dreadlocked aliens from ''Predator'', and ancient [[Terra|Terran]] terror birds. They steal genetic traits of things they eat, and work for people who aren't the Tau. Which means they are cool.

However, the Kroot see little support from [[Games Workshop]] and players in general, likely due to the fact that their odd stats, high frailty despite being billed as a melee force, and lack of wargear in the Tau list make them less than effective, and their mercenary codex is from an old Chapter Approved (and thus no longer legal). And as we all know, GW would rather just make reams of unnecessary [[Space Marine]] variant codices than give an update to a faction who actually needs it.

For those interested, there's [http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12778&st=0&sk=t&sd=a| a high-quality and mostly balanced 5th-ed Fan-Dex]. Most people will let you use it in a friendly game.

There are words in the wind now very faint that we might, just might get a kroot codice in 8th ed.

==Physiology==

[[Xenology]] suggests that the reason Kroot are humanoid, able to walk and think as well as build the giant warp-capable warspheres they use for getting around in space (while generally being on the technological level of a medieval society - the only reason their guns can really hurt stuff is because the Tau gave them advanced pulse munitions) is that at one time in their history, an [[Ork]] ship crashed on Pech (the Kroot's home planet). The Kroot promptly started eating the dazed survivors of this crash (how they managed to not end up with a full-blown Ork infestation remains anyone's guess) and subsequently managed to gain some of the Orks' innate understanding for technology, as well as a measure of their resilience. Oh, and the basic humanoid body layout on top of that. Two arms, bipedal gait, the whole shebang. Evidence for this are pieces of wreckage marked with Ork glyphs scattered all over Pech that the Kroot regard as sacred objects, as well as the presence of hybrid fungal matter in parts of their body.

For some reason, the fluff likes to point out how revolting the Kroot are for their carnivorous practices, even though, when you really stop and think about it, the Kroot are one of the more morally upright races around - they're explicitly not xenophobic racists, they ''have to'' eat dead sapients to stay intelligent (unlike, say, [[Space Marines]] and [[Tyranids]] who also eat people's brains to gain knowledge, or the fucking [[Dark Eldar]]), and they're not notably more cruel than anyone else but the Tau, who seem to be the only people in the universe who more or less tolerate them. Although this may have to do with point of view, most of the time it's the Tau or [[Imperial Guard]] who would find the eating of the dead, friend or foe, gross. Tyranids are viewed as mindless animals, so eating things isn't as "wrong" for them, and most people forgot Space Marines can gain knowledge by eating brains. Most who do spend their time around Kroot generally seem to like them, though. The "revolting" part may be more of a knee-jerk reaction from people not used to seeing bird people eating dudes.

You may have noticed that this article talks a lot about eating. According to Chapter Approved in [[White Dwarf]], the Kroot physiology basically revolves around their mouth. They have multiple stomachs, no excretory organs (what they can't digest, they puke up), and females even breed by transforming a stomach into a womb and then vomiting up the baby/babies when it's/they're full grown. Take a wild guess how they conceive.

...The answer is back rubs. Male Kroot have specialized pores that secrete a gene-bearing bio-fluid (what experts refer to as "alien bird-jizz") on their palms, whilst female Kroot have "receptor pores" for this fluid on the smalls of their back. So when two Kroot make babies, the male has to give the female a back rub. Yeah, we thought it would be [[Heterosexual Sex in the Missionary Position|kinkier]], too.

Fun Fact: they are the only nonhuman species that can have [[Blank]]s, likely because they ate one at some point.

==Culture==

Kroot also moonlight as mercenaries for races other than the Tau, though about the only sapient beings whose flesh they won't eat are the Tau, since the Tau saved them from extinction. Mercenary bands eat lots of different stuff, and so can have various genetic traits. Thus, Kroot can use [[Eldar|Weeaboo Fightan Magiks]], be [[Orks|cunnin' but fighty]], or have [[Imperial Guard|balls of steel]], depending on who they've eaten, but not as well as the originals. Eating [[Chaos]]-types causes Bad Things™ to happen. They also refuse to eat the 'Nids, because the Shapers, the Kroot leaders, fear becoming slaves to the [[Hive Mind]]. They also can't eat anyone infected by the [[Necron]]s' Nanites because Nanites will turn Kroot into another Necron/[[C'Tan]] zombie slave. They also get paid in weapons, allowing them to use Imperial and Tau special weapons together, and nearly their entire army can infiltrate, <strike>and get 1st turn assault if they're lucky</strike> (NOPE, 6th edition ended that shit). Kroot don't use tanks or much in the way of tech (aside from long rifle-like guns with blades on both ends), instead using native animals derived from the Kroot genus. They have attack dogs, gorillas with elephant guns, riding beasts like allosaurs, and really big riding beasts like T. rexes. Think the Gungans from ''The Phantom Menace'', only not totally lame.

They also have a rather dark sense of humor; for example, offering human meat to human diplomats because [[Troll|they think seeing their reactions are funny.]] This is also shown in the second Last Chancers book "Kill Team", where Kage is forced to eat a human brain (while he goes into horrific detail about the taste and texture). After this, the Kroot reveals that this was a secret test of character, but also that it was good for shits and giggles. In general, the Kroot sense of humor revolves around making other people profoundly uncomfortable. For example, a Kroot might walk into the same elevator as a Water Caste diplomat, turn up her pungent pheromones to full blast, and silently laugh her bird-woman ass off as the increasingly-uncomfortable fellow passenger tries to ignore it with less and less success.

Kroot also have shamans (psykers). They pilot warp ships; large, spherical things of dubious quality but capable of warp travel. They have lost souls to the warp, especially [[Khorne]]. Despite all this, however, their patrons in the T'au remain unaware or unphased by the nature of The Warp, which probably speaks more to the Greater Good's "make other cultures like we are and absorb nothing" philosophy rather than a taciturn quality of the kroot.

==Known Kroot Forms==
As mentioned above, the downside of Kroot consumptive evolution is that it's really easy for them to get "stuck" on the wrong path and devolve permanently into an avatistic form. As a consequence, every ecological niche on Pech is now filled by some form of degenerated kroot. But, so far, only a select handful of Kroot offshoots have been explicitly called out...

*'''[[Kroot Hound]]s''' are one of the most iconic of these strains, having been around since the Kroot were released. These Kroot degenerated into small, sleek, pack-hunting quadrupeds, easily tamed by their still-sapient cousins.
* '''[[Krootox]]es''' are the second-most iconic Kroot strains; degenerated into hulking, ape-like herbivores, they're mostly used as beasts of burden and as mobile mounts for heavy artillery.
*'''[[Lesser Knarloc]]s''' are sort of a step-up from the Kroot Hounds, being analogous to either a pack-hunting terror-bird or a more avian pack of velociraptors. Kroot like to ride them as cavalry.
*'''[[Great Knarloc]]s''' are much, ''much'' bigger, solo-hunter variants of the standard Knarlocs. If a lesser Knarloc is a Velociraptor, the great one is a beaky T-Rex.
*'''Krootors''' are swamp-dwelling, amphibious predators, essentially a Krootified alligator. Their only known appearance in the canon so far is in [[Black Crusade (RPG)|The Screaming Vortex]], on the planet Asphodel.

==TL;DR==

Kroot: Shoot like Tau with bolters. Move and hit like Eldar. Die like Guardsmen. (And have an amour save that will save them from [[lasgun|lasguns]] and nothing else—16% of the time.) New codex note: now Kroot are strength 3, their weapons are AP5 in close combat, and they lost an attack. What did they gain? 1 point sniper round upgrades. We sniper now. Have fun taking out monstrous creatures and leaders.

==Gallery==
{{Promotions}}
<gallery>
Image:Kroot porn.JPG|Yes, this is how Kroot fuck.
Image:TauKroot.jpg|Note which part of that fine piece of blueberry the Kroot is groping.
Image:YesIagree.png|They also have quite a way with words.
</gallery>

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[[Category:Tau]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Xenos]]