Hey everyone,
Reecius here from Frontline Gaming to go over the
basics of the new Death Korps of Kreig army list in the revised Siege of
Vraks Imperial Armor book! As always, check out the
Tactics Corner for more great reviews!
So the new book combines the previous versions of the Siege of Vraks
into a single volume and gives us updated rules. Cool! We at FLG love us
some Forge World.
The Death Korps of Krieg are arguably the most popular Forge World
army to date. The gorgeous models, and unique retro-future, WW1 German
feel of the army is just cool. However, does the army play well on the
table topo? Let’s dive in and give it a gander, shall we?
In this first installment of the review, we will cover the faction
wide special rules to get a feel for what the Death Korp are about. In
the next installments, we’ll dig into the meat of the list, itself.
Overview
So first of all, the Death Korps are their own Faction. They are
based off of the Astra Militarum, but sport some unique rules and have
their own allies chart. They can only be used in the following ways:
Unbound, CAD, Allied Detachment, or their two list specific detachments:
the Krieg Death Rider Squadron or the Krieg Gorgon Assault Squadron.
Unlike most armies of the Imperium, they are not battle brothers with
all other Imperial Factions. Notably they are only Allies of
Convenience with Grey Knights, Blood Angels and Dark Angels. They are
Battle Brothers with the Elysian and Detachment D-99 FW Factions who
would actually work quite well with them.
Unique Rules
This is one of the sections that really separates the Death Korps
from normal Astra Militarum. The Death Krops soldiers are tough, stoic
troopers and this is represented by their rules: Death Korps and Iron
Discipline. Death Korps makes them WS4, immune to Fear, and allows them
to ignore morale checks when they suffer 25% casualties from shooting or
during the movement phase. That is fantastic! Not running away due to
shooting casualties is so powerful for Guard, this is really great. Iron
Discipline means that any Death Korps units that are within 6” of a
Death Korps officer may attempt to rally on normal Ld even if below 25%.
This is not as fantastic as it won’t come into play that often, but, it
is still really cool when it works. What these collectively mean, is
that your more expensive Death Korps troopers will be a lot more
reliable.
Death Korps Orders
This is one of the cool, but also not so cool parts of the Death
Korps. The bad: the do not have the Ignores Cover order…womp, womp! That
is pretty crappy, especially considering how many artillery units they
have that could benefit from this order. This along with their very weak
AA, is pretty much the only thing holding this back from being a top
tier army. However, the orders they do have are solid and allies can
help to overcome some of their weaknesses! They have the standard AM
orders in addition to: Duty unto Death: reroll Ld tests for a game turn,
if double 1’s are rolled, the unit becomes Fearless. They also get: Dig
In, which gives a flat +1 cover save which rocks. Lastly, they get
Clear the Trenches, which makes Las Guns become assault 2, 12” and the
unit gets Move Through Cover. Not bad!
Death Korps Warlord Traits
- Unflinching Resolve: Warlord and Death Korps within 12” add +1 to combat res.
- Shattering Bombardment: Makes a weapon in a unit within 6” of the
Warlord count as Ordnance, Twin-linked. Cool! This can be pretty awesome
for a Las Cannon, or something similar. Be careful of putting it on a
vehicle though, as it would cause every other weapon to snap fire.
- Victory or Death: Warlord and unit gain Fearless and FnP6+ while in a
Fortification or behind a defence line. Yawn. Being in a fort this
edition is a death trap. Behind a defence line can be cool if you do
this for a big unit, so it isn’t terrible, but it isn’t great, either.
- Smoke Barrage: Choose to have Night Fight.
- Martyr’s Defiance: Warlord and Death Korps within 6” gains the
Preferred Enemy (Infantry) rule while in a friendly deployment zone. Not
bad, pretty situational, but not bad.
- Siege Master: -1 cover save to a piece of terrain in the enemy deployment zone. Solid!
These are characterful, but not amazing. Will you take them over book traits? Not typically, but they can be good fun.
In the
next article, we’ll dive into the list, itself!
Posted on March 25, 2015
