Kroot Hounds

The Kroot Hounds are a bestial offshoot of the Kroot species, kin who long ago devoured flesh that drove their bloodline down a wilder, more feral path. Lean and quadrupedal, crested with quills and armed with jaws that snap bone, they course across the battlefield as a living pack of hunting beasts, straining at the leashes their masters barely bother to hold.

A Shaper unleashes them to run down fleeing enemies, to flush foes from cover, and to fall upon the flanks of a formation while the Kroot Carnivores engage it head-on. They hunt by scent and instinct, and once the pack has the blood-smell there is no calling them back until the prey is torn apart. Their speed is such that few can outrun them, and fewer still survive the frenzy when the hounds close in.

Though they serve the T'au Empire's cadres as auxiliaries, the Kroot Hounds understand nothing of the Greater Good. They know only the kindred, the hunt and the hot rush of the kill, and it is precisely this savagery that the T'au find so useful in the grinding brutality of a ground war.