The Death Korps of Krieg is the advance that does not stop. Where other regiments manoeuvre, the Korps walks — a grey, masked line pressing forward in lockstep behind a creeping mortar barrage, taking ground by the simple, terrible method of putting bodies onto it faster than the enemy can clear them. Its soldiers are the cheapest real fighters on any battlefield, drawn in endless number from a levy that treats a life as ammunition and a death as an entry in a ledger. They do not break: the Grinding Advance frees them of Nerve and the gang of any thought of retreat, so they fight to the last man as a matter of doctrine. Officers turn that raw obedience into a machine, their Voice of Command leaning the whole line ever forward. This is a regiment built to spend itself — patient, penitent and unstoppable — that wins not by any single fighter's skill but by walking into the guns and mustering back almost whole.
Composition4
Identity2
The Imperial Guard are the Emperor's hammer of mortal men — the vast, uncounted soldiery that holds His galaxy one world at a time, not through any single warrior's might but through sheer disciplined mass. Every other faction fields fighters who are individually more than a man; the Guard field men, and win the only way men can. Their soldiers are the most expendable on any battlefield and the most numerous, a firing line of lasguns where rivals bring a handful of champions.
What makes that mass lethal is command. An officer does not win by fighting — he wins by making a hundred rifles fire as one, spending his own breath on Orders that turn scattered squads into a machine. Discipline holds the line together: the Commissar's pistol and the Priest's fury keep mortal men standing where terror should scatter them. Their durability is never a tough hide but numbers, cover, and the certainty that another rank waits behind the dead. Kill the officers and the machine falls apart — the whole strength of the Guard is a chain of command made of men who can be shot down like any other.
Gang Composition2
- Starting credits: 1500 (converter-wide default); no per-fighter tithe — Voice of Command costs no credits, its cost lives in officer body-prices
- Exactly 1 Leader (Company Commander; the High-Command Leader is the mounted apex of that single slot, not a second Leader)
- 0-2 Lieutenants/Sergeants (Champions) · 0-1 Commissar · 0-1 Ministorum Priest · 0-1 each specialist (Medic/Master-Vox/Enginseer)
- Guardsmen the bulk; Conscripts cheap and plentiful; Gangers+Juves >= Leaders+Champions (the most body-heavy faction on the ladder)
- 0-2 Heavy-Weapons Teams · 0-1 Brute (Ogryn/Sentinel) · 0-1 super/super-heavy Brute (Leman Russ / Rogal Dorn / Baneblade — fortune-gatekeeper priced)
- Champion / specialist / Heavy-Weapons / Brute slots unlock with Reputation
- No spend-currency: Voice of Command is a passive action-economy, never a bankable pool
A starting Guard muster begins with 1500 credits and a single Leader — the Company Commander, whose mounted High-Command variant fills that same one slot rather than adding a second. Around him the controlling player may field up to two Lieutenants or Sergeants, a lone Commissar, a Ministorum Priest, and one each of the specialist Champions. The bulk of the muster is Guardsmen, thickened out with plentiful Conscripts, and the faction skews this harder than any other: rank-and-file Gangers and Juves always outnumber the officers above them, making this the most body-heavy force on the field. Up to two Heavy-Weapons Teams, a single Brute, and one super or super-heavy Brute round out the force. Champion, specialist, Heavy-Weapons and Brute slots open up as the muster's Reputation grows. Voice of Command draws on no pool and costs no credits — a led mob is an army, and a leaderless one is only a mob.
- Starting credits: 1500; no per-fighter tithe — Voice of Command costs activations, not credits
- Exactly 1 Leader (Death Korps Marshal, the cold siege-master with TWO Orders)
- 0-2 Watchmasters; 0-1 Commissar/Quartermaster; 0-1 Ministorum Priest; 0-1 Combat Engineer; 0-1 Medic
- Krieg Grenadiers the bulk (the masked line); Conscripts UNCAPPED-cheap (the Krieg slot bonus — the endless levy); 0-2 Mortar/Heavy Teams; 0-1 Brute (Death Rider)
- Backbone: Grenadiers + Conscripts (Gangers + Juves) >= Leaders + Champions — Krieg skews this hardest of all, the most body-heavy gang in the game
- Krieg delta - 'We Owe a Debt of Blood': Krieg fighters never make Nerve tests; a gang below half strength does NOT make Bottle checks and keeps fighting; entrenching tools let any Krieg fighter dig a piece of cover; the Order-lean is 'Move! Move! Move!' + 'Into the Guns!' + the mortar barrage; swaps its 6th skill Steady Hands for Relentless Advance
A Death Korps gang is built body-first and officer-led. The controlling player starts with the standard credits and takes exactly one Leader, the Death Korps Marshal, whose Voice of Command carries two Orders rather than one. Around him gather up to four Champions — Watchmasters, a Commissar-Quartermaster, a Ministorum Priest, a Combat Engineer or a Medic — but the gang's substance is its masked line: Krieg Grenadiers form the bulk, while Conscripts come cheap and effectively uncapped, the endless levy fed in by the score. Mortar or Heavy Teams and a single Death Rider round out the roster. The Grenadiers and Conscripts must always outnumber the officers, and the Korps skews this harder than any other force — no gang on the ladder carries more bodies. It has no morale to lose: it never tests Nerve and never Bottles, and it musters its fallen back between battles by number rather than replacing them one prized fighter at a time.