Hello all,

I play Rogue Trader a lot, and I got my new copy of The Koronus Bestiary this morning, only to notice no Kroot! The book doesn't republish any material published elsewhere (so no Eldar Rangers or Dire Avengers, as they are in Creatures Anathema). This is generally something I approve of (it is always a niggle to buy the same profiles twice), but as I don't own any DW books, the lack of Kroot was a bit of a bother in this case.

Anyway, I love Kroot, and they feature in our campaigns quite a lot. As I understand it, Mark of the Xenos, has loads on Tau, and so on Kroot too. Does this include the other members of the Kroot-oid family (kroot hounds, krootoxes, gnarlocs of one sort or another, etc)? Also, I assume one can easily port the information from DW supplements over to RT? Or is that hopelessly naive? Any advice on porting over, if pertinent, would be appreciated.

I am sorry if questions similar to this have already been asked,

Many thanks in advance,

David.

Indeed, Mark of the Xenos has several Kroot profiles. There are: Kroot Carnivore, Kroot Shaper, Krootox, Knarloc, Great Knarloc, and Kroot Hound profiles. It also has a Vespid Stingwing profile.

As for porting over, it should just be a matter of making sure talents and skills match up, but I don't really know RT that well.

Ygnar, many thanks! Just what I needed to know; I'll look into getting a copy fairly soon. I am sure the skills more or less match up…

All best,

David.

David B said:

A comment, while MotX does have stats for many things Tau and Kroot, it DOESN'T have the base Tau stuff; Crisis Suits, Fire Warriors, Stealth Suits, and base Drones; those are in DW Core. You might not care, as you only mentioned Kroot, and RT does a good job of illustrating that the Kroot really have nothing to do with the Tau (not true, but they get a lot of freedom and mention in RT, with nothing on the Tau being there, so…) Tau vehicles are also in Rites of Battle; Kroot "vehicles", Krootox, and Gnarlocs, are in MotX. Since they don't reprint them, I assume they think the DW stats for Kroot would work fine in RT; whether that's true or not… However, so long as you keep the party away from Hordes, they should be okay. The Kroot will have small enough numbers that, should the party wish, diplomacy might seem wise to both sides, or the party might actually survive an encounter. I don't know if you ever include the Tau, but Fire Warriors should be okay. Crisis Suits, especially ones with Shields/Shield Drones, might be better left to the Astartes, but if there is only one, maybe, in charge of a small Hunter Cadre of Fire Warriors, supported by Kroot, he might not be too tough, or he might escape. Like I said, Kroot in RT don't seem to depend on/rapport with the Tau at all, so you probably don't care; just thought I'd give my two thrones.

I will say, as I look at the stat blocks on Kroot Mercs (RT p.377) and Kroot Carnivores (DW: MotX, p.20), their stat blocks are VERY similar. I don't want to just write it up, as I bet they frown on that, but Carnies only seem to differ in being a bit strnger, since Space Marines are tough, and Kroot are the Tau's best melee fighters. This being the case, I'd bet most of the stat blocks could carry back to RT, and couse few to no problems. Good luck.

If you're looking to play as a kroot, you really need RT:Into the Storm. It has Kroot mercenary specialities in there including all the advance tables you could ever want.

My RT campaign does actually have an important Kroot NPC (made using the ITS rules), who drops into and out of the campaign (I, as GM, am running him as a PC, gaining experience and such like, to represent his adventures off ship; he has been lent out to occasional players from time to time).

What we wanted was a load of other krootey goodness, gnarlocs, krootoxes and such like - Kroot are increasingly becoming a significant part of our campaign, and I wanted the full range of the kroot experience for my PCs (my fiancee, the rogue trader, wants to get some gnarlocs, among other things).

Anyway, Kroot player characters are cool - though I suppose you have to have the right sort of group to accomodate them (no missionaries!).

David.