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Losing to a superior wallet?

2K views 25 replies 14 participants last post by  16Ogretyrant07 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
My friend is playing Chaos Daemons of Khorn, and I need close combat ability not to die in three turns. I figured, I'll play a ton of Kroot hounds. But...alas...they come in boxes of two...for $12. So fielding an effective number (say 20) of them costs way too much money for me ($120).

Does anyone else run into the same problem?

Losing to a superior army is one thing, but I can't help but be annoyed when i lose to a superior wallet.
 
#2 ·
Or you can just take kroot and bolt them to death as they come after you, so that when they actually get into close combat with you their depleted numbers will make up for the difference of 2 initiative.
 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
First of all, if you can't afford the hobby, why do you play it? I work a minimum wage job and can still afford playing a horde army. 12$ is certainly not a lot at ALL, considering the immense amount of work that goes into not only making the models from the artist's side, but also the manufacturing and paying for the molds. Gamesworkshop is actually very far from "money grubbers", and in fact, barely make any money from the business. Their main drive is providing YOU the models you need to have fun, so don't be ungrateful.

Second of all, why are you trying to out-combat the close-combat army? Don't waste points on dogs, just get more gunfire and take out all the daemons before they get in range. If you really want to try out your strategy, use some damn empty bases/spare models or pieces of paper or something before spending your precious 12$ on some hounds. I doubt your friend will care about a stand-in unless he's a ninny poo poo.
 
#16 ·
First of all, if you can't afford the hobby, why do you play it? I work a minimum wage job and can still afford playing a horde army. 12$ is certainly not a lot at ALL, considering the immense amount of work that goes into not only making the models from the artist's side, but also the manufacturing and paying for the molds. Gamesworkshop is actually very far from "money grubbers", and in fact, barely make any money from the business. Their main drive is providing YOU the models you need to have fun, so don't be ungrateful.

Second of all, why are you trying to out-combat the close-combat army? Don't waste points on dogs, just get more gunfire and take out all the daemons before they get in range. If you really want to try out your strategy, use some damn empty bases/spare models or pieces of paper or something before spending your precious 12$ on some hounds. I doubt your friend will care about a stand-in unless he's a prick.
Sorry but this is ridiculous. You cannot argue that this hobby is not a complete and utter rip off. The guy is also not saying $12 is much but $120. You pay outrageous prices for crappy metal and plastic that in many cases does not even fit properly. There are punctuation, spelling mistakes in every white dwarf. GW is designed to make money. It is a very fun hobby but you can't argue that it isn't a massive ripoff.
 
#4 ·
kroot hound models are painfully expensive as they're metal

if you're a bit handy with the greenstuff and a have a few bitz around you'll notice that kroot hounds look suspiciously like 4 legged 'gaunts. Gaunts being cheap and plastic might be a good way to go.
 
#5 ·
One mistake which many people tend to make is to say that Kroot units (inc Hounds) are combat troops. This is really a bit of a misnomer. They have a combat *ability*, and a good initiative level in the case of the Hounds, but when compared to other armies' units like Assault Marines or Striking Scorpions/Howling Banshees they are not specialised Combat Troops per se.

There are several fine articles about using Kroot dotted around this site and the Internet in general, but taking them purely as a CC unit isn't how best they can be used. They are more "Ambush" troops, "Support" units defending the likes of Broadside units from Infiltrators/Outflankers, and general harassment from shooting (that gun of theirs is every bit as good as a boltgun except its AP is slightly worse).

They are great for:
a) holding objectives when allied with the 'Go to Ground' rules,
b) moving in to take or contest objectives when using the Outflanking rules and
c) generally making a real pain of themselves with their slug throwers.

Stick a reasonably large unit of Kroot into some terrain and watch your enemy get frustrated as he tries to winkle them out while you continue to annoy him by making loads of cover saves.

One thing they are *not* superbly brilliant at is surviving a combat against a superior foe, due to their total lack of armour save (unless one is purchased of course). Yes, Kroot in large numbers have the ability to lay down a horrendous number of attacks on the charge, but there are no power weapons so saves are always available to the enemy. If they do win combat and the enemy falls back, then they are going to be shot to shreds next turn. If they stay in CC, then their attacks are lessened and they still have no save against return attacks.

I'm not saying that they should not be used for combat. I'm just saying that you need to think carefully about *how* you are using them, which may or may not involve assaults, as these guys are not just one-trick-ponies for combat use only.

E.
 
#6 ·
Ditto what Eiglepulper said. Though, in my personal experience with Kroot, I'd rather have them stuck in an assault than not. They tend to die if they're getting shot at too much, cover save or no, while really laying down the pain in close combat.

The usual unit I run -- 10 Kroot, 7-8 Hounds -- makes quite a fearsome assault unit. In my last game (against Chaos Marines) they took a charge from Abaddon and 4 terminators and managed to wipe out the terminators in the first round and hold up Abbaddon for another two before dying. Gotta love it!
 
#7 ·
Yes, on circumspection I think I did come across as saying the Kroot aren't a good combat unit full stop. That's wasn't the intention of my post; it was more intended to draw attention to the other aspects of the Kroot units which sometimes people forget.

I agree that they can certainly lay down some serious smack when used in the correct way at the correct time. Having a bucketload of Hounds in the unit really does help due to their high initiative value (Hounds vs Chaplain = win for Hounds in one of my games), and if you ran the unit like Number6 mentioned then you certainly would have a great deal of success.

E.
 
#8 ·
Consider the following:

Put a squad of Kroot in a forest at the front of your lines, and shoot at your enemy. Your kroot are suddenly Sisters of Battle with additional close combat attacks for half the cost. I recently played a combat patrol tournament fielding three Monat Deathrains and 34 kroot (in 3 squads). I annihilated 4/5 opponents, and had a huge margin of victory against the fifth (wooo first place). Being able to put out and take in the same amount of firepower as a space marine for half the cost is more useful than I can stress. Add in the ability to outflank, infiltrate and move through forests with ease, and regular kroot become amazing. I advocate against the use of Kroot hounds because, a) they're real world expensive, b) they cost about the same per model as kroot, and c) by staying in cover and shooting instead of running out and assaulting, you're killing many more enemy models while sustaining many less casualties, with a decent chance of striking first in close combat when your enemy finally assaults you (depends on whether or not your opponent's models are wielding fragmentation grenades).

Just remember, a kroot in a tree is worth a space marine in the field... but half the price.
 
#9 ·
Not really on the specific topic itself but isn't losing to a superior wallet pretty common, I often lose to my freind who has 4000 points worth of chaos when i only have 75o points tau, because he can just pick and choose and I only have what I have, if someone has more money than you they often have more options.
 
#10 ·
That's a fair comment too, but let's look at things another way. A player can have 20000pts of models to choose from, but if he's up against another player whose tactical and strategic abilities are on the whole superior, he's going to have a hard time.

The following isn't meant to be me blowing my trumpet in any way, as I don't consider myself to be a great tactician or anything, but recently I played a game against a very experienced gamer. I had 1000pts of Tau, and he took 1500pts of Nids. I had a total of 19 models and he had 79. We drew. Admittedly I did anticipate him playing Nids and because I have a huge Tau army, I was able to choose what I want. However, choosing a Commander, 2x 6-man Fire Warrior units, 3 Piranhas and three Railgun Hammerheads gave me a real challenge to meet a horde army with some large guys.

Learning your army - its capabilities, strengths and weaknesses - will go a long way to helping you defeat any opponent. Thinking carefully about what you're doing yet not turning the game into something that is too serious is also a way of taking on and defeating your opponent.

E.
 
#11 ·
Ah yes, wasn't that that weighted scenario tournament you were in eiglepulper?

Don't forget that you can always make your opponent play to you. You may only have 1000 points grand total of models, but you can ask to play 500 point games so you can have versatility. So long as the two of you play non-tailored lists, the game should be very fair.
 
#15 ·
Yes, that's right about the game.

Tailoring a list is all fine and dandy if you have a larger selection of models to choose from. However, if you can work out a "take all comers" type of list, that will allow you to really get to know how that particular army list works. You know that it has the capability to deal with pretty much anything that your opponents may fling at you, plus you learn very quickly which units should be sent to deal with which threats.

Good suggestion there too about asking for smaller games to allow alternation of the Order of Battle.

E.
 
#13 ·
It's a shame but a fact of life. I suffer from the reverse situation. I have in excess of 30,000 points of Chaos but rarely get to play a game of more than 1750pts. I'd love to have a 6000 point game but there are just no takers.

Like the guys have said, having options will only get you so far. Intelligent play and intimate knowledge of your army and your opponents will always win out.
 
#18 ·
Assuming you're not playing a tourney, I'm sure your friend would have no problem with proxy figs as you build and flesh-out your list. Heck if he's got so many figs, see if you can use some of his as proxy! I've never had a problem in any friendly game as long as everyone knows what's on the table beforehand.
 
#20 · (Edited by Moderator)
Well... this might not be up your alley, but I find that conversion saves me a tonne of money...

Games Workshop

These chaos hounds, with a bit of filing, if you even feel like it, and rebasing, can make excellent hound proxies, and with a bit of sculpting skill and use of the kroot baggage bits on the kroot sprue, can be made sufficiently Krooty.

I hope this helps.
 
#21 ·
better question: why try to out-combat khorne? you have devilfish. deploy your fire warriors on their fish from the start, when he deep strikes in, he can't assault, so either run away or drop the hatch and shoot his ass. railheads will make a big mess of things with the submunitions round, and can always be turned on greater daemons or soul grinders with ap rounds if there's no clusters to shoot. xv8s aren't quite so useful in this scenario, but can still do a good amount of damage against his higher-toughness expensive squads. you're tau...you shoot. doesn't matter how close he can get if he can't assault on the turn he drops, you can still shoot the shit out of him.
 
#22 ·
To be fair Kroot hounds look better than kroot themselves though i woould personally like to try out my kroot in shooting instead of combat their suprisisngly good at shooting and surprisingly bad at combat considering their fluff.

One problem with just running away and shooting is the fact that youve jsut lost 2 out of 3 missions and according to fluff Tau are rubbish at 2/3 missions and I find them less than the best at Kill points at times (the drones on devilfish make me cringe at times)
 
#23 ·
uhh...what? objectives? get far away enough, drop the hatches, and make advantage of your 30" range. if you need to assault objectives, railhead submunitions make a mighty big mess of clustered units.

look at it this way. theoretically, you have a rock-paper-scissors model for 40k armies. theoretically i say, since it's not a perfect representation. however, for demonstration purposes, it suffices. you have 3 general types of armies, static, mobile, and drop. static beats mobile, since static naturally has more firepower then mobile, and mobile has to cross that fire zone before it can bring its own weapons to bear. mobile beats drop, because drop is static, without the firepower of static, so mobile can close and annhilate in detail. drop beats static, because drop negates the long-range advantage of static and gets to effective range without having to close the range first.

thus, you want to play mobile. for tau, that means fishwarriors and railheads. your pie plates aren't the imperial guard's, but the railhead submunitions can still lay a lot of hurt on a deep striking unit. if the chaos player drops on objectives, he's HAD to split up his force, so you're likely looking at 200 points or so on each objective in a 1k game. if you can bring a devilfish with warriors, a railhead, and some xv8s, which you easily can send to each objective in 1k, you are outmatching him 2 to 1. pie plate him, pulse rifle him, then finish him with the xv8s. the trick is to take out their landing zone before they can reinforce. you're not guard, you can't spam the area and force him to take mishap rolls wherever he lands. you have to play cavalry to the rescue. tau are very capable of frontal assault with their firepower, you just need to remember their mobility and choose where to apply that frontal assault firepower, because they don't have the bodies to sustain it. pick the schwehrpunkt and apply heavily armed mobile force to it such that it cracks as soon as the force fires a round.
 
#24 ·
Something else you could try is splitting you FW squads into 6 or 8 instead of 12 and put them in front of a 12 FW squad. That way if they do have to go into CC you are only standing to loose half of a normal strength squad giving your bigger squads time to put distance inbetween them and the CC army.
 
#25 ·
In 5th edition, the old tactic of employing more, smaller squads rather than fewer, larger squads has become a much riskier, more dubious choice. In objectives games, you have less resilience, less ability to stay put and claim an objective. And in kill points missions, you have more KPs for the taking, and they all become easier to take, too. Tau have enough KP troubles as it is to not invite even more.
 
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