8th Ed. Viability of large krox units in 8th edition?

I'm in no way an experienced player as some of you are, but I like to try out new things and not just follow what most considers the most competitive/ideal setup. I want to learn, by myself, what can and cannot be effective.

So, with that said I've now tried to field a large unit of kroxigors twice now. Both times at 11 models, with a champion.

Against infantry units they'll throw out 24 S7 attacks and 4 stomps. 12 of those attacks can generate PF and the unit have a decent movement. They lack in WS, Armour Toughness and always strikes last, due to the weapon. WS and Toughness can we somewhat (if we want to) deal with, through magic, however, at any rate these guys can lose 9 wounds and still attack at full strenght. They can take a cannon ball to the face, hit last and still out-beat most units. They don't have a larger foot-print than 5 COR, but they're (obviously) quite deep.
The unit comes at 3 ranks, so even if they should lose one, but get a charge, they come with 2 CR from ranks and one from charge.

One of the biggest issue, I suppose, is the fact that should an opponent get Purple Sun, Dwellers Below or anything of that sort of it'll ruin your day. They're quite an expensive unit and if they're dead before they do their thing you've just lost yourself 1/5th of your army (@2500pts). Don't do that.

Unless you're playing against something with Mark of Nurgle or a WS6 they'll hit at 4+. Against most things they'll then proceed to wound at 2+ and +1 AS units will save at 5+. Unless my math is wrong (please feel free to correct me) they'll do roughly 6.6 wounds (without PF) at full strenght and agaisnt +1 armoured units. Anything with 3+ saves will take an average of 10 wounds. Against infantry they'll do some extra.

Obviously they are less manoeuvrable than say two ancient stegadons, but on the same time they come with 33 wounds vs 10. 24 S7, 4S5 attacks and PF vs 2 x D6 + impact hit (D3 multiple wounds with horns), 6 S6 attacks and 2 D6 S6 thunderstomps. Vs infantry the ancient stegadons have the potential to do more damage than the kroxigors, but from my experience it's hardly a given that you'll do a lot of wounds with thunderstomp (dem 1 rolls will laugh at you lol). The same with PF.

Obviously the stegs comes with a bunch of skinks and the giant blowpipes, however against the targest we should aim these at they really doesn't come into play.

Personally I think that I might take these a couple of times more, but I don't suppose they're highly competitive, especially due to people 6-dicing uber spells, but these guys aren't as vulnerable to cannons as a couple of stegs. Also, even though such a large unit is taken, one could still field a large unit of templeguards, a unit of cameleon skinks, 600-700pts core, a cheap slann and an oldblood. Or whatever you feel like taking.

It's a huge investment, but they can be a lot of fun if you're seeking something to smash your opponents face in with a lot of S7.

One could consider to instead have 2 units with krox or a smaller unit of krox and a unit 1-2 units of skrox, but personally I think the strenght of these is due to having enough wounds to come into CC at full strenght and then deal those 24 attacks, instead of 6 krox losing one or two before they hit combat and then they "only" deal 12-15 attacks.

So.. Have any of you tried fielding more than 6 kroxigors in one unit? Or is this just utter nuts only meant for friendly games?

*This isn't a tactica in any way, just my view and experience with them and an open discussion about your thoughts.

 

I just figured they'd take up a lot of space, I suppose.

 

I'm just 100% sure I've read somewhere that the first rank also gave CR. My bad though, however, I'll just look it up.

Oh, right. It says "extra ranks" so that must mean after the first rank. Oh well. I dunno what I've about then, when I looked for it.

 

I think I'd go life. The krox only benefit from the WS buff, not initiative. So I would prefer them to have T6 because if you're going 4 x 2 you'll still be rocking enough attacks for WS not to be THAT important, however, a T6 would mean that a lot of targets would be wounding on 6+, som 5+. With life you can also give back wounds, get regeneration and cast dwellers below.

I think for this sort of army Life would definiately be worth considering.

 

In this case I think it's a matter of skills tbh.

Why? Because with Life you can get +2 (+4) toughtness, regen 5+ (4+), resurrection along with dwellers bellow and the ability to get rid of miscast with the rol of a 2+.

Compared to getting better WS (not as good as better toughness in this case), better movement + instantly move your unit into position along with the other spells that are also good, but not defensive in the same way.

A good player can use High Magic to get his smash unit into position and use that to his advantage. And yes, I realize you can heal, but it's nowhere near the same as with Life (regen, heal, resurrect).

Life, however, is more safe (for the inexperienced player). Getting +2T off will make you lose less wounds vs S4 than if you have WS4 and you can always heal units back to life (I make it sound so easy lol).

I'm not going to say that one is better than the other, but the way I see it (will have to test this) Life is easier to use than High magic.

Obviously it is also a matter of preference - one might even just use Light.

 

Oh right I keep forgetting. You are right of course, my bad

 

I found out why I messed it up.

In the faq it says that when counting for being steadfast you count the first rank too. So naturally I assumed it was the same when counting CR, I mean why not? Anyway I got it sorted now.

 

I'm happy that I'm not the only one who've played with these guys like that. However, they do have some weaknesses. They're rather expensive at that amount,they don't pack the best defensive stats and they don't do well against large blocks of elite units.

So 500pts of kroxigors can be quite expensive if your opponents doesn't have what you want these guys to take down. For instance - I'd never take these against a Dwarfen player. So personally I think the "these guys aren't competitive enough" aspect comes from the fact that these guys aren't good at everything, just extremely good at certain things. So if the right match-up isn't the you potentially have a 500pts block of "nothing". Obviously getting them into the flank of anything will hurt, but they're also a lot less manouvreable at 3 x 3 or 4 x 3 or whatever you decide.

One day though I'm going to try them with Hand of Glory against my empire friend.

Anyway even though they're expensive it's not as if you cannot get a decent army. For instance you can get:

- Slann w/ BSB + dispel scroll.
- OB w/ armour of destiny, dawnstone, CO and GW.

- 625 pts of cores + 50pts of skink cohort for the frog.
- 10 kroxigors.
- 30 templeguards
- 8-10 cameleon skinks
- 2 salamanders.

It's just something I thought of so I dunno if the point match a 2500pts limit, but it should be possible. THe slann doesn't have high magic, but he can choose somehting like life.

So it's definately possible to have some fun with these without completely gimping the rest of your army.