Death Korps of Krieg Sturmtruppen?

[Julgolax]

Does the Death Korps have stormtroopers in some fashion? I mean in their actual lore, not some retcon by GW marketing advisors...

 

With an army of such tough, iron-jawed, glory-or-death soldiers, I'd think you'd be hard pressed to find someone you could say was tougher and more skilled than the rest. From the lore I've read, they all sound like they're Kasyrkin with trenchcoats and gas masks instead of Carapace Armor, marching into the worst conflicts imaginable.

[CyderPirate]

Yeah, Krieg have Combat Engineers and Grenadiers, which are their Stormtroopers, running in head-first with heavy flamers, acid bombs and the like...

You're kinda right though, the only thing that distinguishes them from standard kreigsmen is their equipment.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

As CP noted, Krieg has the combat engineers and Grenadiers. Since Krieg is very heavily inspired by the WW1-WW2 German Wehrmacht, Krieg grenadiers are employed the same way that German Grenadiers were. Grenadiers have always been the close range assault heavy infantry, which Krieg grenadiers do very well. They are WS4, and they have hotshot lasguns and carapace armor. They are intended to get in close, and kill the enemy with their highly effective shooting, and they have armor good enough to whether the counterattack.

 

Combat engineers operate the specialist gear, they break through fortifications and make paths so that the grenadiers can get where they need to be. That's why they have things like the hades siege drill, and the mole launcher. They are equipped with very close range weapons, and aren't designed for mixing it up, rather they're job is to provide specialist firepower.

 

Stormtroopers really don't compare well to Kasrkin and Krieg Grenadiers, as stormtroopers are supposed to be the imperium's elite fighters. Over in a different thread I tried to compare them to USSOCOM, but they really don't. Stormtroopers are more like Spetznaz, they excel at infiltration and sabotage, but are usually the prelude to a full scale invasion, and are no slouches in open warfare either. Where USSOCOM forces keep Direct Action as a secondary task, not a primary. Grenadiers and Engineers are specialist troops, but they are not elite like stormtroopers.

 

In the Krieg lists, Grenadiers are just carapace vets with hotshots and krak grenades, while the combat engineers are essentially a carapace vet special weapons squad. Stormtroopers deep strike and have move through cover, allowing them to get where they need to be. Another big difference is that Stormtroopers don't lend themselves to mechanization well, while Grenadiers do.

 

Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the matter.

[WarriorFish]

Stormtroopers are separate from the regimental structure - they're their own regiments. That's not to say they can't be attached to a normal Guard regiment nor that a Guard regiment can't have equivalently equipped/trained troops (e.g. Kasrkin). As mentioned the DKoK don't have Stormtroopers exactly, but they do have carapace armoured elite troops which to most people is much the same thing :)

[Julgolax]

Very interesting actually! The Death Korp is one of my favorite armies of all but my true first-choice of an Imperial Guard will always be a DiY choice. It's too bad that we don't REALLY have viable "Gun Line" tactics in this game, otherwise Mordian Iron Guard would be in my top 3 favorite Imperial Guard armies, just after DKoK and Valhallan Ice Warriors. (You might notice I love trench coats) :D

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

What do you mean that we don't have really viable gunline tactics in this game. The rules are built around turn of the 20th century battle tactics, where all they really knew was the gun line. I mean if you really want a gunline you take infantry platoons and fortifications to put them in, and you don't move, while you spam battlecannons at long range, take flyers with icarus quad lascannons, and then punisher cannons close in. Firestorm redoubt, and a couple of vengeance batteries, with enough guard bodies to fill them, maybe a trench line or an ADL. That's as gunline as it gets. or instead of platoons you take cover camping forward sentries vets with autocannons and lasguns in the trenches, and the firestorm redoubt.

 

Personally I like dynamic armies, so the gunline doesn't appeal to me, but I'll know how to build it so I know how to beat it.

[WarriorFish]

With objectives to capture and some very mobile foes, not to mention the likes of drop pods etc gun line tactics aren't very reliable if you want to win. Gun line as the standard has long been dead and good job too because it's not terribly exciting :P

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

With objectives to capture and some very mobile foes, not to mention the likes of drop pods etc gun line tactics aren't very reliable if you want to win. Gun line as the standard has long been dead and good job too because it's not terribly exciting

My thoughts exactly. Gun line is boring to play, and to play against. For that matter, Purge the Alien missions are not terribly exciting either.

[Julgolax]

I dunno, I always thought that Civil War in Spaaaace! would be kinda fun actually. That IS how the main bulk of the Imperial Guard is meant to operate. Only their special units are mobile.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

I dunno, I always thought that Civil War in Spaaaace! would be kinda fun actually. That IS how the main bulk of the Imperial Guard is meant to operate. Only their special units are mobile.

Except the Civil War was much different than we typically think. We usually think of the pitched battles at Gettysburg, or Shiloh, instead of battles like Harper's Ferry, or Spring Hill, or even the battles during Sherman's March to the sea. Later in the Civil War we had trench warfare, and more static battles and close fighting like that. America has always been a step ahead of the rest of the world in terms of warfare, not surprising that our nation was born of war, and been at war almost constantly since then. I mean if you want to run Mordians in blue or grey, in a slowly advancing gunline, and facing off with another opponent, feel free. I'll just turtle up with my guys behind aegis lines and take all the cover saves, while pummeling you with tanks and artillery.

 

You may already know that stuff about the Civil War, then again I can't know how much time you've spent in the south. Down here we see it everyday, it shaped the very land we stand upon, and we have confederate graveyards flying the Stars and Bars (Screw taking that down, it's a historical site, and the men buried there deserve to rest under the flag they died for) as do the National battlefields, though it flies under the US Flag, we have monuments all over honoring "our confederate dead". Hard not to be a Civil War buff in a place where you have a National battlefield right outside your front door...

 

Anyway I'm horribly off topic, so I'll stop before the Commissar takes a liking to my Noggin in his sights...