Editing Death Korps of Krieg (section)

==Tabletop==
[[File:Death Korps Artillery.png|500px|thumb|right|A battery of field artillery is worth a thousand <s>muskets</s> lasguns]]
===3rd edition===
Despite being mostly associated with FW, the Death Korps actually got their first set of rules in the Imperial Guard 3.5 codex being one of the pre-made regiments found in the book. They came with 6 doctrines and had ''Iron Discipline'' (ignores being under half strength modifiers for moral and pinning tests if using an officers Ld) , ''Die-hards'' (ignore negative modifiers for being outnumbered in combat) and ''Hardened fighters'' (+1WS). The Death Korps also got access to Rough Riders, Strom Trooper squads and Heavy Weapons platoons (yes 3rd ed guard had limited access to Heavy weapon teams), though they lacked any specialised organisation or special equipment. Obviously a very moral focused army they could be quite hard to shift and would be more willing than most other Guard armies to throw down the gauntlet, and their access to storm troopers and rough riders meant they could back this aggression up quiet well.

===4th-5th edition and Vraks===
The Death Korps was first seen in the way we know them today at the end of 4th edition when Imperial Armour V - The Siege of Vraks pt 1 was released, giving the Death Korps models and more rules. They kept the same doctrines from the Imperial Guard Codex but gained some unique units such as the Death Riders and Grenadiers as well as a selection of unique equipment. Due to their inspiration, the Death Korps army list favoured immobile artillery over the standard [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basalisks]] and [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Russ Tanks]] of the other guard regiments and had more restrictions on the number of tanks they could take, while having no access to the basilisks. Though to make up for this they could take a a fairly bit of field artillery and cheap big guns allowing you to rattle you opponents teeth loose with the constant barrage you could unleash. The Death Korps were further added to when Imperial Armour VI and VII where released which introduced the Death Korps engineers and gave the Death Korps a tank army in the form of the Armoured Battlegroup, which let the Death Korps take [[Awesome|Leman Russ tanks as troops and Gorgon Assault Vehicles and troop transports for Infantry Platoons]]. The rules did need updating halfway through the series as Vraks books 1+2 where released when the 3.5 Imperial guard codex was still in use, and Vraks book 3 released a few months after the 5th edition Imperial guard codex released so had to quickly include some re-worked version of their old 3.5 rules and clarifications that let them use orders from the new guard codex (these rules were on page 128 in a box tucked away under the rules for the [[Atlas Recovery Tank]]). Still at least Krieg was up to date, and was in a fairly decent position for an army that had all its rules released over the course of 3 edition.

===6th-7th edition and Orpheous===
When 6th edition launched it brought with it quite a few updates to armies and introduced more specialised rules for sub-factions, which left the Death Korps rules slightly outdated. Luckily Forge World produced a PDF containing updated rules for the Death Korps Siege Regiment, which gave all Death Korps infantry +1WS and made them immune to Fear, in addition to [[Iron Warriors|not taking Morale checks for suffering 25% shooting casualties]]. ''Iron Discipline'' also returned giving Death Korps units that were falling back but within 6” of a Krieg officer the ability to regroup, regardless if they had been reduced to 25% strength. Both of these rules obviously makes the Death Korps a great army at attritional warfare as they will usually never retreat and can't be shifted from an objective unless they are killed to the last man.

The Death Korps Siege regiment was the same as earlier incarnations where the armies bread and butter was massed artillery and infantry assault, with access to a bunch of cheap field and heavy artillery batteries that allowed cover the table with more pie plates than a stage after an eating competition. The draw back is the Siege Regiment had no access to chimeras or [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisks]], which makes it a far more static force that relies on wiping out opponents at range and taking objectives with units of marching infantry. Later in 7th edition Vraks 2.0 was released which contained the updated rules to the original Siege regiment army and added unique orders and warlord traits to the army. The Death Korps also got a second army in the Fall of Orpheous book with the Assault Battalion army, which was a more aggressive force that gave the Death Korps access to Basalisks, their own variant of the Chimera and Tank Commanders, as well as making Grenadiers troop choices. The pay off was the loss of the cheap artillery and most big guns were placed in the Heavy support slot, rather than being spread out over the Elite and Heavy Support slots, meaning the army relied more on shock tactics and getting into your opponents lines with all those Grenadiers and their fancy Storm Chimeras.

===8th edition===
After the overhaul of the game system the Death Korps rules were transferred to the new Imperial Armour indexes, which gave them their units and new rules. ''Cult of Sacrifice'' became the new rule for the Death Korps which was simply "all models with this rule ignore models lost during the shooting phase when calculating moral," and all Death Korps infantry gained +1WS which made them over all the best Guard regiment with great moral and better fighting than all the others. Oddly the new Death Korps army was a mix of the Siege Regiment and Assault Battalion, and meant the Death Korps could take both immobile earthshaker guns and Basilisks in the same army. The Death Korps also go access to a few regular guard units and could take [[What|Psykers]] in the same army as them. It was a weird transitional phase for Krieg.

===9th edition===
The good news? They're now available in plastic. The bad news? All the special rules that made them unique are gone, thus robbing them of all their individuality.

With the shit show that is the Imperial Armour compendium, how did the Death Korps fair? Not well as they have been more or less shoved through the bland machine with the decade of development that the Imperial Armours gave them being more or less undone. Firstly they lost +1WS and are back to being a bog standard regiment with the exact same stuff as the regular guard and ''Cult of Sacrifice'' is now a regimental doctrine, and a pretty shit one at that. It allows the Death Korps to ignore ALL modifiers in combat attrition tests, so the unit will still fail the moral test, but won't be affected by some obscure rule that means 2 more guys will run away. It also allows any Death Korps model that has died to make a shooting attack or melee attack on a 4+, which isn't great considering most attacks will be with the S3 [[Lasgun]] or fists and you still need to roll to hit and wound giving a Krieger with lasgun a 12.5% chance of actually wounding a GEQ (not including armour saves). It's even worse for tanks since they will be stuck shooting at their BS6+, making the rule practically useless. On top of all of this Krieg has lost most of it's own unique and core units. Grenadiers, Centaurs, Earthshaker batteries, named characters. [[Fail|All squatted and turned to legends]]. These rules changes and absolute gutting of the army has led to general moaning and complaining from the community, and while it hasn't been released yet the nebulous 9th edition Imperial Guard codex is likely to include Krieg as a standard regiment, [[Rage|practically undoing most of the uniqueness of Krieg to make it another Guard regiment like it was in 3rd, because time is a flat circle at Games Workshop HQ.]]

Now that the Guard Codex is only half available, we know how they'll function in a weird fashion: their troops get their own datasheet, where they get a plasma gunner at base [[What|but have to give it up if they want a Vox-Caster]]; they can't be wounded on a 1 or a 2; they can get a medic which means the first failed save of a turn is damage 0, so no-one dies; 2 sods can take a special weapon, other than a plasma gun, and it's specified that you can't take the same weapon more than twice [[What|when only 2 sods can take the weapons, and the kit only comes with one of each]]; the Watchmaster can get a Boltgun, or a melee weapon and a pistol. And then the fun begins: because of how the keywords and doctrines work, [[Fail|all of the Forgeworld Kreig units that are left, and aren't Infantry Squads can't benefit from any Regimental Doctrines or orders until an FAQ comes out, which in classic GW fashion, won't happen until a month after the codex is fully released.]]