The Death Korps of Kreig Siege Regiment Review Part 1: Overview

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

1. Unflinching Resolve: Warlord and Death Korps within 12” add +1 to combat res.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Smoke Barrage: Choose to have Night Fight.
5. 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.
6. 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!