Yavule
surveyed the corpses. He whistled. Even after 70 years of being a
commissar, that’s still impressive. The bloodied and mangled corpses lay
scattered in the rubble. He heard a soft purring sound and glanced to
his left. Yavule
stared at the corpse, a purring chainsaw still buzzing where it was
embedded in flesh. He grinned, by the emperor that must have been a hell
of a throw… he turned back to Kellen’s body, and walked over. He nudged
him with his boot, and flipped it over. Blood pooled out on the ground
on either side of Kellens body, and the huge gash in the center of the
Carapace armor showed where the Cultists had delivered the killing
wound.
He
glanced to his right and saw a bloody scrap of metal lying not 10 yards
away from his body. Holy throne he must have been one hell of a
fighter, to take a blow like that and keep going. He picked up the piece
of metal and inspected it. Odd, he thought. That’s a strange shade of
blood, haven’t seen that before. Ah well, he shrugged it off and walked
over to Kellen, preparing to make sure the weapon fit the wound. He bent
over to inspect the weapon and glanced back up at Kellens torso.
Suddenly he dropped the metal, staggered to his feet and stumbled
backwards.
“Holy throne, this…this can’t be….”
For the first time in 40 years, Commissar Urian Yavule of the Imperial Guard felt afraid.
The Goal of Every Citizen of Krieg is Sacrifice, for Only in Death Can The God Emperor Forgive the People of Krieg Their Sins.
99.8% casualty rate...
... And the 0.2% are apologizing for not dying just as they ran out of
enemies to fight. They're currently driving around in three of the few
remaining functional Chimeras and looking for anyone they may have
missed.
What's a pyrrhic victory then, 99.9% casualty rate?
Actually less than 99% casualty rate would be more considered lazy,
pyrrhic victory implies that the victory is as bitter as defeat, where
the resources made any gains not seem worth it. With the Death Korps of
Krieg, that would either have a narrow error margin (as narrow as Rogal
Dorn's tolerance towards deviations of his standards, which the cedar
tree up his a*** represents in regards towards his distain towards
that) or just not be in their vocabulary.
"Commissar, sir!"
"Speak Kriegsman..."
"We are ready to charge the enemy titans at once!"
"There's a titan out there?"
"Fifty of them actually... We'll charge immediately!"
Each Death Korps soldier is fully trained to the standards expected for
combat-readiness set down by the Departmento Munitorum, with particular
emphasis placed on hazardous-environment survival and endurance, and
physical and mental resilience. Proficient in the use of all basic
Imperial Guard weaponry types as well as the use of grenades and
explosives, a Death Korps soldier is also proficient in rapid and
skilled construction of trench works and defences. They are also
exemplary hand-to-hand combatants, with bayonet-drill being practiced
from childhood. Accuracy is secondary in Death Korps weapons training to
fire discipline, with the ability to maintain continuous fire en masse
as part of an infantry formation considered to be of paramount
importance. Death Korps Guardsmen have a tendency to be highly insular,
unemotional and often taciturn to the point of silence outside of their
duties. They also display a high degree of fatalism and an unusual
morbidity of habit, such as carrying relics, ossuaries of bone or other
memento-mori about their persons as a form of religious observance to
honour those who have fallen in the service of the God-Emperor.
Spiked helmets are famously worn by the troops of the Death Korps of
Krieg; however this is in truth rarely the case in the field, but many
Krieg troops maintain the tradition either with improvised spikes or,
less commonly, older patterns of the spiked helmet that have survived
and been passed down through families (ie they still have family blood
lines)
The minds and characters of the young prospective Guardsmen are
purposefully broken and remade stronger, just as their bodies are
trained to withstand hardship and endure suffering that would kill other
men -- a task already begun by the mere fact of living a life on
blighted Krieg.
"You would laugh monster. But let me remind you. Within this weak sack
of meat and bone, uncared for by his god and wept for by none, beats a
heart. A human heart, that carries with it the strength and courage of
all mankind. Within that sack of meat is the hope, the will, and the
fury of every man women and child from every corner of the Imperium.
Within that weak sack of meat, festooned in thin armour and weapons only
powerful in numbers , beats the heart of a man. And for ten thousand
years, the hearts of men have beaten, strongly, in defiance of your so
called "powers".
For ten thousand years, your black crusades have been pushed back,
beaten down, and made a mockery of, by weak sacks of flesh with cheap
weapons and disposable equipment. For that weak sack of flesh that you
so gleefully mock is no supersoldier, no immortal warrior, no creature
cursed by chaos like you. He is a man, an Imperial Gaurdsman drawn from
some forgotten corner of the Imperium to fight for his species and for
the safety of the people he loves.
He is a factory worker. a farmer, a storekeeper, a father, a brother, a
son, a mere man. And against creatures like you teeming and numberless,
powered by the wills of thirsting gods...He holds the line. He has held
the line for ten thousand years. So what is your excuse, monster?"
Vostroya is a world in the Halo Zone beyond the Eye of
Terror, famous for its Vostroyan Firstborn regiments of the Imperial Guard.
Vostroya swore allegiance to Mars during the Age of Strife.
It is ruled by the Techtriarchy, a council of Adeptus Mechanicus members and
more traditional planetary government personnel/representatives. Since the
Great Crusade, Vostroya has acted as an industrial world, supplying arms and
ammunition to the armies of the Imperium. In the ten thousand years after the
crusade, the Vostroyans have continued the same task, living and dying on the
production lines and complying with the endless schedule of manufacturing and
assembly. During the Horus Heresy, Vostroya refused to provide regiments to the
Emperor, preferring instead to reserve the population in the manufactoria
blanketing the world. After the Heresy came to an end the Vostroyans agreed to
supply every first born son to serve in the Imperial Guard regiments. Vostroya
technically is neither a hive world nor a forge world. Instead, it falls
somewhere in between (labelled an Industrial World). The birth and death rates
of 9.3 billion inhabitants are very high, keeping the population figures fairly
stable (taking into account that first-born sons are extremely numerous,
providing a massive amount of soldiers for the founding and reinforcement of
Imperial Guard regiments.)
Vostroya has suffered many conflicts, including at least
eighteen "Great Wars".
The landscape is extremely bleak - highly polluted. Life
outside 'managed' zones is almost impossible. Animal and plant life is almost
non-existent. Most food is imported.
There are seven large and distinct administrative
zones/regions stretching around the planet's more temperate equatorial belt
(e.g. The Magdan, Sohlsvodd, Muskha, etc). The far colder north and south are
uninhabitable. Vostroya has one moon - Turtolsky.
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!
Today we look at Codex Astra Militarum, and the the Vostroyan Firstborn, now let’s dive in!
Hey guys and girls, BigVik here again
with the next in my series of articles about list builds highlighting
each regiment in the new Astra Militarum Codex. This week we talk about
the Vostroyan Firstborn! Check the Tactics Corner for more great articles!
These guys are very interesting with
how they are represented on the table. Vostroya is a semi-forge world
headed by Techtriarchs which makes them a mix of Cult Mechanicus and
Imperial Government. Due to the strong relationship with the Cult
Mechanicus, Vostroyan Firstborn units have finely crafted heirloom
weapons which are noticeably superior to those of other Guard regiments.
Combine this with a long standing tradition of martial excellence and
you get a family of regiments which have some of the best soldiers,
fighting with some of the best equipment the Guard has to offer!
Meet the List
Now lets dive into the list! Brigade Detachment (Vostroyan, +9 CP, Troops have ObSec)
3x HQ- Company Commander
6x TROOPS- infantry squad w/ plasma gun, heavy bolter
This list is a twist on the typical
conscript screen. Because there are 6 separate squads it will be hard to
clear all of them in one turn, the fact that each unit has a special
and heavy weapon means they will probably be putting work in for about
the first two turns, especially with the extended range of weapons, this
means your opponent will need to clear the screen as much as anything
else, making target priority even harder for your opponent. With an
abundance of mortar squads and anti-tank Leman Russes, you can count on
taking down 2 average profile tanks a turn, and clearing away a squad
and change of a space marine squad. If your opponent is playing another
gun line you can spread your army out to score objectives to further
confuse target priority, allowing those Leman Russes and mortar teams to
keep doing the Emperor’s work.
What Relics to Take
If you are afraid of having your
warlord sniped out, it may be a good idea to take the Vostroyan
artificer armor, increasing your warlord to T4 and 2+/5++, otherwise I
think you’re going to want to keep to Kurov’s Aquila.
What the Strengths are: This army is
definitely MSU if I’ve ever seen it. There are a total of 30 units in
this army, and every one can do work in some capacity. This ensures that
you can either castle up to gun your opponent down, or spread out to
threaten objectives throughout the board to scare your opponent into
having to kill otherwise low priority targets.
What the Weaknesses Are
The weakness of this list is the fact
that the units themselves, with the notable exception of the Leman
Russes, are very squishy, thus with proper target priority your opponent
can clear several squads a turn to keep you off objectives while they
score objectives, creating a scenario where this list will be kept off
the objectives, killing just about everything on the table, but still
losing if there is progressive missions.
With all that being said, I love the
feel of this army, though it still has the horde feel of Guard, there is
a certain quality to the way these guardsmen are being fielded, whereas
other lists want to have conscripts, the extended range of the
Vostroyan guardsmen ensures that you want to have the maximum number of
models doing actual work, hence loading the squads with high output low
cost weapons.
A welcome change of direction now! I've taken some time to revisit the Krieg Repaint that I started well over a year ago now. My mind has been straying back to the Death Korps recently (mainly due to an upcoming terrain project), and with only a few more units to go until the repaint is complete, I decided to scratch this itch!
Well its been a mad dash to get this army list repainted and ready for the NUSU tournament at the weekend! Admittedly the Regimental Advisors were a bit rushed towards the end, but other projects beckon, and i needed to get this repaint out of the way!
