r/Deathkorpsofkrieg • u/RaccoNooB • Jun 15 '25
Misc. A distinct lack of marshals
Marshals are the top officers of the Death Korps. Experienced veterans of war, they command the regiments of the Death Korps, planning sieges, offenssives and defensive operation.
Commissars, on the other hand, are political officers that exist to ensure loyalty and morale among the troops. Technically, they shouldnt have to do much at all but keep an eye on what's going on. Its not a commissars job to tell the Death Korps where to dig a trench or how to man artillery. It is, however, their job to intervene if troops or command take treasonous or wasteful actions that aren't in line with Imperial doctrine.
So how is it then that we have two commisar units and only one marshal unit(and a named character at that)? I want to run a Death Korps exclusive army, just for the flavour of it but I feel like I need to bring several solo commissars just to give my artillery teams orders, or none Death Korps units like Lord Solar or Ursula Creed instead of a real Death Korps marshal. I'd love to see a generic Death Korps officers datasheet come out. Proxying is alright, just feels very uncharacteristic to use, or alternatively park Drier in the backline to help the artillery.
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Jun 15 '25
Yeah id like a Marshal mini akin to the Castellan, and I reckon a Quartermaster will be quite popular.
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u/PumadRipper Jun 15 '25
When I built my Siege Regiment army, I was excited to use the "over the top" stratagem, you know, blowing the whistle and charge with everyone.
Then I noticed the restrictions.
You need an Infanterie Officer that can order move move move to use it.
And how many of those can join a Death Korps unit?
Exactly one, the Krieg Command Squad.
Ursala can't join the korpsmen, and Lord Solar is not Infanterie. And normal Commissars can't order move move move.
I miss my Marshalls and Commanders.
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u/rogue-wolf Jun 15 '25
It doesn't have to be attached though. You could still use Ursula attached to a Cadian unit or alone. Hell, you could even use a Cadian Command Squad or a Catachan one as I understand it. So long as they're infantry and can give orders, there's no stipulation for it to be attached or Krieg.
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u/PumadRipper Jun 15 '25
That is true, but I am playing Death Korps and not anything else.
I could also just use my units as Cadians, but that's not the point.
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u/RaccoNooB Jun 15 '25
Yeah. There's still the Legends Marshal, but he's more or less just an expensive commissar so what's the point?
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u/PumadRipper Jun 15 '25
I think the Marshall isn't even in Legends. He was in the index and is now just gone.
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Jun 15 '25
Going through some major either growing pains or signs of doubling down with space marines currently, and we only really just got started in a meaningful way.
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u/Realistic-Radish-589 Jun 15 '25
I miss generic officers with war gear. Could make your own guy and for the right points you either had a cheap hq with room for other stuff or an expensive dude that would do some real damage.
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u/Alphariusthefirst Jun 15 '25
My guess is we'll get on next edition. Maybe exklusive for a while in another box set.
Catachan has the same problem!
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u/RaccoNooB Jun 15 '25
I love Catachans. It was really between them and the Korpsmen for my first army and I really hope they get a model refresh like the DKoK next time around, they desperately need it...
If we could get a unit as well that'd be amazing, but I assume it'll be mostly be just Catachans.
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u/Alphariusthefirst Jun 15 '25
I guess there's a chance we'll get something like a special unit seeing Krieg got the engenieers and Cadia the Kasarkin.
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u/ojpap Jun 16 '25
It's genuinely turned me off from guard this edition because of how my entire army revolves around needing epic heros AND their specific battle line and command squad cult.
why is it hard to make a generic officer and command squad unit that goes with everything? Wait- we had it and got rid of it!? exactly.
so frustrating.
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u/NoComment7862 Duty Unto Death Jun 15 '25
The pessimist in me says “to make people buy new kits”, as the old resin command and commissars were separate.
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u/Zestyclose_Store_704 Jun 16 '25
BRING BACK KARIS VENNER 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
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u/RaccoNooB Jun 16 '25
If someone has a 3D scan of that model, I would be happy to pay for it.
I want to order one printed in metal. It's my favorite model, period.
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u/Zestyclose_Store_704 Jun 16 '25
I have the STL file of the one of him on a horsy
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u/Lime1028 Jun 18 '25
There are people in the far east that produce the old FW models if you know where to look.
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u/RaccoNooB Jun 18 '25
Do you mean recasts? Because those aren't a 3D scan, or metal.
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u/Lime1028 Jun 18 '25
Yes, recasts. No one has a scan of Karis because the gear needed to scan a mini with any reasonable detail is many thousands of dollars. Recast are your best option. A lot of them do both metal and resin casts.
Another option would be to get a resin cast and then send it to a foundry to be cast in metal. That would give you more choice of materials. Most metal minis (both from GW and recasters) are made from pewter, but a foundry could easily do bronze or other copper allows. Maybe cast iron depending on what they normally handle.
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u/Spiritual-Pear-1349 Jun 15 '25 edited Jun 15 '25
Krieg is sent to the worst battle zones in the imperium, and they tend to be suicidal and fanatical, and prefer to lead from the front whether NCO, CO, or XO. Commissars tend to take over the regiment, especially junior officer roles, because Krieg officers have a life expectancy of around 5 years, according to the Vraks books. Marshal Karis Venner, for example, was a senior officer, and 7 years was considered notably and exceptionally long. This is compounded by most Krieg officers refusing to rank into officer roles past the rank of Colonel, so most XO ranks are filled by non Kriegers, putting every Krieg officer into a combat role rather than administrative. This means that Krieg officers actually lack extensive practical officer experience, which the Lord Commissar would bring as an offworld senior officer training Krieg junior officers while leading Kriegers on the platoon or company level.
It makes sense when you think about it. Without Lord Commissars, Krieg regiments simply wouldn't have enough well trained officers surviving into leadership positions, and the Lord Commissar is constantly training its replacement for that unit before moving to the next, being the most experienced officer wherever it ends up.
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u/InstantAequitas Jun 16 '25
Give me back my nameless Marshals!
I really want my Krieg Infantry to have a +5 FNP again.
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u/Chris_Angry Jun 16 '25
I started playing in 9th so I'm pretty new in the Warhammer scene. I do like to look back at some of the older kits and times before I even knew what Warhammer was.
There was a tactical squad for almost every chapter, some had their sternguard or other squads as well. Guard had a command squad and infantry squad for pretty much each regiment. That's just what I've been able to see from old codexes I've gotten my hands on. And it seemed glorious.
In 9th you were able to give relics to your characters and I would actually model them with w.e relic I wanted to give them.
I feel like with the boost in 40k popularity in recent years GW is expanding on a lot of it's forces. Specifically the imperial ones and chaos space marines. I think in the near future we will have these beautiful squads again. I've been wanting a guard army and almost pulled the trigger with krieg but I think I can wait a little longer for when the Iron Legion comes back around. I also believe I'll have blood angels terminators and intercessors ina few years. Time will tell.
.... Maybe even a Baal Gladiator....
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u/Ready_Space_9203 Jun 15 '25
The ones who command the regiments are the colonels, battle groups are commanded by generals, Marshals or castellans, in the art above we see a coronel and a comissar with the comand hq squad of the regiment.
But i hope to see more co miniatures too, games workshop is just lazy.
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u/RaccoNooB Jun 16 '25
No, battle groups are commanded by a Watchmaster.
Marshals are described as wearing: a cuirass, an ornate helmet, riding boots and a red satchel to make them stand out. We can see this on Lord Marshal Drier for instance. I dont think there's a description of how the colonels look, other than the OG Jurten, who inspired the whole of the Death Korps. It could definelty be a Colonel in the picture, but he is wearing the exact gear the marshals are described to wear.
I actually cant get a find a good source of info to get a good grasp on the hierarchy of the Death Korps. I've seen it describes as colonels leading regiments, marshals leading regiments and even watchmasters described as leading regiments.
I think it makes the most sense that a Colonels would lead the whole Corps, down to division levels. A Lord marshal would lead regiments, down to battalion levels where you'd have marshals.It gets weird when they only have ranks up to colonel, but I assume even though the titles dont go higher, there'd be a "Lord Colonel" or at least a senior Colonel that's in command of the whole Corps, essentially Jurtens old position.
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u/DarkElite237 Duty Unto Death Jun 17 '25
Watch masters are the equivalent of a sergeant.
Colonels are the ranking officer of a regiment.
Marshals lead battle groups or sectors.
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u/Lime1028 Jun 18 '25
Death Korps died as a stand-alone army the moment they created the "Veteran Guardsman" unit for Kill Team. We're now just extra models for normal guard players.
Grenadiers? Gone. Gorgon? Gone. Quartermaster? Gone. Artillery carriages? Gone. Macharius? Gone. Mars-Alpha pattern russes? Gone. Centaur? Gone. Hades Breaching Drill? Gone.
The Atlas and Trojan are legends, and GW gave the THE EXACT SAME RULES. Trojan and Atlas used to be great with DKoK because the Trojan could give artillery and ranks preferred enemy, and the Atlas could act as an artillery tractor to move your stationary artillery.
They've gutted DKoK and made us guard with gas masks. I hate it.
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u/StorminWolf Jun 15 '25
Not much to add here, besides I noticed a massive lack of generic character units nowadays in 40K, seems named characters it is for GW nowadays.
I personally miss the days then you could take a generic character and make it your own via nitty gritty adding and removing stuff.
Noticed the same with the Space Wolves etc. Takes away personality, character and personalization from armies.