Editing Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Kill Team(8E) Xenos (section)

===Kroot Strategies===
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'''Kroot Strategies:'''
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Really? You want to make a kroot army? Not just boost your tau team?

Really?

Oh, well, fortune favours the brave I suppose. The kroot are one of the four "special" kill teams, alongside the Servants of the Abyss, the Rogue Traders and the Gellerpox Infected. But unlike them, the Kroot's options for units and gear are subpar. Seriously, out of the whole Kill Team roster, the kroot appear as the weakest list of them all. The SotA have great melee and synergy between units, the Rogue Traders have a lot of units to choose from, the Gellerpox Infected have Disgustingly Resilient, the kroot have... good stratagems. And are kind of fast. That's kind of it. The stratagems are actually great, and if another army had them they would become a top tier threat, but as it is, the kroot don't have the units to take advantage of them. They will be able to pretty much be able to outnumber the enemies every match (unless playing against particular ork, tyranid, Imperial Guard or CSM lists, and even then they will be able to make more competitive lists). 

First, let's start with the vanilla KT units. The kroot carnivore is your basic unit, and the only one that can become the leader. Basically a regular guardsman with better melee. Now, think about it, the leader, the most important unit for a stratagem-heavy team, is as weak as a regular guardsman. T3, 6+/0++. This is not threatening, pretty much anything can reliably take it down. To be fair, hiding your leader in the back is a normal strategy, but when the backbone of your army is as weak as that, you will have trouble the moment the oponent has something akin to high toughness, invuilnerable saves, long range weaponry... every army can reliably take them down. The only advantage they bring to the table is unit saturation, but you will pretty much lose 3-4 units each turn. They are slightly better than guardsmen in melee, with WS3+ and S4 (3+1) kroot rifles, but you have to reach melee first. But is melee the best chance of killing something heavy, like marines? Using a regular tactical marine as an example ans using the best case scenario for each:

*Kroot shooting a marine.
**Rapid Fire 1 BS4+ means that each shot will hit 3/6 times. So around 50/50.
**Tactical marines have T4. Against the kroot rifle's S4, wounding is, again, 50/50. 
**After that, whatever enters needs to pass the 3+, so it will only kill 1/3 times. 
**So, with all that taken into account, each shot will have 18/216 chances of hitting, or around 1/12 chances of wounding. Taking the two shots into consideration, it will kill 1/6 times. Not great considering the enemy won't certainly miss the chance of hitting back.

*Kroot (zealot) hitting a marine.
**One attack and WS3+ means that it will have 4/6 chances of hitting, or 2/3.
**After that, S5 (3+1+1) against the marine's T4 means that it will hit at 3+ or 4/6 times.
**And without any AP, the shot will have 2/6 chances of actually wounding it.
**So, with all that taken into account, each shot will have 32/216 chances of getting the wound in, or around 4/27. With two attacks, the chances are 8/27.
***However, take into account this is a carnivore wit zealot, and you can have only one of those. In a normal fight each attack will have 12/216 chances of getting the wound in, or around 1/18. Way worse than shooting. 

So yeah, if you want to kill marines, keep enough space to avoid charges but enough to get the rapid fire effect. it will shoot back, no doubt, but you can always count on marines having less units by far. 3 or 4 kroots on a single marine should be enough to get quick results. GEQs should be far easier. And once you get the wound, you send the hounds.

The kroot hounds are the quick melee chargers of the team. Strikingly fast at 12" movement, they are especially designed to take down wounded units. The striking fangs add one extra attack if the unit at the receiving end has a flesh wound, and this has actually some punch against armour. AP-1, to be precise, it definitively won't take down Custodes with this, but it's a start. Even though its attack is not much, the real advantage of the hounds is its striking range. With 12" movement plus whatever you get in the charge, they can attack units that cannot shoot overwatch back easy enough, so it has a chance of getting a clean kill without many risks. You get only four of this, sadly, so be careful how you use them. It has access to the Tearing Jaws ability to make sure that, whether it kills a healthy or a wounded unit, has better chances of actually taking it out of combat.

Out of the basic units, the real deal is the Krootox Rider, and the one your strategy will be based on. A huge monster with W4, a 48" rapid gun 1 Kroot gun of S7, AP-1 and D3, with the hability of moving 13" per turn without charging, this is one of the best units in vanilla kill team, period. It has to be, considering it has to carry the rest of the team. Strong from afar AND up close, this thing is the answer for taking down most enemy heavies. Doing the same calculations against a marine:

*Krootox Rider shooting a marine.
**Rapid Fire 1 BS4+ means that each shot will hit 3/6 times. So around 50/50.
**Tactical marines have T4. Against the kroot rifle's S7, it will wound on 3+, or around 2/3 of the time. 
**After that, the AP-1 will weaken the armour, wounding 50% of the time. 
**So, with all that taken into account, each shot will have 48/216 chances of hitting, or around 2/9 chances of wounding. Taking the two shots into consideration, it will kill 4/9 times, and deal a fuckton of damage if the unit is already wounded. 

*Krootox Rider (with combat specialism) punching a marine.
**3 Attacks (2+1) WS3+ means that each punch will hit 4/6 times. So around 2/3.
**Tactical marines have T4. Against the krootox's S6, it will wound 4/6 times. 
**After that, whatever enters needs to pass the 3+, so it will only kill 1/3 times. 
**So, with all that taken into account, each shot will have 32/216 chances of hitting, or around 4/27 chances of wounding. While the lack of AP hurts the numbers, considering the three attacks and you pretty much guarantee a hit at 12/27, or around 4/9 times. Not bad at all considering each hit is 2 damage. Units with worse toughness and saves will be mulched.

With that said, everyone in the world will see the single krootox in the table and think "huh, a unit so big in an army so numerous must be important. I better take it down fast". And they will, focusing on it every time they can, both in melee and at range. The krootox' best strategy is to move from one side to the other with its blinding speed and long range, while charging at the ocasional unit, all without being too exposed to enemy fire. Playing well with this unit will mean you can break units that usually are hidden away, like snipers (who will be hilariously outmached against the super-chicken), weak leaders hidden, weaker units protecting Objective Points... Combine this sucker with the Primal Salvagery/Unfettered Agression and Hyper-Evolution trait, and will become a nightmare to take down, becoming faster and stronger quick enough to have pretty much uncontested melee control of the map. With that said, it's a single unit, it can't win the game alone. Do not forget that leadership will affect it, so once it gets a wound in, the weakness of the rest of the team will set in, and probably leave it paralysed. The combat specialism will give it the extra attack it needs, while the heavy will improve the shooting with the More Bullets tactic. 

Outside of them, you have Dahyak Grekh, kroot hunter extraordinaire from the Blackstone Fortress box. And... it's pretty much a buff kroot carnivore. Really, the weapons are the same, though it gets a kroot pistol and BS3+. However, it has access to some neat habilities, like not suffering the penalty to hit rolls when aiming for an obscured target, being able to booby trap a decent chunk of area, and getting enemies targeting it extra hit penalty if obscured. Also, this model always counts as Readied in the Shooting phase provided that it remained stationary or made a normal move of no more than half of its movement beforehand. Not bad, but definitively on the weaker side of the commanders spectrum, considering other teams have absolute beasts for commanders, and not just an elite mook.

Overall, you want this team for friendly vanilla games. Overrun and outgun the enemies one by one, while the hounds appear out of nowhere to deal with the wounded. And meanwhile, the krootox should strike and move against the big targets or the targets that have little to no mobility. Kill the leader with it from afar or take the enemy by surprise by putting it right next to him in one turn. However, expect heavy resistance, and if the dice are not in your favour, your team will be wiped out rather easily. 

Also, never play this team in elites. Ever. Not because it's bad, it's because it can't be done. The unit limitation of KT means that a 20 unit team will only spend around 160p, so points-wise, you will be pretty much ad a severe disadvantage. Only play this on friendly matches that allow you to ignore this rule.
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'''Counterplay:'''
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Countering kroot is rather easy. Basically, keeping enough pressure against the mooks to get them into general shock fast is a viable strategy. High unit count will have access to enough dakka to take them unit by unit, while lower units teams will be tanky enough to deal with it. More unorthodox units on the hunt for the leader, krootox and the commander, and you're good to go. With that said, a few examples for vanilla KT:

*Space Marines can just rely on their brute strenght and toughness to keep the carnivores busy, while more mobile units like reivers hunt down the krootox. Melee charges against them would work as well to take the advantage away from them and to disrupt their lines. With that said, they are a low unit army, so they should be careful to not be picked out by the krootox one by one, take it down as soon as you can. Deathwatch is similar, but considering their better gear and stratagem bonuses, it should be even easier.
*Grey Knits find themselves in a weird spot against the kroot. Each knight will OBLITERATE a kroot each time they attack, but they will be so outnumbered the kroot only needs to keep everyone in melee, and then once they can't shoot, just get the hounds and the krootox to end them one by one. They are fast enough to do so. The sollution? Psyquic attacks. If you are fast enough, you will deal so much damage in the psyquic phase that the kroot won't be able to pile up on you.
*Imperial Guard can match the kroot in numbers and firepower, while also having much better choices overall. Regular scions will hurt kroot reliably, but oddly enough you don't want too many gunners, as they are point expensive and you need the numbers to avoid being overrun. While Catching the krootox will be a problem, consider that the krootox will either attack from the maximum distance, the middle distance and full melee. Out of these, the maximum distance is discouraged due to a single shot with pretty bad BS5+ (or BS6+ when in cover). So plasmas, hotshot volleys and grenade launchers should reach it and hurt it. Rein is an interesting choice, but it can only make one attack, so it's better for dealing with the grunts. It can be a decent bait, though.
*Adeptus Mechanicus is fantastic against kroot. General 4+/6++ means that the kroot rifle is not as effective as it is against other horde armies. They also have the marvelous Radium Carbines, which does 3 attacks constanly at 18", perfect against hordes. The arquebus will be able to snipe everyone from a distance, but the enemy might just release the hounds against it. The krootox is a problem, but the sicarians should be rather effective against it. The krootox is not particularly tough defensively, so a zealot infiltrator will wipe it out when charging. Plasma is good too, considering it's Assault 2.
*Custodes... Real talk, if you bring [[Rape|CUSTODES]] to deal with the chickens, you are [[that guy]]. Don't be an asshat, we are all here to play and have fun. Even 13 to 3, it's not a fair fight.
**Though here's an interesting counterargument. There are only three custodes on a kill team. This means there are more than 4 kroots for each golden banana, even more if you discard the rider for more kroot carnivores. This means that, while winning by killing them seems to be completely unattainable, if you manage to charge at them early on, you can still keep half of your team to cover objectives. If you can keep 1 carnivore in melee range per round (split attacks + custodes melee power means piling more bodies on them at once just gives them more kills), you'll lose two kroots on average per turn, but by the time your kill team is broken, you should have more than enough points to make up for the lost points.
*Chaos Space Marines can match pound by pound the kroot's numbers through the cultists. Marine gunners to keep the big chicken at  bay, and you're good to go. 
*Death Guard is too tough for the kroots, fair and simple. With the disgustingly resillient rule, all units have something akin to a 5++, so they will be overrun by zombies before they can take them down. They will try to hit and run, but if you stand your ground, they won't be able to defend or take the Objectives.
*Tau can just sit on their base and shoot them from there. Even the krootox' melee power will be pointless when they can easily rail rifle him from range.
*Necrons are too tough. Just imagine an all-lasgun team against them: even if it hits, at 6+ it will be completely ignored. Just like the Death Guard, advance without fear and they won't be able to push you back (unless you suck with the dice rolls).
*SotA are a melee team. Charge at them, just advance straightforward through the map, cooking every chicken too slow to run away.

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