Hey guys,

I have seen a lot of conversations over the last few weeks and have been doing my own read/re-read of the codex and have seen a lot of "this detachment>this other one". One thing I haven't seen is high praise for the Kroot detachment, its usually the other 3 being compared and this one being considered more thematic.

Fundamentally the problem I have had playing tau in 10th is Primary scoring. Its not uncommon to max secondaries, almost to the point I started entertaining gambits (whats that you may ask). I've had a some success with the crisis bombs and breacherfish clearing objectives but then they don't "stick" or are traded off when you attempt to. Ghostkeels 9/10 been my scoring units.

The kroot detachment IMO fixes so many of the "weaknesses" I've experienced and think they are going to be a really competitive detachment. I'm not saying a full kroot list, but using the detachment to tar pit with the support of some of our more mobile or better AT options.

Some of my takeaways so far to justify my reasoning:

-20 Kroot Carnivores Flesh Shaper Trail Shaper is a unit with -> Stealth, 5 from shooting, 6 , scouting, with sticky objective, additional move if something comes in your threat range, with sustained hits on melee... for 250ish points by best estimates. Run 2 of these units for 500 points and keep your opponent locked in their deployment for the first 2-3 turns.

-Couple this with the Lone-Spear taking a pop shot to give rerolls to hit and the mixture of detachment rule adding 1 to hit vs below starting strength, they can actually dish out a fair number of hits in melee. Ohh and they have access to grenades, fallback shoot and charge, lone op, increased armor penetration... They have a really healthy list of tools.

-Lone-Spears become a Tetra for 2/3rds of your army! Ohh and they can actually do damage.

-Throw in 3 krootox riders for effectively a free fire back, once again getting the 1 to hit vs below starting strength, and you can start to threaten your carnivores getting shot at.

-Krootox Rampagers deal D3 mortals on the charge vs each model from a unit in engagement range on a 4 , can equally use the strat to fallback and shoot charge and have lance.

-You can throw the enhancement on one of your Lone-spear to make them darkstrider (deny 12inches DS).

-Redeploy from trail shaper can really bait and switch.

-Ohh no you lost your tar pit and they broke out, 2 cp gets you another one!

-Farstalkers with a warshaper have the potential to be some high precision units that can deny early and redploy from above trail shaper (WHO IS IN ANOTHER UNIT!).

-And my favorite point, you can still take every other option in the codex! 2 sky rays, 2 ghostkeels, shadowsun, throw in some piranhas. Sure they don't get the detachment rule but what were they really gaining from the other detachment rules (a bit of strength/ap if dangerously close, assault?, turn 3 sustained if they survive?) They become an amazing support to a tar pit front line, which isnt really doable without the 5 /6 and defensive strats available to the kroot outside of their detachment.

Outside of just personal preference and not wanting to buy/print the model count can I hear yalls thoughts on why this is a flawed list?

TLDR: I think as a community we are sleeping on the Kroot Detachments competitive viability.