Kroot Carnivores were amongst the very first 40k kits I picked up so when I saw that they would be getting a sizeable release with the latest Tau Codex I knew that I would be picking up at least one of the new Kroot Hunting Pack army boxes. Three later and here we are.
I've now managed to pick up some of the other kits that released once the full Tau Codex came out and I'll review how I found them here.
As a general rule, the kits were all of good quality with minimal issues tidying them up. They assembled quick and easy as you might expect from a modern GW kit.
The War Shaper
My favourite of the new models. He comes with two different head options, two different shoulder pads, and two different wargear options, although only the wargear is particularly noticeable. Assembly is fairly quick and easy, with a lot of holsters and pouches that glue to his body to hide some gaps. One build focuses more on melee whilst the other focuses on ranged power.
In game, he is kind of similar to a Captain, allowing the use of a stratagem for free, but balance dataslates have somewhat hampered its use on this guy. He's a bit too expensive to take in his melee build in my opinion, but I like the ranged build with the Farstalkers and the Root-carved Weapons Enhancement as this gives his bow a nice Anti-Infantry 3+, Precision, Dev Wound combo.
The Trail Shaper
Aesthetically, he looks great but he unfortunately comes with no options, so any duplicates will be obvious. A head-swap is a nice easy conversion that will allow for some variety. He is a bit fiddly to put together I found, specifically when gluing the gun toting arm to the body. He has a tactical rock, just like the War Shaper but it's not too egregious.
Ruleswise, he's kind of the star of the show. He allows you to redeploy his unit and another Kroot unit after you know who has gone first, which allows you to be quite aggressive in deployment. He also grants a reactive movement for his unit if someone gets to close. His specific Enhancement is pricey, but worth taking if you can squeeze it in, granting [ASSAULT] to all ranged weapons in his squad and giving them 3" extra move.
The Flesh Shaper
Like his Trail brother, he is monopose and duplicates are obvious. Again, head-swaps allow for some variety, although I found these to look a bit awkward on his body. The shotgun on the back was the tricky bit on this kit but if you line the grooves up with the stitching, it *clicks* into place well.
Sadly, this guy only gives [SUSTAINED HITS 1] in melee. His specific Enhancement allows his unit to Crit on a 5+ which does help with these but I'm not sold on it. He does hit fairly hard in melee himself, so him and a War Shaper in a blob of 20 Carnivores might be an idea, but I still think it lacks real teeth. More impactfully, he grants his squad a 6+ Feel No Pain, which increases to a 5+ if you can kill a unit in melee. This is the bigger sell for him in my opinion as, in combination with the Invulnerable Save from the Kroot detachment, he allows your 20 bird squads to be surprisingly tanky. His shotgun is also an [ASSAULT] weapon which allows for some action shenanigans with his unit.
Kroot Lone-spear
I wish he came on a Knarloc with a unit to accompany him, but I dig the axolotl warbeast mount. Comes with two wargear options and both are aesthetically interesting options.
In game, I think he is pricey, but he does a lot for it. He is similar to the Genestealer Cult Jackal Alpha. If he hits a unit with a ranged attack, then the rest of your Kroot units get to re-roll the Hit roll until the end of the turn. This is nice with the detachment rule if you can inflict some damage before the rest of your army attacks to trigger the +1 to Hit or +1 to Wound. Given he needs to hit, the sniper with its one shot is a bit risky, so I do feel the explosive javies are the way to go. These give him D6 shots instead, that are S10 AP-2 D2 and Blast so are likely to get at least one hit in to trigger his buffs. As a bonus, they increase his melee capabilities, although I would keep him out of melee at all costs regardless.
He gets to move 6" after shooting and has Lone Operative to keep him safe. This makes him a good bearer for the Kroothawk Flock Enhancement which prevents Reinforcements setting up within 12" and gives him [IGNORES COVER].
Kroot Carnivores
The models? Great. Interesting poses, go together easily and quickly, they paint up well with contrast paints, multiple different poses for the same body. Two thumbs up. The rules are also top notch; sticky objectives is amazing. But the lack of options just irks me. The Farstalker kit introduced a whole slew of different weapon options that would have been great to see in this kit, but there is none of that, outside the carbine for the squad leader. It does introduce a new tanglebomb launcher which is technically an upgrade over the stock kroot rifle but not by any meaningful amount. It’s just a shame to see them not take the opportunity to give some much-needed options to the Kroot battleline unit. A dedicated melee loadout, squad wide carbines, or some greater variety in special weapons would have gone a long way to fleshing this mini-army out.
The kit is top notch for what it is though. The Farstalker arms are not compatible for kitbashes, as they have flat joins at the shoulder, but they are compatible with the more recent kits. So you can stick some spare melee weapons onto the Carnivores to more readily make the squad leaders apparent or just to mix it up. Heads are interchangeable among all of the modern Kroot kits too, so spare Farstalker heads help add some variety. The kit comes with a lot of extra doodads to hang from their belts and the like, but some of these are incredibly awkward to hang in a natural position. They definitely break up the 'nakedness' of the models though so well worth adding. It's a fairly standard modern kit design where there's 10 sets of bodies and each body is meant to combo with specific arms, but these the way the arms connect, they are largely compatible across bodies. Take care when following the instructions as some of the arms are used for different bodies depending on the coloured route you go down, so building the 'green' instruction for one body could lock you out of a 'blue' pathway on another. There's a surprising amount of poses for the squad leader too so they made the kit stretch far. Not bad for only two sprues. I'm not overly concerned about duplicate poses on these guys even having so many as there are enough little things you can do to alter them that dupes don't stand out so much. Every kit of 10 also comes with a kroot hound puppy. This is meant to go on the squad leaders base to make him stand out, but you could easily stick him on a spare base to represent another Kroot Hound. I'll be sticking mine on bases so I can place them on any objectives I 'sticky' to remind us its been captured in game.
Kroot Hounds.
Price is egregious for the amount you get; 5 hounds, 4-5 pieces per hound, and no options. Heads are kind of interchangeable but not a perfect fit if you do. They do look nice, but still disappointing. Dream to paint.
In game they are nice and cheap. You'll probably want at least a few to screen out areas and do actions.
Krootox Rider
Very quick to build and I’m honestly more upset about the price of these than the hounds. Sadly there's not really any real customisation here in the posing. There's a weapon swap and head swaps for the rider and krootox but these aren’t huge changes to the models appearance, and each of the krootox heads are tied to the specific weapons too. The Repeater Cannon went together perfectly, but I had some issues with the Tanglecannons. When lining up the arms, they didn't match quite right, and this happened on both of them. A spare shoulder pad covered up the issue but still.
In game, these hit surprisingly hard for a shooting unit, but you want a squad of three hanging around your big blobs of Carnivores. When a nearby Kroot Infantry unit gets shot, these guys get to shoot at the aggressor afterwards. It's only once per turn so you cannot spam this out, but you can effectively give these guys Lone Operative with one of the stratagems which prevents them just getting gunned down themselves, allowing you to get use out of the rule. The Tanglecannons are actually quite good here, but the role is pretty well covered by the rest of the range. The Repeater Cannon isn't top-tier shooting, but it's okay. Three of them shooting into a target will do some damage, especially if they are shooting in both player's turns. Decent long range firepower, and the Kroot take what they can get in heavy hitters.
Krootox Rampagers
Probably the most enjoyable for me to put together. They build well and have a few options within the kit, but not much. Some interchangeable arms and a spare krootox head.
In game, these are meant to be your linebreakers. They can deal mortals on the charge, but they need to make base-to-base contact and they come on 50mms so this can be difficult to make work. Like with the riders, they do not have Stealth so they are a bit more fragile comparatively to the rest of the army. They do pack a decent whallop but I honestly have not played enough with them to get a good feel for them yet. I think they might be a bit of a trap if you go all in on them but I will see once I get more games under my belt.
As a whole I think the army is going to be reliant on Tau models to provide some ranged support in any serious list unfortunately. Two hammerheads and two Riptides with some Stealth suits and/or Pathfinders seems the way to go on that front. By themselves, it'll be reliant on objective play and just stat-checking the opponent through the sheer amount of bodies (which can be recycled with one of the stratagems).
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