Sadly, the troops section of the army remains poor and the maximum limits of these units are strange and seemingly haphazard. They aren't much changed from last edition where they were never a threat and aren't changed by much from the last codex where they weren't effective.
Firewarriors
I understand that Firewarriors maximum is the number that can fit in a Devilfish but seriously, it's an 80 point piece of garbage. Space Marines can take 10 guys and get a Razorback, why can't Firewarriors take 20 and get a Devilfish? Although they're cheaper (but not by a lot) they are still really bad. Looking at how much the Pink Horrors are costed I'd have to say these guys should be 6-7 points and the Devilfish is crazy expensive for a crap transport.
The problem, in my mind, is that you have really weak troops because: 1. You can't field a lot and get blobs with tons of fire and 2. They're entirely about shooting but are extremely weak to counter-fire and can't fire enough to take out many units. A 10 man group of Firewarriors can kill 2.2 MEQ if they're in rapid fire range. But, this puts them in range of the MEQ guns and a 10 man unit of them will kill 4.4 Firewarriors in return.
Luckily you aren't forced to take them anymore and the Kroot alternative has received a slight buff.
There are a lot of combos in this army that focus on buffing Firewarriors pulse weaponry like the Fireblade and the Ethereals Fire elemental Power. Withholding those though these guys are really bad at the things troops need to do and are more speed bumps for IG, MEQ, Orks and CSM. Between Firewarriors and Kroot your choices are so poor that it makes Tau into a much better ally army than a stand-alone army.
Kroot
Stealth (Forests) is freaking ridiculous. I've been in exceptionally few games with forests and most of them that had forests were put there by the Tau player because the group agreed that it would be more fair. Anyways mini-rant over I like Kroot. I liked the more before but they're okay now.
It irks me that they got a price reduction but got shafted in rules. Orks are the same price and do what they do, just better. Not sure why it has to be that way. Kroot were fine before. With the addition of the sniper round they'd have been 8 points and good.
If you're taking Kroot I'd be taking them like cultists: blobbed up defensive squads. I'd probably also take them with Hounds since they still get beast rules that greatly help Kroot: Acute Senses for re-rolling board edge and Move through Cover. Taking one costs 5 points. It's a vast improvement to the whole unit. You can also create a congo-line that allows hounds to hit units farther away due to their 12'' move. What this could accomplish is tying up a distant unit that your opponent might not realize is in charge range of the hounds.
Now Kroot have been nerfed, the lower toughness and the -1 attack from Kroot rifle changes suck. But they are better than Firewarriors now and can even be buffed by Cadre Fireblades and Ethereals so in my mind there's very little reason to take Firewarriors now.
Kroot still get demolished in CC against MEQs and can get wiped by Dark Eldar and Eldar shooting. They have the added benefit of being snipers though and a better than or equal to firewarrior gunline. There's now exceptionally few reasons to take Firewarriors over Kroot (markerlights and photon grenades is all I can come up with)
Not sure why anyone would take a T3 6+ save 25 point model that can be sniped from the other side of the map and ruins your cover saves but hey, people buy bad things all the time. Shaper...I have no idea. It's got 3 wounds and a higher leadership? I honestly have no idea how it benefits your unit. Just ignore him until he goes away.
But definitely take a hound. They take away nothing from your unit and add two special rules that work extremely well on Kroot.
Conclusions
Firewarriors and Kroot are still baddies but you're no longer forced to take anything now so you can pick and choose between them. Pick Kroot, give them all sniper rounds and a hound or two (or 5 for surprise assaults) and voila! you have mediocre troops capable of camping objectives and doing decent shooting attacks (pinning and hopefully killing some units).
They're more of a delaying tactic than anything and you'll need the rest of your army to pick up the slack for these baddies. Getting Riptides and Broadsides with some Commanders to help them out would be good. Keeping Kroot in reserve as long as possible is also good to give the enemy less time shooting at them.
They really missed a chance to make Kroot into a unique close combat capable unit in the codex (again) and I'm pretty sore about that.
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