He's having a stroke! Of genius!

Ok, thanks to some brainstorming with a friend of mine yesterday combined with some insomnia that helped me work out the fluff, I now have an idea to make my kroot hounds for about a 7:16 ratio. In other words, less than half price.

The Fluff: The strength of the kroot is their ability to absorb the DNA of the opponents that they defeat in battle, and then begin to exhibit desirable traits of the creature after a few generations. However, occasionally a shaper gets to eager in his pursuit of a certain trait and his kindred begin to lose their sentience. Once their sentience is gone, they can no longer make the decisions needed for the advancement of their evolution so then enter a "dead end" evolutionary path where they are essentially stuck in one form. This is how creatures such as the kroot hound and krootox came into being. However, what if a shaper who thought along the same lines as those who created the kroot hounds had more control over his own ambitions and therefore perfected the "hound" form of the kroot so that they were still sentient. Enter the perfect kroot close combat warrior.

The Modeling: This is the easy part. First, I would take a normal kroot, cut his gun away, give him two combat knives (or other close combat weapon like all those extra fantasy bitz I've got), put him into a dynamic pose (to try and exhibit the extra initiative of a kroot hound), and then put red war paint on him just so he's easier to see. You then have a kroot that would fight exactly like a kroot hound.

The Math: Ok, basic kroot is 8 points with no upgrades and the basic hound is 6. From the evolutionary adaptation "Fast Reflexes" we can see that GW believes an extra initiative is worth 1 point. So, a kroot with initiative 4 is 9 points and a hound with initiative 4 is 6 points (hounds are base initiative 4 and do not gain the benefit of evolutionary adaptations). A kroot hound has 2 base attacks, 1 additional on the charge while a kroot as 1 base attack and an additional close combat weapon due to the kroot rifle gaining another 1 attack, and 1 additional on the charge. Thus, a kroot with two close combat weapons would have the same number of attacks as a kroot hound. The rest of the stats for a kroot hound and kroot are the same. So now you may be going, "Hey! Wait a minute! Why is it that if I make a kroot the same as a kroot hound the kroot is 9 points and the hound is 6!" Well, that's because even though their stats are the same, they are not. The kroot is still carrying a kroot rifle thus giving him a str 4 rapid fire gun. Kroot hounds can't shoot. Therefore, we can see that GW valuse this BS 3 STR 4 rapid fire shot at 3 points. So then, by the math, a kroot with two close combat weapons, no gun, and an extra initiative should be 6 points, the same as a hound. SO! Even by the math my theory works out. In addition, 2 kroot hounds come in a blister pack for $10 (excluding shipping, let's assume a big order so that shipping doesn't count) and a box of 16 kroot comes for $35. This means that one kroot hound is $5 while one kroot is $2.19 (rounding up of course). This means that in an army with 20 hounds in a kroot hound pack, 10 hounds in a shaper council, and 2 hounds with the master shaper, one would on average save $85 dollars. It's the choice of 16 blisters of hounds (32 hounds) or 2 boxes of kroot (32 kroot). The choice is your's but I'm going for the kroot.

So What Does That Leave Me With?: This leaves me with a unique army that is sure to draw some attention with kroot in dynamic poses, double knives, war paint, and various other bits of carnage on their bases (IG being killed, Orks being eaten, Eldar being ripped apart, etc. etc...). It will also leave me with $85 extra bucks to do something with, or more if I continue to buy off of eBay. For instance, I just got 2 unopened boxes of kroot off of eBay for under $40 with shipping. From what I can see so far, kroot may be a horde army but if you do them right they can be cheaper than a lot of others (yay no vehicles!).

It's a hound, it's a kroot stuck in a dead end evolutionary path, it's a....tyranid?

Ok, so during my hours of being bored and surfing the net I came across a forum that had this thread in it.

Kroot Mercs.

Great looking kroot, but what I really want you to look at is his hound squad. If you look closely you'll notice that those aren't hounds but what appear to be modified termagants. This conversion doesn't look that bad (to me at least) and it would save a ton of money. 8 hounds for $40 or 16 hounds for $35...which sounds better.

Also, while I was on the GW store I typed in the word "chain" to try and find chainswords to turn into eviscerators, and I found these.

Chain Weapons Sprue 1

Chain Weapons Sprue 2

Chain Weapons Sprue 3

Now that's some eviscerator building material. I especially like the look of chain weapon sprue #2.

Order up

Well, I've managed to procure a few items off of eBay in order to start my kroot mercenary army with. I got the Anghkor Prok model that is going to be used as my master shaper and I probably won't do any conversion to that simply because I love that model and don't want to ruin it. I've also managed to get 2 complete boxes in addition to 12 other kroot on sprues all for half price (yay eBay). At the moment here is how things are going to work. Out of each of the two boxes, 14 shall be kroot carnivores, 1 shall be a kroot shaper, and 1 shall become a member of the shaper council. Of the other 12, 9 shall become hunter kindred, 1 shall become a shaper, and 2 shall become members of the shaper council. That leaves me with a master shaper, a shaper council of 4, 2 units of carnivores 15 strong each, and a 10 strong unit of hunter kindred. That's all for now...and oh...hounds are expensive. I mean, seriously. I need at least 8 of them just for my shaper council which would be $40! I might as well buy another box of kroot for that. GW should really come out with some plastic ones for Apocalypse or something.